Suppose you are a writer and must contribute to the series recently launched by Swift Press of short biographies of British prime ministers. Perhaps it is a naive suggestion, but the most attractive prospect for the intellectually curious would be a leader with too little brand recognition even to be a question in a pub quiz. It would certainly open most readers’ eyes to delve into the life of Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, Britain’s second prime minister. From later in the 18th century, Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, would prove particularly chewy. What do most people know of Spencer Perceval, other than his assassination? Does Bonar Law remain, as Asquith cruelly put it at his funeral, the “unknown prime minister?”
The first two books in the series seem designed to grab the attention, being of leaders considerably better known than these. Peter Caddick-Adams, a highly able military historian, writes on Winston Churchill, and the former Labour politician Alan Johnson on Harold Wilson: both are interesting choices. Their respective works show the strengths and weaknesses of a project such as this; not least that there is sometimes little left to be said about some subjects (as whoever does Thatcher, Lloyd George or Gladstone may find), or that occasionally new material provides a genuine insight. Here that point is particularly true of Johnson, who appears to have first-hand knowledge if not of Wilson himself, then at least of several who knew him. He certainly brings out how little, if at all, politics was discussed around the dinner table in the Wilson household.
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