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St John Philby

Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah (الشيخ عبدالله), was a British Arabist, advisor, explorer, writer, and a colonial intelligence officer who served as an advisor to King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia.

As he states in his autobiography, he "became something of a fanatic" and in 1908 "the first Socialist to join the Indian Civil Service". After studying Oriental languages at the University of Cambridge, he was posted to Lahore in the Punjab in 1908, acquiring fluency in Urdu, Punjabi, Baluchi, Persian and eventually Arabic. He converted to Islam in 1930 and later became an adviser to Ibn Saud, urging him to unite the Arabian Peninsula under Saudi rule, and helping him to negotiate with the United Kingdom and the United States when petroleum was discovered in 1938. His second marriage was to a Saudi Arabian woman, Rozy al-Abdul Aziz.

His only son by his first wife, Dora Johnston, was Kim Philby, who became known worldwide as a double agent for the Soviet Union who defected in 1963. Khaled Philby, one of his three sons with his second wife, is the former United Nations Resident Coordinator (equivalent to an ambassador) in, among others, Kuwait and Turkmenistan.

Early life
Born in Badulla in British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the son of a tea planter, he was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied oriental languages under Edward Granville Browne, and was a friend and classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru, who later became the first prime minister of independent India. Philby married Dora Johnston in September 1910, with his distant cousin Bernard Law Montgomery as best man. In addition to their son, Kim, born in 1912, they had three daughters: Diana, Helena and Patricia. The British historian Robert Lacey wrote that Philby was "conceited, irascible, and thoroughly perverse". Arnold Wilson wrote that Philby was "one of those men who are apt to assume that everything they come across from a government to be a fountain-pen is constructed on wrong principles and is capable of amendment", leading Philby to reply that he "had never yet the good fortune to encounter either a perfect government or a perfect fountain-pen"..

Arabist
In late 1915, Percy Cox recruited Philby as head of the finance branch of the British administration in Baghdad. The position included fixing compensation for property and business owners. The mission was to organise the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks and to protect the oil fields in Abadan and the Shatt al Arab, which were a source of fuel for the Royal Navy. The revolt was organised with the promise of creating a unified Arab state, or Arab federation, from Aleppo, Syria, to Aden, Yemen. Gertrude Bell was his first controller and taught him the finer arts of espionage. In 1916 he became Revenue Commissioner for the British Occupied Territories.

In November 1917, Philby was sent to the interior of the Arabian Peninsula as head of a mission to Ibn Saud, the chieftain who professed Wahhabism, the movement within Sunni Islam, and a bitter enemy of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, who led the Hashemites and the Arab Revolt, who were both contenders for "King of the Arabs". Cox had wanted Ibn Saud to attack the Kingdom of Hali, which had supported the Ottoman empire. The British mission of four officers which arrived in Riyadh, the capital of the Nejd, doubled in one month the total number of Westerners known to have visited Riyadh in all of its recorded history. The Nejd region in central Arabia was so little known in the West at the time that the precise location of Riyadh was a mystery to Western cartographers who did not know the latitude and longitude of Riyadh. Lacey wrote that in Western maps in the early 20th century "Riyadh was a dot placed capriciously somewhere in the central wilderness". On 30 November 1917, Philby arrived in Riyadh after riding across the Arabian desert on a camel. Upon entering the royal palace, he was taken to see a "little old man somewhat inclined to stoutness, sharp-featured and bright-eyed" who was generous in supplying coffee and then retired.. At that point, Philby realised "another person had been in the room all the room...a very giant of a man" who introduced himself as Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the Emir of the Nejd, also known as Ibn Saud, who had waiting respectfully for his father to leave the room before speaking.

Philby greatly liked and admired Ibn Saud, whom he presented as a romantic hero. Philby's attitude to Ibn Saud bordered on hero worship.. Reflecting his disenchantment with modern Britain, Philby saw Abdul Aziz as a sort of noble savage, a man unaffected by modern civilisation who because he was "primitive" was a better and nobler man than more "civilised" people. Philby secretly began to favour Ibn Saud even though British policy supported Sherif Hussein. Philby completed a crossing from Riyadh to Jeddah by a "backdoor" route to demonstrate that Saud, not Hussein, was in control of the Arabian highlands. Philby who prided himself on his ability to travel over Arabia-at the time a region that few Westerners had ever visited-kept his distance away from the Ikhwan (Arabic for "the brotherhood"), a ferociously fanatical Wahhabi movement notorious for their practice of shooting anyone who refused their offers to convert to Wahhabism. In 1918, Philby went within 3 miles of the Ikhwan base at Artawiya, and watched the Ikhwan via his binoculars. For his safety, Philby chose not to go any closer to Artawiya. Philby who was fluent in Arabic liked to tease Ibn Saud by telling him it was possible to reach America by either travelling east or west as the earth was round, which led Ibn Saud to say that was not possible as he believed the earth was flat. When Ibn Saud asked what language people in America spoke, Philby told him English, which confused Ibn Saud to no end as he heard that the people in America were Indians and he thought they spoke Hindi, leading Philby to explain to him that there was a difference between the indigenous peoples of the Americas vs. the peoples of the Indian subcontinent. Philby was allowed to meet the future kings of Saudi Arabia who were boys at the time, namely Saud, Faisal, and Fahad.

In November 1918, Britain and France issued the Anglo-French Declaration to the Arabs, which promised self-determination. Philby felt there was a betrayal of that assurance, along with others made in the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, of the promise of a single unified Arab nation. Philby argued that Ibn Saud was a "democrat" guiding his affairs "by mutual counsel", as laid out in the Quran, in contrast to George Curzon's support for Hussein. Tensions between the Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca who ruled the Hejaz vs. Ibn Saud the Emir of the Nejd increased after the war as both men sought to rule Arabia. In October 1919, Ibn Saud sent his Foreign Minister, his 14 year old son, Crown Prince Faisal, to London to seek British mediation of his dispute with the Sharif of Mecca. None of the major London hotels would allow Faisal and the Nejdi delegation to stay as Faisal's slaves had a discontenting habit of starting fires anywhere they wanted to brew coffee for Crown Prince Faisal. Philby who served as the host for Faisal was forced to have the Nejdi delegation stay at a hostel for Indian Army orderly officers at St. George's Road as it was the only establishment that was willing to accept Faisal and his party. The sight of Faisal and his party dressed in traditional Arabian robes staying at a cheap hostel attracted the attention of the British newspapers and on 30 October 1919 King George V received Crown Prince Faisal at Buckingham Palace to make up for the slight. After the 1920 Iraqi revolt against the British, Philby was appointed Minister of Internal Security in Mandatory Iraq.

In November 1921, Philby was named chief head of the Secret Service in Mandatory Palestine, worked with T. E. Lawrence and met his American counterpart, Allen Dulles. In late 1922, Philby travelled to London for extensive meetings with parties involved in the Palestine question, included Winston Churchill, George V, Edward, Prince of Wales, Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Wickham Steed and Chaim Weizmann.

Adviser to Ibn Saud
Philby's view was that the interests of both the British and the Saud family would be best served by uniting the Arabian Peninsula under one government stretching from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, with the Saudis supplanting the Hashemites as Islamic "Keepers of the Holy Places" and protecting shipping lanes along the Suez Canal–Aden–Mumbai (then Bombay) route.

Philby was forced to resign his post in 1924 over differences about allowing Jewish immigration to Palestine. He was found to have had unauthorised correspondence with Ibn Saud and to have sent confidential information, which carried with it the connotation of espionage. Shortly afterward, Ibn Saud began to call for the overthrow of the Hashemite dynasty, with Philby advising him on how far he could go in occupying the Hejaz without incurring the wrath of the British, the principal power in the Middle East. The principle reason why Ibn Saud chose not to invade the Hejaz was the £60,000 annual subsidy in gold coins paid to him by the British government and in 1923 Britain ceased paying the subsidy, which inspired Ibn Saud to invade the Hejaz. At the same time, Britain also ceased paying the £25,000 subsidy in gold coins per month to the Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca. Without British gold, the authority of the Sharif of Mecca promptly collapsed as he was not able to bribe the Bedouin tribal chiefs to fight for him. In March 1924, Hussein bin Ali visited his son Abdullah, the Emir of Transjordan, and Philby noticed the Sharif refused to use an automobile as he instead rode a mule from Aqaba to Ma'an to meet the Emir Abdullah. Philby wrote about the 71 year old Sharif riding a mule across the desert: "He never seemed to wilt and whenever I saw him on the way he was riding upright, stiff as a ramrod". The Sharif of Mecca was a very unpopular ruler owing to his rapacious corruption and cruelty and it was only the monthly subsidy of British gold that kept the Bedouin tribal chiefs loyal to him. On 5 March 1924 upon hearing the abolition of the caliphate in Turkey, Hussein bin Ali proclaimed himself the new caliph and declared that henceforward all Muslims now owed him their loyalty. The decision of Hussein to proclaim himself caliph sparked outrage all over the Muslim world with the general feeling being that the Sharif had no right to call himself caliph. In August 1924, Ibn Saud declared jihad on Hussein for his sacrilegious act in proclaiming himself caliph. The Nejdi invasion of the Hejaz went very well as the Ikhwan fighting for Ibn Saud crushed the army of the Sharif who proved quite unwilling to fight for him without British gold. On 16 October 1924, the defeated Sharif of Mecca abdicated as King of the Hejaz and fled the Hejaz, never to return. All the Hashemites held at the end of October 1924 were the cities of Medina and Jeddah. On 17 December 1925, the war ended with Jeddah, the last stronghold of the Hashemites surrendering to Ibn Saud. In 1925, Philby claimed that Ibn Saud had brought unprecedented order into Arabia. The new kingdom of the Hejaz and the Nejd was later renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

Philby settled in Jeddah and became a partner in a trading company. Over the next few years, he became famous as an international writer and explorer. Philby personally mapped on camel back what is now the Saudi–Yemeni border on the Rub' al Khali. In his unique position, he became Ibn Saud's chief adviser in dealing with the British Empire and the other Western powers. He converted to Islam in 1930. Upon his conversion to Islam in August 1930, he was given the new name of Abdullah, which is Arabic for "Slave of Allah". The merchants of Jeddah joked that Philby's Muslim name should had been Abdulqirsh, which is Arabic for "Slave of Sixpence" on the account of his greed. Philby was an atheist and his reasons for converting to Islam were cultural, not spiritual, namely that he wanted to become part of the social life of the court of Ibn Saud, which could not do as an infidel. In 1931, Ibn Saud gave Philby the gift of a slave girl, Mariam, who served as his sex slave. Lacey wrote that after becoming a Muslim Philby "became a fully fledged member of that circle of boon companions, half Privy Council, half gang of chums, who went everywhere with Abdul Aziz [Ibn Saud], chatting, laughing and arguing, discussing politics one minute, playing practical jokes the next".

In 1931, Philby invited Charles Richard Crane to Jeddah to facilitate exploration of the kingdom's subsoil oil. Crane was accompanied by noted historian George Antonius, who acted as translator. Lacey wrote that Philby greatly embellished his role in the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, writing: "If you read his own accounts-and there are several-Philby was in there from the very beginning. It was he who, in the autumn of 1930, started off the whole story of Saudi oil by telling Abdul Aziz [Ibn Saud] in his car at Taif that he was 'like a man sleeping on top of buried treasure'; it was he who told the king about Charles Crane; it was he who arranged for Crane to come down from Jeddah from Egypt-and later Philby even published his displeasure that 'Mr. Crane never so much as sent a postcard of thanks for the part I had played'". In May 1932, Philby was in London to give a speech about his crossing of the Rub' al Khali, the "Empty Quarter" of Arabia, when he was contacted by Albert Halstead of the American embassy in London who wanted to introduce Philiby to Francis Loomis of the Standard Oil of California (SoCal). Contrary to what Philby later claimed, he assumed that Loomis wanted to meet him to hear about his crossing of the Rub' al Khali, and he was surprised when he learned Loomis was instead interested in oil. Because oil had been discovered in Iran in 1908, it was assumed that the same geological deposit of oil that had been found on the northern end of the Persian Gulf might also extend to the southern end of the Persian Gulf. Besides for being fluent in Arabic, Philby had the advantage of being allowed to enter the Muslim holy city of Mecca (where Ibn Saud often stayed), which all non-Muslims were banned from entering while the oil company executives stayed in Jeddah. The principle revenue in Saudi Arabia prior to the discovery of oil was taxing the pilgrims making the hajj to Mecca, and the Great Depression had drastically lowered the number of Muslims making the hajj to Mecca, causing a crisis in Saudi Arabia. In early 1932, Ibn Saud had told a British diplomat: "I swear by Allah as a Muslim that I have no money for my children, for my family, and I know it if they will have money for food and clothing". At the same time, Ibn Saud had complained that the royal cars never seemed to have any petrol, leading him to dispatch Philby to investigate. Philby soon found out that the royal chauffeurs had not been paid for the last five months and were stealing the petrol to support their families.

In May 1932, SoCal sought out Philby in its quest to obtain an oil concession in Saudi Arabia, ultimately signing Philby as a paid adviser to SoCal. On 11 July 1932, Philby told Loomis that Ibn Saud wanted cash in the form of gold sovereigns in exchange for an oil concession and was not interested in the fine print of any agreement. Philby, in turn, recognised that competition by foreign interests would get a better deal for the Saudi king, made contact with George Martin Lees, the chief geologist of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, to alert him to SoCal's interest in gaining oil exploration rights in Saudi Arabia. Anglo-Persian was one of five international partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) through which it pursued its interest in the Saudi concession. Philby told Ibn Saud that the best deal he could get would be £100, 000 British gold sovereigns, considering that no oil had actually been found in Saudi Arabia yet. Lloyd Hamilton, the lawyer who represented SoCal during the talks in Jeddah in 1932-1933 paid Philby a secret $1, 000 month "retainer" to advance SoCal's right to the oil concessions.. In March 1933, IPC sent a representative, Stephen Longrigg, to join negotiations with the Saudi government in Jeddah. However, Philby's primary loyalty was to the Saudi king. Although he was being paid by SoCal, he kept the arrangement a secret from Longrigg.

The IPC were only half-hearted in seeking oil concessions in Saudi Arabia as their geologists were not entirely convinced there was oil in Saudi Arabia and the Great Depression had caused the price of oil to hit all-time lows. The primary interest for the IPC was keeping the American oil companies out of the Middle East, which was rapidly became clear as SoCal offered much higher bids for the right to a Saudi oil concession than the IPC. Philby's main role in the talks was to spark a bidding war that ensured that SoCal paid more for a Saudi oil concession than otherwise would have been the case. During the talks in 1932-1933, Philby sought to increase tensions by telling the rival oil executives in Jeddah cryptic statements that gave the impression that the other side was willing to pay more for a Saudi oil concession. In May 1933, IPC instructed Longrigg to withdraw from Jeddah and to leave SoCal free to conclude negotiations with Saudi Arabia for a 60-year contract to obtain the exclusive concession for exploration and extraction of oil in the al-Hasa region along the Persian Gulf. Ibn Saud did not believe that his kingdom actually had any oil and was more interested in an upfront payment in gold than any long-time rights for revenue from an oil concession. In 1933, the United States did not even maintain diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and Ibn Saud had preferred to award an oil concession to a British company as Britain was the hegemonic power in the Middle East. Despite what Philby later claimed, the decisive moment in the talks came when Sir Andrew Ryan, the British plenipotentiary-minister to Saudi Arabia told Ibn Saud to accept SoCal's offer as it was "money for nothing" as Ryan doubted that Saudi Arabia even had oil. The IPC was willing to offer £10, 000 gold sovereigns for an oil concession while SoCal was willing to offer Ibn Saud £50, 000 gold sovereigns for an oil concession. On 9 May 1933, Ibn Saud signed a contract with SoCal giving them the exclusive rights to an oil concession in exchange for an upfront payment of £35, 000 gold sovereigns, another £20, 000 gold sovereigns after 18 months, and £ 5, 000 gold sovereigns in rental fees, which would increase to £50, 000 gold sovereigns in monthly rent if any oil was discovered.

By 1934, in an effort to safeguard the port of Aden, Britain had no fewer than 1,400 "peace treaties" with the various tribal rulers of the hinterlands of what became Yemen. Philby undermined British influence in the region, however, by facilitating the entry of American commercial interests, followed by a political alliance between the US and the Saud dynasty.

In 1936, SoCal and Texaco pooled their assets together into what later became ARAMCO (Arabian–American Oil Company). The United States Department of State described ARAMCO as the richest commercial prize in the history of the planet. Philby represented Saudi interests. In 1937 when the Spanish Civil War broke out, Philby arranged for his son, Kim Philby, to become a war correspondent for The Times. On 16 March 1938 the oil prospectors for SoCal at Well Number 7 in Dhahran discovered the world's richest vein of oil, which marked the beginning of the Saudi oil industry. In May 1939, the first shipment of oil from Saudi Arabia to go abroad left on an oil tanker, the D.G. Schofield, which set sail for America.

Philby Plan
Philby, then known as an anti-Zionist, outlined a plan to reach a compromise with Zionism, after consultation with Arab leaders, and it was reported in The New York Times in October 1929. The Philby Plan foresaw a shared confirmation of the Balfour Declaration in the minimal sense of Palestine as the "Jewish national home" without being opposed to the maximal interpretation of the Balfour declaration as a call for a Jewish state in Palestine. The plan called for continued Jewish immigration into Palestine in exchange for a renunciation by Zionists of any desire to seek political dominance. Representation of the two groups would be based on respecting the numerical proportions between both groups. Judah Magnes, chancellor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of Brit Shalom, reacted to the proposal positively, and suggested alterations in order to secure guarantees for the Jewish minority. The Philby Plan was subsueqnently modified to allow for some sort of Jewish state in Palestine in order to gain the acceptance of the Zionist leaders. As related in his memoirs, David Ben Gurion, who would become Israel's first prime minister, met Philby on 18 May 1937 at the Athenaeum Club, London. Ben Gurion attempted to use Philby as an intermediary to reach an agreement between the Zionist Movement and King Ibn Saud. A few days after their meeting, Philby sent to Ben Gurion a draft treaty by which the Zionists would renounce the Balfour Declaration in exchange for being welcomed to the Middle East by an Arab Federation, headed by Ibn Saud. However, several clauses of the draft treaty were unacceptable to Ben Gurion. In particular, Philby had proposed that Palestine would be "open to the immigration of all those seeking to become its citizens, regardless of race and creed" and refused to mention specific Jewish immigration. To Ben Gurion, that would have defeated the whole aim of Zionism. Ben Gurion sent Philby a counterproposal based on what Ben Gurion regarded as the indispensable minimum Zionist aspirations to which Philby never replied.

Philby's plans for a confederation headed by Ibn Saud with a Jewish "national Home' in Palestine never seems to have interested Ibn Saud, but gained support of Winston Churchill along with the Zionist leaders Lewis Namier and Chaim Weizmann. The romantic image of Ibn Saud as the "desert king" who was more of an "authentic" Arab than the corrupt, Westernised monarchs of Egypt, Transjordan and Iraq was the main reason for the support of Churchill, Namier, and Weizmann for the Philby Plan. The image of Ibn Saud as an "authentic Arab" who was "independent" of the West led to the conclusion that any plan endorsed by him would gain the acceptance of all the Arabs. On 12 March 1941, Churchill told Weizmann that the Philby Plan was the best solution to the "Palestine Question" as Churchill found the rival Jewish and Arab claims to the Palestine Mandate deeply vexing and wished to find some compromise to the intractable dispute. Subsequently, several other leading figures such as the South African prime minister General Jan Smuts and the India Secretary Leo Amery accepted the Philby Plan as the best solution to the problems of the Middle East. The British historian Stephen Dockter wrote that the Philby Plan was impractical not least because Philby was not speaking on behalf of Ibn Saud as he claimed to be. Ibn Saud was willing to allow a Jewish presence in Palestine, but would never accept a Jewish state in Palestine, which he regarded as Muslim land in its entirety. Finally, the plan proposed that the Hashemite monarchs of Iraq and Transjordan accept Ibn Saud as their overlord, which was very unlikely given the long-standing feud between the Hashemite and al-Saud families. In 1924, Ibn Saud had deposed Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemite as King of the Hejaz, who was the father of Emir Abdullah of Transjordan and the great-grandfather of King Faisal II of Iraq, which would had presented serious problems for the Philby plan. Finally, the plan assumed that Ibn Saud as the leader of the proposed confederation would be willing to serve British interests, which showed a major misunderstanding of Ibn Saud who wanted to be an independent and to serve no-one. In November 1941, Churchill abandoned the Philby Plan and decided to "get on with the war" with the problems of the Middle East to be resolved after the war. Dockter wrote that Churchill's willingness to accept the Philby Plan reflected his Victorian understanding of the Muslim world as a place whose leaders did not have agendas of their own and could made to serve British interests because what was best for Britain was always in the best interests of everyone, an assumption not necessarily shared by the peoples of the Middle East.

The Hythe by-election
Philby later began secret negotiations with Germany and Spain on Saudi Arabia's role in the event of a general European war. The discussions allowed neutral Saudi Arabia to sell oil to neutral Spain, which would then be transported to Germany. John Loftus, who worked in the United States Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations Nazi-hunting unit, claimed that Adolf Eichmann, on a mission to the Middle East, met with Philby "during the mid-1930s". The discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938 had made Ibn Saud into an important world leader. In January 1939, Saudi Arabia established diplomatic relations with Germany, and in February 1939 a Saudi emissary arrived at Berchtesgarten to see Adolf Hitler in the Berghof high up in the Bavarian Alps to tell him "that it is our foremost aim to see the friendly and intimate relations with the German Reich developed to the utmost limits". Dr. Fritz Grobba visited Riyadh in January-February 1939 to see Ibn Saud who told him he "hated the English" and looked forward to the day when Germany would replace Britain as the world's foremost power. Grobba described Philby as a leading pro-German voice at the court of Ibn Saud who pushed for an alliance of the kingdom with the Reich. In July 1939, a contract was signed for Germany to deliver 4, 000 rifles plus ammunition to Saudi Arabia.

Philby, previously a member of the Labour Party, fought a by-election held on 20 July 1939 for the parliamentary constituency of Hythe, Kent. He stood for the anti-Semitic British People's Party (BPP) which had been founded by Lord Tavistock in April 1939. Despite his later post-war claims to have to not to share the ideology of the BPP, Philby was a founding member of the BPP and sat on the National Executive of the BPP alongside Lord Tavistock, John Beckett, Ben Greene, John Scanlon, and Lord Lymington. Other members of the BPP included Robert Gordon-Canning, Anthony Ludovici and Henry Williamson. During the by-election, Philby declared "no cause whatever is worth the spilling of human blood" and the "protection of the small man against big business". Philby was recruited by Lord Tavistock to run as the BPP candidate for the by-election. Philby in his 1948 memoir Arabian Days downplayed his commitment to the BPP as he wrote "...I was approached by Lord Tavistock, John Beckett and Ben Greene of a new and small organisation called the British People's Party, with those general outlook I had no sympathy, though I fully and cordially agreed with the anti-war attitude. Eventually I agreed to fight the Hythe by-election". Reflecting the way that various extreme right movements in Britain often co-operated, Lady Domville, the wife of Admiral Barry Domvile, the leader of The Link, campaigned hard for Philipy in the Hythe by-election. Joining her were Lady Grace Pearson along with a number of activists from the British Union of Fascists-who came mostly from London- who descended upon Hythe and the other small towns of Kent in order to campaign for Philby.

The major issue in the by-election was the Danzig crisis with Philby attacking the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain for having "just sat back to see what would happen". Philby took the Chamberlain government to task for the "guarantee" of Poland which he felt was pushing Britain towards an unnecessary war with Germany and favored abandoning Poland to its fate rather than risking a war against the Reich. Philby and other speakers on his behalf such as Admiral Barry Domvile, Lord Tavistock, John Beckett, Ben Greene, Lady Pearson, Captain Vincent Collier and Dr. Meyrick Booth devoted much of their time to praising Germany and blaming the entire British Jewish community for having supposedly pushed Britain to the brink of war with Germany in the Danzig crisis. One of the pamphlets produced by the BPP in the by-election, Alien Money Power in Great Britain attacked the Conservative candidate Rupert Brabner by claiming he worked for a London law firm run by Jews. Philby in a speech in the by-election on 8 July 1939 praised Hitler for having "restored one of the greatest races in the world to the position of one of the foremost nations in the world as it was in present times". The British historian Martin Pugh wrote that the campaign for Philby was "amateurish" with Beckett at one point reporting false returns on his canvassing and then saying "That's done. Let's go to the pub!" Philby won 576 votes in the by-election. Philby lost his deposit.

The Second World War
Soon afterward, the Second World War began. He is recorded as having referred to Adolf Hitler as un homme très fin ("a most sophisticated man"). In August 1940, Philby had decided to visit the United States to give a defeatist lectures to isolationist groups opposed to the pro-Allied neutrality of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Philby believed that Germany was invincible and the theme of his speeches during his planned American tour was that it was folly for the United States to support the United Kingdom.

When he travelled to Bombay, he was arrested on 3 August 1940 under Defence Regulation 18B, deported to England and there briefly interned. Shortly after his release from custody, Philby recommended his son, Kim, to Valentine Vivian, MI6 deputy chief, who recruited him into the British secret service. When Harold B. Hoskins of the United States State Department visited Ibn Saud in August 1943, he asked if the king would be willing to have an intermediary meet with Chaim Weizmann. Ibn Saud angrily responded that he was insulted by the suggestion that he could be bribed for £20 million to accept resettlement of Arabs from Palestine. Hoskins reports the king said Weizmann told him the promise of payment would be "guaranteed by President Roosevelt". A month later Weizmann wrote in a letter to Sumner Welles: "It is conceived on big lines, large enough to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of both Arabs and Jews, and the strategic and economic interests of the United States;... properly managed, Mr. Philby's scheme offers an approach which should not be abandoned".

Suez Crisis
After Ibn Saud died in 1953, Philby openly criticised the successor, King Saud, by saying the royal family's morals were being picked up "in the gutters of the West". He was exiled to Lebanon in 1955. There, he wrote: "the true basis of Arab hostility to Jewish immigration into Palestine is xenophobia, and instinctive perception that the vast majority of central and eastern European Jews, seeking admission... are not Semites at all.... Whatever political repercussions of their settlement may be, their advent is regarded as a menace to the Semitic culture of Arabia... the European Jew of today, with his secular outlook... is regarded as an unwelcome intruder within the gates of Arabia."

In Beirut, he reconciled with Kim, and they lived together for a time. The son was reemployed by MI6 as an outside informer on retainer. Philby helped further his son's career by introducing him to his extensive network of contacts in the Middle East, including Lebanese President Camille Chamoun. Both were sympathetic to Gamal Abdel Nasser during the Suez Crisis in August 1956. Between Jack's access to ARAMCO and Kim's access to British intelligence, there was little they did not know about Operation Musketeer, the French and British plan to capture the Suez Canal. The Soviets exposed the entire plan in the United Nations and threatened Britain and France with "long-range guided missiles equipped with atomic warheads".

In 1955, Philby returned to live in Riyadh. In 1960, on a visit to Kim in Beirut, he suddenly became ill and was rushed to hospital. "The man whose life had been so eventful and panoramic, so daring and theatrical, now lay unconscious. He awoke only for a moment and murmured to his son, 'I am so bored'. And then he expired". He is buried in the Muslim cemetery in the Basta district of Beirut. His tombstone reads, "Greatest of Arabian Explorers".

Academic interests
In collaboration with George Latimer Bates he took an interest in the birds of the Arabian region. In his travels, he collected specimens for Bates and several new species were described from his specimens. These included the Arabian woodpecker (Desertipicus (now Dendrocopos) dorae), a subspecies (no longer valid) of a scops owl (Otus scops pamelae) and Philby's partridge (Alectoris philbyi). His specimens are held in the British Museum. His specimen packages were sometimes used to transport sensitive documents, a skin of a desert fox included survey maps inside it. He contributed to Bates' uncompleted work on the birds of Arabia. The manuscript was later used by Richard Meinertzhagen who produced Birds of Arabia (1954) giving little credit to Bates.

In 1932, while searching for the lost city of Ubar, he was the first Westerner to visit and describe the Wabar craters.

Awards and legacy
In August 1917, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire. In 1920, he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society Founder's Medal for his two journeys in South Central Arabia.

A subspecies of Middle Eastern lizard, Uromastyx ornata philbyi, and a partridge, Alectoris philbyi, are named in his honour.

Some authors have summarised Philby as a British traitor and an anti-Semite. They suggest that Philby never forgave the British government for ending his civil service career for sexual misconduct. Once recruited by MI6, according to those authors, Philby used his intelligence assignment to take revenge on the British government. With the extensive contacts he acquired as a British agent, Philby continued to betray British policy and to resist all efforts at creating a Jewish homeland throughout his life. Philby disclosed classified British intelligence to Ibn Saud during wartime, secretly helped secure American oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, double-crossed British competitors, created economic partnerships allied against British interests and for those of Nazi Germany with the help of Allen Dulles (later CIA Director) and worked with Nazi intelligence to sabotage efforts at creating a Jewish homeland.

Philby's 1955 book Saudi Arabia contains the only known account of the 1931 Saudi–Yemeni border skirmish.

The American scholar Jacob Goldberg noted that Philby with his varied interests in the archaeology, literature, politics, geography,  and zoology of Arabia plus with the accounts of his travels in Arabia has dominated the Arabian scholarship in a manner that no-one has ever managed. However, Goldberg wrote that Philby was not a reliable source on the history of Arabia owing to his hero worship of Ibn Saud, whom Philby regarded was a close to a perfect man as possible. Furthermore, Goldberg noted that Philby had a strong antagonism towards his own country that verged on Anglophobia and in his account of Arabian history it was always the British who were at fault while Ibn Saud was always the wronged party. Goldberg wrote that Philby was the "official apologist" of Saudi Arabia in the West as evidenced by his 1955 polemical pamphlet about the Buraymi dispute Saudi Arabia Memorial, which laid out the Saudi claim to the oasis of Buraymi that was also claimed by Britain as the protecting power of the Sultan of Oman. Several passages from Saudi Arabia Memorial were incorporated verbatim into his 1955 book Saudi Arabia. Finally, Goldberg noted that even sympathetic observers commented that Philby "saw everything in black and white, without finer shades" which let him to reduce the history of Arabia down to a morality play, a constant struggle between his villains such as the duplicitous British vs. heroes such as his noble Saudis.

Goldberg noted that Philby aggressively engaged in historical distortion in his books. As an example, Goldberg noted that when Ibn Saud seized Riyadh in 1902 from Ibn Rasheed, he become a rebel against the Ottoman empire and the Sublime Porte dispatched several expeditions in 1904 and 1905 when the aim of reasserting control over the Nejd. Faced with 7, 000 troops of the German-armed and German-trained Ottoman Army marching into the Arabian desert in 1904, Ibn Saud appealed to Sir Percy Cox, the British resident in the Persian Gulf to make the Nejd into a British protectorate as a way to gain British support against the Sublime Porte; Cox did not answer Ibn Saud's appeals as the British did not care about the Nejd enough to risk a confrontation with the Ottoman over. The British only cared about control of the coastal areas of Arabia around the Persian Gulf and had no interest in the interior of Arabia, which a barely inhabited desert. Ultimately Ibn Saud was able to defeat the Ottomans on his own. In his histories, Philby did not admit that his hero Ibn Saud had tried hard to have the Nejd become a British protectorate, and mispresented Ibn Saud's letters to Cox as an appeals for "cordial understanding". Goldberg wrote that Philby's picture of British policy as anti-Saudi was misleading to say the least as the British were interested in curbing Saudi expansion to the Persian Gulf, but were content to let Ibn Saud rule the Nejd whereas the policy of the Sublime Porte was to incorporate the Nejd into the Ottoman empire. Goldberg wrote in this way Philby gave a dishonest account of British policy in Arabia as he left the reader with the impression that the British were seeking to annex the Nejd. Likewise, Goldberg noted that Ibn Saud failed to gain the support of the British that he chose appeasement of the Sublime Porte as he feared that Ottomans would dispatch even more troops against him. Despite his battles with the Ottoman Army, Ibn Saud wrote several fawning letters in 1905 and 1906 professing his loyalty to the Ottoman empire as he argued that he taken Riyadh in 1902 from Ibn Rasheed because it had belonged to his family until 1891, but that he was not disloyal to the Sultan-Caliph Abdul Hamid II. In several of his letters, Ibn Saud wrote that he was willing to submit to the Sublime Porte provided that the Ottomans allowed him to rule as the Emir of the Nejd. Goldberg noted that Philby failed to mention any of this in his books and instead portrayed the Ottomans as leaving the Nejd forever in April 1905 when in fact Ibn Saud handed over several forts to the Ottomans that month in exchange for the Sublime Porte allowing him to stay on as Emir. Goldberg noted Philby himself had written that the Ottomans were still in the Nejd in May 1906, 13 months after their supposed retreat in April 1905. Goldberg accused Philby of trying to "rewrite" the foundation of the modern Saudi state in a manner that glorified Ibn Saud as a "freedom-fighter".

Works

 * The Heart of Arabia: A Record of Travel & Exploration. (London: Constable) 1922.
 * Arabia of the Wahhabis. (London: Constable) 1928.
 * Arabia. (London: Ernest Benn) 1930.
 * The Empty Quarter: being a description of the great south desert of Arabia known as Rub 'al Khali (London: Constable & Company Ltd) 1933. scanned book
 * Harun al Rashid (London: P. Davies) 1933. About Harun al-Rashid
 * Routes in south-west Arabia [map]: From surveys made in 1936 (Methuen & Co Ltd) 1936.
 * Sheba's daughters; being a record of travel in Southern Arabia (London: Methuen & Co Ltd) 1939.
 * A Pilgrim in Arabia (London: The Golden Cockerel Press), [1943].
 * The Background of Islam: being a sketch of Arabian history in pre-Islamic times (Alexandria: Whitehead Morris) 1947.
 * Arabian Days, an autobiography (London: R. Hale) 1948.
 * Arabian Highlands (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press) 1952. scanned book
 * Arabian Jubilee (London: Hale) [1952]
 * Sa′udi Arabia (London: Benn) 1955, New impression: Librairie du Liban, Beirut 1968
 * The Land of Midian. (London: Ernest Bean Limited) 1957.
 * Forty Years in the Wilderness (London: R. Hale) c1957.
 * Arabian Oil Ventures (Washington: Middle East Institute) 1964.

title: St John Philby


text:
Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham

Douglas McGarel Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham, (28 February 1872 – 16 August 1950) was a British lawyer and Conservative politician who twice served as Lord Chancellor, in addition to a number of other Cabinet positions. Mooted as a possible successor to Stanley Baldwin as party leader for a time in the very early 1930s, he was widely considered to be one of the leading Conservative politicians of his generation.

Early life
Born in London, Hogg was the son of the merchant and philanthropist Quintin Hogg and of Alice Anna Hogg, née Graham (d. 1918). Both of his grandfathers, Sir James Hogg, 1st Baronet, and William Graham, were Members of Parliament. He was educated at Cheam School and Eton College, before spending eight years working for the family firm of sugar merchants, spending time in the West Indies and British Guiana. During the Boer War he served with the 19th (Berwick and Lothian) Yeomanry, and was wounded in action and decorated.

Legal career
Returning from South Africa, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1902. Despite starting at the bar relatively late in life, as a junior barrister, he built up a large practice in both common law and commercial law. His son later believed that Hogg was earning £14,000 per annum (around £1.4m at 2018 prices) by 1914.

Sir John Simon later wrote of him: "Hogg had all the qualities that go to make a leader at the bar: an accurate grasp of complicated facts, a clear view of the principles of law which had to be applied to them, a sturdy attitude in the face of the situation with which he had to deal, and a manner which was genial and conciliatory with a persuasive force behind it well calculated to win assent from the tribunal he was addressing. He was never at a loss, and no counsel was more adept at preparing the way to meet the difficulties of the case."

He was appointed King's Counsel in 1917, and became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn and Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales in 1920.

After his father's death in 1903 he also devoted considerable time to the Royal Polytechnic institution, which his father had founded.

Political background
Hogg began to be involved in Conservative politics while still at the bar. He was involved in the Conservatives' legal attacks against the Liberals during the Marconi scandal.

Hogg's son Quintin later recalled that, probably around the time of the Curragh Incident in March 1914 when he was six years old, he had been presented to the adults at the close of a tea party, and had asked "Who is Winston Churchill?" Churchill, a leading member of the Liberal Cabinet at the time, was one of those apparently threatening some kind of military and naval action against Protestant Ulster; Hogg's brother Ian was then serving with the 4th Hussars at the Curragh. Hogg replied that he had always told his son that it was wicked to wish somebody dead (he had, Quintin recorded, never actually told him any such thing) but that if he did wish anyone dead it would be Winston Churchill. Hogg later claimed not to recollect the occasion, when his son reminded him of it in the 1920s; he and Churchill were (Conservative) Cabinet colleagues by then. On the outbreak of war in August 1914 Hogg was cheered by bystanders in a London park, who mistook him for Churchill, to whom he bore a slight physical resemblance.

Hogg was approached to be the Conservative Party candidate for Marylebone, but stood down before the 1918 election rather than fight the sitting member (Sir Samuel Scott) for the nomination.

Attorney-General: 1922–1924
The Lloyd George Coalition (Conservative-Liberal) collapsed as a result of the Carlton Club meeting in October 1922. Bonar Law formed a purely Conservative government but found himself short of law officers after many leading members of the Coalition refused to serve. Hogg, not yet an MP, was appointed Attorney General.

Harold Macmillan, who was not yet an MP, records the following exchange between the Earl of Derby and Duke of Devonshire (Macmillan's father-in-law):"'Ah,' said Lord Derby, 'you are too pessimistic. They have found a wonderful little man. One of those attorney fellows, you know. He will do all the work.' 'What's his name?', said the Duke. 'Pig,' said Lord Derby. Turning to me, the Duke replied, 'Do you know Pig? I know James Pigg [he was a great reader of Surtees]. I don't know any other Pig.' It turned out to be Sir Douglas Hogg! This was a truly Trollopian scene."

Bonar Law arranged for Hogg to be selected as Conservative candidate for the safe seat of St Marylebone. He was returned unopposed to the House of Commons in the November 1922 general election, at which Law's government won a comfortable majority.

Hogg therefore began his Commons career on the front bench, and within days had to help pilot through the House the bill which set up the Irish Free State constitution. Within four weeks of entering office he also had to assist Lord Chancellor Cave and Neville Chamberlain (Minister of Health) to write a reply from Baldwin (Chancellor of the Exchequer) to a delegation of the unemployed. Though not yet a full member of the Cabinet, he was sworn of the Privy Council and received the (then) customary knighthood (in December 1922). Hogg continued as Attorney-General when Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister for the first time in May 1923.

Hogg spent much of this time at his country home in Sussex, where he had become a prominent county figure. He was a justice of the peace for the county from 1923. Even when he later became Lord Chancellor he sometimes continued to sit as an ordinary magistrate at Lewes.

The Conservatives lost their majority in the December 1923 election, which returned a hung Parliament. Hogg continued as Attorney General until the first Labour government, under Ramsay MacDonald, took office in January 1924.

Hogg maintained an active Commons role in opposition. Neville Chamberlain wrote that Hogg's speech during the debate which installed MacDonald "made a great impression and heartened up our party immensely". The same was true in the debate on the Campbell Case in October 1924, which brought down MacDonald's government. This time Chamberlain wrote that "Hogg's summing up was a real tour-de-force. Until then I confess to having been rattled by the special pleading on the other side and only when I heard Hogg did I realise how strong the case against the Govt still remained."

Attorney-General again
Later in October 1924, Hogg was reappointed Attorney-General, this time with a seat in the Cabinet, when the Conservatives were returned to power. Although Hogg played a full part in cabinet debates, his main responsibility was to advise the government on legal matters, and other ministers seem to have regarded him mainly as a lawyer–politician. He was the minister responsible for the arrest and prosecution of Harry Pollitt and a number of other British communists for subversion in October 1925, though credit was generally attributed to the better-known Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks. Hogg also gave legal advice over the general strike of 1926.

Hogg was popular among his colleagues, and despite his fierceness in debate he was not particularly disliked by his opponents. Neville Chamberlain wrote in 1926 that he was 'one of the best, straight and loyal and possessed of a wonderful brain. Moreover, he is a first-class fighting man' (Diary Letters, 338).

The Miners' Strike (technically a lockout) had continued after the General Strike, but had ended with large-scale unemployment while those still employed were forced to accept longer hours, lower wages, and district (rather than national) wage agreements. As Attorney-General, Hogg guided the Trade Disputes Act of 1927 through the House of Commons. This made mass picketing and secondary strikes (i.e. strikes by other unions who were not party to the dispute in hand) illegal and directed that union members had to "contract in" any political levy (i.e. members had to actively choose if they wished to make a donation to the Labour Party alongside their subscription). It also forbade civil service unions from affiliating with the Trades Union Congress.

Over the course of the government, Hogg began to be tipped as a future Home Secretary and perhaps even Prime Minister. In 1928 Austen Chamberlain wrote to one of his sisters about knotty legal issues that he faced at the Foreign Office, over which Hailsham 'was unable to help me to a decision, which if you knew him would alone be sufficient to show you how extremely difficult of solution these problems are'.

First term as Lord Chancellor
Viscount Cave retired as Lord Chancellor early in 1928. Hogg was offered the job but did not want to accept, on the grounds that it "barred any chance of the premiership" and appealed to Neville Chamberlain for help (26 March 1928) on the grounds that he did not want to see "W. Churchill" become Prime Minister after Baldwin. Chamberlain agreed, and felt that Churchill and his friend Lord Birkenhead were more likely to agree to serve in a future Hogg government than under Chamberlain (both Hogg and Chamberlain protested unconvincingly to one another that they did not particularly want to be Prime Minister). However, Baldwin insisted that Hogg accept the promotion. Besides his own reluctance to accept, he was also aware that a peerage might also inhibit the political ambitions of his elder son, Quintin Hogg, who was already active in student politics at Oxford University—as indeed it did.

On 29 March 1928, Hogg became Lord Chancellor, and on 5 April he was created Baron Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex.

As the parliament ended in May 1929, Austen Chamberlain wrote that Hailsham's judgement was 'I think as good as that of any member of the Cabinet' (Diary Letters, 322, 330). He held the Great Seal for just over a year until the government's unexpected defeat in the 1929 election. In that year's Birthday Honours (3 June) he was promoted to Viscount Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex.

Opposition: 1929–1931
Between 1929 and 1931, Hailsham was Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. He did not give strong support to Baldwin when the latter's leadership was attacked, and apparently did nothing to quash speculation that he might become leader himself. The former party whip Lord Bayford thought in March 1931 that 'the only possible suggestion made at present is that Hailsham should lead the party and Neville [Chamberlain] be leader in the Commons' (Real Old Tory Politics, p245).

As a former Lord Chancellor Hailsham continued to sit as a Law Lord. Sir John Simon identified a number of significant cases in the Lords in which his judgments 'illustrated his power of lucid reasoning and his command of appropriate language': Addie v. Dumbreck (injury to child trespasser, 1929); Tolley v. Fry (defamation, 1931); Swadling v. Cooper (contributory negligence, 1931).

Hailsham became president of Sussex County cricket club in 1931.

Secretary of State for War: 1931–1935
Hailsham was not offered a seat in the small emergency Cabinet of the National Government of August–October 1931, a fact which John Ramsden attributes to his disloyalty to Baldwin in opposition. Hailsham's previous job was not available, as the Labour Lord Chancellor Lord Sankey had joined the National Government; Hailsham was therefore offered, and refused, the sinecure post of Lord Privy Seal. After the October 1931 elections, with the Cabinet restored to a larger size, he joined the second National Government as Secretary of State for War and Leader of the House of Lords.

Hailsham was a strong supporter of protectionism (tariffs on goods imported into the British Empire, an aspiration for many Conservatives since Joseph Chamberlain had called for them in 1903). However, he suggested that the Cabinet "agree to differ" on the issue, so that the Conservatives could press on with plans for tariffs, while remaining in coalition with Liberals and National Labour; the free traders left the coalition once tariff plans had been agreed internationally. Hailsham was one of the ministers representing the National Government at the Ottawa Imperial Economic Conference in 1932. At Ottawa, Baldwin told his friend Tom Jones, "the bulk of the negotiations have been done by Neville [Chamberlain], 'ably assisted' (as the papers would say) by Hailsham", but Baldwin also wryly admitted that he had let those two do the work "because if they failed the Die-Hards at home would know it was not from half-hearted trying" (Jones, 49–50).

Hailsham served as President of the MCC in 1933. He was an important contributor to the diplomacy involved following the Bodyline Series problems of 1932-33 during the English Cricket tour of Australia under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine His presidency of the MCC in 1933 combined an interest in cricket with his earlier constituency connection with Marylebone.

Hailsham was also leader of the House of Lords from 1931 to 1935; in 1934–5 he had to handle Lord Salisbury's attacks on the government's plans to bring in greater Indian self-government. Hailsham was no longer as well-regarded in the Conservative party in the mid-1930s as ten years earlier.

As Secretary of State for War, Hailsham was popular with senior army officers. However, although he presided over the army's first serious rearmament plans, spending priority in 1934-5 was given to the Royal Air Force, and to a lesser extent the Royal Navy.

Second term as Lord Chancellor: 1935–1938
On 7 June 1935, to his apparent pleasure, Hailsham returned to the Lord Chancellorship under Stanley Baldwin, now Prime Minister for the third time. In December 1935 Hailsham had to preside over the last trial of a peer ‘by his peers’, when he was appointed Lord High Steward to conduct the trial of the 26th Baron de Clifford in the House of Lords for manslaughter. He ruled that there was no case for Lord de Clifford to answer, but also suggested that this mediaeval privilege was obsolete; the procedure was abolished in the Criminal Justice Act 1948. Hailsham earned plaudits both for presiding over House of Lords debates, and for leading the Law Lords. He was awarded honorary doctorates of letters or civil law by the universities of Belfast, Birmingham, Cambridge, Oxford, and Reading.

Although he was only in his mid sixties, Hailsham's health was already beginning to fail by 1936. He initially continued as Lord Chancellor under Baldwin's successor Neville Chamberlain from May 1937, but in March 1938 he transferred to the sinecure post of Lord President of the Council. In 1938 Hailsham suffered a serious stroke, which disabled his right side. He later learned to write with his left hand, but although his mind was clear he could no longer speak clearly. He had to retire from the government altogether on 31 October 1938, four days after his elder son Quintin had been elected to the Commons at a by-election. A Punch cartoon showed Hailsham as a cricketer heading back to the pavilion as his son came out to bat.

Later life
On 14 October 1940, Hailsham was having dinner at the Carlton Club with his son Quintin, who was about to depart for active service as an army officer in North Africa. The club was hit by a bomb, and observers, including the diarist Harold Nicolson, likened the sight of Quintin carrying his disabled father from the building to Aeneas carrying his father Anchises on his back from the sack of Troy (the event, and the classical allusion, are also mentioned in Churchill's History of the Second World War).

Ill health prevented Hailsham from playing an active role in the House of Lords as a private member, though he continued to be as active as he could in such outside bodies as the Inns of Court regiment (honorary colonel, 1935–48) and the British Empire Cancer Campaign (chairman, 1936–50).

Hailsham died at his home in Hailsham, East Sussex, (which he had bought in 1917 after taking silk), on 16 August 1950, aged 78. He was buried in the churchyard of All Saints', Herstmonceux. The title passed to his son Quintin. His estate was valued for probate at £225,032 18s. 2d (around £7m at 2018 prices).

Assessments
John Ramsden suggests that rapid success, coming to a man who entered politics at the late age of fifty, made him "overplay his hand" in the events of 1929–31, even though as a peer by then he could not reasonably hope to be Prime Minister. William Bridgeman recorded in his diary that Hogg's success had not impaired "his great ability in debate, though it did I think interfere with his political judgement … He never suffered a reverse until the defeat of the party in 1929, an experience which would have been beneficial if he had had it."

The diarist Chips Channon thought that Hailsham looked like Gilbert and Sullivan's lord chancellor in his robes, but, as Lord Denning later recalled, if he 'looked like Mr. Pickwick', he also 'spoke like Demosthenes'.

Family
On 14 August 1905, Hogg married Elizabeth Marjoribanks, daughter of James Trimble Brown, an American judge from Tennessee. She was the widow of his cousin, the Hon. Archibald Marjoribanks (son of Dudley Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth).

Hogg acquired two stepchildren from Elizabeth's previous marriage. One of these was Edward Marjoribanks (born 1900), who became a Conservative MP in 1929 but committed suicide in 1932.

Hogg and his wife had two sons:

 * Quintin McGarel Hogg, 2nd Viscount Hailsham, later Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone (born 9 October 1907, died 12 October 2001), barrister and politician, who disclaimed the viscountcy, but was later given a life peerage and himself became Lord Chancellor.
 * Hon William Neil McGarel Hogg (born 1910, died 13 February 1995), diplomat.

Elizabeth suffered a stroke in 1923, and died in May 1925, shortly after they had visited the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park together. Her poor health had brought them closer together, and Hogg felt that they had become like newlyweds again. Quintin, then aged seventeen, had to answer many of the condolence letters himself, and later recorded that for four years afterwards he could hear his father in his bedroom at night "literally shouting with agony".

On 3 January 1929, Lord Hailsham, as he now was, married a second time, to Mildred Margaret (d. 1964), daughter of Edward Parker Dew and widow of Alfred Clive Lawrence. They had no children.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham


text:
Mellieħa

Mellieħa (il-Mellieħa ) is a large village in the Northern Region of Malta. It has a population of 10,087 as of March 2014. Mellieħa is also a tourist resort, popular for its sandy beaches, natural environment, and Popeye Village nearby.

Etymology
The name Mellieħa is derived from the Semitic root m-l-ħ, which means salt. This is probably derived from the ancient Punic-Roman salt pans which existed at Mellieħa Bay. The site of the salt pans is now occupied by the Għadira Nature Reserve.

Prehistory to Middle Ages
Mellieħa was first inhabited in around 3000 BC, during the Neolithic period. Several megalithic remains have been found, including the temple of Għajn Żejtuna, as well as several caves and tombs, in which tools and pottery fragments were found.

During the Roman period, troglodytes began to live in the caves of Mellieħa's valleys. The cave settlements continued to exist during Byzantine rule, but were abandoned in the early medieval period.

According to the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul was shipwrecked in Malta in around 60 AD, possibly in the nearby St. Paul's Bay. According to local tradition, St. Luke, who was accompanying St. Paul, came across one of Mellieħa's caves and painted the figure of Our Lady on the rock face. In 409 AD, the cave was consecrated as a church, and it is now known as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mellieħa.

Mellieħa was one of the first ten parishes of Malta. It still existed in 1436, but was abandoned soon afterwards in the late 15th or early 16th century, since the north of Malta was no longer safe due to raids by Muslim corsairs.

Under the Order of Saint John
Malta was one of the first regions that Muslims entered in the Mediterranean, and this is evident in the Islamic heritage of buildings and ancient relics of mosques and homes. In addition to that the Arabic language that has remained rooted in the language of the current people of the island, this was starting from year 826 A.D. and lasted for 220 years.

During the early years of Hospitaller rule in Malta, Mellieħa remained abandoned. In the late 16th century, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mellieħa was rebuilt.

The northern coast of Malta began to be fortified in the early 17th century. The first fortification to be built in Mellieħa was Saint Agatha's Tower, which was completed in 1649. This large tower was built on Marfa Ridge, overlooking Mellieħa Bay, with clear views of Comino and Gozo. The smaller Għajn Ħadid Tower and Armier Tower were also built in the limits of Mellieħa in 1658.

A series of coastal batteries, redoubts and entrenchments were also built in Mellieħa in the 18th century. Several of these still survive, such as Mistra Battery, Vendôme Battery, Wied Musa Battery and Westreme Battery. The Devil's Farmhouse found at Ta' Randa area is an example of Maltese farmhouses built in the 18th century.

British period to present day
Mellieħa, as it is today, developed whilst Malta was under British rule. The village became a parish once again in 1844, and began to develop after the British encouraged people to settle in the area by giving leases to the population. The parish church was built in various stages in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and it is said that the locals helped in building the church. A postal agency opened in Mellieħa in 1891.

Just before World War II, Fort Campbell was built in Selmun, whilst Mellieħa Fort was built on top of Mellieħa Hill as a lookout post. The British also built a number of pillboxes around the coastline of Mellieħa, for defensive purposes in case of an Italian or German invasion.

Mellieħa has seen a lot of development since the end of the war. The Mellieħa Local Council was established by the Local Councils Act of 1993.

Geography

The town of Mellieħa stands on a group of hills on the northwest coast of the main island. Mellieħa proper consists of the areas of Mellieħa Heights, Santa Maria Estate, il-Qortin, Ta' Pennellu, Ta' Masrija and Tal-Ibraġ. The nearby villages of Manikata and Selmun also fall under Mellieħa's jurisdiction.

The town overlooks Mellieħa Bay, which includes Għadira Bay, the largest sandy beach in Malta. To the east of the town and bay, there is the Selmun peninsula, and St Paul's Islands lie about 80 metres off the coast. Mistra Bay lies close to Selmun, and this marks the boundary between Mellieħa and St. Paul's Bay.

The large Marfa Peninsula lies to the north of Mellieħa. It includes several small bays, such as Armier Bay and Paradise Bay, as well as the harbour of Ċirkewwa, from which the Gozo ferry departs. The Marfa Ridge spans across a large part of the peninsula.

To the south of Marfa Ridge, there are Anchor Bay and Popeye Village, Majjistral Nature and History Park, the hamlet of Manikata and Golden Bay. The boundary with Mġarr lies at Għajn Tuffieħa.

Tourism

Mellieħa is a popular tourist destination during the summer months. It is well known for its beaches, with the most well known being Għadira Bay and Golden Bay. Ċirkewwa is also popular as a dive site, and includes the wrecks of MV Rozi and the P29 patrol boat.

In 2009, Mellieħa was awarded the title of European Destination of Excellence due to its sustainable initiatives.

Mellieħa main roads

 * Dawret il-Mellieħa (Mellieħa By-Pass)
 * Triq Ġorġ Borg Olivier (Ġorġ Borg Olivier Street)
 * Triq il-Kbira (Main Street)
 * Triq il-Marfa (Marfa Road)
 * Triq il-Prajjiet (Anchor Bay Road)
 * Triq Louis Wettinger (Louis Wettinger Street)
 * Triq San Pawl il-Baħar (St. Paul's Bay Road)

Twin towns – sister cities
Mellieħa is twinned with:
 * 🇩🇪 Adenau, Germany (since 1996)
 * 🇨🇾 Ayia Napa, Cyprus (since 2009)
 * 🇮🇹 Cavriglia, Italy (since 2007)
 * 🇫🇷 Balma, France

Gallery
Photos of views around Mellieha

title: Mellieħa


text:
Colin R. McMillan

Colin Riley McMillan (July 27, 1935 – July 24, 2003) was a United States Assistant Secretary of Defense under President George H. W. Bush during the Gulf War. He was awaiting confirmation as United States Secretary of the Navy in 2003 when he died from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head at his New Mexico ranch.

McMillan was the chairman and CEO of Permian Exploration Corporation, an oil exploration company, the chairman of the First Federal Savings Bank in Roswell, New Mexico, and the founder and CEO of McMillan Production Company. He was appointed in 2001 to be the chairman of the Sallie Mae Corporation by President George W. Bush.

McMillan earned his bachelor's degree in geology from the University of North Carolina in 1957. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1957 to 1960 and in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1960 to 1972, attaining the rank of major.

McMillan served in the New Mexico House of Representatives from 1971 to 1982. He ran for the United States Senate seat in New Mexico in 1994 but lost to incumbent Democrat Jeff Bingaman by a 54% to 46% margin. In 2000, McMillan was the New Mexico state chairman of George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

McMillan was survived by his wife, Kay, four children, and eight grandchildren.

title: Colin R. McMillan


text:
Weight (representation theory)

In the mathematical field of representation theory, a weight of an algebra A over a field F is an algebra homomorphism from A to F, or equivalently, a one-dimensional representation of A over F. It is the algebra analogue of a multiplicative character of a group. The importance of the concept, however, stems from its application to representations of Lie algebras and hence also to representations of algebraic and Lie groups. In this context, a weight of a representation is a generalization of the notion of an eigenvalue, and the corresponding eigenspace is called a weight space.

Motivation and general concept
Given a set S of $$n \times n$$ matrices over the same field, each of which is diagonalizable, and any two of which commute, it is always possible to simultaneously diagonalize all of the elements of S. Equivalently, for any set S of mutually commuting semisimple linear transformations of a finite-dimensional vector space V there exists a basis of V consisting of simultaneous eigenvectors of all elements of S. Each of these common eigenvectors v ∈ V defines a linear functional on the subalgebra U of End(V ) generated by the set of endomorphisms S; this functional is defined as the map which associates to each element of U its eigenvalue on the eigenvector v. This map is also multiplicative, and sends the identity to 1; thus it is an algebra homomorphism from U to the base field. This "generalized eigenvalue" is a prototype for the notion of a weight.

The notion is closely related to the idea of a multiplicative character in group theory, which is a homomorphism χ from a group G to the multiplicative group of a field F. Thus χ: G → F× satisfies χ(e) = 1 (where e is the identity element of G) and
 * $$\chi(gh) = \chi(g)\chi(h)$$ for all g, h in G.

Indeed, if G acts on a vector space V over F, each simultaneous eigenspace for every element of G, if such exists, determines a multiplicative character on G: the eigenvalue on this common eigenspace of each element of the group.

The notion of multiplicative character can be extended to any algebra A over F, by replacing χ: G → F× by a linear map χ: A → F with:
 * $$\chi(ab) = \chi(a)\chi(b)$$

for all a, b in A. If an algebra A acts on a vector space V over F to any simultaneous eigenspace, this corresponds an algebra homomorphism from A to F assigning to each element of A its eigenvalue.

If A is a Lie algebra (which is generally not an associative algebra), then instead of requiring multiplicativity of a character, one requires that it maps any Lie bracket to the corresponding commutator; but since F is commutative this simply means that this map must vanish on Lie brackets: χ([a,b]) = 0. A weight on a Lie algebra g over a field F is a linear map λ: g → F with λ([x, y]) = 0 for all x, y in g. Any weight on a Lie algebra g vanishes on the derived algebra [g,g] and hence descends to a weight on the abelian Lie algebra g/[g,g]. Thus weights are primarily of interest for abelian Lie algebras, where they reduce to the simple notion of a generalized eigenvalue for space of commuting linear transformations.

If G is a Lie group or an algebraic group, then a multiplicative character θ: G → F× induces a weight χ = dθ: g → F on its Lie algebra by differentiation. (For Lie groups, this is differentiation at the identity element of G, and the algebraic group case is an abstraction using the notion of a derivation.)

Weights in the representation theory of semisimple Lie algebras
Let $$\mathfrak g$$ be a complex semisimple Lie algebra and $$\mathfrak h$$ a Cartan subalgebra of $$\mathfrak g$$. In this section, we describe the concepts needed to formulate the "theorem of the highest weight" classifying the finite-dimensional representations of $$\mathfrak g$$. Notably, we will explain the notion of a "dominant integral element." The representations themselves are described in the article linked to above.

Weight of a representation
Let $$\sigma : \mathfrak{g} \to \operatorname{End}(V)$$ be a representation of a Lie algebra $$\mathfrak g$$ on a vector space V over a field of characteristic 0, say $$\mathbb{C}$$, and let $$\lambda : \mathfrak{h} \to \mathbb{C}$$ be a linear functional on $$\mathfrak h$$. Then the  of V with weight λ is the subspace $$V_\lambda$$ given by
 * $$V_\lambda:=\{v\in V: \forall H\in \mathfrak{h},\quad (\sigma(H))(v)=\lambda(H)v\}$$.

A weight of the representation V (the representation is often referred to in short by the vector space V over which elements of the Lie algebra act rather than the map $$\sigma$$) is a linear functional λ such that the corresponding weight space is nonzero. Nonzero elements of the weight space are called weight vectors. That is to say, a weight vector is a simultaneous eigenvector for the action of the elements of $$\mathfrak h$$, with the corresponding eigenvalues given by λ.

If V is the direct sum of its weight spaces
 * $$V=\bigoplus_{\lambda\in\mathfrak{h}^*} V_\lambda$$

then V is called a ; this corresponds to there being a common eigenbasis (a basis of simultaneous eigenvectors) for all the represented elements of the algebra, i.e., to there being simultaneously diagonalizable matrices (see diagonalizable matrix).

If G is group with Lie algebra $$\mathfrak g$$, every finite-dimensional representation of G induces a representation of $$\mathfrak g$$. A weight of the representation of G is then simply a weight of the associated representation of $$\mathfrak g$$. There is a subtle distinction between weights of group representations and Lie algebra representations, which is that there is a different notion of integrality condition in the two cases; see below. (The integrality condition is more restrictive in the group case, reflecting that not every representation of the Lie algebra comes from a representation of the group.)

Action of the root vectors
For the adjoint representation $$\mathrm{ad} : \mathfrak{g}\to \operatorname{End}(\mathfrak{g})$$ of $$\mathfrak g$$, the space over which the representation acts is the Lie algebra itself. Then the nonzero weights are called roots, the weight spaces are called root spaces, and the weight vectors, which are thus elements of $$\mathfrak{g}$$, are called root vectors. Explicitly, a linear functional $$\alpha$$ on $$\mathfrak h$$ is called a root if $$\alpha\neq 0$$ and there exists a nonzero $$X$$ in $$\mathfrak g$$ such that
 * $$[H,X]=\alpha(H)X$$

for all $$H$$ in $$\mathfrak h$$. The collection of roots forms a root system.

From the perspective of representation theory, the significance of the roots and root vectors is the following elementary but important result: If $$\sigma : \mathfrak{g} \to \operatorname{End}(V)$$ is a representation of $$\mathfrak g$$, v is a weight vector with weight $$\lambda$$ and X is a root vector with root $$\alpha$$, then
 * $$\sigma(H)(\sigma(X)(v))=[(\lambda+\alpha)(H)](\sigma(X)(v))$$

for all H in $$\mathfrak h$$. That is, $$\sigma(X)(v)$$ is either the zero vector or a weight vector with weight $$\lambda+\alpha$$. Thus, the action of $$X$$ maps the weight space with weight $$\lambda$$ into the weight space with weight $$\lambda+\alpha$$.

For example, if $$\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{su}_{\mathbb{C}}(2)$$, or $$\mathfrak{su}(2)$$ complexified, the root vectors $${H,X,Y}$$ span the algebra and have weights $$0$$, $$1$$, and $$-1$$ respectively. The Cartan subalgebra is spanned by $$H$$, and the action of $$H$$ classifies the weight spaces. The action of $$X$$ maps a weight space of weight $$\lambda$$ to the weight space of weight $$\lambda+1$$ and the action of $$Y$$ maps a weight space of weight $$\lambda$$ to the weight space of weight $$\lambda-1$$, and the action of $$H$$ maps the weight spaces to themselves. In the fundamental representation, with weights $$\pm\frac{1}{2}$$ and weight spaces $$V_{\pm\frac{1}{2}}$$, $$X$$ maps $$V_{+\frac{1}{2}}$$ to zero and $$V_{-\frac{1}{2}}$$ to $$V_{+\frac{1}{2}}$$, while $$Y$$ maps $$V_{-\frac{1}{2}}$$ to zero and $$V_{+\frac{1}{2}}$$ to $$V_{-\frac{1}{2}}$$, and $$H$$ maps each weight space to itself.

Integral element
Let $$\mathfrak h^*_0$$ be the real subspace of $$\mathfrak h^*$$ generated by the roots of $$\mathfrak g$$, where $$\mathfrak h^* $$ is the space of linear functionals $$\lambda : \mathfrak h \to \mathbb C$$, the dual space to $$\mathfrak h$$. For computations, it is convenient to choose an inner product that is invariant under the Weyl group, that is, under reflections about the hyperplanes orthogonal to the roots. We may then use this inner product to identify $$\mathfrak h^*_0$$ with a subspace $$\mathfrak h_0$$ of $$\mathfrak h$$. With this identification, the coroot associated to a root $$\alpha$$ is given as
 * $$H_\alpha=2\frac{\alpha}{(\alpha,\alpha)}$$

where $$(\alpha,\beta)$$ denotes the inner product of vectors $$\alpha,\beta.$$ In addition to this inner product, it is common for an angle bracket notation $$\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle$$ to be used in discussions of root systems, with the angle bracket defined as $$\langle\lambda,\alpha\rangle\equiv(\lambda,H_\alpha).$$ The angle bracket here is not an inner product, as it is not symmetric, and is linear only in the first argument. The angle bracket notation should not be confused with the inner product $$(\cdot,\cdot).$$

We now define two different notions of integrality for elements of $$\mathfrak h_0$$. The motivation for these definitions is simple: The weights of finite-dimensional representations of $$\mathfrak g$$ satisfy the first integrality condition, while if G is a group with Lie algebra $$\mathfrak g$$, the weights of finite-dimensional representations of G satisfy the second integrality condition.

An element $$\lambda\in\mathfrak h_0$$ is algebraically integral if
 * $$(\lambda,H_\alpha)=2\frac{(\lambda,\alpha)}{(\alpha,\alpha)}\in\mathbb{Z}$$

for all roots $$\alpha$$. The motivation for this condition is that the coroot $$H_\alpha$$ can be identified with the H element in a standard $${X,Y,H}$$ basis for an $$sl(2,\mathbb C)$$-subalgebra of $$\mathfrak g$$. By elementary results for $$sl(2,\mathbb C)$$, the eigenvalues of $$H_\alpha$$ in any finite-dimensional representation must be an integer. We conclude that, as stated above, the weight of any finite-dimensional representation of $$\mathfrak g$$ is algebraically integral.

The fundamental weights $$\omega_1,\ldots,\omega_n$$ are defined by the property that they form a basis of $$\mathfrak h_0$$ dual to the set of coroots associated to the simple roots. That is, the fundamental weights are defined by the condition
 * $$2\frac{(\omega_i,\alpha_j)}{(\alpha_j,\alpha_j)}=\delta_{i,j}$$

where $$\alpha_1,\ldots\alpha_n$$ are the simple roots. An element $$\lambda$$ is then algebraically integral if and only if it is an integral combination of the fundamental weights. The set of all $$\mathfrak g$$-integral weights is a lattice in $$\mathfrak h_0$$ called the weight lattice for $$\mathfrak g$$, denoted by $$P(\mathfrak g)$$.

The figure shows the example of the Lie algebra $$sl(3,\mathbb C)$$, whose root system is the $$A_2$$ root system. There are two simple roots, $$\gamma_1$$ and $$\gamma_2$$. The first fundamental weight, $$\omega_1$$, should be orthogonal to $$\gamma_2$$ and should project orthogonally to half of $$\gamma_1$$, and similarly for $$\omega_2$$. The weight lattice is then the triangular lattice.

Suppose now that the Lie algebra $$\mathfrak g$$ is the Lie algebra of a Lie group G. Then we say that $$\lambda\in\mathfrak h_0$$ is analytically integral (G-integral) if for each t in $$\mathfrak h$$ such that $$\exp(t)=1\in G$$ we have $$(\lambda,t)\in 2\pi i \mathbb{Z}$$. The reason for making this definition is that if a representation of $$\mathfrak g$$ arises from a representation of G, then the weights of the representation will be G-integral. For G semisimple, the set of all G-integral weights is a sublattice P(G) ⊂ P($$\mathfrak g$$). If G is simply connected, then P(G) = P($$\mathfrak g$$). If G is not simply connected, then the lattice P(G) is smaller than P($$\mathfrak g$$) and their quotient is isomorphic to the fundamental group of G.

Partial ordering on the space of weights
We now introduce a partial ordering on the set of weights, which will be used to formulate the theorem of the highest weight describing the representations of $$\mathfrak g$$. Recall that R is the set of roots; we now fix a set $$R^+$$ of positive roots.

Consider two elements $$\mu$$ and $$\lambda$$ of $$\mathfrak h_0$$. We are mainly interested in the case where $$\mu$$ and $$\lambda$$ are integral, but this assumption is not necessary to the definition we are about to introduce. We then say that $$\mu$$ is higher than $$\lambda$$, which we write as $$\mu\succeq\lambda$$, if $$\mu-\lambda$$ is expressible as a linear combination of positive roots with non-negative real coefficients. This means, roughly, that "higher" means in the directions of the positive roots. We equivalently say that $$\lambda$$ is "lower" than $$\mu$$, which we write as $$\lambda\preceq\mu$$.

This is only a partial ordering; it can easily happen that $$\mu$$ is neither higher nor lower than $$\lambda$$.

Dominant weight
An integral element λ is dominant if $$(\lambda,\gamma)\geq 0$$ for each positive root γ. Equivalently, λ is dominant if it is a non-negative integer combination of the fundamental weights. In the $$A_2$$ case, the dominant integral elements live in a 60-degree sector. The notion of being dominant is not the same as being higher than zero. Note the grey area in the picture on the right is a 120-degree sector, strictly containing the 60-degree sector corresponding to the dominant integral elements.

The set of all λ (not necessarily integral) such that $$(\lambda,\gamma)\geq 0$$ is known as the fundamental Weyl chamber associated to the given set of positive roots.

Theorem of the highest weight
A weight $$\lambda$$ of a representation $$V$$ of $$\mathfrak g$$ is called a highest weight if every other weight of $$V$$ is lower than $$\lambda$$.

The theory classifying the finite-dimensional irreducible representations of $$\mathfrak g$$ is by means of a "theorem of the highest weight." The theorem says that
 * (1) every irreducible (finite-dimensional) representation has a highest weight,
 * (2) the highest weight is always a dominant, algebraically integral element,
 * (3) two irreducible representations with the same highest weight are isomorphic, and
 * (4) every dominant, algebraically integral element is the highest weight of an irreducible representation.

The last point is the most difficult one; the representations may be constructed using Verma modules.

Highest-weight module
A representation (not necessarily finite dimensional) V of $$\mathfrak g$$ is called highest-weight module if it is generated by a weight vector v ∈ V that is annihilated by the action of all positive root spaces in $$\mathfrak g$$. Every irreducible $$\mathfrak g$$-module with a highest weight is necessarily a highest-weight module, but in the infinite-dimensional case, a highest weight module need not be irreducible. For each $$\lambda\in\mathfrak h^*$$—not necessarily dominant or integral—there exists a unique (up to isomorphism) simple highest-weight $$\mathfrak g$$-module with highest weight λ, which is denoted L(λ), but this module is infinite dimensional unless λ is dominant integral. It can be shown that each highest weight module with highest weight λ is a quotient of the Verma module M(λ). This is just a restatement of universality property in the definition of a Verma module.

Every finite-dimensional highest weight module is irreducible.

title: Weight (representation theory)


text:
Colin McMillan

Colin McMillan (born 12 February 1966) is an English former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 1997. He fought his way to the British featherweight title in 1991. After successfully defending his British title, he added the Commonwealth title in 1992 before beating Maurizio Stecca for the WBO featherweight title that same year. Known in fighting circles as Sweet C, McMillan lost his WBO belt on his first defence, when he was unable to continue against Rubén Darío Palacios due to a dislocated shoulder.

title: Colin McMillan


text:
Phonological history of English open back vowels

The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments in some dialects such as the cot–caught merger.

Old and Middle English
In the Old English vowel system, the vowels in the open back area were unrounded:. There were also rounded back vowels of mid-height:. The corresponding spellings were $⟨a⟩$ and $⟨o⟩$, with the length distinctions not normally marked; in modern editions of Old English texts, the long vowels are often written $⟨ā⟩$, $⟨ō⟩$.

As the Old English (OE) system developed into that of Middle English (ME), the OE short vowel  merged with the fronted  to become a more central ME. Meanwhile, the OE long vowel was rounded and raised to ME. OE short remained relatively unchanged, becoming a short ME vowel regarded as, while OE long  became ME  (a higher vowel than ). Alternative developments were also possible; see English historical vowel correspondences for details.

Later, ME open syllable lengthening caused the short vowel to be normally changed to  in open syllables. Remaining instances of the short vowel also tended to become lower. Hence in Late Middle English (around 1400) the following open back vowels were present, distinguished by length:
 * , spelt $⟨o⟩$, as in dog, god
 * , often spelt $⟨oa⟩$, or $⟨o⟩$ before consonant+vowel or certain consonant pairs, as in boat, whole, old

16th-century changes
By 1600, the following changes had occurred:
 * The long vowel of boat had been raised to  as a result of the Great Vowel Shift.
 * The diphthong found in words such as cause, law, all, salt, psalm, half, change, chamber, dance had become an open back monophthong  or.
 * At this time, the short in dog was lowered to

There were thus two open back monophthongs:
 * as in lot
 * or as in cause

and one open back diphthong:
 * as in low

17th-century changes
By 1700, the following further developments had taken place:
 * The diphthong of soul was raised to, and then monophthongized to , merging with boat (see toe–tow merger). Before , this vowel further merged with  due to the horse–hoarse merger except in some varieties, as currently seen in Irish English, Scottish English and African American Vernacular English.
 * Short was retracted and rounded to . The shift was suppressed before a velar consonant, as in quack, twang, wag, wax, and also was suppressed by analogy in swam (the irregular past tense of swim). The change of  to  did not occur in Mid-Ulster English.
 * had begun to partake in lengthening and raising before a nonprevocalic voiceless fricative or /r/. That resulted in words like broth, cost and off having instead of, and was the start of the  split (see further below).
 * In words such as change and chamber, the pronunciation was gradually replaced in the standard language by a variant with, derived from Middle English . That explains the contemporary pronunciation of these words with.
 * However, when preceded, as in laugh and half,  was shifted to  instead, derived from Middle English.
 * An unrounded back vowel developed, found in certain classes of words that had previously had, like start, father and palm.

That left the standard form of the language with four open back vowels:
 * in lot and want.
 * in cloth and cost.
 * in start, father and palm.
 * in tor, cause, and corn.

Later changes
From the 18th century on, the following changes have occurred:
 * The three-way distinction between, , and was simplified in one of two ways:
 * In General American and old-fashioned RP, was raised to, merging with the vowel in  (the cloth-thought merger).
 * In many accents of England, the lengthening of the set was undone, restoring the short pronunciation . This became standard RP by the mid-20th century.
 * In General American, the lot vowel has become unrounded and merged into (the father–bother merger).

This leaves RP with three back vowels:
 * in lot, want, cloth, and cost.
 * in tor, cause, and corn.
 * in start, father, and palm.

and General American with two:
 * in lot, want, start, father, and palm.
 * in tor, cause, corn, cloth and cost.

Unrounded
In a few varieties of English, the vowel in lot is unrounded, pronounced toward []. This is found in the following dialects:
 * Most of Irish English
 * Much of the Caribbean
 * Norwich
 * The West Country and the West Midlands of England
 * Most of North American English
 * Excluding northeastern New England English and Western Pennsylvania English, where it is typically raised toward, merging with the vowel in thought.

There's also evidence for it in South East England as early as the late 16th century and as late as the 19th century.

Linguists disagree as to whether the unrounding of the lot vowel occurred independently in North America (probably occurring around the end of the 17th century) or was imported from certain types of speech current in Britain at that time.

In such accents outside of North America, lot typically is pronounced as, therefore being kept distinct from the vowel in palm, pronounced or. However, the major exception to this is North American English, where the vowel is lengthened to merge with the vowel in palm, as described below. This merger is called the  merger or more commonly the father–bother merger. (See further below.)

Father–bother merger
The father–bother merger is a phonemic merger of the lexical sets and. It represents unrounded lot, as detailed above, taken a step further. On top of being unrounded, the length distinction between the vowel in lot and bother and the vowel in palm and father is lost, so that the two groups merge. This causes father and bother to become rhymes.

This occurs in the great majority of North American accents; of the North American dialects that have unrounded lot, the only notable exception to the merger is New York City English, where the opposition with the -type vowel is somewhat tenuous.

Examples of possible homophones resulting from the merger include Khan and con as well as Saab and sob.

While the accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, also remain unmerged, lot remains rounded and merges instead with cloth and thought.

split
The  split is the result of a late 17th-century sound change that lengthened to  before voiceless fricatives, and also before  in the words gone and sometimes on. It was ultimately raised and merged with of words like thought, although in some accents that vowel is actually open. This means that is not a separate vowel; rather, it means "either  or, depending on the accent". The sound change is most consistent in the last syllable of a word, and much less so elsewhere (see below). Some words that entered the language later, especially when used more in writing than speech, are exempt from the lengthening, e.g. joss and Goth with the short vowel. Similar changes took place in words with $⟨a⟩$; see trap–bath split and /æ/-tensing.

The cot–caught merger, discussed below, has removed the distinction in some dialects.

As a result of the lengthening and raising, in the above-mentioned accents cross rhymes with sauce, and soft and cloth also have the vowel. Accents affected by this change include American English accents that lack the cot-caught merger and, formerly, RP, although today words of this group almost always have short in RP.

The lengthening and raising generally happened before the fricatives, and. In American English, the raising was extended to the environment before velars and, and sometimes before  as well, giving pronunciations like  for long,  for dog and  for chocolate.

In the varieties of American English that have the lot–cloth split, the lot vowel is usually symbolized as, often called the "short o" for historical reasons, as the corresponding RP vowel is still short (and it contrasts with  as in father and start). The thought vowel is usually transcribed as and it is often called the "open o". Its actual phonetic realization may be open, whereas the lot vowel may be realized as central. Some words vary as to which vowel they have. For example, words that end in -og like frog, hog, fog, log, bog etc. have in some accents and  in others.

There are also significant complexities in the pronunciation of written o occurring before one of the triggering phonemes in a non-final syllable. In other cases, however, the use of the open o as opposed to the short o is largely predictable. Just like with /æ/-tensing and the trap–bath split, there seems to be an open-syllable constraint. Namely, the change did not affect words with /ɑ/ in open syllables unless they were closely derived from words with in closed syllables. Hence occurs in crossing, crosser, crosses because it occurs in cross. In contrast, possible, jostle, impostor, profit, Gothic, and boggle all have. However, there are still exceptions in words like Boston and foster. A further list of words is mentioned in the table below:

Some words may vary depending on the speaker like (coffee, offer, donkey, soggy, boondoggle, etc. with either or ). Meanwhile, other words vary by region. For example, the word on, which in Northern American English dialects without the cot-caught merger is pronounced, rhyming with don, but in Midland and Southern American English without the merger is pronounced , rhyming with dawn. The isogloss for this difference, termed the ON line, lies between New York City and Philadelphia on the East Coast and runs West as far as speakers without the merger can be found.

Cot–caught merger
The cot–caught merger (also known as the low back merger or the lexical set merger) is a phonemic merger occurring in many accents of English, where the vowel sound in words like cot, nod, and stock (the vowel), has merged with that of caught, gnawed, and stalk (the  vowel). For example, with the merger, cot and caught become perfect homophones.

merger
The  merger is a merger of the English vowels of  and   that has been reported in Geordie since the late 20th century, with a quality around [oː]. The merger is more common among younger female speakers.

The merger also exists among older speakers in Bradford English with a quality around [ɔː], but younger speakers are more likely to resist the merger by fronting the vowel.

split
In some London accents of English, the vowel in words such as thought, force, and north, which merged earlier on in these varieties of English, undergoes a conditional split based on syllable structure: closed syllables have a higher vowel quality such as (possibly even  in broad Cockney varieties), and open syllables have a lower vowel quality  or a centering diphthong.

Originally-open syllables with an inflectional suffix (such as bored) retain the lower vowel quality, creating minimal pairs such as bored vs. board.

In broad Geordie, some words (roughly, those spelled with a, as in walk and talk) have  (which phonetically is the long counterpart of  ) instead of the standard. Those are the traditional dialect forms which are being replaced with the standard. is therefore not necessarily a distinct phoneme in the vowel system of Geordie, also because it occurs as an allophone of before voiced consonants.

Distribution of /ɑː/
The distribution of the vowel transcribed with ⟨ɑː⟩ in broad IPA varies greatly among dialects. It corresponds to, , and (when not prevocalic within the same word)  and even  in other dialects:
 * In non-rhotic dialects spoken outside of North America, corresponds mostly to  in General American and so is most often spelled $⟨ar⟩$. In dialects with the trap–bath split (such as Received Pronunciation, New Zealand English and South African English), it also corresponds to GA, which means that it can also be spelled $⟨a⟩$ before voiceless fricatives. In those dialects,  and  are separate phonemes.
 * In native words, in most non-rhotic speech of North America corresponds to both  in GA (RP ) and  in RP, as those dialects feature the father–bother merger.
 * North American English features the father–bother merger, where often corresponds to  in RP. Only New York City English and New England English distinguish between the two, and with an unrounded  vowel. Modern-day New York City English also has rounded  for reflexes of, which ironically, came from an unrounded vowel.
 * The is the cot–caught merger usually occurs in addition to the father–bother merger. This applies to almost all of Canadian English and many varieties of American English. The result is usually, the vowel, which is used for  as well. Some dialects will have  as the merged vowel, not ; these include Standard Canadian English or Pittsburgh English.
 * The caught-cot merger without the father–bother merger is found in Scottish English and most of New England English. Uniquely, Scottish English merges the vowel into the  vowel, rather than the other way around.
 * In loanwords and names, the open central unrounded vowel in a source language is regularly approximated with  in North America and  in RP. However, in the case of mid back rounded vowels spelled $⟨o⟩$, the usual North American approximation is, not  (in RP, it can be either  or ). However, when the vowel is both stressed and word-final, the only possibilities in RP are  in the first case and  in the latter case, mirroring GA.

For the sake of simplicity, instances of an unrounded vowel (phonetically ) that do not merge with / are excluded from the table below. For this reason, the traditional Norfolk dialect is included but the contemporary one, nor the Cardiff dialect, are not.

Fronted /oʊ/
In many dialects of English, the vowel has undergone fronting. The exact phonetic value varies. Dialects with the fronted include Received Pronunciation; Southern, Midland, and Mid-Atlantic American English; and Australian English. This fronting does not generally occur before, a relatively retracted consonant.