Arthur Henderson

(b. Glasgow, 13 Sept. 1863; d. 20 Oct. 1935) British; Foreign Secretary 1929 – 31, chairman of Parliamentary Labour Party 1908 – 10, 1914 – 7, and 1931 – 2 The son of a cotton worker, Henderson started work in a steel foundry at the age of 12 after an elementary education. He gravitated from trade union activism to party politics, first as a Liberal and then with the Labour Representation Committee (later the Labour Party). He was a central figure in the latter's organization for over thirty years as general secretary (1912 – 35) and treasurer (1903 – 12 and 1929 – 35) of the party nationally and, in the Commons, as party chairman (1908 – 10, 1914 – 17, and 1931 – 2) and chief whip (1906 – 7, 1914, 1920 – 4, and 1925 – 7).

Henderson was an unlucky parliamentary candidate. He was first elected (for Barnard Castle) at a by-election in 1903, becoming only the third LRC member to enter the Commons, but he several times lost a seat at general elections and had to secure re-election at by-elections. His ministerial career was less important than his role as the architect of the party organization, but it was a distinguished one nevertheless. He joined H. H. Asquith's wartime coalition government in 1915, becoming the first Labour Party member to hold Cabinet office. Though nominally president of the Board of Education (later Paymaster-General) his real role was to advise on Labour issues.

When David Lloyd George became Prime Minister in 1916, he made Henderson Minister without Portfolio in his small War Cabinet. Henderson led a mission to keep post-revolutionary Russia in the war against Germany but was soon afterwards compelled to resign after urging Labour Party attendance at an international socialist conference without prime ministerial approval.

Henderson's next experience of office was as Home Secretary in the short-lived first Labour government (1924). Ramsay MacDonald (to whom Henderson had never been close) combined the foreign secretaryship — for which many thought Henderson best fitted — with the premiership, but Henderson played a prominent part in foreign affairs, attending the League of Nations Assembly at Geneva. In the second Labour government (1929 – 31) Henderson became Foreign Secretary. His main work was, again, at the League of Nations, where he was engaged in disarmament negotiations. Before these came to fruition, Henderson was in the forefront of the opposition to the cuts in unemployment benefit that precipitated the government's collapse. When MacDonald formed a national government, Henderson was elected party leader, but resigned after losing his seat at the 1931 general election.

Although soon back in the Commons, Henderson devoted most of the remainder of his life to League of Nations affairs. He presided over the World Conference on Disarmament and it was primarily for this work that he became, in 1934, one of only two serving or former British foreign secretaries to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The British statesman Arthur Henderson (1863-1935) was an architect of the Labour party and served as foreign secretary from 1929 to 1931.

Arthur Henderson, the second son of a Scottish cotton spinner, David Henderson, was born in Glasgow on Sept. 13, 1863. He grew up in a poor but hardworking family and attended school in Glasgow and in Newcastle upon Tyne in Northumbria. At age 12 he terminated his schooling and began working in a local foundry.

In his late teens several things happened that profoundly influenced Henderson for the remainder of his life. He happened to hear the famed evangelist Gipsy Smith, who was a captain in the Salvation Army. Henderson was captured by the evangelist's eloquence and joined a local Wesleyan Methodist church. He also became interested in the trade union movement and joined the Friendly Society of Iron founders (later renamed the National Union of Foundry Workers).

Henderson entered politics as an admirer of William Gladstone, who was then in the twilight of his long career. He engaged in local politics as a member of the radical wing of the Liberal party, and in 1892 he was elected a member of the Newcastle City Council. It was the first of several local positions that he held. Throughout this period of his life he remained active in trade union activities and rightfully deserves to be considered one of the founders of the emerging Labour party. In 1911 he became secretary of the Labour party and retained this position until 1934. He entered Parliament in 1903 as a member of the Independent Labour party.

In the House of Commons, Henderson quickly won the respect of his colleagues for his keen knowledge of social and labor problems. When World War I broke out in 1914, he replaced Ramsay MacDonald as Labour leader in the House, and in 1915 he was brought into H. H. Asquith's Cabinet as president of the board of education. Later he resigned this post and accepted the less demanding one of paymaster general. In 1916 the new prime minister, David Lloyd George, made him a member of his War Cabinet. After the first Russian revolution of 1917, Lloyd George sent him on an important mission to Russia. After his return from Russia, however, he broke with Lloyd George over the question of British representation at the proposed conference of international socialists to be held at Stockholm. Consequently, he resigned his Cabinet position and redirected his energies to Labour party affairs.

After the war Henderson remained an instrumental figure in party activities, and he continued to serve, with some interruptions, in the House of Commons. He is best remembered for the 2 years (1929-1931) he spent at the Foreign Office, where he championed policies such as support for the League of Nations and disarmament. He later presided over the World Disarmament Conference which met in Geneva in 1932. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1934.

Henderson was known in Labour party ranks as "Uncle Arthur" and was recognized internationally as an "Apostle of Peace." He was respected for his sincere and straightforward ways and throughout his life revealed a great strength of character based upon his strong religious convictions. In 1888 he married Eleanor Watson; they had three sons and one daughter. His family was extremely close and a source of great satisfaction to him. Henderson suffered a heart attack and died on Oct. 20, 1935.

Further Reading

The best biography of Henderson is Mary Agnes Hamilton, Arthur Henderson (1938). Edwin Alfred Jenkins, From Foundry to Foreign Office (1933), is a less complete, journalistic account of his life. Both authors knew Henderson and are sympathetic toward him. For his role in the Labour party, G. D. H. Cole, A History of the Labour Party from 1914 (1948), should be consulted. A perceptive chapter on Henderson's years at the Foreign Office can be found in Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert, eds., The Diplomats, 1919-1939 (1953).

Additional Sources

Carlton, David, MacDonald versus Henderson: the foreign policy of the second Labour Government, New York, Humanities Press, 1970.

Carlton, David, MacDonald versus Henderson: the foreign policy of the second Labour Government, London, Macmillan, 1970.

Leventhal, F. M., Arthur Henderson, Manchester, UK; New York: Manchester University Press; New York: Distributed exclusively in the USA by St. Martin's Press, 1989.

Wrigley, Chris, Arthur Henderson, Cardiff: GPC Books, 1990.

Henderson, Arthur (1863-1935). Labour politician. Brought up on Tyneside and apprenticed as an ironfounder, Henderson, then a Gladstonian Liberal, moved slowly to the view that the political future of the working classes lay in separation from Liberalism. Elected for Barnard Castle under the auspices of the Labour Representation Committee in 1903, Henderson succeeded to the secretaryship of its successor, the Labour Party, in 1911. Unlike Ramsay MacDonald, Henderson approved of the war in 1914; he succeeded MacDonald as leader of the parliamentary Labour party, and in 1915 agreed to serve in Asquith's government, becoming a member of Lloyd George's war cabinet the following year. In 1917 he resigned from the government over his support for a negotiated peace. He was foreign secretary in the second Labour government.

For the 1940s government minister, see Arthur Henderson, Baron Rowley; for other people see Arthur Henderson (disambiguation)

The Right Honourable  Arthur Henderson
Leader of the Opposition
In office 1 September 1931 – 25 October 1932
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Stanley Baldwin
Succeeded by	George Lansbury
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office 7 June 1929 – 24 August 1931
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Austen Chamberlain
Succeeded by	1st Marquess of Reading
Home Secretary
In office 23 January 1924 – 4 November 1924
Prime Minister	Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by	William Bridgeman
Succeeded by	Sir William Joynson-Hicks
Born	13 September 1863 Glasgow, Scotland
Died	20 October 1935 (aged 72) London, England
Political party	Labour

Arthur Henderson (13 September 1863 – 20 October 1935) was a British union leader, politician, disarmament advocate, and the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He served three short terms as the leader of the Labour Party from 1908-10, 1914-17 and 1931-32.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Union leader 3 The Labour Party 4 Cabinet Minister 5 The coupon election and the 1920s 6 Foreign Secretary 7 The MacDonald "betrayal" 8 Later career 9 References 10 External links

Early life

Arthur Henderson was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1863, the son of a textile worker who died when Arthur was only 10 years old. After his father's death, the Hendersons moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England.

Henderson worked in a locomotive factory from the age of 12. After finishing his apprenticeship at seventeen, Arthur Henderson moved to Southampton for a year and then returned to work as an iron moulder (a type of foundryman) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He converted to Methodism (having previously been a Congregationalist) in 1879. This had a major impact on Henderson and he became a Lay preacher. In 1884, Henderson lost his job, and concentrated on his education, and preaching commitments.

Union leader

However by 1892, Henderson had entered the complex world of Trade Union politics, when he was elected as a paid organiser for the Iron Founders Union, and was also a representative on the North East Conciliation Board.

Henderson believed that strikes caused more harm than they were worth, and tried to avoid them whenever he could. For this reason he opposed the formation of the General Federation of Trade Unions, as he was convinced it would lead to more strikes.

The Labour Party

In 1900, Henderson was one of the 129 trade union and socialist delegates, who passed Keir Hardie's motion to create the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), and in 1903, Henderson was elected treasurer of the LRC, and was also elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnard Castle following a by-election.

In 1906, the LRC changed its name to the Labour Party and won 29 seats in the general election of that year (which was a landslide victory for the Liberal Party).

In 1908, when Hardie resigned as Leader of the Labour Party, Henderson was elected to replace him, and was leader for two fairly quiet (from Labour's perspective) years, before resigning in 1910.

Cabinet Minister

In 1914, the First World War broke out, and the then-Labour leader, Ramsay MacDonald, resigned in protest. Henderson was elected to replace him, and in 1915, following Prime Minister Asquith's decision to create a coalition government, became the first member of the Labour Party to become a member of the Cabinet, as President of the Board of Education.

In 1916, David Lloyd George forced Asquith to resign and became Prime Minister. Henderson became a member of the small War Cabinet with the job of Minister without Portfolio. Other labour and union representatives to join Henderson in Lloyd George's coalition government were; John Hodge and George Barnes. John Hodge became Minister of Labour whilst Barnes became Minister of Pensions.^[1] Henderson resigned in August 1917 when his idea for an international conference on the war was voted down by the rest of the cabinet; shortly afterwards he resigned as Labour leader.

The coupon election and the 1920s

Henderson lost his seat in the "coupon election" of December 14, 1918, an election announced within twenty four hours of the end of hostilities in World War I that resulted in a landslide victory for a coalition formed by presiding Prime Minister Lloyd George^[2] Henderson returned to Parliament in 1919 after winning a by-election in Widnes. After his election, he became Labour's chief whip, only to lose his seat in the 1922 general election.

Again, he returned to Parliament via a by-election, this time representing Newcastle East, however he lost this seat in the 1923 general election, but returned to Parliament two months later after winning a by-election in Burnley. He was appointed Home Secretary in the first ever Labour government (led by MacDonald). This government was defeated in 1924, and lost the following election partially because of the Zinoviev letter printed in the right-wing broadsheet the Daily Mail.

Unusually, Henderson was re-elected in 1924, and he refused to challenge MacDonald for the party leadership, despite being apparently begged by other MPs to do just that. Worried about factionalism in the Labour Party, he published a pamphlet called Labour and the Nation, in which he attempted to clarify the Labour Party's goals.

One interesting note is that the Communist Party and its leaders in the USSR, specifically Lenin himself, considered Henderson a dupe and held him and his positions in very low regard. In a 10 February 1922, letter to the Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar Georgy Chicherin in relation to the Genoa Conference, Lenin wrote pejoratively:^[3]

"Henderson is as stupid as Kerensky, and for this reason he is helping us. ...

Furthermore. This is ultrasecret. It suits us that Genoa be wrecked... but not by us, of course. Think this over with Litvinov and Ioffe and drop me a line. Of course, this must not be mentioned even in secret documents. return this to me, and I will burn it. We will get a loan better without Genoa, if we are not the ones that wreck Genoa. We must work out cleverer maneuvers so that we are not the ones that wreck Genoa. For example, the fool Henderson and Co. will help us a lot if we cleverly prod them. ...

Everything is flying apart for "them". It is total bankruptcy (India and so on). We have to push a falling one unexpectedly, not with our hands."

(Emphasis added.) There is no information as to whether Lenin's disparaging comments about Arthur Henderson have some relation to the coining of the phrase "useful idiot".

Foreign Secretary

In 1929, Labour formed another minority government, and MacDonald appointed Henderson as Foreign Secretary, a position Henderson used to try to reduce the tensions that had been building up in Europe since the end of the War. Diplomatic relations were re-established with the USSR and the League of Nations was given Britain's full support. The government was able to function properly, even without a parliamentary majority. However this did not last. The Great Depression plunged the government into a terminal crisis.

The MacDonald "betrayal"

The crisis began in 1931 when a key committee discovered that the budget was facing a serious deficit. This generated a crisis of confidence in the British financial system which threatened the Pound's position on the Gold Standard. The Labour Cabinet agreed that it was essential to maintain the Gold Standard and that the Budget needed to be balanced, but divided seriously over some of the measures proposed. Henderson found himself at the head of a minority of nearly half the Cabinet who could not accept a cut in unemployment benefit. With the Cabinet so clearly divided it decided to resign office. On 24 August 1931 it was announced the MacDonald was forming an emergency National Government with members of all parties in order to tackle the crisis. However the Labour Party repudiated this government, and the National Executive expelled from the party MacDonald and all other Labour members who supported him (Henderson cast the only vote against this). Henderson now became leader of the party as it became ever more hostile to the Government. With the economic and political situation still uncertain, the National Government decided to call a general election, and in the largest landslide in British political history, it won an overwhelming majority. Labour was reduced to just 46 MPs, and yet again Henderson lost his seat. The following year he relinquished the party leadership.

Later career

Henderson returned to Parliament after winning a by-election (Clay Cross), and spent the rest of his life trying to halt the gathering storm of war. He chaired the Geneva Disarmament Conference and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934.

Arthur Henderson died aged 72 in 1935. Two of his sons also became Labour politicians. His second son William was created Baron Henderson in 1945 while his third son Arthur was made Baron Rowley in 1966.

References

1. ^ Hopkins, eric, A Social History of the English Working Classes, 1815-1945, Hodder and Stoughton 1979. p219
2. ^ http://politics.guardian.co.uk/electionspast/story/0,15867,1450370,00.html
3. ^ Handwritten note at the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History, fond 2, opis 2, delo 1,1119. Published as Document 88 in The Unknown Lenin, ed. Richard Pipes, Yale University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-300-06919-7

External links

• Arthur Henderson's contributions in Parliament
• Nobel biography

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Joseph Pease	Member of Parliament for Barnard Castle 1903–1918	Succeeded by John Edmund Swan
Preceded by William Hall Walker	Member of Parliament for Widnes 1919–1922	Succeeded by George Christopher Clayton
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Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald	General Secretary of the Labour Party 1912–1934	Succeeded by James Middleton
Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald	Chairman of the Labour Party 1914–1917	Succeeded by William Adamson
Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald	Treasurer of the Labour Party 1929–1936	Succeeded by Arthur Greenwood
Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald	Leader of the Labour Party 1931–1932	Succeeded by George Lansbury

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