In 1884 (the year of Gordon of Khartoum, another extension of the franchise to working class men & continuing tensions over Irish Home Rule) Eddie Hamilton, one of Gladstone’s Private Secretaries, reminded the prime minister, once again, that his nocturnal activities, whereby he attempted to persuade prostitutes to seek a better way of life, made him, & his political programme, vulnerable. For there were many ‘malicious & unscrupulous persons who would give large sums of money’ to persuade his police bodyguards to incriminate him. ‘There is no saying to what account these persons might or might not turn such information.’
In the wake of all our recent scandals over the behaviour of press & police that doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, though I was slightly taken aback to realise that Gladstone had full-time police bodyguards – an idea such as this had been rejected in earlier years, even during the Fenian panics of the late 1860s.
But the effects of Phoenix Park in 1882 must have cast a much longer shadow. Has there ever been a period since when prime ministers have not had such close protection?
I was checking the background of Eddie Hamilton in the Dictionary of National Biography, when the following quote raised a smile:
Hamilton was aware that the qualities that suited him so well to be a private secretary and Treasury official—diligence, accuracy, discretion, tact, and above all an ability to write clear summaries of complex questions—did not include unusual powers of intellect.Link
Police officer found guilty of trying to sell information to News of the World
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Prime ministerial security
