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William Armstrong and British Policy Making pp 97–142Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Head of the Treasury 1962–68

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Abstract

One of the architects of a major reorganisation of the Treasury, and chosen by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan as a new broom, Armstrong was the first permanent secretary to be fully at home with the analytical framework of contemporary economic policy and demand management. He was involved in all the economic issues of the 1960s, particularly the balance of payments crises that eventually led to devaluation of the pound in 1967. He also worked to hold the Whitehall machine together following the change of government in 1964, including the issues raised by Labour’s creation of the Department of Economic Affairs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Samuel Brittan , The Treasury Under the Tories 1951–1964, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 52.

  2. 2.

    Interview with former economic adviser (KT).

  3. 3.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  4. 4.

    Samuel Brittan , ‘A new Treasury—At last’, The Observer, 5 August 1962; ‘New men at top of Civil Service’, The Observer, 29 July 1962.

  5. 5.

    Interview with Lord Wilson of Dinton (PC).

  6. 6.

    Laurence Helsby note for the record, 8 May 1964, National Archives (NA) T330/19.

  7. 7.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  8. 8.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  9. 9.

    Kevin Theakston, The Civil Service Since 1945 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995), p. 22; Peter Catterall (ed), The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years 1950–1957 (London: Macmillan, 2003), p. 494.

  10. 10.

    Harold Evans , Downing Street Diary (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981), pp. 131, 197, 210.

  11. 11.

    Peter Hennessy , Whitehall (London: Secker and Warburg, 1989), p. 216.

  12. 12.

    Kenneth Fleet, ‘Treasury Team Reshaped’, The Guardian, 30 July 1962.

  13. 13.

    Private information; Hennessy, Whitehall, p. 216.

  14. 14.

    Jeremy Hornsby, ‘Secrets All My Life’, Daily Express, 30 July 1962; ‘The Chancellor’s right-hand man’, The Observer, 30 September 1962.

  15. 15.

    ‘Not the Mandarin Type’, Financial Times, 30 July 1962; ‘Young Men to Take Over in Sweeping Treasury Changes’, The Sunday Times, 29 July 1962.

  16. 16.

    Kevin Theakston and Geoffrey K. Fry, ‘Britain’s Administrative Elite: Permanent Secretaries 1900–1986’, Public Administration, vol. 67, no.2, 1989, pp. 137–8, 141.

  17. 17.

    Interview with Sir Samuel Goldman (PC); interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  18. 18.

    ‘Do Christians need a personal experience of God?’, William Armstrong talk to Congregational Church group, meeting of the 1662 Society, May 1972, National Archives (NA) BA 6/83.

  19. 19.

    Private information (KT).

  20. 20.

    Interview with Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (PC).

  21. 21.

    Thomas Balogh , ‘The Apotheosis of the Dilettante: The Establishment of Mandarins’, in Hugh Thomas (ed), The Establishment (London: Anthony Blond, 1959), pp. 83–126; Thomas Balogh , ‘The Treasury Purge’, New Statesman, 3 August 1962.

  22. 22.

    Alec Cairncross (ed), The Robert Hall Diaries 1947–1953 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 263; G.C. Peden, The Treasury and British Public Policy 1906–1959 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 432–437.

  23. 23.

    Kevin Theakston, Leadership in Whitehall (London: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 102–103.

  24. 24.

    ‘Number Ten and Number Eleven’, The Economist, 28 July 1956, pp. 293–4.

  25. 25.

    Theakston, Leadership in Whitehall, pp. 148–172; Rodney Lowe, ‘Milestone or Millstone: the 1959–61 Plowden Committee and its Impact on British Welfare Policy’, Historical Journal, 40(2), 1997, pp. 463–491.

  26. 26.

    Edmund Dell , The Chancellors (London: HarperCollins, 1996), pp. 315–316.

  27. 27.

    Sir Douglas Wass quoted in: John Rentoul, ‘“I’ve got a typewriter and a bottle of gin”: Sir Richard “Otto” Clarke, titan of the Civil Service’, The Independent, 22 July 2015.

  28. 28.

    Rodney Lowe, The Official History of the British Civil Service: Reforming the Civil Service, Volume 1: The Fulton Years, 1966–81 (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 85–86, 106–107.

  29. 29.

    The work of the Treasury Organisation Committee can be followed in: NA T199/930, T199/931, T199/932, T199/934, T199/938, T199/805. The final TOC report is in T199/935. Armstrong’s memo of 9 January 1962 is in T19/930.

  30. 30.

    Hennessy, Whitehall, p. 762, fn.57.

  31. 31.

    Sir William Armstrong, ‘The Reorganised Treasury’, NA T230/711.

  32. 32.

    Samuel Brittan , ‘A new Treasury—At last’, The Observer, 5 August 1962.

  33. 33.

    Samuel Brittan , Steering the Economy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), pp. 72, 272.

  34. 34.

    Interview with former economic adviser (KT).

  35. 35.

    Eric Jacobs , ‘Cleaning up the corridors of power: profile of Sir William Armstrong’, The Sunday Times, 15 September 1968; Peter Hennessy , ‘Headship of the Civil Service 3: Not biscuits but a slice of cake when dispute became serious’, The Times, 6 October 1977.

  36. 36.

    Interview with Lord Roll (PC).

  37. 37.

    Jeremy Hornsby, ‘Secrets All My Life’, Daily Express, 30 July 1962.

  38. 38.

    Sir William Armstrong, the new head of the Civil Service , in conversation with George Scott’, The Listener, 9 May 1968, p. 597.

  39. 39.

    Transcript of ‘In the Public Eye’, BBC Radio interview, 26 April 1968, Armstrong papers.

  40. 40.

    Sir William Armstrong, ‘The Role and Character of the Civil Service’, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 56 (London, 1970), pp. 221–222.

  41. 41.

    British Forces Broadcasting Service, ‘On Reflection—Sir William Armstrong’, April 1972, NA BA 6/82.

  42. 42.

    Brian Connell, ‘Lord Armstrong: A hardly-noticed transition from Whitehall to the City’, The Times, 15 November 1976.

  43. 43.

    British Forces Broadcasting Service, ‘On Reflection—Sir William Armstrong’, April 1972, NA BA 6/82.

  44. 44.

    Armstrong, ‘The Role and Character of the Civil Service’, p. 223.

  45. 45.

    ‘The Chancellor’s right-hand man’, The Observer, 30 September 1962; Hennessy, Whitehall, p. 219.

  46. 46.

    Scott Kelly, The Myth of Mr Butskell: The Politics of British Economic Policy, 1950–55 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002).

  47. 47.

    Barbara Castle , The Castle Diaries 1964–70 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984), pp. 722–723, 786.

  48. 48.

    Armstrong, ‘The Role and Character of the Civil Service’, p. 214.

  49. 49.

    British Forces Broadcasting Service, ‘On Reflection—Sir William Armstrong’, April 1972, NA BA 6/82.

  50. 50.

    ‘Sir William Armstrong, head of the Civil Service , talks to Robert McKenzie about the Fulton Report’, The Listener, 30 January 1969, p. 136.

  51. 51.

    Peter Hennessy , The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945 (London: Allen Lane Penguin Press, 2000), p. 422.

  52. 52.

    Leo Pliatzky , Getting and Spending (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), pp. 77–8.

  53. 53.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  54. 54.

    Alec Cairncross , The Wilson Years: A Treasury Diary, 1964–1969 (London: The Historians’ Press, 1997), pp. 175, 291.

  55. 55.

    Interview with former second permanent secretary (KT).

  56. 56.

    Alec Cairncross , Living With The Century (Fife: iynx, 1998), pp. 229–30; Cairncross, The Wilson Years, p. 206.

  57. 57.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  58. 58.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  59. 59.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  60. 60.

    Interview with former economic adviser (KT).

  61. 61.

    Interview with Lord Butler of Brockwell (PC).

  62. 62.

    Correspondence with Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (PC).

  63. 63.

    ‘Make haste slowly.’

  64. 64.

    Interview with Peter Jay , British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, Churchill College, Cambridge (2006); Peter Jay, ‘New man at the helm in Whitehall’, The Times, 1 May 1968.

  65. 65.

    Correspondence with Sir David Walker (PC).

  66. 66.

    Samuel Brittan , Capitalism with a Human Face (London: Fontana, 1996), p. 11.

  67. 67.

    Gay Davidson, ‘The “British tradition”: C.S. Heads Talk to Both Sides’, Canberra Times, 27 October 1973; Hugo Young , ‘Arch-mandarin who went public’, The Sunday Times, 13 July 1980.

  68. 68.

    Departmental Committee on Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act (Franks Committee), Cmnd 5104 (London: HMSO, 1972), vol. 3, pp. 106–107, 119.

  69. 69.

    Eric Jacobs , ‘Cleaning up the corridors of power: profile of Sir William Armstrong’, The Sunday Times, 15 September 1968.

  70. 70.

    Roy Jenkins , Life At the Centre (London: Macmillan, 1991), p. 291; Dell, The Chancellors, pp. 300–301.

  71. 71.

    Sir Alec Cairncross , Diaries: The Radcliffe Committee and the Treasury 1961–64 (London: Institute for Contemporary British History, 1999), pp. 82, 85.

  72. 72.

    Cairncross , Diaries: The Radcliffe Committee and the Treasury 1961–64, p. 50; Lewis Baston, Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling (London: Sutton Publishing, 2004), p. 184.

  73. 73.

    James Callaghan , Time and Chance (London: Collins/Fontana, 1988), p. 155.

  74. 74.

    B.C. (M) (63) 8, Armstrong to Mitchell, 20 February 1963, NA T 171/625; Baston, Reggie, p. 192; Richard Lamb, The Macmillan Years 1957–1963: The Emerging Truth (London: John Murray, 1995), pp. 94–95.

  75. 75.

    See: NA T230/524, T230/525, T230/579; Hugh Pemberton, Policy Learning and British Governance in the 1960s (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 70–72.

  76. 76.

    Baston, Reggie, pp. 224, 237, 241; Cairncross, The Wilson Years, p. 3; Armstrong to Clarke, 2 February 1960, NA T325/64.

  77. 77.

    Baston, Reggie, p. 227; Cairncross , Diaries: The Radcliffe Committee and the Treasury 1961–64, p. 85.

  78. 78.

    Armstrong to Bancroft, 13 July 1964; Note of a meeting at No. 11 Downing Street, 21 July 1964, NA T171/755.

  79. 79.

    Kenneth O. Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 189.

  80. 80.

    ‘NIF Report and Balance of Payments Prospects Report’, note by W. Armstrong, 16 December1963, annex to C.P. (64) 3, ‘Economic Prospects, 1964’, 6 January 1964, NA CAB 129/116.

  81. 81.

    BC (64) 3rd meeting, 1 May 1964; Meeting with Chancellor of the Exchequer 11 June 1964; Bancroft note for the record, 18 June 1964; Armstrong to Bancroft , 13 July 1964; Note of a meeting at No. 11 Downing Street, 21 July 1964, NA T171/755.

  82. 82.

    Armstrong to Bancroft, 13 July 1964; Note of a meeting at No. 11 Downing Street, 21 July 1964, NA T171/755.

  83. 83.

    Long-term Prospect for the Economy and Deployment of Resources, note of a meeting in Sir William Armstrong’s room, 18 June 1964; Armstrong to Bancroft, ‘The Next Five Years’, 6 July 1964, NA T368/7.

  84. 84.

    Bancroft to Armstrong, 8 July 1964, NA T368/7; Baston, Reggie, p. 230.

  85. 85.

    Dell , The Chancellors, p. 297; Baston, Reggie, pp. 190–191.

  86. 86.

    Armstrong to Bancroft, with Cairncross memo on ‘Devaluation’, 23 July 1964; Bancroft to Armstrong, 28 July 1964, NA T171/755.

  87. 87.

    Armstrong to Bancroft, ‘Economic Policy: Report on the Balance of Payments’, 18 September 1964, NA T368/7; printed version of the report also in T171/755.

  88. 88.

    Morgan, Callaghan, pp. 206–207; Royal Mint papers of Sir William Armstrong, NA T368/1, T368/2.

  89. 89.

    Dell, The Chancellors, pp. 315–316, 319–320.

  90. 90.

    Cairncross , Living With The Century, p. 230; Morgan, Callaghan, p. 206; Susan Crosland , Tony Crosland (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), p. 125; Dell, The Chancellors, p. 319.

  91. 91.

    Jock Bruce-Gardyne and Nigel Lawson, The Power Game: An Examination of Decision-making in Government (London: Macmillan, 1976), p. 127.

  92. 92.

    Callaghan, Time and Chance, p. 162; Armstrong to Bancroft, 16 October 1964, NA PREM 13/032.

  93. 93.

    Wilson to Johnson, 24 October 1964, NA PREM 13/032; Tim Bale, ‘Dynamics of a Non-Decision: the “Failure” to Devalue the Pound, 1964–7’, Twentieth Century British History, 10 (2), 1999, p. 210; Bruce-Gardyne and Lawson, The Power Game, p. 133; Cairncross, The Wilson Years, p. 1.

  94. 94.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, pp. 64, 210; Dell, The Chancellors, p. 334.

  95. 95.

    See NA T312/1401 and T312/1637 for minutes of meetings of the F.U. committee, chaired by William Armstrong.

  96. 96.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, pp. 68, 74, 129–30, 148.

  97. 97.

    Tony Benn , Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67 (London: Hutchinson, 1987), p. 480; Castle, The Castle Diaries 1964–70, p. 177; Douglas Jay, Change and Fortune: A Political Record (London: Hutchinson, 1980), p. 365; Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Volume 2: Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons 1966–68 (London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape, 1976), pp. 82, 88; Dell, The Chancellors, p. 338.

  98. 98.

    Bruce-Gardyne and Lawson, The Power Game, p. 133.

  99. 99.

    Morgan, Callaghan, p. 255; Cairncross, The Wilson Years, pp. 229, 233, 236, 240, 244.

  100. 100.

    Crosland, Tony Crosland, pp. 202–203.

  101. 101.

    Roy Jenkins , A Life at the Centre (London: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 220–221.

  102. 102.

    Interview with former permanent secretary (KT).

  103. 103.

    June Morris, The Life and Times of Thomas Balogh: A Macaw Among Mandarins (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2007), p. 117.

  104. 104.

    John Campbell, Roy Jenkins (London: Jonathan Cape, 2014), p. 325.

  105. 105.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, pp. 336–337.

  106. 106.

    Dell , The Chancellors, p. 354; ‘New head of home Civil Service’, The Times, 5 January 1968; Cairncross , The Wilson Years, p. 257.

  107. 107.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, pp. 272, 291.

  108. 108.

    Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, pp. 221, 230.

  109. 109.

    Dell , The Chancellors, pp. 351, 353; Cairncross, The Wilson Years, pp. 244–5, 247, 255, 266–7; Edward Pearce, Denis Healey: A Life In Our Times (London: Little, Brown, 2002), p. 347.

  110. 110.

    Ibid., pp. 241–242.

  111. 111.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, p. 289.

  112. 112.

    Interview with Peter Jay (KT); George Brown, In My Way (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 113.

  113. 113.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, pp. 10, 23, 28; Morris, The Life and Times of Thomas Balogh, p. 120.

  114. 114.

    Morris, The Life and Times of Thomas Balogh, pp. x, 143; Cairncross, Living With The Century, pp. 242–3; Cairncross, The Wilson Years, pp. 131, 134; ‘Employers’ National Insurance Contributions’, Note of a meeting in the Treasury, 14 April 1966; Armstrong to Bancroft , 15 April 1966, NA T171/813.

  115. 115.

    Sir William Armstrong, ‘The Reorganised Treasury’, NA T230/711.

  116. 116.

    Crosland, Tony Crosland, pp. 122–3, 126; Hennessy, Whitehall, pp. 180–1; Christopher Clifford and Alistair McMillan, ‘Witness Seminar: The Department of Economic Affairs’, Contemporary British History, 11 (2), 1997, p. 125; Jay, Change and Fortune, pp. 295, 299–300.

  117. 117.

    Helsby to Prime Minister, 9 May 1963, NA T330/19; MG (63) 1st meeting, 4 November 1963, NA CAB 21/5081.

  118. 118.

    Armstrong memorandum, 7 February 1964, NA CAB 21/5082.

  119. 119.

    Minutes of the MG (E) (64) Committee on Machinery of Government: Economic Departments are in: NA CAB 21/5082 and T330/19; see also: Cairncross, Diaries: The Radcliffe Committee and the Treasury 1961–64, p. 91.

  120. 120.

    MG (64) 4, ‘Distribution of Functions between Economic Departments’, 5 June 1964, NA T330/20.

  121. 121.

    Armstrong to Helsby, ‘Redistribution of functions between Economic Departments’, 5 June 1964, NA T330/20.

  122. 122.

    MG (64) 2nd meeting, 10 June 1964; Armstrong to Helsby, ‘ The organization of Economic Departments’, 16 June 1964; MG (64) 3rd meeting, 22 June 1964, NA T330/20.

  123. 123.

    A.J. Collier, note for the record, 30 July 1964, NA T199/962.

  124. 124.

    Helsby note of conversation with prime minister, 27 April 1964, NA T330/19; M.V. Hawtin, note for the record, 5 April 1968, NA T330/135.

  125. 125.

    William Armstrong note, 17 April 1964; Helsby note, 8 May 1964, NA T330/19; Helsby note, 28 July 1964, NA T330/20.

  126. 126.

    Brown, In My Way, pp. 89–90; Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson (London: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 361; Hugo Young , ‘Arch-mandarin who went public’, The Sunday Times, 13 July 1980; Eric Roll, Crowded Hours (London: Faber and Faber, 1985), p. 152.

  127. 127.

    Laurence Helsby note, 8 May 1964, NA T330/19.

  128. 128.

    Helsby note, 28 July 1964; Lord Plowden to Helsby, 5 August 1964; Helsby to Plowden, 5 August 1964, NA T330/20.

  129. 129.

    Dell , The Chancellors, p. 309; Clifford and McMillan, ‘Witness Seminar: The Department of Economic Affairs’, p. 128; Roger Middleton (ed), Inside the Department of Economic Affairs: Samuel Brittan, the Diary of an ‘Irregular’, 1964–6 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 14–15.

  130. 130.

    Helsby to Armstrong, 5 August 1964, NA T199/962.

  131. 131.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, p. 197.

  132. 132.

    Roll, Crowded Hours, p. 155; Clifford and McMillan, ‘Witness Seminar: The Department of Economic Affairs’, p. 128; interview with Peter Jay (KT).

  133. 133.

    See: TOC (64) 4, ‘Organisation of the Treasury after the appointment of a Secretary of State for Economic Affairs’, 16 September 1964; TOC (64) 6, ‘A Department of Economic Affairs’, 17 September 1964; TOC (64) 2nd meeting, 23 September 1964; Armstrong to Bancroft, ‘Department of Economic Affairs: Division of Functions with the Treasury’, 16 October 1964, NA T199/962.

  134. 134.

    Armstrong to Bancroft, ‘Department of Economic Affairs: Division of Functions with the Treasury’, 16 October 1964, NA T199/962.

  135. 135.

    Jay, note for the record, 29 October 1964; Clarke to Bancroft, 29 October 1964; Note of a meeting held in Sir Laurence Helsby’s room, 2 November 1964, NA T199/962.

  136. 136.

    Callaghan , Time and Chance, p. 166; Roll, Crowded Hours, pp. 152–3.

  137. 137.

    Cairncross , The Wilson Years, p. 45.

  138. 138.

    Clifford and McMillan, ‘Witness Seminar: The Department of Economic Affairs’, p. 126.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sch of Politics & International Studies, University of Leeds Sch of Politics & International Studies, Leeds, UK

    Kevin Theakston

  2. Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK

    Philip Connelly

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Theakston, K., Connelly, P. (2018). Head of the Treasury 1962–68. In: William Armstrong and British Policy Making. Understanding Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57159-5_4

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