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{{Infobox Prime Minister| name=The Rt Hon Andrew Bonar Law
| smallimage=bonar_law.jpg
| order=[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
| term_start =
23 October [
| term_end =
22 May [
| monarch =[George V of the United Kingdom
| predecessor =[David Lloyd George
| successor =[Stanley Baldwin
| birth_date ={{birth date|1858|9|16|mf=y-->
| birth_place =[Rexton, New Brunswick, [New Brunswick, [Canada
| death_date ={{death date and age|1923|10|30|1858|9|16|df=y-->
| death_place =[London, [England
| party =[Conservative Party (UK)
| religion =[Church of Scotland
| order2 =[Chancellor of the Exchequer
| term_start2 =
December 10, [
| term_end2 =
January 10, [
| primeminister2 =[David Lloyd George
| predecessor2 =[Reginald McKenna
| successor2 =[Austen Chamberlain
| alma_mater =[University of Glasgow (night classes)
| spouse =[Annie Bonar Law
|-->
Andrew Bonar Law (
16 September 1858 – 30 October 1923) was a
United Kingdom Conservative Party (UK) statesman and
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Early life
Of
Ulster Scots and Scotland descent, Andrew Bonar Law was born in
Rexton, New Brunswick, a small village in eastern
New Brunswick,
Canada. He was the son of the Reverend James Law of
Portrush, County Antrim and Elizabeth Kidston, descended from early merchant settlers of Canada.
In 1860, Law's mother died in childbirth. He worked as a boy on his father's smallholding and for some years after his mother’s death he was in the care of his maternal aunt, Janet Kidston, who lived in her brother-in-law's household until his remarriage, when she decided to return to her native
Scotland. She suggested that it might be to her nephew's advantage if she were to take him back to Scotland with her, where he would receive a good education, as the Kidstons were a much wealthier and better connected family than the Laws.
At the age of 12, Law left to live with his late mother's three male cousins, who were rich merchant bankers in Glasgow. As they were all either unmarried or childless, they saw him as a substitute son and heir. He was educated at Gilbertfield School in
Hamilton, Scotland and then at High School of Glasgow.
Surprisingly, in view of Law's marked academic success, the Kidstons did not wish him to continue to university, and so at the age of 16 he was employed in the offices of their bank. He did later attend night classes at the University of Glasgow, which gave him an interest in politics and debating. At sometime during his life time he lived in the presbyterian Manse on Abbey Street in
Coleraine,
County Londonderry, belonging to 1st Coleraine
Presbyterian Church in Ireland Church
He read voraciously, but had a particular fondness for Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Benjamin Disraeli and
Edward Gibbon. He also became a very able
chess player.
Bonar Law's business career went from strength to strength, and well before he was thirty, he had acquired the reputation of a shrewd man of business, who drove others hard but himself far harder. In 1885, he purchased a partnership in William Jacks & Co., a Glasgow firm concerned in the financing of the iron trade. In 1890, at the age of thirty-two, Bonar Law, already a settled and successful man, became engaged to
Annie Bonar Law, whom he married in Helensburgh,
Dunbartonshire on
24 March 1891.
The marriage was to prove very happy and they had seven children, although the first was stillborn. Law’s interest in politics had grown stronger as the 1890s went by, and after he inherited a very large sum on the death of one of the Kidstons, he was able to consider running for Parliament. One of Law's children, Isabel H. Law, married Major General Sir Frederick Sykes, the military commander, politician and statesman. Two of his sons were killed in
World War I - Charles Law with the
King's Own Scottish Borderers at the
Battle of Gaza on 1917 and James Law with the
Royal Flying Corps, shot down over the Western Front also in 1917. His youngest son was
Richard Law, 1st Baron Coleraine.
Parliament
He was elected to
British House of Commons for Glasgow Blackfriars and Hutchesontown (UK Parliament constituency) as a Conservative in 1900. He associated himself with the Protectionist wing of the party led by
Joseph Chamberlain, and after Chamberlain withdrew from politics in 1906, Law came to lead that wing of the party along with Chamberlain's son,
Austen Chamberlain. He had a reputation for honesty and fearlessness, and was well regarded as an effective speaker. These qualities helped him to be appointed as
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in 1902.
He lost his seat to future Labour Party (UK) leader
George Nicoll Barnes in the anti-Conservative landslide
United Kingdom general election, 1906, but he returned to represent Dulwich (UK Parliament constituency) at a
Dulwich by-election, 1906. Though hit hard by the death of his wife, he continued his political career; after leaving the British House of Commons at the United Kingdom general election, December 1910, he returned as MP for Bootle (UK Parliament constituency) at a
Bootle by-election, 1911.
Conservative Leader
Arthur Balfour resigned the leadership of the Conservative Party (known at that time, following the formal merger with the Liberal Unionists, and until Irish Independence in the early 1920s, as "the Unionist Party") in 1911 amid widespread dissatisfaction with his actions over the Parliament Act 1911, which had eliminated the
veto of the House of Lords. Following a deadlock between
Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long, the two candidates agreed to stand down in favour of Bonar Law, who became Leader as a compromise candidate. Law's closest associate was his fellow Canadian (and New Brunswicker), newspaper mogul
William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (later Lord Beaverbrook). In the years prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Law focused most of his attention on the tariff issue and on Irish Home Rule. Now that the House of Lords had lost its power to veto legislation, the latter had become inevitable, but along with much of his party Bonar Law furiously opposed the Liberals' plans to coerce the Ulster Protestants into a Home Rule Ireland; at a time when the latter were moving towards armed resistance, Bonar Law said that "there were no lengths" to which Ulster could go and not receive his support.
The Great War
He entered the
Coalition Government 1915-1916 as
Colonial Secretary in 1915, his first senior Cabinet post, and, following the resignation of Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Herbert Asquith, was invited by King George V of the United Kingdom to form a government, but he deferred to the new Liberal leader
David Lloyd George, who he believed was better placed to lead a coalition ministry. He served in Lloyd George's War Cabinet, first as
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. His promotion reflected the great mutual trust between both leaders and made for a well co-ordinated political partnership; their coalition was re-elected by a landslide following the Armistice. Law's two eldest sons were both killed whilst fighting in the war. In the 1918 General Election, Law returned to Glasgow and was elected as member for
Glasgow Central (constituency).
Post War and Prime Minister
At war's end, he gave up the Exchequer for the less demanding sinecure office of Lord Privy Seal, but remained Leader of the Commons. In 1921, ill health forced his resignation as Tory leader and Leader of the Commons in favour of Austen Chamberlain. His departure weakened the hardliners in the cabinet who were opposed to negotiating with the
Irish Republican Army, and the Anglo-Irish War ended in the summer.
By 1921-2 the coalition had become embroiled in an air of moral and financial (eg. the sale of honours) corruption. Besides the recent Irish Treaty and Edwin Montagu's moves towards greater self-government for India, both of which dismayed rank-and-file Tory opinion, the government's willingness to intervene against the Bolshevik regime in Russia also seemed out of step with the new and more pacific mood. A sharp slump in 1921 and a wave of strikes in the coal and railway industries also added to the government's unpopularity, as did the apparent failure of the Genoa Conference which ended in an apparent rapprochement between Germany and Soviet Russia. In other words, it was no longer the case that Lloyd George was an electoral asset to the Conservative Party.
Lloyd George and his chief cronies Birkenhead and Churchill (still distrusted by many Conservatives) wished to use armed force against
Turkey (the
Chanak Crisis), but had to back down when offered support only by New Zealand, but not Canada, Australia or South Africa; an anonymous letter appeared in "The Times" supporting the government but stating that Britain could not "act as the policeman for the world", and it was an open secret that the author, "A Colonial", was in fact Bonar Law. At a famous meeting at the Carlton Club Tory backbenchers, led by the President of the Board of Trade Stanley Baldwin and influenced by the recent Newport by-election which was won by an independent Conservative , voted to end the Lloyd George Coalition and fight the next election as an independent party. Austen Chamberlain resigned as Party Leader, Lloyd George resigned as Prime Minister and Bonar Law returned on 23 October
1922 in both jobs.
Many leading Conservatives (eg. Birkenhead, Arthur Balfour, Austen Chamberlain, Robert Horne) were not members of the new Cabinet, which was contemptuously referred to as "the Second Eleven". Although the Coalition Conservatives numbered no more than thirty, they hoped to dominate any future Coalition government in the same way that the similarly-sized Peelite group had dominated the Coalition Government of 1852-5 - an analogy much used at the time.
Parliament was immediately dissolved, and a General Election ensued. Besides the two Conservative factions, Labour were fighting as a major national party for the first time and indeed became the main Opposition after the election; the Liberals were still split into Asquith and Lloyd George factions, with many Lloyd George Liberals still unopposed by Conservative candidates (including Churchill, who was defeated at Dundee nonetheless). Despite the confused political arena the Conservatives were re-elected with a comfortable majority.
Questions were raised about whether the elderly Conservative Party Treasurer, Lord Farquar, had passed on to Lloyd George (who during his premiership had amassed a large fund, largely from the sale of honours) any money intended for the Conservative Party. The Coalition Conservatives also hoped to obtain Conservative Party money from Farquar. Bonar Law found Farquar too "gaga" to properly explain what had happened, and dismissed him.
One of the questions which taxed Bonar Law's brief government was that of inter-Allied war debts. Britain owed money to the USA, and in turn was owed four times as much money by France, Italy and the other Allied powers, although under the Lloyd George government Balfour had promised that Britain would collect no more money from other Allies than she was required to repay the USA; the debt was hard to repay as trade (exports were needed to earn foreign currency) had not returned to prewar levels. On a trip to the USA Stanley Baldwin, the inexperienced Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed to repay £40 million per annum to the USA rather than the £25 million which the British government had thought feasible, and on his return announced the deal to the press when his ship docked at Southampton, before the Cabinet had had a chance to consider it. Bonar Law contemplated resignation, and after being talked out of it by senior ministers once again vented his feelings in an anonymous letter to "The Times".
Bonar Law was soon diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer and, no longer physically able to speak in Parliament, resigned on 22 May
1923.
George V of the United Kingdom sent for Baldwin, whom Bonar Law is rumoured to have favoured over Lord Curzon. Howaver Law did not offer any advice to the King.
Alan Clark,
The Tories: Conservatives and the Nation State 1922-1997 (
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998) page 25 ISBN 0-75380-765-3 Bonar Law died later that same year in London at the age of 65.
Bonar Law's estate was probated at £35,736.
Bonar Law is often referred to as "the unknown Prime Minister", not least because of a biography of that title by
Robert Blake, Baron Blake; the name comes from a remark by Asquith at Bonar Law's funeral, that they were burying the Unknown Prime Minister next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He was certainly the shortest serving PM of the twentieth century, but this should not undermine the legacy of his policies or his various judgements in office.
He is also the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles.
A tiny hamlet (unincorporated village) named Bonarlaw is named after the British Prime Minister. It was formerly known as "Big Springs" and then "Bellview" and is located in the municipality of
Stirling-Rawdon, Ontario, Canada.
Bonar Law's Government, October 1922 - May 1923
For a full list of Ministerial office holders, see Conservative Government 1922-1924
- Andrew Bonar Law - Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons
- George Cave, 1st Viscount Cave - Lord Chancellor
- James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury - Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood - Lord Privy Seal
- Stanley Baldwin - Chancellor of the Exchequer
- William Clive Bridgeman - Secretary of State for the Home Department
- George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
- Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire - Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby - Secretary of State for War
- William Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel - Secretary of State for India
- Ronald Munro-Ferguson, 1st Viscount Novar of Raith - Secretary for Scotland
- Leopold Stennett Amery - First Lord of the Admiralty
- Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton - President of the Board of Trade
- Robert Arthur Sanders, 1st Baron Bayford - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
- Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax - President of the Board of Education
- Montague Barlow - Secretary of State for Employment
- Arthur Griffith-Boscawen - Secretary of State for Health
Changes
- April 1923 - Griffith-Boscawen resigns as Minister of Health after losing his seat and is succeeded by Neville Chamberlain.
References
Bibliography
- Adams, R. J. Q. Bonar Law, London: John Murray, 1999. ISBN 0-7195-5422-5
- Blake, Robert The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923, London: 1955.
- Smith, Jeremy "Bluff, Bluster and Brinkmanship: Andrew Bonar Law and the Third Home Rule Bill" pages 161-178 from Historical Journal, Volume 36, Issue #1, 1993.
- Deane, Ciarán The Guinness Book of Irish Facts & Feats. Guinness Publishing 1994 ISBN 0-85112-793-2
External links
- More about Andrew Bonar Law on the Downing Street website.
{{Persondata|NAME=Law, Andrew Bonar|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [1858, [Canada [1923, [England-->
{{Infobox Prime Minister| name=The Rt Hon Andrew Bonar Law
| smallimage=bonar_law.jpg
| order=[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
| term_start =23 October [
| term_end =
22 May [
| monarch =[George V of the United Kingdom
| predecessor =[David Lloyd George
| successor =[Stanley Baldwin
| birth_date ={{birth date|1858|9|16|mf=y-->
| birth_place =[Rexton, New Brunswick, [New Brunswick, [Canada
| death_date ={{death date and age|1923|10|30|1858|9|16|df=y-->
| death_place =[London, [England
| party =[Conservative Party (UK)
| religion =[Church of Scotland
| order2 =[Chancellor of the Exchequer
| term_start2 =
December 10, [
| term_end2 =
January 10, [
| primeminister2 =[David Lloyd George
| predecessor2 =[Reginald McKenna
| successor2 =[Austen Chamberlain
| alma_mater =[University of Glasgow (night classes)
| spouse =[Annie Bonar Law
|-->
Andrew Bonar Law (
16 September 1858 – 30 October 1923) was a
United Kingdom Conservative Party (UK) statesman and
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Early life
Of
Ulster Scots and Scotland descent, Andrew Bonar Law was born in Rexton, New Brunswick, a small village in eastern
New Brunswick, Canada. He was the son of the
Reverend James Law of
Portrush,
County Antrim and Elizabeth Kidston, descended from early merchant settlers of Canada.
In 1860, Law's mother died in childbirth. He worked as a boy on his father's smallholding and for some years after his mother’s death he was in the care of his maternal aunt, Janet Kidston, who lived in her brother-in-law's household until his remarriage, when she decided to return to her native Scotland. She suggested that it might be to her nephew's advantage if she were to take him back to Scotland with her, where he would receive a good education, as the Kidstons were a much wealthier and better connected family than the Laws.
At the age of 12, Law left to live with his late mother's three male cousins, who were rich merchant bankers in
Glasgow. As they were all either unmarried or childless, they saw him as a substitute son and heir. He was educated at Gilbertfield School in
Hamilton, Scotland and then at
High School of Glasgow.
Surprisingly, in view of Law's marked academic success, the Kidstons did not wish him to continue to university, and so at the age of 16 he was employed in the offices of their bank. He did later attend night classes at the
University of Glasgow, which gave him an interest in politics and debating. At sometime during his life time he lived in the presbyterian
Manse on Abbey Street in Coleraine, County Londonderry, belonging to 1st Coleraine
Presbyterian Church in Ireland Church
He read voraciously, but had a particular fondness for
Charles Dickens,
Thomas Carlyle, Benjamin Disraeli and Edward Gibbon. He also became a very able
chess player.
Bonar Law's business career went from strength to strength, and well before he was thirty, he had acquired the reputation of a shrewd man of business, who drove others hard but himself far harder. In 1885, he purchased a partnership in William Jacks & Co., a Glasgow firm concerned in the financing of the iron trade. In 1890, at the age of thirty-two, Bonar Law, already a settled and successful man, became engaged to
Annie Bonar Law, whom he married in
Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire on
24 March 1891.
The marriage was to prove very happy and they had seven children, although the first was stillborn. Law’s interest in politics had grown stronger as the 1890s went by, and after he inherited a very large sum on the death of one of the Kidstons, he was able to consider running for Parliament. One of Law's children, Isabel H. Law, married Major General Sir
Frederick Sykes, the military commander, politician and statesman. Two of his sons were killed in World War I - Charles Law with the
King's Own Scottish Borderers at the
Battle of Gaza on 1917 and James Law with the
Royal Flying Corps, shot down over the Western Front also in 1917. His youngest son was
Richard Law, 1st Baron Coleraine.
Parliament
He was elected to
British House of Commons for
Glasgow Blackfriars and Hutchesontown (UK Parliament constituency) as a Conservative in 1900. He associated himself with the Protectionist wing of the party led by Joseph Chamberlain, and after Chamberlain withdrew from politics in 1906, Law came to lead that wing of the party along with Chamberlain's son,
Austen Chamberlain. He had a reputation for honesty and fearlessness, and was well regarded as an effective speaker. These qualities helped him to be appointed as
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in 1902.
He lost his seat to future Labour Party (UK) leader George Nicoll Barnes in the anti-Conservative landslide
United Kingdom general election, 1906, but he returned to represent Dulwich (UK Parliament constituency) at a
Dulwich by-election, 1906. Though hit hard by the death of his wife, he continued his political career; after leaving the British House of Commons at the
United Kingdom general election, December 1910, he returned as MP for Bootle (UK Parliament constituency) at a Bootle by-election, 1911.
Conservative Leader
Arthur Balfour resigned the leadership of the Conservative Party (known at that time, following the formal merger with the Liberal Unionists, and until Irish Independence in the early 1920s, as "the Unionist Party") in 1911 amid widespread dissatisfaction with his actions over the Parliament Act 1911, which had eliminated the veto of the House of Lords. Following a deadlock between Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long, the two candidates agreed to stand down in favour of Bonar Law, who became Leader as a compromise candidate. Law's closest associate was his fellow Canadian (and New Brunswicker), newspaper mogul
William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (later Lord Beaverbrook). In the years prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Law focused most of his attention on the tariff issue and on Irish Home Rule. Now that the House of Lords had lost its power to veto legislation, the latter had become inevitable, but along with much of his party Bonar Law furiously opposed the Liberals' plans to coerce the Ulster Protestants into a Home Rule Ireland; at a time when the latter were moving towards armed resistance, Bonar Law said that "there were no lengths" to which Ulster could go and not receive his support.
The Great War
He entered the
Coalition Government 1915-1916 as
Colonial Secretary in 1915, his first senior Cabinet post, and, following the resignation of Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Herbert Asquith, was invited by King
George V of the United Kingdom to form a government, but he deferred to the new Liberal leader
David Lloyd George, who he believed was better placed to lead a coalition ministry. He served in Lloyd George's War Cabinet, first as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. His promotion reflected the great mutual trust between both leaders and made for a well co-ordinated political partnership; their coalition was re-elected by a landslide following the Armistice. Law's two eldest sons were both killed whilst fighting in the war. In the 1918 General Election, Law returned to Glasgow and was elected as member for
Glasgow Central (constituency).
Post War and Prime Minister
At war's end, he gave up the Exchequer for the less demanding sinecure office of Lord Privy Seal, but remained Leader of the Commons. In 1921, ill health forced his resignation as Tory leader and Leader of the Commons in favour of Austen Chamberlain. His departure weakened the hardliners in the cabinet who were opposed to negotiating with the Irish Republican Army, and the Anglo-Irish War ended in the summer.
By 1921-2 the coalition had become embroiled in an air of moral and financial (eg. the sale of honours) corruption. Besides the recent Irish Treaty and Edwin Montagu's moves towards greater self-government for India, both of which dismayed rank-and-file Tory opinion, the government's willingness to intervene against the Bolshevik regime in Russia also seemed out of step with the new and more pacific mood. A sharp slump in 1921 and a wave of strikes in the coal and railway industries also added to the government's unpopularity, as did the apparent failure of the Genoa Conference which ended in an apparent rapprochement between Germany and Soviet Russia. In other words, it was no longer the case that Lloyd George was an electoral asset to the Conservative Party.
Lloyd George and his chief cronies Birkenhead and Churchill (still distrusted by many Conservatives) wished to use armed force against
Turkey (the Chanak Crisis), but had to back down when offered support only by New Zealand, but not Canada, Australia or South Africa; an anonymous letter appeared in "The Times" supporting the government but stating that Britain could not "act as the policeman for the world", and it was an open secret that the author, "A Colonial", was in fact Bonar Law. At a famous meeting at the Carlton Club Tory backbenchers, led by the President of the Board of Trade
Stanley Baldwin and influenced by the recent Newport by-election which was won by an independent Conservative , voted to end the Lloyd George Coalition and fight the next election as an independent party. Austen Chamberlain resigned as Party Leader, Lloyd George resigned as Prime Minister and Bonar Law returned on 23 October
1922 in both jobs.
Many leading Conservatives (eg. Birkenhead, Arthur Balfour, Austen Chamberlain, Robert Horne) were not members of the new Cabinet, which was contemptuously referred to as "the Second Eleven". Although the Coalition Conservatives numbered no more than thirty, they hoped to dominate any future Coalition government in the same way that the similarly-sized Peelite group had dominated the Coalition Government of 1852-5 - an analogy much used at the time.
Parliament was immediately dissolved, and a General Election ensued. Besides the two Conservative factions, Labour were fighting as a major national party for the first time and indeed became the main Opposition after the election; the Liberals were still split into Asquith and Lloyd George factions, with many Lloyd George Liberals still unopposed by Conservative candidates (including Churchill, who was defeated at Dundee nonetheless). Despite the confused political arena the Conservatives were re-elected with a comfortable majority.
Questions were raised about whether the elderly Conservative Party Treasurer, Lord Farquar, had passed on to Lloyd George (who during his premiership had amassed a large fund, largely from the sale of honours) any money intended for the Conservative Party. The Coalition Conservatives also hoped to obtain Conservative Party money from Farquar. Bonar Law found Farquar too "gaga" to properly explain what had happened, and dismissed him.
One of the questions which taxed Bonar Law's brief government was that of inter-Allied war debts. Britain owed money to the USA, and in turn was owed four times as much money by France, Italy and the other Allied powers, although under the Lloyd George government Balfour had promised that Britain would collect no more money from other Allies than she was required to repay the USA; the debt was hard to repay as trade (exports were needed to earn foreign currency) had not returned to prewar levels. On a trip to the USA Stanley Baldwin, the inexperienced Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed to repay £40 million per annum to the USA rather than the £25 million which the British government had thought feasible, and on his return announced the deal to the press when his ship docked at Southampton, before the Cabinet had had a chance to consider it. Bonar Law contemplated resignation, and after being talked out of it by senior ministers once again vented his feelings in an anonymous letter to "The Times".
Bonar Law was soon diagnosed with terminal
oesophageal cancer and, no longer physically able to speak in Parliament, resigned on 22 May
1923. George V of the United Kingdom sent for Baldwin, whom Bonar Law is rumoured to have favoured over Lord Curzon. Howaver Law did not offer any advice to the King.Alan Clark,
The Tories: Conservatives and the Nation State 1922-1997 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998) page 25 ISBN 0-75380-765-3 Bonar Law died later that same year in
London at the age of 65.
Bonar Law's estate was probated at £35,736.
Bonar Law is often referred to as "the unknown Prime Minister", not least because of a biography of that title by Robert Blake, Baron Blake; the name comes from a remark by Asquith at Bonar Law's funeral, that they were burying the Unknown Prime Minister next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He was certainly the shortest serving PM of the twentieth century, but this should not undermine the legacy of his policies or his various judgements in office.
He is also the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles.
A tiny hamlet (unincorporated village) named Bonarlaw is named after the British Prime Minister. It was formerly known as "Big Springs" and then "Bellview" and is located in the municipality of
Stirling-Rawdon, Ontario, Canada.
Bonar Law's Government, October 1922 - May 1923
For a full list of Ministerial office holders, see Conservative Government 1922-1924
- Andrew Bonar Law - Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons
- George Cave, 1st Viscount Cave - Lord Chancellor
- James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury - Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood - Lord Privy Seal
- Stanley Baldwin - Chancellor of the Exchequer
- William Clive Bridgeman - Secretary of State for the Home Department
- George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
- Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire - Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby - Secretary of State for War
- William Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel - Secretary of State for India
- Ronald Munro-Ferguson, 1st Viscount Novar of Raith - Secretary for Scotland
- Leopold Stennett Amery - First Lord of the Admiralty
- Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton - President of the Board of Trade
- Robert Arthur Sanders, 1st Baron Bayford - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
- Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax - President of the Board of Education
- Montague Barlow - Secretary of State for Employment
- Arthur Griffith-Boscawen - Secretary of State for Health
Changes
- April 1923 - Griffith-Boscawen resigns as Minister of Health after losing his seat and is succeeded by Neville Chamberlain.
References
Bibliography
- Adams, R. J. Q. Bonar Law, London: John Murray, 1999. ISBN 0-7195-5422-5
- Blake, Robert The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923, London: 1955.
- Smith, Jeremy "Bluff, Bluster and Brinkmanship: Andrew Bonar Law and the Third Home Rule Bill" pages 161-178 from Historical Journal, Volume 36, Issue #1, 1993.
- Deane, Ciarán The Guinness Book of Irish Facts & Feats. Guinness Publishing 1994 ISBN 0-85112-793-2
External links
- More about Andrew Bonar Law on the Downing Street website.
{{Persondata|NAME=Law, Andrew Bonar|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=|SHORT DESCRIPTION=
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [1858, [Canada [1923, [England-->
Andrew Bonar Law
Spartacus, USA History, British History, Second World War, First World War, Germany,
Andrew Bonar Law
Biography of Andrew Bonar Law 1922-3 Conservative b. 16/9/1858; d. 30/10/1923 "If I am a great man, then all great men are frauds." Andrew Bonar Law was the Canadian-born son ...
University of Glasgow :: Story :: Biography of Andrew Bonar Law
Summary. Andrew Bonar Law Prime Minister Born 16 September 1858, Canada. Died 30 October 1923. University Link: Alumnus, Rector Occupation categories: politicians; prime ministers
Andrew Bonar Law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Andrew Bonar Law (16 September 1858 – 30 October 1923) was a Canadian-born British Conservative Party statesman and Prime Minister. Currently he is the only British Prime ...
TheGlasgowStory: Andrew Bonar Law
TheGlasgowStory tells the story of Glasgow in words and pictures, told by some of Scotland's best writers, and illustrated with thousands of images from the collections of the city ...
10 Downing Street: Andrew Bonar Law
Biography with photograph of the Conservative Prime Minister 1922-3. Andrew Bonar Law was the Canadian-born son of a Scottish clergyman.
Andrew Bonar Law : Oxford Biography Index entry
The Oxford Biography Index is an authoritative and accurate index of notable people – their names, their dates, and their fields of activity.
NPG 2358; Andrew Bonar Law
NPG 2358; Andrew Bonar Law ... NPG 2358 Andrew Bonar Law by Minnie Agnes Cohen pencil, 1890 6 in. x 4 1/2 in. (152 mm x 114 mm)
Andrew Bonar Law - encyclopedia article - Citizendium
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Andrew Bonar Law (1858-1923), Prime Minister
National Portrait Gallery, list of portraits for Andrew Bonar Law including Andrew Bonar Law by Minnie Agnes Cohen, Andrew Bonar Law by Sir Francis Carruthers Gould ('F.C.G ...