An excellent eulogy to a great man, thank you.
Perhaps Mr Sandbrook you could do the same for Baldwin’s successor, Neville Chamberlain?

I have to confess I share Baldwins quirk of sniffing books, but I only do it when I’m reading them. There’s something about the smell of ink on paper that I love.

https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-101/how-churchill-saw-others-stanley-baldwin/
“Shortly after the war,” writes Gilbert, “when he was asked to send Baldwin, then aged eighty, a birthday letter, [Churchill] declined to do so, writing to an intermediary: ‘I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better had he never lived.’
“In my long search for Churchill,” Gilbert concluded, “few letters have struck a clearer note than this one. Churchill was almost always magnanimous: his tribute to Neville Chamberlain in 1940 was among the highpoints of his parliamentary genius. But he saw Baldwin as responsible for the ‘locust years’ when Britain, if differently led, could have easily rearmed, and kept well ahead of the German military and air expansion, which Hitler had begun in 1933 from a base of virtual disarmament. Churchill saw Baldwin’s policies, especially with regard to Royal Air Force expansion, as having given Hitler the impression, first, that Britain would not stand up to aggression beyond its borders, and second, that if war came Britain would not be in a position to act effectively even to defend its own cities.”
In the end, that was enough to damn Stanley Baldwin perhaps as no other contemporary Briton in Churchill’s eyes.

I have to agree that the “accepted version” of the history here – just as with Neville Chamberlain – is far too simplistic (and frankly just lazy).
Checking my copy of Churchill’s “Great Contemporaries”, written in 1937.
No chapter on Stanley Baldwin, Ramsey McDonald or Lloyd George. Yet Rosebery, Curzon, F. E. Smith and Philip Snowden all have chapters. Quite extraordinary.
The chapter on “Hitler and his Choice” is surprising ambivalent – fully acknowledging the errors of the Allies (basically the French) in pursuing excessive reparations – and also considering the possibility Hitler might come good:
“Thus the world lives on hopes that the worst is over, and that we may yet live to see Hitler a gentler figure in a happier age”.
Churchill still considers that a possibility. Writing in 1937. After Baldwin had resigned.
My mother had a set of British encyclopedias published in the late 1930s in which the coverage of Hitler was equally accomodating.

“In his (Baldwin’s) most famous speech, a paean to romantic nostalgia, he evoked “the sounds of England, the tinkle of hammer on anvil in the country smithy, the corncrake on a dewy morning, the sound of the scythe against the whetstone, and the sight of a plough team coming over the brow of a hill”. Now i know what John Major plagiarised.

What a delight to read and to realise that I must find out more about Mr Baldwin.

For many years I largely accepted the Churchill/Orwell view of Baldwin, even though I’d long changed my mind about Neville Chamberlain. Having in the past year or two read the work of the likes of Phillip Williamson, Stuart Ball, David Jarvis etc on the period though I have come away thinking much more highly of Baldwin. Although very different in many respects from Lord Salisbury, I think both were very sophisticated and clever politicians that their face value image may not have suggested and both did a lot to secure the relative Tory hegemonies of their respective eras.

Why does the writer think that only one person could have divulged the conversation in the first class carriage? If Mr Baldwin answered his interlocutor truthfully – and why should he have not – then either of those two men could have told the story. And it is not stated that they were alone in the carriage, so anyone else there at the time could have spoken of it as well.

The reality was that the majority of Briatin did not want to fight until the Blitz in late 1940. There was vast array of opinion against war and rearming namely: those traumatised by WW1; Methodist/ Quakers against war; Communists, Trade Union Leaders in general who wanted money spent on welfare and especially those from South Wales due to Churchill’s activities in the General Strike Strike; George Lansbury leader of Labour Party until 1935 and then Atlee; Fascists, those who liked German culture such as Maynard Keynes; George V because WW1, pacifists such as Vera Brittan.
Churchill supported Edward VIII which alienated many people, especially in the Empire.
Churchill did not understand modern warfare and would have spent money on oudated cavalry and expensive battle ships. What Britain needed were frigates which could be built in civilian shipyards which were faster than U Boats ( 18 Knots ) to protect convoys, aircarft carriers and destroyers to protect them. Also the Spitfire could have been upgraded so by the Battle Of Britain it was 20 to 30 mph faster and carreid 20mm cannons and 0.5 inch machine guns. A fighter force of 70 squadrons of upgraded Spitfires, 50 in the UK, ten in Middle East and10 in Singapore could have saved the situation.
The Trenchard Doctrine said bombers would always get through and cause 100,000 deaths, It was Baldwin and Chamberlain who startd the construction of Hurricanes and Spitfires in 1936 ti stop bombers.
By 1918 The RN had learnt how to fight U Boats and then forgot about them. One RN Captain Frederick Walker CB , DSO and three bars maintained his skills in anti U Boat fighting.
The best engineers in the 1920s and 1930s worked in aeronautics and radio which was why the RAF was the most technically advanced service. Churchill did not understand technology which was why he thought the 100 French divisions would repel the Germans.
Churchill, a cavalry officer would have spent money on horses, infantry and battleships completely ignored the fact that the Army was the most technically backward of the services and U boats were the threat at sea.The Army and to a lesser extent the RN did not attract the high calibre engineers in the 1920s and 1930s, the same way flying did.
Wars are often won by those who use the resources most wisely which means the right technology, in the right place at the right time which was why Dowding’s design of the defence of Britain was so brilliant.
Baldwin and Chamberlain enabled Britain to start the war as a united country, which apart from Germany, no other nation did. Most people considered Hitler was just the latest manifestation of Prussian Militarism . Churchil did not explain that Nazism was different, the worship of power. If Churchill had based his argument on defence of Britain; fighters to repel bombers and frigates to protect merchant ships, he may have obtained support. Instead people considered Churchill was planning a Gallipoli Mark II.

Dinsdale Pirhana sometimes believed he was Stanley Baldwin, and was being stalked by a giant hedgehog called Spiny Norman?

The letter to the Times was signed “FST,” so I think most readers realised the writer’s identity.

“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for blog comment sections. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for breakfast!”

Thank you for this informative journalistic portrait of Stanley Baldwin. This American has some content to add, to whit:
About ten years ago, I happened upon a very old special edition of the Times of London. I noticed that the yellowed, ragged tabloid newspaper was a May 20, 1937 issue was a Commemorative Issue; it followed the May 12 Coronation of George VI.
Of course it was a fascinating read. The entire front page is a letterpress reproduction of a picture of The Archbishop placing the crown on the head of George VI. While gently turning those ancient pages, I arrived at a special section entitled “News of the Week.”
Of course, the main event was the Coronation, which which we so recently witnessed as it was re-enacted for King Charles III.
But further down on that newsy, texty page was an article: Mr. Baldwin to the Conference. Here it is, as printed in 1937:

The Imperial Conference at its opening meeting in St. James Palace chose Mr. Baldwin for president. Mr. Baldwins first words were devoted to the memory of King George V. He went on to say that the self-governing communities of the British Commonwealth were partners in a great enterprise, jointly responsible for an experiment the success or failure of which must profoundly influence the future of mankind. They were agreed that foreign affairs and defence should be the main subjects of the conference.

With so many of the most powerful nations of the world expanding their armed forces, we in this country (Mr. Baldwin said) have decided that it is our duty to put our defences in order, at a cost the magnitude of which you know. We deplore the necessity but we have no choice. 

We shoulder that burden for the security of this island, which is still the heart of the Empire, but also that we may be equipped to fulfill our responsibilities in guarding the security of the Empire oversea, and as a loyal member of the League of Nations.