(b. Morley, Yorkshire, 12 Sept. 1852; d. 15 Feb. 1928) British; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1905 – 8, Prime Minister 1908 – 16; Earl 1925 Herbert Asquith was the son of a northern clothing manufacturer. He was educated at the City of London school and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was an academic star and became president of the Union. Like a number of contemporary fellow students he came under the influence of T. H. Green, the Idealist philosopher. He became Liberal MP for East Fife in 1886 and represented it for thirty-four years. Asquith became a successful barrister, and he needed the money because, at an early age, he was left as a widower with five young children to provide for.
Asquith admired Gladstone and supported his stand on Home Rule for Ireland, the issue that split the party in 1886. In Gladstone's final government (1892 – 4) he was made Home Secretary, a remarkable promotion considering his lack of any previous ministerial experience. In the ten-and-a-half years after 1895 in which the party was in opposition he returned to the bar, removing himself from serious consideration for the leadership of a divided Liberal Party.
Along with fellow Liberal Imperialists Grey and Haldane, he was prepared to support the Unionist government's handling of the Boer War, but Campbell-Bannerman, the party leader, opposed it. When the Liberals had the chance to form a new administration in 1905 the three Lib-Imps demanded that Campbell-Bannerman move to the House of Lords and allow Asquith to be leader of the House of Commons and effective leader (the so-called Regulus Compact) Campbell-Bannerman refused and they gave way. In the new government Asquith was made Chancellor of the Exchequer and proved a loyal deputy leader. As Chancellor he provided for old-age pensions in his final 1908 budget.
There was no doubt that Asquith would succeed Campbell-Bannerman when the latter died in office in 1908. He showed great skill in keeping a number of talented and headstrong ministers in line and dealing with a number of explosive issues. He strongly supported Lloyd George's radical budget of 1909, and was resolute in insisting that the House of Lords' powers be clipped after their rejection of the budget. He prevailed upon the King to create peers as a last resort if the Lords would not give way. He also had to face industrial disruption, the violent campaign of the suffragettes, the threat of military insurrection in Ulster, and the approach of war in Europe.
Asquith was a rationalist in politics, believing that it was possible to arrive at decisions as a result of reasonable discussions — reflecting the influence of Green. He therefore had great difficulty in understanding the attitudes and methods of minorities who felt so strongly about an issue that they resorted to violence to gain their way. He would not, for example, concede the suffragette demands of votes for women until they explicitly abandoned violence. He was similarly tough-minded about the threats of Ulster to fight against Home Rule for Ireland and opposed the 1926 General Strike as a threat to the constitution.
As peacetime Prime Minister he strongly supported his colleagues and took a lead on the crises of the time. He produced a bill in 1912 to provide for Irish Home Rule. This was eventually passed in 1914, although suspended for the duration of the war.
Asquith has not been given high marks for his conduct of the First World War. It is true that he was exhausted — as were many of his colleagues. He invited other parties to join a coalition government in 1916 but this did not still criticisms from the Unionists, their press allies, or, in particular, Lloyd George. The latter was made Secretary of State for War but continued to call for a more energetic prosecution of the war, with Asquith as his target. Lloyd George promised dynamism, Asquith seemed to be unassertive.
Lloyd George campaigned for the creation of a small War Cabinet, with Asquith retaining the premiership but playing a subordinate role. When this was refused Lloyd George resigned, precipitating a government crisis, and Asquith resigned later the same day. It is still not clear whether he stepped down because he thought, wrongly, that Unionist Cabinet ministers wanted him to go, or whether he expected to be recalled. But it was Lloyd George who was invited to form a coalition government two days later. The Liberal Party was effectively split, with Asquith remaining the official leader but Lloyd George commanding the support of a large minority.
The profoundly divided Liberal Party did badly in the 1918 general election and Asquith lost his seat. He was returned in 1920 and still led the party. It was largely his decision in the deadlocked parliament in 1924 to support the experiment of the minority Labour government. Asquith and Lloyd George fell out again over the General Strike in 1926 and he resigned the leadership.
In retirement he wrote journalism and his memoirs, not least because he needed the money. His reputation for a time was sullied by revelations of his laid-back conduct of the war and interpretations of it fostered by Lloyd George. He served as Prime Minister for the longest continuous spell for nearly a century and his record was not overtaken by any successor until Margaret Thatcher. His dignified bearing, air of imperturbability, and polished debating style earned him the title of "Last of the Romans".
H. H. Asquith
| Political Biography: Herbert Henry Asquith |
| 5min Related Video: H. H. Asquith |
| Biography: Herbert Henry Asquith |
The English statesman Herbert Henry Asquith, Ist Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852-1928), was prime minister of Great Britain from 1908 to 1916. His government sponsored significant social legislation, restricted the power of the House of Lords, and led Britain into World War I.
Herbert Asquith was born in Morley (near Leeds), Yorkshire, on Sept. 12, 1852, the son of a small employer in wool spinning and weaving. The death of his father when Herbert was 8 years old brought the family under the care of his mother's father, a wool stapler in Huddersfield. There Herbert and his brother, William Willans, went to day school; later they attended a Moravian boarding school in Fulneck. At the age of 11 Herbert was sent to London with his brother to live with relatives and to attend the City of London School, then under a celebrated headmaster, Dr. Edwin Abbott. Young Asquith distinguished himself as a classical scholar and, more pertinent to his ultimate career, displayed remarkable talents as a public speaker. Winner of a classical scholarship, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1870. There he achieved first-class honors in humane letters, served as president of the Oxford Union, and was elected a fellow of Balliol.
The 7-year stipend from the fellowship smoothed his way as a student at Lincoln's Inn, for he chose not classical studies but the law for his career. He was admitted to the bar in 1876. The next year he married Helen Melland, daughter of a prominent Manchester physician, and settled in Hampstead on the edge of London.
Early Political Career
Asquith's law practice developed slowly, and his real ambitions, it soon became clear, were in politics. He entered the House of Commons in 1886 as Liberal member for East Fife, a Scottish constituency which he represented for the next 32 years. His extraordinary maiden speech marked him out for future greatness. His defense (though unsuccessful) in 1888 of R. B. Cunninghame-Graham for unlawful assembly in Trafalgar Square on "Bloody Sunday" and his services (extraordinarily successful) in 1889 as junior counsel for Charles Parnell before the Commission of Enquiry (investigating Parnell's alleged approval of the Phoenix Park murders in Dublin) brought him to public notice. In 1890 he became a queen's counsel.
When William Gladstone and the Liberals returned to power in 1892, Asquith, now 40, was given Cabinet office as home secretary. In a government sharply divided over fundamental issues, he occupied himself largely with departmental details, working out a thoroughly satisfactory arrangement for public meetings in Trafalgar Square and enacting the Factory Act of 1895, which applied new standards of protection in industry. And though the Liberal government went from indifferent success under Gladstone to total failure under Lord Rosebury, Asquith emerged as a future leader of his party.
Asquith's wife had died in 1891, leaving him with five young children. Three years later he married Emma Alice Margaret (Margot) Tennant, daughter of a wealthy landed aristocrat and a woman distinguished in her own right in intellectual and social circles. Brilliant, vivacious, witty, even frivolous, she was a person altogether different from Asquith's first wife, and indeed, to all appearances, from Asquith himself. But it was an aspect of his character that, though serious in politics, for relaxation he preferred feminine company to masculine, especially if accompanied with wit and charm.
Asquith's political prospects seemed dimmed by the long Tory rule from 1895 to 1905; moreover, the Liberal party, already seriously weakened with the defection of the Unionists after 1886, was now almost hopelessly divided by the issues of the Boer War. Asquith, himself a supporter of the war, was often in conflict with Henry Campbell-Bannerman, party leader from 1898. In 1903, however, the Conservatives divided over the tariff issue, and the Liberals, the traditional party of free trade, reunited, with Asquith's oratory an instrument of revival.
Prime Minister
In the Liberal government of 1905 Asquith, as chancellor of the Exchequer, was second in command to Prime Minister Campbell-Bannerman. His extraordinary capacity in the Commons made him a leading spokesman for government policy, and when Campbell-Bannerman resigned in 1908, Asquith's succession to the premiership was a matter of course. The Asquith government represented the transition from Gladstonian liberalism with emphasis upon "Peace, Retrenchment and Reform" to the "New Liberalism" of the 20th century with objectives of social and economic reform. Under Asquith the Liberal party reached the height of its power but also suffered the first stages in its disintegration.
Asquith legislated old age pensions and national insurance against illness, disability, and unemployment. The chief obstacle was the Conservative-dominated House of Lords. Asquith forced the Lords to accept a revolutionary budget to finance pensions as well as dreadnoughts. He went on to attack the veto power of the Lords. The Lords finally gave way, and the Parliament Bill, which sharply restricted the Lords' role in legislation, became law in 1911.
However, the Asquith government was now beset with even more serious problems - the threat of prolonged turmoil in the agitation of "votes for women"; protracted and intense industrial strife, often syndicalist in spirit; and the possibility of mutiny in Ulster, supported by the Conservatives and the military in England, in opposition to imminent Irish home rule. Asquith's qualities as advocate and orator were now ineffective. They could not mask his lack of any clear philosophy of government, his failure of positive leadership, and his "wait and see" attitude.
In August 1914 the Asquith government declared Britain's entry into World War I, despite the traditional Liberal adherence to peace. Asquith's ineffectiveness as a war prime minister led to the formation of a coalition Cabinet in 1915. In December 1916 the Cabinet forced Asquith's resignation; he was replaced as prime minister by David Lloyd George. Neither the Liberal party nor Asquith ever recovered from this crisis.
Last Years
Lloyd George led the coalition until 1922 but with Liberals in Parliament divided between his adherents and those of Asquith. In the election of 1918 the Asquith Liberals were reduced to 33, and Asquith himself was not reelected. In 1920, however, he returned to the Commons; while he was greeted by enthusiastic crowds in the streets, his reappearance in the Commons chamber brought only a "thin cheer." But it was now Lloyd George who was discredited, and the Liberals, under Asquith, made considerable recovery, although remaining less powerful than the Conservatives and Labour in the House of Commons.
In January 1924 Asquith refused overtures from the Conservatives for a new coalition, and with his support the first Labour government was formed. But later in the year the Conservatives returned to power, and Asquith again lost his seat. In 1925 he was created 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith. Some reconciliation came within the Liberal party but very little between Asquith and Lloyd George, now the chairman of the small parliamentary party. Asquith resigned his titular party leadership in 1926. Soon after, his health failed, and he died on Feb. 15, 1928.
Further Reading
Asquith told his own story in Memories and Reflections, 1852-1927 (2 vols., 1928), and Margot Asquith hers in An Autobiography (2 vols., 1920). There are two good biographies of Asquith: J. A. Spender and Cyril Asquith, Life of Herbert Henry Asquith, Lord Oxford and Asquith (2 vols., 1932), is more detailed but less objective than Roy Jenkins, Asquith (1978, 1964). Both are based on the Asquith papers now in the Bodleian at Oxford. See also Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries (1937), and for background Trevor Wilson, The Downfall of the Liberal Party, 1914-1935 (1966).
Additional Sources
Koss, Stephen E., Asquith, New York: Columbia University Press, 1985, 1976; St. Martin's Press, 1976.
Levine, Naomi B., Politics, Religion, and Love: the story of H.H. Asquith, Venetia Stanley, and Edwin Montagu, based on the life and letters of Edwin Samuel Montagu, New York: New York University Press, 1991.
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: H(erbert) H(enry) Asquith, 1st earl of Oxford and Asquith |
For more information on H(erbert) H(enry) Asquith, 1st earl of Oxford and Asquith, visit Britannica.com.
| British History: Herbert Henry Asquith |
Asquith, Herbert Henry, 1st earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852-1928). Prime minister. Between 1908 and 1914 Asquith enjoyed an outstanding record, pushing through a series of major constitutional and social reforms. But he had less success as a wartime premier from 1914 to 1916, and his reputation declined during the undignified period of infighting within the Liberal Party from 1918 to 1926.
Asquith's early life was spent in Morley and Huddersfield where his relatives were minor employers in the woollen trade. He soon left these modest origins behind and advanced by means of a scholarship to Balliol College (1870), to the bar, and to a safe seat in Parliament—East Fife—which he held from 1885 to 1918. His first wife Helen, by whom he had five children, died in 1891, and when he remarried in 1894 it was to a very different character, Margot Tennant, the daughter of a wealthy Scots chemicals magnate. Margot was a terrible snob who insisted on calling her husband Henry not Herbert, and described him as ‘incorrigibly middle-class’.
Though his attendance at Westminster was restricted by the need to maintain his legal income, Asquith's abilities were quickly recognized. His systematic working habits and skill in mastering a brief made him a formidable parliamentarian. In 1892 Gladstone gave him the vital experience as home secretary which placed him in line for the premiership. Subsequently, however, Asquith's career entered the doldrums for a time. In 1898 he declined the chance to lead the Liberals in the Commons, largely for financial reasons. Worse, Asquith became associated with the Liberal Imperialist cause during the South African War which detached him from the mainstream of the party. However, between 1903 and 1905 he worked his passage back into favour by championing free trade against the protectionism propagated by Joseph Chamberlain. When offered the Exchequer in December 1905 he quickly accepted.
Asquith proved to be one of the most important, innovative chancellors of modern times. He made it compulsory to provide an annual return of income to the Inland Revenue; he drew up the scheme for non-contributory old-age pensions; and he prepared the ground for the ‘People's Budget’ of 1909 by forcing the Treasury to abandon its opposition to a supertax on incomes above £5, 000.
When Campbell-Bannerman retired in 1908 Asquith seemed to be the natural successor as prime minister. He presided over a highly talented cabinet, and was never afraid to promote able and ambitious men like Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. As premier Asquith played a key role in supporting Lloyd George's 1909 budget against criticism in the cabinet. As a result of the ensuing controversy he led the Liberals through two general elections in 1910 and ultimately resolved the problem that had hampered them since Gladstone's days; the 1911 Parliament Act curtailed the powers of the House of Lords and excluded it altogether from financial legislation.
The outbreak of war brought further proof of Asquith's skills. Against expectations he succeeded in taking his cabinet to war with only two resignations. But his cold, legalistic temperament was not well suited to the emotional atmosphere of wartime. Asquithian cabinets—during which the prime minister often wrote long letters to Venetia Stanley, a young woman with whom he was infatuated—were protracted and inconclusive. But he was unlucky that neither the generals nor the admirals proved capable of scoring a military victory. His decision to form a coalition government with the Conservative and Labour parties in May 1915 was the beginning of the end for Asquith. Increasingly the Liberals began to blame him for right-wing policies like conscription. When presented with an ultimatum by Bonar Law and Lloyd George in December 1916, he misjudged his strength by resigning. The result was a new coalition under Lloyd George and a split in the Liberal party. This led to the disastrous ‘coupon’ election in 1918 in which Asquith lost his seat and the Liberals were displaced by Labour on the opposition front bench. Though he achieved a comeback by winning a by-election at Paisley in 1920, he was by then a negative force, intent upon keeping the party out of the hands of Lloyd George. He finally surrendered the leadership in 1926.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st earl of Oxford and Asquith |
In the next six years Asquith's government put through an advanced program of social welfare legislation, including old-age pensions (1908) and unemployment insurance (1911). It also embarked on a program of naval expansion to match Germany's. To finance both programs, Asquith's chancellor of the exchequer, David Lloyd George, introduced (1909) a radical budget that was rejected by the House of Lords. This caused a constitutional crisis. After two general elections (Jan. and Dec., 1910), Asquith secured passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, which stripped the House of Lords of its veto power (see Parliament). In 1912, Asquith renewed Liberal efforts to establish Irish Home Rule, a course that provoked a violent reaction from Protestants in Ulster, who were firmly supported by the Conservative party. Ireland appeared to be on the verge of civil war but the outbreak (1914) of World War I forestalled it.
Having brought Great Britain into the war, Asquith proved a less than successful wartime leader. In 1915 he formed a coalition government with the Conservatives, but conflicts within the cabinet, continued reverses in the field, and a virulent campaign waged against him by the newspapers of Lord Northcliffe made his position increasingly difficult. At the end of 1916 a complicated intrigue on the part of Lloyd George and the Conservative leaders resulted in Asquith's resignation. He remained leader of the declining Liberal party until 1926, having been raised to the peerage in 1925.
Asquith's second wife, Margot (Tennant) Asquith, countess of Oxford and Asquith, 1864-1945, whom he married in 1894, was prominent in London society and noted for her wit. Her frank autobiography (1920-22) created a minor sensation. She wrote a novel and several volumes of personal reminiscence, including Places and Persons (1925), More Memories (1933), and Off the Record (1944).
Bibliography
See his Occasional Addresses, 1893-1916 (1918, repr. 1969), Speeches (1927); biographies of him by J. A. Spender and C. Asquith (2 vol., 1932), R. Jenkins (1964, repr. 1986), and N. Levine (1991).
| Wikipedia: H. H. Asquith |
| The Right Honourable The Earl of Oxford and Asquith KG KC PC |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|---|---|
| In office 5 April 1908 – 5 December 1916 |
|
| Monarch | Edward VII George V |
| Preceded by | Henry Campbell-Bannerman |
| Succeeded by | David Lloyd George |
|
|
|
| In office 10 December 1905 – 12 April 1908 |
|
| Prime Minister | Henry Campbell-Bannerman |
| Preceded by | Austen Chamberlain |
| Succeeded by | David Lloyd George |
|
|
|
| In office 18 August 1892 – 25 June 1895 |
|
| Prime Minister | William Gladstone |
| Preceded by | Henry Matthews |
| Succeeded by | Matthew Ridley |
|
Member of Parliament
for East Fife |
|
| In office 27 July 1886 – 14 December 1918 |
|
| Preceded by | John Boyd Kinnear |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Sprot |
|
|
|
| Born | 12 September 1852 Morley, Leeds, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 15 February 1928 (aged 75) Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Political party | Liberal |
| Spouse(s) | Helen Melland (desc.) Margot Tennant |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford, England |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Congregationalist |
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928) served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the longest-serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century until early 1988, when his record was surpassed by Margaret Thatcher.
His premiership is notable for major social changes, for example National Insurance and pensions. He was the Prime Minister during the first two years of World War I before he was replaced by David Lloyd George in 1916.
Before his term as Prime Minister he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1905 to 1908 and as Home Secretary from 1892 to 1895.
During his lifetime he was known as H. H. Asquith before his accession to the peerage and as Lord Oxford afterwards.
Contents |
Childhood, education and legal career
He was born in Morley, West Yorkshire, England to Joseph Dixon Asquith (10 February 1825 - 29 March 1860) and his wife Emily Willans (4 May 1828 - 12 December 1888). The Asquiths were a middle class family and members of the Congregational church. Joseph was a wool merchant and came to own his own wool mill.
Herbert was seven years old when his father died. Emily and her children moved to the house of her father William Willans, a wool-stapler of Huddersfield. Herbert received schooling there and was later sent to a Moravian Church boarding school at Fulneck, near Leeds. In 1863, Herbert was sent to live with an uncle in London, where he entered the City of London School. He was educated there until 1870 and mentored by its headmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott.
In 1870, Asquith won a classical scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1874, Asquith was awarded the Craven scholarship. Despite the unpopularity of the Liberals during the dying days of Gladstone's First Government, he became president of the Oxford Union in the Trinity (summer) term of his fourth year. He graduated that year and soon was elected a fellow at Balliol. Meanwhile he entered Lincoln's Inn as a pupil barrister and for a year served a pupillage under Charles Bowen.
He was called to the bar in 1876 and became prosperous in the early 1880s from practising at the chancery bar. Among other cases he appeared for the defence in the famous case of Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co.[1] Asquith took silk and was appointed QC in 1890. It was at Lincoln's Inn that in 1882 Asquith met R.B. Haldane, whom he would appoint as Lord Chancellor in 1912.
Name
In his younger days he was called Herbert within the family, but his second wife called him Henry; his biographer Stephen Koss entitled the first chapter of his biography "From Herbert to Henry", referring to upward social mobility and his abandonment of his Yorkshire Nonconformist roots with his second marriage. However, in public he was invariably referred to only as H. H. Asquith. "There have been few major national figures whose Christian names were less well known to the public," writes his biographer, Roy Jenkins.[2] His opponents gave him the nickname "Squiff" or "Squiffy", a derogatory reference to his fondness for drink.[3]
When raised to the peerage in 1925, he proposed to take the title "Earl of Oxford" for the city near which he lived and the university he had attended. Objections were raised, especially by descendants of Earls of Oxford of previous creations (titles by then extinct, eg. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, a leading Tory statesman of Queen Anne's reign), and his title was given in the form Earl of Oxford and Asquith. In practice, however, he was known as Lord Oxford, which some wags said was "like a suburban villa calling itself 'Versailles'."
Marriages
He married Helen Kelsall Melland, daughter of a Manchester doctor, in 1877, and they had four sons and one daughter before she died from typhoid fever in 1891. These children were Raymond (1878-1916), Herbert (1881-1947), Arthur (1883–1939), Violet (1887-1969), and Cyril (1890-1954). Of these children, Violet and Cyril became life peers in their own right, Cyril becoming a law lord.
In 1894, he married Margot Tennant, a daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Bt.. They had two children, Elizabeth Charlotte Lucy (later Princess Antoine Bibesco) (1897-1945) and the film director Anthony (1902-1968).
In 1912, Asquith fell in love with Venetia Stanley, and his romantic obsession with her continued into 1915, when she married Edwin Montagu, a Liberal Cabinet Minister; a volume of Asquith's letters to Venetia, often written during Cabinet meetings and describing political business in some detail, has been published, but it is not known whether or not their relationship was sexually consummated.
All his children, except Anthony, married and left issue. His best-known descendant today is the actress Helena Bonham Carter, a granddaughter of Violet.
Early political career (1886-1908)
Asquith was elected to Parliament in 1886 as the Liberal representative for East Fife, in Scotland. He never served as a junior minister, but achieved his first significant post in 1892 when he became Home Secretary in the fourth cabinet of Gladstone. He retained his position when Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery took over in 1894. The Liberals lost power in the 1895 general election and for ten years were in opposition. In 1898 he was offered and turned down the opportunity to lead the Liberal Party, then deeply divided and unpopular, preferring to use the opportunity to earn money as a barrister.
During Asquith's period as deputy to the new leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, "C. B." was known to request his presence in parliamentary debate by saying, "Send for the sledge-hammer," referring to Asquith's reliable command of facts and his ability to dominate verbal exchange. Asquith toured the country refuting the arguments of Joseph Chamberlain, who had resigned from the Cabinet to campaign for tariffs against imported goods.
After the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour fell in December 1905 there was some speculation that Asquith and his allies Haldane and Sir Edward Grey would refuse to serve unless Campbell-Bannerman accepted a peerage, which would have left Asquith as the real leader in the House of Commons. However, the plot (called the "Relugas Compact" after the Scottish lodge where the men met) collapsed when Asquith agreed to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Grey became Foreign Secretary and Haldane Secretary of State for War). The party won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election.
Asquith demonstrated his staunch support of free trade at the Exchequer. He also introduced the first of the so-called Liberal reforms, including the first old age pensions, but was not as successful as his successor David Lloyd George in getting reforms through Parliament as the House of Lords still had a veto over legislation at that stage.
Campbell-Bannerman resigned due to illness in April 1908 (dying at 10 Downing Street soon afterwards, as he was too sick to move) and Asquith succeeded him as Prime Minister. The King, Edward VII, was holidaying in Biarritz, and refused to return to London, citing health grounds.[4] Asquith was forced to travel to Biarritz for the official "kissing of hands" of the Monarch, the only time a British Prime Minister has formally taken office on foreign soil.
Prime Minister (1908-1916)
Liberal reforms
The Asquith government became involved in an expensive naval arms race with the German Empire and began an extensive social welfare programme (See Liberal reforms). The social welfare programme proved controversial, and Asquith's government faced severe (and sometimes barely legal) resistance from the Conservative Party. This came to a head in 1909, when David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, produced a deliberately provocative "People's Budget". The Conservatives, determined to stop passage, used their majority in the House of Lords to reject the bill. The Lords did not traditionally interfere with finance bills and their actions thus provoked a constitutional crisis, forcing the country to a general election in January 1910.
The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Liberals having two more seats than the Conservatives, but lacking an overall majority. The Liberals formed a minority government with the support of the Irish Nationalists.
At this point the Lords now allowed the budget — for which the Liberals had obtained an electoral mandate — to pass, but the argument had moved on. The radical solution in this situation was to threaten to have King Edward VII pack the House of Lords with freshly-minted Liberal peers, who would override the Lords' veto. With the Conservatives remaining recalcitrant in spring of 1910 (as the Lords' veto had prevented the Liberals from granting Irish Home Rule in 1893), Asquith began contemplating such an option. King Edward VII agreed to do so, after another general election, but died on 6 May 1910 (so heated had passions become that Asquith was accused of having "Killed the King" through stress). His son, King George V, was reluctant to have his first act in office be the carrying out of such a drastic attack on the aristocracy and it required all of Asquith's considerable powers to convince him to make the promise. This the King finally did before the second election of 1910, in December, although Asquith did not make this promise public at the time.
The Liberals again won, though their majority in the Commons was now dependent on MPs from Ireland, who had their own price (at the Election the Liberal and Conservative parties were exactly equal in size; by 1914 the Conservative Party was actually larger owing to by-election victories). Nonetheless, Asquith was able to curb the powers of the House of Lords through the Parliament Act 1911, which essentially broke the power of the House of Lords. The Lords could now delay for two years, but not defeat outright, a bill passed by the Commons (this would later be reduced further by the Attlee government in the late 1940s, so the Lords would be obliged to accept a bill which had been passed three times in the same parliamentary session).
World War I
The price of Irish support in this effort was the Third Irish Home Rule Bill, which Asquith delivered in legislation in 1912. Asquith's efforts over Irish Home Rule nearly provoked a civil war in Ireland over Ulster, only averted by the outbreak of a European war. Ulster Protestants, who wanted no part of a semi-independent Ireland, formed armed volunteer bands. British army officers (the so-called Curragh Mutiny) threatened to resign rather than move against Ulstermen whom they saw as loyal British subjects; Asquith was forced to take on the job of Secretary of State for War himself on the resignation of the incumbent, Seeley. The legislation for Irish Home Rule was due to come into effect, allowing for the two-year delay under the Parliament Act — in 1914 - by which time the Cabinet were discussing allowing the six predominantly Protestant counties of Ulster to opt out of the arrangement, which was ultimately suspended owing to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
Asquith declared war on the German Empire on 4 August 1914 in response to the German invasion of Belgium, as the 1839 Treaty of London had committed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to guard Belgium's neutrality in the event of invasion, and secret talks since 1905, to which most of the Cabinet were not privy, had committed Britain to sending an Expeditionary Force to help France.
Asquith headed the Liberal government into the war. Only two Cabinet Ministers (John Morley and John Burns) resigned. At first the dominant figures in the management of the war were Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) and the eminent Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, who had taken over the War Office from Asquith himself.
However following a Cabinet split on 25 May 1915, caused by the Shell Crisis (or sometimes dubbed 'The Great Shell Shortage') and the failed offensive at the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli, Asquith became head of a new coalition government, bringing senior figures from the Opposition into the Cabinet. At first the Coalition was seen as a political masterstroke, as the Conservative leader Bonar Law was given a relatively minor job (Secretary for the Colonies), whilst former Conservative leader A.J.Balfour was given the Admiralty (replacing Churchill, who was detested as a renegade by most Conservatives) and Kitchener, popular with the public, was stripped of his powers over munitions (given to a new ministry under Lloyd George) and strategy (given to the Generals Haig and Robertson, a move which stored up trouble for the future as they were now under little political control).
Asquith's perceived lack of vigour over the conduct of the war dissatisfied certain Liberals and the Conservative Party. On Whit Monday 1916 Bonar Law travelled to Asquith's home — the Wharf, at Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire — to discuss the succession to the job of Secretary of State for War (Kitchener had just drowned on a trip to Russia — Asquith offered the job to Bonar Law, who declined as he had already agreed with Lloyd George that the latter should have the job), and later told Max Aitken that he had been kept waiting whilst Asquith finished playing bridge with three ladies, although Asquith's daughter Violet later denied that this had been so. Women's Rights activists also turned against him, when he adopted the 'Business as Usual' policy at the beginning of the war, while the introduction of conscription was unpopular with Liberals. Opponents partially blamed a series of political and military disasters, including the 1916 Battle of the Somme, at which Asquith's son Raymond was killed, and the Easter Rising in Ireland (April 1916) on Asquith.
David Lloyd George, who had become Secretary of State for War but found himself frustrated by the reduced powers of that role, now campaigned with the support of the press baron Lord Northcliffe, to be made chairman of a small committee to manage the war. Asquith at first accepted, on condition that the committee report to him daily and that he was allowed to attend if he chose, but then — furious at a "Times" editorial which made it clear that he was being sidelined — withdrew his consent unless he was allowed to chair the committee personally.
At this point Lloyd George resigned, and on 5 December 1916, no longer enjoying the support of the press or of leading Conservatives, Asquith himself resigned, declining to serve under any other Prime Minister (Balfour or Bonar Law having been mooted as potential new leaders of the coalition), possibly (although his motives are unclear) in the mistaken belief that nobody else would be able to form a government. After Bonar Law declined to form a government, citing Asquith's refusal to serve under him as a reason, Lloyd George became head of the coalition two days later — and, in accordance with his recent demands, heading a much smaller War Cabinet.
Later life (1916-1928)
Asquith, along with most leading Liberals, refused to serve in the new government. He remained leader of the Liberal Party after 1916, but found it hard to conduct an official opposition in wartime. The Liberal Party finally split openly at the Maurice Debate in 1918, at which Lloyd George was accused (almost certainly correctly[citation needed] ) of hoarding manpower in the UK to prevent Haig from launching any fresh offensives (eg. Passchendaele, 1917), thus avoiding heavy British casualties but also contributing to the general Allied weakness during the resultant successful German offensives of spring 1918. Lloyd George survived the debate.
In 1918 Asquith declined an offer of the job of Lord Chancellor as this would have meant retiring from active politics in the House of Commons. By this time Asquith had become very unpopular with the public (as Lloyd George was perceived to have "won the war" by displacing him) and, along with most leading Liberals lost his seat in the 1918 elections, at which the Liberals split into Asquith and Lloyd George factions. Asquith was not opposed by a Coalition candidate, but the local Conservative Association eventually put up a candidate against him, who despite being refused the "Coupon" - the official endorsement given by Lloyd George and Bonar Law to Coalition candidates — defeated Asquith. Asquith returned to the House of Commons in a 1920 by-election in Paisley.
After Lloyd George ceased to be Prime Minister in late 1922, the two Liberal factions enjoyed an uneasy truce, which was deepened in late 1923 when Stanley Baldwin called an election on the issue of tariffs, which had been a major cause of the Liberal landslide of 1906. The election resulted in a hung Parliament, with the Liberals in third place behind Labour. Asquith played a major role in putting the minority Labour government of January 1924 into office, elevating Ramsay MacDonald to the Prime Ministership.
Asquith again lost his seat in the 1924 election held after the fall of the Labour government — at which the Liberals were reduced to the status of a minor party with only 40 or so MPs. In 1925 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Asquith of Morley in the West Riding of the County of York and Earl of Oxford and Asquith. Lloyd George succeeded him as chairman of the Liberal Members of Parliament, but Asquith remained head of the party until 1926, when Lloyd George, who had quarrelled with Asquith once again over whether or not to support the General Strike (Asquith supported the government), succeeded him in that position as well.
In 1894 Asquith was elected a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and in served as Treasurer in 1920. In 1925 Asquith was nominated for the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford, but lost to Viscount Cave in a contest dominated by party political feeling, and despite the support of his former political enemy the Earl of Birkenhead. On 6 November 1925 he was made a Freeman of Huddersfield.
Asquith's death and descendants
Towards the end of his life Asquith was confined to a wheelchair by a stroke. He died at his country home The Wharf, Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire[5] in 1928. Margot died in 1945. They are both buried at All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay (now in Oxfordshire); Asquith requested that there should be no public funeral.
Asquith's estate was probated at £9,345 on 9 June 1928 (about £400 thousand today),[6] a modest amount for so prominent a man. In the 1880s and 1890s he had earned a handsome income as a barrister, but in later years had found it increasingly difficult to sustain his lavish lifestyle, and his mansion at Cavendish Square had had to be sold in the 1920s.
Asquith had five children by his first wife Helen, and five by his second wife Margot, but only his elder five children and two of his five younger children survived birth and infancy.
His eldest son Raymond Asquith was killed at the Somme in 1916, and thus the peerage passed to Raymond's only son Julian, now 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith (born in 1916, only a few months before his grandfather's resignation as Prime Minister).
His only daughter by his first wife, Violet (later Violet Bonham-Carter), became a well-regarded writer and a life peeress (as Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury in her own right). His fourth son Sir Cyril, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone (1890-1954) became a Law Lord. His second and third sons married well, the poet Herbert Asquith (1881-1947) (who is often confused with his father) married the daughter of an Earl and Brigadier-General Arthur Asquith (1883-1939) married the daughter of a baron.
His two children by Margot were Elizabeth (later Princess Antoine Bibesco), a writer, and Anthony Asquith, a film-maker whose productions included The Browning Version and The Winslow Boy.
Among his living descendants are his great-granddaughter, the actress Helena Bonham Carter (b. 1966); and his great-grandson, Dominic Asquith, British Ambassador to Egypt since December 2007. Another leading British actress, Anna Chancellor (b. 1965), is also a descendant, being Herbert Asquith's great-great-granddaughter on her mother's side.
Asquith's Governments
- First Asquith ministry (1908–1915)
- Second Asquith ministry (1915–1916)
- Liberal Government 1905-1915
- Coalition Government 1915-1916
References
- ^ Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company [1892] EWCA Civ 1; [1893] 1 QB 256
- ^ Roy Jenkins, Asquith (New York: Dutton, 1966), p. 13
- ^ "The politics of drinking in power". BBC News. 2006-01-06. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4587382.stm. Retrieved 2008-08-09.
- ^ It is now known he was enjoying the company of his mistress Alice Keppel
- ^ A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe
- ^ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Measuring Worth: UK CPI.
Further reading
- H.H. Asquith, H.H.A.: Letters of the Earl of Oxford and Asquith to a Friend (2 vols) (Geoffrey Bles, 1933-4)
- H.H. Asquith, ed. Michael and Eleanor Brock, Letters to Venetia Stanley (Oxford University Press, 1982)
- Margot Asquith, Autobiography (2 vols) (Thornton Butterworth, 1920-2)
- Colin Clifford, The Asquiths (John Murray, 2002)
- Roy Jenkins, Asquith (Collins, 1964, revised edition 1978)
- Lord Oxford and Asquith, Fifty Years in Parliament (2 vols) (Cassell, 1926)
- Lord Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Recollections (2 vols) (Cassell, 1928)
- J.A. Spender and Cyril Asquith, Life of Lord Oxford and Asquith (2 vols) (Hutchinson, 1932)
See also
- Asquith family for a partial list of his descendants
External links
 |
Wikisource has original works written by or about: H. H. Asquith |
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: H. H. Asquith |
- Herbert Asquith's contributions in Parliament
- Bodleian Library catalogue of H.H.Asquith's private papers
- Bodleian Library catalogue of Margot Asquith's private papers
- Bodleian Library catalogue of Lady Violet Bonham Carter's private papers
- Extended entry in the 1937 Dictionary of National Biography
- Asquith biography from BBC History
- Asquith entry in Encyclopedia Britannica
- Herbert Asquith at Find-A-Grave
- Archival material relating to H. H. Asquith listed at the UK National Register of Archives
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
 | Liberal League |
| Cressida Ridley (in archaeology) |
| Maurice De Bunsen |
 | What does the H as in h-hour stand for? Read answer... |
| What is H? Read answer... |
| What is the H? Read answer... |
 | Why didnt davy crockett spend more time with his family h hhhh h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h? |
| Why didnt davy crockett spend more time with his family h hhhh h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h? |
| How is h h h after backlash? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | Political Biography. A Dictionary of Political Biography. Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "H. H. Asquith". Read more |
- What is H?
- What is the H?
- What is an h?
- Who is h--?
- What is A H?
- What does h?
- What does the H in H-Hour stand for?
- 4 c in a h h?
- 30 M in a H H?
- How is h h h after backlash?
- What does H H H mean?
- H the H?
- Do you h?
- Who is H?
- What is H H H?
- Why is h?
- What after h?
- Why does h?
Mentioned in
