‘To Back up the British Government’: Sidney Waterson's Role as South African High Commissioner in Wartime Britain, 1939–42

Abstract

Unlike the high commissioners from the other dominions, Sidney Waterson was not in London before the war and represented his country only until the end of 1942. Because of this, while Waterson is the focus of this essay, a discussion of his predecessor, Charles Te Water (1929–39), and of his two successors, Deneys Reitz (1943–44) and George Heaton Nicholls (1945–47), places his term of office in context. The essay touches on Waterson's background and examines his attitude to Britain and the war effort. Initially inexperienced and without the political clout of high commissioners like Massey of Canada and Bruce of Australia, he was also overshadowed by Smuts who, enjoying direct contact with Churchill and other British officials, frequently bypassed him.

Smuts's instructions to his high commissioners were explicit: their task of representing South African interests in London was to take second place to that of offering uncritical support to the British government in its prosecution of the war. Despite his commitment to the war effort, Waterson found it difficult giving this support. Throughout his term of office he was critical of the way in which the British government prosecuted the war and was resentful of Churchill's attitude to the dominions in general and the high commissioners in particular, believing that he fobbed them off with second-rate men as secretaries of state for the dominions. Thus, although he was a highly successful high commissioner and under him South Africa House was run as a tight ship, he never succeeded in persuading Smuts of the necessity of urging Churchill to pay more attention to the dominions nor did he succeed in gaining more political clout for the high commissioners.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the University of South Africa. My thanks also to Alex Mouton and At wan Wyk.

Notes

For a discussion on the political tensions in the Union, see Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, 287–319.

For a discussion of the attitudes of the dominions and their role during the war, see Jackson, British Empire.

Muller, ‘Creation of the Department of External Affairs’, 6–9.

‘Draft history of Te Water's mission as Ambassador Extraordinary, 1948–1949: Background to appointment’, fol. 4, Charles Te Water papers, A 78, vol. 38, South African National Archives, Pretoria (SANA); van Wyk, ‘High Commissioner ’, 41–52.

Charles Te Water's diary for 1929–33 and his correspondence provide an excellent portrait of the man during his years as high commissioner. Diary, Charles Te Water papers, A 78, vol. 37, SANA.

Press statement on resignation, and The African World, ‘Union High Commissioner Resigns’, 16 Sept. 1939, Te Water papers, A 78, vol. 15, SANA; Cape Times, ‘Mr Te Water's Resignation’, 15 Sept. 1939; Pretoria News, editorial, 15 Sept. 1939.

Te Water to Hertzog, 19 Sept. 1938, Te Water papers, A 78, vol. 13, SANA.

Te Water to Hertzog, 21 March 1939 and 7 July 1939, London High Commission/Embassy papers, BLO 117, PS 5/1/1, SANA.

Te Water to Hertzog, 23 March 1939, Department of External/Foreign Affairs papers, BTS 1/54/1A, SANA.

Nöthling, ‘Second World War’, 133.

‘Draft history’, fol. 5, Te Water papers, A 78, vol. 38, SANA.

Confidential and personal telegram to Hertzog, 6 Sept. 1939, Te Water papers, A 78, vol. 15, SANA; P. G. Reyneke, director of publicity, South Africa House, to E. F. C. Lane, Smuts's private secretary, 2 Oct. 1939, J. C. Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 245, letter 210, SANA; Egeland, Bridges of Understanding, 203.

Debates, House of Assembly, 32 (28 July 1938), cols. 221–28. For Waterson's background, see Beyers and Basson, eds, Dictionary of South African Biography, vol. 5, 870–71.

Martin and Orpen, South Africa at War, 14.

Waterson to Smuts, 8 Sept. 1939, Jan Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 246, letter 275, SANA.

Waterson diary, A3.6–A3.8 (1940–42), BC 631, S. F. Waterson papers, University of Cape Town Archive and Library (UCTAL).

Waterson diary, 22 Jan. 1942. Waterson wrote this at a time when Jordan was boycotting the high commissioners' meetings. Heaton Nicholls concurred that Jordan was not interested in foreign affairs and that he felt his job was to sell New Zealand mutton and butter. Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 383.

Te Water to Hertzog, 22 Nov. 1938, Charles Te Water papers, A 78, vol. 13, SANA.

Waterson to Smuts, 18 Dec. 1939, BTS 1/54/14, SANA; Pretoria News, ‘Australian Forces Reach Britain’, 26 Dec. 1939.

Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, 331–32.

Total full-time enlistments (men and women of all races) during the war amounted to 424,324 volunteers for active and other service. Of these 186,218 were white men and 24,975 were white women. Union of South Africa, Official Year Book, 20.

Klein, ed., Springbok Record, 18, 58.

Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, 316, 325; Barber, South Africa's Foreign Policy, 18.

Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, 311–13.

Ibid., 333–50.

Messages from Churchill and from Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Sept. 1939, and from King George VI, 20 Nov. 1945, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 244, letter 81 and vol. 265, letter 103, SANA.

Pretoria News, editorial, 24 May 1941.

Gilbert, Road to Victory, 1081.

Colville, Fringes of Power, diary entry, 17 Jan. 1945, 553.

Churchill to Smuts, telegram, 13 May 1940, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 247, letter 92, SANA.

Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, 365.

Ibid., 407.

Ibid., 350.

Dominions Office Notice, 31 July 1939, C 97/37, DO 35/541/3, TNA.

Smuts to Harlech, 8 April 1944, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 246, letter 18, SANA; exchange of personal telegrams between Smuts and Churchill on the conduct of the war, Dominions Office papers, DO 121/109, The National Archives, Kew (TNA). See also Fourie, 25; Sole, ‘This Above All’, unpublished manuscript (1989), 27, SANA (Cape Town). For a recent analysis of Harlech as high commissioner in wartime South Africa, see Fedorowich, ‘Lord Harlech’, 195–225.

Lawrence, Harry Lawrence, 150.

Waterson diary, 3 Aug. 1942.

Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 380.

Van Wyk, ‘High Commissioner’, 52.

Waterson diary, 6, 23 and 27 May 1940.

Waterson to Smuts, 23 Nov. 1939, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 246, letter 277, SANA.

See Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 379.

Sole, ‘This Above All’, 29–30; Waterson to Smuts, 31 Dec. 1940, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 249, letter 171, SANA; Fourie, Brandpunte, 13, 18.

See cables between Waterson and Smuts, 29 Sept. 1939–27 Jan. 1940, BTS 1/54/1A, SANA.

Egeland, Bridges of Understanding, 149.

Waterson to Smuts, 18 Sept. 1939, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 246, letter 276, SANA; see also Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 382.

Waterson diary, 11 May and 28 March 1940.

‘Most secret notes of meetings held at the Dominions Office, 1939–1946’, DO 121/6–15, TNA.

Waterson to Smuts, 18 Sept. 1939, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 246, letter 276, SANA; Waterson diary, 14 March 1940. For his observations on Bruce's criticisms, see his diary entry for 6 March 1940. See also, ‘Most secret note of meeting held at the Dominions Office’, 21 Feb. 1940, DO 121/7, TNA.

Waterson diary, 26 to 30 April 1940.

Ibid., 6 May 1940.

Ibid., 7 and 8 May 1940.

Ibid., 3 May 1940; ‘Most secret note of meeting held at the Dominions Office’, 27 June 1940, DO 121/8, TNA.

‘Most secret note of meeting held at the Dominions Office’, 24 Oct. 1940, DO 121/9, TNA.

Waterson diary, 22 May 1940.

Ibid., 23 May 1940. Churchill in turn asked them to approach Roosevelt privately, see 24 May 1940.

Ibid., 26 and 27 May 1940.

Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941, 435.

Waterson diary, 14 June 1940.

Ibid., 16 May 1940. See also Sole, ‘This Above All’, 30–31.

Pretoria News, ‘South Africa Stands by the Empire’, 26 March 1941.

Waterson diary, 29 Aug. and 19 Nov. 1942.

Ibid., 15 Oct. and 13 Nov. 1941.

Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 378.

See ‘Diplomatic privileges’, DO 35/660/6 and DO 35/661/2, TNA.

C. Bain Marais, United Party MP, to Smuts, 20 Nov. 1940, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 249, letter 103, SANA; Fourie, Brandpunte, 21.

Waterson diary, 20 May 1940.

Waterson to Smuts, 23 Nov. 1939, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 246, letter 277, SANA; Van Wyk, ‘High Commissioner’, 53; The Forum, editorial, 8 Nov. 1941; Cape Times, ‘Admiral Evans Tells of his Cinderella’, 5 May 1941, and ‘Col Reitz Going to London’, 24 Dec. 1942.

Waterson diary, 1 Oct. 1941.

Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, 350.

Waterson diary, 29 June 1940.

Ibid., 26 July 1940, 20 Aug. 1940 and 29 Jan. 1942.

Ibid., 28 June 1940. Lord Cranborne, Secretary of State for the Dominions from late 1942 shared Waterson's views on Churchill's indifference to the dominions. See Duff Hart-Davis, ed., King's Counsellor, 168.

‘Most secret note of meetings held at the Dominions Office’, 17, 20 and 25 June 1940, DO 121/8, TNA.

Waterson diary, 24 July 1940.

Cranborne to Reitz, 30 May 1944, BLO 442, PS 26/123/6, SANA.

Waterson diary, 28 Oct. 1940. See also 7 July 1941 when he complained in his diary that ‘I am getting sick of not even being allowed to be an efficient rapporteur’.

Sole, ‘This Above All’, 49.

Waterson diary, 11 March 1941.

Jackson, British Empire, 474.

Gilbert, Finest Hour, 822–23.

Smuts to Waterson, telegram, 16 June 1941, BLO 440, PS 26/23, SANA.

Waterson diary, 3 Nov. 1942.

Ibid., 15 May 1940.

Ibid., 23 June 1940.

Ibid., 3 Oct. 1940.

Ibid., 4 Nov. 1940.

Ibid., 3 March 1942 and 28 April 1942.

Ibid., 19 Aug. 1942.

Ibid., 16 July 1941.

Ibid., 12 Aug. 1940.

Egeland, Bridges of Understanding, 150.

Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 382–83.

Waterson diary, 28 April 1942.

Sole, ‘This Above All’, 30.

Waterson diary, 4 Oct. 1940.

Ibid., 7 Oct. 1940.

Ibid., 4 Dec. 1940; Waterson to Smuts, 31 Dec. 1940, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 249, letter 171, SANA.

Waterson diary, 15 April 1941.

Ibid., 17 July 1941.

Ibid., 20 and 22 April 1940.

Ibid., 11 June 1941.

Waterson to Smuts, cipher telegram, 11 June 1941, BLO 440, PS 26/23, SANA. Bruce agreed and in July said that ‘the point had come where, if the Secretary of State himself were not prepared to insist on the Dominion Governments receiving proper information in advance, the High Commissioners themselves would have to make representations in the highest quarters’. Most secret note of meeting held at Dominions Office', 8 July 1941, DO 121/11, TNA.

Duncan to Smuts, private and personal, 15 June 1941, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 250, letter 125, SANA.

Smuts to Waterson, cipher telegram, 16 June 1941, BLO 440, PS 26/23, SANA.

Gilbert, Finest Hour, 822–23.

Ibid., 823.

Nöthling, ‘Second World War’, 145–48. It was only after late 1943 that Smuts's desire to influence decision making on the international order to be established after the war made him agree to become an observer member of the British War Cabinet.

Daily Mail, ‘No Empire Cabinet: Canada's PM’, 22 Aug. 1941.

Dominions Office to Canadian, New Zealand and South African governments, 27 Jan. 1942, BLO 440, PS 26/23, SANA.

Smuts to Waterson, telegram, 29 Jan. 1942, BLO 442, PS 26/23, SANA.

Waterson diary, 21 April and 4 Aug. 1942.

Smuts to Waterson, telegram, 29 Jan. 1942, BLO 440, PS 26/23, SANA.

Waterson diary, 30 Nov. 1942.

Syers to Sir Eric Machtig, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Dominions, 29 Dec. 1942, DO 121/117, TNA.

Eric Walker, History of Southern Africa, 724–25.

Attlee to Harlech, 11 Feb. 1943, quoting Harlech's words, DO 121/107, TNA.

Fourie, Brandpunte, 25.

F. A. Mouton, ‘Deneys Reitz’, 450–51; Fourie, Brandpunte, 24–25.

Harlech to Paul Emrys-Evans, confidential, 24 Dec. 1943, Add MSS 58244, Emrys-Evans papers, British Library (BL). See also Fourie, Brandpunte, 24–25.

Emrys-Evans to Harlech, confidential, 16 April 1943, Add MSS 58244, Emrys-Evans papers, BL.

‘Most secret notes of meetings at the Dominions Office’, 1943–44, DO 121/13 and 14.

Diary of Jan C. Smuts, Jnr, on the occasion of the visit of Field Marshal J. C. Smuts to the London and San Francisco conferences, April–July 1945, Smuts papers, A 1, vol. 316, letter 1, SANA.

Harlech to Cranborne, secret telegram, 23 Nov. 1944, G 552/11, DO 35/1116, TNA; Sole, ‘This Above All’, 77.

Fourie, Brandpunte, 28.

Debates, House of Assembly, 36 (4 Sept. 1939), col. 34.

Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 374.

Cranborne to Churchill, 14 Feb. 1944, DO 121/107, TNA.

Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, 412.

Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 372.

Barber, South Africa's Foreign Policy, 12–13.

Ibid., 17.

Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 80.

‘Correspondence relating to the proposed conference’, BLO 440, PS 26/23; ‘Meeting of Prime Ministers’, May 1944, BLO 442, PS 26/23/6, SANA; Heaton Nicholls, South Africa, 375–84.

Sole, ‘This Above All’, 67, 87–88.

The Forum, ‘On the Eve of the Session’, 9 Jan. 1943.

Harlech to Attlee, personal & secret, 1 Feb. 1943, DO 121/107, TNA.

Harlech to Cranborne, confidential, 9 June 1944, G 673/6, DO 35/1122, TNA.

Extract of letter from Admiral W. E. C. Tait, C-in-C South Atlantic, 21 April 1944, WG 647/4/14, DO 35/1682, TNA.

Eglin, Crossing the Borders of Power, 71–76.