Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-11-23
MhCDONALDBACK
]QN MODEST HOME
RBritish Premier With His
Books, Enjoying Simple
Life With Children.
Correspondence Of The star ana New York

Correspondence Of The star and New York
r.~ World.
LONDON, November 10.-Having
completed his tenure a. tho first
Labor prime minister, Ramsay Mac
Donald, who earlier in the year took
up his residence at historic 10 Down.
ing street, moved quietly back to his
old home, No. 8 Hewitt road, Hamp-
stead.
The house in Hewitt road had been
Mr.. MacDonald's home for years be-
fore he ever dreamed Of going to
Downing street at prime minister Of
Great Britain. It could only be de-
scribed truthfully as q typical lower
middle class home. This observation
is made with q warning Of Bernard
~'haw that It Is fatal for any lecturer
to describe his English audience as
middle class" still ringing in ones
ears.
Nevertheless, there the Macdonald
home is-one of two long lines of
houses facing each other along the
road, each exactly like its neighbors.
Mr.. MacDonald's neighbors. too, are
al working people, and their COM
forts, like the former prime minis
1er's, do not exceed those ordinarily
found in typical working class homes
Left Fortune by Wife.
There is nothing demagogic about
the choice of home which Mr.. Mac
Donald made some years after the
death of his wife left him with five
children to look after. The late Mrs.
Macdonald, 1t is understood, left her
husband and children a comfortable
fortune. But the erstwhile prime
minister's tastes were never extrav-
agant.
Mrs. Macdonald was Margaret
Ethel Gladstone, daughter OF DR.. ]. H.
Gladstone. F. r. S. She was a niece
Of Lord Kelvin, the great physicist,
who is buried in Westminster Abbey.
and the centenary of whose birth was
observed this year by learned socie-
ties on both sides of the Atlantic.
1t needs hardly to be added that the
Hewitt road home is one of plain
living and high thinking. Now that
it has been reopened after the nine
months residence of the family in
Downing street, the former premier
of England again passes many hours
daily in his study on the second floor
of his modest abode. 1t is a book
lined room, with surplus volumes
history and economics predominant
occupying many of the chairs. A fine
steel engraving of Oliver Cromwell Is
one of the few pictures in the room.
Son College Graduate.
This study is Mr.. MacDonald's own.
He assumes no responsibility for what
goes on in the rest of the house.
When he went to Downing street he
took with him a trusted housekeeper
who had looked after his home for
years. She has returned to Hewitt
road with the family, and with the
aid of one servant attends to the do
nestle economy Of the home.
OF the five children to whom the
exprime minister has been both father
and mother since 1911, the eldest is
Malcolm. He finished at Oxford this
year, a course such as for generations
has been pursued by the sons of Eng
fish gentlemen, although, If that stern
critic Of the old order in England.
Bertrand Russell, may be believed,
Few of the sons of the gentry break
down from overwork at either of
highlands old universities.
Any one who knows Mr.. Macdonald
would understand that he would be
satisfied with no educational training
except the best for any of his chill
dren. The recent general elections
found Malcolm Macdonald in America
on the first lap of a trip around the
World. He was a candidate for the
House of Commons on the Labor
ticket, and met defeat along with
many other famous sons-among the
number "Comrade" Oliver Baldwin,
son of the present Tory prime minis
ter. Young Baldwin was also stand
ing as candidate of the Labor party,
with which he formally affiliated long
ago.
Daughter Rebuked Dowager.
Mr.. MacDonald's eldest daughter
had just finished her schooling when
her fathers unexpected rise to the
premiership made Miss Ishbel Mac
Donald the youngest chatelaine who
ever held sway in the great rambling
brick home of the prime minister in
Downing street. Early in her career
as mistress at No. 10 Miss Macdonald
had to administer a gentle rebuke to
Il meddlesome old dowager.
This old dame-perhaps from the
best of motives-wrote Miss MacDon-
aid offering to help her select neces-
sary gowns and volunteering to coach
the girl from Hewitt road on the ETH
quette of polite society. With courtesy,
but with great firmness, Ishbel Mac
Donald assured the old stager that
her counsels were not needed.
In Lincoln's Inn Fields, opposite the
old Macdonald home, there is a sim
pie memorial to Ishbel MacDonalds
mother, placed there by friends who
had known the charm of Margaret
Gladstone Macdonald when she pre-
sided over drawing room that was