Freepedia is a series of free encyclopaedias. We currently specialize in history but we intend to branch out into other areas. This section is about Arthur Ponsonby.

Arthur Ponsonby, the son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Private Secretary to Queen Victoria, was born in 1871. After being educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, Ponsonby joined the Diplomatic Service and worked in Constantinople and Copenhagen.

A member of the Liberal Party Ponsonby unsuccessfully contested Taunton in the 1906 General Election. Two years later he became the MP for Stirling Burghs. A strong critic of the foreign policy of Herbert Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, Ponsonby was opposed to Britain's involvement in the First World War.

Ponsonby joined with Charles Trevelyan, E.D. Morel, George Cadbury, Ramsay MacDonald, Arthur Ponsonby, Arnold Rowntree to form the Union of Democratic Control (UDC). Over the next couple of years the UDC became the leading anti-war organisation in Britain.

Like other anti-war MPs, Arthur Ponsonby was defeated in the 1918 General Election. Ponsonby joined the Labour Party and in the 1922 General Election became the MP for the Brightside division of Sheffield.

After the 1929 General Election, Ramsay MacDonald appointed Ponsonby as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. The following year Ponsonby was granted a peerage and became Leader of the House of Lords (1930-1935).

Ponsonby resigned from the Labour Party in 1940 as he opposed to its decision to join the National Government. Arthur Ponsonby died on 23rd March 1946.

 

Arthur Ponsonby: Falsehood in Wartime

Arthur Ponsonby's Dream

Arthur Ponsonby: Wikipedia

Arthur Ponsonby: Spartacus

Forum Debates

War Propaganda Bureau

Military Commanders and the First World War

Battle of the Somme

Arthur Ponsonby

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(1) During the First World War leading members of the Union of Democratic Control, Ponsonby, Charles Trevelyan and E. D. Morel considered the possibility of joining the Independent Labour Party. Ponsonby wrote about it to Herbert Bryan on 19th May, 1916.

My views may not differ materially from those held by members of the I.L.P., I do not desire to give myself any fresh political label. Though the formation of the Union of Democratic Control it has been possible for me to work in close co-operation with several of your leaders and this joint effort on the part of the Labour members and radicals is having I think a very beneficial effect. I do not desire to alienate myself from any of my former political associates but rather to endeavour to urge them along the same path which I myself am treading.

 

(2) In his book Falsehood in Wartime, Arthur Ponsonby explained the role of wartime propaganda.

People must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized, and the stimulus of indignation, horror and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public minds of 'propaganda'.