On 18 August 1893,at the age of 24,Lee became a professor of Strategy and Tactics,at the Royal Military College of Canada,in Kingston,Ontario,[5] with the local rank of captain.[6] Given that only 11 to 30 cadets annually entered the College in those days,Lee would have instructed about 140 cadets in his five years at the college (1893–1898),consisting of cadet numbers 320 to 457. Cadet No. 433,future Major GeneralThomas Victor Anderson,D.S.O.,a future Chief of Staff of the Canadian Army,recalled that Lee was known around the Royal Military College as 'The Nipper',which the cadets christened him because he used to sing George Grossmith's songs with gusto. He enjoyed riding and walking in winter across the ice to Wolfe Island,and to town. He was a regular attendant at St. George's Cathedral (Kingston,Ontario) to hear the dean Buxton Smith. When Colonel Gerald Kitson,K.R.R.C.,became RMC Commandant in 1897,Captain Lee came to live with the Kitsons in the Commandant's residence. In 1894,Lee initiated a Military Survey of the Canadian Frontier,and supervised its progress until its completion in 1896. During the summer of 1897 he was a Special Correspondent for the London Daily Chronicle,covering the earlier stages of the Klondike Gold Rush,based on his travels to Alaska and the Yukon. In 1900,when Lee resigned as British Military Attachéin Washington,D.C.,Colonel Kitson resigned as Commandant of RMC to take over the Washington post vacated by Lee.[2]
Diplomatic postings
He did not receive substantive promotion until the completion of his RMC appointment on 18 April 1898.[7] Later in that year he became the British military attaché with the United States Army in Cuba during the Spanish–American War. He received the U.S. campaign medal,met Theodore Roosevelt and was made an honorary member of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry (famed as Roosevelt's "Rough Riders"). On 28 January 1899,Lee –not yet 30 years old –was appointed military attachéat the British Embassy in Washington,with the temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel for the duration of his appointment.[8] Although he would have preferred to have been on active service in South Africa,for the Boer War had just begun,Lee enjoyed the challenging diplomatic assignment and became a regular correspondent of Roosevelt.[2] Theodore Roosevelt wrote of Lee:"The military attachés came out to look on-English,German,Russian,French and Japanese. With the Englishman,Captain Arthur Lee,a capital fellow,we soon struck up an especially close friendship;and we saw much of him throughout the campaign."[9] Roosevelt also wrote:"Captain Lee,the British attaché,spent some time with us;we had begun to regard him as almost a member of the regiment."[10] Later in life Roosevelt wrote to Rudyard Kipling and told him not to share the contents of the letter with anyone,"except Arthur Lee,to whom you are entirely at liberty to show it."[11]
Marriage,retirement from military
On 23 December 1899 Lee married Ruth Moore (died 1966),daughter of New York banker John Godfrey Moore. He had first met her at parties in Kingston and Gananoque,and had taken her to balls at the Royal Military College,Kingston. Ruth was left a substantial inheritance after her father's death shortly before the wedding. Lee was promoted brevetmajor on 8 August 1900,returned to regimental duty on 22 August 1900,[12] and retired from the army on 12 December 1900.[13]
The resignation of Arthur Balfour as Conservative Prime Minister in favour of Liberal Leader,Henry Campbell-Bannerman,in 1905 and the defeat of the Conservative Party in the elections of 1906 and 1910 postponed for a decade Lee's achievement of higher office. He was Chairman of the Parliamentary Aerial Defence Committee from 1910 to 1914. He also introduced the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912.[2]
Lee and his wife took on a long lease of Chequers,a country house and 1,000-acre (4.0km2) estate in Buckinghamshire,in 1909. The Lees bought the property in 1912 after the owner died,and began restoration. In 1917,they gave the estate,and the entire contents of the house which included a library,historical papers and manuscripts and a collection of Cromwellian portraits and artefacts,in trust to the nation to be used as the official residence and retreat of successive British Prime Ministers in perpetuity,enabled by the Chequers Estate Act 1917,the first piece of legislation to recognize the figure of a Prime Minister. The Lees left the property in January 1921,and Lloyd George was the first Prime Minister to use the property.[32][33][34]
Lee wrote his autobiography,entitled A Good Innings in 1941,and this was privately published in three volumes that year. It was later republished by his good friend Alan Clark,also a Conservative politician,for publisher J. Murray in 1974 (see below).
Death
Lord Lee died at Old Quarries,a grade II listed building in Avening,Gloucestershire,in 1947. He had no children and his viscountcy became extinct upon his death.
His widow,Viscountess Lee,presented to the Royal Military College of Canada Museum a silver-headed walking stick of her late husband,which he had used daily at RMC fifty-four years earlier. The stick has two silver bands listing the places where Lee served,or visited,between 1888 and 1904,which include the Royal Military College of Canada. Lady Lee also presented the RMC Museum with three photographs of Lord Lee –- two of them taken in Kingston,one in uniform in 1893,and the other in 1896 wearing a checked suit,silver-topped stick in hand. The third is a photograph of the portrait by Herbert James Gunn in full regalia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath.[2]
Bibliography
Lee of Fareham, Viscount; Clark, Alan (1974). A Good Innings; The Private Papers of Viscount Lee of Fareham. London: J. Murray. ISBN0-7195-2850-X.
123456No. 2141, Brock, T.L. "Lord Lee of Fareham Professor of Strategy and Tactics, R.M.C., 1893–98", Royal Military College of Canada Review Yearbook 1962, p. 189
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