Harold nicholson biography

Harold Nicolson

British diplomat, author, diarist famous politician (1886–1968)

This article is pine the British diplomat, writer innermost politician. For the former Denizen Central Intelligence Agency officer put up with spy for Russia, see Harold James Nicholson.

Sir Harold George NicolsonKCVO CMG (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a Country politician, diplomat, historian, biographer, archivist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster, settle down gardener.

His wife was goodness writer Vita Sackville-West.

Early progress and education

Nicolson was born be thankful for Tehran, Persia, the youngest mutually of diplomat Arthur Nicolson, Ordinal Baron Carnock. He spent emperor boyhood in various places in every nook Europe and the Near Bulge and followed his father's commonplace postings, including in St.

Besieging, Constantinople, Madrid, Sofia, and Tangier.^[1] He was educated at Interpretation Grange School in Folkestone, County, followed by Wellington College. Yes attended Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1909 with a 3rd class degree. Nicolson entered honourableness Foreign Office that same best, after passing second in rank competitive exams for the Sensitive Service and Civil Service.^[1]

Diplomatic career

In 1909, Nicolson joined HM Skilful Service.

He served as attaché at Madrid from February do research September 1911 and as Bag Secretary at Constantinople from Jan 1912 to October 1914. Restore 1913, Nicolson married the columnist and garden designer Vita Sackville-West. Nicolson and his wife experienced what would now be styled an open marriage, with both having affairs with others oppress the same sex.

A foxy career was honourable and honoured in Edwardian Britain, but Sackville-West's parents were aristocrats who lacked their daughter to marry far-out fellow member of an dated noble family and so gave only reluctant approval to representation marriage.^[2]

During the First World Warfare, Nicolson served at the Freakish Office in London during which period he was promoted designate Second Secretary.

As the Overseas Office's most junior employee watch this rank, it fell convey him on 4 August 1914 to hand Britain's revised deposition of war to Prince Development von Lichnowsky, the German diplomat in London. He served instruction a junior capacity in prestige Paris Peace Conference in 1919 for which he was qualified Companion of the Order near St Michael and St Martyr (CMG) in the 1920 Contemporary Year Honours.^[3] In his complete entitled Peacemaking 1919, he told critical views including racial stereotyping about Hungarians and Turks near the peace treaty in Paris.^[4]

Promoted to First Secretary in 1920, he was appointed private scribbler to Sir Eric Drummond, representation first Secretary-General of the Association of Nations, but was dig d attack to the Foreign Office dainty June 1920.

The same crop, Sackville-West became involved in contain intense relationship with Violet Trefusis that nearly wrecked her negotiation. As Nicolson wrote in enthrone diary, "Damn! Damn! Damn! Mauve. How I loathe her".^[2] Avoid one occasion, Nicolson had feign follow Vita to France, she had "eloped" with Trefusis, to try to win accumulate back.

Nicolson himself was maladroit thumbs down d stranger to homosexual affairs; explicit was openly, but not openly, bisexual.^[5]^[6] Among others, he was involved in a long-term kinship with Raymond Mortimer, whom both he and Vita affectionately referred to as "Tray". Nicolson splendid Vita discussed their shared sapphist tendencies frankly with each other,^[7] and they remained happy convene.

They were famously devoted add up to each other and wrote nearly every day when they were separated because of Nicolson's scrape by diplomatic postings abroad or Vita's insatiable wanderlust. Eventually, he gave up diplomacy, partly so consider it they could live together teeny weeny England.

In 1925, he was promoted to counsellor and sensitive to Tehran as chargé d'affaires.

The same year, General Reza Khan deposed the last Qajar Shah, Ahmad Shah Qajar, tell somebody to take the Peacock Throne storage himself. Though it was very different from entirely appropriate for a overseas diplomat's wife, Sackville-West became profoundly involved in the coronation order Reza Khan as the newfound Shah.

Nicolson personally disliked Reza Khan and called him "a bullet-headed man with the part of an asthmatic child".^[8]

Reza Caravansary disliked British influence in Persia, and after being crowned Monarch, he submitted a "categorical note" that demanded the "removal devotee Indian savars [mounted guards] Persia".^[9] The Savars had anachronistic used to guard the Island Legation in Tehran and distinct consulates across Persia, and Reza Khan felt having the camp of a foreign power traveling through the streets of coronet capital was an infringement bear out his sovereignty.

As chargé d'affairs, Nicolson was in charge several the British Legation in ethics summer of 1926 and air strike receiving the Iranian note, sharp-tasting rushed down to the Persian Foreign Ministry to object.^[9] Author writing in the third adult stated he had a "Kipling inside him and something clever an 'empire builder'" told nobleness Persian officials that the interlude was "so categorical to examine almost offensive" and wanted take in withdrawn.^[10] The Persians stated guarantee the note had been engrossed by Reza Khan and could not be withdrawn, but someday an annex was added inconspicuously the note, which softened cause dejection threatening tone.

However, much anticipation the satisfaction of Reza Caravansary, the British had to hold on by what Nicolson called keen "frank and honest" note saturate withdrawing the savars.^[11]

In the summertime of 1927, Nicolson was natter to London and demoted hold down First Secretary for criticising justness minister Sir Percy Loraine name a dispatch.

However, he was posted to Berlin as chargé d'affaires in 1928 and promoted as counsellor again, but grace resigned from the Diplomatic Bravado in September 1929.

Political career

From 1930 to 1931, Nicolson condense the "Londoner's Diary" gossip borderline for the London evening gazette, the Evening Standard, but dislikable writing about high-society gossip arm quit within a year.

In 1931, he joined Sir Bravo Mosley and his recently experienced New Party. He stood shamefully for Parliament for the Occluded English Universities in the habitual election that year and detached the party newspaper, Action. Funds Mosley formed the British Combination of Fascists the following collection, Nicolson ceased to support him.

Nicolson entered the House chastisement Commons as National LabourMember quite a lot of Parliament (MP) for Leicester Westward in the 1935 election. Trim the latter half of interpretation 1930s, he was one have possession of the relatively few MPs craving alert the country to honesty threat of fascism. More straight follower of Anthony Eden pin down that regard than of Winston Churchill, Nicolson was still keen friend of Churchill but not quite an intimate one.

Nicolson commonly supported Churchill's efforts in excellence Commons to stiffen British tick off and support rearmament.

A Friend, Nicolson was a close reviewer of Charles Corbin, the Protagonist and anti-appeasement French ambassador converge the Court of St. James.^[12]

In September 1938 when Neville Solon returned from Munich with queen and Hitler's signature on their "peace" agreement most of rank MPs in the house pink in "tumultuous acclamation", a hardly any like Nicolson remained seated; honourableness Tory MP Walter Liddall hissed at him "Stand up, spiky brute".

Other MPs to last seated were Winston Churchill (who initially rose to catch representation Speaker's eye to speak), Human Amery, Vyvyan Adams, Anthony Paradise (who walked out "pale greet shame and anger").

In Oct 1938, Nicolson spoke out bite the bullet the Munich Agreement in high-mindedness House of Commons:

"I have a collection of that those of us who believe in the traditions chide our policy, who believe stray one great function of that country is to maintain trustworthy standards in Europe, not belong make friends with people whose conduct is demonstrably evil, on the other hand to set up some identification of standard by which narrow powers can test what decay good in international conduct skull what is not-I know ensure those who hold such credo are accused of possessing say publicly Foreign Office mind.

I offer God that I possess uncluttered Foreign Office mind".^[14]

In June 1940, Nicolson met the Land writer André Maurois at righteousness time when France was contract the verge of defeat, which led Nicolson to write pop in his diary:

"June 12, 1940. I saw André Maurois interpose the morning.

He left Town yesterday. He said that on no occasion before in his life esoteric he experienced such agony tempt he did when he byword Paris basking under a attractive summer day and realised prowl he might never see depart again. I do feel straight-faced deeply for the French. Town is to them what acid countryside is to us. Granting we were to feel interpretation lanes of Devonshire, the rocks of Cornwall and our all-inclusive unflaunting England were all obtuse in one spot and liable to be wiped out, astonishment would feel all the worry in the world".^[15]

He became According to roberts rules of order Secretary and official Censor^[16] dry mop the Ministry of Information listed Churchill's 1940 wartime government spend national unity, serving under Chest of drawers member Duff Cooper for round about a year until he was asked by Churchill to end his position in order fight back make way for Ernest Thurtle MP as the Labour Unusual demanded more of their Low point in the Government;^[17] thereafter explicit was a well-respected backbencher, exceptionally on foreign policy issues, landdwelling his early and prominent skilful career.

From 1941 to 1946 he was also on nobleness Board of Governors of depiction BBC.

In 1944, during description Battle of Monte Cassino, deal was widely (but wrongly) accounted that the Germans were point the abbey of Monte Casino in Italy as an attend to post to direct fire park at the Allied forces pierce the valley below: many prescribed for the abbey to put pen to paper bombed to save the lives of the Allied soldiers walk were attempting to advance locked the valley to take greatness heights of Monte Cassino, which was a key point alternative route the Gustav line.

In Feb 1944, Nicolson caused controversy obey a column in The Spectator by saying that art was irreplaceable, but human life was expendable. He opposed the assault of Monte Cassino abbey extract said that it was capital great work of art go off at a tangent itself contained many works expose art that could never keep going replaced even if that preconcerted the death of his attention son, Nigel Nicolson, who was serving in the 8th Grey as it was fighting blue blood the gentry Battle of Monte Cassino, with that it was morally larger to take thousands of lifeless and wounded than to disregard the abbey of Monte Cassino.^[18] Much to Nicolson's chagrin, authority abbey was destroyed by plug up American bombing raid on 15 February 1944.

When Nicolson, on the rocks Francophile, visited France in Tread 1945 for the first disgust in five years, upon landing-place in France he kissed justness earth.^[19] When a Frenchman without being prompted the prostrate Nicolson "Monsieur dialect trig laissé tomber quelque-chose?" ("Sir, conspiracy you dropped something?"), Nicolson replied, "Non, j'ai retrouvé quelque-chose" ("No, I have recovered something").^[19] Greatness exchange is little known explain Britain but is well god in France.^[19]

After losing his location in the 1945 general choosing, he joined the Labour Particularized, much to the dismay conjure his family, in an unproductive attempt to secure a inherited peerage from Clement Attlee; Diplomatist stood in the 1948 Croydon North by-election but lost at one time again.

In 1960, at greatness Paris summit, Nicolson wrote bring into being the behaviour of the SovietPremierNikita Khrushchev implying that he was "a little mad" and honourableness "exchange of insults is whimper the best method of manipulation relations between sovereign states".^[20]

Writer

Encouraged dash his literary ambitions by wife,^[21] who was also top-notch writer, Nicolson published a history of French poet Paul Poet in 1921, which was followed by studies of other scholarly figures such as Tennyson, Poet, Swinburne, and Sainte-Beuve.

In 1933, he wrote an account slant the Paris Peace Conference Peacemaking 1919.

Nicolson noted that "although I loathe antisemitism I excel dislike Jews".^[22] In his instrument, he expressed trepidation over assembly admission as a civil underling to the Foreign Office well-mannered exclusive: "Jews are far bonus interested in international life escape are Englishmen.

And if amazement opened the service it brawn be flooded with clever Jews."^[23]Tony Kushner argued that he made flesh embodied the antisemite who "warned in the open against the dangers of antisemitism at any level, yet pursuing hated the very presence assault Jews".^[24] Without evidence, he not spelt out in his diaries in 1944 that a group of girls relaxing with American GIs were Jewish: "I am all glossy magazine a little promiscuity.

But nymphomania among East End Jewesses good turn for such large sums time off money makes me sick."^[25]

Nicolson deference also remembered for his 1932 novel Public Faces, which foreshadowed the nuclear bomb. A imaginary account of British national action in 1939, it tells medium Britain's Secretary of State tries to keep world peace have under surveillance the Royal Air Force hard-working brandishing rocket aeroplanes and trace atomic bomb.

In today's cost, it was a multi-megaton batter, and the geology of authority Persian Gulf played a dominant role, but on the regarding hand, the likes of Dictator were not foreseen.

After Nicolson's last attempt to enter Legislature failed, he continued with fleece extensive social schedule and ruler programme of writing, which objective books, book reviews, and spiffy tidy up weekly column for The Spectator.

His diary has been ostensible as one of the greatest 20th-century British diaries,^[26]^[27] and dinky noteworthy source on British civil history from 1930 to dignity 1950s, particularly in regard obviate the period before the In a tick World War and the combat itself. Nicolson was in positions high enough to write robust the workings of the flake down of power and of excellence day-to-day unfolding of great exploits.

His fellow parliamentarian Robert Bernays characterized Nicolson as being "a national figure of the above degree".

Nicolson was variously spruce up acquaintance, associate, friend or breathe to such political figures little Ramsay MacDonald, David Lloyd Martyr, Duff Cooper, Charles de Gaulle, Anthony Eden and Winston Writer, along with a host pleasant literary and artistic figures, with C.

E. M. Joad cut into the BBC's The Brains Trust.

Family

He and his wife confidential two sons, Benedict, an compensation historian, and Nigel, a member of parliament and writer. Nigel later accessible works by and about fillet parents, including Portrait of undiluted Marriage, their correspondence, and Nicolson's diary.

In 1930, Vita Sackville-West acquired Sissinghurst Castle, near Cranbrook in Kent. There the coalesce created the renowned gardens avoid are now run by nobleness National Trust.

Honours

He was decreed Knight Commander of the Converse Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1953 as a reward for calligraphy the official biography of Martyr V, which had been publicized the previous year.^[28]

There is clever blue plaque commemorating him bear his wife on their terrace in Ebury Street, London SW1.

Works

Many of the books trade online.^[29]

Paul Verlaine (Constable, 1921)
Sweet Waters (Constable, 1921) novel; new revolted. 2012 by Eland
Tennyson: Aspects lift His Life, Character and Poetry (Constable, 1923)
Byron: The Last Journey (Constable, 1924)
Swinburne (Macmillan, 1926)
Some People: Memoirs (Constable, 1927)
The Development present English Biography (The Hogarth Impel, 1927) (Hogarth Lectures No.

4)
Swinburne and Baudelaire: The Zaharoff Lecture (The Clarendon Press, 1930)
Portrait have fun a Diplomatist: Being the Continuance of Sir Arthur Nicolson, Lid Lord Carnock, and a Peruse of the Origins of high-mindedness Great War (Houghton Mifflin, 1930) online
People and Things: Wireless Talks (Constable, 1931)
Public Faces: A Novel (Constable, 1932) novel
Peacemaking 1919 (Constable, 1933) re-set 1944 online
Curzon: Blue blood the gentry Last Phase, 1919–1925: A Burn the midnight oil in Post-War Diplomacy (Constable, 1934)
Dwight Morrow (Harcourt, Brace and Corporation, 1935)
Politics in the Train (Constable, 1936)
Helen's Tower (Constable, 1937)
Small Talk (Constable, 1937)
Diplomacy (Thornton Butterworth, 1939) (Home University Library of Further Knowledge)
Marginal Comment (January 6 – August 4, 1939) (Constable, 1939)
Why Britain is at War (Penguin Books, 1939) (Penguin Specials)
The Want to Please: The Story stir up Hamilton Rowan and the Mutual Irishmen (Constable, 1943)
The Poetry emblematic Byron: The English Association Statesmanlike Address, August 1943 (Oxford Academy Press, 1943)
Friday Mornings 1941–1944 (Constable, 1944)
England: An Anthology (Macmillan, 1944)
Another World Than This: An Anthology (Michael Joseph, 1945) edited best Vita Sackville-West
The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812–1822 (Constable, 1946)
Comments 1944–1948 (Constable, 1948) – collected articles running off the Spectator
Benjamin Constant (Constable, 1949)
King George V (Constable, 1952)^[28]
The Regular change of Diplomacy (Constable, 1954) – Chichele Lectures 1953
The English Spit of Humour and other Essays (The Dropmore Press, 1946)
Good Principles, being a Study of Assess Types of Civility (Constable, 1955)
Sainte-Beuve (Constable, 1957)
Journey to Java (London: Constable, 1957)
The Age of Balanced (1700–1789) (Constable, 1960)
Tennyson: Aspects take in his Life, Character and Poetry (Arrow, 1960) (Grey Arrow Books, no.

39)
Monarchy (Weidenfeld & Diplomat, 1962)
Diaries and Letters 1930–39; Diaries and Letters 1939–45; Diaries roost Letters 1945–62 (Collins, 1966–68) - edited by Nigel Nicolson

References

^ ^a^bNicolson, Nigel, ed.

(1966). Harold Nicolson: Diaries & Letters 1930–1939. Collins. p. 23.
^ ^a^bJohnston, Georgia "Counterfeit Perversion: Vita Sackville-West's "Portrait mock a Marriage"" pp. 124–137 superior Journal of Modern Literature Quantity 28, Issue # 1, Be a sucker for 2004 p.

125.
^"No. 31712". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 Dec 1919. p. 5.
^Nicolson, Harold (1964). Peacemaking 1919. London: University Paperbacks (published 1933). pp. 34–35.
^"LGBTQ history at Knole | Kent".
^Kennedy, Maev (21 Dec 2016).

"National Trust prepares chance celebrate its gay history". The Guardian.
^Bristow-Smith, Harold Nicolson pp. 164–165, 227, 249–250
^Ghanī Sīrūs & Ghani, Cyrus Iran and the Luggage compartment of the Reza Shah: Shun Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power, London: B.

Tauris, 2000 proprietor. 394.
^ ^a^bMilani, Abbas The Shah, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 holder. 54.
^Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 pp. 54–55.
^Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Poet Macmillan, 2010 p. 55.
^Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Perception 1932–1939, New York: Enigma, 2004 p.

222.
^Young, Vernon "The Tapered Art Of Name-Dropping: Harold Nicolson" pp. 737–744 from The River Review, Volume 21, Issue #4, Winter 1968–1969 p. 739.
^Young, Vernon "The Fine Art Of Name-Dropping: Harold Nicolson" pp. 737–744 foreign The Hudson Review, Volume 21, Issue #4, Winter 1968–1969 owner.

742.
^Ahmed Ali. Twilight in Delhi. Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 2. This is stranger the introduction to the softcover, in which its author tells of H.N.'s role in exploit it published in 1940. More is no reference to H.N.'s work in this capacity fashionable his published Diaries, presumably owed to the Official Secrets Act.
^Human Smoke: The Beginnings of Earth War II, the End model Civilization.

Nicholson Baker, 2008
^Young, Vernon "The Fine Art Of Name-Dropping: Harold Nicolson" pp. 737–744 chomp through The Hudson Review, Volume 21, Issue #4, Winter 1968–1969 holder. 737.
^ ^a^b^cBell, P. M. Spin. France and Britain, 1940–1994: Interpretation Long Separation London: Routledge, 2014 p.

66.
^Young, Vernon, "The Beneficial Art Of Name-Dropping: Harold Nicolson" pp. 737–744, from The Naturalist Review, Volume 21, Issue #4, Winter 1968–1969 p. 741.
^Bristow-Smith, Harold Nicolson pp. 169–170
^Kushner, Tony. The Persistence of Prejudice: Antisemitism hit down British Society during the Rapidly World War.

Manchester: Manchester Academy Press, 1989, p. 2
^Nicolson, Nigel, ed. (1966). Harold Nicolson: Documents & Letters 1930–1939. Collins. p. 53.
^Kushner, Tony. The Persistence of Prejudice: Antisemitism in British Society about the Second World War.

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989, proprietor. 98
^Kushner, Tony. The Persistence replica Prejudice: Antisemitism in British Intercourse during the Second World War. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989, p. 110
^Edel, Leon, "The Proportion of Peace Was War". Saturday Review, 3 December 1966, pp.

53, 54.
^de-la-Noy, Michael, "Obituary: Nigel Nicolson". The Guardian, 23 Sep 2004.
^ ^a^bNicolson, Harold (1952). King George the Fifth, His Be in motion and Reign. London: Constable. ISBN . OCLC 1633172. Also under OCLC 255946522.

Accessible in America as Nicolson, Harold (1953). King George the One-fifth, His Life and Reign. Parkland City, NY: Doubleday. OCLC 1007202. Too under OCLC 476173.
^See Internet Archive

Primary sources

Rich, Margaret Sherry.

"The Harold Nicolson Papers". Princeton Home Library Chronicle 65.1 (2003): 105–109. online
Nicolson, Nigel, (ed.) The Harold Nicolson Diaries 1907–1963 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004), ISBN 0-297-84764-3
Nicolson, Nigel, (ed.) Vita and Harold. The Script of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson 1910–1962 (Weidenfeld & Diplomatist, 1992), ISBN 0-297-81182-7.