George Cave, 1st Viscount Cave

For other people named George Cave, see George Cave (disambiguation).

• Bonar Law
• Stanley Baldwin

Estella Cave, Countess Cave of Richmond

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(m. 1885)​

The Right Honourable The Viscount Cave GCMG PC KC
Cave in 1915
Lord Chancellor
In office 24 October 1922 –22 January 1924
Preceded by	The Viscount Birkenhead
Succeeded by	The Viscount Haldane
Alma mater	St John's College, Oxford

George Cave, 1st Viscount Cave, GCMG , PC (23 February 1856 – 29 March 1928) was a British lawyer and Conservative politician. He was Home Secretary under David Lloyd George from 1916 to 1919 and served as Lord Chancellor from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1924 to 1928.

Background and education

Cave was born in London, the son of Thomas Cave, Member of Parliament for Barnstaple, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Jasper Shallcrass. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, London. ^[1] He matriculated at St John's College, Oxford in 1874, graduating B.A. in 1878. He was called to the bar in 1880 at the Inner Temple. ^[2]

Cave practised as a barrister for a number of years, being made King's Counsel and recorder of Guildford in 1904.^{[ citation needed ]}

Political career

In 1906 Cave was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for the Kingston Division of Surrey, was appointed Vice-Lieutenant of Surrey in 1907, ^[3] and a member of the Royal Commission on Land Purchase in 1908. Having served as standing counsel to the University of Oxford for two years as well as attorney general to the Prince of Wales, in 1915 Cave was appointed solicitor general ^[4] and knighted. ^[5] The following year, he was made Home Secretary in Lloyd George's coalition government, a post he held for three years. As Home Secretary, he introduced the Representation of the People Act 1918 and he was very prominent in the debates in the House of Commons on the police strike of August 1918. ^[6]

In 1918, Sir George Cave was ennobled as Viscount Cave, of Richmond in the County of Surrey. ^[7] The following year, he became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and chaired a number of commissions, including the Southern Rhodesian commission and the Munitions Enquiry Tribunal. In 1922, he became Lord Chancellor in Bonar Law's government, and again served in this capacity in Baldwin's first administration. He chaired the post war report that led to cuts to the minimum wages and regulation of collective bargaining, recommended by the Cave Committee in 1922. ^[8]

Roy Jenkins described Cave as the least distinguished Lord Chancellor in the first three decades of the twentieth century. ^[9]

Awards and honours

Viscount Cave in the robes of the Chancellor of the University of Oxford

Having been appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1921, he was also elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1925, defeating former Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. Asquith was upset by the defeat, partly because he felt that Cave, an old friend, should not have stood against him. ^[10]

Family

Lord Cave married in 1885 Annie Estella Sarah Penfold Mathews, daughter of Captain William Withey Mathews and Jane Wallas (née Penfold), and sister of Sir Lloyd Mathews. They had met by 1880, and he proposed to her in 1883. ^[11]

The couple had three sons and one daughter. Each of them died on the day they were born, or soon afterwards. They were Ralph Wallas (1885), Lloyd George (1893), Honor Elizabeth (1895), and Mathew George (1899). They are buried at St. Mary's in Richmond. Cave died in March 1928, aged 72, at St Ann's, Burnham, Somerset, and was buried at Berrow in the same county. His wife's brother-in-law, W. K. Laurence, had been buried there only a week or so earlier, after dying after a fall at Clevedon.

On the day of his death, Cave's resignation as Lord Chancellor had been accepted and it had been announced that he would be created an earl. His widow, Estella, was created Countess Cave of Richmond, with remainder to heirs male of her body. ^[12] With no heir, the viscountcy became extinct on Cave's death, as did the earldom when his widow died in 1938.

Coat of arms of George Cave, 1st Viscount Cave

Crest A greyhound sejant Or pellettée, resting the dexter leg on a cross moline Gules. Escutcheon Or fretty Azure a cross moline within a bordure nebuly Gules on a chief of the last two greyhounds' heads erased of the first. Motto Cave Deus Videt (Beware God Sees) [13]

References

1. Legg, Thomas S.; Legg, Marie-Louise. "Cave, George, Viscount Cave (1856–1928)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32329.(Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
2. Foster, Joseph (1888–1891). "Cave, George"  . Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886 . Oxford: James Parker – via Wikisource.
3. "No. 27989". The London Gazette . 25 January 1907. p. 570.
4. "No. 29360". The London Gazette . 9 November 1915. p. 11043.
5. "No. 29390". The London Gazette . 3 December 1915. p. 12054.
6. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). "Cave, George Cave, 1st Viscount"  . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
7. "No. 31013". The London Gazette . 15 November 1918. p. 13492.
8. Cave Committee, Report to the Ministry of Labour of the Committee Appointed to Enquire into the Working and Effects of the Trade Board Acts (1922) Cmd 1645
9. Jenkins p.511
10. Jenkins, Roy Asquith Collins, 1964, p.511
11. Mallet, Charles Edward (1931). Lord Cave: A Memoir. London: John Murray. OCLC   2673381.
12. "No. 33383". The London Gazette . 11 May 1928. p. 3332.
13. Debrett's Peerage. 1921.

Further reading

• Mallet, Charles Edward (1931). Lord Cave: A Memoir. London: John Murray. OCLC   2673381.
• Hesilrige, Arthur G. M. (1921). Debrett's Peerage and Titles of courtesy. London: Dean & Son. p. 187.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by George Cave
• Portraits of George Cave at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Europeana Collections 1914-1918 makes 425,000 First World War items from European libraries available online, including relevant volumes of The Cave Papers

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Sir Thomas Skewes-Cox	Member of Parliament for Kingston 1906–1918	Succeeded by John Gordon Drummond Campbell
Legal offices
Preceded by Sir F.E. Smith	Solicitor General 1915–1916	Succeeded by Sir Gordon Hewart
Political offices
Preceded by Herbert Samuel	Home Secretary 1916–1919	Succeeded by Edward Shortt
Preceded by The Viscount Birkenhead	Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain 1922–1924	Succeeded by The Viscount Haldane
Preceded by The Viscount Haldane	Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain 1924–1928	Succeeded by The Lord Hailsham
Academic offices
Preceded by Marquess Curzon of Kedleston	Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1925–1928	Succeeded by Viscount Grey of Fallodon