Abstract
In February 1964, I was invited to give the Stamp Memorial Lecture, then as now a signal honour. Lord Stamp (1880–1941) was one of the truly outstanding men of his time. His death so early by enemy action makes it impossible to compare him with his contemporaries, such as Lord Waverley (still better known as Sir John Anderson, 1882–1958) or Lord Beveridge (1879–1963). But his career showed the immense opportunities offered to young men of ability by the civil service before the First World War: he entered the Inland Revenue as a clerk at the age of sixteen: by 1916 (aged 36) he was assistant secretary to the Board of Inland Revenue, and already perhaps the greatest expert on taxation in the country. He left the Inland Revenue in 1919 to be a director and secretary of Nobel Industries (future constituent of ICI); and was at once put on the 1919 Royal Commission on income tax and on the 1924 Colwyn Royal Commission on taxation and national debt.1
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