Book Reviews : Statesmen in Disguise: The Changing Role of the Administrative Class of the British Home Civil Service 1853-1966. By GEOFFREY KINGDON FRY. (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1969. Pp. 479.)

• Author: Frederick C. Mosher
• DOI: 10.1177/106591297002300413
• Published date: 01 December 1970
• Date: 01 December 1970

BOOK REVIEWS
Statesmen in Disguise: The Changing Role of the Administrative Class of the
British Home Civil Service 1853-1966. By GEOFFREY KINGDON FRY. (New
York: Macmillan and Company, 1969. Pp. 479.)
Mr. Fry’s book is the product of, and embellishment upon, a doctoral disser-
tation written between 1962 and 1967. Subsequently, at the request of his pub-
lishers, the author added a 65-page postscript about the Fulton Report on the
British Home Civil Service which was released in June 1968. Much of the docu-
ment is a history of the British administrative class, beginning a bit before the
Trevelyan-Northcote report of 1853 and carrying very nearly up to date. The
historical sections, which comprise about three-fifths of the book, seemed to this
reader the most interesting. They offer a good rationale of why the British adopted,
though gradually and piecemeal, the central recommendations of Lord Macauley.
They explain the many adjustments made during the current century to make
the public service more responsive to radically changing needs, yet without modify-
ing the thesis that the fundamental tone of public...