Names

Christmas Eve at the Front

An interesting letter has just been received by Mrs Packer, of Broadclyst, from her husband, Corpl Packer of A Company, 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, who is serving with the Expeditionary Force in Northern France. In the course of a letter he describes a remarkable incident which occurred on Christmas Eve between the British and German trenches.

Sir Richard Acland's Gift to Nation - 1943

Estates in Devon and Somerset - Keeping them safe and unspoiled

Sir Richard Acland, M.P. for North-West Devon, is presenting to the National Trust the largest single acquisition in its history - some 17,000 acres of his estates in Devon and Somerset, which have been estimated to be worth £250,000. The land consists of the Killerton estate in Devon and the Holnicote estate in Somerset. In addition, the National Trust is buying 1,000 acres of adjoining land. Of the estates, 6,000 acres are already leased to the Trust. Sufficient income will be derived by the Trust from the whole transaction to allow for the full maintenance of the property, including the development of its amenities, for the enjoyment of the public: it will also provide a considerable fund for the Trust's own general purposes. The Holnicote estate, which goes down to the sea north of Porlock, lies between Dunkery Beacon and North Hill. It includes the attractive villages of Selworthy, Allerford, Bossington and Luccombe.

Apart from the 6,120 acres of moorland and woodlands already leased to the Trust, the estate contains some 4,000 acres of agricultural land and woodlands. Holnicote House, recently damaged by fire, is now being repaired for use as a nursery home under the Ministry of Health. The Killerton estate consists of about 4,500 acres of farm land and 1,500 acres of forest. It lies around the village of Broadclyst about seven miles north-east of Exeter. Killerton House stands at the foot of a sharp, distinctive hill formed by a small volcanic outcrop in the midst of the red Devon soil. On the southern slopes of this hill Sir Richard's father and grandfather assembled in an attractive garden an interesting collection of trees and flowering shrubs.

There is a smaller house on the estate, Sprydon, in which Sir Richard Acland's family will continue to live until the end of the war. After the war, the National Trust will seek to use all three houses on the two estates for public or quasi-public purposes. The Trust already owns 1,800 acres of Dunkery Hill, which adjoins Holnicote. With the Holnicote and Killerton estates, Sir Richard inherited the Acland estates at Bude and a few outlying farms. These he is now seeking to sell to reduce to the minimum the death duties still payable on the property before it is handed over.

Sir Richard has stated there were two main reasons why he had given the estates to the Trust. 'The first,' said Sir Richard, 'is that is has now become impossible to reconcile the political views I hold so strongly with my position as owner of large agricultural estates. The other is that these two estates have existed as a unity for many generations and we are now within sight of the time when, inevitably, first one and then the other would have to be sold and broken up. The only way of ensuring that the estates remain safe and unspoiled for all time is to hand them over to the National Archive. Furthermore, in the immediate present, the Trust will have available not only the income which we would be drawing from the estates, but also the sum which we now have to pay in income-tax and surtax. The Trust will, therefore, be able to keep the estates in better order and to employ more people than we could ever hope to do.

'Lady Acland wishes me to say that we have been considering this step for a considerable time, and we both believe it is the right decision to have made.'

After the war, the family intend to move to eight rooms in another property owned by Sir Richard's father, which is now being used as a girls' school. Sir Richard says 'Our income will depend solely on what I earn as an M.P. and a writer. I shall be a working man and nothing else." He has promised the farmers and their tenants on his estates that he will still be in the district to look after their interests. He and his wife will still fill the traditional jobs of his family such as visiting the workers at Christmas and supplying them with annual benefits like food and Christmas trees.

Sir Richard, who is 36, is vice-chairman of the new Commons Wealth party. Elected for N.W.Devon as a Liberal, he now sits as an Independent member. He is the fifteenth baronet, suceeding his father, Sir Francis Acland, in 1939. The whole of the Somerset estate of the Aclands was made a gift to Sir Richard in 1931 by his father. The second largest gift to the Trust was the 13,000 acre estate of Sir Charles Trevelyan at Wallington, Northumberland. In its annual report last year the Trust stated: 'Owners of large houses are becoming more and more convinced that many of them may have no future
whatever as private residences.'

Prophet in Battledress - 1942

Sir Richard Acland, M.P. for North-West Devon and now serving as a lance-bombardier in the Royal Artillery, is featured in a Christmastide interview by a special correspondent appearing in a current issue of the 'Methodist Recorder'. The article describes Sir Richard as a 'prophet of goodwill in battledress... bold enought to echo in the House of Commons the claim of the pulpit through many a year that only Christianity fearlessly and honestly applied can bring us peace and goodwill." Sir Richard is stated to be becoming known far beyond his native Westcountry. His books 'Unser Kampf' and its later development, 'The Forward March' are being widely read and discussed. England may yet have to listen to this politician, adds the writer, who classes Sir Richard as a fighter - a man who knows what he fights for and loves what he knows.

Three Hundred Years

For 300 years the Aclands have counted in the Westcountry, continues the writer. Sir Richard, the 15th holder of a baronetcy created in 1642 for services in the Royalist cause, is the ninth head of the family to sit in Parliament. His ancestors originally landlords of the old school, moved in their political faith in successive generations only one direction, to the Left. 'In the middle of the eighteenth century my family were good old Tories," Sir Richard said, 'but they came over to Liberalism in the nineteenth via Peel. Since then we have always been on the side of the people.' Sir Richard's
grandfather in Mr Gladstone's last Administration was President of the Board of Education, 'The Recorder' continues. His own entry into politics came in 1929, when he was the unsuccessful Liberal candidate for Torquay and Barnstaple. In 1931 he again contested, and again failed, but four years later was returned to Parliament. Sir Richard wanted a 'Popular front,' not as a political universale remedy but as the only effective form of fighting what he believed to be an utterly immoral foreign policy. He held the foreign policy immoral because it did not express what he insists is the heart of the Christian ethic - to love your neighbour as yourself.

The Core

Having found his bearings in modern politics, Sir Richard, from the time of the crisis which began at Munich and ended in the outbreak of war, realised the destination for which he had set out. The core of the matter - the really vital thing - was the private ownership of our great resources, he decided. He did not mean by this to challenge the right to 'property' but the right to own share certificates or other documents of title to the great mass of our national resources. 'Our cardinal error lies in creating an environment which inevitably brings the self-seeking element to the top,' he declared. Offering no guarantee of success if his ideas were adopted, Sir Richard said that if the nation decided to make the change in its economic structure they might or might not succeed. 'It would merely break the present guarantee of failure,' he added, 'a great deal will depend upon those who have been the leaders of the new movement. If it has been led by self-seeking and self-centred men it is likely to fail, but if we have been led upward by Christian ministers and layment of high character there will be some real hope of success.'

'Eighth Army News' Tackles Sir Richard

'Eighth Army News' Tackles Sir Richard - 1943

'Think Again, Acland'

Under the heading 'Think again, Acland,' a recent edition of 'Eighth Army News' has been hitting out at the Member of Parliament for North-West Devon, Sir Richard Acland's knowledge of what the Army thinks. The article, an editorial, stated: 'Sir Richard Acland, a Member of Parliament, has been complaining in the Commons. He has been complaining that the forces - that's us - were not given the faintest idea of the subjects exercising the minds of the people at home. The Honourable Member for Barnstaple may be taking a popular line that indicates he has not the faintest idea of the subjects exercising the minds of the soldier abroard.
'With our newspapers and with the wireless we are reasonably well informed. Our letter-boxes in both papers are the platforms for the free expression of opinions by their owner - the British soldier. This is not only the way with Eighth Army. Back in '41 news and information for the fighting man were pioneered in the Eighth, but today there is no Command abroad which has not its own journals and its own news services.

Seeing the Wood from the Trees

'We suggest to Sir Richard Acland that he goes through the copies of 'Eighth Army News' he will find in the Commons Library. He will find that the British soldier abroad has a very lively interest in world affairs and the political present and future of his own country. He will find that the British soldier has a remarkable aptitude for seeing the wood from the trees - and there are plenty of overhanging branches these days. The British soldier has had the opportunity of meeting people of other countries. The British soldier has come pretty close to the German, too. He knows how Fascism works. He knows at first hand. He holds debates. He writes to his newspapers. He seeks out knowledge. He fights, he lives, and he learns. When a British soldier is in the line and engaged in battle it is naturally not always possible to see that he gets his news and information daily. There are times when he is too fully occupied to be pondering on the subject exercising the minds of the people at home.

The article goes on to list some half a dozen Army newspapers, and wonders if the Member of N.W. Devon has heard of them. While not suggesting that the British soldier's information services are perfect, the writer stated that they are probably the best in any Army in the world, and the authorities are trying to improve them all the time. 'Eighth Army News; bears an announcement that the issue is one to ten men, and that the troops are 'entitled to demand it.'