Editing Lionel Curtis

{{Short description|British official and writer (1872-1955)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2016}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2016}}
{{Infobox person
|name          = Lionel Curtis
|image         = Lionel Curtis.jpg
|image_size    = 200px
|caption       = 
| birth_date   = 7 March 1872
| birth_place  = The Outwoods, Derby
| death_date   = 25 November 1955 (aged 83) 
|nationality   = [[United Kingdom|British]]
|known_for     = Founding [[Chatham House]] and the [[Round Table movement|Round Table]]
|education     = [[Haileybury College]]
|alma_mater    = [[New College, Oxford]]
|occupation    = [[Professor]], Fellow of [[All Souls College, Oxford|All Souls College]]
|title         = 
|term          = 
|spouse        = 
|children      = 
|relatives     = 
|signature     = 
|website       = 
}}

'''Lionel George Curtis''' [[Order of the Companions of Honour|CH]] (1872&ndash;1955) was a British internationalist and author. He was the inspiration for the foundation of [[Chatham House]] (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) as well as the US [[Council On Foreign Relations]] at the [[Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920)|Paris Peace Conference]] in 1919. He was a leading member of [[Round Table movement]].  His writings and influence caused the evolution of the former British nations into the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]].<ref>From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis, [[Deborah Lavin]],  Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995</ref>

==Early life==
Curtis was born in 1872 at The Outwoods, Derby, his mother's family home,{{sfn|Lavin|1995|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}} and later moved to [[Coddington, Herefordshire]], the youngest of the four children of George James Curtis, Anglican [[rector (ecclesiastical)#Anglican churches|rector]] of the parish, and his wife Frances Carr, daughter of the Rev. John Edmund Carr.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=32678|first=Alex|last=May|title=Curtis, Lionel George}}</ref><ref>{{alox2|title=Curtis, George James}}</ref> He was educated at [[Haileybury College]] and then at [[New College, Oxford]], where he read law. He fought in the [[Second Boer War]] with the [[City Imperial Volunteers]].

==Milner's Kindergarten==

Curtis served as secretary to [[Lord Milner]] (a position that had also been held by adventure-novelist [[John Buchan]]), during which time he dedicated himself to working for a united self-governing South Africa. He with a group of bright young men there, who would later make their mark in international roles, were called [[Milner's Kindergarten]]. Following Milner's death in 1925, Curtis became the second leader of [[Milner's Kindergarten]] until his own death in 1955.<ref>O'Brien, Terrence, "Milner", pgs. 336-337</ref>

==The Round Table==

Curtis was an original founding member with Lord Milner of the [[Round Table Movement]].

Curtis was also a founder (1910) the international quarterly [[The Round Table Journal|The Round Table]].

==Oxford University==  

He was appointed (1912) Beit lecturer in colonial history at the [[University of Oxford]], and a Fellow of [[All Souls College, Oxford|All Souls College]].

==Chatham House and The Council on Foreign Relations==

In 1919 Curtis made a proposal to the British and American delegates attending the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]] at a meeting on 30 May 1919 at the [[The Peninsula Paris|Hotel Majestic]]. Curtis addressed the meeting and strongly believed that the conference had illustrated the pressing need for the formation of an informed international research body for expert analysis of foreign affairs that could have advised on the matters the delegates had had before them and had been required to decide upon. Curtis's proposal to the meeting was that an Anglo-American "Institute of International Affairs" should be founded with offices in Britain and the US and this was warmly accepted by the British and United States delegates. 

However in the end it actually resulted in the formation of two sister organisations with the foundation of a British Institute, later the [[Royal Institute of International Affairs]] regularly now known as [[Chatham House]], on 5 July 1920 in London and the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] in New York one year later on July 29, 1921.{{sfn|Lavin|1995|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}}<ref>Edgar Trevor Williams, A. F. Madden, David Kenneth Fieldhouse. Oxford and the Idea of Commonwealth. Routledge, 1982. (Pages 39, 98)</ref> 

In a revealing letter written 1932, [[Whitney Shepardson]], a US delegate at the Peace Conference, a participant at the meeting at the Hotel Majestic and a founding member of the US Council on Foreign Relations wrote to [[Ivison Macadam]] at Chatham House about Curtis,<blockquote>'' " He's like the Hound of Heaven. Or Jacob wrestling the angel. There was some talk at Council [on Foreign Relations] Directors' meeting today about Chatham House and its resources. Craveth said that Chatham House had been lucky in having one or two 'angels' to give it money. I said, 'Yes, but what's more important they had a Jacob in the shape of Lionel Curtis to wrestle with these angels saying "I will not let thee go until thou bless me!"'''<ref>Shepardson to Ivison Macadam, 3 Nov 1932, Bodleian MSS Eng. Hist. c 872. Quoted in ''From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis'', Deborah Lavin, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995</ref></blockquote> 
Curtis remained a driving force within Chatham House and in international movements and conferences around the world until very late in his life but preferred to give credit to others.

==The Commonwealth==

Curtis was largely the creator of the idea of [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] as former British territories would transition into self governing nations (originally the British Commonwealth and now expanded as the Commonwealth of Nations)

==Other initiatives==
Curtis had earlier advocated [[Imperial Federation|British Empire Federalism]]<ref>{{cite book |author=Fromkin, David | author-link = David Fromkin |title=[[A Peace to End All Peace]] |year=1989|page=232}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Potter|first=S. J.|date=2007|title=Richard Jebb, John S. Ewart and the Round Table, 1898-1926|url=https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/ehr/cel375|journal=The English Historical Review|language=en|volume=CXXII|issue=495|pages=105–132|doi=10.1093/ehr/cel375|issn=0013-8266|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and, late in life, a [[world state]].

His experience led him to conceptualise his early version of a [[Federal World Government]].

His ideas concerning [[dyarchy]] were important in the development of the [[Government of India Act 1919]].

He was involved in 1921-1922 the creation of [[The Irish Free State]] Treaty.<ref>From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis, Deborah Lavin, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995</ref>

== Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize and made Companion of Honour==
In 1947, Curtis was nominated for the [[Nobel Peace Prize]]; in 1949, he was appointed a [[Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour]], on the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of [[Chatham House]].<ref> "Curtis, Lionel George (1872–1955)", Alex May, Oxford University Press, 2006</ref><ref>{{cite ODNB|id=32678|first=Alex|last=May|title=Curtis, Lionel George}}</ref><ref>{{alox2|title=Curtis, George James}}</ref>

==Works==
Curtis' most important works were:
* ''The Problem of the Commonwealth'' (London: Macmillan, 1915);
* ''The Commonwealth of Nations'' (1916);
* ''Dyarchy'' (1920); and,
* ''Civitas Dei: The Commonwealth of God'' (1938), arguing that the [[United States]] must rejoin the [[Commonwealth of Nations|British commonwealth]] and that the Commonwealth must evolve into a [[world government]].

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* {{cite book|title=World Revolution In The Cause of Peace|last=Blackwell|first=Basil|author-link=Basil Blackwell|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1949}}
* {{cite book|title=From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis|last=Lavin|first=Deborah|author-link=Deborah Lavin|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|year=1995|isbn=0198126166}}
* {{cite book|title=The Round Table Movement and Imperial Union|last=Kendle|first=John Edward|author-link=John Kendle|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=1975|isbn=0802052924}}
* {{Cite web|url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ee7ebd01-f085-44e9-917b-98d21a0f4206|title=The Round Table, 1910-66|last=May|first=Alexander|date=1995|website=University of Oxford}}
* {{cite book|title=Milner: Viscount Milner of St. James's and Cape Town, 1854-1925|last=O'Brien|first=Terrence|location=London|publisher=Constable|year=1979}}
* {{cite book|title=The Anglo-American Establishment|last=Quigley|first=Carroll|author-link=Carroll Quigley|year=1981|location=New York|publisher=Books in Focus}}

==External links==
{{Wikisource author}}
* Curtis, Lionel [https://archive.org/details/TheRoundTableMovementPastAndFuture1913/mode/2up ''Round Table Movement - Past and Future, 1913'']
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20051004080059/http://www.houseofdavid.ca/dyarch.htm Papers relating to the application of the principle of DYARCHY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF- INDIA, 1920]
*{{UK National Archives ID}}
*[http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/curtis/curtis-lionel.html Catalogue of the papers of Lionel Curtis held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis, Lionel George}}
[[Category:1872 births]]
[[Category:1955 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Herefordshire]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of the Second Boer War]]
[[Category:British male journalists]]
[[Category:Editors of the Round Table Journal]]
[[Category:Members of the Inner Temple]]
[[Category:People educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College]]
[[Category:Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford]]
[[Category:City Imperial Volunteers officers]]
[[Category:Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour]]
[[Category:Chatham House people]]
[[Category:Transvaal Colony people]]