Florence was devoted to her son, Maynard, and took enormous
pride in his achievements. In her collection of family scrapbooks, she carefully
stored all the press cuttings and reviews tracing the successful careers of her
three children, Maynard, Geoffrey, and Margaret. Bound in these scrapbooks were
hundreds of articles featuring Maynard’s publication of the Economic Consequences
of the Peace, including his letters to newspapers as well as the reactions of
his readers. Florence and Neville, Maynard's father, set up their home at 6 Harvey Road, Cambridge, where they enjoyed the relatively affluent lifestyle of the Victorian academic family. With three young children, Florence shared her children's interests and ambitions, so that she was always there for them, ready to help.
Portrait of Florence Ada Keynes, by courtesy of Cambridgeshire Collection
Maynard's friends referred to her as "the good mother Keynes" [1] and although she was committed to so many good causes, her family always came first and she would drop everything to help them.
Florence was immensely proud of Maynard, and in a letter to him
in August 1917, when he was serving in the Treasury, Florence wrote:
“How exciting it must be for you to attend the Cabinet
meetings. Indeed, it seems to me that
you are having such experiences as will make the whole of life pale
afterwards.” [2]
Just 2 years later, when attending the Peace Conference in
Paris, Maynard relied on his mother for support. They corresponded regularly, with Maynard
relating his many meetings with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, as well
as his frustrations at the lack of progress.
Despairing of the failure of the Peace Conference, Maynard was on the
point of resigning his post at the Treasury, and wrote to his mother regretting
that he had been “an accomplice in all this wickedness and folly.[3] Florence reassured Maynard and tried to
console him, writing on 19 May, “… perhaps things are not quite so desperate”[4]. Maynard felt unable to continue and wrote to
the Prime Minister on 5 June to resign his position.
Even when working all hours on writing “The Economic
Consequences of the Peace”, Maynard took the time to write to his mother, “… managed
to keep up my average of 1,000 words fit for the printer every day, seven days
a week; but there are still some very difficult bits to do. I hope to finish by the first week of October
and have it actually published before the last day of the month.” [5] By 23
September 1919, Maynard had sent the first five chapters to the printers, but
had not yet started the two remaining chapters and reckoned that he was ten
days behind schedule. He wrote again to
Florence from Charleston, “They weigh rather heavily as I am stale and should
like to take a month off…. But I suppose I must persevere.”[6]
Florence tried to persuade Maynard to tone down the personal passages in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace", as she was concerned about the offence they might cause to Wilson and Lloyd George. She considered his references to Lord Sumner as possibly libellous and hoped that he would remove the "nasty hits at Lloyd George...you owe some loyalty to your Chief, even if you don't agree with him... Also spare the President where you can...Don't call him 'poor'. Broadly speaking it is really important to be careful about international susceptibilities, so don't call the French demands perposterous, or call any 'great' man wicked or wanton. The work will gain, not lose, by restraint."[7]. Maynard heeded some but not all of his mother's advice and removed some of the references.
REFERENCES
[1] Skidelsky,
Robert. John Maynard Keynes. Volume 1. London: Macmillan, 1983
[2] Letter: FAK
to JMK 1 Aug 1917
[3] Letter: JMK
to FAK 14 May 1919
[4] Skidelsky,
Robert. John Maynard Keynes. Volume 1. London: Macmillan, 1983
[5] Letter: JMK
to FAK 3 Sep 1919
[6] Letter: JMK
to FAK 23 Sep 1919
[7] Skidelsky,
Robert. John Maynard Keynes. Volume 1. London: Macmillan, 1983
