Buxton, Charles Roden, 1875-1942

Charles Roden Buxton 1875-1942: Roden Buxton was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was private secretary to his father Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1837-1915) when he was Governor of South Australia, 1897-1898. In 1902 he was called to the Bar, Inner Temple. From 1902 to 1919 Roden Buxton was Principal of Morley College (for working men and women). He was the first President of the South London Branch of the Workers' Educational Association. Roden Buxton was also the Editor of the Albany Review (formerly Independent Review) 1906-1908. He contested East Hertfordshire, 1906, Mid Devon, 1908 and December 1910, Accrington, 1918, 1923 and 1924. He was Liberal MP for Mid or Ashburton Division, Devon, January to December 1910, and Labour MP for Accrington, November 1922 to December 1923, and for Elland Division of West Riding, Yorkshire 1929 to 1931. Roden Buxton was Honourable Secretary to Land Enquiry Committee 1912 to 1914, Treasurer of the Independent Labour Party 1924 to 1927, and Parliamentary Adviser to the Labour Party, 1926. During World War One (1914-1915) he went on a political mission with his brother Lord Noel Buxton (1869-1948) in an attempt to secure the neutrality of Bulgaria. In the course of this a Turkish assassin made an attempt on their lives (October 1914), shooting Roden Buxton through the lung. His publications include: Towards a Lasting Settlement (1915) (joint author); Shouted Down (1916); Peace this Winter (1916); The Secret Agreements (1918); The World after the War (1920) (joint author); In a German Miner's Home (1920) (joint author); In a Russian Village (1922); Essays on English Literature (1929); The Race Problem in Africa (1931); The Alternative to War (1936).

Epithet: MP

Charles Roden Buxton was born on the 27 November 1875 in London, England, and was educated at Harrow, and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1897 he went to South Australia to act briefly as Private Secretary to his father, who was the Governor. He then visited India, Malaya, Japan and China, and travelled to Texas where he spent 6 months on a cattle ranch, before returning to London.

In 1901 Buxton started to give lectures in English Literature at Morley College; he was Principal of the College from 1902-1910. He also began reading for the Bar, to which he was called in 1902, but felt increasingly drawn towards politics as the medium for promoting his social ideals. In 1906 he contested East Hertfordshire as a Liberal, but it was not until 1910 that he entered Parliament as Liberal Member for the Mid or Ashburton Division of Devon. In 1912, David Lloyd George invited him to become Honorary Secretary to the Land Enquiry Committee.

In 1917 Buxton joined the Independent Labour Party and became a Member for Accrington (1922-1923) and for Elland Division of the West Riding (1929-1931). In 1926 he was appointed Parliamentary Adviser to the Labour Party, a post he resigned in October 1939.

At the beginning of World War I, Buxton went on an unofficial mission to the Balkans with his brother Edward Noel Buxton, MP (Lord Noel-Buxton), with the object of securing the neutrality of Bulgaria and thus checking the spread of the war. In November 1914, with Ramsay MacDonald, Charles Trevelyan and E.D. Norel, he founded the Union of Democratic Control, to promote peace by negotiation on the basis of a settlement just to all those involved. From this time until his death in 1942 he worked unremittingly for peace and the equitable distribution of the world's land and resources.