Edward Frank Wise CB (3 July 1885 – 5 November 1933) was a British economist, civil servant and Labour Party politician. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1929 to 1931.
As a civil servant at the National Insurance Commission, War Office and Ministry of Food and Board of Trade he was instrumental in introducing state control for the requisitioning of raw materials at the War Office and of prices and the meat trade at the Ministry of Food. Following the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, he was a Delegate to the Supreme Economic Council and led the negotiations for the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement 1920–21. He was an adviser to David Lloyd George at the Genoa Conference (1922). He controversially resigned from the UK Civil Service to become the Director of the Soviet Union's Trade Office Centrosoyuz in 1923.
Wise was elected as an Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester East at the May 1929 general election, but lost his seat at the subsequent general election in October 1931. He was a prominent member of the ILP but resigned when it disaffiliated from the Labour Party in 1932, becoming the first chairman of the Socialist League. From 1929 he had an intimate relationship with Jennie Lee, which ended in 1933 with his sudden death at Wallington Hall, the home of Sir Charles Trevelyan.
Early life
Frank Wise was born on 3 July 1885 at 13 Albert Street, Bury St. Edmunds, the county town of West Suffolk. He was the elder of the two sons of Edward Wise, a game dealer and fishmonger, and Ellen Clayton Wise (née Joel).Who was Who online edition OUP 2014 accessed 26 May 2014 The Wise family had been East London fishmongers for at least three generations and the Joel family were originally from North Wales and active in the linen trade in London. Edward Wise, his father, died on 29 February 1888Bury and Norwich Post & Suffolk Standard 6 March 1888 "Death of Mr. Wise" and the two boys were brought up by their mother Ellen Wise, who established a ladies outfitter and baby linen business in Bury St. Edmunds from the early 1890s onwards.Kelly's Directory, Bury St Edmunds 1892
Wise attended Guildhall Feoffment School and King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds, winning an Exhibition Scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, to read Mathematics. He was a member of the Football and Athletics teams (half Blue). He was Second Senior Optime in the Mathematical Tripos in 1906, graduating with a B.A. Degree in 1906. He then took a second class in Part I in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1907.Thompson, Noel [Wise, Edward Frank (1885–1933) economist and politician] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on-line edition. Retrieved 19 July 2014
Civil servant
Wise passed his civil service examinations and became a junior clerk in the House of Commons in 1907.Who is Who 1924? He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1911. At this time he was also a Sub Warden of Toynbee Hall, the University Settlement in Whitechapel. He and Clement Attlee were in the cast of Ali Baba and the Forty Borough Councillors, the Toynbee Hall Christmas pantomime in December 1909. Wise played Ali Baba and Attlee took the role of Guava Djelli. Wise was Sub-Warden between 1911 and 1912 and was noted as a vigorous advocate of new social legislation.Meacham, Standish Toynbee Hall and Social Reform 1880–1914. The Search for Community, p.125 Wise was one of the Toynbee men who were in key positions in Government Administration during the First World War. His association with Toynbee Hall continued after the war.
He transferred to the Government Insurance DepartmentBraithwaite W.J. Lloyd George's Ambulance Wagon p. 282 which introduced the National Insurance Act 1911 and became acting Principal Clerk to the National Health Insurance Commission in 1912. He was involved in developing the machinery for implementing the Act and was particularly concerned with devising a scheme for the decasualisation of dock labour.Macrae-Gibson, J.H. E.F.Wise C.B. The Civil Servant who resigned p. 202
He became secretary to the Anglo-Russian Supplies Committee in the War Office (1914–15), responsible for purchasing munitions for Russia. He was promoted to be assistant director of Army Contracts in charge of clothing and raw materials in late 1915.British Library of Political and Social Science, LSE, London E.M.H. Lloyd PapersLloyd, E.M.H. Experiments in State Control: At the War Office and Ministry of Food Appendix 6 In this position he created a Raw Materials Section, consciously imitating the work of Walther Rathenau in the German War Office, introducing state trading and control of Russian flax. He had responsibility for army clothing contracts and also took on the chairmanship of the Central Committee for the Boot and Leather Trades which ensured that the sufficient leather for Army boots was available at prices that could be afforded.
He moved to the Ministry of Food, following the appointment of U.F. Wintour as permanent secretary, in 1917, becoming head of the Meat, Milk, Fats DivisionThe Times, Saturday 30 June 1917 p.6 "Requisitioning of Food" introducing control of the meat trade.Beveridge, Sir William.H. British Food Control p.142 He was described as an ‘aggressive and impatient spirit', convinced of the ‘danger and impossibility of half-measures' and harshly contemptuous of ‘self-interest, timidity and caution'. He was ‘constantly taking risks, doing unprecedented things, defying the precedents, incurring the disapproval of his colleagues, butting in and suggesting improvements, short-circuiting the established routine and stretching the authority given to him to its extreme limit... he was a thruster; a man of action; an adventurer who took a creative artist's delight in a successful piece of organisation.'Burk, Kathleen (ed.) War and State: The Transformation of British Government 1914–1919 p. 151
He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1919 New Year Honours for services during the war.London Gazette Issue 31099 31 December 1918 p.108
Provisioning Germany and Supreme Economic Council
Wise was seconded by the Ministry of Food to advise on food supplies to Germany in February 1919Newton, Douglas British Policy and the Weimar Republic 1918–19 p.318 becoming the Food Controller's delegate on the Supreme Economic Council in March 1919The Times 17 March 1919 p. 12 as part of the team, involved with supplying food to Germany and other countries leading up to the Paris Peace Conference 1919. He made an ‘on the ground' inspection and his report on the need to provide food supplies was accepted by the UK CabinetNational Archives Ref. CAB/24/76 6 March 1919 Churchill W.S. and Wise, E.F. "Note on Food supplies for the Left Bank of the Rhine, Note by Mr. Churchill covering a memo by Mr. E.F. Wise of Ministry of Food" and the Supreme Economic Council.Nelson, Keith Victors Divided: America and the Allies in Germany 1918–23 p. 101 He remained in Paris during this period and in September was appointed as a UK representative on the Supreme Economic CouncilThe Times, 19 September 1919 p.10 when it moved to London that autumn.
Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement
He accompanied Lloyd George to Paris as a member of the British delegation which intended to finalise the Peace Treaty. Wise's scheme for opening negotiations with the Soviet Union was circulated to the UK Cabinet on 13 January 1920. It argued that the continuance of the Russian Civil War and the blockade meant that food supplies were not reaching Europe and as a result high prices were being paid for American supplies. Central Europe in particular needed food and only Russia could provide sufficient grain and this would transform the situation. The Cabinet minuteCabinet S – 8 CAB 23/44/B Conclusions of a Cabinet Conference held at Claridges Hotel, Paris on Tuesday 13 January 1920 at 6 p.m. Wise E.F. Memorandum on Economic Aspects of British Policy concerning Russia CAB 23/44B confirmed that discussions would begin with the Soviet Representatives on opening trade and negotiations developed over the following months.M. V. Glenny, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1970), pp. 63-82 The Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement, March 1921 Wise took a key role as the Chairman of the Interdepartmental Russia Committee,National Archives Ref. CAB/24/96 Note by Sir Maurice Hankey Re-opening trade relations with the Russian people 23 January 1920, and The Times Friday 1 October 1920 p. 9 The Russian Trade Treaty acting as the British Representative on the Supreme Economic Council, which was tasked with the detailed arrangements for concluding the trade negotiations.
The Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement was signed on 16 March 1921. The legal significance of de facto recognition meant that Soviet goods were now protected from claimants with debts incurred through confiscation or nationalisation and the Soviet Mission in London became a permanent, rather than a transient presence.
Genoa Conference (1922)
Wise was involved in detailed negotiations concerning the Russian position and the conditions for its participation in the 1922 Genoa Conference.Morgan, Kenneth O. Consensus and Disunity The Lloyd George Coalition Government 1918–1922 p. 112 His role as an adviser to Lloyd George provoked resentment in the Foreign Office, which considered him to have "decidedly left wing views" being an "arch-bolshevist" with little "experience of international politics."Kennan, George F. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin p. 215 He was not allowed by the Foreign Office to sit on conference proceedings.
His involvement in the negotiations at the Genoa Conference that culminated in the Rapallo Treaty between the Soviet Union and Germany, was the subject of much speculation and dispute.Kennan p.220 The treaty cast a shadow of the remainder of the Conference. It is suggested that it had major consequences since Germany deliberately broke the West's solidarity towards Soviet Russia to gain its own advantage. It was decided to postpone all the difficult issues to a further conference at The Hague in June. He attended this but Lloyd George did not and although it was intended to negotiate with the Russians on debts, property, and credits, it failed to reach agreement and the Russians admitted they had nothing new to offer.
Civil service resignation – appointment to Centrosoyuz
Since 1921 he had been an Assistant Secretary Board of Trade in the Civil Service.Manchester Guardian 6 November 1933 Obituary: Mr.E.F. Wise He was also prominent in the Society of Civil Servants. This Society had arranged a series of lectures in 1920 and 1921. Wise was chairman of its lecture committee and spoke on ‘The Civil Service in relation to industry and commerce.'The Civil Servant and his Profession: a series of lectures delivered to the Society of Civil servants March 1920 Pitman London 1920 It is claimed that it was Wise's inspiration that was largely responsible for the founding of the Institute of Public Administration since the sub-committee which organised the lectures was also responsible for drawing up proposals for the institute. Wise became the interim Chairman of the institute (subsequently the Royal Institute of Public Administration) until he resigned from the Civil Service in March 1923.