Lost History – The Prime Minister’s son who died too young

Well, thirty-seven, isn’t so young, but given Raymond Asquith’s extraordinary abilities, the trajectory of his career, his popularity and not to mention his famous surname, this urbane Oxford scholar’s abrupt and premature death naturally engendered an extra layer of anguish for those he left behind. Few things are so tragic as unmet potential and few men of that generation were as gifted as HH Asquith’s eldest son. A handsome, capable and principled man, whom some said was destined to one day be Prime Minister, suddenly encountered the anti-climactic conclusion of his promising life in the midst of a brutal catastrophe. His tragic story of youth too early extinguished, is exemplary of an era undone by the advent of war. 

Academically unmatched, Raymond Asquith won scholarships at both Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford. He was President of the Union, a well-noted rehearsal role for the job his father famously occupied through the first years of the Great War. At Oxford, he not only achieved a first-class degree in classics and law, he also attained the Ireland, Craven and Derby scholarships, before being called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1904. Like his father, he laboured away as a barrister, distinguishing himself in court with his excellent instinct for articulating compelling answers and asking arresting questions. The public soon came to expect much from the prodigal son of the Liberal PM. 

A lead member of the Coterie, a fast set of high society mischief-makers and ardent-ravers, Raymond was one of the most eligible bachelors in Britain. One recurring criticism of the young Asquith was his apparent supercilious insouciance compounded by a lack of worldly ambition. In conversation with strangers he could, at times, seem distant and arouse fear in acquaintances rather than admiration. But these sound like complaints against a shy character who was unwilling to accommodate the predictable dogmas and prejudices of petty people. His marriage to Katherine Frances Horner in 1907 dispelled many of these accusations and as one peer pointed out; “His outstandingly happy marriage brought to light his capacity for deep feeling, always present in his character but which he concealed in youth, giving rise at times to a mistaken impression of cynicism.”

A deep rift between Raymond and HH grew after the Liberal leader married Margot Tennant. Raymond’s mother had died three years earlier and a mutual distrust and disdain began to darken their father-son dynamic. When the war started, his three younger brothers opted to join the ranks of Kitchener’s volunteer army. Raymond, who expressed doubts over the necessity of waging a war against Germany, felt compelled to serve his country and to prove his mettle. The insipid splendor of Edwardian high society urged many privileged men away from the idyll they knew and into the horrors of mechanised war. It was a chivalrous tendency that insisted on a commitment to overcoming lethal challenges and braving fearful odds. 

Refusing to stand for the Liberal Party in a by-election in 1915 because it would have been “cowardly”, and irritated by the lack of deployment for his regiment, Raymond (against the wishes of his father) transferred to the Grenadier Guards as a first lieutenant in October and was mobilised to the Western front. His father was furious with his son’s quixotic behaviour and did not write to him once during his final consignment. He did, however, meet his eldest while visiting British troops in 1916, not long before Raymond’s death. 

On 15 September 1916, Raymond led his men towards a German trench near Lesboeufs. One eyewitness of his last advance said, “such coolness under shell fire as he displayed would be difficult to equal”. He was hit in the chest by a bullet and reportedly understood that the wound was fatal, but to reassure and galvanise those he led, he coolly lit a cigarette and gestured them on before collapsing and being carried back to the British line. When the Prime Minister was informed of Raymond’s death he put his head in hands and wept. Writing to his wife he said; “The awful waste of a man like Raymond – the best brain of his age in our time – any career he liked lying in front of him”. He added in a note to a family friend, “I can honestly say, that in my own life he was the thing of which I was truly proud, and in him and his future I had invested all my stock of hope.”

Fittingly, his friends decided to use a closing quote from Shakespeare’s Henry V for his epitaph – “Small time, but in that small most greatly lived this star of England”. It reveals the respect and fellowship he inspired in others. He might have mastered the time that he was deprived of. He may have amounted to nought. In any case, it is undeniable that Raymond Asquith never realised the promise of his ability or explored the limits of his aptitude.