File 034 - Colonies - War and colonies (Charles Roden Buxton)

Charles Roden Buxton was born on November 27, 1875, in London, England.

He was a British Liberal Party politician, philanthropist, and author. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1897, he went to South Australia to act briefly as Private Secretary to his father Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1837-1915), Governor of South Australia. He visited India, Malaya, Japan, China and spent six months on a cattle ranch in Texas before returning to London. In 1902, he was called to the Bar at Inner Temple. From 1902 to 1919, Buxton served as Principal of Morley College in London. He was the first president of the South London Branch of the Workers' Educational Association and the editor of the Albany Review (1906-1908). He entered politics as a Member of Parliament for Ashburton (1910-1911). In 1914, Buxton went on an unofficial mission to the Balkans with his brother Edward. While in Bucharest, Romania, an assassination attempt was made on them by Turkish activist Hasan Tahsin. In 1917, he left the Liberal Party and joined the Independent Labour Party. As secretary to the Labour Party's delegation to the Soviet Union in 1920, he was very impressed by what he saw and wrote a book, “In A Russian Village” (1922). He served as Labour Member of Parliament for the Accrington (1922-1923) and Elland (1929-1931) constituencies. In 1926, he was appointed Parliamentary Adviser to the Labour Party, a post he held until his resignation in 1939. His wife co-founded the international charity and movement Save the Children. In 1914, Buxton co-founded the Union of Democratic Control to promote peace by negotiation. From this time until he died in 1942, he worked unremittingly for peace and the equitable distribution of the world's land and resources. He showed particular interest in the rights of Indigenous people of Africa and travelled widely on the continent. Another of his interests was Esperanto, becoming president of the international society of Quaker Esperantists.

In 1904, he married Dorothy Frances Jebb (1881–1963). He died on December 16, 1942, in Peaslake, Surrey, England.