Abstract
William Armstrong was the most influential civil servant in Britain in the 1960s and early-1970s, and one of the most powerful and significant Whitehall officials in the post-1945 period as a whole. He played a crucial role at the heart of the government machine under successive Labour and Conservative governments in Britain. There are few in-depth studies of top Whitehall bureaucrats. Biographical case studies of senior officials like Armstrong can, however, illustrate how civil servants contribute to and support policy-making, the ways in which administrative leadership is exercised in government, and changes over time in the character, culture and working of the Whitehall system.
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Notes
- 1.
Eric Jacobs , ‘Cleaning up the corridors of power: profile of Sir William Armstrong’, The Sunday Times, 15 September 1968.
- 2.
Samuel Brittan , ‘A passion for rationality’, Financial Times, 14 July 1980.
- 3.
The Guardian, 14 July 1980; Financial Times, 14 July 1980; The Observer, 13 July 1980.
- 4.
W. Henry Lambright and Madison M. Quinn, ‘Understanding Leadership in Public Administration: The Biographical Approach’, Public Administration Review, 71 (5), 2011, p. 782.
- 5.
Kevin Theakston, ‘The Biographical Approach to Public Administration: Potential, Purpose and Problems’, in Kevin Theakston (ed) Bureaucrats and Leadership (London: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 1–16.
- 6.
Stephen Roskill, Hankey: Man of Secrets, 3 vols. (London: Collins, 1970–1974); John F. Naylor, A man and an institution: Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretariat and the custody of Cabinet secrecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Eunan O’Halpin, Head of the Civil Service: A study of Sir Warren Fisher (London: Routledge, 1989); Richard A. Chapman, Ethics in the British Civil Service (London: Routledge, 1988).
- 7.
Michael Jago, Robin Butler: At the heart of power from Heath to Blair (London: Biteback Publishing, 2017).
- 8.
Rodney Lowe and Richard Roberts, ‘Sir Horace Wilson , 1900–1935: the making of a mandarin’, The Historical Journal 30 (3), 1987, pp. 641–662; G.C. Peden, ‘Sir Horace Wilson and appeasement’, The Historical Journal, 53 (4), 2010, pp. 983–1014; Adrian Phillips, The King Who Had To Go: Edward VIII, Mrs Simpson and the Hidden Politics of the Abdication Crisis (London: Biteback Publishing, 2016).
- 9.
Anthony Seldon with Jonathan Meakin, The Cabinet Office 1916–2016: The birth of modern government (London: Biteback Publishing, 2016); Ian Beesley, The Official History of the Cabinet Secretaries (London: Routledge, 2017); Kevin Theakston, Leadership in Whitehall (London: Macmillan, 1999); Keith Neilson and T.G. Otte (eds), The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1854–1946 (London: Routledge, 2009).
- 10.
See: Peter Ribbins and Brian Sherratt. ‘Permanent secretaries, consensus and centrism in policy making in education: David Hancock and the 1988 Reform Act’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 40(5), pp. 544–559; Peter Ribbins and Brian Sherratt, ‘The permanent secretary as policy maker, shaper, taker, sharer and resister in education—Sir James Hamilton as a centralising outsider’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 45(1), 2013, pp. 28–49; Peter Ribbins and Brian Sherratt, ‘Reforming the Civil Service and revising the role of the mandarin in Britain: A view from the perspective of a study of eight permanent secretaries at the Ministry of Education between 1976 and 2011’, Public Policy and Administration, 29 (1), 2014, pp. 21–44; Peter Ribbins and Brian Sherratt, ‘Centrism and the mandarin class: Understanding the meta-politics of Whitehall bureaucratic neutrality’, Public Policy and Administration, 30 (1), 2015, pp. 5–30; Peter Ribbins and Brian Sherratt, ‘Biography in the study of public administration: towards a portrait of a Whitehall mandarin’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 48 (3), 2016, pp. 243–260.
- 11.
For a sense of the variety in a large field, see: David Dilks (ed), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan 1938–1945 (London: Cassell, 1971); John Harvey (ed), The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1937–40 (London: Collins, 1970); John Harvey (ed), The War Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1941–1945 (London: Collins, 1978); Lord Strang, Home and Abroad (London: Andre Deutsch, 1956); Ivone Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle (London: Macmillan, 1959); Paul Gore-Booth, With Great Truth and Respect (London: Constable, 1974); Nicholas Henderson, Mandarin: The Diaries of an Ambassador 1969–1982 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994); Percy Craddock, In Pursuit of British Interests (London: John Murray, 1997); Christopher Meyer, DC Confidential (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005); Sherard Cowper-Coles, Ever the Diplomat (London: Harper Press, 2012).
- 12.
See: Alix Meynell, Public Servant, Private Woman: An Autobiography (London: Gollancz, 1988); Antony Part, The Making of a Mandarin (London: Andre Deutsch, 1990); Peter Le Cheminant, Beautiful Ambiguities: An Inside View of the Heart of Government (London: The Radcliffe Press, 2001); Roy Denman, The Mandarin’s Tale (London: Politico’s, 2002); Ronald McIntosh, Challenge to Democracy: Politics, Trade Union Power and Economic Failure in the 1970s (London: Politico’s, 2006); Richard Wilding , Civil Servant: A Memoir (Durham: The Memoir Club, 2006); Ronald McIntosh, Turbulent Times (London: Biteback Publishing, 2014); Brian Unwin, With Respect, Minister: A view from inside Whitehall (London: I.B. Tauris, 2017).
- 13.
Alec Cairncross (ed), The Robert Hall Diaries 1947–1953 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Alec Cairncross (ed), The Robert Hall Diaries 1954–61 (London: Unwil Hyman, 1991); Alec Cairncross, The Wilson Years: A Treasury Diary, 1964–1969 (London: The Historians’ Press, 1997).
- 14.
Correspondence with George Weidenfeld and Graham C. Greene in Armstrong papers.
- 15.
Harold Evans to Lord Armstrong, 29 January 1976, Armstrong papers.
- 16.
Armstrong to Weidenfeld, 17 December 1974, Armstrong papers.
- 17.
Weidenfeld to Armstrong, 8 November 1974, Armstrong papers.
- 18.
E.J. Ellis, T.J. A Life of Dr Thomas Jones CH (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992), pp. 521–524; Richard A. Chapman, The Civil Service Commission 1855–1991: A Bureau Biography (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 208–211.
- 19.
Eric Jacobs , ‘Cleaning up the corridors of power: profile of Sir William Armstrong’, The Sunday Times, 15 September 1968.
- 20.
Jacobs to Armstrong, 23 June 1977; Jacobs to Armstrong, 24 August 1977, Armstrong papers. The transcript of the interview and the draft chapter are in the Armstrong papers.
- 21.
O’Halpin, Head of the Civil Service, pp. x–xi; Chapman, Ethics in the British Civil Service, p. xv.
- 22.
Address by Gordon Richardson, Memorial Service for William Armstrong, St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, 16 September 1980 (Armstrong papers).
- 23.
H.E. Dale , The Higher Civil Service of Great Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 40.
- 24.
Lowe and Roberts, ‘Sir Horace Wilson , 1900–1935: the making of a mandarin’, p. 643.
- 25.
Peden, ‘Sir Horace Wilson and appeasement’, p. 984.
- 26.
Brian Connell, ‘Lord Armstrong: A hardly-noticed transition from Whitehall to the City’, The Times, 15 November 1976.
- 27.
Interview with Susan Crosland (PC).
- 28.
Geoffrey K. Fry, Reforming the Civil Service: The Fulton Committee on the British Home Civil Service 1966–1968 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993), p. 266.
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Theakston, K., Connelly, P. (2018). Introduction. In: William Armstrong and British Policy Making. Understanding Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57159-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57159-5_1
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