The Henson Journals

[178]

Monday, May 5th, 1919.

The post brought a letter from the officer, Jones, who wrote from Italy some while ago offering to prepare a bibliography of "The Naked Truth". He has returned, & desires to carry out his purpose. Some portions of the bibliography were enclosed: he thought a day in the British Museum would enable him to complete it. After breakfast I walked to 99 St Martin's Lane, and agreed with Chatto and Windus to include this addition. Then after assisting Ella in packing our property for removal to the Deanery at St Paul's, I went to the Athenaeum, and, finding Gamble there, took him straightway for a walk. I pressed on him the importance of speaking in the Lower House tomorrow, but he seems rather timorous.Then I went on to Dean's Yard, and called on Gow. I found him on the sofa with a sprained ankle. He goes into a nursing home for an operation for cataract. This sounds as if he might possibly regain his sight. I walked back to the Hotel, and, after lunching, paid the reckoning (£18.16.8 for one week!)[^.^] We drove to Westminster, & deposited my robes at the Convocation House. Then Ella went off with the luggage, and I to the Club. We met again at tea with Mrs Gow: and then I attended the Joint Committee on the Reform of Convocation.

[179]

The Brotherhood dined at the Deanery. It was a pleasant party – Pearce, Charles, de Candole, Barnes, Ralph, and myself. We discussed the question of a Royal Commission, and various names were suggested as possible commissioners. Asquith, as Chairman, was generally approved. The 2 archbishops, & perhaps Bishop Gore & another Bishop to balance him: Prof. E. W. Watson (Oxford), Prof. Bethune Baker (Cambridge): Sir Henry Hadow, Sir Edward Clarke, the Provost of Eton, Lord Haldane – this would be eleven commissioners, 5 laymen and 6 ecclesiastics. Other names suggested were Lord Justice Bankes, & Ld Justice Atkins: and to these might be added Lord Muir Mackenzie, though he is at present too decrepit for anything. Such a Commission would represent Law, Church, & History. Probably there ought to be some representative of the House of Commons, and some Labour man. Clynes might serve for the latter, and for the former anybody would serve provided he were neither a Cecil, nor a Talbot, nor a Lyttleton, nor a Palmer. But I doubt whether Lloyd George will have sufficient care for the Establishment to take a step which would be friendly to it: his antecedents point rather to some action in the other direction.

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