(Review) Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler: A Master Governor in British India (1890–1928) 

Title: Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler: A Master Governor in British India (1890–1928) 
Author: Michael Fenwick Macnamara
Published: 12 November 2024
ISBN: 9781803746586
Imprint: Peter Lang Verlag
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: XVIII, 482 Pages
RRP: US $112.95

“Sir Harcourt Butler, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., who died yesterday at the age of 68, was one of the greatest Indian administrators of his day. His official career was without parallel even in the wonderful records of the Indian Civil Service. It extended over nearly 40 years, and for fully half that time he held one great position after another, being successively Foreign Secretary, Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, Lieutenant- Governor of Burma, Governor of the United Provinces, where he had served in his youth; again the head of the Burma Government, and finally chairman of the Indian States Committee of 1928-29.”   The Times, 3 March 1938

“I have deliberately not provided significant commentary or interpretation in the text, but in my editing of Harcourt Butler papers, I have attempted to draw out the important facts and themes of Sir Harcourt’s writings, which highlight his life and career. I have attempted to let Sir Harcourt speak for himself, and I hope I have succeeded. Readers who intend to research the original Butler papers on EUR F116 will be able to do so by using the text of this book to cross-reference and identify the original papers on the file.”  Michael Macnamara

Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler’s file in the British Library comprises extensive personal correspondence and a range of official papers donated by his family in the 1960s. He did not keep a diary. These papers are mostly filed by subject matter or correspondent. In Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler: A Master Governor in British India (1890–1928), Michael Macnamara has ordered these materials chronologically to reveal “a rich life history dating from his youth, in effect a hybrid diary or a form of Sir Harcourt Butler’s autobiography, which in fact he did commence but not complete prior to his death in 1938”.

Macnamara, in what has clearly been a labour of love, profiles Butler as an “especially gifted and talented member of the elite administrative corps of British India known as the Indian Civil Service (ICS)”. Macnamara emphasises that:

“In Sir Harcourt’s time in India, from 1890 to 1927, this elite numbered around 1,000 men who administered an Indian population increasing from approximately 300 million in 1900 to 400 million by 1947. When Sir Harcourt was appointed to the ICS in 1888, aged 19, such a career was highly regarded and sought after. Candidates sat examinations of a very high standard, set by the Civil Service Commission, which were designed to ensure only the very best men were sent to India. Harcourt had been educated at Harrow and served his ICS probation at Balliol College, Oxford. Interestingly, as shall be seen, Harcourt’s performance at Harrow was not entirely promising and did not give a strong early indication of his outstanding abilities, which, when fully applied, were to take him, in due course, to the very top of an administrative elite.”

Several years ago, while endeavouring to uncover connections between Assistant District Superintendent of Police Eric Blair aka George Orwell (1903-1950) and the Governor of Burma, Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler (1869-1938) whose careers overlapped in the 1920s, I accessed the trove of personal and professional documents found at EUR F116. These original Butler papers fascinated me but I just did not have the time to intellectually grapple with the materials (which one was not permitted to photograph and were quite scattered). Macnamara’s chronological history of Harcourt Butler’s life and career was the guide I needed back then when it became apparent that no “biographical work with respect to Butler [had] been completed”.

 

It quickly became evident that there are many interesting letters and documents I missed while researching at the British Library that Macnamara lists in this book. For example, Butler’s early observations on the British sanctioned opium trade reveal his pragmatism. In April 1891, he wrote about the “terrible sight … people can hardly keep body and soul together… there is no doubt it is a most damnable drug” but concluded:

“…it is foolish to attack the government for growing opium … a revenue which could not possibly be replaced and if we did not supply it inferior and more poisonous stuff would be got from China and elsewhere”.

He was highly critical of the review of the trade by the Opium Commission believing it to be largely driven by British philanthropic opinion. Butler believed that medical opinion confirmed that “opium taken in moderation is not only harmless but beneficial”.  He quickly came to the opinion that if opium was banned, then a more dangerous illegal drug trade would develop than existed in the currently licensed opium dens, and there almost certainly would be considerable domestic unrest. A justification for the government’s involvement in the opium trade, in Butler’s view, was that it could control the quality and hence the “safety” of what was being supplied. Macnamara points out that the “overwhelming issue for Butler was a balanced budget, and this view would have been in accord with his superiors”.  One imagines that Orwell’s father, Richard Walmesley Blair, an Opium Agent in India in the period 1875-1911 would have held the same opinion.

Like Orwell, Harcourt Butler was a voracious reader and I noted that his unpublished writings, letters and scrapbooks reveal a man with an unquenchable intellectual curiosity and thirst for wisdom. During the period 1923-1927, he made notes (if only Orwell had done the same thing) about his reading, which included: Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, Emerson, Shelley, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Sterne, Stevenson, Hobbes, Dickinson, Pascal and much more besides. He was fond of Bacon and Montaigne’s essays and studied the Talmud. He clipped articles from newspapers about the loss of wildlife in Burma and revealed an environmental consciousness by expressing his concerns. He made notes on other themes as diverse as sedition and friendship, leadership and marriage.

Butler’s musing over a quote from The Romany Rye (1857) by George Burrow about the “characteristics” of a “Gentleman” are interesting when reflecting on Orwell’s own values, especially concerning decency. Burrow is quoted suggesting these characteristics include “high feeling—a determination never to take a cowardly advantage of another—a liberal education—absence of narrow views—generosity and courage, propriety of behaviour”. When I read the quote, carefully copied out in Butler’s hand, it caused me to remember a passage Orwell wrote about an experience during the Spanish Civil War:

“Some of our aeroplanes were coming over. At this moment a man, presumably carrying a message to an officer, jumped out of the trench and ran along the top of the parapet in full view. He was half-dressed and was holding up his trousers with both hands as he ran. I refrained from shooting at him. It is true that I am a poor shot and unlikely to hit a running man at a hundred yards, and also that I was thinking chiefly about getting back to our trench while the Fascists had their attention fixed on the aeroplanes. Still, I did not shoot partly because of that detail about the trousers. I had come here to shoot at ‘Fascists’; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a ‘Fascist’, he is visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him.”

Many of the notes made while searching through Butler’s papers were necessarily brief. One pamphlet that caught my eye, was one Harcourt Butler published in 1923 (“for private circulation only”) A Big Game Shoot in Upper Burma. Macnamara describes the detail:

“On 15 May, Harcourt and a party of eight departed Maymyo for an extended 10- day shooting and fishing holiday on the Pidaung Plains in the Myitkyina district and on the Kaukkwe Chaung River in the Katha and Bhamo districts. This expedition involved the preparation of a nine page detailed programme for the Governor, a special train, boats and barges to carry the party. Later that year, Butler had a 36- page account expedition published in Rangoon by the government printers for private circulation.”

I had also noted that a correspondent (the letterhead indicated one living in Balmoral Castle) later wrote and told Butler:

“The diary of your big game shoot was so interesting that the king, after reading it, kept it to add to his sporting library.” 

Macnamara names the correspondent as Lord Stamfordham, the King’s Private Secretary.

Burma (1923-1927)

The teenage Orwell docked in Rangoon late November 1922 and departed Burma, never to return, on the 14th July 1927. Harcourt Butler commenced his governorship on the 2nd January 1923 and delivered a farewell speech on the 8th December 1927. While reading through his papers, it occurred to me that Harcourt Butler had exactly the sort of stellar career Orwell’s parents would have hoped for their own son, who they had provided with excellent educational opportunities at St Cyprian’s and Eton in preparation for imperial service.

Chapter 7 of Macnamara’s book was of the most interest and use for my research purposes. Sadly, it also revealed that I had not missed any documents pertaining to my search to uncover connections between Orwell and Butler.

One of the reasons why I was scouring the Butler papers was for a particular speech, which turned out to be a red herring. I had been led astray by one of Orwell’s biographers into believing Probationary Assistant District Superintendent Eric Blair was present when Butler delivered a talk (this was not the case) to the new recruits joining the Indian Imperial Police. There was also a number of other clues to be investigated which suggested they may have met.

My research had uncovered that Eric Seeley, Orwell’s friend and fellow Etonian, was good friends with Butler’s Private Secretary, Frank Fearnley-Whittingstall, who was to become Commissioner of Police in Rangoon. Seeley and Fearnley-Whittingstall continued their friendship and stayed in contact while living in London after the war.

Butler enjoyed horse-racing and was popular for supporting the sport in Rangoon. Seeley, who lived in the city from 1920-1936, was the Assistant Secretary of the Turf Club and regularly wrote articles about the racing for the Rangoon Gazette. He was also a judge at the course, which had become an important meeting place for the British, Chinese, Burmese and Bengali elites.

In the 1927 publication, Who’s Who in Burma*, Fearnley-Whittingstall is listed as “Private Secretary to H.E. Sir Harcourt Butler, Rangoon”. The pamphlet includes several individuals well-known to Orwell scholars, including Major Wellborne O.B.E., I.A, Clyve G Stewart (Indian Police Service) and even, a little inexplicably, Orwell’s fellow new recruit, Roger Beadon (Assistant Superintendent of Police).

I found photos of Butler at the races but there was nothing about Seeley or Fearnley-Whittingstall in Butler’s archival materials. Disappointingly, this is now confirmed by Macnamara’s book, which seems odd, as one would have thought there’d have been some mention of his private secretary in some capacity.

* Students of Burmese Days will note the following entry: “Maung, U On (Managing Proprietor of Messrs. U Po Kyin & Co.)”. It has always been assumed that Orwell’s character in the novel, U Po Kyin, was named after a Burmese officer who was at the Police Training School in Mandalay. However, it would be worth finding out more about U Po Kyin & Co.

A biography?

Macnamara intended for Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler: A Master Governor in British India (1890–1928) to be “a contemporary reflection taken directly from the written record, uncensored” to avoid “an overlay of an author’s interpretation and perhaps some form of ideological bias”. The author believes that “in many ways, it might reasonably be claimed that this is a superior methodological approach, as it allows the reader direct access to Butler’s narrative”. Of course, Macnamara’s own bias – in selection and framing of his subject – is evident. There are two voices, Harcourt Butler’s and the author’s. Contemporary criticism of Butler rarely features.

Macnamara’s hope – that his “work were to be the inspiration for a detailed biography of one of British India’s greatest administrators” – is one I share. I too, when trawling through Harcourt Butler’s archive found him an extraordinarily impressive figure. However, I suspect that such a deeply unfashionable subject, a Great Man serving the British Empire, may not find a biographer any time soon!

REFERENCES

Borrow, George, The Romany Rye, London: John Murray, 1857

Butler, Sir Harcourt (patron), Who’s Who in Burma: A Biographical Record Of Prominent Residents Of Burma With Photographs & Illustrations, Calcutta & Rangoon: The Indo-Burma Publishing Company, 1927

Meyers, Jeffrey, “New Light on Burma”, The London Magazine, October-November 2021, pp108-117.

Moore, Darcy, “Orwell in Burma: The Two Erics”, George Orwell Studies (2021) Vol. 5, No. 2 pp. 6-24 https://www.academia.edu/49214143/Orwell_in_Burma_The_Two_Erics