He is happy to do his best to fit in with the grand country family (he orders a country suit to go walking in) but is unembarrassed when he doesn’t quite manage it (he has mistakenly ordered a heavy tweed more suited to shooting). As unpalatable as he may be at times, Sir Richard represents the future – a way into power that doesn’t depend on blue-blooded connections but an agile mind and ambitious drive instead.
With new pathways to the top of Society being laid in this decade, Matthew may feel the pressure to be a pioneer on top of his duty to Lord Grantham to preserve the traditions of Downton Abbey. His future earldom will give him a seat in the House of Lords but it might be, after all, his upper middle-class background and professional career that enable him to make his peerage a success rather than, as Violet and Lord Grantham fear, hold him back.
THE REAL-LIFE SIR RICHARD CARLISLE: LORDS BEAVERBROOK AND NORTHCLIFFE
Sir Richard Carlisle is loosely based on the newspaper magnates who made their fortunes out of the First World War. The Canadian tycoon Max Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook, was a prominent figure largely because of his political friends as well as his rousing leaders in the Daily Express. But it was Lord Northcliffe who led the way in tabloid journalism with the establishment of the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail – his descendant, Lord Rothermere, is still the majority shareholder of his newspaper group.
Aitken is compelling for his political bombast. A protégé of the Conservative party leader, Bonar Law (who formed the wartime coalition government with Lloyd George), and a friend of Winston Churchill, his personal alliances guided his newspaper editorials, which were hugely influential in directing politics after the war. But it was the brash effrontery of Lord Northcliffe, born Alfred Harmsworth in Dublin to ‘a tough mother and a feckless hard-drinking father’ in 1865, that could be said to be responsible for influencing some of the major decisions of the war cabinet, including – with Beaverbrook’s Express – the destruction of the Liberal government.
When the Daily Mail was first printed in 1896, the immediate effect was electrifying. Gone were the word-for-word dull reports of political speeches; in were first-person accounts of events. Easy on the eye with lots of white space on the page and an early use of big pictures, one could say that the founding principles still operate on the paper today. ‘The three things which are always news are health things, sex things and money things,’ Northcliffe told a reporter. Cheap to buy and titillating to read, the paper made him a millionaire. Northcliffe died in 1922 quite mad, probably due to a blood infection, and a newspaper man to the end; he telephoned his night editor and told him: ‘They say that I am mad: send your best man to cover the story.’
EXT. NORTHERN ENGLAND. DAWN.
At dawn, a steam train travels through this lovely part of England. As the camera moves in, we can see a man, whom we will know as John Bates, sitting by himself in a third-class carriage. Above him run the telephone wires, humming with their unrevealed, urgent messages. The train flies on.
TIMELINE
1912
On 17 January Captain Scott and his team successfully reached the South Pole, only to perish in March as they made their way home. On 15 April, tragedy struck again when the ‘unsinkable’ ocean liner RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic. It sank within hours, killing over 1500 people, mostly men from first and second and passengers from third class. The summer brought more scandal as the British government was accused of profiting from information about the Marconi Company.
1913
The suffragette movement continued to claim headlines when Emily Davison ran out in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby in June. She died of her wounds a few days later, but she lived on in the minds of many as a controversial figure whose actions may, in fact, have blighted the suffragette cause.
1914
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in June 1914 by a Serb nationalist heralded the start of tensions between the two nations. As other countries across Europe took sides, military momentum gathered that could only lead to the announcement of the First World War and Britain’s call to arms.
1915
1915 saw no let up in hostilities, and for the first time London suffered the effects of the First World War directly when streets were hit by Zeppelins. Meanwhile, Britain tried to carry on as normal, bringing in change in these shifting times. In this year photographs were required on passports for the first time, and the Women’s Institute was formed in response to the demands made on women to help the war effort.
1916
July brought the commencement of the Battle of the Somme; an offensive by British and French armies against the German Army which lasted until November. It became one of the bloodiest military operations ever recorded, causing over 1.5 million casualties, with over 60,000 British soldiers lost in the first day alone. Over in Dublin, Irish republicans mounted an insurrection during Easter week, aiming to end British Rule in Ireland. The Easter Rising was suppressed after seven days but succeeded in bringing the issue to the forefront of Irish politics. As the year drew to a close, back home the Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, lost the support and confidence of the press and his government and resigned his position in December. He was succeeded by David Lloyd George.
1917
After the dramatic losses sustained during the Battle of the Somme, 1917 saw another, equally horrific battle take place, notorious for the horrendous conditions endured by the troops. Passchendaele saw fighting from July until November in the muddy quagmire of Ypres, resulting in heavy casualties. After a failed harvest back in Britain, the Government’s Food Production Department swiftly set up the Women’s Land Army, which mobilised women in farming to ensure food reserves could supply the nation.
1918
A year of great changes began with the passing of the Representation of the People Act, which finally gave women the vote – if they were over 30 and owned property – as well as to men in residence over the age of 21. Food supplies continued to be regulated with the introduction of ration books. In Russia, the incarceration of the Russian royal family came to an end when the Bolsheviks executed them in a panic on 16 July, believing that Czech forces were on their way to rescue them. On 11 November the news came that everyone had been waiting for – the Allies had won the war and the Germans had signed the armistice that ended the conflict.
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