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Haileybury College was then under the headmastership of Edward Lyttelton. There I stayed for five years, going up the school slowly and eventually becoming, in my last year, a prefect and a member of the Lower Sixth. In those days all boys who reached the Sixth, unless under sixteen, automatically became prefects. It was no doubt a good training for a young boy to have to keep order in a dormitory of forty-two boys.

Conditions were a good deal more primitive than they are today. For instance, there were only two baths for eighty boys; the rest used zinc “toepans.” Our sanitary needs were taken care of by three rows of earth closets illuminated in the evenings by one feeble gas-jet in each row. Many of the form rooms opened straight onto the quadrangle. In winter one either froze or roasted according to one’s geographical position between the fire and the door. Forks and spoons were washed by being thrown in a large tub of hot water and stirred with a brush; hence the well-justified warning, “Never smell a college spoon.”

I was on the classical side but never became a classical scholar, though I knew enough to pass “Smalls” at Oxford. I was, however, above the average in English subjects, largely due to home influence, especially history, for which I have always had a great liking. I also scored in general knowledge exams. Mathematics and French were not greatly considered on the classical side, and the hours devoted to them were regarded rather as a relaxation from the hard grind of Latin and Greek. If I could have anticipated the future, I should have worked hard at French, which I now often have to employ. My housemaster, F. W. Headley, was a considerable scientist, but for some reason the subject failed to attract me, and I recognize here a great deficiency in my knowledge.

We had a first-rate history lecturer in the Reverend W. D. Penning. His lectures were really stimulating, setting one’s mind on inquiry. Another master, the Reverend L. S. Milford, was keen on English literature and ran a Shakespeare Reading Society to which I belonged for three years. These two men probably influenced me most.

Another outstanding master was “Pongo” Vaughan of the Upper Fifth. He was a great student of military history. When we suffered a series of defeats in the opening stages of the Boer War we in his form had to watch our steps, for he felt these disasters acutely. One peculiarity he displayed was a frequent lapse into spoonerisms. For instance, he was telling a war story and related, “The poor soldier was lying on the ground when the Afghan came up and discharged the contents of his body into his rifle.” On another occasion he said, “Yes, my young friend, I know all about you; I’ve got your father’s drawers in my letter upstairs.” His parting words to me when I told him that I was going to the Bar and that my father, being a solicitor, would be helpful, were, “Yes, my friend, but in these days a man must stand on his own feet and sit on his own bottom.” He was a great character.

I saw little of the headmaster as I never rose above the Lower Sixth.

There was one feature of our life at Haileybury which differed from that at most public schools. There was not a great segregation into Houses. The whole school, except for the boys of one House, took their meals together, and thus one met at table boys from other Houses. Similarly, in my day it was possible, and indeed usual, to share a four-roomed study with boys from another House. I have often found that I had a wider acquaintance among my schoolfellows than is usual in public schools.

We were not well fed and we supplemented the diet from our own resources. Bread and butter for breakfast and tea needed the reinforcement of jam and marmalade from home. Later the food was more generous. The hiatus between dinner at one-thirty and tea at six-forty-five was filled by afternoon tea in the study. On Saturdays and Sundays there was “the study grub,” when quantities of porridge, muffins, sausages, and bacon were cooked on the study fire and consumed by us. This early introduction to the art of cookery proved useful in later life.

I played games keenly but without distinction. Proficiency in games was almost essential if one desired to be prominent in the school, and our heroes were those who excelled at cricket and football. The school rifle corps had a high reputation. Indeed, when Lord Wantage offered a bugle in a competition of all the Public School Corps, Haileybury won it three times in succession. In the summer term younger boys not big enough for the corps were enrolled in the juniors and drilled with ancient Snider rifles. I belonged to the junior, and subsequently to the senior, corps throughout my schooldays, going to camp at Aldershot in my later years.

There used to be a good many lectures and entertainments. I recall a lecture on William Morris just after his death with the title, “Morris the Poet, Morris the Upholsterer, Morris the Socialist.” I already knew of Morris the Poet, but Morris the Socialist was news to me. It made little impression at the time. Another lecture was on the break-up of the Austrian Empire. I remember too an early demonstration of wireless telegraphy, and a meeting in which the founding of a boys’ club in East London was explained to us by Lionel Curtis (whom I was years later to recommend for the Companionship of Honour for his distinguished services in the field of political science) and Cecil Nussey, of whom I shall write later.

I remember very well as an outstanding event the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. My brother and I went up to London and saw the procession, which was an expression of the British Empire at the height of its power and prosperity.

In my last two years at Haileybury the Boer War was in progress, and the school as a whole was imperialist. The influence of Rudyard Kipling was very strong, especially as the school had a great tradition of service in the Army and the Indian Civil Service.

The only time that I was caned was when—on the refusal of Lyttelton, the headmaster, to give us a holiday to celebrate the relief of Ladysmith—the majority of the school marched down to the neighbouring town of Hertford and indulged in a patriotic demonstration. I was one of the seventy-two who were caned that evening by Lyttelton, who was suspected of having Boer sympathies. Prefects were too old, and the Lower and Middle Schools too young and perhaps too numerous, to be punished, so we of the Upper School expiated the sins of the rest.

I belonged to the school Antiquarian Society and, through its meetings, got some acquaintance with architecture and archæology. In my last year I was a member of the Literary and Debating Society. I spoke occasionally in the debates but was then, and for many years later, afflicted with a most painful shyness, so that to do anything in public was a torture to me. I was always a rapid and voracious reader and used to read about four books a week at school.

My brother Laurence came to Haileybury in 1898 and my brother Tom departed for Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1899. My elder brothers had been at Oriel and Merton, and it was decided that I should go to University College. Two other Haileyburians, Charles Bailey, now Canon Bailey, and George Day, were also to go there, while another close friend, Owen de Wesselow, subsequently a distinguished medical professor, was to go to Corpus. There were no school certificates in those days, and we enjoyed the experience of going to Oxford and staying in College for the matriculation examination known as “Smalls.” Looking back on my schooldays, there were lights and shadows, but the lights predominated, and I have always had a devotion to my old school.

As I have recounted, the family used to go away every August for a holiday, generally to the seaside, but once on the River Thames at South Stoke, where we indulged in much boating under the guidance of my elder brothers just down from Oxford. However, in 1896 my father bought a country house with a good deal of land attached, in the village of Thorpe-le-Soken in Essex, and henceforward we took our holidays there. The old red-brick house had been built by a Huguenot refugee, Captain Comarques, and was called after him. It was subsequently owned by Arnold Bennett, the famous writer, and is now the property of Lord Fairfax. I can recall many pleasant days there, with country occupations, rabbit shooting and ferreting, cricket with the village team, and much bicycling, for the days of the motorcar were still to come. My father enjoyed the country very much, for, despite his long years in the City, he was in his heart a countryman. On Sunday mornings at Putney the same countryman’s interest led him to take us for walks before church round the market gardens which then lay between Putney and Wandsworth.

We entertained a good many visitors at Comarques, including an old family friend, Joseph Sturge, of the famous Birmingham Quaker family. My first visit abroad, in January 1899, was due to him. He took me to Switzerland for a fortnight, and we stayed near Montreux. He was the son of the famous anti-slavery man and free-trader, and was a most interesting companion, opening one’s mind to new ideas.

The coming of the motorcar has, of course, made great changes in country life, and I am glad that I had the opportunity of seeing it in the days when villages were still fairly isolated and when horse transport or the bicycle reigned supreme on the dusty roads. It was part of Victorian England soon to pass away, an England we took for granted, something as fixed and immutable as Queen Victoria. Her death in 1901 was a tremendous shock. She had reigned so long and had become a symbol of her age.

In the autumn term of 1901 I went up to University College, Oxford, lodging in “the High” with Bailey and Day, as, owing to rebuilding, there was not room for all the Freshers in College.

Oxford at the turn of the century was still a quiet place. In William Morris’s words, “a long winding street and the sound of many bells.” The other William Morris, who was to become a leader in the motorcar industry, was still working in his bicycle shop in Long Wall. Cowley was a small suburb, and Headington a mere village on a lonely road. The old horse-trams plied down “the High” and up the Woodstock and Banbury roads. We were driven to and from the station by the lordly Oxford hansom, sometimes in the care of the famous “Trinity cabby” whose resounding “Just another little one, Oxford” used to be heard across the rugger ground. The Victorian Age had only just ended, and there was little apprehension of the troubles that lay ahead when civilization enshrined in Oxford was to be assailed by the barbarians—Hitler and Stalin.

Oxford has been described by so many more competent writers that I shall not attempt to emulate them, but it is difficult to overestimate the abiding influence that it has had upon me. Usually in life one is either looking forward to the future or backward to the past, so that it is seldom that one says to oneself, “What a glorious time I am having.” But I can recall that very often this thought came to me as I walked past the old grey buildings. In later years I often sought to recapture the magic of those days and of that city.

University College had some hundred and forty undergraduates—in my view just about the right size. It was at this time a leading college. We were “head of the river,” provided the captains of both rugger and soccer teams, and were, in fact, well represented in every form of sport. We had two presidents of the Union in my first year and several distinguished scholars. There was no division between athletes and scholars. Several of my contemporaries were both “blues” and first-class honours men. I very soon made a number of close friends and had, besides, a wide circle of less intimate acquaintances, for we were a very sociable college. And through my brother Tom and my friend Owen de Wesselow I had a great many friends in Corpus.

Mr. Attlee as a freshman at Oxford.

I spent three exceedingly happy years at Oxford. I was, I think, rather young for my age and was quite prepared to take life easily and as it came. I played all games but without distinction, amused myself on the river, especially on the upper river, sailing boats, and savoured to the full all the joys of Oxford. On Sundays Tom and I would go for long walks, lunching in country inns and often ending up at Wolvercote, where my brother Bernard was vicar.

My bent at that time was wholly romantic. I delighted in poetry and in history, which was “the school” I had chosen for my degree. I did not read for “schools” with any great assiduity, being beguiled into all kinds of miscellaneous reading not strictly germane to the course I was studying. My special period was the Renaissance, and I took the Italian “special” and steeped myself in these fascinating subjects.

I attended some debates at the Union but was much too shy to try to speak there. In fact, my only essay in speaking was at the College Debating Society, where I championed protection against the late Sir Basil Blackett, who stood for free trade. The tariff controversy had just broken out and was hotly debated; my history tutor, Arthur Johnson, often animadverted on Joseph Chamberlain’s heresy. He was not a very inspiring teacher. Indeed, the teachers of history at Oxford at that time—Sir Charles Oman, J. A. R. Marriott, C. R. L. Fletcher, and E. Armstrong—were rather dull. In later years I was to cross swords in the House of Commons with the two first named. The exception was Ernest Barker, then a young don, to whom I went in my last year. He was indeed the only don who made much impression on me.

Oxford was at that time predominantly Conservative, though there was a strong Liberal group, notably at Balliol, which counted among its undergraduates such men as R. H. Tawney and William Temple, the future archbishop, whose influence on socialist thought was in later years to be so great. Socialism was hardly spoken of, although Sidney Ball at St. John’s and A. J. Carlyle at my own College kept the light burning. I cannot recall any great discussion on the subject among my friends, although there was a great deal of interest in social reform. At that time the Labour Representation Committee, which was to develop into the Labour party, had only just been formed. Keir Hardie was the only Labour Member of Parliament. The Liberals were still engaged in internecine warfare as the result of the Boer War controversy. Conservatism reigned supreme, with Joseph Chamberlain as the dynamic leader.

I was at this time a Conservative but I did not take any active part in politics. I never belonged to any political club. There were also a number of societies seeking support from undergraduates, especially in the religious field, but I was not attracted, though a number of my closest friends belonged to them. Several of them became parsons and two of them bishops.

Some of my friends were interested in the University Settlements—Oxford House and Toynbee Hall and, especially, the Oxford and Bermondsey Mission. In particular, Alec Paterson, the future prison reformer, was a very strong influence among the younger men. I attended some meetings but remained uninterested. I think I had adopted a rather common pose of cynicism. I certainly gave no real thought to social problems, and I had no political ambitions. My general idea was to find some way of earning my living that would enable me to follow the kind of literary and historical subjects that interested me.

I had begun to “eat dinners” at the Inner Temple with a view to being called to the Bar. It seemed a fairly obvious course to take. My father was a solicitor, and therefore I might look to some help at the start. No doubt at times I dreamed of a successful career in the Law.

I have said that my father was a Liberal in politics, but he was also a Liberal in the wider sense. He never sought to impose his views on his children, nor did he show the least resentment that I was opposed to him politically, whether as a Tory or a Socialist. In the same spirit he brought no pressure to bear on his children in the choice of a profession. Everyone had to choose for himself. He would give us any help, but the choice must be ours. He was, I think, a very able man and also an extremely generous one. Although he had a large family to maintain, he assisted a great number of his relatives, some of whom had only a remote claim on him.

My tutor thought that I might get a First in “schools,” but in the event I got a Second with which I was quite content. I left Oxford with an abiding love of the city and the University and especially for my own College, which has, through the years, shown me much kindness, including making me an Honorary Fellow. I was deeply appreciative of the honour conferred upon me in 1943 when a portion of one of my speeches was set for translation into Latin prose in a scholarship paper for a group of the Oxford Colleges. The speech was one I made in the House of Commons in 1938 on a motion for the erection within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster of a bust of Asquith.

During my time at Oxford I made three visits to the Continent. The first was to the South of France where my maternal uncle and three aunts were staying at St. Jean de Luz. I stayed with them there and also at Pau and Argelès. I recall visiting Lourdes, which struck me as very tawdry with an atmosphere of an Earls Court exhibition. I also crossed the border into Spain and saw the old castle at Fuenterrabia.

The following year I had a holiday with my parents and Laurence in Belgium. Our house in Essex was within driving distance of the embarkation port of Harwich, which made continental journeys easy. We stayed at Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent and then went to Dinant in the Ardennes. The next year, with my father and Bernard, I went to Holland, staying at Nijmegen and Utrecht and The Hague. I also visited Germany, staying at Cleve and Cologne—my only visit to that country on a holiday. Twice in those years I visited the English Lake District with de Wesselow and enjoyed rock-climbing on Scawfell. I also went to Cornwall on a walking tour down the north coast with Laurence.

In 1904 this pleasant time came to an end, and I started work in London, reading in chambers with Sir Philip Gregory, one of the leading conveyancing counsels of that day. He was quite a hard taskmaster, and his pupils were expected to know the documents very thoroughly. My father thought that I ought also to get some experience of common law work, and after a year in Lincoln’s Inn I went as a pupil to Theobald Mathew, who was an old family friend. Lord Robert Cecil, with whom I was later to collaborate in support of world peace, was the K.C. (King’s Counsel) in the chambers, and I did some work for him. I recall getting my first fee by drafting a bill for the Licensed Victuallers’ Association. I also worked for Lord Cecil on the celebrated Norfolk Peerage case, and on the strength of it reviewed a book on peerage law with all the assurance of youth. The third occupant of the chambers was Malcolm Macnaghten, later a fellow member of the House of Commons and a High Court Judge. Theobald Mathew was a great character, full of humour—as all who have read his Forensic Fables will agree—and I had an enjoyable time working with him.

I had passed my Bar examinations without difficulty while in Gregory’s chambers and was called in 1905.

While I was with Mathew a vacancy occurred in the office of either the Charity or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for a conveyancer. Gregory was asked to recommend someone and proposed me for the job. I should probably have got it had it not been found that I lacked some months of standing at the Bar. So near was I to settling down to a respectable permanent job.

When I finished my time as a pupil I went into chambers in which Sir H. F. Dickens, son of the novelist, was the K.C. I joined the “home” circuit and went round assizes and sessions, but only once got a brief. In London, also, I had only two or three briefs. I became tired of doing nothing and my interest in the Law was, to put it mildly, very tepid.

I was at this time living at home in Putney. I learned to ride, an acquisition that proved useful when I joined the Army in the First World War. I also shared a shoot in Sussex with some of my father’s friends, but I was never very keen on field sports. I used to spend a good deal of time practising billiards, the only game in which I have shown any proficiency.

The first year after I came down from Oxford passed pleasantly enough. I belonged to a literary club formed by my brother Tom and some of his friends at which papers were read and discussed. Its membership was largely made up of young civil servants but also included E. G. V. Knox, the future editor of Punch, and Professor Baynes, the authority on the Byzantine Empire.

This, then, was the pattern of my days when in October 1905 an event occurred that was destined to alter the whole course of my life.