- Robert Blake, Baron Blake
Robert Norman William Blake, Baron Blake (
December 23 1916 -September 20 2003 ) was an Englishhistorian . He is best known for his 1966 biography ofBenjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield , and for "The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill", which grew out of his 1968 Ford lecures. He was created alife peer in 1971 as Baron Blake, of Braydeston in the County of Norfolk.He was educated at
Norwich School andMagdalen College, Oxford , where he took a First in Modern Greats (PPE ) and a hockey Blue. He served in theRoyal Artillery during the war, was taken prisoner inTobruk in 1942, escaped Italy in 1944 and was mentioned in despatches. He was inMI6 from 1944 to 1946. In 1947 he became Tutor in Politics atChrist Church, Oxford , and in 1968 was elected Provost ofThe Queen's College, Oxford , a post held until retirement in 1987. In 1987 he was nominated in the election for the Oxford Chancellorship, but lost toRoy Jenkins .His "History of Rhodesia" (1978) is a notable work on the development of that area; critical, but not unsympathetic. It makes interesting reading in conjunction with the less critical "Sunrise on the Zambezi" (1953).
Blake opposed the Labour Party's policy to abolish the hereditary peers in the House of Lords:
"Abolition of the hereditary vote...is alleged to be phase one of a policy to substitute an elective Upper House for the existing chamber. Meanwhile we would have the biggest quango of all time: a House whose members would owe their seats solely to past or present prime ministerial patronage. Even as an interim measure, this would be thoroughly undesirable, and certainly no improvement on the present composition. There hereditary system, whatever its logical defects, does produce some people of independent opinions and also some who are much younger than the normal run of middle-aged legislators...My guess is that after achieving stage one, which would involve a great deal of parliamentary time and much controversy, a Labour Cabinet would rest on its oars and postpone for many years any plans for an elective chamber. There are immense difficulties involved – its powers, electoral system, and above all relations with the Commons, which would certainly resent the creation of a body with rival claims to democratic legitimacy." ["The Times", 23 July, 1996. Jim McCue, "Edmund Burke and Our Present Discontents" (The Claridge Press, 1997), p. 123.]
Father of
crime writer Victoria Blake .Partial List of Works
*"Unknown Prime Minister; the life and times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923" (1955)
*"Disraeli" (1966)
*"Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill" (1970) (later revised and updated as "Conservative Party from Peel to Thatcher", then again as "Conservative Party from Peel to Major")
*"History of Rhodesia" (1978)
*"The Decline of Power, 1915-1964" (1985) (part of "The Paladin History of England" series)Notes
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