Andrew Bonar Law

Andrew Bonar Law

Andrew Bonar Law (born September 16, 1858 in Rexton , New Brunswick , † October 30, 1923 in London , England ) was a British politician and Prime Minister . He was a member of the Conservative Party .

Life

Law was born in Rexton (then called Kingston) in New Brunswick, which was not part of Canada at the time, as the fourth son of Reverend James Law and Elizabeth Annie Kidston Law. His father was a moody Presbyterian clergyman from Ulster . His mother died when Bonar Law was just two years old. His unmarried aunt, Janet Kidston, then moved from Glasgow, Scotland, and took on the female role in the household. When Bonar Law was twelve years old, his father remarried; Janet Kidston then decided to return to Glasgow, but suggested that she could take the young Bonar Law with her because the maternal family was financially better off. Both James Law and his son agreed, and the young Bonar Law subsequently grew up in Scotland with wealthy cousins ​​from his mother's banking family. His father was forced to return to Ulster in 1877 due to poor health, where he was regularly visited by his son. However, he died five years later. The visits to Ulster made a lasting impression on his son; Throughout his life he remained emotionally close to Ulster and instinctively later sided with Ulster when it came to the political future of Ireland. After attending Gilbertfield preparatory school, Bonar Law attended the High School of Glasgow, where he distinguished himself, among other things, through his talent in languages. In 1875 he left school when his cousins ​​offered him a job in their Glasgow office. Through her, Law came into contact with various big names in the Conservative Party early on, because the Kidstons, in contrast to the majority of their trading stand, were enthusiastic supporters of the "Tories". However, he put his interest in politics on hold in the next few years, as he saw financial independence as an essential prerequisite for a political career under the conditions at the time. Finally, in 1885, Law became a partner in a Scottish metalworking company that quickly prospered.

In 1890 he met Annie Pitcairn Robley, whom he married in March 1891. The marriage had 7 children, the first of which was stillborn. In 1909 his wife died after an operation on the gallbladder. The loss meant a severe blow to Bonar Law, from which he never fully recovered.

In 1897 he was asked if he wanted to be a candidate for the Conservative Party. In 1898 he was officially presented as a candidate for one of Glasgow's seven constituencies. He was elected as a member of parliament in the early general election in 1900 . He gave his first speech in February 1901. Bonar Law was a member of the protectionist wing of the party led by Joseph Chamberlain and whom he openly admired. From 1902 to 1905 he was Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce. When Chamberlain withdrew from politics in 1906, Law led this wing of the party together with Chamberlain's son Austen . In 1910, Law followed the party's call, gave up his secure seat in Dulwich and ran in the hotly contested constituency of north-west Manchester to strengthen the Tories' position in Lancashire as the top candidate . He challenged Winston Churchill to face him in a fight for the parliamentary seat - the loser was to agree in a gentleman's agreement to withdraw from politics for the entire following parliamentary session. Churchill refused, however. Although the Tories made up ground in Lancashire, Law lost in north-west Manchester. However, six weeks later Law won a by-election in Bootle and moved back into the House of Commons. 1911 Arthur Balfour resigned as party leader of the Conservatives. Due to a stalemate between the two leading candidates for the successor, Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long , Law was elected as a compromise candidate at the short-term meeting at the Carlton Club in London by the Conservative House of Commons as their new chairman. In the years leading up to World War I , Law turned his attention mainly to customs issues and the Irish Home Rule , which provided for self-government in Ireland . Law was a fierce opponent of this controversial bill.

With the outbreak of the World War, Bonar Law agreed with Herbert Henry Asquith , the party leader of the ruling Liberals, on a non-confrontational policy for the duration of the war. As a result of the munitions crisis in spring 1915 ( shell crisis ) and the resignation of the First Sea Lord John Fisher , caused by the so-called Dardanelles strategy (with the aim of prematurely pushing the Ottoman Empire out of the war) , this policy reached its limits and Asquith consented in May 1915 into the formation of a coalition government . While Law was (unsuccessfully) stormed by a few simple party members with requests for office, he and other well-known partisans refrained from fighting Asquith for important posts and were mostly satisfied with less important cabinet posts in the interests of the cause. He himself received the subordinate post of Secretary of State for the Colonies , and he also became a member of the Dardanelles Committee, which was the main council of war. Conversely, Law and the Conservatives called for Churchill and Asquith's friend Richard Haldane to leave the cabinet.

Andrew Bonar Law, paintings by 1924. Portrait study by James Guthrie for Statesmen of World War I .

Law had the chance to become Prime Minister in 1916 when he was instrumental in overthrowing Asquith. For now, however, he decided to promote David Lloyd George as the new premier. In his government he was initially Chancellor of the Exchequer and at the same time a member of the internal war cabinet . Simultaneously took over the role of Leader of the House of Commons . While Lloyd George concentrated on immediate war policy, Law organized most of the rest of the policy. During the war, his two older sons were killed in the war; Law, previously deeply affected by the death of his wife, never recovered from this loss, but remained in public life out of a sense of duty.

At the end of the war he resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer and took on the less demanding post of Lord Seal Keeper . In 1921 his poor health forced him to resign as party leader and Austen Chamberlain took over his office.

In the wake of the Chanak crisis , Law wrote a letter to the editor in the Times, saying that Britain could not be the world policeman. He dealt a heavy blow to the coalition, which was already extremely unpopular with the conservative backbenchers. In October 1922, Law became a somewhat surprising Prime Minister when, at the so-called Carlton Club meeting of 1922 , backbenchers of the Conservative Party led by Stanley Baldwin , with Law's support, brought down the coalition government of David Lloyd George. Due to the refusal of many prominent coalition supporters to join the new government, Bonar Law relied primarily on Secretary of State George Nathaniel Curzon and Stanley Baldwin as Chancellor of the Exchequer when forming his cabinet . Even with fundamental problems such as the great unemployment and the French occupation of the Ruhr (from January 1923) Law could not cope with this late phase of his political career. In the meantime, Law had developed throat cancer ; No longer able to speak in the House of Commons, he resigned on May 22, 1923. At the end of October he contracted septic pneumonia as a result of his illness; a few days later, on October 30, 1923, he died. His urn was buried in Westminster Abbey .

literature

• RJQ Adams: Bonar Law. Stanford University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8047-3716-6 .
• Robert Blake : The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955.
• Andrew Taylor: Bonar Law. (20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century). House Publishing, London 2006, ISBN 978-1-904950-59-2 .
• Sil-Vara : English statesmen. Ullstein, Berlin 1916, pp. 183-191
• Law, Andrew Bonar . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 31 : English literature - Oyama, Iwao . London 1922, p. 731 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Andrew Bonar Law  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Wikiquote: Andrew Bonar Law  - Quotes

• Newspaper article about Andrew Bonar Law in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 17.
2. ↑ RJQ Adams: Bonar Law. Stanford University Press, 1999, p. 6.
3. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 22.
4. ↑ Andrew Taylor: Bonar Law. (20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century). Haus Publishing Ltd., London 2006, p. 6.
5. ↑ RJQ Adams: Bonar Law. Stanford University Press, 1999, p. 7.
6. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 24.
7. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 28.
8. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 32.
9. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 35.
10. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, pp. 60 f.
11. ↑ RJQ Adams: Bonar Law. Stanford University Press, 1999, p. 18.
12. ↑ RJQ Adams: Bonar Law. Stanford University Press, 1999, p. 19.
13. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 42.
14. ^ Roy Jenkins : Churchill. Macmillan, London / Basingstoke / Oxford 2001, p. 192.
15. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 24.
16. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 227.
17. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, pp. 253 f.
18. ↑ Andrew Taylor: Bonar Law. (20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century). Haus Publishing Ltd., London 2006, p. 12.
19. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 225.
20. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 448.
21. ^ Robert Blake: The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1955, p. 530.

predecessor	Office	successor
David Lloyd George	British Prime Minister 1922–1923	Stanley Baldwin