Ministry of Information

On 21 February 1918 in the House of Commons Captain Carr-Gomm asked the Prime Minister what the duties and powers of the Ministry of Information were and how it was related to the “Ministers of Propaganda”. The reply was given on behalf of the government by the Leader of the House and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Andrew Bonar Law. The Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Propaganda were, he explained, one and the same, and there was only one minister: the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. A moment later, answering a further question, he set out the new organisation of the department and the names of the men who were to run it. This is why some chronicles of the war give this day as the date of the founding of the Ministry of Information, although the minister had taken office as early as 10 February and the department took over its full powers only in March.

From Wellington House to a ministry

Britain had been engaged in propaganda since the beginning of the war, but without a single centre. The most important body was the secret bureau at Wellington House in London, headed by the Liberal politician Charles Masterman, which employed well-known writers and sent books, pamphlets and photographs abroad. The Foreign Office, the War Office and the Admiralty also ran their own propaganda. At the beginning of 1917 the government of David Lloyd George created a Department of Information under the writer John Buchan, with an advisory committee of newspaper proprietors attached to it: Lord Northcliffe, Lord Burnham, Robert Donald and C. P. Scott. When Northcliffe left on a mission to the United States in the summer, the committee was joined by the Canadian financier and owner of the Daily Express, Lord Beaverbrook, and later by Sir George Riddell. In the second half of 1917 supervision of the department was taken over by a member of the War Cabinet, Edward Carson, who had moved there from the Admiralty in July. In January 1918 Carson resigned from the government, and propaganda was left without anyone in charge.

On 10 February Lloyd George appointed Beaverbrook Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, an office with few duties, and entrusted him with propaganda. The appointment at once provoked protests. On 14 February the Commons asked what qualifications Beaverbrook actually had for such a post. Bonar Law replied that he would take over Carson’s duties but would not enter the War Cabinet. On 18 February members asked whether the Minister of Propaganda would receive confidential government information and whether he would keep the Daily Express. They were told that he would receive the information and keep the newspaper, although he had withdrawn from its management. The same morning the press reported that propaganda in enemy countries was to be directed by another magnate, Northcliffe, owner of The Times and the Daily Mail.

The new leadership

On 21 February Bonar Law explained that the existing advisory committee had not proved a success, so the minister had asked some of its members to head individual sections. Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe, became Director of Propaganda in Enemy Countries, and Robert Donald, editor of the Daily Chronicle, Director of Propaganda in Neutral Countries. Buchan took charge of intelligence, General A. D. McRae, Quartermaster-General of the Canadian Overseas Forces, of administration, and Sir William Jury of cinema propaganda. The head of Reuters, Sir Roderick Jones, became Deputy Director of Propaganda in Allied and foreign countries. Bonar Law added that about 90 per cent of the staff were men with press experience. Members greeted this with derision. Noel Pemberton Billing accused Donald of anti-British views and asked whether the government intended to “buy” every editor in London. Another member wanted to know whether the publisher of the scandal sheet John Bull had also received an offer.

In politics and the press these appointments were widely read as an attempt by Lloyd George to bring the press under his control. The Prime Minister already had Northcliffe’s brother, Lord Rothermere, in the government, who in January had become the first Air Minister, and now he was taking the two greatest newspaper proprietors in the country into state service. From 4 March the ministry took over control of propaganda. Northcliffe set up his department at Crewe House in Mayfair and answered to the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet, not to Beaverbrook. Propaganda at home remained in the hands of the National War Aims Committee. The attacks on the press-baron minister did not cease, and the department clashed constantly with the Foreign Office over intelligence. In October 1918 an ailing Beaverbrook resigned, and in the last weeks of the war the ministry was run by the writer Arnold Bennett.