Henry David Leonard George Walston, Baron WalstonCVO, JP (16 June 1912 – 29 May 1991) was a British farmer, agricultural researcher and politician, firstly for the Liberal Party, then for Labour and for the Social Democratic Party.
Walston was born in 1912 to Sir Charles Waldstein (later Walston) and his wife Florence (née Einstein), and was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge.[1] The scion of a wealthy German-American family, he was originally expected to follow his father, a Cambridge don and renowned archaeologist, into academic life, and upon receiving his degree he spent two years at Harvard University as a research fellow in bacteriology.[2] Ultimately, however, he chose to return to England, cultivating his estate in Thriplow, Cambridgeshire (2700 acres), and purchasing land further afield in St Lucia (3000 acres).[2][3]
Walston served as Member of the Huntingdonshire War Agricultural Committee (1939–45), Director of Agriculture for the British Zone of Germany (1946–47), Counsellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1948–50), Agricultural Adviser for Germany to the Foreign Office (1964–67) and Chairman of the Institute of Race Relations (1968–71).
In the early 1940s he was selected as Liberal prospective parliamentary candidate for King's Lynn. In 1945 his booklet From Forces to Farming was published by the Liberal Party. The booklet called for state aided co-operative farming for ex-servicemen.[6] He did not contest King's Lynn, instead switching to contest Huntingdonshire later that year at the general election.
In internal Foreign Office discussion, Walston supported James Cable's line, that the USA should cut its losses in the Vietnam War, and argued that the UK should have a pro-active policy of seeking peace.[11] By the second half of 1965 Walston was in fact pushing this line harder than Cable himself.[12] In June 1966 Walston was passing through South Vietnam on an envoy mission, when he was contacted by Janusz Lewandowski, who said he was acting for the Polish government and attempting to find peace in the Vietnam War. Walston, however, treated this as a freelance approach.[13]
Following Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) Walston was envoy to Portugal, attempting to negotiate an end to sanction-breaking pumping of oil to Southern Rhodesia via Beira, Mozambique.[14] His diplomacy was overtaken by Security Council resolution 221 of 9 April 1966.[15] As a Foreign Office junior minister, Walston argued that the UK government should not grant Rhodesian independence except on terms of majority rule. While Rhodesia was the responsibility of the Commonwealth Relations Office, he maintained that UDI had increased the chances of communist penetration in Africa and that this was a proper concern of the Foreign Office.[16]
On a lecture tour of South Africa in 1968, Walston had private discussions with B. J. Vorster, and as a consequence attempted to open a channel of communication to Kenneth Kaunda.[19] He also visited Nelson MandelaonRobben Island, concluding that he was being well treated by his gaolers. During this period the South African government wished to broker a deal between the UK and Ian Smith, and to use Walston's contacts.[20]
Walston was a member of the Council of Europe between 1970 and 1975, and a Member of the European Parliament from 1975 to 1977. In the period from 1970 to 1976 several Labour politicians met at his apartment in The Albany, eventually forming a retrospectively-christened "Walston group" of pro-European MPs who were supportive of the leading right-wing figure in the party, Roy Jenkins.[21]
Along with most members of that group, Walston joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) upon its foundation in 1981. Unusually for an associate of Jenkins, however, he chose not to support the SDP's merger with the Liberals in 1988, despite his former association with that party; instead he followed David Owen into the newly-formed 'continuing' SDP, becoming its first chief whip in the Lords.[1][22] Walston also became active during this time with the UN-accredited non-governmental organisation Agri-Energy Roundtable, and served as its vice-chairman for several years.
Walston published political pamphlets on agricultural topics:
From Forces to Farming. A Plan for the Ex-Service Man (1944), Liberal Party Publication Department; as prospective Liberal Party candidate for King's Lynn.[23]
Walston married Catherine Crompton (1916–1978) in 1935, in the USA.[29] Oliver Walston, a farmer and agricultural writer, is their second son.[30] From 1946 Catherine was the mistress of the author Graham Greene, who was also her godfather.[31][32] Walston demanded that the adulterous relationship cease after the 1951 publication of The End of the Affair, Greene's roman à clef, but it continued, ending by about 1966.[33] After Catherine's death, Walston married Elizabeth Scott, who had previously been the wife of ConservativeMPNicholas Scott.[34]
Press reports that Betty Boothroyd, who acted as Walston's secretary before herself entering politics, had been his mistress and also cared for his six children by Catherine, were the subject of a successful libel case brought by Boothroyd.[35]
^Lord Walston, Thoughts on Southern Africa, African Affairs Vol. 63, No. 250 (Jan. 1964), pp. 23–31. Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/719760
^"News in Brief." Times [London, England] 3 January 1945: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 8 Sept. 2014.
^"Jenkins to lead SLD", 18 March 1988, The Times, p. 4.
^From Forces to Farming. A Plan for the Ex-Service Man. by Harry Walston. Review by: G. M. R. International Affairs Vol. 21, No. 2 (Apr. 1945), p. 273. Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3016403
^Fabian Society 79th Annual Report, July 1961 – June 1962, p. 15; archive.org.
^Agriculture under Communism, by Lord Walston. Review by: Thomas Barman. International Affairs Vol. 39, No. 1 (Jan. 1963), p. 124. Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2610561