The Henson Journals

[181]

Thursday, September 25th, 1919.

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The weather, which had been very cold, suddenly became very warm. I spent the whole morning in writing letters, & in continuing work on the Anson Memoir. In the afternoon I walked with Ernest as far as Belmont, where we looked at the Roman Catholic Cathedral.

Hardly had we returned before Mr Wardle M.P. arrived. He was to put up at the Palace for the night. He is a short little man, inclining to stoutness, & rather insignificant in appearance. He has, however, an ample brow, and an intelligent eye. He talks very sensibly. He was a "half–timer" at 8 years old, worked in a mill, then was clerk on the Railway, then became editor of the Railwaymen's Journal, came into Parliament in 1906, and now is Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade. He told me that from his childhood he had been an omnivorous reader. He has written two volumes of verse, & some works on economic questions. He was born in May, 1865, so that he is my junior by 18 mos. After an early dinner, we went to the Town Hall, which was well filled with men for a meeting to float the Parliament scheme for getting disabled soldiers into employment. Wardle expounded it, & then I spoke. It was quite a good meeting of its kind. I had an hour's talk with Wardle before going to bed. He is, like so many of the Labour leaders, an ex–Wesleyan, & was at one time a local preacher. I noted that he was by no means a total abstainer, having apparently given up that habit when he had qualms about sundry articles of the Wesleyan faith, & came out of the sect.

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