Stanley Baldwin
Overview
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
, PC
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
(3 August 1867 – 14 December 1947) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars. Three times Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
, he is the only one to serve under three different monarchs (George V
George V
George V was king of the United Kingdom and its dominions from 1910 to 1936.George V or similar terms may also refer to:-People:* George V of Georgia * George V of Imereti * George V of Hanover...
, Edward VIII and George VI).
Baldwin first entered the House of Commons in 1908 as the Member of Parliament for Bewdley
Bewdley (UK Parliament constituency)
Bewdley was the name of a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1605 until 1950. Until 1885 it was a parliamentary borough in Worcestershire, represented by one Member of Parliament; the name was then transferred to a county constituency from 1885 until...
, and held government office in the coalition ministry of David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
.
Quotations
A lot of hard-faced men who look as if they had done very well out of the war.
Of the new MPs elected in 1918; quoted by John Maynard Keynes in Economic Consequences of the Peace, Ch. 5
If I did not believe that our work was done in the faith and hope that at some day, it may be a million years hence, the Kingdom of God|Kingdom of God will spread over the whole world, I would have no hope, I could do no work, and I would give my office over this morning to anyone who would take it.
Speech to the British and Foreign Bible Society (2 May 1928); published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 92 - 93
Tom Mosley is a cad and a wrong 'un and they will find it out.
On Oswald Mosley (21 June 1929). "They" were the Labour Party which had recently won a general election. Quoted in Whitehall Diary : Volume II (1969) by Thomas Jones, p. 195.
What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot through the ages.
Baldwin is here quoting his cousin Rudyard Kipling (17 March 1931)
I think it well ... for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through. The only defence is offence, which means that you will have to kill women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.
Statement of (10 November 1932), as quoted in Baldwin : A Biography by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes (1969), p. 735
Encyclopedia
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG
, PC
(3 August 1867 – 14 December 1947) was a British
Conservative
politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars. Three times Prime Minister
, he is the only one to serve under three different monarchs (George V
, Edward VIII and George VI).
Baldwin first entered the House of Commons in 1908 as the Member of Parliament for Bewdley
, and held government office in the coalition ministry of David Lloyd George
. In 1922 Baldwin was one of the prime movers in the withdrawal of Conservative support from Lloyd George and became Chancellor of the Exchequer
in Bonar Law's Conservative ministry. Upon Bonar Law's resignation in May 1923, Baldwin became Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader
. He called an an Election
on the issue of tariffs and lost the Conservatives' majority, after which Ramsay MacDonald
formed a minority Labour government.
After winning the 1924 General Election
Baldwin formed his second government, which saw important tenures of office by Sir Austen Chamberlain (Foreign Secretary), Winston Churchill (at the Exchequer) and Neville Chamberlain (Health). That government also saw the General Strike in 1926 and the 1927 Trades Disputes Act to curb the powers of trade unions, although Baldwin was supportive of Labour politicians at Westminster forming minority governments. Baldwin lost the 1929 General Election
and his continued leadership was subject to criticism by the press barons Rothermere and Beaverbrook.
In 1931, Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
formed a National Government, most of whose MPs were Conservatives and which won an enormous majority at the 1931 General Election
. As Lord President of the Council Baldwin took over many of the Prime Minister's duties due to MacDonald's failing health. This government saw an Act delivering increased self-government for India, a measure opposed by Churchill and by many rank-and-file Conservatives.
In 1935, Baldwin replaced MacDonald as Prime Minister of the National Government, and won the 1935 General Election
with another large majority. During this time, he oversaw the re-armament process of the British military as well as the abdication
of King Edward VIII. Baldwin's third government saw a number of crises in foreign affairs, including the public uproar over the Hoare-Laval Pact
, Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
.
Baldwin retired in 1937 and was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain
. At that time he was regarded as a popular and successful prime minister, but for the final decade of his life, and for many years afterwards, he was vilified for having presided over high unemployment in the 1930s and as one of the "Guilty Men" who had tried to appease Adolf Hitler and who had - supposedly - not rearmed sufficiently to prepare for the Second World War.
in Worcestershire
, England to Alfred Baldwin and Louisa Baldwin (née MacDonald)
and through his Scottish mother was a first cousin of the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling
. The family owned the eponymous iron and steel making business that in later years became part of Richard Thomas and Baldwins
.
Baldwin had his early education at St Michael's School
and Harrow School
. He later wrote that "all the king's horses and all the king's men
would have failed to have drawn me into the company of school masters, and in relation to them I once had every qualification as a passive resister." Baldwin then went on to the University of Cambridge
, where he studied history at Trinity College
. His time at university was blighted by the presence, as Master of Trinity, of a former schoolmaster who had punished him at Harrow for writing a piece of schoolboy smut. He was asked to resign from the Magpie & Stump (the Trinity College debating society) for never speaking, and, after receiving a third-class degree in history, he went into the family business of iron manufacturing. His father sent him to Mason Science College
(the future University of Birmingham
) for one session as preparation. As a young man he served very briefly as a Second Lieutenant
in the Artillery Volunteers at Malvern
. Baldwin married Lucy Ridsdale
on 12 September 1892.
Baldwin proved to be very adept as a businessman, and acquired a reputation as a modernising industrialist. Later he inherited £200,000 and a directorship of the Great Western Railway
upon the death of his father in 1908.
he contested Kidderminster
but lost amidst the Conservative
landslide defeat after the party split on the issue of free trade. In 1908 he succeeded his father as Member of Parliament
(MP) for Bewdley
. During the First World War
he became Parliamentary Private Secretary
to Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law and in 1917 he was appointed to the junior ministerial post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury
where he sought to encourage voluntary donations by the rich in order to repay the United Kingdom's war debt, notably writing to The Times
under the pseudonym 'FST'.
He personally donated one fifth of his quite small fortune. He served jointly with Sir Hardman Lever
, who had been appointed in 1916, but after 1919 Baldwin carried out the duties largely alone. He was appointed to the Privy Council
in the 1920 Birthday Honours. In 1921 he was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade.
In late 1922 dissatisfaction was steadily growing within the Conservative Party over its coalition with the Liberal
David Lloyd George
. At a meeting of Conservative MPs
at the Carlton Club
in October, Baldwin announced that he would no longer support the coalition and famously condemned Lloyd George for being a "dynamic force" that was bringing destruction across politics. The meeting chose to leave the coalition, against the wishes of most of the party leadership.
As a result Bonar Law
, the new Conservative leader, was forced to search for new ministers for his Cabinet and so promoted Baldwin to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer
. In the November 1922 general election
the Conservatives were returned with a majority in their own right.
acting on the advice of senior ministers and officials.
It is not entirely clear what factors proved most crucial, but some Conservative politicians felt that Curzon was unsuitable for the role of Prime Minister because he was a member of the House of Lords
(though this did not stop other lords being seriously considered for the premiership on subsequent occasions). Curzon's lack of experience in domestic affairs, his personal character (found objectionable), and his aristocratic background at a time when the Conservative Party was seeking to shed its patrician image were all deemed impediments. Much weight at the time was given to the intervention of Arthur Balfour
.
The King turned to Baldwin to become Prime Minister. Initially Baldwin was also Chancellor of the Exchequer
whilst he sought to recruit the former Liberal Chancellor Reginald McKenna
to join the government. When this failed he appointed Neville Chamberlain
.
The Conservatives now had a clear majority in the House of Commons
and could govern for five years before holding a general election, but Baldwin felt bound by Bonar Law's pledge at the previous election that there would be no introduction of tariff
s without a further election. With the country facing growing unemployment in the wake of free-trade imports driving down prices and profits, Baldwin decided to call an early general election in December 1923
to seek a mandate to introduce protectionist tariffs
which, he hoped, would drive down unemployment. Protection was not universally popular in the Conservative Party: "one must speak of the election being fought by a divided party."
The election outcome was inconclusive: the Conservatives had 258 MPs, Labour 191 and the reunited Liberals 159. Whilst the Conservatives retained a plurality in the House of Commons, they had been clearly defeated on the central election issue of tariffs. Baldwin remained Prime Minister until the opening session of the new Parliament in January 1924, at which time the government was defeated in a motion of confidence vote. He resigned immediately.
held office. On 13 March 1924 the Labour government was defeated for the first time in the Commons, although the Conservatives decided to vote with Labour later that day against the Liberals.
During a debate on the naval estimates the Conservatives opposed Labour but supported them on 18 March in a vote on cutting expenditure on the Singapore military base. Baldwin also cooperated with MacDonald over Irish policy in order to stop it becoming a party-political issue.
The Labour government was negotiating with the Soviet government over what was called the Russian Treaties: a commercial treaty with most favoured nation
privileges and diplomatic status for their trade delegation; and a treaty that would settle the claims of pre-revolutionary British bondholders and holders of confiscated property, after which the British government would guarantee a loan to the Soviet Union. Baldwin decided to vote against the government over the Russian Treaties, which brought the government down on 8 October.
The general election
held in October 1924 brought a landslide majority of 223 for the Conservative party, primarily at the expense of the now terminally declining Liberals. Baldwin campaigned on the "impracticability" of socialism, the Campbell Case
, the Zinoviev Letter
(which Baldwin thought was genuine) and the Russian Treaties. In a speech during the campaign Baldwin said:
as Chancellor of the Exchequer. This period included the General Strike of 1926, a crisis that the government managed to weather, despite the havoc it caused throughout the UK. Baldwin created the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies
, a volunteer body of those opposed to the strike which was intended to complete essential work.
At Baldwin's instigation Lord Weir
headed a committee
to "review the national problem of electrical energy". It published its report on 14 May 1925 and in it Weir recommended the setting up of a Central Electricity Board
, a state monopoly half-financed by the Government and half by local undertakings. Baldwin accepted Weir's recommendations and they became law by the end of 1926.
The Board was a success. By 1939 electrical output was up fourfold and generating costs had fallen. Consumers of electricity rose from three-quarters of a million in 1920 to nine million in 1938, with annual growth of 7–800,000 a year (the fastest rate of growth in the world).
Labour returned to office, the largest party in the House of Commons (although without an overall majority) despite obtaining fewer votes than the Conservatives. In opposition, Baldwin was almost ousted as party leader by the press barons Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook, whom he accused of enjoying "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages".
became de facto
Prime Minister deputising for the increasingly senile
MacDonald, until he once again officially became Prime Minister in 1935. His government then secured with great difficulty the passage of the landmark Government of India Act 1935
, in the teeth of opposition from Winston Churchill, whose views enjoyed much support among rank-and-file Conservatives.
This speech was often used against Baldwin as allegedly demonstrating the futility of rearmament or disarmament, depending on the critic.
With the second part of the Disarmament Conference starting in January 1933, Baldwin attempted to see through his hope of air disarmament. However he became alarmed at Britain's lack of defence against air raids and German rearmament, saying it "would be a terrible thing, in fact, the beginning of the end". In April 1933 the Cabinet agreed to follow through with the construction of the Singapore
military base.
On 15 September 1933 the German delegate at the Disarmament Conference refused to return to the Conference and Germany left altogether in October. On 6 October Baldwin, in a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, pleaded for a Disarmament Convention and then said:
On 14 October Germany left the League of Nations. The Cabinet decided on 23 October that Britain should still attempt to cooperate with other states, including Germany, in international disarmament. However between mid-September 1933 and the beginning of 1934 Baldwin's mind changed from hoping for disarmament to favouring rearmament, including parity in aircraft. In late 1933 and early 1934 he rejected an invitation from Hitler to meet him, believing that visits to foreign capitals were the job of Foreign Secretaries. On 8 March 1934 Baldwin defended the creation of four new squadrons for the Royal Air Force
against Labour criticisms and said of international disarmament:
On 29 March 1934 Germany published its defence estimates' which showed a total increase of one-third and an increase of 250% in its air force.
A series of by-elections with massive swings against government candidates—most famous was Fulham East
with a 26.5% swing—in late 1933 and early 1934 convinced Baldwin that the British public was profoundly pacifist. Baldwin also rejected the "belligerent" views of those like Churchill and Robert Vansittart
because he believed that the Nazis were rational men who would appreciate the logic of mutual and equal deterrence. He also believed war to be "the most fearful terror and prostitution of man's knowledge that ever was known".
. Neville Chamberlain advised Baldwin to make rearmament the leading issue in the election campaign against Labour, saying that, if a rearmament programme were not announced until after the election, his government would be seen as having deceived the people. However Baldwin did not make rearmament the central issue in the election. He said he would support the League of Nations, modernise Britain's defences and remedy deficiencies but also said: "I give you my word that there will be no great armaments". The main issues in the election were housing, unemployment and the special areas of economic depression. The election gave 430 seats to National government supporters (386 of these Conservative) and 154 seats to Labour.
to the 1923 standard by creating 40 new squadrons over the following five years. On 26 November 1934, six days after receiving the news that the German air force would be as large as the RAF within one year, the Cabinet decided to speed up air rearmament from four years to two. On 28 November 1934 Churchill moved an amendment to the vote of thanks for the King's Speech, which read: "...the strength of our national defences, and especially our air defences, is no longer adequate". His motion was known eight days before it was moved and a special Cabinet meeting decided how to deal with this motion and it dominated two other Cabinet meetings. Churchill said Germany was rearming; requested that the money spent on air armaments be doubled or trebled in order to deter an attack; and that the Luftwaffe was nearing equality with the RAF. Baldwin responded by denying that the Luftwaffe was approaching equality and that it was "not 50 per cent" of the RAF. He added that by the end of 1935 the RAF would still have "a margin of nearly 50 per cent" in Europe. After Baldwin said the government would ensure the RAF had parity with the future German air force Churchill withdrew his amendment. In April 1935 the Air Secretary reported that although Britain's strength in the air would be ahead of Germany for at least three years, air rearmament needed to be increased so the Cabinet agreed to the creation of an extra 39 squadrons for home defence by 1937. However, on 8 May 1935 the Cabinet heard that it was estimated that the RAF was inferior to the Luftwaffe
by 370 aircraft and that in order to reach parity the RAF must have 3,800 aircraft by April 1937—an extra 1,400 on the existing air programme. It was learnt that Germany was easily able to outbuild this revised programme as well. On 21 May 1935, the Cabinet agreed to expanding the home defence force of the RAF to 1,512 aircraft (840 bombers and 420 fighters). On 22 May 1935 Baldwin confessed in the Commons: "I was wrong in my estimate of the future. There I was completely wrong."
On 25 February 1936, the Cabinet approved a report calling for expansion of the Royal Navy
and the re-equipment of the British Army
(though not its expansion), along with the creation of "shadow factories" built by public money and managed by industrial companies. These factories came into operation in 1937. In February 1937 the Chiefs of Staff reported that by May 1937 the Luftwaffe would have 800 bombers compared to the RAF's 48.
In the debate in the Commons on 12 November 1936, Churchill attacked the government on rearmament as being "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on, preparing more months and years – precious, perhaps vital, to the greatness of Britain – for the locusts to eat". Baldwin replied:
Churchill wrote to a friend: "I have never heard such a squalid confession from a public man as Baldwin offered us yesterday". In 1935 Baldwin wrote to J. C. C. Davidson
(now lost) saying of Churchill: "If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister". Thomas Dugdale also claimed Baldwin said to him: "If we do have a war, Winston must be Prime Minister. If he is in [the Cabinet] now we shan't be able to engage in that war as a united nation". The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress
, Walter Citrine
, recalled a conversation he had had with Baldwin on 5 April 1943: "Baldwin thought his [Churchill's] political recovery was marvellous. He, personally, had always thought that if war came Winston would be the right man for the job".
The Labour Party
strongly opposed the rearmament programme. Clement Attlee
said on 21 December 1933: "For our part, we are unalterably opposed to anything in the nature of rearmament". On 8 March 1934 Attlee said, after Baldwin defended the Air Estimates, "we on our side are out for total disarmament". On 30 July 1934 Labour moved a motion of censure against the government because of its planned expansion of the RAF. Attlee spoke for it: "We deny the need for increased air arms...and we reject altogether the claim of parity". Sir Stafford Cripps
also said on this occasion that it was fallacy that Britain could achieve security through increasing air armaments. On 22 May 1935, the day after Hitler had made a speech claiming that German rearmament offered no threat to peace, Attlee asserted that Hitler's speech gave "a chance to call a halt in the armaments race". Attlee also denounced the Defence White Paper of 1937: "I do not believe the Government are going to get any safety through these armaments".
, and the ensuing abdication crisis
, brought Baldwin’s last major test in office. The new monarch was 'an ardent exponent of the cause of Anglo-German understanding
', and had 'strong views on his right to intervene in affairs of state', but the 'Government's main fears … were of indiscretion'. The king proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American
divorcée
, whom the high-minded Baldwin felt he could tolerate as 'a respectable whore', so long as she stayed behind the throne, but not as 'Queen Wally'. She was also distrusted by the government for her pro-German
sympathies, and was believed to be in 'close contact with German monarchist circles.'
In October through November 1936 Baldwin joined the royal family in trying to dissuade the king from the marriage, arguing that the idea of having a divorced woman as queen would be rejected by the government and the country, and that 'the voice of the people must be heard'. As the public character of the king would be gravely compromised, the prime minister gave him time to reconsider the idea of marriage. According to historian Philip Williamson: 'The offence lay in the implications of [the king’s] attachment to Mrs Simpson for the broader public morality and the constitutional integrity which were now perceived—especially by Baldwin—as underpinning the nation's unity and strength.’
News of the affair was broken in the papers on 2 December. There was some support for the king, especially in London
. The romantic royalists Churchill, Mosley
, and the press barons, Lord Beaverbrook
of the Daily Express
and Lord Rothermere of the Daily Mail
, all declared the king had a right to marry whomever he wished. The crisis assumed a political dimension when Beaverbrook and Churchill tried to rally support for the marriage in Parliament
. But the king's party could only muster 40 MP
s, and the majority opinion sided with Baldwin and the government. The Labour
leader, Clement Attlee
, told Baldwin 'that while Labour people had no objection to an American becoming Queen, (he) was certain they would not approve of Mrs Simpson for that position', especially in the provinces and in the Commonwealth
. The archbishop of Canterbury
, Cosmo Lang
, held that the king, as head of the Church of England
, should not marry a divorcée, while The Times
argued that the monarchy’s prestige would be destroyed if 'private inclination were to come into open conflict with public duty and be allowed to prevail'.
While some recent critics have complained that 'Baldwin refused the reasonable request for time to reflect, preferring to keep the pressure on the King – once again suggesting that his own agenda was to force the crisis to a head', and that he 'never mentioned that the alternative [to the marriage] was abdication', the House of Commons immediately and overwhelmingly came out against the match. The Labour and Liberal
parties, the Trades Union Congress
, and the dominions
of Australia
and Canada
, all joined the British cabinet in rejecting the king's compromise, originally made on 16 November, for a morganatic marriage
. The crisis threatened the unity of the Empire
, as the king's personal relationship with the dominions was their 'only remaining constitutional link'.
Baldwin still hoped the king would choose the throne over Simpson. For the king to act against the cabinet's wishes would have precipitated a constitutional crisis
. Baldwin would have had to resign, and no other party leader would have served as prime minister under the king, Labour having already indicated that it would not form a ministry to uphold impropriety. Baldwin told the cabinet one Labour MP had asked, 'Are we going to have a fascist monarchy?' When the cabinet refused the morganatic marriage, Edward decided to abdicate.
The king's final plea, on 4 December, that he should broadcast an appeal to the nation, was rejected by the prime minister as too divisive. Nevertheless, at his final audience with Edward, on 7 December, Baldwin offered to strive all night with the king's conscience, but found him determined to go. The king abdicated on 11 December, and was succeeded by his brother, George VI
. Edward VIII, created Duke of Windsor
by his brother, married Simpson in France
in 1937.
Baldwin had defused a political crisis by turning it into a constitutional question. His discreet resolution met with general approval and restored his popularity. He was praised on all sides for his tact and patience, and was not in the least put out by protestors' cries of 'God save the King—from Bald-win! Flog Baldwin! Flog him!! We—want—Edward!'
, Baldwin was created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and Viscount Corvedale, of Corvedale in the County of Shropshire. He resigned the next day, 28 May 1937, and was created a Knight of the Garter
(KG). "No man", noted Harold Nicolson
, "has ever left in such a blaze of affection."
Baldwin supported the Munich Agreement
and said to Chamberlain on 26 September 1938: "If you can secure peace, you may be cursed by a lot of hotheads but my word you will be blessed in Europe and by future generations". Baldwin made a rare speech in the House of Lords on 4 October where he said he could not have gone to Munich but praised Chamberlain's courage and said the responsibility of a Prime Minister was not to commit the country to war until he was sure that it was ready to fight. If there was a 95% chance of war in the future, he would still choose peace. He also said he would put industry on a war footing tomorrow as the opposition to such a move had disappeared. Churchill said in a speech: "He says he would mobilise tomorrow. I think it would have been much better if Earl Baldwin had said that two and a half years ago when everyone demanded a Ministry of Supply".
Two weeks after Munich, Baldwin said in a conversation with Lord Hinchingbrooke: "Can't we turn Hitler East? Napoleon broke himself against the Russians. Hitler might do the same".
Baldwin's years in retirement were quiet. With Chamberlain dead, Baldwin's perceived part in pre-war appeasement
made him an unpopular figure during and after World War II
. With a succession of British military failures in 1940, Baldwin started to receive critical letters: "insidious to begin with, then increasingly violent and abusive; then the newspapers; finally the polemicists who, with time and wit at their disposal, could debate at leisure how to wound the deepest." He did not have a secretary and so was not shielded from the often unpleasant letters sent to him. After a bitterly critical letter was sent to him by a member of the public Baldwin wrote: "I can understand his bitterness. He wants a scapegoat and the men provided him with one". His biographers Middlemas and Barnes claim that "the men" almost certainly meant the authors of Guilty Men
.
In September 1941, Baldwin's old enemy Lord Beaverbrook asked all local authorities to survey their area's iron and steel railings and gates that could be used for the war effort. Owners of such materials could appeal for an exemption on grounds of artistic or historic merit, which would be decided by a panel set up by local authorities. Baldwin applied for exemption for the iron gates of his country home on artistic grounds and his local council sent an architect to assess them. In December, the architect advised that they be exempt, but, in February 1942, the Ministry of Supply overruled this and said all his gates must go, except the ones at the main entrance. A newspaper campaign hounded him for not donating the gates to war production. The Daily Mirror columnist Cassandra
denounced Baldwin:
There were fears that if the gates were not taken by the proper authorities, "others without authority might". So months before any other collections were made, Baldwin's gates were removed except for those at the main entrance. Two of Beaverbrook's friends after the war claimed that this was Beaverbrook's decision, despite Churchill saying "Lay off Baldwin's gates". At Question Time
in the House of Commons the Conservative MP Captain Alan Graham
said: "Is the honourable Member aware that it is very necessary to leave Lord Baldwin his gates in order to protect him from the just indignation of the mob?"
During the war, Winston Churchill consulted him only once, in February 1943, on the advisability of his speaking out strongly against the continued neutrality of Éamon de Valera
's Ireland
. Baldwin saw the draft of Churchill's speech and advised against it, which advice Churchill followed.
In private, Baldwin defended his conduct in the 1930s:
In December 1944, strongly advised by friends, Baldwin decided to respond to criticisms of him through a biographer. He asked G. M. Young, who accepted, and asked Churchill to grant permission to Young to see Cabinet papers. Baldwin wrote:
In June 1945, Baldwin's wife Lucy died. Baldwin himself by now suffered from arthritis
and needed a stick to walk. When he made his final public appearance in London in October 1947 at the unveiling of a statue of George V
, a crowd of people recognised and cheered him, but by this time he was deaf and asked: "Are they booing me?" Having been made Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 1930, he continued in this capacity until his death in his sleep at Astley Hall, near Stourport-on-Severn
, Worcestershire
, on 14 December 1947. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium
and his ashes buried in Worcester Cathedral
.
His estate was probated at £280,971 ($460,427USD).
Baldwin was a member of the Oddfellows and Forester's Friendly Society.
Conservative. Upon his retirement in 1937, he had indeed received a great deal of praise; the onset of the Second World War would change his public image for the worse. Rightly or wrongly, Baldwin, along with Chamberlain and MacDonald, was held responsible for the United Kingdom's military unpreparedness on the eve of war in 1939.
Peter Howard
, writing in the Sunday Express (3 September 1939), accused Baldwin of deceiving the country of the dangers that faced it in order not to re-arm and so win the 1935 general election. Howard would later have a reconciliation with Baldwin and tried to get Baldwin to support Moral Re-Armament
. During the ill-fated Battle of France
, in May 1940, Lloyd George in conversation with Winston Churchill and General Ironside railed against Baldwin and said "he ought to be hanged". In July 1940, the famous book Guilty Men
appeared, which blamed Baldwin for failing to re-arm enough. In May 1941 Hamilton Fyfe
wrote an article ("Leadership and Democracy") for Nineteenth Century and After which also laid these charges against Baldwin. In 1941, A. L. Rowse
criticised Baldwin for lulling the people into a false sense of security; as a practitioner in "the art of taking the people in":
Churchill firmly believed that Baldwin's conciliatory stance toward Hitler gave the German dictator the impression that Britain would not fight if attacked. Though known for his magnanimity toward political opponents such as Chamberlain
, Churchill had none to spare for Baldwin. "I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill," Churchill said when declining to send him 80th birthday greetings in 1947, "but it would have been much better had he never lived." Churchill also believed that Baldwin, rather than Chamberlain, would be most blamed by subsequent generations for the policies that led to "the most unnecessary war in history". An index entry in the first volume of Churchill's "History of the Second World War" (The Gathering Storm) records Baldwin "admitting to putting party before country" for his alleged admission that he would not have won the 1935 election if he had pursued a more aggressive policy of rearmament. Churchill selectively quoted a speech in the Commons by Baldwin that gave the false impression that Baldwin was speaking of the general election when he was speaking of the Fulham by-election in 1933, and omits Baldwin's actual comments about the 1935 election: "We got from the country, a mandate for doing a thing [a substantial rearmament programme] that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible". In his speech on Baldwin's death, Churchill paid him a double-edged yet respectful tribute: "He was the most formidable politician I ever encountered".
In 1948, Reginald Bassett published an essay disputing the claim that Baldwin "confessed" to putting party before country, and claimed that Baldwin was referring to 1933/34 when a general election on rearmament would have been lost.
In 1952, G. M. Young published a biography of Baldwin, which Baldwin had asked him to write. He asserted that Baldwin united the nation and helped moderate the policies of the Labour Party. However he accepted the criticism of Baldwin; that he failed to re-arm early enough and that he put party before country. Young contends that Baldwin should have retired in 1935. Both Churchill and Beaverbrook threatened to sue if certain passages in the biography were not removed or altered. With the help of lawyer Arnold Goodman an agreement was reached to replace the offending sentences, and the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis
had the hideously expensive job of removing and replacing seven leaves from 7,580 copies.
In response to Young's biography, D. C. Somervell published Stanley Baldwin: An examination of some features of Mr. G. M. Young's biography in 1953 with a foreword by Ernest Brown
. This attempted to defend Baldwin against the charges made by Young. Both Young and Somervell were criticised by C. L. Mowat
in 1955, who claimed they both failed to rehabilitate Baldwin's reputation.
In 1956, Baldwin's son A. W. Baldwin
published a biography entitled My Father: The True Story. It has been written that his son "evidently could not decide whether he was answering the charge of inanition and deceit which grew out of the war, or the radical "dissenters" of the early 1930s who thought the Conservatives were warmongers and denounced them for rearming at all".
In an article written to commemorate the centenary of Baldwin's birth, in The Spectator
("Don't Let's Be Beastly to Baldwin", 14 July 1967) Rab Butler
defended Baldwin's moderate policies which, he claimed, helped heal social divisions. In 1969 the first major biography of Baldwin appeared, of over 1,000 pages, written by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, both Conservatives who wished to defend Baldwin.
In 1999, Philip Williamson published a collection of essays on Baldwin which attempted to explain his beliefs and defended his policies as Prime Minister. Williamson asserted that Baldwin had helped create "a moral basis for rearmament in the mid 1930s" that contributed
greatly to "the national spirit of defiance after Munich".
His defenders counter that the moderate Baldwin felt he could not start a programme of aggressive re-armament without a national consensus on the matter. Certainly, pacifist appeasement was the dominant mainstream political view of the time in Britain, France, and the United States.
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Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
, PC
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
(3 August 1867 – 14 December 1947) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars. Three times Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
, he is the only one to serve under three different monarchs (George V
George V
George V was king of the United Kingdom and its dominions from 1910 to 1936.George V or similar terms may also refer to:-People:* George V of Georgia * George V of Imereti * George V of Hanover...
, Edward VIII and George VI).
Baldwin first entered the House of Commons in 1908 as the Member of Parliament for Bewdley
Bewdley (UK Parliament constituency)
Bewdley was the name of a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1605 until 1950. Until 1885 it was a parliamentary borough in Worcestershire, represented by one Member of Parliament; the name was then transferred to a county constituency from 1885 until...
, and held government office in the coalition ministry of David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
. In 1922 Baldwin was one of the prime movers in the withdrawal of Conservative support from Lloyd George and became Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
in Bonar Law's Conservative ministry. Upon Bonar Law's resignation in May 1923, Baldwin became Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader
Leaders of the Conservative Party
The Leader of the Conservative Party is the most senior politician within the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. The post is currently held by David Cameron, who s eeded Michael Howard in 2005, and who since 2010 is also the serving Prime Minister....
. He called an an Election
United Kingdom general election, 1923
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
on the issue of tariffs and lost the Conservatives' majority, after which Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
formed a minority Labour government.
After winning the 1924 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1924
- Seats summary :- References :* F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987* - External links :* * *...
Baldwin formed his second government, which saw important tenures of office by Sir Austen Chamberlain (Foreign Secretary), Winston Churchill (at the Exchequer) and Neville Chamberlain (Health). That government also saw the General Strike in 1926 and the 1927 Trades Disputes Act to curb the powers of trade unions, although Baldwin was supportive of Labour politicians at Westminster forming minority governments. Baldwin lost the 1929 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1929
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
and his continued leadership was subject to criticism by the press barons Rothermere and Beaverbrook.
In 1931, Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
formed a National Government, most of whose MPs were Conservatives and which won an enormous majority at the 1931 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1931
The United Kingdom general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was also the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast.The 1931 general election was the...
. As Lord President of the Council Baldwin took over many of the Prime Minister's duties due to MacDonald's failing health. This government saw an Act delivering increased self-government for India, a measure opposed by Churchill and by many rank-and-file Conservatives.
In 1935, Baldwin replaced MacDonald as Prime Minister of the National Government, and won the 1935 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1935
The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...
with another large majority. During this time, he oversaw the re-armament process of the British military as well as the abdication
Edward VIII abdication crisis
In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire was caused by King-Emperor Edward VIII's proposal to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite....
of King Edward VIII. Baldwin's third government saw a number of crises in foreign affairs, including the public uproar over the Hoare-Laval Pact
Hoare-Laval Pact
The Hoare-Laval Pact was a December 1935 proposal by British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare and French Prime Minister Pierre Laval for ending the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. Italy had wanted to take Abyssinia as part of its empire, and have an empire like the Romans had, and also to avenge...
, Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
.
Baldwin retired in 1937 and was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
. At that time he was regarded as a popular and successful prime minister, but for the final decade of his life, and for many years afterwards, he was vilified for having presided over high unemployment in the 1930s and as one of the "Guilty Men" who had tried to appease Adolf Hitler and who had - supposedly - not rearmed sufficiently to prepare for the Second World War.
Early life
He was born at Lower Park House, Lower Park, BewdleyBewdley
Bewdley is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of Worcestershire, England, along the Severn Valley a few miles to the west of Kidderminster...
in Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, England to Alfred Baldwin and Louisa Baldwin (née MacDonald)
MacDonald sisters
The MacDonald sisters were four British sisters, notable for their marriages to well-known people of the Victorian era. Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa were four of the seven daughters and 11 children of Reverend George Browne MacDonald , a Methodist minister, and Hannah Jones .- Biographies...
and through his Scottish mother was a first cousin of the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
. The family owned the eponymous iron and steel making business that in later years became part of Richard Thomas and Baldwins
Richard Thomas and Baldwins
Richard Thomas and Baldwins Ltd was a major United Kingdom iron, steel and tinplate producer, formed in 1948 by the merger of Richard Thomas & Co Ltd with Baldwins Ltd. It was absorbed into British Steel in 1967...
.
Baldwin had his early education at St Michael's School
Hawtreys
Hawtreys Preparatory School was an independent boys' preparatory school, first established in Slough, later moved to Westgate-on-Sea, then to Oswestry, and finally to a country house near Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire...
and Harrow School
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
. He later wrote that "all the king's horses and all the king's men
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English language nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an egg and has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture...
would have failed to have drawn me into the company of school masters, and in relation to them I once had every qualification as a passive resister." Baldwin then went on to the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, where he studied history at Trinity College
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
. His time at university was blighted by the presence, as Master of Trinity, of a former schoolmaster who had punished him at Harrow for writing a piece of schoolboy smut. He was asked to resign from the Magpie & Stump (the Trinity College debating society) for never speaking, and, after receiving a third-class degree in history, he went into the family business of iron manufacturing. His father sent him to Mason Science College
Mason Science College
Mason Science College was founded by Josiah Mason in 1875, the buildings of which were opened in Edmund Street, Birmingham, England on 1 October 1880 by Thomas Henry Huxley...
(the future University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
) for one session as preparation. As a young man he served very briefly as a Second Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
in the Artillery Volunteers at Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
. Baldwin married Lucy Ridsdale
Lucy Baldwin, Countess Baldwin of Bewdley
Lucy Baldwin, Countess Baldwin of Bewdley, GBE, DGStJ was the wife of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin...
on 12 September 1892.
Baldwin proved to be very adept as a businessman, and acquired a reputation as a modernising industrialist. Later he inherited £200,000 and a directorship of the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
upon the death of his father in 1908.
Early political career
In the 1906 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1906
-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1906*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-External links:***-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...
he contested Kidderminster
Kidderminster (UK Parliament constituency)
Kidderminster was a parliamentary constituency in Worcestershire, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post voting system.-History:...
but lost amidst the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
landslide defeat after the party split on the issue of free trade. In 1908 he succeeded his father as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Bewdley
Bewdley (UK Parliament constituency)
Bewdley was the name of a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1605 until 1950. Until 1885 it was a parliamentary borough in Worcestershire, represented by one Member of Parliament; the name was then transferred to a county constituency from 1885 until...
. During the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he became Parliamentary Private Secretary
Parliamentary Private Secretary
A Parliamentary Private Secretary is a role given to a United Kingdom Member of Parliament by a senior minister in government or shadow minister to act as their contact for the House of Commons; this role is junior to that of Parliamentary Under-Secretary, which is a ministerial post, salaried by...
to Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law and in 1917 he was appointed to the junior ministerial post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Secretary to the Treasury
In the United Kingdom, there are several Secretaries to the Treasury, who are junior Treasury ministers nominally acting as secretaries to HM Treasury. The origins of the office are unclear, although it probably originated during Lord Burghley's tenure as Lord Treasurer in the 16th century. The...
where he sought to encourage voluntary donations by the rich in order to repay the United Kingdom's war debt, notably writing to The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
under the pseudonym 'FST'.
He personally donated one fifth of his quite small fortune. He served jointly with Sir Hardman Lever
Hardman Lever
Sir Samuel Hardman Lever, 1st Baronet, KCB , generally known as Sir Hardman Lever, and as "Sammie" to his friends, was an English accountant and civil servant....
, who had been appointed in 1916, but after 1919 Baldwin carried out the duties largely alone. He was appointed to the Privy Council
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
in the 1920 Birthday Honours. In 1921 he was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade.
In late 1922 dissatisfaction was steadily growing within the Conservative Party over its coalition with the Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
. At a meeting of Conservative MPs
Carlton Club meeting, 19 October 1922
The Carlton Club meeting on 19 October 1922 was a formal meeting of Members of Parliament who belonged to the Conservative Party, called to discuss whether the party should remain in government in coalition with a section of the Liberal Party under the leadership of Liberal Prime Minister David...
at the Carlton Club
Carlton Club
The Carlton Club is a gentlemen's club in London which describes itself as the "oldest, most elite, and most important of all Conservative clubs." Membership of the club is by nomination and election only.-History:...
in October, Baldwin announced that he would no longer support the coalition and famously condemned Lloyd George for being a "dynamic force" that was bringing destruction across politics. The meeting chose to leave the coalition, against the wishes of most of the party leadership.
As a result Bonar Law
Andrew Bonar Law
Andrew Bonar Law was a British Conservative Party statesman and Prime Minister. Born in the colony of New Brunswick, he is the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles...
, the new Conservative leader, was forced to search for new ministers for his Cabinet and so promoted Baldwin to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
. In the November 1922 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1922
The United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on 15 November 1922. It was the first election held after most of the Irish counties left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John...
the Conservatives were returned with a majority in their own right.
Prime Minister (1923–1924)
In May 1923 Bonar Law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and retired immediately. With many of the party's senior leading figures standing aloof and outside of the government, there were only two candidates to succeed him: Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary, and Baldwin. The choice formally fell to King George VGeorge V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
acting on the advice of senior ministers and officials.
It is not entirely clear what factors proved most crucial, but some Conservative politicians felt that Curzon was unsuitable for the role of Prime Minister because he was a member of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
(though this did not stop other lords being seriously considered for the premiership on subsequent occasions). Curzon's lack of experience in domestic affairs, his personal character (found objectionable), and his aristocratic background at a time when the Conservative Party was seeking to shed its patrician image were all deemed impediments. Much weight at the time was given to the intervention of Arthur Balfour
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
.
The King turned to Baldwin to become Prime Minister. Initially Baldwin was also Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
whilst he sought to recruit the former Liberal Chancellor Reginald McKenna
Reginald McKenna
Reginald McKenna was a British banker and Liberal politician. He notably served as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer during the premiership of H. H. Asquith.-Background and education:...
to join the government. When this failed he appointed Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
.
The Conservatives now had a clear majority in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
and could govern for five years before holding a general election, but Baldwin felt bound by Bonar Law's pledge at the previous election that there would be no introduction of tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
s without a further election. With the country facing growing unemployment in the wake of free-trade imports driving down prices and profits, Baldwin decided to call an early general election in December 1923
United Kingdom general election, 1923
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
to seek a mandate to introduce protectionist tariffs
Protectionism
Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...
which, he hoped, would drive down unemployment. Protection was not universally popular in the Conservative Party: "one must speak of the election being fought by a divided party."
The election outcome was inconclusive: the Conservatives had 258 MPs, Labour 191 and the reunited Liberals 159. Whilst the Conservatives retained a plurality in the House of Commons, they had been clearly defeated on the central election issue of tariffs. Baldwin remained Prime Minister until the opening session of the new Parliament in January 1924, at which time the government was defeated in a motion of confidence vote. He resigned immediately.
Leader of the Opposition
Baldwin successfully held on to the party leadership despite calls for his resignation by some in the party. For the next ten months, an unstable minority Labour government under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonaldRamsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
held office. On 13 March 1924 the Labour government was defeated for the first time in the Commons, although the Conservatives decided to vote with Labour later that day against the Liberals.
During a debate on the naval estimates the Conservatives opposed Labour but supported them on 18 March in a vote on cutting expenditure on the Singapore military base. Baldwin also cooperated with MacDonald over Irish policy in order to stop it becoming a party-political issue.
The Labour government was negotiating with the Soviet government over what was called the Russian Treaties: a commercial treaty with most favoured nation
Most favoured nation
In international economic relations and international politics, most favoured nation is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatment must, nominally, receive equal trade advantages as the...
privileges and diplomatic status for their trade delegation; and a treaty that would settle the claims of pre-revolutionary British bondholders and holders of confiscated property, after which the British government would guarantee a loan to the Soviet Union. Baldwin decided to vote against the government over the Russian Treaties, which brought the government down on 8 October.
The general election
United Kingdom general election, 1924
- Seats summary :- References :* F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987* - External links :* * *...
held in October 1924 brought a landslide majority of 223 for the Conservative party, primarily at the expense of the now terminally declining Liberals. Baldwin campaigned on the "impracticability" of socialism, the Campbell Case
Campbell Case
The Campbell Case of 1924 involved charges against a British Communist newspaper editor for alleged "incitement to mutiny" caused by his publication of a provocative open letter to members of the military...
, the Zinoviev Letter
Zinoviev Letter
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
(which Baldwin thought was genuine) and the Russian Treaties. In a speech during the campaign Baldwin said:
It makes my blood boil to read of the way which Mr. Zinoviev is speaking of the Prime Minister today. Though one time there went up a cry, "Hands off Russia", I think it's time somebody said to Russia, "Hands off England".
Prime Minister (1924–1929)
Baldwin's new Cabinet now included many former political associates of Lloyd George: former Coalition Conservatives Austen Chamberlain (as Foreign Secretary), Lord Birkenhead (Secretary for India) and Arthur Balfour (Lord President after 1925), and the former Liberal Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
as Chancellor of the Exchequer. This period included the General Strike of 1926, a crisis that the government managed to weather, despite the havoc it caused throughout the UK. Baldwin created the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies
Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies
Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies was a British right-wing movement established in 1925 to provide volunteers in the event of a general strike...
, a volunteer body of those opposed to the strike which was intended to complete essential work.
William Douglas Weir
William Douglas Weir, 1st Viscount Weir GCB PC was a Scottish industrialist and politician, who served as President of the Air Council in 1918.-Early life:...
headed a committee
Committee
A committee is a type of small deliberative assembly that is usually intended to remain subordinate to another, larger deliberative assembly—which when organized so that action on committee requires a vote by all its entitled members, is called the "Committee of the Whole"...
to "review the national problem of electrical energy". It published its report on 14 May 1925 and in it Weir recommended the setting up of a Central Electricity Board
Central Electricity Board
The United Kingdom Central Electricity Board was set up under The Electricity Act 1926 to standardise the nation's electricity supply. At that time, the industry consisted of more than 600 electricity supply companies and local authority undertakings, and different areas operated at different...
, a state monopoly half-financed by the Government and half by local undertakings. Baldwin accepted Weir's recommendations and they became law by the end of 1926.
The Board was a success. By 1939 electrical output was up fourfold and generating costs had fallen. Consumers of electricity rose from three-quarters of a million in 1920 to nine million in 1938, with annual growth of 7–800,000 a year (the fastest rate of growth in the world).
Leader of the Opposition
In 1929United Kingdom general election, 1929
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
Labour returned to office, the largest party in the House of Commons (although without an overall majority) despite obtaining fewer votes than the Conservatives. In opposition, Baldwin was almost ousted as party leader by the press barons Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook, whom he accused of enjoying "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages".
Lord President of the Council
By 1931 Baldwin and the Conservatives entered into a coalition with Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. This decision led to MacDonald's expulsion from his own party, and Baldwin, as Lord President of the CouncilLord President of the Council
The Lord President of the Council is the fourth of the Great Officers of State of the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord High Treasurer and above the Lord Privy Seal. The Lord President usually attends each meeting of the Privy Council, presenting business for the monarch's approval...
became de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
Prime Minister deputising for the increasingly senile
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
MacDonald, until he once again officially became Prime Minister in 1935. His government then secured with great difficulty the passage of the landmark Government of India Act 1935
Government of India Act 1935
The Government of India Act 1935 was originally passed in August 1935 , and is said to have been the longest Act of Parliament ever enacted by that time. Because of its length, the Act was retroactively split by the Government of India Act 1935 into two separate Acts:# The Government of India...
, in the teeth of opposition from Winston Churchill, whose views enjoyed much support among rank-and-file Conservatives.
Disarmament
Baldwin did not advocate total disarmament but believed that "great armaments lead inevitably to war". However he came to believe that, as he put it on 9 November 1932: "the time has now come to an end when Great Britain can proceed with unilateral disarmament". On 10 November 1932 Baldwin said:I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get throughThe bomber will always get throughThe bomber will always get through was a phrase used by Stanley Baldwin in 1932, in the speech "A Fear for the Future" to the British Parliament...
, The only defence is in offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves...If the conscience of the young men should ever come to feel, with regard to this one instrument [bombing] that it is evil and should go, the thing will be done; but if they do not feel like that – well, as I say, the future is in their hands. But when the next war comes, and European civilisation is wiped out, as it will be, and by no force more than that force, then do not let them lay blame on the old men. Let them remember that they, principally, or they alone, are responsible for the terrors that have fallen upon the earth.
This speech was often used against Baldwin as allegedly demonstrating the futility of rearmament or disarmament, depending on the critic.
With the second part of the Disarmament Conference starting in January 1933, Baldwin attempted to see through his hope of air disarmament. However he became alarmed at Britain's lack of defence against air raids and German rearmament, saying it "would be a terrible thing, in fact, the beginning of the end". In April 1933 the Cabinet agreed to follow through with the construction of the Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
military base.
On 15 September 1933 the German delegate at the Disarmament Conference refused to return to the Conference and Germany left altogether in October. On 6 October Baldwin, in a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, pleaded for a Disarmament Convention and then said:
...when I speak of a Disarmament Convention I do not mean disarmament on the part of this country and not on the part of any other. I mean the limitation of armaments as a real limitation...and if we find ourselves on some lower rating and that some other country has higher figures, that country has to come down and we have to go up until we meet.
On 14 October Germany left the League of Nations. The Cabinet decided on 23 October that Britain should still attempt to cooperate with other states, including Germany, in international disarmament. However between mid-September 1933 and the beginning of 1934 Baldwin's mind changed from hoping for disarmament to favouring rearmament, including parity in aircraft. In late 1933 and early 1934 he rejected an invitation from Hitler to meet him, believing that visits to foreign capitals were the job of Foreign Secretaries. On 8 March 1934 Baldwin defended the creation of four new squadrons for the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
against Labour criticisms and said of international disarmament:
If all our efforts for an agreement fail, and if it is not possible to obtain this equality in such matters as I have indicated, then any Government of this country—a National Government more than any, and this Government—will see to it that in air strength and air power this country shall no longer be in a position inferior to any country within striking distance of our shores.
On 29 March 1934 Germany published its defence estimates' which showed a total increase of one-third and an increase of 250% in its air force.
A series of by-elections with massive swings against government candidates—most famous was Fulham East
Fulham East by-election, 1933
The Fulham East by-election, in Fulham, on 25 October 1933 was held after Conservative Member of Parliament Kenyon Vaughan-Morgan died. In what had been a safe Conservative seat the election was surprisingly won by John Charles Wilmot of Labour....
with a 26.5% swing—in late 1933 and early 1934 convinced Baldwin that the British public was profoundly pacifist. Baldwin also rejected the "belligerent" views of those like Churchill and Robert Vansittart
Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart
Robert Gilbert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart GCB, GCMG, PC, MVO was a senior British diplomat in the period before and during the Second World War...
because he believed that the Nazis were rational men who would appreciate the logic of mutual and equal deterrence. He also believed war to be "the most fearful terror and prostitution of man's knowledge that ever was known".
Prime Minister (1935–1937)
With MacDonald's physical powers failing him, he and Baldwin changed places in June 1935; Baldwin was now Prime Minister, MacDonald Lord President of the Council. In October that year Baldwin called a general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1935
The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...
. Neville Chamberlain advised Baldwin to make rearmament the leading issue in the election campaign against Labour, saying that, if a rearmament programme were not announced until after the election, his government would be seen as having deceived the people. However Baldwin did not make rearmament the central issue in the election. He said he would support the League of Nations, modernise Britain's defences and remedy deficiencies but also said: "I give you my word that there will be no great armaments". The main issues in the election were housing, unemployment and the special areas of economic depression. The election gave 430 seats to National government supporters (386 of these Conservative) and 154 seats to Labour.
Rearmament
On 31 July 1934, the Cabinet approved a report that called for expansion of the Royal Air ForceRoyal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
to the 1923 standard by creating 40 new squadrons over the following five years. On 26 November 1934, six days after receiving the news that the German air force would be as large as the RAF within one year, the Cabinet decided to speed up air rearmament from four years to two. On 28 November 1934 Churchill moved an amendment to the vote of thanks for the King's Speech, which read: "...the strength of our national defences, and especially our air defences, is no longer adequate". His motion was known eight days before it was moved and a special Cabinet meeting decided how to deal with this motion and it dominated two other Cabinet meetings. Churchill said Germany was rearming; requested that the money spent on air armaments be doubled or trebled in order to deter an attack; and that the Luftwaffe was nearing equality with the RAF. Baldwin responded by denying that the Luftwaffe was approaching equality and that it was "not 50 per cent" of the RAF. He added that by the end of 1935 the RAF would still have "a margin of nearly 50 per cent" in Europe. After Baldwin said the government would ensure the RAF had parity with the future German air force Churchill withdrew his amendment. In April 1935 the Air Secretary reported that although Britain's strength in the air would be ahead of Germany for at least three years, air rearmament needed to be increased so the Cabinet agreed to the creation of an extra 39 squadrons for home defence by 1937. However, on 8 May 1935 the Cabinet heard that it was estimated that the RAF was inferior to the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
by 370 aircraft and that in order to reach parity the RAF must have 3,800 aircraft by April 1937—an extra 1,400 on the existing air programme. It was learnt that Germany was easily able to outbuild this revised programme as well. On 21 May 1935, the Cabinet agreed to expanding the home defence force of the RAF to 1,512 aircraft (840 bombers and 420 fighters). On 22 May 1935 Baldwin confessed in the Commons: "I was wrong in my estimate of the future. There I was completely wrong."
On 25 February 1936, the Cabinet approved a report calling for expansion of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
and the re-equipment of the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
(though not its expansion), along with the creation of "shadow factories" built by public money and managed by industrial companies. These factories came into operation in 1937. In February 1937 the Chiefs of Staff reported that by May 1937 the Luftwaffe would have 800 bombers compared to the RAF's 48.
In the debate in the Commons on 12 November 1936, Churchill attacked the government on rearmament as being "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on, preparing more months and years – precious, perhaps vital, to the greatness of Britain – for the locusts to eat". Baldwin replied:
I put before the whole House my own views with an appalling frankness. From 1933, I and my friends were all very worried about what was happening in Europe. You will remember at that time the Disarmament Conference was sitting in Geneva. You will remember at that time there was probably a stronger pacifist feeling running through the country than at any time since the War. I am speaking of 1933 and 1934. You will remember the election at Fulham in the autumn of 1933...That was the feeling of the country in 1933. My position as a leader of a great party was not altogether a comfortable one. I asked myself what chance was there...within the next year or two of that feeling being so changed that the country would give a mandate for rearmament? Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming and we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cry at that moment! I cannot think of anything that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more certain...We got from the country – with a large majority – a mandate for doing a thing that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible.
Churchill wrote to a friend: "I have never heard such a squalid confession from a public man as Baldwin offered us yesterday". In 1935 Baldwin wrote to J. C. C. Davidson
J. C. C. Davidson, 1st Viscount Davidson
John Colin Campbell Davidson, 1st Viscount Davidson GCVO CH, CB, PC , known before his elevation to the peerage as J. C. C. Davidson, was a British civil servant and Conservative Party politician, best known for his close alliance with Stanley Baldwin...
(now lost) saying of Churchill: "If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister". Thomas Dugdale also claimed Baldwin said to him: "If we do have a war, Winston must be Prime Minister. If he is in [the Cabinet] now we shan't be able to engage in that war as a united nation". The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...
, Walter Citrine
Walter Citrine, 1st Baron Citrine
Walter McLennan Citrine, 1st Baron Citrine, GBE, PC was a British trade unionist and politician....
, recalled a conversation he had had with Baldwin on 5 April 1943: "Baldwin thought his [Churchill's] political recovery was marvellous. He, personally, had always thought that if war came Winston would be the right man for the job".
The Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
strongly opposed the rearmament programme. Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
said on 21 December 1933: "For our part, we are unalterably opposed to anything in the nature of rearmament". On 8 March 1934 Attlee said, after Baldwin defended the Air Estimates, "we on our side are out for total disarmament". On 30 July 1934 Labour moved a motion of censure against the government because of its planned expansion of the RAF. Attlee spoke for it: "We deny the need for increased air arms...and we reject altogether the claim of parity". Sir Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production...
also said on this occasion that it was fallacy that Britain could achieve security through increasing air armaments. On 22 May 1935, the day after Hitler had made a speech claiming that German rearmament offered no threat to peace, Attlee asserted that Hitler's speech gave "a chance to call a halt in the armaments race". Attlee also denounced the Defence White Paper of 1937: "I do not believe the Government are going to get any safety through these armaments".
Abdication of Edward VIII
The accession of King Edward VIIIEdward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
, and the ensuing abdication crisis
Edward VIII abdication crisis
In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire was caused by King-Emperor Edward VIII's proposal to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite....
, brought Baldwin’s last major test in office. The new monarch was 'an ardent exponent of the cause of Anglo-German understanding
Anglo-German relations
Germany – United Kingdom relations also Anglo-German relations are the bilateral relations between Britain and Germany.Before the unification of Germany in 1871, Britain was often allied in wartime with Prussia. The Hanoverian kings of England were also the rulers of the German state of Hanover...
', and had 'strong views on his right to intervene in affairs of state', but the 'Government's main fears … were of indiscretion'. The king proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American
United States person
The term United States person or U.S. person is used in the context of data collection and intelligence by the United States, particularly with respect to the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If information from, about, or to a U.S. person who is not a named terrorist is...
divorcée
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
, whom the high-minded Baldwin felt he could tolerate as 'a respectable whore', so long as she stayed behind the throne, but not as 'Queen Wally'. She was also distrusted by the government for her pro-German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
sympathies, and was believed to be in 'close contact with German monarchist circles.'
In October through November 1936 Baldwin joined the royal family in trying to dissuade the king from the marriage, arguing that the idea of having a divorced woman as queen would be rejected by the government and the country, and that 'the voice of the people must be heard'. As the public character of the king would be gravely compromised, the prime minister gave him time to reconsider the idea of marriage. According to historian Philip Williamson: 'The offence lay in the implications of [the king’s] attachment to Mrs Simpson for the broader public morality and the constitutional integrity which were now perceived—especially by Baldwin—as underpinning the nation's unity and strength.’
News of the affair was broken in the papers on 2 December. There was some support for the king, especially in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The romantic royalists Churchill, Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
, and the press barons, Lord Beaverbrook
Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Bt, PC, was a Canadian-British business tycoon, politician, and writer.-Early career in Canada:...
of the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
and Lord Rothermere of the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, all declared the king had a right to marry whomever he wished. The crisis assumed a political dimension when Beaverbrook and Churchill tried to rally support for the marriage in Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. But the king's party could only muster 40 MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
s, and the majority opinion sided with Baldwin and the government. The Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
leader, Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
, told Baldwin 'that while Labour people had no objection to an American becoming Queen, (he) was certain they would not approve of Mrs Simpson for that position', especially in the provinces and in the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
. The archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
, Cosmo Lang
Cosmo Lang
William Cosmo Gordon Lang, 1st Baron Lang of Lambeth GCVO PC was an Anglican prelate who served as Archbishop of York and Archbishop of Canterbury . His rapid elevation to Archbishop of York, within 18 years of his ordination, is unprecedented in modern Church of England history...
, held that the king, as head of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, should not marry a divorcée, while The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
argued that the monarchy’s prestige would be destroyed if 'private inclination were to come into open conflict with public duty and be allowed to prevail'.
While some recent critics have complained that 'Baldwin refused the reasonable request for time to reflect, preferring to keep the pressure on the King – once again suggesting that his own agenda was to force the crisis to a head', and that he 'never mentioned that the alternative [to the marriage] was abdication', the House of Commons immediately and overwhelmingly came out against the match. The Labour and Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
parties, the Trades Union Congress
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...
, and the dominions
Commonwealth Realm
A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state. The sixteen current realms have a combined land area of 18.8 million km² , and a population of 134 million, of which all, except about two million, live in the six...
of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, all joined the British cabinet in rejecting the king's compromise, originally made on 16 November, for a morganatic marriage
Morganatic marriage
In the context of European royalty, a morganatic marriage is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage...
. The crisis threatened the unity of the Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, as the king's personal relationship with the dominions was their 'only remaining constitutional link'.
Baldwin still hoped the king would choose the throne over Simpson. For the king to act against the cabinet's wishes would have precipitated a constitutional crisis
Constitutional crisis
A constitutional crisis is a situation that the legal system's constitution or other basic principles of operation appear unable to resolve; it often results in a breakdown in the orderly operation of government...
. Baldwin would have had to resign, and no other party leader would have served as prime minister under the king, Labour having already indicated that it would not form a ministry to uphold impropriety. Baldwin told the cabinet one Labour MP had asked, 'Are we going to have a fascist monarchy?' When the cabinet refused the morganatic marriage, Edward decided to abdicate.
The king's final plea, on 4 December, that he should broadcast an appeal to the nation, was rejected by the prime minister as too divisive. Nevertheless, at his final audience with Edward, on 7 December, Baldwin offered to strive all night with the king's conscience, but found him determined to go. The king abdicated on 11 December, and was succeeded by his brother, George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
. Edward VIII, created Duke of Windsor
Duke of Windsor
The title Duke of Windsor was created in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1937 for Prince Edward, the former King Edward VIII, following his abdication in December 1936. The dukedom takes its name from the town where Windsor Castle, a residence of English monarchs since the Norman Conquest, is...
by his brother, married Simpson in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1937.
Baldwin had defused a political crisis by turning it into a constitutional question. His discreet resolution met with general approval and restored his popularity. He was praised on all sides for his tact and patience, and was not in the least put out by protestors' cries of 'God save the King—from Bald-win! Flog Baldwin! Flog him!! We—want—Edward!'
Later life
After the coronation of George VIGeorge VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
, Baldwin was created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and Viscount Corvedale, of Corvedale in the County of Shropshire. He resigned the next day, 28 May 1937, and was created a Knight of the Garter
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
(KG). "No man", noted Harold Nicolson
Harold Nicolson
Sir Harold George Nicolson KCVO CMG was an English diplomat, author, diarist and politician. He was the husband of writer Vita Sackville-West, their unusual relationship being described in their son's book, Portrait of a Marriage.-Early life:Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the younger son of...
, "has ever left in such a blaze of affection."
Baldwin supported the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
and said to Chamberlain on 26 September 1938: "If you can secure peace, you may be cursed by a lot of hotheads but my word you will be blessed in Europe and by future generations". Baldwin made a rare speech in the House of Lords on 4 October where he said he could not have gone to Munich but praised Chamberlain's courage and said the responsibility of a Prime Minister was not to commit the country to war until he was sure that it was ready to fight. If there was a 95% chance of war in the future, he would still choose peace. He also said he would put industry on a war footing tomorrow as the opposition to such a move had disappeared. Churchill said in a speech: "He says he would mobilise tomorrow. I think it would have been much better if Earl Baldwin had said that two and a half years ago when everyone demanded a Ministry of Supply".
Two weeks after Munich, Baldwin said in a conversation with Lord Hinchingbrooke: "Can't we turn Hitler East? Napoleon broke himself against the Russians. Hitler might do the same".
Baldwin's years in retirement were quiet. With Chamberlain dead, Baldwin's perceived part in pre-war appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
made him an unpopular figure during and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. With a succession of British military failures in 1940, Baldwin started to receive critical letters: "insidious to begin with, then increasingly violent and abusive; then the newspapers; finally the polemicists who, with time and wit at their disposal, could debate at leisure how to wound the deepest." He did not have a secretary and so was not shielded from the often unpleasant letters sent to him. After a bitterly critical letter was sent to him by a member of the public Baldwin wrote: "I can understand his bitterness. He wants a scapegoat and the men provided him with one". His biographers Middlemas and Barnes claim that "the men" almost certainly meant the authors of Guilty Men
Guilty Men
Guilty Men was a book published in Great Britain in 1940 that attacked British public figures for their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s...
.
In September 1941, Baldwin's old enemy Lord Beaverbrook asked all local authorities to survey their area's iron and steel railings and gates that could be used for the war effort. Owners of such materials could appeal for an exemption on grounds of artistic or historic merit, which would be decided by a panel set up by local authorities. Baldwin applied for exemption for the iron gates of his country home on artistic grounds and his local council sent an architect to assess them. In December, the architect advised that they be exempt, but, in February 1942, the Ministry of Supply overruled this and said all his gates must go, except the ones at the main entrance. A newspaper campaign hounded him for not donating the gates to war production. The Daily Mirror columnist Cassandra
William Connor
Sir William Neil Connor , was a left-wing journalist for The Daily Mirror who wrote under the pseudonym of Cassandra....
denounced Baldwin:
Here was the country in deadly peril with half the Empire swinging in the wind like a busted barn door hanging on one hinge. Here was Old England half smothered in a shroud crying for steel to cut her way out, and right in the heart of beautiful Worcestershire was a one-time Prime Minister, refusing to give up the gates of his estate to make guns for our defence – and his. Here was an old stupid politician who had tricked the nation into complacency about rearmament for fear of losing an election. ...Here is the very shrine of stupidity...This National Park of Failure...
There were fears that if the gates were not taken by the proper authorities, "others without authority might". So months before any other collections were made, Baldwin's gates were removed except for those at the main entrance. Two of Beaverbrook's friends after the war claimed that this was Beaverbrook's decision, despite Churchill saying "Lay off Baldwin's gates". At Question Time
Question Time
Question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers , which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be cancelled in exceptional circumstances...
in the House of Commons the Conservative MP Captain Alan Graham
Alan Crosland Graham
Captain Alan Crosland Graham was a British Conservative politician.He was the son of Sir Crosland Graham of Clwyd Hall, Ruthin, Denbighshire, a Liverpool businessman. He was educated at Rugby School...
said: "Is the honourable Member aware that it is very necessary to leave Lord Baldwin his gates in order to protect him from the just indignation of the mob?"
During the war, Winston Churchill consulted him only once, in February 1943, on the advisability of his speaking out strongly against the continued neutrality of Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
's Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
. Baldwin saw the draft of Churchill's speech and advised against it, which advice Churchill followed.
In private, Baldwin defended his conduct in the 1930s:
...the critics have no historical sense. I have no Cabinet papers by me and do not want to trust my memory. But recall the Fulham election, the peace ballot, Singapore, sanctions, Malta. The English will only learn by example. When I first heard of Hitler, when Ribbentrop came to see me, I thought they were all crazy. I think I brought Ramsay and Simon to meet Ribbentrop. Remember that Ramsay's health was breaking up in the last two years. He had lost his nerve in the House in the last year. I had to take all the important speeches. The moment he went, I prepared for a general election and got a bigger majority for rearmament. No power on earth could have got rearmament without a general election except by a big split. Simon was inefficient. I had to lead the House, keep the machine together with those Labour fellows.
In December 1944, strongly advised by friends, Baldwin decided to respond to criticisms of him through a biographer. He asked G. M. Young, who accepted, and asked Churchill to grant permission to Young to see Cabinet papers. Baldwin wrote:
I am the last person to complain of fair criticism, but when one book after another appears and I am compared, for example, to Laval, my gorge rises; but I am crippled and cannot go and examine the files of the Cabinet Office. Could G. M. Young go on my behalf?
In June 1945, Baldwin's wife Lucy died. Baldwin himself by now suffered from arthritis
Arthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
and needed a stick to walk. When he made his final public appearance in London in October 1947 at the unveiling of a statue of George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
, a crowd of people recognised and cheered him, but by this time he was deaf and asked: "Are they booing me?" Having been made Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 1930, he continued in this capacity until his death in his sleep at Astley Hall, near Stourport-on-Severn
Stourport-on-Severn
Stourport-on-Severn, often shortened to Stourport, is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of North Worcestershire, England, a few miles to the south of Kidderminster and down stream on the River Severn from Bewdley...
, Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, on 14 December 1947. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000, and was opened in 1902 by Sir Henry Thompson....
and his ashes buried in Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester...
.
His estate was probated at £280,971 ($460,427USD).
Baldwin was a member of the Oddfellows and Forester's Friendly Society.
Legacy
Baldwin was essentially a One NationOne Nation Conservatism
One nation, one nation conservatism, and Tory democracy are terms used in political debate in the United Kingdom to refer to a certain wing of the Conservative Party...
Conservative. Upon his retirement in 1937, he had indeed received a great deal of praise; the onset of the Second World War would change his public image for the worse. Rightly or wrongly, Baldwin, along with Chamberlain and MacDonald, was held responsible for the United Kingdom's military unpreparedness on the eve of war in 1939.
Peter Howard
Peter Howard (journalist)
Peter Dunsmore Howard was a British journalist, playwright, captain of the England national rugby union team and the head of the spiritual movement Moral Re-Armament from 1961 to 1965.-Biography:...
, writing in the Sunday Express (3 September 1939), accused Baldwin of deceiving the country of the dangers that faced it in order not to re-arm and so win the 1935 general election. Howard would later have a reconciliation with Baldwin and tried to get Baldwin to support Moral Re-Armament
Moral Re-Armament
Moral Re-Armament was an international Christian moral and spiritual movement that, in 1938, developed from the American minister Frank Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman, a Lutheran, headed MRA for 23 years, from 1938 until his death in 1961...
. During the ill-fated Battle of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
, in May 1940, Lloyd George in conversation with Winston Churchill and General Ironside railed against Baldwin and said "he ought to be hanged". In July 1940, the famous book Guilty Men
Guilty Men
Guilty Men was a book published in Great Britain in 1940 that attacked British public figures for their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s...
appeared, which blamed Baldwin for failing to re-arm enough. In May 1941 Hamilton Fyfe
Hamilton Fyfe
Henry Hamilton Fyfe was a British journalist and writer who served as editor of both the Daily Mirror and the Daily Herald.-Career:...
wrote an article ("Leadership and Democracy") for Nineteenth Century and After which also laid these charges against Baldwin. In 1941, A. L. Rowse
A. L. Rowse
Alfred Leslie Rowse, CH, FBA , known professionally as A. L. Rowse and to friends and family as Leslie, was a British historian from Cornwall. He is perhaps best known for his work on Elizabethan England and his poetry about Cornwall. He was also a Shakespearean scholar and biographer...
criticised Baldwin for lulling the people into a false sense of security; as a practitioner in "the art of taking the people in":
...what can this man think in the still watches of the night, when he contemplates the ordeal his country is going through as the result of the years, the locust years, in which he held power?
Churchill firmly believed that Baldwin's conciliatory stance toward Hitler gave the German dictator the impression that Britain would not fight if attacked. Though known for his magnanimity toward political opponents such as Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
, Churchill had none to spare for Baldwin. "I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill," Churchill said when declining to send him 80th birthday greetings in 1947, "but it would have been much better had he never lived." Churchill also believed that Baldwin, rather than Chamberlain, would be most blamed by subsequent generations for the policies that led to "the most unnecessary war in history". An index entry in the first volume of Churchill's "History of the Second World War" (The Gathering Storm) records Baldwin "admitting to putting party before country" for his alleged admission that he would not have won the 1935 election if he had pursued a more aggressive policy of rearmament. Churchill selectively quoted a speech in the Commons by Baldwin that gave the false impression that Baldwin was speaking of the general election when he was speaking of the Fulham by-election in 1933, and omits Baldwin's actual comments about the 1935 election: "We got from the country, a mandate for doing a thing [a substantial rearmament programme] that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible". In his speech on Baldwin's death, Churchill paid him a double-edged yet respectful tribute: "He was the most formidable politician I ever encountered".
In 1948, Reginald Bassett published an essay disputing the claim that Baldwin "confessed" to putting party before country, and claimed that Baldwin was referring to 1933/34 when a general election on rearmament would have been lost.
In 1952, G. M. Young published a biography of Baldwin, which Baldwin had asked him to write. He asserted that Baldwin united the nation and helped moderate the policies of the Labour Party. However he accepted the criticism of Baldwin; that he failed to re-arm early enough and that he put party before country. Young contends that Baldwin should have retired in 1935. Both Churchill and Beaverbrook threatened to sue if certain passages in the biography were not removed or altered. With the help of lawyer Arnold Goodman an agreement was reached to replace the offending sentences, and the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis
Rupert Hart-Davis
Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis was an English publisher, editor and man of letters. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd...
had the hideously expensive job of removing and replacing seven leaves from 7,580 copies.
In response to Young's biography, D. C. Somervell published Stanley Baldwin: An examination of some features of Mr. G. M. Young's biography in 1953 with a foreword by Ernest Brown
Ernest Brown
Alfred Ernest Brown CH was a British politician who served as leader of the Liberal Nationals from 1940 until 1945.-Biography:...
. This attempted to defend Baldwin against the charges made by Young. Both Young and Somervell were criticised by C. L. Mowat
C. L. Mowat
Charles Loch Mowat was a British-born American historian.Mowat was educated at Marlborough College and St John's, Oxford. In 1934 he went to live in the United States, where he became an American citizen. He did his PhD at the University of Minnesota and taught at the University of California and...
in 1955, who claimed they both failed to rehabilitate Baldwin's reputation.
In 1956, Baldwin's son A. W. Baldwin
Arthur Baldwin, 3rd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley
Arthur Windham Baldwin, 3rd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley was a British insurance company director and World War II RAF officer. He was the son of Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Baldwin of Bewdley and Lucy Ridsdale....
published a biography entitled My Father: The True Story. It has been written that his son "evidently could not decide whether he was answering the charge of inanition and deceit which grew out of the war, or the radical "dissenters" of the early 1930s who thought the Conservatives were warmongers and denounced them for rearming at all".
In an article written to commemorate the centenary of Baldwin's birth, in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
("Don't Let's Be Beastly to Baldwin", 14 July 1967) Rab Butler
Rab Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, KG CH DL PC , who invariably signed his name R. A. Butler and was familiarly known as Rab, was a British Conservative politician...
defended Baldwin's moderate policies which, he claimed, helped heal social divisions. In 1969 the first major biography of Baldwin appeared, of over 1,000 pages, written by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, both Conservatives who wished to defend Baldwin.
In 1999, Philip Williamson published a collection of essays on Baldwin which attempted to explain his beliefs and defended his policies as Prime Minister. Williamson asserted that Baldwin had helped create "a moral basis for rearmament in the mid 1930s" that contributed
greatly to "the national spirit of defiance after Munich".
His defenders counter that the moderate Baldwin felt he could not start a programme of aggressive re-armament without a national consensus on the matter. Certainly, pacifist appeasement was the dominant mainstream political view of the time in Britain, France, and the United States.
First Government, May 1923 – January 1924
- Stanley Baldwin – Prime MinisterPrime ministerA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
, Chancellor of the ExchequerChancellor of the ExchequerThe Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
and Leader of the House of CommonsLeader of the House of CommonsThe Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons... - Lord CaveGeorge Cave, 1st Viscount CaveGeorge Cave, 1st Viscount Cave GCMG, KC, PC was a British lawyer and Conservative politician. He was Home Secretary under David Lloyd George from 1916 to 1919 and served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1924 to 1928.-Background and education:Cave was born in...
– Lord ChancellorLord ChancellorThe Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign... - Lord SalisburyJames Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of SalisburyJames Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, CB, PC , known as Viscount Cranborne from 1868 to 1903, was a British statesman.-Background and education:...
– Lord President of the CouncilLord President of the CouncilThe Lord President of the Council is the fourth of the Great Officers of State of the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord High Treasurer and above the Lord Privy Seal. The Lord President usually attends each meeting of the Privy Council, presenting business for the monarch's approval... - Lord Robert CecilRobert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of ChelwoodEdgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood CH, PC, QC , known as Lord Robert Cecil from 1868 to 1923, was a lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom...
– Lord Privy SealLord Privy SealThe Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state...
(Viscount Cecil of Chelwood from 28 December 1923) - William Clive Bridgeman – Home Secretary
- Lord Curzon of Kedleston – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of LordsLeader of the House of LordsThe Leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The role is always held in combination with a formal Cabinet position, usually one of the sinecure offices of Lord President of the Council,...
- The Duke of DevonshireVictor Cavendish, 9th Duke of DevonshireVictor Christian William Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire , known as Victor Cavendish until 1908, was a British politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 11th since Canadian Confederation....
– Secretary of State for the ColoniesSecretary of State for the ColoniesThe Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies.... - Lord Derby – Secretary of State for WarSecretary of State for WarThe position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...
- Lord PeelWilliam Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl PeelWilliam Robert Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel GCSI, GBE, PC, TD was a British politician.-Background and education:...
– Secretary of State for IndiaSecretary of State for IndiaThe Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office... - Sir Samuel Hoare – Secretary of State for AirSecretary of State for AirThe Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...
- Lord Novar – Secretary for Scotland
- Leo AmeryLeopold Stennett AmeryLeopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery CH , usually known as Leo Amery or L. S. Amery, was a British Conservative Party politician and journalist, noted for his interest in military preparedness, India, and the British Empire.-Early life:Leopold Amery was born in Gorakhpur, India to an English...
– First Lord of the Admiralty - Sir Philip Lloyd-GreamePhilip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of SwintonPhilip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton GBE, CH, MC, PC , known as Philip Lloyd-Greame until 1924 and as The Viscount Swinton from 1935 until 1955, was a prominent British Conservative politician from the 1920s until the 1950s.-Background and early life:Born as Philip Lloyd-Graeme, he was the...
– President of the Board of Trade - Sir Robert Sanders – Minister of AgricultureMinister of Agriculture, Fisheries and FoodThe Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889...
- Edward Frederick Lindley Wood – President of the Board of Education
- Sir Anderson Montague-BarlowAnderson Montague-BarlowSir Anderson Montague-Barlow, 1st Baronet KBE was an English barrister and Conservative Party politician....
– Minister of LabourSecretary of State for EmploymentThe Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment... - Neville ChamberlainNeville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
– Minister of HealthSecretary of State for HealthSecretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health.The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June, 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and... - Sir William Joynson-HicksWilliam Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount BrentfordWilliam Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford PC, PC , DL , known as Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Bt, from 1919 to 1929 and popularly known as Jix, was an English solicitor and Conservative Party politician, best known as a long-serving and controversial Home Secretary from 1924 to 1929, during which...
– Financial Secretary to the TreasurySecretary to the TreasuryIn the United Kingdom, there are several Secretaries to the Treasury, who are junior Treasury ministers nominally acting as secretaries to HM Treasury. The origins of the office are unclear, although it probably originated during Lord Burghley's tenure as Lord Treasurer in the 16th century. The... - Sir Laming Worthington-EvansLaming Worthington-EvansSir Worthington Laming Worthington-Evans, 1st Baronet GBE, PC was a British Conservative politician.-Background and education:Born Laming Evans, he was the son of Worthington Evans and Susanah Laming...
– Postmaster-GeneralUnited Kingdom Postmaster GeneralThe Postmaster General of the United Kingdom is a defunct Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act of 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs...
Changes
- August 1923 – Neville Chamberlain took over from Baldwin as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir William Joynson-Hicks succeeded Chamberlain as Minister of Health. Joynson-Hicks' successor as Financial Secretary to the Treasury was not in the Cabinet.
Second Cabinet, November 1924 – June 1929
- Stanley Baldwin – Prime Minister and Leader of the House of CommonsLeader of the House of CommonsThe Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons...
- Lord CaveGeorge Cave, 1st Viscount CaveGeorge Cave, 1st Viscount Cave GCMG, KC, PC was a British lawyer and Conservative politician. He was Home Secretary under David Lloyd George from 1916 to 1919 and served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1924 to 1928.-Background and education:Cave was born in...
– Lord ChancellorLord ChancellorThe Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign... - Lord Curzon of Kedleston – Lord President of the CouncilLord President of the CouncilThe Lord President of the Council is the fourth of the Great Officers of State of the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord High Treasurer and above the Lord Privy Seal. The Lord President usually attends each meeting of the Privy Council, presenting business for the monarch's approval...
and Leader of the House of LordsLeader of the House of LordsThe Leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The role is always held in combination with a formal Cabinet position, usually one of the sinecure offices of Lord President of the Council,... - Lord SalisburyJames Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of SalisburyJames Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, CB, PC , known as Viscount Cranborne from 1868 to 1903, was a British statesman.-Background and education:...
– Lord Privy SealLord Privy SealThe Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state... - Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
– Chancellor of the ExchequerChancellor of the ExchequerThe Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the... - Sir William Joynson-HicksWilliam Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount BrentfordWilliam Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford PC, PC , DL , known as Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Bt, from 1919 to 1929 and popularly known as Jix, was an English solicitor and Conservative Party politician, best known as a long-serving and controversial Home Secretary from 1924 to 1929, during which...
– Home SecretaryHome SecretaryThe Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State... - Sir Austen ChamberlainAusten ChamberlainSir Joseph Austen Chamberlain, KG was a British statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and half-brother of Neville Chamberlain.- Early life and career :...
– Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader of the House of CommonsLeader of the House of CommonsThe Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons... - Leo AmeryLeopold Stennett AmeryLeopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery CH , usually known as Leo Amery or L. S. Amery, was a British Conservative Party politician and journalist, noted for his interest in military preparedness, India, and the British Empire.-Early life:Leopold Amery was born in Gorakhpur, India to an English...
– Colonial SecretarySecretary of State for the ColoniesThe Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies.... - Sir Laming Worthington-EvansLaming Worthington-EvansSir Worthington Laming Worthington-Evans, 1st Baronet GBE, PC was a British Conservative politician.-Background and education:Born Laming Evans, he was the son of Worthington Evans and Susanah Laming...
– Secretary of State for WarSecretary of State for WarThe position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854... - Lord Birkenhead – Secretary of State for IndiaSecretary of State for IndiaThe Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...
- Sir Samuel Hoare – Secretary for AirSecretary of State for AirThe Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...
- Sir John Gilmour – Secretary for Scotland
- William Clive Bridgeman – First Lord of the Admiralty
- Lord Cecil of ChelwoodRobert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of ChelwoodEdgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood CH, PC, QC , known as Lord Robert Cecil from 1868 to 1923, was a lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom...
– Chancellor of the Duchy of LancasterChancellor of the Duchy of LancasterThe Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is, in modern times, a ministerial office in the government of the United Kingdom that includes as part of its duties, the administration of the estates and rents of the Duchy of Lancaster... - Sir Philip Cunliffe-ListerPhilip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of SwintonPhilip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton GBE, CH, MC, PC , known as Philip Lloyd-Greame until 1924 and as The Viscount Swinton from 1935 until 1955, was a prominent British Conservative politician from the 1920s until the 1950s.-Background and early life:Born as Philip Lloyd-Graeme, he was the...
– President of the Board of Trade - Edward Frederick Lindley Wood – Minister of AgricultureMinister of Agriculture, Fisheries and FoodThe Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889...
- Lord Eustace PercyEustace Percy, 1st Baron Percy of NewcastleEustace Sutherland Campbell Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Newcastle PC , styled Lord Eustace Percy between 1899 and 1953, was a British diplomat, Conservative politician and public servant...
– President of the Board of EducationSecretary of State for Education and SkillsThe Secretary of State for Education is the chief minister of the Department for Education in the United Kingdom government. The position was re-established on 12 May 2010, held by Michael Gove.... - Lord PeelWilliam Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl PeelWilliam Robert Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel GCSI, GBE, PC, TD was a British politician.-Background and education:...
– First Commissioner of WorksFirst Commissioner of WorksThe First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It took over some of the functions of the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests in 1851 when the portfolio of Crown holdings was divided into the public... - Sir Arthur Steel-MaitlandArthur Steel-MaitlandSir Arthur Herbert Drummond Ramsay Steel-Maitland, 1st Baronet PC was a British Conservative politician. He was the first Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1911 to 1916 and held junior office from 1915 to 1919 in David Lloyd George's coalition government...
– Minister of LabourSecretary of State for EmploymentThe Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment... - Neville ChamberlainNeville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
– Minister of HealthSecretary of State for HealthSecretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health.The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June, 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and... - Sir Douglas HoggDouglas Hogg, 1st Viscount HailshamDouglas McGarel Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham PC was a British lawyer and Conservative politician.-Background:...
– Attorney-General
Changes
- April 1925 – On Curzon's death, Lord BalfourArthur BalfourArthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
succeeded him as Lord President. Lord Salisbury became the new Leader of the House of Lords, remaining also Lord Privy Seal. - June 1925 – The post of Secretary of State for Dominion AffairsSecretary of State for Dominion AffairsThe position of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was a British cabinet level position created in 1925 responsible for British relations with the Dominions — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Irish Free State, as well as the self-governing colony of...
was created, held by Leo AmeryLeopold Stennett AmeryLeopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery CH , usually known as Leo Amery or L. S. Amery, was a British Conservative Party politician and journalist, noted for his interest in military preparedness, India, and the British Empire.-Early life:Leopold Amery was born in Gorakhpur, India to an English...
in tandem with Secretary of State for the ColoniesSecretary of State for the ColoniesThe Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....
. - November 1925 – Walter Guinness succeeded E.F.L. Wood as Minister of Agriculture.
- July 1926 – The post of Secretary of Scotland was upgraded to Secretary of State for ScotlandSecretary of State for ScotlandThe Secretary of State for Scotland is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office , a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns, but was...
. - October 1927 – Lord CushendunRonald McNeill, 1st Baron CushendunRonald John McNeill, 1st Baron Cushendun PC was a British Conservative politician.-Background and education:...
succeeded Lord Cecil of Chelwood as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster - March 1928 – Lord Hailsham (former Sir D. Hogg) succeeded Lord Cave as Lord Chancellor. Hailsham's successor as Attorney-General was not in the Cabinet.
- October 1928 – Lord Peel succeeded Lord Birkenhead as Secretary of State for India. Lord LondonderryCharles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of LondonderryCharles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry, KG, MVO, PC, PC , styled Lord Stewart until 1884 and Viscount Castlereagh between 1884 and 1915, was an Anglo-Irish peer and had careers in both Irish and British politics...
succeeded Peel as First Commissioner of Public Works
Third Cabinet, June 1935 – May 1937
- Stanley Baldwin – Prime Minister and Leader of the House of CommonsLeader of the House of CommonsThe Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons...
- Lord HailshamDouglas Hogg, 1st Viscount HailshamDouglas McGarel Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham PC was a British lawyer and Conservative politician.-Background:...
– Lord ChancellorLord ChancellorThe Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign... - Ramsay MacDonaldRamsay MacDonaldJames Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
– Lord President of the CouncilLord President of the CouncilThe Lord President of the Council is the fourth of the Great Officers of State of the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord High Treasurer and above the Lord Privy Seal. The Lord President usually attends each meeting of the Privy Council, presenting business for the monarch's approval... - Lord Londonderry – Lord Privy SealLord Privy SealThe Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state...
and Leader of the House of LordsLeader of the House of LordsThe Leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The role is always held in combination with a formal Cabinet position, usually one of the sinecure offices of Lord President of the Council,... - Neville ChamberlainNeville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
– Chancellor of the ExchequerChancellor of the ExchequerThe Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the... - Sir John SimonJohn Simon, 1st Viscount SimonJohn Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second. He is one of only three people to have served as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer,...
– Home SecretaryHome SecretaryThe Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons - Sir Samuel Hoare – Foreign Secretary
- Malcolm MacDonaldMalcolm MacDonaldMalcolm John MacDonald OM, PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Background:MacDonald was the son of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and Margaret MacDonald. Like his father he was born in Lossiemouth, Moray...
– Colonial SecretarySecretary of State for the ColoniesThe Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies.... - J.H. ThomasJames Henry ThomasJames Henry "Jimmy" Thomas was a British trade unionist and Labour politician. He was involved in a political scandal involving budget leaks.-Early career and Trade Union activities:...
– Dominions SecretarySecretary of State for Dominion AffairsThe position of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was a British cabinet level position created in 1925 responsible for British relations with the Dominions — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Irish Free State, as well as the self-governing colony of... - Lord Halifax – Secretary for WarSecretary of State for WarThe position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...
- Lord ZetlandLawrence Dundas, 2nd Marquess of ZetlandLaurence John Lumley Dundas, 2nd Marquess of Zetland KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC, DL, JP , styled Lord Dundas until 1892 and Earl of Ronaldshay between 1892 and 1929, was a British Conservative politician...
– Secretary of State for IndiaSecretary of State for IndiaThe Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office... - Lord SwintonPhilip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of SwintonPhilip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton GBE, CH, MC, PC , known as Philip Lloyd-Greame until 1924 and as The Viscount Swinton from 1935 until 1955, was a prominent British Conservative politician from the 1920s until the 1950s.-Background and early life:Born as Philip Lloyd-Graeme, he was the...
– Secretary of State for AirSecretary of State for AirThe Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force... - Sir Godfrey CollinsGodfrey CollinsSir Godfrey Pattison Collins KBE, CMG, PC was a Scottish Liberal Party politician.He entered the Royal Navy in 1888 and was a Midshipman, East Indian Station from 1890-1893...
– Secretary of State for ScotlandSecretary of State for ScotlandThe Secretary of State for Scotland is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office , a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns, but was... - Bolton Eyres-MonsellBolton Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount MonsellBolton Meredith Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell, GBE, PC was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Chief Whip until 1931 and then as First Lord of the Admiralty.His parents were Lt.Col...
– First Lord of the Admiralty - Walter RuncimanWalter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of DoxfordWalter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford PC was a prominent Liberal, later National Liberal politician in the United Kingdom from the 1900s until the 1930s.-Background:...
– President of the Board of Trade - Walter Elliot – Minister of AgricultureMinister of Agriculture, Fisheries and FoodThe Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889...
- Oliver StanleyOliver StanleyOliver Frederick George Stanley MC, PC was a prominent British Conservative politician who held many ministerial posts before his early death when it was expected he would soon assume higher office....
– President of the Board of Education - Ernest BrownErnest BrownAlfred Ernest Brown CH was a British politician who served as leader of the Liberal Nationals from 1940 until 1945.-Biography:...
– Minister of LabourSecretary of State for EmploymentThe Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment... - Sir Kingsley WoodKingsley WoodSir Howard Kingsley Wood was an English Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance...
– Minister of HealthSecretary of State for HealthSecretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health.The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June, 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and... - William Ormsby-Gore – First Commissioner of WorksFirst Commissioner of WorksThe First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It took over some of the functions of the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests in 1851 when the portfolio of Crown holdings was divided into the public...
- Anthony EdenAnthony EdenRobert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
– Minister without PortfolioMinister without PortfolioA minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...
with responsibility for League of Nations Affairs - Lord Eustace PercyEustace Percy, 1st Baron Percy of NewcastleEustace Sutherland Campbell Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Newcastle PC , styled Lord Eustace Percy between 1899 and 1953, was a British diplomat, Conservative politician and public servant...
– Minister without PortfolioMinister without PortfolioA minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...
with responsibility for government policy
Changes
- November 1935 – Malcolm MacDonald succeeded J.H. ThomasJames Henry ThomasJames Henry "Jimmy" Thomas was a British trade unionist and Labour politician. He was involved in a political scandal involving budget leaks.-Early career and Trade Union activities:...
as Dominions Secretary. Thomas succeeded MacDonald as Colonial Secretary. Lord Halifax succeeded Lord Londonderry as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. Duff Cooper succeeded Halifax as Secretary for War. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister became Viscount Swinton and Bolton Eyres-Monsell became Viscount MonsellViscount MonsellViscount Monsell, of Leicester in the County of Leicester, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1939 for the Conservative politician Bolton Eyres-Monsell...
, both remaining in the Cabinet. - December 1935 Anthony Eden succeeded Sir Samuel Hoare as Foreign Secretary and was not replaced as Minister without Portfolio.
- March 1936 – Sir Thomas InskipThomas Inskip, 1st Viscount CaldecoteThomas Walker Hobart Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote CBE, PC, KC was a British politician who served in many legal posts, culminating in serving as Lord Chancellor from 1939 until 1940...
entered the Cabinet as Minister for the Coordination of Defence. Lord Eustace Percy left the Cabinet. - May 1936 – William Ormsby-Gore succeeded J.H. Thomas as Colonial Secretary. Lord StanhopeJames Stanhope, 7th Earl StanhopeJames Richard Stanhope, 13th Earl of Chesterfield and 7th Earl Stanhope KG, DSO, MC, PC , styled Viscount Mahon until 1905, and known as The Earl Stanhope from 1905 until 1967, was a British Conservative politician.-Background:Stanhope was the eldest son of Arthur Stanhope, 6th Earl Stanhope, and...
succeeded Ormsby-Gore as First Commissioner of Works. - June 1936 – Sir Samuel Hoare succeeded Lord Monsell as First Lord of the Admiralty.
- October 1936 – Walter Elliot succeeded Collins as Scottish Secretary. William Shepherd Morrison succeeded Elliot as Minister of Agriculture. Leslie Hore-Belisha entered the Cabinet as Minister of TransportSecretary of State for TransportThe Secretary of State for Transport is the member of the cabinet responsible for the British Department for Transport. The role has had a high turnover as new appointments are blamed for the failures of decades of their predecessors...
.
In film, television and literature
Baldwin has been portrayed in the following film and television productions:- The Forsyte SagaThe Forsyte SagaThe Forsyte Saga is a series of three novels and two interludes published between 1906 and 1921 by John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of an upper-middle-class British family, similar to Galsworthy's own...
(1967 adaptation), played by Ralph MichaelRalph MichaelRalph Michael was an English actor. He was born in London, United Kingdom.His film appearances include: A Night to Remember, Children of the Damned, Khartoum, Grand Prix, The Assassination Bureau, and Empire of the Sun.Television credits include: The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dixon of Dock Green,... - The Woman I LoveThe Woman I LoveThe Woman I Love is a 1937 American film about a romantic triangle involving two World War I fighter pilots and the wife of one of them. It stars Paul Muni, Miriam Hopkins, and Louis Hayward...
(1972), played by Robert DouglasRobert Douglas (actor)Robert Douglas was born as Robert Douglas Finlayson in Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire. He was a successful stage and film actor, a television director and producer.... - Days of HopeDays of HopeDays of Hope is a BBC television drama serial produced in 1975. The series dealt with the lives of a working-class family from the turmoils of the First World War in 1916 to the General Strike in 1926...
(1975), played by Brian Hayes - Edward and Mrs SimpsonEdward and Mrs SimpsonEdward & Mrs. Simpson is a seven-part British television series that dramatises the events leading to the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, who gave up his throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson....
(1978), played by David WallerDavid WallerDavid Waller was an English actor best known for his role as Inspector Jowett in the British television series Cribb... - The Life and Times of David Lloyd GeorgeThe Life and Times of David Lloyd GeorgeThe Life and Times of David Lloyd George is a BBC Wales drama serial broadcast in 1981 on the BBC1 network which starred Philip Madoc, Elizabeth Miles, Kika Markham and David Markham....
(1981), played by Paul Curran - Winston Churchill: The Wilderness YearsWinston Churchill: The Wilderness YearsWinston Churchill: The Wilderness Years is an 8-part 1981 drama serial based on the life of Winston Churchill, and particularly his years in enforced exile from political position during the 1920s and 30s...
(1981), played by Peter BarkworthPeter BarkworthPeter Wynn Barkworth was an English actor.-Early life:Peter Barkworth was born at Margate, Kent. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Bramhall in Cheshire and Barkworth was educated at Stockport School. His headmaster wanted him to go to university but Barkworth had set his heart on a career... - The Woman He Loved (1988), played by David WallerDavid WallerDavid Waller was an English actor best known for his role as Inspector Jowett in the British television series Cribb...
- You Rang, M'Lord?You Rang, M'Lord?You Rang M'Lord? is a British television series written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Hi-de-Hi! It was broadcast between 1990 and 1993 on the BBC...
(1991), played by Patrick Blackwell - The Gathering StormThe Gathering Storm (2002 film)The Gathering Storm is a BBC–HBO co-produced television biographical film about Winston Churchill in the years just prior to World War II...
(2002), played by Derek JacobiDerek JacobiSir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in... - Wallis & Edward (2005), played by Richard JohnsonRichard Johnson (actor)Richard Johnson is an English actor, writer and producer, who starred in several British films of the 1960s and has also had a distinguished stage career. He most recently appeared in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.-Life and career:...
- The King's SpeechThe King's Speech (film)The King's Speech is a 2010 British historical drama film directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler. Colin Firth plays King George VI who, to cope with a stammer, sees Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush...
(2010), played by Anthony AndrewsAnthony Andrews-Life and career:Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes , a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, a musical arranger and musical conductor. He grew up in the North Finchley district of London...
- Mrs DallowayMrs DallowayMrs Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post-World War I England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels....
(1925), by Virginia Woolf takes place on Wednesday 13 June 1923. Clarissa Dalloway's party is attended by the Prime Minister. He is never mentioned by name, but this would, on that date, have been Baldwin.
Miscellaneous
- His son Oliver BaldwinOliver Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of BewdleyOliver Ridsdale Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley , known as Viscount Corvedale from 1937 to 1947, was a British politician who had a quixotic career at political odds to his father, three-time Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.Baldwin was educated at Eton College, and grew up in the shadow of his...
was a LabourLabour Party (UK)The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MP. - He is the last prime minister to have been educated at the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
- He (along with Arthur BalfourArthur BalfourArthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
) is one of six Prime Ministers to have been educated at Trinity College, CambridgeTrinity College, CambridgeTrinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
. - He was a low churchLow churchLow church is a term of distinction in the Church of England or other Anglican churches initially designed to be pejorative. During the series of doctrinal and ecclesiastic challenges to the established church in the 16th and 17th centuries, commentators and others began to refer to those groups...
Anglican. - He once claimed that if he were stranded on a desert islandDesert Island DiscsDesert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
with only one book for company, he would choose the Oxford English DictionaryOxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
. - His niece Monica BaldwinMonica BaldwinMonica Baldwin was a British nun for 28 years, a niece of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. After leaving her enclosed order, she wrote of her experiences.-Life:...
wrote a best-selling memoir I Leap Over the Wall recounting the 28 years she spent as a nun in complete ignorance and isolation of the outside world from before World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
until halfway through World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and her subsequent shocking Rip van WinkleRip Van Winkle"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Written while Irving was living in Birmingham, England, it was part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon...
-like re-immersion into modern society. Winston Churchill made, upon her reemergence, the sarcastic remark that she had been hardly less aware of events than her uncle.
External links
- Stanley Baldwin on the Downing Street website.
- Recording of Baldwin's speech at the Empire Rally of Youth (1937) – a British Library sound recording
- Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Anne of Green Gables
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