WI Crawford divorce case doesn't ruin Sir Charles Dilke's career

The name of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-1911) has occasionally been mentioned here but almost never more than incidentally. Yet this was a man who in 1885 was spoken of as a likely future Liberal Prime Minister of Great Britain. But then came a divorce case that spoiled his prospects:

"'I never knew a man of his age--hardly ever a man of any age--more powerful and admired than was Dilke during his management of the Redistribution Bill in 1885.' Such was Sir George Trevelyan's verdict of a man who combined Radical principles with an extraordinary authority on foreign affairs and a capacity for working with men of the most varied views when great questions were at stake. Nevertheless, when Dilke left the Local Government Board on June 24, 1885, on the defeat of the Gladstone ministry, he left official life for ever. At this point he was cited as co-respondent in a divorce suit brought by Donald Crawford, Liberal M.P. for Lanark. Mrs. Crawford was the sister-in-law of Dilke's brother Ashton and the proceedings caused great scandal. The case against Dilke was dismissed, but he determined to retire from public life....Chamberlain overruled his determination to retire from politics, and he was returned for the Forest of Dean in 1892 and for Chelsea once more in 1905. Although his knowledge of foreign affairs and his powers as a critic and writer on military and naval questions were admittedly of the highest order, his official position in public life could not again be recovered. He was marked out in 1885 as the future leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, and there is little doubt that he might have become one of the great foreign ministers of Europe..." Encyclopedia Britannica, (1957 edition), volume 7, p. 385, "Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Bart."

A more recent (online) edition of the Britannica states: "By the end of the government, in June 1885, Benjamin Disraeli's prophecy of 1879 that Dilke would be prime minister looked plausible." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Charles-Wentworth-Dilke-2nd-Baronet

The Crawford divorce case is discussed in more detail at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Dilke,_2nd_Baronet

Let's take as our POD that the accusations--whether true or false--that Dilke had an affair with Mrs. Crawford are never made. (The Wikipedia article notes that there is much to be said for "the view that Virginia lied about the identity of her lover" and that "Dilke was largely exonerated by an inquiry in the early 1890s, which cast doubt on the truthfulness of Virginia's evidence - her description of their alleged love-nest in Warren Street was full of inaccuracies. It appears that she may well have been attempting to distract attention from an earlier affair with one Captain Forster..." The online version of the Britannica states that "The accumulated evidence showed decisively that much of Mrs. Crawford's story was a fabrication; whether there was a substratum of truth remains uncertain.") Without the trial, Sir Charles Dilke's family life is probably not an issue, so far as the public is concerned (it was the trial that revealed that whether or not he had an affair with Mrs. Crawford, he definitely had one with her mother...): his first wife had died in childbirth, and in 1885 he married Emilia Frances, Lady Dilke, feminist and art historian, who died in 1904.

So without the scandal, what happens to Dilke's career? Does he for example become Foreign Secretary instead of Rosebery in 1892? (There was no way of course that this could have happened in OTL because Gladstone, the famously moralistic rescuer of fallen women, would not think of appointing such a scandal-tainted man...) And if so, could he like Rosebery have become Prime Minister after Gladstone's retirement in 1894? Would he stay in power longer than Rosebery, or is the Liberal government doomed by this time, regardless of who succeeds Gladstone? Also, what is his role once the Liberals return to power after 1905?

A brief review of Dilke's OTL politics: He was known for his radicalism: in his earlier years, he had been a republican, at least in principle, and throughout his life he was a staunch supporter of the rights of labor. He was also a staunch imperialist. In this combination, he resembled his friend Joseph Chamberlain, but he refused to follow Chamberlain out of the Liberal Party. A laudatory two volume biography of Dilke (based largely on his own memoirs, and edited by Stephen Gwynn, Emilia Frances' nephew) is available online (all quotes in this post, unless otherwisr identified, are from this book):

https://archive.org/stream/lifeofsircharles01gwynuoft#page/n9/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/lifeofsircharles02gwynuoft#page/n9/mode/2up

Interestingly, Dilke's radicalism extended to the colored races--he would argue that this was not inconsistent with his imperialism, because after all the alternative to British imperialism in much of Africa and Asia was not home rule by the natives but either control by another imperial power or by the local white settlers. (As Gwynn notes, "Sir Charles, always a strong advocate of colonial autonomy, nevertheless did not go to extreme lengths in this doctrine. An Imperialist first, he was fully prepared to say to the colonies, So long as you claim Imperial protection, you must recognize the full rights of citizenship within the Empire. He feared gravely the tendencies which might develop under the British flag, if uncontrolled liberty of action were given to the Colonial Parliaments in dealing with such questions as forced labour. 'The Australian rule in New Guinea is going to be terrible,' is a stray note on one of his communications with the Aborigines' Protection Society.") Gwynn quotes General Seely:

"His Parliamentary action was often baffling to the observer, especially in its restraint. It was only after many years that the present writer found the master-key to Dilke's actions, and it was revealed in a flash at the time of the passing of the South Africa Union Act. The question was the representation of the native population in the Union, and the cognate questions of their treatment and status. Dilke came to see me. He pleaded the native cause with earnestness, with eloquence, with passion. The man was transfigured as the emotions of pity and love of justice swept over him. No record could be kept of what he said; there could have been no thought of using his eloquence to enlist popular support or improve a Parliamentary position, for we were alone. And so I came to see that the mainspring of all his actions was the intense desire to help those who could not help themselves--to defend the under-dog...

"On the wider questions of the general treatment of natives he displayed the same meticulous care in finding out the true facts of the case. In the controversy that raged round the administration of the Congo, he would not move until he had ascertained the facts, not only from official documents, but from inquiries he himself had set on foot. Indians, Africans, Chinese, as well as his own countrymen and countrywomen, all would find in him a champion and defender, provided only that they were poor, unrepresented, or oppressed."

Indeed, in a speech that Dilke was to read to the Native Races Conference in July 1911 (he died before it could be given) he complained that "Great Britain's escutcheon was marred by the inclusion of a colour-bar in the most recent Constitution of her oversea dominions" and even wondered "whether the anti-slavery cause had lost or gained ground in his lifetime; new insidious and widespread forms of the evil had taken a hold."

Two other interesting aspects of Dilke's politics: His attitude toward Home Rule for Ireland and toward tariffs.

(1) Home Rule was the cause of the political breach between Dilke and Chamberlain. Dilke had reservations about Gladstone's bill, but he voted for it. Stephen Gwynn thinks that if anyone could have prevented the Gladstone-Chamberlain split, it would have been a Dilke not fatally weakened by the Crawford divorce case:

"Sir Charles at this moment believed it possible that Mr. Chamberlain might carry his point against Mr. Gladstone as to the continued representation of Ireland at Westminster, and, although he disliked this proposal, desired its success because it would retain Mr. Chamberlain in the party. This is the moment at which Dilke's influence, had he retained his old position, would probably have proved decisive. What Mr. Gladstone would not yield to Chamberlain alone he would probably have yielded to the two Radicals combined; and Mr. Chamberlain, deprived of the argument to which he gave special prominence, could scarcely have resisted his friend's wish that he should support the second reading."

Even so, upon learning of Dilke's defeat Chamberlain expressed regret that "the one Ministerialist seat which he had earnestly hoped would be kept should have gone."

Incidentally, it is not clear just what role the scandal really played in Dilke's defeat; Chamberlain pointed out that "the falling off in this case was less than in other London polls"; and Dilke himself noted:

'On July 5th I was beaten at Chelsea, and so left Parliament in which I had sat from November, 1868.

'The turn-over in Chelsea was very small, smaller than anywhere else in the neighbourhood, and showed that personal considerations had told in my favour, inasmuch as we gained but a small number of Irish, it not being an Irish district, and had it not been for personal considerations should have lost more Liberal Unionists than we did.

'Some of my warmest private and personal friends were forced to work and vote against me (on the Irish Question), as, for example, John Westlake, Q.C., and Dr. Robert Cust, the learned Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, and Sir Henry Gordon--General Charles Gordon's brother--who soon afterwards died, remaining my strong friend, as did these others.

'James wrote to Lady Dilke, July 26th:

'"No one but your husband could have polled so many Gladstonian votes. London is dead against the Prime Minister."'

Still, Dilke could not really have believed that the scandal had no effect on his popularity, given that "In the autumn of 1886 the Council of the Chelsea Liberal Association unanimously asked him to be their candidate (for Parliament), but he replied that he could not serve the borough to his own satisfaction while so large a section of the public still attached weight to the 'gross calumnies' with which he had been assailed."

(2) On Free Trade versus Protection: Dilke was generally a Free Trader, and delivered a speech opposing Chamberlain's policy in 1903:

"On the motion for adjournment before the Whitsuntide recess (May 28th, 1903), Sir Charles raised the whole question of commercial policy, directing himself chiefly to the speeches that had been made by Mr. Balfour and by Mr. Bonar Law. But it was Mr. Chamberlain's policy that was in question. Years later, after the whole subject has been incessantly discussed, it is difficult to realize the effect produced by the sudden and unexpected onset of that redoubtable champion. Free Trade had been so long taken for granted that the case for it had become unfamiliar; what remained was an academic conviction, and against that Chamberlain arrayed an extraordinary personal prestige backed by a boldness of assertion to which his position as a business man lent authority. To meet an onset so sudden and so ably conducted was no easy task, and for Dilke there was the unhappy personal element of a first angry confrontation with his old ally."

OTOH, Dilke was not an absolutist on this issue:

"Mr. James Lowther, the leading Protectionist of days when Protection was not a fashionable creed, proposed an amendment seeking to restrict the immigration of destitute aliens; and he found a seconder in a trade-unionist, Mr. Havelock Wilson, who spoke for the seamen. After Mr. Gladstone had argued strongly against the proposal, but had shown his perception of the widespread support which it received by expressing willingness to appoint a committee of inquiry, Sir Charles Dilke rose, and, claiming to speak for a small minority, opposed legislation and committee alike.

"The force of his appeal to the House lay in the description which he gave of persecution directed against the Jews in Russia, coupled with citation of many previous instances in which England had afforded asylum, and had gained both advantage and respect by so doing. First-hand knowledge of Russian conditions and detailed mastery of the historical case were combined in what one of the more important speakers for the motion (Sir William Marriott) called a 'magnificent speech'; and Sir Charles himself observes that it turned many votes. Mr. Mundella wrote to him after the debate: 'I think it was the best I ever heard from you, and, moreover, was courageous and just.'

"Mr. Mundella was no doubt struck by the fact that a man coming in, as Sir Charles did, specially dependent on the support of organized Labour, had in his first speech combated the view of Labour interests which was put forward by trade-unionists. Sir Charles's reply to the trade-unionists ran thus: If these aliens come to England, they very often join trade-unions, and so accept the higher standard; if they do not, the products of their work come in and compete even more disastrously. From this there lay an argument against Free Trade, and this he characteristically admitted. Free Trade was only a balance of advantages, and Labour politicians, he pointed out, considered that the arguments against it were outweighed by countervailing considerations. To exclude the immigrants and not to exclude the products of their labour would be inconsistent, and also it would lower the nation's standard of humanity."

So again I am wondering about the political effects of a scandal-free Dilke. (Incidentally, there are at least two relatively recent--compared to Gwynn's--biographies of Dilke which I would like to read: *The Lost Prime Minister: A Life of Sir Charles Dilke* by David Nicholls--the blurb here provides an interesting what-if: "It can be argued that his political eclipse was a crucial contributing factor to the Liberal Party's failure to provide a viable alternative to the rise of the Labour Party" https://books.google.com/books?id=Xee1m8EYQwMC&pg=PP4 and Roy Jenkins' *Sir Charles Dilke: A Victorian Tragedy.* Actually, I think I did glance at Jenkins' book some years ago, but don't remember much of it, and anyway it apparently concentrates on the scandal rather than on Dilke's general political career and views.)
 
Top