Christopher Bullock
Encyclopedia
Sir Christopher Llewellyn Bullock K.C.B
, C.B.E. (10 November 1891–16 May 1972) was Permanent Under-Secretary at the British Air Ministry from 1931 to 1936. Appointed at the age of 38, he remains one the youngest civil servants to have headed a British Government department.
to Trinity College, Cambridge
from which he graduated in the first division of the first class of the classical tripos in 1913 and was offered a fellowship at Trinity.
After taking first place in the open competition for the Home and Indian Civil Services in 1914, he chose India but at the outbreak of War, he volunteered for service with the Rifle Brigade Special Service. He was one of three officers (and 175 men) of the battalion wounded on the 6th July 1915 during a major attack by the 11th Infantry Brigade on the German trenches near the town of Boesinghe (Boezinge), about 3 miles north of Ypres
. He was seriously wounded and mentioned in dispatches.
, training as an observer and then gaining his wings as a pilot in Egypt before being declared unfit for flying duties in 1917.
He then joined the Air Staff, beginning his work for the Air Ministry, and was appointed O.B.E. in 1919. He was appointed C.B.E. in 1926, C.B.
in 1929 and K.C.B. in 1932.
, then Secretary of State for Air
. From then on until 1930, he served successive Secretaries of State including Sir Samuel Hoare and The Lord Thomson
, fighting with Lord Trenchard, as Trenchard's right hand man on the civilian side, against resistance and powerful forces within Whitehall, and the hostility of the Navy and the Army to the establishment of a permanent independent Royal Air Force
.
On 12 June 1930, the Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald
, agreed to his appointment as Permanent Under-Secretary at the age of 38.
During the 1930s, he worked with great determination under considerable pressure on the expansion of the RAF during the period in which the menace of Nazism rose in Germany. Bullock was personally committed to the policy of expansion and strove, against the pacific temper of the time to awaken public and Parliament to the need to strengthen the RAF to meet the dangers that lay ahead. Even when Churchill was not in government during the 1930s, Bullock supplied him with figures on German air strength which Churchill used in attacking the Government's policy of appeasement
. His supporters included T.E. Lawrence, who wrote in 1934, "Bullock is doing well. I wish he was C.A.S. and the Air Council as well!". His achievements have been justly recognised in the accounts of rearmament and the role of the RAF during the Second World War.
Described as "a man of brilliant youthful academic achievement and manic self regard", and by Trenchard as "the man with the finest brain I ever met with" and one of his own chief advisers, Bullock made powerful enemies - "but not in the Air Ministry!" - as he sought to impose his views of the emerging power of the aeroplane on the Armed Forces and the Government. Among those who took against him was Sir Warren Fisher
, the Head of the Civil Service, who was notorious for his wish to control senior appointments in the Civil Service
and to second-guess defence policy.
The survival of Britain in the Second World War was largely due the foundations that Bullock laid for the vast expansion of the RAF. Of all the Civil Servants known by Lord Hankey, Secretary of the Cabinet, Bullock made by far the greatest creative contribution to the Defence effort. For ten peace time years, Bullock worked as if already at war.
and by his part in creating the Empire Air Mail Scheme
, in which he went as a passenger in one of the early proving flights to India in December 1926. He negotiated overflight and landing rights with South Africa and other African administrations, Australia and India.
In 1929, he participated in early test flights of the Government funded airship, R101
, part of the Imperial Airship Scheme
. He was instrumental in persuading the Secretary of State for Air
, Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson - an enthusiastic proponent of airships - to delay the construction of a larger and more expensive airship, R102
(which would have cost over £2m at contemporary prices - the equivalent of over 150 Spitfire fighters), until R101
had successfully completed its maiden flight to India
. In the event Bullock's caution was justified. R101
crashed only a few hours into its maiden flight, killing Lord Thomson and most of the crew. Shortly afterwards the Government abandoned the Imperial Airship Scheme
.
, on the advice of Sir Warren Fisher
, following the report of a Board of Inquiry into his dealings with Sir Eric Geddes, the Chairman of Imperial Airways
. The Board found that he had abused his position as head of the Ministry in order to seek a place on the Board of Imperial Airways, at a time when his Ministry was negotiating with the company to establish an air mail service – he had "interlaced public negotiations entrusted to him with the advancement of his personal or private interests" but also that "he at no time appreciated the gravity or fully realised the true nature or possible consequences of what he was doing and we consider that his failure to do so goes far to explain, thought it cannot excuse, what has occurred".
As far as is known, he remains the only Permanent Under-Secretary to have been dismissed from the civil service.
After his dismissal, he received thousands of letters of support. His case was taken up in the United States
by Time Magazine, which wrote: "Thus Sir Christopher Bullock had his career broken last week without anything specific being brought out against him. Among British aviators, the view was that Sir Christopher is easily worth ten of the men who investigated and broke him." "The gentlemen of the Air Ministry recently maneuvered Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin into dismissing the only one of its civil servants with a practical grasp of Britain's colossal problems in air rearmament, Sir Christopher Bullock."
On leaving the Civil Service, Bullock went on to pursue a successful career in business, being appointed to the board of a number of public companies.
, wrote letters admitting that their decision had been wrong. Baldwin
later wrote "I feel it only right to say that, if I had had the full evidence before me which has now been made available, I should not have taken the decision I reluctantly did". Writing in November 1937, Lord Hankey stated "the more I think about it the more I feel that the punishment did not fit the crime". In December 1938, the Marquess of Londonderry
- the Secretary of State for Air at the time of the dismissal - wrote privately to Baldwin "...[Bullock] was most unjustly treated and was the victim of the inveterate hatred of a civil servant [Sir Warren Fisher] who should never have been allowed to encompass his downfall, as he undoubtedly did."
In the spring of 1940, the injustice he had suffered was privately recognised when he was offered the Headship of the Petroleum Warfare Department which would have been de facto reinstatement and full restitution. Bullock declined, arguing that he was more valuable to the war effort as an industrialist.
After the war, his case was reviewed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jowitt, who concluded that the case against Bullock would have met if he had been allowed to resign in 1936 as no corruption was alleged – "it was really a case in which his zeal had outrun his discretion". Nonetheless Jowitt advised the Prime Minister Clement Attlee
that he should not alter the decision "after all these years". Accordingly Attlee wrote to confirm Jowitt’s conclusions but Bullock did not regard this as adequate redress.
Viscount Templewood wrote, in 1957, "Whatever may have been the merits of the dispute in which he (Bullock) was then involved - and I may say that I took his side, and that none of the charges in any way affected his honour - the fact remains that by his departure the Air Force lost one of its ablest defenders".
Despite campaigning for many years, Bullock never secured the redress he desired and died in 1972 without any official statement being issued about his treatment.
Public acknowledgment that his dismissal had been mistaken was belatedly made after his death when his Memorial Service at the Central Church of the Royal Air Force, St Clement Danes
was attended by representatives of the Prime Minister, (Victor Goodhew M.P.
), Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
for Defence
(RAF
), (Lord Lambton M.P.
), the Home Civil Service (Permanent Under Secretary of State for the Ministry of Defence, Sir James Dunnett) and the Air Force Board (Air Chief Marshal Sir Edmund Hudleston
and Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood
). The Address was given by The Rt. Hon. Geoffrey Lloyd M.P.
Sir William Armstrong
, Head of the Civil Service at the time of Bullock's death, wrote of "a great personal tragedy which clouded the rest of his life", many considering that "his treatment had been unduly severe", there being "no doubt at any time about his great abilities".
respectively. "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice".
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
, C.B.E. (10 November 1891–16 May 1972) was Permanent Under-Secretary at the British Air Ministry from 1931 to 1936. Appointed at the age of 38, he remains one the youngest civil servants to have headed a British Government department.
Early years
His academic achievements were considerable, gaining a classical scholarship from RugbyRugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
to Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
from which he graduated in the first division of the first class of the classical tripos in 1913 and was offered a fellowship at Trinity.
After taking first place in the open competition for the Home and Indian Civil Services in 1914, he chose India but at the outbreak of War, he volunteered for service with the Rifle Brigade Special Service. He was one of three officers (and 175 men) of the battalion wounded on the 6th July 1915 during a major attack by the 11th Infantry Brigade on the German trenches near the town of Boesinghe (Boezinge), about 3 miles north of Ypres
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...
. He was seriously wounded and mentioned in dispatches.
Building British Aviation
Returning to active service, he was seconded to the Royal Flying CorpsRoyal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
, training as an observer and then gaining his wings as a pilot in Egypt before being declared unfit for flying duties in 1917.
He then joined the Air Staff, beginning his work for the Air Ministry, and was appointed O.B.E. in 1919. He was appointed C.B.E. in 1926, C.B.
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
in 1929 and K.C.B. in 1932.
The Royal Air Force
In 1919, he became principal private secretary to Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, then Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...
. From then on until 1930, he served successive Secretaries of State including Sir Samuel Hoare and The Lord Thomson
Christopher Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson
Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson PC was a British Army officer who went on to serve as a Labour minister and peer...
, fighting with Lord Trenchard, as Trenchard's right hand man on the civilian side, against resistance and powerful forces within Whitehall, and the hostility of the Navy and the Army to the establishment of a permanent independent Royal Air Force
History of the Royal Air Force
The history of the Royal Air Force, the air force of the United Kingdom, spans nearly a century of British military aviation.The RAF was founded in 1918, toward the end of World War I by merging the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. After the war, the RAF was greatly reduced in...
.
On 12 June 1930, the Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
, agreed to his appointment as Permanent Under-Secretary at the age of 38.
During the 1930s, he worked with great determination under considerable pressure on the expansion of the RAF during the period in which the menace of Nazism rose in Germany. Bullock was personally committed to the policy of expansion and strove, against the pacific temper of the time to awaken public and Parliament to the need to strengthen the RAF to meet the dangers that lay ahead. Even when Churchill was not in government during the 1930s, Bullock supplied him with figures on German air strength which Churchill used in attacking the Government's policy of appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
. His supporters included T.E. Lawrence, who wrote in 1934, "Bullock is doing well. I wish he was C.A.S. and the Air Council as well!". His achievements have been justly recognised in the accounts of rearmament and the role of the RAF during the Second World War.
Described as "a man of brilliant youthful academic achievement and manic self regard", and by Trenchard as "the man with the finest brain I ever met with" and one of his own chief advisers, Bullock made powerful enemies - "but not in the Air Ministry!" - as he sought to impose his views of the emerging power of the aeroplane on the Armed Forces and the Government. Among those who took against him was Sir Warren Fisher
Warren Fisher
Sir Warren Fisher was a British civil servant.Fisher was born in Croydon, London on 22 September 1879. He was educated at the Dragon School , Winchester College and Hertford College, Oxford University...
, the Head of the Civil Service, who was notorious for his wish to control senior appointments in the Civil Service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
and to second-guess defence policy.
The survival of Britain in the Second World War was largely due the foundations that Bullock laid for the vast expansion of the RAF. Of all the Civil Servants known by Lord Hankey, Secretary of the Cabinet, Bullock made by far the greatest creative contribution to the Defence effort. For ten peace time years, Bullock worked as if already at war.
Civil Aviation
He also made a great impact on the extension of British Civil Aviation through his support for Imperial AirwaysImperial Airways
Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long range air transport company, operating from 1924 to 1939 and serving parts of Europe but especially the Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East...
and by his part in creating the Empire Air Mail Scheme
Empire Air Mail Scheme
Empire Air Mail Scheme was an attempt by the British Air Ministry to regain leadership of world civil aviation in the late 1930s following the establishment of The Air Mail Route from Cairo to Bagdad in the early 1920s...
, in which he went as a passenger in one of the early proving flights to India in December 1926. He negotiated overflight and landing rights with South Africa and other African administrations, Australia and India.
In 1929, he participated in early test flights of the Government funded airship, R101
R101
R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airship completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry-appointed team and was effectively in competition...
, part of the Imperial Airship Scheme
Imperial Airship Scheme
The British Imperial Airship Scheme was a project to improve communication with the far corners of the British Empire by establishing air routes using airships...
. He was instrumental in persuading the Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...
, Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson - an enthusiastic proponent of airships - to delay the construction of a larger and more expensive airship, R102
R102
|-See also:-References:*...
(which would have cost over £2m at contemporary prices - the equivalent of over 150 Spitfire fighters), until R101
R101
R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airship completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry-appointed team and was effectively in competition...
had successfully completed its maiden flight to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. In the event Bullock's caution was justified. R101
R101
R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airship completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry-appointed team and was effectively in competition...
crashed only a few hours into its maiden flight, killing Lord Thomson and most of the crew. Shortly afterwards the Government abandoned the Imperial Airship Scheme
Imperial Airship Scheme
The British Imperial Airship Scheme was a project to improve communication with the far corners of the British Empire by establishing air routes using airships...
.
The Events of 1936
On 6 August 1936, he was dismissed from his post by the Prime Minister, Stanley BaldwinStanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
, on the advice of Sir Warren Fisher
Warren Fisher
Sir Warren Fisher was a British civil servant.Fisher was born in Croydon, London on 22 September 1879. He was educated at the Dragon School , Winchester College and Hertford College, Oxford University...
, following the report of a Board of Inquiry into his dealings with Sir Eric Geddes, the Chairman of Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long range air transport company, operating from 1924 to 1939 and serving parts of Europe but especially the Empire routes to South Africa, India and the Far East...
. The Board found that he had abused his position as head of the Ministry in order to seek a place on the Board of Imperial Airways, at a time when his Ministry was negotiating with the company to establish an air mail service – he had "interlaced public negotiations entrusted to him with the advancement of his personal or private interests" but also that "he at no time appreciated the gravity or fully realised the true nature or possible consequences of what he was doing and we consider that his failure to do so goes far to explain, thought it cannot excuse, what has occurred".
As far as is known, he remains the only Permanent Under-Secretary to have been dismissed from the civil service.
After his dismissal, he received thousands of letters of support. His case was taken up in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Time Magazine, which wrote: "Thus Sir Christopher Bullock had his career broken last week without anything specific being brought out against him. Among British aviators, the view was that Sir Christopher is easily worth ten of the men who investigated and broke him." "The gentlemen of the Air Ministry recently maneuvered Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin into dismissing the only one of its civil servants with a practical grasp of Britain's colossal problems in air rearmament, Sir Christopher Bullock."
On leaving the Civil Service, Bullock went on to pursue a successful career in business, being appointed to the board of a number of public companies.
Recognition
Within the Government doubts quickly began to be voiced about the justice of his treatment. Even his Secretary of State and the Prime Minister in 1936, BaldwinStanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
, wrote letters admitting that their decision had been wrong. Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
later wrote "I feel it only right to say that, if I had had the full evidence before me which has now been made available, I should not have taken the decision I reluctantly did". Writing in November 1937, Lord Hankey stated "the more I think about it the more I feel that the punishment did not fit the crime". In December 1938, the Marquess of Londonderry
Marquess of Londonderry
Marquess of Londonderry is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1816 for Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Londonderry. He had earlier represented County Down in the Irish House of Commons. Stewart had already been created Baron Londonderry in 1789, Viscount Castlereagh in 1795 and Earl...
- the Secretary of State for Air at the time of the dismissal - wrote privately to Baldwin "...[Bullock] was most unjustly treated and was the victim of the inveterate hatred of a civil servant [Sir Warren Fisher] who should never have been allowed to encompass his downfall, as he undoubtedly did."
In the spring of 1940, the injustice he had suffered was privately recognised when he was offered the Headship of the Petroleum Warfare Department which would have been de facto reinstatement and full restitution. Bullock declined, arguing that he was more valuable to the war effort as an industrialist.
After the war, his case was reviewed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jowitt, who concluded that the case against Bullock would have met if he had been allowed to resign in 1936 as no corruption was alleged – "it was really a case in which his zeal had outrun his discretion". Nonetheless Jowitt advised the Prime Minister Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
that he should not alter the decision "after all these years". Accordingly Attlee wrote to confirm Jowitt’s conclusions but Bullock did not regard this as adequate redress.
Viscount Templewood wrote, in 1957, "Whatever may have been the merits of the dispute in which he (Bullock) was then involved - and I may say that I took his side, and that none of the charges in any way affected his honour - the fact remains that by his departure the Air Force lost one of its ablest defenders".
Despite campaigning for many years, Bullock never secured the redress he desired and died in 1972 without any official statement being issued about his treatment.
Public acknowledgment that his dismissal had been mistaken was belatedly made after his death when his Memorial Service at the Central Church of the Royal Air Force, St Clement Danes
St Clement Danes
St Clement Danes is a church in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. The current building was completed in 1682 by Sir Christopher Wren and it now functions as the central church of the Royal Air Force.The church is sometimes claimed to...
was attended by representatives of the Prime Minister, (Victor Goodhew M.P.
Victor Goodhew
Sir Victor Henry Goodhew was a British politician. He was Conservative Member of Parliament for St Albans for 24 years, from 1959 to 1983, and was an early member of the Conservative Monday Club...
), Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
A Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the government of the United Kingdom, junior to both a Minister of State and a Secretary of State....
for Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
(RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
), (Lord Lambton M.P.
Anthony Lambton
Antony Claud Frederick Lambton , briefly 6th Earl of Durham, styled before 1970 as Viscount Lambton, and widely known as "Lord Lambton", was a Conservative Member of Parliament and a cousin of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the former Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary...
), the Home Civil Service (Permanent Under Secretary of State for the Ministry of Defence, Sir James Dunnett) and the Air Force Board (Air Chief Marshal Sir Edmund Hudleston
Edmund Hudleston
Air Chief Marshal Sir Edmund Cuthbert Hudleston GCB, CBE, ADC, RAF was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force.-RAF career:...
and Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Smallwood
Denis Smallwood
Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Graham Smallwood GBE, KCB, DSO, DFC, FRAeS, FRSA, was a senior Royal Air Force commander.-RAF career:Educated at King Edward VI School in Birmingham, Smallwood joined the Royal Air Force in 1938....
). The Address was given by The Rt. Hon. Geoffrey Lloyd M.P.
Sir William Armstrong
William Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Sanderstead
William Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Sanderstead GCB, MVO, PC was a British civil servant and banker.The son of William Armstrong and Priscilla Hopkins, he was born in Clapton in London. Armstrong was educated at Bec School in Tooting and Exeter College, Oxford...
, Head of the Civil Service at the time of Bullock's death, wrote of "a great personal tragedy which clouded the rest of his life", many considering that "his treatment had been unduly severe", there being "no doubt at any time about his great abilities".
Family
On 18 April 1917, he married Barbara May Lupton. Their two sons, Richard Bullock and Anthony Bullock, both entered public service in the Home Civil Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth OfficeForeign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
respectively. "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice".