George Herbert Duckworth

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Sir George Herbert Duckworth
Born5 March 1868
Died27 April 1934(1934-04-27) (aged 66)
Education Eton College
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge
Relatives Julia Stephen (mother)
Vanessa Bell (half-sister)
Virginia Woolf (half-sister)

Sir George Herbert Duckworth, CB , FSA (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934) was an English public servant.

Contents

Early life and family

The son of Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, of Orchardleigh Park, Somerset, by his marriage to Julia Prinsep Jackson, a niece of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, Duckworth had a younger brother, Gerald, who later founded the London publishing firm of Duckworth & Co, and a sister, Stella (1869–1897).

After Herbert Duckworth's death, Julia married secondly the author Leslie Stephen, and Duckworth was thus a half-brother of the painter Vanessa Bell and the writer Virginia Woolf, leading members of the Bloomsbury Group, and of Thoby and Adrian Stephen. Both sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf later accused their two Duckworth half-brothers of sexually abusing them for many years as children and adolescents. [1]

Duckworth was educated at Eton, where in 1886 he was a member of the First XI for cricket, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. [2] [3]

Career

From 1892 to 1902, Duckworth acted as secretary (without pay) to the philanthropist Charles Booth, and then from August 1902 [4] to 1905 as private secretary to Austen Chamberlain, at a time when Chamberlain was in the Cabinet, first as Postmaster General and then as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

From 1906 to 1908, Duckworth was secretary to the Treasury Committee on War Risks of Shipping, and from 1908 to 1933 Secretary to the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments. During the First World War he was appointed deputy Director of Munitions Finance, serving from 1915 to 1918, and, in 1918, as Controller of Labour Finance. In 1919, he became a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

After the war, from 1919 to 1920, he was Controller of Munitions Housing Schemes. In 1924, he became a Trustee and first Chairman of the Irish Land Trust, which had the aim of providing houses and land for ex-service men in Ireland.

In 1927, he was knighted and the same year served as a member of the Royal Commission on London Squares and Open Spaces. The next year, 1928, he was on the Advisory Committee on the New Survey of London Life and Labour. [2] [3]

Private life

On 10 September 1904, Duckworth married Lady Margaret Leonora Evelyn Selina Herbert (1870–1959), a daughter of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, and together they had three sons:

They lived at Dalingridge Place, West Hoathly, Sussex, while in London Duckworth was a member of the Travellers and Garrick Clubs. [3]

Duckworth was Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Archæological Institute and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. [3]

Anthony Duckworth-Chad is Duckworth's grandson.

Notes

  1. Roger Poole, The Unknown Virginia Woolf (Cambridge University Press, 1978). See Woolf's autobiographical essay "22 Hyde Park Gate" collected in "Moments of Being" (Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1976). pp. 27-34
  2. 1 2 "Duckworth, George Herbert (DKWT886GH)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. 1 2 3 4 'DUCKWORTH, Sir George Herbert', in Who Was Who (London: A. & C. Black)
  4. "Appointments". The Times . No. 36848. 16 August 1902. p. 7.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Woolf</span> English modernist writer (1882–1941)

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors. She pioneered the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Bell</span> British painter, designer and member of the Bloomsbury Group (1879–1961)

Vanessa Bell was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clive Bell</span> English art critic, 1881–1964

Arthur Clive Heward Bell was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. He developed the art theory known as significant form.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leslie Stephen</span> English writer and mountaineer (1832–1904)

Sir Leslie Stephen was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, mountaineer, and an Ethical movement activist. He was also the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard Woolf</span> British author and publisher (1880–1969)

Leonard Sidney Woolf was a British political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society, Woolf was an avid publisher of his own work and his wife's novels. A writer himself, Woolf created nineteen individual works and wrote six autobiographies. Leonard and Virginia did not have any children.

Gerald de l'Etang Duckworth was an English publisher, who founded the London company that bears his name. Henry James and John Galsworthy were among the firm's early authors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet</span> British politician (1879–1960)

Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet, was a British politician and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwin Montagu</span> British politician (1879–1924)

Edwin Samuel Montagu PC was a British Liberal politician who served as Secretary of State for India between 1917 and 1922. Montagu was a "radical" Liberal and the third practising Jew to serve in the British cabinet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey</span> British civil servant

Maurice Pascal Alers Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey, was a British civil servant who gained prominence as the first Cabinet Secretary and later made the rare transition from the civil service to ministerial office. He is best known as the highly-efficient top aide to Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the War Cabinet, which directed Britain during the First World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H. A. L. Fisher</span> British historian and politician (1865–1940)

Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician. He served as President of the Board of Education in David Lloyd George's 1916 to 1922 coalition government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Henrietta Darwin</span> English playwright (1864–1920)

Florence Henrietta Darwin, Lady Darwin, was an English playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Steel-Maitland</span> British politician

Sir Arthur Herbert Drummond Ramsay Steel-Maitland, 1st Baronet was a British Conservative politician. He was the first Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1911 to 1916 and held junior office from 1915 to 1919 in David Lloyd George's coalition government. From 1924 to 1929 he was Minister of Labour under Stanley Baldwin, with a seat in the cabinet.

Anthony Nicholas George Duckworth-Chad, of Pynkney Hall, in Tattersett near King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, is a landowner, City of London business man, and a senior county officer for Norfolk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Stephen</span> British author, psychoanalyst & member of the Bloomsbury Group (1883-1948)

Adrian Leslie Stephen was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an author and psychoanalyst, and the younger brother of Thoby Stephen, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. He and his wife, Karin, became interested in the work of Sigmund Freud, and were among the first British psychoanalysts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thoby Stephen</span> Founding member of the Bloomsbury Group (1880-1906)

Julian Thoby Stephen, known as the Goth, was the brother of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, both prominent members of the Bloomsbury Group, and of Adrian Stephen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hills (politician)</span> British politician

Major John Waller Hills PC was a British Liberal Unionist and Conservative politician and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sir Charles Henry, 1st Baronet</span>

Sir Charles Solomon Henry, 1st Baronet was an Australian merchant and businessman who lived mostly in Britain and sat as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons from 1906 until his death.

The New Year Honours 1920 were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by members of the British Empire. They were published on 1 January 1920 and 30 March 1920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Stephen</span> Philanthropist and model, mother of Virginia Woolf

Julia Prinsep Stephen was an English Pre-Raphaelite model and philanthropist. She was the wife of the biographer Leslie Stephen and mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, members of the Bloomsbury Group.