EMPIRE of THE AIR, The Advent of the Air Age, 1922 : 29

This astonishing book is the author's account of the development of air power and air communication ( Royal Air Force ) between 1922 and 1929.

Aviation book
THIS IS the author's account of the development of air power and air communications during the first three of his four terms of office as Secretary of State for Air between 1922 and 1929. When he took office - and there is a remarkable opening chapter describing the fall of the Coalition Government which led to his doing so - it seemed almost certain that the Air Force would be disbanded and the whole use of air power entrusted to the Army and Navy. The battle with the older arms and with the Treasury to save the new arm is told in vivid detail. The imaginative mind, according to Lord Templewood, which conceived this new element in warfare, was Lord Trenchard's, who in creating the Royal Air Force created the model for all the air forces of the world.
The various steps by which this Force recruited and trained its personnel, selected and had manufactured its material, built its stations and organised its communications throughout the world are accompanied by a description of how the public was educated to realise that air power had become a necessity for the defence of the Empire as well as an indispensable means of communications between its various parts.

Samuel John Gurney Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood, G.C.S.I., G.B.E., C.M.G., P.C., J.P. ( February 24th, 1880 - May 7th, 1959 ), more commonly known as Sir Samuel Hoare, was born in London ( England ), the eldest son of Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Baronet, who was a Conservative M.P. from a by - election in 1886 until 1906, and to whose baronetcy he succeeded in 1915. His family were the Anglo - Irish branch of an old Quaker family, with a long history of involvement in banking. He was a descendant of Samuel Hoare, but the family had abandoned Quakerism in the mid - 18th century and Hoare was brought up an Anglo - Catholic.
Samuel Hoare was educated at Harrow School, where he was a classical scholar, and New College, Oxford. As an undergraduate he was awarded a blue in rackets and was a member of the Gridiron and Bullingdon Clubs. Initially he studied classics, taking a first in Mods in 1901, before switching to Modern History, graduating with a first class B.A. in 1903. He was awarded his M.A. in 1910. He later became Honorary Fellow of New College.
On October 17th, 1909, he married Lady Maud Lygon ( 1882 - 1962 ), youngest daughter of The 6th Earl Beauchamp. Their marriage was childless. It was, in the words of R.J.Q. Adams, ’ not at first a love match ’ but in time became ’a devoted partnership ’. Samuel Hoare entered local politics in March 1907, when he was elected to the London County Council as a member of the Municipal Reform Party ( the local government wing of the Conservative Party ) representing Brixton. He served as Chairman of the London Fire Brigade Committee. He served on the L.C.C. until 1910.
Aged 34, he joined the Army soon after the outbreak of the First World War. He was commissioned into the Norfolk Yeomanry as a Temporary Lieutenant on October 17th, 1914. To his disappointment, he was initially only a recruiting officer ; and due to illness he was unable to serve at the front. He was promoted to Temporary Captain on April 24th, 1915. While acting as a recruiting officer he learnt Russian. In 1916, he was recruited by Mansfield Cumming to be the future MI6's liaison officer with the Russian Intelligence service in Petrograd ( St Petersburg ). He soon became head of the British Intelligence Mission to the Russian General Staff with the temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In that post, he reported to the British Government the death of Rasputin and apologised, because of the sensational nature of the event, for having written it in the style of the Daily Mail.
In March 1917 he was posted to Rome, where he remained until the end of the war ; his duties included helping to dissuade Italy from dropping out of the war. In Italy, he met and recruited the former Socialist Leader Benito Mussolini on behalf of the British overseas intelligence service, which was then known as MI1. Newly published documents show that Britain’s intelligence service helped Mussolini to finance his first forays into Italian politics as a right - wing politician. Hoping to keep Italy on its side in 1917, during the First World War, British intelligence gave Mussolini, then aged 34 and editor of a right - wing newspaper, £ 100 a week to keep his propaganda flowing. Samuel Hoare was Secretary of State for Air during most of the 1920's.
As Secretary of State for India in the early 1930's, he authored the Government of India Act 1935, which granted provincial - level self government to India. He is most famous for serving as Foreign Secretary in 1935, when he authored the Hoare - Laval Pact with French Prime Minister Pierre Laval. This partially recognised the Italian conquest of Abyssinia ( modern Ethiopia ) and Hoare was forced to resign by the ensuing public outcry. In 1936 he returned to the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, then served as Home Secretary from 1937 to 1939 and was again briefly Secretary of State for Air in 1940. He was seen as a leading ’ appeaser ’ and his removal from office ( along with that of Sir John Simon and the removal of Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister ) was a condition of Labour's agreement to serve in a coalition government in May 1940.
He was British ambassador to Spain from 1940 to 1944. During his time in Spain, Samuel Hoare helped to prevent Spanish interference with Operation Torch in November 1942. On July 14th, 1944, he was created Viscount Templewood ( the name was that of a country house at Sidestrand ) of Chelsea in the County of Middlesex. With the issue of Spanish neutrality no longer in doubt, his ambassadorship ended in December 1944 and he returned to the United Kingdom.
Lord Templewood published a number of books after the war, including : Ambassador on Special Mission ( 1946 ), about his time in Spain ; The Unbroken Thread ( 1949 ), a family memoir ; The Shadow of the Gallows ( 1951 ), on capital punishment and Nine Troubled Years ( 1954 ), a memoir of the 1930's.
Lord Templewood died of a heart attack, at his home, 12a Eaton Mansions, Chelsea, London ( England ).
( source : Wikipedia )