Lucas Cranach the Elder paints Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg as Saint Jerome (with friends) in his study, 1526.

A cabinet was one of a number of terms for a private room in the domestic architecture and that of palaces of early modern Europe, a room serving as a study or retreat, usually for a man. The cabinet would be furnished with books and works of art, and sited adjacent to his bedchamber, the equivalent of the Italian Renaissance studiolo. In the Late Medieval period, such newly perceived requirements for privacy had been served by the solar of the English gentry house, and a similar, less secular purpose had been served by a private oratory.

Such a room might be used as a study or office, or just a sitting room. Heating the main rooms in large palaces or mansions in the winter was difficult, and small rooms were more comfortable. They also offered more privacy from servants, other household members, and visitors. Typically such a room would be for the use of a single individual, so that a house might have at least two (his and hers) and often more. Names varied: cabinet, closet, study (from the Italian studiolo), office, and a range of more specifically female equivalents, such as a boudoir.

[edit] studiolo

With its origins in requirements engendered by the humanist avocation of many of the Italian noble and mercantile elite in the Quattrocento, for increased privacy for reading and meditation, the studiolo provided a retreat often reachable only through the comparatively public bedroom. This was true for the elaborate Studiolo of Francesco I Medici located in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence,

Jerome in his study, by Albrecht Dürer

The richly decorated Studiolo of Francesco I

The standard fittings of the late medieval and early modern study can be inventoried among the conventional trappings in portrayals of Saint Jerome in illuminated manuscripts, in paintings, or in engravings like that of Albrecht Dürer (illustration): a chair, perhaps a footstool to lift the feet from the draughty floor, and a table bearing a book-rest, perhaps with a weighted ribbon to hold a book open at a place,and a portable desk with a slanted surface for writing; a candlestick also on the table supplements the light from the window, which is often shuttered but also often with a window seat in the depth of the wall. In Domenico Ghirlandaio's Saint Jerome in his Study shelving runs around the room at the level of the frieze: on it are curious objects, containers of various types, large volumes lying on their sides.

Studioli entirely inlaid in intarsia for the ducal palaces of Urbino (in situ) and Gubbio (remounted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art^[1]) with simulated shelves and built-in cabinets filled with books, scientific instruments and examples of geometric solids, all rendered in striking trompe-l'oeil evoke the character of the pursuits of the cabinet. For Ferdinando Gonzaga's studiolo at Mantua, in about 1619, Domenico Fetti painted a series of New Testament parables, suitable for private contemplation; they proved very popular, and Fetti and his studio, and Fetti's imitators, repeated them for other similar retreats. Isabella d'Este called her room with paintings commissioned from Andrea Mantegna, Perugino and others a studiolo.

A studiolo would often have a Latin motto painted or inlaid round the frieze. Heraldry and personal devices and emblems would remind the occupant of his station in life. Series of portraits of exemplary figures were popular, whether the Nine Worthies or the classical philosophers, in imaginary ideal portrait heads.

Perhaps the grandest studiolo was the "Camerino" ("little room") of Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara, for which the greatest painters of the day were commissioned from about 1512-1525 to paint mythological canvases, very large by the standards of the time. Fra Bartolommeo died before starting work, and Raphael got no further than a drawing, but Giovanni Bellini completed The Feast of the Gods (NGA, Washington) in 1514. Titian was then brought in and added three of his finest works: Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallery, London) ,The Andrians and The Worship of Venus (both Prado, Madrid), as well as repainting the background of the Bellini to match his own works better. Dosso Dossi, Alphonso's court painter, completed the room with a large painting (now lost) and ten small long oblong subjects to go as a frieze above the others.^[2]

Closet[link]

In Elizabethan England, such a private retreat would most likely be termed a closet, the most recent in a series of developments in which people of means found ways to withdraw by degrees from the public life of the household as it was lived in the late medieval great hall. This sense of "closet" has continued use in the term "closet drama", which is a literary work in the form of theatre, intended not to be mounted nor publicly presented, but to be read and visualised in privacy. Two people in intimate private conversation were until recently said to be "closetted". In his closet at Christ Church, Oxford, Robert Burton wrote The Anatomie of Melancholy (1621).

Cabinet in English was often used for strongrooms, or treasure-stores - the tiny but exquisite Elizabethan tower strongroom at Lacock Abbey might have been so called - but also in the wider sense. David Rizzio was murdered when dining with his putative lover Mary, Queen of Scots in "a cabinet abowte xii footes square, in the same a little low reposinge bedde, and a table".^[3]

There is a rare surviving cabinet or closet with its contents probably little changed since the early 18th century at Ham House in Richmond, London. It is less than ten feet square, and leads off from the Long Gallery, which is well over a hundred feet long by about twenty wide, giving a rather startling change in scale and atmosphere. As is often the case (at Chatsworth House for example), it has an excellent view of the front entrance to the house, so that comings and goings can be discreetly observed. Most surviving large houses or palaces, especially from before 1700, have such rooms, but (again as at Chatsworth) they are very often not displayed to visitors.

Since the reign of King George I, the Cabinet – derived from the room – has been the principal executive group of British government, and the term has been adopted in most English-speaking countries. Phrases such as "cabinet counsel", meaning advice given in private to the monarch, occur from the late 16th century, and, given the non-standardized spelling of the day, it is often hard to distinguish whether "council" or "counsel" is meant.^[4] The OED credits Francis Bacon in his Essays (1605) with the first use of "Cabinet council", where it is described as a foreign habit, of which he disapproves: "For which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings’ times, hath introduced cabinet counsels; a remedy worse than the disease".^[5]

Charles I began a formal "Cabinet Council" from his accession in 1625, as his Privy Council, or "private council", was evidently not private enough, and the first recorded use of "cabinet" by itself for such a body comes from 1644, and is again hostile and associates the term with dubious foreign practices.^[6] The process has repeated itself in recent times, as leaders have felt the need to have a Kitchen Cabinet. Figurative uses of Closet have developed in a different direction.

[edit] Cabinet

In the cabinet as it evolved in French Baroque architecture, the last in the standardised series of rooms that constituted a Baroque apartment, the walls would be hung with rich textiles as a background for cabinet pictures, those small works, often on copper or wood panel, that required intimate study for appreciation, among which would also be devotional pictures. Especially wealthy or aristocratic people may have had a series of cabinets in a suite.^[7]

At Vaux-le-Vicomte, the architect Le Vau contrived a jewel-like private cabinet for the king's minister of finance Nicolas Fouquet that was entirely hung with panels of Venetian looking-glass; later, Louis XIV's Grand Cabinet at Versailles (swept away in 18th-century revisions in the name of even more private royal spaces) was similarly mirror-lined: "the king's self-directed gaze was at once religious and narcissistic", Orest Ranum has observed.^[8]

Versailles has a large assortment of cabinets en filade for the king located behind and adjacent to his formal bedchamber, the Petit appartement du roi. The cabinet is the male equivalent of a boudoir, and at Versailles and the baroque palaces and great country houses that echoed it, a parallel apartment would be provided for the royal or noble consort, at the Versailles the Petit appartement de la reine. Even in the cramped confines of a London house, Samuel Pepys and his wife each had a bedchamber and a "closet"; with a common sitting room, or "saloon" these were the minimum that genteel baroque arrangements required.

The meaning of "cabinet" began to be extended to the contents of the cabinet;^[9] thus we see the 16th-century cabinet of curiosities, often combined with a library. The sense of cabinet as a piece of furniture is actually older in English than the meaning as a room, but originally meant more a strong-box or jewel-chest than a display-case.^[10]

See also[link]

• Man cave

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Jaffé, David; et al. (2003). Titian. London: National Gallery Company. 

Cabinet Room may refer to:

• Cabinet Room (10 Downing Street), the meeting place of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
• Cabinet Room (White House), the meeting place of the Cabinet of the United States.
• Cabinet (room), a private room in the domestic architecture and that of palaces of Early Modern Europe.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Simon Schama
Born	(1945-02-13) 13 February 1945 (age 67) London
Nationality	British
Institutions	Columbia University
Alma mater	Christ's College, Cambridge

Simon Michael Schama, CBE (born 13 February 1945) is a British historian and art historian. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University.^[1] He is best known for writing and hosting the 15-part BBC documentary series A History of Britain. Other works on history and art include The Embarrassment of Riches, Landscape and Memory, Dead Certainties, Rembrandt's Eyes,^[2] and his history of the French Revolution, Citizens.^[1] Schama is an art and cultural critic for The New Yorker.^[1]

Life and early career[link]

The son of Jewish parents with roots in Lithuania, Romania, and Turkey, Schama was born in London.^[1][3] In the mid-1940s, the family moved to Southend-on-Sea in Essex before moving back to London. Schama writes of this period in the Introduction to Landscape & Memory (pp. 3–4)

I had no hill [the previous paragraph had talked of his enthusiasm for Puck of Pook's Hill], but I did have the Thames. It was not the upstream river that the poets in my Palgrave claimed burbled betwixt mossy banks. ... It was the low, gull-swept estuary, the marriage bed of salt and fresh water, stretching as far as I could see from my northern Essex bank, toward a thin black horizon on the other side. That would be Kent, the sinister enemy who always seemed to beat us in the County Cricket Championship. ...

In 1956 Schama won a scholarship to the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Cricklewood, (from 1961 Elstree, Herts.), followed by Christ's College, Cambridge, reading history under J. H. Plumb and graduating with a Starred First in 1966.^[1]

He worked for short periods as a lecturer in history at Cambridge, where he became a Fellow and Director of Studies in History, and at Oxford, where he was made a Fellow of Brasenose College in 1976, specialising in the French Revolution.^[1] At this time, Schama wrote his first book, Patriots and Liberators, which won the Wolfson History Prize. The book was originally intended as a study of the French Revolution, but as published in 1977, it focused on the effect of the Patriot revolution in The Netherlands, and its aftermath.

His second book, Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (1978), is a study of the Zionist aims of Edmond James de Rothschild and James Armand de Rothschild.

He is married to Ginny Papaioannou, a geneticist from California; they have two children.^[4]

In the United States[link]

In 1980 Schama took up a chair at Harvard University. His next book, The Embarrassment of Riches (1987), again focused on Dutch history.^[5] In it, Schama interpreted the ambivalences that informed the Dutch Golden Age of the seventeenth century, held in balance between the conflicting imperatives, to live richly and with power, or to live a godly life. The iconographic evidence that Schama draws upon, in 317 illustrations, of emblems and propaganda that defined Dutch character, prefigured his expansion in the 1990s as a commentator on art and visual culture.^[6]

Citizens (1989), written at speed to a publisher's commission, finally saw the publication of his long-awaited study of the French revolution, and won the 1990 NCR Book Award. Citizens was very well received and sold admirably. Its view that the violence of the Terror was inherent from the start of the Revolution, however, has received serious criticism.^[1][7]

In 1991, he published Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations),^[8] a relatively slender work of unusual structure and point-of-view in that it looked at two widely reported deaths a hundred years apart, that of General James Wolfe – and the famous painting by Benjamin West – and that of (by murder) George Parkman, uncle of the better known Francis Parkman. Schama mooted some possible (invented) connections between the two cases, exploring the historian's inability "ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing the documentation," and speculatively bridging "the teasing gap separating a lived event and its subsequent narration." Not all readers absorbed the nuance of the title: it received a greatly mixed critical and academic reception. Traditional historians in particular denounced Schama's integration of fact and conjecture to produce a seamless narrative^[9] but later assessments took a more relaxed view of the experiment.^[10] It was an approach soon taken up by such historical writers as Peter Ackroyd, David Taylor and Richard Holmes.^[11] Sales in hardback exceeded Schama's earlier works.^[12]

Schama at Strand Bookstore, New York City

Schama's Landscape and Memory (1995) focused on the relationship between physical environment and folk memory, separating the components of landscape as wood, water and rock, enmeshed in the cultural consciousness of collective "memory" that are embodied in myths, which Schama finds to be expressed outwardly in ceremony and text. While in many ways even more personal and idiosyncratic than Dead Certainties, roaming through widening circles of digressions, this book was also more traditionally structured and better-defined in its approach. While many reviews remained decidedly mixed, the book was a definite commercial success and won numerous prizes.^[13]

Appropriately, many of the plaudits came from the art world rather than from traditional academia. This was borne out when Schama became art critic for The New Yorker in 1995. He held the position for three years, dovetailing his regular column with professorial duties at Columbia University; a selection of his best essays on art for the magazine, chosen by Schama himself, was published in 2005 under the title Hang Ups. During this time, Schama also produced a lavishly illustrated Rembrandt's Eyes, another critical and commercial success. Despite the book's title, it contrasts the biographies of Rembrandt van Rijn and Peter Paul Rubens.

BBC[link]

In 1995 Schama wrote and presented a series called Landscape and Memory to accompany his book of the same name.

The year 2000 saw Schama return to the UK, having been commissioned by the BBC to produce a series of television documentary programmes on British history as part of their Millennium celebrations, under the title A History of Britain. Schama wrote and presented the episodes himself, in a friendly and often jocular style with his highly characteristic delivery, and was rewarded with excellent reviews and unexpectedly high ratings. There has been, however, some irritation and criticism expressed by a group of historians about Schama's condensed recounting of the British Isles' history on this occasion, particularly by those specialising in the pre-Anglo-Saxon history of insular Celtic civilisation.^[14] The series was eventually expanded to three, with 15 episodes^[15][16] produced in total covering the complete span of British history up until 1965;^[16] it went on to become one of the BBC's best-selling documentary series on DVD. Schama also wrote a trilogy of tie-in books for the show, which took the story up to the year 2000; there is some debate as to whether the books are the tie-in product for the TV series, or the other way around. The series also had some popularity in the United States when it was first shown on the History Channel.^[16]

In 2001 Schama received a CBE. In 2003 he signed a lucrative new contract with the BBC and HarperCollins to produce three new books and two accompanying TV series. Worth £3 million (around US$5.3m), it represents the biggest advance deal ever for a TV historian. The first result of the deal was a book and TV show entitled Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution, dealing in particular with the proclamation issued during the Revolutionary War by Lord Dunmore offering slaves from rebel plantations freedom in return for service to the crown.

In 2006 the BBC broadcast a new TV series, Simon Schama's Power of Art which, with an accompanying book, was presented and written by Schama. It marks a return to art history for him, treating eight artists through eight key works: Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath, Bernini's Ecstasy of St Theresa, Rembrandt's Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, Jacques-Louis David's The Death Of Marat, J. M. W. Turner's The Slave Ship, Vincent van Gogh's Wheat Field with Crows, Picasso's Guernica, and Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals.^[17] It was also shown on PBS in the United States.^[18]

In October 2008 BBC broadcast a four-part television series called The American Future: A History presented and written by Schama. In March 2009, Schama presented a BBC Radio 4 show entitled 'Baseball and Me', both exploring the history of the game and describing his own personal support of the Boston Red Sox.

In 2010, Schama presented a series of ten talks for the BBC Radio 4 series A Point of View:

• Why We Like Tough Guys in Politics: When times are hard people seem to prefer tough leaders.
• Singing in the Rain: Schama looks forward to spring with personal reflections on the changing seasons.
• At the Heart of the Matter: The politics surrounding President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms.
• The Gift of the Gab: The history of political rhetoric and the power during election campaigns of televised debates.
• Behold, Newstralia!: Celebrates the distinctive history and culture of New Zealand and regrets any renewed talk of joining forces with Australia.
• A Welcome Slice of American Pie: Reflection on the quality of American food and eating habits.
• The Drama of Politics: The timeless drama of British politics.
• When Money is Just an Illusion: Reflection on the meaning of money as represented by coins and notes and in art.
• Hearts of Oak: Reflection on the significance of one of the sights that will greet new MPs in the chamber of the House of Commons - the panelling made of solid oak.
• Britain's New Politics: Reflection on the 2010 United Kingdom General Election, favourably comparing the British system for a swift handover of power to the cumbersome American one.

Politics[link]

Schama is a supporter of the Labour Party, donating £2,000 to Oona King's bid to become Labour's candidate for the 2012 London Mayoral election.^[19]

Israel[link]

Schama was critical of a call by British novelist John Berger for an academic boycott of Israel over its policies towards the Palestinians. Writing in The Guardian in an article co-authored with lawyer Anthony Julius, Schama compared Berger's academic boycott to policies adopted by Nazi Germany, noting "This is not the first boycott call directed at Jews. On 1 April 1933, a week after he came to power, Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish shops, banks, offices and department stores."^[20]

In 2006 on the BBC, Schama debated with Vivienne Westwood the morality of Israel's actions in the Israel-Lebanon war.^[21] He characterised Israel's bombing of Lebanese city centres as unhelpful in Israel's attempt to "get rid of" Hezbollah.^[21] With regard to the bombing he said: "Of course the spectacle and suffering makes us grieve. Who wouldn't grieve? But it's not enough to do that. We've got to understand. You've even got to understand Israel's point of view."^[21]

United States[link]

Schama is a vocal supporter of President Barack Obama^[22] and critic of George W. Bush.^[23] He appeared on the BBC's coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, clashing with John Bolton.^[24]

Writing style[link]

Schama has a literary way of writing that is attractive to both historians and a wider readership. It is "packed with evocative detail: rich fruit cakes crammed with raisins, currants, nuts and glacé cherries all mulled in brandy sauce".^[1] He has also received criticism for dumbing down history, presenting a "grossly oversimplified and mythologising view of the history of nations" and not fostering critical thinking.^[25]

Criticism[link]

Susan Buck-Morss criticizes Schama's The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age for its "selective national history" of the Dutch Republic, "that omits much or all of the colonizing story."^[26] "One would have no idea that Dutch hegemony in the slave trade (replacing Spain and Portugal as major players) contributed substantially to the enormous 'overload' of wealth that he describes as becoming so socially and morally problematic during the century of Dutch 'centrality' to the 'commerce of the world.'"^[27]

Publications[link]

Books

• Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 (1977)
• Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (1978)
• The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987)
• Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989)^[1]
• Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (1991)
• Landscape and Memory (1995)^[2][13]
• Rembrandt's Eyes (1999)^[2]
• A History of Britain Vol. I (2000, ISBN 0-563-48714-3)
• A History of Britain Vol. II (2001, ISBN 0-563-48718-6)
• A History of Britain Vol. III (2002, ISBN 0-563-48719-4)
• Hang Ups: Essays on Art (2005)
• Rough Crossings (2005, ISBN 0-06-053916-X)
• Simon Schama's Power of Art (2006, ISBN 0-06-117610-9)^[18]
• The American Future: A History (2009, ISBN 0-06-053923-2)
• Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Politics, Ice Cream, Churchill and My Mother

Documentaries

• Landscape and Memory (1995), in five parts
• Rembrandt: The Public Eye and the Private Gaze (1995)
• Simon Schama's A History of Britain – BBC (2000), in 15 parts
• Simon Schama's John Donne - 2009
• Murder at Harvard - PBS (2003)
• Rough Crossings – BBC (2005)
• Simon Schama's Power of Art – BBC (2006), in eight parts
• The American Future: A History – BBC (2008), in four parts
• Simon Schama's: Obama's America – BBC (2009).

Prizes & Other Honors[link]

• 1977 Wolfson History Prize, for Patriots and Liberators
• 1977 Leo Gershoy Award, for Patriots and Liberators
• 1987 New York Times Best Books of the Year, for The Embarrassment of Riches
• 1989 New York Times Best Books of the Year, for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
• 1989 Yorkshire Post Book Award, for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
• 1996 Lionel Trilling Book Award, for Landscape and Memory
• 1996 WH Smith Literary Award, for Landscape and Memory
• 2001 Broadcasting Press Guild Writer's Award, for A History of Britain
• 2001 Nominated for BAFTA Huw Wheldon Award for Specialised Programme or Series (Arts, History, Religion and Science), for A History of Britain
• 2002 Nominated for BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award for the Best Presenter (Factual, Features and News), for A History of Britain
• 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-fiction winner, for Rough Crossings^[28]
• 2006 Hessell-Tiltman Prize Shortlist, for Rough Crossings
• 2007 Nominated for BAFTA Huw Wheldon Award for Specialized Factual Programme or Series, for Simon Schama's Power of Art
• 2008 The Daily Telegraph's 110 Best Books: The Perfect Library, for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Columbia History faculty page
• Columbia Art History faculty page
• "Free Fight", with Schama, offers "a new look at Britain, the United States, slavery and freedom during the Revolutionary War". The Brian Lehrer Show, 8 May 2006.
• Simon Schama’s The American History: A Future A Talk at the Shanghai International Literary Festival
• Audio: Simon Schama in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum
• Booknotes interview with Schama on Citizens, 14 July 1989.
• Works by Simon Schama on Open Library at the Internet Archive

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Simon Schama

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A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members.

United Kingdom[link]

First World War[link]

During the First World War, lengthy Cabinet discussions came to be seen as a source of vacillation in Britain's war effort. In December 1916 it was proposed that the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith should delegate decision-making to a small, three-man committee chaired by the Secretary of State for War David Lloyd George. Asquith initially agreed (provided he retained the right to chair the committee if he chose) before changing his mind after being infuriated by an article in The Times which portrayed the proposed change as a defeat for him. The political crisis grew from this point until Asquith was forced to resign as Prime Minister; he was succeeded by David Lloyd George who thereupon formed a small War Cabinet. The original members of the War Cabinet were:

• David Lloyd George
• Lord Curzon of Kedleston (Lord President of the Council)
• Andrew Bonar Law (Chancellor of the Exchequer)
• Arthur Henderson (December 1916 - August 1917)
• Lord Milner (December 1916 - April 1918)

Lloyd George Curzon, and Bonar Law served throughout the life of the war cabinet. Later members include:

• Jan Smuts (June 1917 - January 1919)
• George Barnes (May 1917 - January 1919)
• Austen Chamberlain (April 1918 - October 1919)
• Sir Eric Geddes (January 1919 - October 1919)

Unlike a normal peacetime Cabinet, few of these men had departmental responsibilities - Bonar Law, and then Chamberlain, served as Chancellors of the Exchequer, but the rest had no specific portfolio. Among others, the Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, was never a member of the War Cabinet, nor were the service ministers Lord Derby and Sir Edward Carson.

From the northern spring of 1917, the Imperial War Cabinet was formed. It had representation from the Dominions. Its members were:

• Lloyd George
• Sir Robert Borden, Prime Minister of Canada
• Louis Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa
• Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia
• William Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand
• Jan Smuts
• the British Secretary of State for India and other senior ministers from Britain and the dominions.

Second World War[link]

On 3 September 1939, Neville Chamberlain announced his War Cabinet.

• Prime Minister: Neville Chamberlain (Cons)
• Lord Privy Seal: Sir Samuel Hoare (Cons)
• Chancellor of the Exchequer: Sir John Simon (Nat. Liberal)
• Foreign Secretary: Viscount Halifax (Cons)
• Secretary of State for War: Leslie Hore-Belisha (Nat. Liberal)
• Secretary of State for Air: Sir Kingsley Wood (Cons)
• First Lord of the Admiralty: Winston Churchill (Cons)
• Minister for the Coordination of Defence: Lord Chatfield (Nat.)
• Minister without Portfolio: Lord Hankey (Nat. )

Dominated largely by Conservative ministers who served under Chamberlain's National Government between 1937 and 1939, the additions of Lord Hankey (a former Cabinet Secretary from the First World War) and Winston Churchill (strong anti-appeaser) seemed to give the Cabinet more balance. Unlike Lloyd George's War Cabinet, the members of this one were also heads of Government Departments.

In January 1940, after disagreements with the Chiefs of Staff, Hore-Belisha resigned from the National Government, refusing a move to the post of President of the Board of Trade. He was succeeded by Oliver Stanley.

It was originally the practice for the Chiefs of Staff to attend all military discussions of the Chamberlain War Cabinet. Churchill became uneasy with this, as he felt that when they attended they did not confine their comments to purely military issues. To overcome this, a Military Coordination Committee was set up, consisting of the three Service ministers normally chaired by Lord Chatfield. This together with the Service chiefs would co-ordinate the strategic ideas of 'top hats' and 'brass' and agree strategic proposals to put forward to the War Cabinet. Unfortunately, except when chaired by the Prime Minister, the Military Co-ordinating Committee lacked sufficient authority to override a Minister "fighting his corner". When Churchill took over from Chatfield, whilst continuing to represent the Admiralty, this introduced additional problems, and did little to improve the pre-existing ones. Chamberlain announced a further change in arrangements in the Norway debate, but this (and the Military Co-ordination Committee) was overtaken by events, the Churchill War Cabinet being run on rather different principles^[1]

When he became Prime Minister during the Second World War, Winston Churchill formed a War Cabinet, initially consisting of the following members:

• Prime Minister & Minister of Defence: Winston Churchill (Conservative)
• Lord President of the Council: Neville Chamberlain (Conservative)
• Lord Privy Seal: Clement Attlee (Labour)
• Foreign Secretary: Lord Halifax (Conservative)
• Minister without Portfolio: Arthur Greenwood (Labour)

Churchill strongly believed that the War Cabinet should be kept to a relatively small number of individuals to allow efficient execution of the war effort. Even so, there were a number of ministers who, though they were not members of the war cabinet, were "Constant Attenders".^[2] As the War Cabinet considered issues that pertained to a given branch of the service or government due input was obtained from the respective body.

The War Cabinet would undergo a number of changes in composition over the next five years. On February 19, 1942 a reconstructed War Cabinet was announced by Churchill consisting of the following members^[3]:

• Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Winston Churchill
• Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Dominions Affairs: Clement Attlee
• Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons: Sir Stafford Cripps
• Lord President of the Council: John Anderson
• Foreign Secretary: Anthony Eden
• Minister of Production: Oliver Lyttelton
• Minister of Labour: Ernest Bevin

This War Cabinet was consistent with Churchill's view that members should also hold "responsible offices and not mere advisors at large with nothing to do but think and talk and take decisions by compromise or majority"^[4] The War Cabinet often met within The Cabinet War Rooms,^[5] particularly during The Blitz of London.

Falklands War, 1982[link]

• Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher
• Deputy Prime Minister & Home Secretary - Willie Whitelaw
• Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs - Francis Pym
• Secretary of State for Defence - John Nott
• Chief of the Defence Staff - Admiral Lewin
• Attorney General - Michael Havers

Gulf War[link]

• Prime Minister - John Major
• Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs - Douglas Hurd
• Secretary of State for Defence - Tom King
• Chancellor of the Exchequer - Norman Lamont
• Chief of the Defence Staff - Marshal of the RAF Sir David Craig^[6]

Australia[link]

War Cabinet meeting in Melbourne in 1943. Left to right: John Curtin, Sir Frederick Sheddon, Ben Chifley, 'Doc' Evatt, Norm Makin, Arthur Drakeford

At the Imperial Conference in London in 1937, the Australian government had agreed to form a War Cabinet on the outbreak of war.^[7] The Full Cabinet approved the formation of the War Cabinet on 26 September 1939.^[8] As neither Earle Page's Country Party nor John Curtin's Australian Labor Party would join in a coalition government with Menzies' United Australia Party,^[9] the War Cabinet initially consisted of:

• Robert Menzies (Prime Minister and Treasurer)
• Richard Casey (Minister for Supply)
• Geoffrey Street (Minister for Defence)
• George McLeay (Minister for Commerce)
• Henry Gullett (Minister for Information)
• William Hughes (Attorney General)^[10]

In November 1939, the Department of Defence was split up. Street became Minister for Army, Menzies also became Minister for Defence Coordination, and three more ministers joined the War Cabinet:

• James Fairbairn (Minister for Air)
• Frederick Stewart (Minister for Navy)
• Harry Foll (Minister for Interior)^[11]

Following the deaths of Fairbairn, Stewart and Gullett in Canberra air disaster, 1940 and the loss of seats in the Australian federal election, 1940 the War Cabinet of October 1940 consisted of:

• Robert Menzies (Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Coordination)
• Arthur Fadden (Treasurer)
• John McEwen (Minister for Air)
• Percy Spender (Minister for Army)
• Billy Hughes (Attorney General and Minister for Navy)
• Harry Foll (Minister for Interior)
• Philip McBride (Minister for Munitions) (from 26 June 1941)^[12]

The government was replaced by a Labor one on 3 October 1941. A new War Cabinet was formed, consisting of:

• John Curtin (Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Coordination)
• Frank Forde (Minister for Army)
• Ben Chifley (Treasurer)
• Doc Evatt (Attorney General and Minister for External Affairs)
• Jack Beasley (Minister for Supply)
• Norman Makin (Minister for Navy and Minister for Munitions)
• Arthur Drakeford (Minister for Air)
• John Dedman (Minister for Interior) (from 11 December 1941)^[13]

Frederick Shedden, the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Defence, served as secretary of the War Cabinet,^[14] which met regularly throughout the war. It held its last meeting in Canberra on 19 January 1946.^[15]

United States[link]

In response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, United States President George W. Bush created a War Cabinet. They met at Camp David on the weekend of September 15 to shape what became the War on Terrorism. The membership was mostly, but not entirely, identical to that of the United States National Security Council.

The Cabinet comprised

• President - George W. Bush
• Vice President - Dick Cheney
• Defense Secretary - Donald Rumsfeld
• Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) - Condoleezza Rice
• Secretary of State - Colin Powell
• Director of Central Intelligence - George Tenet
• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - Hugh Shelton
• Attorney General - John Ashcroft
• Secretary of the Treasury - Paul O'Neill
• Counselor to the President - Karen Hughes
• White House Press Secretary - Ari Fleischer
• Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - Robert Mueller
• Deputy Defense Secretary - Paul Wolfowitz
• White House Chief of Staff - Andrew Card

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Hasluck, Paul (1952). The Government and the People 1939-1941. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 4 – Civil. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/chapter.asp?volume=30. 
• Horner, David (1996). Inside the War Cabinet: Directing Australia's War Effort 1939-45. St Leonards, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-968-8.