William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford, (23 June 1865 – 8 June 1932), known as Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Bt, from 1919 to 1929 and popularly known as Jix, was an English solicitor and Conservative Party politician.
He first attracted attention in 1908 when he defeated Winston Churchill, a Liberal Cabinet Minister at the time, in a by-election for the seat of North-West Manchester but is best known as a long-serving and controversial Home Secretary in Stanley Baldwin's Second Government from 1924 to 1929. He gained a reputation for pious authoritarianism, opposing Communism and clamping down on nightclubs and what he saw as indecent literature. He also played an important role in the fight against the introduction of the Church of England Revised Prayer Book, and in lowering the voting age for women from 30 to 21.
Early life and career Background and early life William Hicks, as he was initially called, was born in Canonbury, London on 23 June 1865.Matthew 2004, p38 He was the eldest of four sons and two daughters of Henry Hicks, of Plaistow Hall, Kent, and his wife Harriett, daughter of William Watts. Hicks was a prosperous merchant and senior evangelical Anglican layman who demanded the very best from his children.Taylor, pp. 14–15
William Hicks was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London (1875–1881).Taylor, pp. 29–30 He "took the pledge" (to abstain from alcohol) at the age of 14 and kept it all his life.
Marriage In 1894, while on holiday, he met Grace Lynn Joynson, daughter of a silk manufacturer. Her father was also a Manchester evangelical Tory. They were married on 12 June 1895. In 1896 he added his wife's name "Joynson" to his surname.Blythe, p. 23
Legal Career After leaving school, Hicks was articled to a London solicitor between 1881 and 1887, before setting up his own practice in 1888. Initially he struggled to attract clients, but he was helped by his father's position as a leading member of the City Common Council and as Deputy Chairman of the London General Omnibus Company, for whom he did a great deal of claims work. His law firm was still operating as late as 1989, when a guide to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 was published as Joynson-Hicks on UK Copyright.
In 1989, Joynson-Hicks merged with Taylor Garrett to form Taylor Joynson Garrett which itself merged with German law firm Wessing & Berenberg-Gossler to form Taylor Wessing in 2002.
Early attempts to enter Parliament He joined the Conservative Party (at that time part of the Unionist coalition with the Liberal Unionists, which name it retained until 1925) and was selected as a Conservative Parliamentary candidate in 1898. He unsuccessfully contested seats in Manchester in the general elections of 1900 and 1906, losing to Winston Churchill on the latter occasion. On the latter occasion, he made anti-semitic speeches. At the time, there was an influx of Russian Jews fleeing from pogroms, which had caused Arthur Balfour's government to pass the Aliens Act 1905. In the 1906 election Joynson-Hicks advocated reform of workhouses and pensions for "the veteran of labour" but not for "the scallywag" (Churchill played down the idea that a Liberal government could set up a "mechanical" system of old age pensions, although it would eventually do so in 1908). Joynson-Hicks also claimed that a Liberal government, under the influence of Lloyd George, might disestablish the Church of England. Liberal posters in the constituency praised "Churchill and Free Trade", "Cheap Food" and "A United Empire". Churchill won by 1241 votes, a large majority for the time.Toye 2008, pp. 40–41
Motoring expert Joynson-Hicks was an early authority on transport law, particularly motoring law. In 1906 he published "The Law of Heavy and Light Mechanical Traction on Highways". He was beginning to acquire a reputation as an evangelical lawyer with a perhaps paradoxical interest in the latest technology: motor cars (of which he owned several), telephones and aircraft.
In 1907 he became Chairman of the Motor Union, and presided over the merger with The Automobile Association in 1911, serving as chairman of the merged body until 1922. One of his first actions was to assert the legality of AA patrols warning motorists of police speed traps.
He was also President of the Lancashire Commercial Motor Users' Association of the National Threshing machine Owners' Association, and of the National Traction Engine Association.
He was also Treasurer of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission and a member of the finance committee of the YMCA.
1908 by-election
Joynson-Hicks was elected to Parliament in a by-election in 1908, when Winston Churchill was obliged to submit to re-election in Manchester North West after his appointment as President of the Board of Trade, as the Ministers of the Crown Act 1908 required newly appointed Cabinet ministers to re-contest their seats. Cabinet ministers were normally returned unopposed, but as Churchill had crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals in 1904, the Conservatives were disinclined to allow him an uncontested return.
Ronald Blythe in "The Salutary Tale of Jix" in The Age of Illusion (1963) called it "the most brilliant, entertaining and hilarious electoral fight of the century". Joynson-Hicks' nickname "Jix" dates from this by-election. The election was notable for both the attacks of the Suffragette movement on Churchill, over his refusal to support legislation that would give women the vote, and Jewish hostility to Joynson-Hicks over his support for the controversial Aliens Act 1905 which aimed to restrict Jewish immigration.Paul Addison, Churchill on the Home Front 1900–1955 (2nd ed., London 1993) p. 64
Joynson-Hicks called Labour leader Keir Hardie "a leprous traitor" who wanted to sweep away the Ten Commandments. This prompted H. G. Wells to send an open letter to Labour sympathisers in Manchester,Although an SDF candidate obtained a modest vote at the by-election, there was no official Labour Party candidate at this or any previous election for the seat; Labour supporters were therefore encouraged to vote Liberal in accordance with the Gladstone-MacDonald pact. saying Joynson-Hicks "represents absolutely the worst element in British political life ... an entirely undistinguished man ... and an obscure and ineffectual nobody." Wells had endorsed Churchill, who admired his books and with whom he was in regular correspondence, as a potential social reformer.Wells later became disillusioned with Churchill over his role the Dardanelles Campaign and the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, and would satirise him in his book Men Like Gods (Rose, pp. 87–88).Rose 2014, p.85
Joynson-Hicks defeated Churchill by 429 votes.Toye 2008, p.49 This provoked a strong reaction across the country with The Daily Telegraph running the front-page headline "Winston Churchill is OUT! OUT! OUT!" (Churchill shortly returned to Parliament as MP for Dundee.)
Joynson-Hicks gained personal notoriety in the immediate aftermath of this election for an address to his Jewish hosts at a dinner given by the Maccabean Society, during which he said "he had beaten them all thoroughly and soundly and was no longer their servant." Subsequent allegations that he was personally anti-Semitic formed an important strand of the authoritarian streak that many, including recent scholars David Cesarani and Geoffrey Alderman, detected in his speeches and behaviour. Cesarani cautioned that "although he may have been nicknamed 'Mussolini Minor', Jix was no fascist."David Cesarani, "Joynson-Hicks and the Radical Right in England after the First World War", in Tony Kushner and Kenneth Lunn (eds.) Traditions of Intolerance: Historical Perspectives on Fascism and Race Discourse in Britain (Manchester 1989) pp. 118–139, p. 134. Other work has disputed the notion that Joynson-Hicks was an anti-Semite, most notably a major article by W. D. Rubinstein which asserted that as Home Secretary Joynson-Hicks would later allow more Jews to be naturalised than any other holder of that office.Rubinstein "Recent Anglo-Jewish Historiography", Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 7 (1993) part one in 7:1 pp. 41–70, part two in 7:2 pp. 24–45 Whether or not it was justified, the notion that Joynson-Hicks was an anti-Semite played a large part in his portrayal as a narrow-minded and intolerant man, most obviously in the work of Ronald Blythe.Blythe, p. 27
Early Parliamentary career Joynson-Hicks lost his seat in the January 1910 general election. He contested Sunderland in the second general election in December that year, but was again defeated. He was returned unopposed for Brentford at a by-election in March 1911.
During World War I, he formed a Pals battalion within the Middlesex Regiment, the "Football Battalion". He acquired a reputation as a well-informed backbencher, an expert on aircraft and motors, badgering ministers about matters of aircraft design and production and methods of attacking Zeppelins. On 12 May 1915, he presented a petition to the Commons demanding the internment of enemy aliens of military age and the withdrawal from coastal areas of all enemy aliens.Richard van Emden, Meeting the Enemy In 1916 he published a pamphlet The Command of the Air in which he advocated indiscriminate bombing of civilians in German cities, including Berlin. However, he was not offered a government post.Matthew 2004, p. 39
In 1918, his old constituency having been abolished, he became MP for Twickenham, holding the seat until his retirement from the House of Commons in 1929.
For his war work, he was created a Baronet, of Holmbury in the County of Surrey, in 1919.
The Lloyd George coalition In 1919–20 he went on an extended visit to the Sudan and India, which changed his political fortunes. At the time, there was considerable unrest in India and a rapid growth in the Home Rule movement, something Joynson-Hicks opposed due to the great economic importance of the Indian Empire to Britain. He at one time had commented "I know it is frequently said at missionary meetings that we conquered India to raise the level of the Indians. That is cant. We hold it as the finest outlet for British goods in general, and for Lancashire cotton goods in particular."Quoted in Blythe, pp. 27–28
He emerged as a strong supporter of General Reginald Dyer over the Amritsar Massacre, and nearly forced the resignation of the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, over the motion of censure the government put down concerning Dyer's actions.Cesarani p. 123 (he wrongly credits this campaign with toppling Montagu, who in fact stayed in office until March 1922, seven months before the fall of the Lloyd George coalition). This episode established his reputation as one of the "die-hards" on the right-wing of the party, and he emerged as a strong critic of the party's participation in a coalition government with the Liberal David Lloyd George.
As part of this campaign, he led an abortive attempt to block Austen Chamberlain's nomination as leader of the Unionist party on Bonar Law's retirement, putting forward Lord Birkenhead instead with the express aim of "splitting the coalition".Max Aitken, Decline and Fall of Lloyd George: and great was the fall thereof (London 1963) p. 21
Entering government