Second Asquith government
The Second Government Asquith was during the First World War formed coalition government of the United Kingdom . It was formed on May 25, 1915 under the previous liberal Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith , including the Conservative Party under Andrew Bonar Law , which was previously in opposition , and existed until Asquith's resignation on December 5, 1916. It was followed by the Lloyd George government .
Government formation
The formation of the coalition government resulted from the growing dissatisfaction of the Conservatives with the governance of the previous purely liberal First Asquith Government . Although the Conservative Party deliberately refrained from attacking the government at the beginning of the war, several events came together in the spring of 1915 which called this reluctance into question. On the one hand, this was the bad start of the Battle of Gallipoli , which led to the resignation of First Sea Lord John Fisher on May 15, and , on the other hand, the so-called ammunition crisis of 1915 , which emerged during the Loretto Battle and was fueled by the conservative newspapers.
After a meeting with the conservative party leaders on May 17, Asquith announced on May 19 that it had decided to form a coalition government. On May 25, the new government was presented, in which, for the first time , a Labor politician, Arthur Henderson , joined nine conservatives with cabinet rank . Winston Churchill , previously Minister of the Navy and supporter of the Dardanelles company, was relegated to the uninfluenced post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and removed from the government after six months. The previous Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George received a new ministry, the Ministry of Munitions , with which the ammunition crisis was to be countered. Overall, the Conservatives received only relatively subordinate posts (their party leader Bonar Law was only colonial minister instead of a more appropriate office as Chancellor of the Exchequer), which led to the persistence of the underlying conflict with Asquith.
List of public officials
(Cabinet ministers appear in bold .)
| Office | Surname | Political party | Duration, if different | Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Prime Minister , First Lord of the Treasury , Leader of the House of Commons |
Herbert Henry Asquith | Liberal | |||
| Chancellor of the Exchequer | Reginald McKenna | Liberal | |||
| Parliamentary State Secretary for the Treasury | John Gulland | Liberal | joint chief whips of government in the House of Commons | ||
| Lord Edmund Talbot | Conservative | ||||
| Treasury Secretary of State for the Treasury | Edwin Samuel Montagu | Liberal | until July 9, 1916 | from January 1916 at the same time Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster , was Minister of Munitions | |
| Thomas McKinnon Wood | Liberal | from July 9, 1916 | |||
| Lords of the Treasury | Geoffrey Howard | Liberal | |||
| George Henry Roberts | Labor | ||||
| William Bridgeman | Conservative | ||||
| Walter Rea | Liberal | ||||
| Lord Chancellor | Stanley Buckmaster, 1st Baron Buckmaster | Liberal | |||
|
Lord President of the Council , Leader of the House of Lords |
Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe | Liberal | |||
| Lord Seal Keeper | George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston | Conservative | |||
| Interior minister | Sir John Simon | Liberal | until January 10, 1916 | ||
| Herbert Samuel | Liberal | from January 10, 1916 | |||
| State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior | William Brace | Labor | |||
| Foreign minister | Sir Edward Gray | Liberal | ennobled as Viscount in July 1916 | ||
| Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Lord Robert Cecil | Conservative | from February 23, 1916 in cabinet rank | ||
| Secretary of State for the Colonies | Andrew Bonar Law | Conservative | |||
| State Secretary in the Colonial Ministry | Arthur Steel-Maitland | Conservative | |||
| Minister of War | Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener | independent | until June 5, 1916 | the sinking of the HMS Hampshire died | |
| David Lloyd George | Liberal | previously Minister of Munitions | |||
| State Secretary in the War Ministry | Harold Tennant | Liberal | until July 6, 1916 | ||
| Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby | Conservative | from July 6, 1916 | |||
| Finance Secretary in the War Department | Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster | Conservative | |||
| Secretary of State for India | Austen Chamberlain | Conservative | |||
| State Secretary in the Ministry of India | John Dickson-Poynder, 1st Baron Islington | Liberal | |||
| First Lord of the Admiralty | Arthur Balfour | Conservative | |||
| Parliamentary and Finance Secretary of State of the Admiralty | Thomas James Macnamara | Liberal | |||
| Admiralty Civil Lord | Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire | Conservative | until July 26, 1916 | also Chief Whip of the Government in the House of Lords | |
| Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton | Conservative | from July 26, 1916 | |||
| Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries | William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne | Conservative | until July 11, 1916 | ||
| David Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford | Conservative | from July 11, 1916 | |||
| Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture | Francis Dyke Acland | Liberal | |||
| Blockade Minister | Lord Robert Cecil | Conservative | from February 23, 1916 | ||
| Minister of Education | Arthur Henderson | Labor | until August 18, 1916 | ||
| Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe | Liberal | from August 18, 1916 | at the same time Leader of the House of Lords | ||
| Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Education | Herbert Lewis | Liberal | |||
| President of the Local Government Board | Walter Long | Conservative | |||
| Parliamentary State Secretary of the Local Government Board | William Hayes Fisher | Conservative | |||
| Chief Secretary for Ireland | Augustine Birrell | Liberal | until May 3, 1916 | ||
| Henry Duke | Conservative | from July 31, 1916 | |||
| Vice President of the Department of Agriculture for Ireland | Thomas Russell | Liberal | |||
| Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | Winston Churchill | Liberal | until November 25, 1915 | ||
| Herbert Samuel | Liberal | November 25, 1915 to January 10, 1916 | then Minister of the Interior | ||
| Edwin Samuel Montagu | Liberal | January 11 to July 9, 1916 | then Minister of Munitions | ||
| Thomas McKinnon Wood | Liberal | from July 9, 1916 | previously Minister of Scotland | ||
| Munitions Minister | David Lloyd George | Liberal | until July 6, 1916 | then Minister of War | |
| Edwin Samuel Montagu | Liberal | from July 9, 1916 | previously Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | ||
| Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Munitions | Christopher Addison | Liberal | |||
| Arthur Lee | Conservative | November 11, 1915 to July 9, 1916 | |||
| Paymaster General | Thomas Legh, 2nd Baron Newton | Conservative | until August 18, 1916 | ||
| Arthur Henderson | Labor | from August 18, 1916 | previously Minister of Education | ||
| Minister with no portfolio | Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne | Conservative | |||
| Post Minister | Herbert Samuel | Liberal | until January 10, 1916 | then Minister of the Interior | |
| Joseph Pease | Liberal | from January 18, 1916 | |||
| Deputy Minister of Post | Herbert Pease | Conservative | |||
| Scotland Minister | Thomas McKinnon Wood | Liberal | until July 9, 1916 | then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | |
| Harold Tennant | Liberal | from July 9, 1916 | previously State Secretary in the War Ministry | ||
| Minister for Trade and Industry | Walter Runciman | Liberal | |||
| Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce | Ernest George Pretyman | Conservative | |||
| First Commissioner of Works | Lewis Harcourt | Liberal | |||
| Attorney General for England and Wales | Sir Edward Carson | Conservative | until November 3, 1915 | ||
| Sir Frederick Edwin Smith | Conservative | from November 3, 1915 | previously Solicitor General | ||
| Solicitor General for England and Wales | Sir Frederick Edwin Smith | Conservative | until November 3, 1915 | ||
| Sir George Cave | Conservative | from November 8, 1915 | |||
| Lord Advocate | Robert Munro | Liberal | |||
| Solicitor General for Scotland | Thomas Brash Morison | Liberal | |||
| Attorney General for Ireland | John Gordon | Conservative | until April 9, 1916 | ||
| James Campbell | Conservative | from April 9, 1916 | |||
| Solicitor General for Ireland | James O'Connor | Irish nationalist | |||
| Lord Steward of the Household | Horace Farquhar, Baron Farquhar | Conservative | |||
| Lord Chamberlain of the Household | William Mansfield, Baron Sandhurst | Liberal | |||
| Vice-Chamberlain of the Household | Cecil Beck | Liberal | |||
| Master of the Horse | Edwyn Scudamore-Stanhope | Liberal | |||
| Treasurer of the Household | James Hope | Conservative | |||
| Comptroller of the Household | Charles Henry Roberts | Liberal | |||
| Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms | Edward Colebrooke, 1st Baron Colebrooke | Liberal | at the same time joint Chief Whip of the government in the House of Lords | ||
| Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard | Charles Harbord, 6th Baron Suffield | Conservative | |||
| Lords-in-Waiting | Richard Herschell, 2nd Baron Herschell | Liberal | |||
| Wentworth Beaumont, 1st Viscount Allendale | Liberal | ||||
| George Hamilton-Gordon, 2nd Baron Stanmore | Liberal | ||||
| John Brocklehurst, 1st Baron Ranksborough | Liberal | ||||
| Arthur Annesley, 11th Viscount Valentia | Conservative | ||||
| Hylton Jolliffe, 3rd Baron Hylton | Conservative | ||||
literature
- David Butler: Twentieth-Century British Political Facts, 1900-2000. Palgrave Macmillan, 2000, ISBN 978-1-349-62733-2 .
- George H. Cassar: Asquith As War Leader. A&C Black, 1994.
- David Powell: British Politics, 1910-1935: The Crisis of the Party System. Psychology Press, 2004.
- William D. Rubinstein: Twentieth-Century Britain: A Political History. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.