People see William Rees-Mogg as an archetypal member of the Establishment. But this is not quite true. His father’s family had been modest landowners for centuries, but his mother was Irish-American and Mogg was baptised a Catholic. His religion has brought him such happiness as he has enjoyed, including a long and comfortable marriage, but it also had a direct effect on his education. The family school was Charterhouse, but Mogg sat for the Eton scholarship and did well. Lord Quickswood, the Provost, vetoed him on religious grounds. He was the former Lord Hugh Cecil MP, leader of the Ultra-Tory anti-Home-Rulers, a gang known as the Hughligans.
The veto was never again exercised, and Mogg was the last schoolboy to be barred from Eton as a papist. It was a blow — ‘I had even been measured for my top hat’ — and it changed his life. Instead of going effortlessly into politics, he had to be content with Charterhouse and make his way in the world.
Curiously enough, he does not hold this against Eton, and he sent his son there. It was a different matter with Balliol, to which he went in 1946 on a Brackenbury scholarship. After two terms the Master, Sandy Lindsay, ‘decided to give my place in the college to a demobilised ex-serviceman’, and Mogg was dumped in the RAF to do his national service as a sergeant.
This interrupted various delightful Oxford activities, including a developing political relationship with Margaret Roberts. So he has had it in for Balliol ever since.
The only other institution Mogg really dislikes is the BBC, of which he was Vice-Chairman during the difficult time when Alasdair Milne was the Director-General.Otherwise it has been plain sailing, as Mogg planted his feet firmly, but never vaingloriously, on the upward ladder of success.
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