Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour

Gerald Balfour (painting by George Frederic Watts , 1899)

Gerald William Balfour, the second Earl of Balfour , PC (* 9. April 1853 ; † 14. January 1945 ) was a British politician of the Conservative Party , the 1885-1906 Member of Parliament ( House of Commons ) , 1895-1900 Ireland Minister ( Chief Secretary for Ireland ) , between 1900 and 1905 Minister of Commerce (President of the Board of Trade ) and 1905 Local Minister (President of the Local Government Board) . In 1930 he inherited from his older brother Arthur James Balfour the title Earl of Balfour and was therefore up to his death in 1945 a member of the upper house ( House of Lords ) .

Life

Family origin

Gerald Balfour was the seventh of eight children of James Maitland Balfour , who was also a member of the House of Commons between 1841 and 1847, as well as his wife Lady Blanche Mary Harriet Gascoyne-Cecil, her father James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury, member of the House of Commons , Lord Seal Keeper and Lord President of the Council . His eldest sister, Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, was a champion of women's education and a leading figure in the Society for Psychical Research , as well as the wife of the philosopher Henry Sidgwick . His second oldest Evelyn Georgiana Mary Balfour was married to the physicist John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh , who received the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics . His eldest brother Arthur James Balfour was Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905 , First Lord of the Admiralty from 1915 to 1916, and Foreign Secretary from 1916 to 1919, and was appointed Earl of Balfour on May 5, 1922, with the minor title of Viscount Traprain , of Whittinghame in the County of East Lothian, raised to the hereditary nobility ( Hereditary Peerage ) of the Peerage of the United Kingdom . His third oldest sister was the natural scientist Alice Blanche Balfour , who dealt in particular with entomology and genetics . His third oldest brother was the zoologist Francis Maitland Balfour , while his younger brother Eustace Balfour was a well-known architect .

Gerald Balfour himself graduated after attending the prestigious Eton College to study at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge , which he with a Master of Arts graduated (MA). He then became a Fellow of Trinity College.

Member of the House of Commons, Minister and Member of the House of Lords

On November 24, 1885, Balfour was elected to the Conservative Party for the first time as a member of the House of Commons and represented in this for more than 20 years until January 12, 1906 the constituency of Leeds Central . Shortly after the election he was from 1885 to 1886 private secretary of his brother Arthur Balfour, who was local minister (President of the Local Government Board) at that time . On July 4, 1895, he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland to the Salisbury III cabinet as Minister of Ireland and held this office until his replacement by George Wyndham on November 9, 1900. At the same time he became a member of the Privy Council of Ireland on July 8, 1895 and was Chief Secretary for Ireland representative of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the British Cabinet.

As part of a government reshuffle, he took over on November 12, 1900 as the successor to Charles Ritchie, the office of Minister of Commerce (President of the Board of Trade ) , which he between July 12, 1902 and his replacement by James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury on March 12, 1905 also held the Balfour cabinet formed by his brother . On December 12, 1900, he also became a member of the Privy Council (PC). He himself became local minister as part of the cabinet reshuffle on March 14, 1905 and held this position until the end of Arthur Balfour's tenure on December 5, 1905. He was later chairman of the commission of the lighthouse administration in 1908 and temporarily chairman of the Cambridge committee of the joint university commission from Oxford and Cambridge.

After the death of his unmarried and childless brother Arthur James Balfour on March 19, 1930, Gerald Balfour, who was also an honorary doctor of law (Honorary LL.D.) from the University of Cambridge, inherited the title of 2nd Earl of Balfour and the with it associated subordinate title as 2nd Viscount Traprain. As a result, he was a member of the House of Lords until his death on January 14, 1945.

Marriage and offspring

Gerald Balfour was married to Lady Elizabeth Edith Bulwer-Lytton, a daughter of the diplomat and writer Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton , who was Governor General and Viceroy of India between 1876 and 1880 , since December 21, 1887 , as well his wife Edith Villiers, Countess of Lytton.

From his marriage there were five daughters and one son. The fourth eldest daughter, Eve Balfour, was an agronomist and a key figure in the development of organic farming in the Commonwealth of Nations . The fifth child and only son Robert Arthur Lytton Balfour was a Freemason between 1939 and 1942, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland and inherited his title of nobility when he died on January 14, 1945.

Web links

• Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour at the Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• Entry in The Peerage

predecessor	Office	successor
Arthur James Balfour	Earl of Balfour 1930-1945	Robert Arthur Lytton Balfour
John Morley	Chief Secretary for Ireland 1895-1900	George Wyndham
Charles Ritchie	President of the Board of Trade 1900-1905	James Gascoyne-Cecil