The diary that proves Anthony Seldon wrong about the first world war and the public schools

Private Lord Crawford’s Great War Diaries: From Medical Orderly to Cabinet Minister Christopher Arnander (ed)

Pen and Sword, pp.206, £19.99, ISBN: 9781781593677

Public Schools and the Great War: The Generation Lost Anthony Selden and David Walsh

Pen and Sword, pp.320, £25, ISBN: 9781781593080

In March 1915 the 27th Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, with an already distinguished political career behind him, took the unorthodox step of enlisting, aged 43, as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1916 he returned to England from France to take up important government duties, but for 14 months he had been a medical orderly on the Western Front, the only cabinet minister to serve in the ranks in the first world war.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Get 10 issues
for $10

Subscribe to The Spectator Australia today for the next 10 magazine issues, plus full online access, for just $10.

Delivery of the weekly magazine
Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
Spectator podcasts and newsletters
Full access to spectator.co.uk

Unlock this article

Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £17.99/£22.50. Tel: 08430 600033

TaggedBook review - History, officer class, public schools, Royal Army Medical Corps, the great war

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator Australia readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in

The diary that proves Anthony Seldon wrong about the first world war and the public schools

A review of Anthony Seldon and David Walsh’s ‘Public Schools and the Great War’ and ‘Private Lord Crawford’s Great War Diaries’. Crawford’s entries undermine Seldon and Walsh’s rose-tinted view of public school conscripts

Get 10 issues
for $10