Dr Andrew Blick is Lecturer in Politics and Contemporary History, King's College London. His publications include, with George Jones, 'At Power's Elbow: aides to the Prime Minister from Robert Walpole to David Cameron; ‘People Who Live in the Dark’, a history of special advisers; ‘Premiership’, also with George Jones; and – with Peter Hennessy – ‘The Hidden Wiring Emerges’, an analysis of the UK Cabinet Manual. He is currently writing ‘Beyond Magna Carta: a constitution for the United Kingdom’.
The Prime Minister's Secretariat (the 'Garden Suburb') was formed 100 years ago, to support David Lloyd George in the conduct of the war. But would it still be needed once hostilities came to an end?
![Extract of the draft note from 2 January 1917 on 10 Downing Street headed paper which reads 'To: The Private Secretary, the Prime Minister has decided, with a view to keeping himself in close touch with the several departments, to establish a ['Secretariat' is crossed out and replaced by 'Department'] in connection with Office of the First Lord of the Treasury. The following gentlemen have been appointed to act as secretaries to the ['First Lord of the Treasury' is crossed out and replaced by 'new Department']](https://history.blog.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/01/edited-1024x753.jpg)
...A hundred years ago today, on 5 January 1917, in the midst of the Great War, an important note was circulated around Whitehall departments. J. T. Davis, private secretary to...
...a protracted period from the late seventeenth century. Moreover, the exact principles governing its operation have always been difficult precisely to discern, though they have become more codified in recent...
...a large extent on the team of personal staff he skilfully constructed, influenced by the coalition premier in the previous world war, David Lloyd George (1916-1922), whose innovations included the...
...David Lloyd George when he became Prime Minister late in 1916. In the preceding years the only record of Cabinet meetings had been the letter written for the monarch by...
“How the power of Prime Ministry grew up into its present form it is difficult to trace precisely.” In 1841 a former Prime Minister, Viscount Melbourne, explained the above to Queen Victoria. Details of the lives of individual Prime Ministers …