John Barnes, Historian

Sir Leigh Maclachlan (1864-1946)

Maclachlan completed a long and not unsuccessful career in the Conservative Party organisation as its Principal Agent in succession to Sir Herbert Blain. He was the first former agent to hold the post and that fact played some part at least in J.C.C. Davidson’s decision to appoint him. In retrospect it seems clear that the appointment is best seen as a reward for past services and for Davidson a way of symbolising of the importance of the profession. He denied that he ever saw it as a long-term appointment, but there have been suspicions, probably unjustified, that the real reason for Maclachlan’s resignation in 1928 was the discovery that he was still involved in the sale of honours. There is no reason, however, to doubt Davidson’s own account of both his decision to appoint Maclachlan or for requiring his resignation.

Thomas James Leigh Maclachlan was born at Barrhead in Renfrewshire in 1864, the son of the Reverend Ivie M Maclachlan. He was educated at Ayr Academy and was a Cowan scholar at Glasgow University, subsequently attending Edinburgh University also.

He joined the staff of the Liberal Unionist Association in 1887 and almost immediately was actively engaged in political organisation in Wales as its representative 1888-9. Subsequently he moved to Lancashire and the North-West of England as the district agent for Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumberland. His success as an organiser led to an offer from Cecil Rhodes, which was not taken up, to transfer his activities to southern Africa. Instead he continued to work for the Liberal Unionists as agent superintendent for their council 1905-12. One of his more delicate coups was securing the retirement of Bertram Falle in favour of Lord Charles Beresford in 1909 when it was thought the latter should fight the forthcoming Portsmouth bye-election. Maclachlan was appointed visiting agent for the Central Office in 1912. After eight years in that post, Younger appointed him chief organising agent of the Conservative party in 1920.

Maclachlan’s expertise was clearly valued by those who took an interest in election campaigning and he was amongst those who felt, correctly, in October 1922 that the Conservatives would do better in opposition to all other parties rather than in coalition and would win a clear majority.1 Davidson told the author that he “was an old Liberal Unionist of great cunning and ability, but not with any great personality or presence. He was a very shrewd election agent.”2 When Blain stood down, Davidson, who had decided to divide information and publicity from the duties of the Chief Agent, promoted Maclachlan. He reasoned that it was important to give agents a sense that they could aspire to reach to top of the organisation, and he knew that Maclachlan was near retirement and rapidly becoming deaf so that he could not expect to remain long in the post. He was clearly uneasy about the appointment and was warned by Dame Caroline Bridgeman that Maclachlan lacked enthusiasm about the increasingly important part played by women in the party’s work. At the time Davidson thought that his negative attitude was “due to loyalty to Blain rather than anything else” but, as he explained to Dame Caroline, he regarded the appointment as “a reward for long and faithful service. M will pass the Chair in two or three months, having I hope done work which no one alive is so fitted to do as he is, to strengthen the organization throughout the country to stand the strain in two years’ time.”3 Nevertheless, when recommending Maclachlan’s appointment to Baldwin, he added: “If you are agreeable I would propose to attach to the appointment certain definite conditions, the chief of which will be that he shall vacate the appointment when in my judgement the appropriate time has come for him to do so.”4 Baldwin announced his appointment as Principal Agent on 31 December 1926, but he was in post for little more than a year.

Davidson had made Maclachlan responsible to him directly for the organisational side of the party but not for information and propaganda, which he chracterised as Operations. When he completed his initial reorganization of Central Office in April-May 1927, Operations were confided to Joseph Ball and Lord Strathcona was made deputy Chairman to supervise the organisational side of the office, which dealt with the appointment, control and discipline of agents, the selection of candidates and the allocation of speakers. Although Maclachlan was knighted in 1927, Davidson was increasingly in despair at what he termed “M’s attitude” – this may have more to do with his reluctance to recognise the importance of the women’s organisation than the want of energy and originality others detected. Davidson suggested that Baldwin should seek from him reports on the work of the party in the hope that this might buck up his ideas, but by the turn of the year, he had enough. On 17 January 1928, he wrote to Stanley about the need for a happy, cohesive team in Central Office in terms that speak for themselves: “I believe that Mac’s methods make such a cohesive team an impossibility. He is unpopular with Members of Parliament, and he is regarded with disfavour with some and with ridicule by others of the Executive of the National Union and the leaders of the Party in the country. It was generally recognised that he was appointed as a stop-gap, and the date at which he vactes his post is entirely within my discretion to decide. That was one of the conditions of his appointment. I have come to the conclusion that his undoubted detailed knowledge of persons and practice of our Party organisation is counter-balanced and even outweighed by his lack of courage and initiative and his ineradicable love for intrigues.”5 Some of this may be put down to snobbery – neither Neville Chamberlain nor Younger thought it would be right to appoint another agent in Maclachlan’s place - but it seems likely that Maclachlan disliked the further changes to the organisation which Davidson had in mind and which were endorsed by the report of Lord Stanley’s committee on 20 December 1927, not least because they would have downgraded the role of the Principal Agent. He was also known to be unhappy at the way in which Central Office agents were interfering in the constituencies, and this may have something to do with his attitude to Davidson’s efforts to promote the role of women within the party organisation. While Maclachlan agreed with Marjorie Maxse that the women should have a separate organisation in each constituency, he may well have been reluctant to see them given equal status at every level of the party from the constituency executive to the Executive Council of the National Union.

Maclachlan wrote to Baldwin to resign, adding with some pathos that he had expected to be allowed to take charge of at least one General Election campaign, and on 1 February 1928, Topping was asked to take his place with a somewhat reduced role. In his formal letter of resignation on 8 February 1928, Maclachlan gave as his ground for retirement the unwisdom of him facing the strain of a general election in the following year, and Baldwin in reply wrote that he was sure he had taken the right course, although naturally it would be a wrench severing his connexion with the party. He added a word of personal appreciation for the “devoted services you have rendered to me and my predecessors for so long a period of time”.6

Younger made a small retirement presentation to him of antique plate on 12 June 1928 in the House of Lords, but, significantly perhaps, there is no record that any of the party’s leaders or the Chairman of the party organisation were present.

It is unlikely that his supposed association with the activities of Maundy Gregory played any part in his departure, but it may have confirmed Davidson’s belief that his decision was the right one. The allegation has aroused some controversy. Alistair Cooke claimed in the Daily Telegraph on 30 December 2003 that Gregory was abetted by a senior party official in the person of Maclachlan and by Waterhouse at No 10. Evidence that this was the case had been collected for the deeply-troubled Chairman of the Conservative party Organisation. Maclachlan’s granddaughters responded vigorously, pointing out that the sale of honours was not made illegal until 1925, that Maclachlan was Principal Agent for a year only and that he was by reputation “a man of great probity, almost fastidiously so”.7 However, Cooke was able to point to a confidential memorandum in the Conservative Party Archives written by Sir Joseph Ball for Davidson, the party chairman, on May 8, 1928 which contains a detailed account of Maclachlan's efforts to extract £10,000 from one Broadbridge, who wanted a knighthood. Ball declared that he was "satisfied that Broadbridge is to be believed, and that Maclachlan, without your knowledge or mine, has been working in close association with Maundy Gregory regarding the sale of honours".8 Anne Wightman promptly changed tack, noting that Ball himself was the subject of “more than one unproved allegation - namely, that he leaked the damaging but forged "Zinoviev letter" just before Labour's election defeat of 1924 and that, as head of MI5's investigation branch, he ran agents inside Labour before the 1929 election. He has good claims to be a pioneer of spin-doctoring.”9 However, given the dating it is unlikely that Ball’s accusation had anything to with his own earlier aspiration to succeed Maclachlan or with Maclachlan’s enforced resignation.

Maclachlan retained a close interest in politics and occasional letters from him appeared in the press, mainly in The Times, which recalled past moments of party history; but he was also quick to find apt historic analogies to vindicate positions that he wished to defend, most notably his opposition to any thoughts of a negotiated peace in 1940.

Some business opportunities came after he had retired. By December 1928 he was reported to be the Chairman of SDH Pianos Ltd and of Pearl Automatic Machines Ltd, a company formed in December 1928 to offer for sale confectionery in Pascalls Automatic machines.

Maclachlan had married Edith Osborne and they had two daughters.

He died at his home in Princes Avenue, Muswell Hill, on 1 March 1946 and a brief obituary appeared in The Times on 2 March 1946 which was clearly derived from his entry in Who’s Who.