Alfred Milner 1st Viscount Milner

Alfred Milner Milner, 1st Viscount 1854-1925, British statesman and colonial administrator. He distinguished himself as a student at Oxford and was briefly a journalist in London. He became (1887) private secretary to George Goschen, chancellor of the exchequer, and served (1890-92) as undersecretary of finance in Egypt. His England in Egypt (1892) effectively argued for greater British involvement there. In 1897, Milner was appointed high commissioner for South Africa and governor-general of Cape Colony. His efforts to gain political rights for British settlers in Boer territories heightened growing tension between the rival groups and helped precipitate (1899) the South African War . After the war, Milner's financial policies aided economic recovery, but his importation of indentured Chinese laborers raised strong opposition. He remained in South Africa until 1905, working for the assimilation of the Boer territories into a South African federation firmly linked to Britain. During this period he gathered around him a group of able young administrators, including Philip Kerr, later marquess of Lothian , who became known as "Milner's kindergarten." Milner was one of the Conservative lords who opposed the revolutionary budget of 1909 introduced by David Lloyd George , but in 1916 Lloyd George appointed him to his war cabinet. After serving (1918) as secretary of war, he was (1919-21) colonial secretary and in 1920 led a commission to Egypt that recommended Egyptian independence. He was created viscount in 1902.

Bibliography: See C. Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers, 1897-1905 (1931-33); biography by J. Marlowe (1988).

Milner, Alfred, 1st Viscount Milner of St James's and of Cape Town (b. 23 Mar. 1854, d. 13 May 1925). British statesman Born at Giessen (Germany) and educated at Tübingen, London (King's College), and Oxford. He was first a lawyer, then a journalist, and was private secretary to G. J. Goschen, Unionist Chancellor of the Exchequer. His growing interest in finance, and his belief in British imperialism, saw him appointed to the Egyptian Finance Ministry (1889–92). He was then chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, and at the request of Joseph Chamberlain, he became high commissioner for South Africa in 1897. There, he advocated a hardline policy in order to secure British interests against assertive Afrikaners, if necessary through war. However, he also made plans to reform and reorganize the country, in conjunction with his ‘Kindergarten’ of young imperialists, such as Geoffrey Dawson and Lionel Curtis. He left South Africa in 1905, and was active in the House of Lords. In World War I he helped in the Ministry of War Supply, and became a member of the War Cabinet (1916–18), later Secretary of State for War (1918–19) and for the Colonies (1919–21). His strong belief in Britain's imperial mission was a constant feature of his career, yet he was flexible enough to negotiate the basis of the 1922 settlement with Egyptian nationalists. This was not immediately accepted by Lloyd George, and Milner resigned in 1921.