'The most powerful man in the realm': Sir John Anderson, coalition, and Conservative statecraft 1940-45

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This project will close a major gap in our understanding of British government during the Second World War, as well as shedding light on distinctively Conservative methods of governing the contemporary state. It will do this by analysing the wartime role of Sir John Anderson (1882-1958), now a largely forgotten individual but a dominant figure during the war who held a position of unique influence in Whitehall. He was described as 'the most powerful man in the realm', and Churchill considered Anderson his successor should he die before the end of the conflict.MP for the Scottish Universities (1938-50), Anderson was a civil servant by background, and had dealt with multiple challenges to the state as Under-Secretary for Ireland, Governor of Bengal, and Home Secretary. But Anderson came into his own following the formation of the Churchill Coalition in 1940, and Churchill relied on him as the 'home front Prime Minister'. No other politician matched his mastery of Whitehall.The Lord President's Committee was formed in late 1940 to act as a coordinating body on the domestic front. It was the centre of power in wartime Whitehall and, as Lord President until 1943, Anderson exercised considerable influence over its work. In doing so he was forced to contend with civil service intransigence and attempts by Labour party ministers to drive the British state towards socialism. In responding to this, Anderson implemented a distinctively Conservative statecraft that has been lost amid triumphalist social-democratic narratives of the war but which actually contributed much towards the metamorphosis of the state. Yet, despite the significance of the Lord President's Committee, this 'domestic War Cabinet' has never been studied.This project will be built around Anderson as an exemplar of Conservative statecraft. Historians of conservative ideas often point to a belief in decisive action married to strategies of obstruction as animating conservatism; but the paradoxical combination of decisive action as a doctrine and deliberate obstruction as a strategy are rarely made central by historians of Conservative politics (with the exception of recent work on Lord Salisbury). One major aim is to improve understanding of how these concepts were applied to governing by twentieth-century Conservatives. Churchill, preoccupied by war, failed to provide effective Conservative leadership; that task was taken up by Anderson. The politics of financial policy-making during the war, likewise, have not been analysed. Yet the state's means of, and attitudes towards, raising money from its citizens were fundamentally reshaped; new doctrines like Keynesianism warred with orthodox finance; and some of the major figures of modern Britain - Churchill, Bevin, Attlee, Keynes - struggled to influence policy. Appointed Chancellor in October 1943, Anderson was tasked by Churchill with ensuring that financial prudence would be the lodestar of government while simultaneously meeting expectations of reform. Occupying a leading department of state, Anderson fought to obstruct Labour while taking the British state in new directions.My previous book Attlee's War (2011) highlighted the scope for a transformative research agenda on wartime Britain. This project will carry this to fruition through a ground-breaking contribution to our understanding of government, policy, and Conservative politics in the war. In the cockpit of state for five years, Anderson did more than any individual to oversee the evolution of the British state; while others dreamed of rewriting the social contract, Anderson took the lead in turning that into practice. The project will shed light on this process. In doing so it will enhance awareness of the birth of the contemporary state. One aim of the eventual book flowing from the project will be to contextualise the links between the 1940s and the present by exploring the origins of contemporary perceptions of the duties of the state.