Sublime

Hirota cabinet (1936–37)

In 1681 the directorship was taken over by the recklessly aggressive Sir Josiah Child, who had started his career supplying beer to the navy in Portsmouth, and who was described by the diarist John Evelyn as ‘an overgrown and suddenly monied man … most sordidly avaricious’.81

A pale man with pince-nez, he had the kind of face it is impossible to recall within five minutes of seeing it, and owed his appointment to the fact that all the other candidates for the Vice Chancellorship had enough personality to acquire enemies.

“If we must offend one side,” Chamberlain told his Cabinet, “let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs.”