Augustine Birrell

Augustine Birrell

Augustine Birrell (born January 19, 1850 in Wavertree near Liverpool , † November 20, 1933 in London ) was a British writer and politician .

Education and family

Birrell, the son of a Baptist preacher, attended school Amersham Hall and studied at Trinity College of Cambridge University . Then he worked as a lawyer . From 1893 to 1896 he was Professor of Law at University College London .

Birrell's first marriage, in 1878, lasted only a year until his wife's death. In 1888 he married Eleanor Tennyson, the daughter of the poet Frederick Locker . From this marriage, Francis Birrell (1889-1935), also a critic, emerged.

Professional and political career

Birrell made a name for himself as a witty, stylish literary critic and suddenly became famous for his collection of essays Obiter Dicta (1884). In 1889 he moved after his previous unsuccessful running in the lower house elections in 1885 and 1886 in a by-election for the electoral district of West Fife in Scotland as a member of the Liberal Party in the lower house . Here he was first noticed because of the pointed humor with which he spiced up his speeches. Half mockingly, half respectfully, fellow MPs described his style of presentation as "birrelling". Birrell defended his House of Commons in the elections of 1892 and 1895. In 1897 a second volume of "Obiter Dicta" appeared.

In the general election of 1900 he entered the constituency of Manchester North East , which he was unable to win for himself. He then became President of the Liberal Publication Department, the editorial team of the party's own publishing house. In the 1906 election he returned to Parliament for the Bristol North constituency . He was inducted into Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 's cabinet as President of the Board of Education . In this context he was responsible for drawing up the so-called Education Bill . The withdrawal of this bill by the House of Commons in the fall of the same year as a result of the government's refusal to introduce changes requested by the House of Lords made it impossible for Birrell to remain in office. His successor in this office was Reginald McKenna .

In January 1907 Birrell became Minister of State for Ireland ( Chief Secretary for Ireland ), a post he also held under Bannerman's successor Herbert Henry Asquith and held for a total of more than nine years. In May 1907, Birrell presented a bill ( Irish Council Bill ), which provided for the first tentative steps towards the realization of the concept of the Home Rule . Although this draft was welcomed by the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party , it was rejected by the United Irish League Congress in Dublin , so that the government immediately withdrew the bill.

Birrell's reputation continued to suffer during the drover riots in Northern Ireland in the fall / winter of that year. He heavily criticized this process, but failed to address it by means of legislative intervention. Another blow to Birrell was the scandal sparked by the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in the summer of 1907. However , he was able to regain much of his reputation with the Irish Universities Act of 1908 and the Irish Land Act of 1909. From 1911 to 1914 he served alongside his government office as Rector of the University of Glasgow .

When the unionists' opposition to the 1912 Home Rule Bill introduced by Prime Minister Asquith formed, Birrell rejected any attempt to weaken it by excluding parts of Ulster Province from the regulations and even threatened to resign. The crisis worsened in the following years with the formation of paramilitary organizations on both sides, such as the Ulster Volunteers as well as the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army . The Government of Ireland Act , finally passed in 1914 with some changes, was suspended due to the start of the First World War .

During the war, Birrell stayed mostly in London in his capacity as a cabinet member and was represented in Ireland by his Undersecretary Matthew Nathan . During this time the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Sinn Féin grew stronger . In addition, through Roger Casement, the Irish nationalists had connections with the German state and military leadership, who finally agreed to support an attempted insurrection in Ireland. In April 1916, the German blockade breaker Libau, laden with weapons, was sent to Ireland without reaching his destination. Casement, who had traveled on the U 19 submarine , was immediately arrested and later executed. Nevertheless, the leaders of the planned uprising decided to carry it out. The Easter Rising , which began on April 24, was suppressed militarily within a week. Birrell, who had originally been in London and then returned to Ireland to report the situation to the local government, subsequently offered his resignation, which Asquith accepted on May 1st. He was succeeded as Minister of Ireland by Henry Edward Duke .

In its final report on June 26, the immediately appointed commission of inquiry, headed by Lord Hardinge, criticized Birrell and Nathan, who had also resigned, for not having reacted earlier to the signs of an uprising.

In the general election in 1918, Birrell did not run. The long illness and the death of his wife Eleanor had also hit him hard. Birrell published several books, including "More Orbiter Dicta" (1920) and "Etc Caetera", and wrote his posthumously published autobiography "Things past redress". In 1929 he received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland . He died in 1933.

Literary engagement

From 1918 Augustine Birrell was a member of the jury on the committee for the award of the Hawthornden Prize , the oldest literary prize in Great Britain.

literature

• Birrell, Augustine . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 3 : Austria - Bisectrix . London 1910, p. 989 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Henry Seidel Canby (Ed.): Saturday Review . Volume 6. Saturday Review Associates, 1929, p. 1161.
2. ^ JC Squire, Rolfe Arnold Scott-James: The London Mercury . Volume 33. Field Press Limited, 1936, p. 102.