COUPON

[‘A deliberate attempt was made to overthrow the Government’: Lloyd George’s Chief Whip lays into a Liberal on the eve of the ‘Coupon Election’ following the end of the Great War.] Long Typed Letter Signed from Frederick Guest to W. H. Dickinson.

Author: 
Frederick Edward Guest [Freddie Guest] (1875-1937), politician, sportsman and promoter of aviation, Chief Whip in Lloyd George's Coalition Liberal Party [Sir Willoughby Hyett Dickinson (1859-1943)]
Publication details: 
26 November 1918. On embossed letterhead of 12 Downing Street, S.W.1. [London.]
£150.00

An extraordinary letter, rubbing the nose of a pro-Asquith Liberal in the muck on the eve of his leader Lloyd George’s landslide Coalition victory in the 1918 ‘Coupon Election’. Guest, who was Winston Churchill’s cousin, is described in his entry in the Oxford DNB as a ‘highly controversial’ figure who ‘knew where all the bodies were buried’, a useful attribute for someone who served as the Coalition Chief Whip from 1917 to 1921. The recipient Willoughby Hyett Dickinson (1859-1943), later an influential proponent of the League of Nations, began his career a Liberal MP.

Syndicate content