Talk:F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

Fair use rationale for Image:Timebirkenhead.jpg

Image:Timebirkenhead.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 08:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Timebirkenhead.jpg

Image:Timebirkenhead.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 00:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Spy caricature

There has to be a higher res. version of the famous Vanity Fair caricature of Smith which features in this article? Assuming the image is in the public domain or its fair use is established, etc., it'd be a big improvement over the grainy looking and pixelated present image. --PGPaulson 23:50, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The high res. version looks great not sure who's responsible or how to find out, I'm not the most experienced Wikipedian. But thank you. --PGPaulson 17:23, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Military Ranks held in First World War

Having consulted different sources (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Kelly's Handbook and The Complete Peerage) I have been a little more technical in differentiating between full Colonel and Lieutenant. At first I assumed he had never been full Colonel, as TCP gave him rank of Acting Lieutenant Colonel. However I have today discovered a photograph online (source Library of Congress), tentatively dated between 1910 (when he had not yet entered the Oxfordshire Hussars) and 1915, in which his uniform bears full Colonel's insignia (red tabs and lion atop crown cap badge). I unsuccessfully sought record of promotion in the London Gazette online archive (between August-September 1914). Anyone with better access to information on timing of his promotions welcome to correct me if they find reliable source.Cloptonson (talk) 05:53, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Visited India?

A question likely to come to mind among Indian readers is whether, given his time attached to Indian troops and his four years as India Secretary, he was known to have visited the country. I have expanded on his time in that office with information from his sketch in the ODNB.Cloptonson (talk) 12:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

It's a number of years since I read the John Campbell biog, but my recollection is that he never did. Happy to be corrected though.Paulturtle (talk) 10:47, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Lead

A couple of months ago Adam37 reworked the lead to better indicate Smith's notability; it was reverted, and no addition or change has since been permitted by a series of IP editors. I'd like to ask if perhaps we could check consensus & see if the information that Smith was Lord Chancellor is of sufficient importance to make it into the introduction to the article, as well as (or, preferably, in place of) the ambiguous statement that he was a lawyer (what kind, solicitor? barrister? KC? And isn't lawyer more an American term and hence somewhat inappropriate here, anyway?). Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 04:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not a "series of IP editors". It's just User:MyNameIsGeorgeNathanielCurzon pretending to be several different people. I have now reverted his latest edit, blocked him indefinitely, and semi-protected the article temporarily. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:25, 17 December 2013

(UTC)

Cheers. - Adam37 Talk 20:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, thank you Someguy1221. I thought it likely they were all ...Curzon, but am not skilled enough to make that call. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 00:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Club

If somebody has a source, it might be worth including the oft repeated anecdote about how he would stop off at the National Liberal Club to "make use of the facilities" whilst walking between Parliament and the Law Courts. When eventually asked to desist by the Club Staff, he is said to have replied "Is it a Club as well?" A copy of the story now hangs over the urinal in said institution.

FE was of course a rich source of stories, many of them now forgotten or even attributed to Churchill now that he has faded from popular memory. Like the one where he gave a Labour MP directions to the lavatory, adding "you'll see a sign marked "Gentlemen" but don't let that deter you".Paulturtle (talk) 00:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

'Galloper Smith'

What is the source and meaning of the nickname from the 1912-1914 period? 109.155.239.88 (talk) 16:44, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

It means that he was Carson's sidekick/right-hand-man. Don't know the source offhand.Paulturtle (talk) 23:00, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Undercooking

I think we've rather undercooked this one. We should give an account of his seduction of his daughter's schoolfriend Mona Dunn and its consequences. The story is in the Spectator archives, and I imagine in the biographies. "F.E.'s long and passionate love affair with Mona Dunn, his daughter's friend who was only 17 when he met her in Paris in 1919, and only 26 when she died. Without apparently ruffling his happy marriage, other extra-marital activity took place, with Beaverbrook providing the necessary residential facilities and, on occasion, the ladies as well" (Spectator archive). The girl was a great beauty, as can be seen on William Orpen's portrait (which also we do not have but is on the web). Her death at 26 was the result of a botched operation. The portrait is in the Beaverbrook collection in Canada, the same Beaverbrook who supported Smith, and supported Smith's family after the latter's death. The whole saga shows Smith's character rather more clearly than his making rude remarks about political colleagues... Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:40, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Beaverbrook was a considerable womaniser, I believe. There is certainly a case for mentioning Mona Dunn, subject to the caveat that a (willing or open to persuasion) seventeen year old girl would have been regarded as perfectly fair game in those days or indeed until a generation ago. I think it used to be in the article a decade or so ago but, as so often on Wikipedia, "some prat deleted it". Alan Clark's late 1990s history of the Tory Party - the sections on the interwar period were, I think, actually ghosted by Graham Stewart, author of an excellent book on Churchill and Chamberlain - has her dying of "peritonitis" (inverted commas in original), presumably implying a failed abortion although he doesn't specifically say so. Her "operation" took place abroad IIRC, which itself is a bit of a red flag.Paulturtle (talk) 05:15, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

now added.Paulturtle (talk) 04:46, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Just reading the biog of Darrell Figgis, whose 21 year old girlfriend died of peritonitis - it was widely and probably wrongly assumed to be a euphemism for an abortion. So maybe it was a recognised euphemism of the time.Paulturtle (talk) 02:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Ethel Le Neve

Ethel Le Neve was not actually charged with Mrs Crippen's murder. She was charged with perverting the course of justice by harbouring and assisting Dr Crippen in the knowledge that he had committed the murder. Smith took the unusual course of offering no evidence in her defence at all, presumably to highlight how weak the Crown's case was. (She may have had guilty knowledge, but it's not certain.) It seemed to work. https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t19101011-75 Khamba Tendal (talk) 10:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Death of John Kensit trial

I have restored the sentence about Smith's involvement the trial surrounding the alleged murder of John Kensit. The trial in itself is significant, and the fact that Smith kept mementos of the trial shows that it was particularly significant for Smith. Bearing in mind his Unionist sympathies, this information helps shed light on the character of the man. Leutha (talk) 21:54, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I stand persuaded.Ttocserp 23:03, 24 October 2020 (UTC)