Andrew Bonar Law

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{{Infobox PM 

| name=The Rt Hon Andrew Bonar Law
| image=bonar_law.jpg
| country=the United Kingdom
| term=October, 1922 – May, 1923
| before=David Lloyd George
| after=Stanley Baldwin
| date_birth=September 16, 1858
| place_birth=Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada
| date_death=30 October 1923
| place_death=London
| party=Conservative

}} The Right Honourable Andrew Bonar Law (September 16, 1858–October 30, 1923) was a Conservative British statesman and Prime Minister.

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Early life

Of Ulster Scots and Scottish descent, Andrew Bonar Law was born in Rexton, a small village in eastern New Brunswick, Canada. He was the son of the Reverend James Law and Elizabeth Kidston.

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 and then at Glasgow High School.

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.

He read omnivorously, but had a particular fondness for Dickens, Carlyle, Disraeli and Gibbon. He also became a chess player of the first rank.

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 Robley, 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.

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Parliament

He was elected to Parliament for Glasgow Blackfriars and Hutchesontown as a Conservative in 1900. He associated himself with the Protectionist wing of the party led by Joseph Chamberlain, (more correctly until 1912 the associated but separate Liberal Unionist Party), and after Chamberlain withdrew from politics in 1906, Law came to lead that wing of the party along with Chamberlain's son, Austen. 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 in the Liberal landslide 1906 General Election, but he returned to represent Dulwich following a by-election later in the same year. Though hit hard by the death of his wife, he continued his political career.

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Conservative Leader

Arthur Balfour resigned the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1911 amid widespread dissatisfaction with his actions over the Parliament Act, which had eliminated the veto of the House of Lords. Following a deadlock between Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long Bonar Law was elected Leader as a compromise candidate. Law's closest associate was his fellow Canadian, newspaper mogul William Maxwell Aitken (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, which he furiously opposed along with much of his party.

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The Great War

He entered the Coalition government as Colonial Secretary in 1915. Following the resignation of Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Herbert Asquith, King George V asked Bonar Law to form a government but he deferred to the new Liberal leader Lloyd George, whom he believed was better placed to be able 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.

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Post War and Prime Minister

Image:Andrew-Bonar-Law-arms.PNG 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 favor of Austen Chamberlain. His departure weakened the hardliners in the cabinet who were opposed to negotiating with the IRA, and the Anglo-Irish War ended in the summer. He returned in October 1922 to become Prime Minister when Tory backbenchers led by Stanley Baldwin forced the Conservatives to leave Lloyd George's coalition as a result of the complete failure of the Lloyd George government's policies in Turkey (the Chanak Crisis) He was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer and resigned in May of 1923. George V sent for Baldwin, whom Bonar Law is rumored to have favoured over Lord Curzon, although whether this advice was communicated to the king is unknown. Bonar Law died of cancer later that same year in London at the age of 65.

Bonar Law's estate was probated at 35,736 pounds sterling.

Bonar Law is often referred to as "the unknown Prime Minister", not least because of a biography of that title by Robert Blake. He was certainly the shortest serving PM of the twentieth century, but this should not undermine the legacy of his policies or his various limited judgements in office.

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Bonar Law's Government, October 1922 - May 1923

For a full list of Ministerial office holders, see Conservative Government 1922-1924

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Changes

  • April 1923 - Griffith-Boscawen resigns as Minister of Health after losing his seat and is succeeded by Neville Chamberlain.
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Reference

  • Blake, Robert The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1893-1923, 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.

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