Carson the Life of Sir Edward Carson

by H. Montgomery Hyde

That A lawyer born and bred in the Nationalist and separatist south of Ireland should have become leader of the Unionist and 'loyalist' north is one of those curiosities of politics which from time to time distinguish and enliven the British political scene.

Edward Carson was primarily a lawyer whom the Irish question made into a politican.

Carson's great cases as an advocate and judge which the author describes - Oscar Wilde, George Archer-Shee ('The Winslow Boy'), the Soap Trust, the Cadbury libel, the Marconi Scandal, the Scott will, the Russell divorce, and many others - will always enshrine and illumine his legal reputation. But it is as a politician that he will be remembered, above all in Ulster, the six north eastern counties of which were excluded from the ambience of the Home Rule Act of 1914 largely as a result of his sustained efforts.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Harford Montgomery Hyde was born on 14 August 1907 in Belfast, the son of James Johnstone Hyde and Isobel Greenfield (née Montgomery). He was educated at Sedbergh School; Queen's University, Belfast (where he gained a first class History degree); then at Magdalen College Oxford (where he gained a second class law degree). He was called to the bar in 1934. From 1935-1939, Hyde was librarian and Private Secretary to the 7th Marquess of Londonderry. In 1939 he married Dorothy Mabel Brayshaw Crofts (divorced 1952).

During World War II, Hyde held several positions. He served as an Assistant Censor in Gibraltar (1940) and was commissioned in the intelligence corps and engaged in counter-espionage work in the United States under Sir William Stephenson, Director of British Security Co-ordination in the Western Hemisphere (whose life Hyde published as "The Quiet Canadian" in 1962). He was also Military Liaison and Security Officer, Bermuda (1940-41); Assistant Passport Control Officer, New York (1941-2); with British Army Staff, USA (1942-4); attached to the Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (1944) and then to the Allied Commission for Austria (1944-5).

Hyde was the Assistant Editor of the Law Reports (1946-7), then Legal Adviser to the British Lion Film Corporation Ltd (1947-9). From 1950-59 he was a Unionist MP for East Belfast and was the UK Delegate to the Council of Europe Consultative Assembly in Strasbourg (1952-5). From 1958-61 Hyde was an Honorary Colonel of the Intelligence Corps (Territorial Army), Northern Ireland. After losing his parliamentary seat, Hyde was Professor of History and Political Science at the University of the Punjab in Lahore (1959-61).

In 1955, Hyde married his second wife Mary Eleanor Fischer. The marriage was dissolved in 1966 and he married Rosalind Roberts Dimond. He died on August 10 1989.

Hyde wrote a great many books on a wide variety of subjects including "The Rise of Castlereagh" (1933); "The Quiet Canadian" (1962); "Cynthia" (1962) and "Secret Intelligence Agent" (1982).

The held at Churchill Archives Centre chiefly consist of the papers and letters Montgomery Hyde collected and generated in the course of writing three of his books: "The Quiet Canadian" (a biography of Sir William Stephenson, Director of British Security Co-ordination in the Western Hemisphere, 1940-46); "Cynthia" (a biography of the British agent Elizabeth (Pack) Brousse); and "Secret Intelligence Agent" (which included descriptions of his own wartime experiences). The collection also includes papers and letters relating to Hyde's work in Censorship and Security in Gibraltar, Bermuda and the USA during the Second World War; and in the legal division of the Allied Control Commission in Austria.