EARLY LIFE

The man whose history is here recorded was for more than forty years a commanding figure upon the theatre of English public life; a politician, who in the councils of a powerful Ministry exercised an influence more than proportioned to the offices he held; a statesman, who brought to triumphant issue many wise projects, and whose authority, even when he was a private member of Parliament, continued to be recognized not only among all parties of his countrymen, but also throughout Europe: yet, when he died, all thought and spoke not of what he had achieved, but of what he had missed.

To write the biography of one so marked by a special malignity of fate is a difficult task. That bare justice may be done, it is necessary not only to follow out his openly recorded successes, things done in his own name and of his own right, but also to disentangle, as far as may be, the part which his authority, his knowledge, and his ceaseless industry played in framing and securing measures whose enactment redounded to the credit of other men. But above all, since a man's personality signifies far more than his achievements, and this man stands before the world overshadowed by a dishonouring accusation, it is necessary to establish by facts and by testimony not so much what he did as what he was.

Yet it must not be supposed that he himself counted his career among life's failures. The record will tell of close and affectionate family ties; of a wonderfully vivid and varied experience acquired in many lands and through many phases of activity; and, even in his blackest hour, of a noble love retained and richly repaid. No trace will be found of a nature soured or warped by balked ambition, nor any resentful withdrawal from the public stage.

In the story that has to be told, proof will emerge indisputably that, without affected indifference to the prizes of a public career, his passion was for work, not for its attendant honours; that he valued office as an opportunity to advance, not himself, but the causes which he had at heart; and that when further tenure of power was denied him, he abated no jot of his lifelong labours. The main purpose of his life was 'to revive true courage in the democracy of his country,' [Footnote: Throughout these volumes single quotation marks without further indication signify an excerpt from the Manuscript Memoir (compiled by Sir Charles, as explained in the Preface, from original diaries and letters), or (as here) from notes left with that document, but not embodied in it. Double quotation marks signify Correspondence and Memoranda found in the despatch-cases and letters sent by correspondents, etc.] and his immediate object always and everywhere to defend the weak. For the protection of toilers from their taskmasters at home and abroad, in the slums of industrial England and in the dark places of Africa, he effected much directly; but indirectly, through his help and guidance of others, he effected more; and in the recognition of his services by those for whom he worked and those who worked with him he received his reward.

Charles Wentworth Dilke was born into a family of English gentlefolk, which after a considerable period of comparative obscurity had won back prosperous days. The baronetcy to which he succeeded was recent, the reward of his father's public services; but a long line of ancestors linked him to a notable landed stock, the Dilkes of Maxstoke.

This family was divided against itself in the Civil Wars; and the brother of the inheritor of Maxstoke, Fisher Dilke, from whom Sir Charles descended, was a fanatical Puritan, and married into a great Puritan house. His wife, Sybil Wentworth, was granddaughter to Peter Wentworth, who led the Puritan party of Elizabeth's reign: she was sister to Sir Peter Wentworth, a distinguished member of Cromwell's Council of State. Property was inherited through her under condition that the Dilke heirs to it should assume the Wentworth name; and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Fisher Dilke's descendants were Wentworth Dilke or Dilke Wentworth from time to time.

In George II.'s reign one Wentworth Dilke was clerk to the Board of Green Cloth at Kew Palace: his only son, Wentworth Dilke Wentworth, was secretary to the Earl of Litchfield of the first creation, and left an only son, Charles Wentworth Dilke, who was a clerk in the Admiralty. This Dilke was the first of five who successively have borne this combination of names. [Footnote: For convenience a partial table of descent is inserted, showing the five Dilkes who bore the same combination of names.

CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, b. 1742, d. 1826.
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Charles Wentworth Dilke = Maria Dover William Dilke, b. 1796,
b. 1789, d. 1864. | Walker. d. 1885.
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Charles Wentworth Dilke = M. Mary William Wentworth
first Baronet, b. 1810, Chatfield. Grant Dilke, killed in
d. 1869. Crimea, b. 1826, d. 1854
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Charles Wentworth Dilke = (1) Katherine Ashton Dilke,
second Baronet, | M. E. Sheil. b. 1850, d. 1883.
b. 1843, d. 1911. | (2) Emilia F. S.
| Pattison.
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Charles Wentworth Dilke,
present Baronet, b. 1874.]

The second of them, Charles Wentworth Dilke, his eldest son, and grandfather to the subject of the memoir, was, like his father, a clerk in the Admiralty; but early in life showed qualities which fitted him to succeed in another sphere of work—qualities through which he exercised a remarkable influence over the character and career of his grandson. So potent was this influence in moulding the life which has to be chronicled, that it is necessary to give some clear idea of the person who exercised it.