Julian Amery (1919-1996) and his contemporaries: a British network

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Julian Amery was a British MP (Preston North 1950-1966 and Brighton Pavilion 1969-1992) who combined diehard imperialism with support for European integration, and social liberalism. His father, Leo Amery, was an MP and one of the leading advocates for the British Empire and Commonwealth. Julian Amery was the heir to the network cultivated by Leo that included political and cultural figures across the globe. Amery kept hundreds of thousands of papers, including his personal and political correspondence and diaries. All 721 boxes have are held at the Churchill College Archive Centre, and it is the sixth largest collection held there. Amery held complex views on European integration and campaigned for British involvement in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. However, Amery made his name as a backbench rebel. He opposed the decolonisation of the British Empire and was the leading member of the backbench Suez Group. Amery also formed connections with companies operating in late and postcolonial Southern Africa. These connections influenced Amery's involvement in the debates and controversies surrounding self-determination and white-minority rule. He married Catherine Macmillan, the daughter of prime minister Harold Macmillan and this placed him at the heart of a number of political networks. This PhD will demonstrate how political networks were constructed, lived and experienced over a crucial period in the history of conservatism, of the Empire and Britain's place in the world.