Lionel George CurtisCH (1872–1955) was a British internationalist and author. He was the inspiration for the foundation of Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) as well as the US Council On Foreign Relations at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He was a leading member of Round Table movement. His writings and influence caused the evolution of the former British nations into the Commonwealth.[1]
Curtis served as secretary to Lord Milner (a position that had also been held by adventure-novelist John Buchan), during which time he dedicated himself to working for a united self-governing South Africa. He with a group of bright young men there, who would later make their mark in international roles, were called Milner's Kindergarten. Following Milner's death in 1925, Curtis became the second leader of Milner's Kindergarten until his own death in 1955.[5]
The Round Table
Curtis was an original founding member with Lord Milner of the Round Table Movement.
Curtis was also a founder (1910) the international quarterly The Round Table.
Chatham House and The Council on Foreign Relations
In 1919 Curtis made a proposal to the British and American delegates attending the Paris Peace Conference at a meeting on 30 May 1919 at the Hotel Majestic. Curtis addressed the meeting and strongly believed that the conference had illustrated the pressing need for the formation of an informed international research body for expert analysis of foreign affairs that could have advised on the matters the delegates had had before them and had been required to decide upon. Curtis's proposal to the meeting was that an Anglo-American "Institute of International Affairs" should be founded with offices in Britain and the US and this was warmly accepted by the British and United States delegates.
In a revealing letter written 1932, Whitney Shepardson, a US delegate at the Peace Conference, a participant at the meeting at the Hotel Majestic and a founding member of the US Council on Foreign Relations wrote to Ivison Macadam at Chatham House about Curtis,
" He's like the Hound of Heaven. Or Jacob wrestling the angel. There was some talk at Council [on Foreign Relations] Directors' meeting today about Chatham House and its resources. Craveth said that Chatham House had been lucky in having one or two 'angels' to give it money. I said, 'Yes, but what's more important they had a Jacob in the shape of Lionel Curtis to wrestle with these angels saying "I will not let thee go until thou bless me!"'[8]
Curtis remained a driving force within Chatham House and in international movements and conferences around the world until very late in his life but preferred to give credit to others.
The Commonwealth
Curtis was largely the creator of the idea of Commonwealth as former British territories would transition into self governing nations (originally the British Commonwealth and now expanded as the Commonwealth of Nations)
^From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis, Deborah Lavin, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995
^Edgar Trevor Williams, A. F. Madden, David Kenneth Fieldhouse. Oxford and the Idea of Commonwealth. Routledge, 1982. (Pages 39, 98)
^Shepardson to Ivison Macadam, 3 Nov 1932, Bodleian MSS Eng. Hist. c 872. Quoted in From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis, Deborah Lavin, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995