Asquith, H H, 1st Earl Of Oxford And Asquith, Viscount Asquith Of Morley

Asquith, H H, 1st Earl Of Oxford And Asquith, Viscount Asquith Of Morley

▪ prime minister of United Kingdom
born Sept. 12, 1852, Morley, Yorkshire, Eng.
died Feb. 15, 1928, Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire
 Liberal prime minister of Great Britain (1908–16), who was responsible for the Parliament Act of 1911, limiting the power of the House of Lords, and who led Britain during the first two years of World War I.

      Asquith was the second son of Joseph Asquith, a small businessman in the wool trade and an ardent Congregationalist, who died in 1860. Asquith was educated at the City of London School from 1863 to 1870, when he won a classical scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford. At Balliol he obtained the highest academic honours, and he became a fellow of his college in 1874. Deciding upon a legal career, he entered Lincoln's Inn and was called to the bar in 1876. The following year he married Helen Melland, daughter of a Manchester doctor. His early days at the bar were difficult, but from about 1883 onward he became highly successful.

      A keen Liberal, Asquith entered the House of Commons for East Fife in 1886 and remained its member for 32 years. He commanded the attention of the House from the first, concentrating particularly upon the Irish question. In 1888 he achieved celebrity as junior counsel for the Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell (Parnell, Charles Stewart), when Parnell was accused, before a parliamentary commission, of condoning political murder. In 1892 Prime Minister William Gladstone made Asquith home secretary. Before that, in 1891, his wife had died of typhoid fever, leaving him with a family of young children. Less than three years later he astounded the social and political world by marrying Margot Tennant, who was 12 years younger and the centre of social and intellectual circles far removed from those in which Asquith and his first wife had moved.

      His three years as home secretary, though in general an unhappy period for the Liberals (Liberal Party), established Asquith's reputation as an administrator and a debater. By 1895 he had become one of the leading figures of his party. Defeated at the polls, the party spent the next 11 years in opposition. Asquith earned during this time a large income at the bar, but the lack of any private means obliged him to refuse the party leadership when it was offered to him in 1898, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry) succeeded instead. Asquith did not see eye to eye with the new leader on all questions of foreign and imperial policy. Their divergence became open and public during the South African War (1899–1902), when Asquith, along with Lord Rosebery, Sir Edward Grey, and R.B. Haldane, formed the Liberal League to advocate an imperial policy in support of the government's expansionism. The conflict was temporarily healed after the end of the war, and, following the Liberals' victory at the polls in 1906, Asquith served as chancellor of the Exchequer under Campbell-Bannerman.

      Early in April 1908 Campbell-Bannerman resigned and died some days later. Asquith, generally regarded as his inevitable successor, became prime minister and was to hold the office for nearly nine years. He appointed David Lloyd George (Lloyd George, David) to the Exchequer and made Winston Churchill president of the Board of Trade. The chief problem confronting him at home was the opposition of the House of Lords (Lords, House of) to Liberal reforms, and the consequent danger of a rebellion from the frustrated radicals in his own party; abroad there was a growing naval competition with Germany. When Lloyd George endeavoured to raise money for naval increases and social services in his “radical budget” of 1909, the budget was vetoed by the House of Lords.

      At this stage Asquith took over the conduct of a constitutional struggle. In 1910 he announced a plan to limit the powers of the House of Lords and, after two general elections, persuaded King George V to threaten to create enough new pro-reform peers to swamp the opposition in that chamber. The resulting Parliament Act, passed in August 1911, ended the Lords' veto power over financial legislation passed by the House of Commons.

      The three years between this episode and the outbreak of World War I were extremely harassing for Asquith. Abroad, the international situation deteriorated rapidly; at home, controversy was caused by charges of corruption in his government, the disestablishment of the Anglican church in Wales (1914), and the conflict between Home Rulers and Unionists in Ireland, which nearly led to civil war in 1914. Asquith's policies did little to improve the situation in Ireland.

      Though convinced that a German victory over France would be disastrous to the British Empire, Asquith delayed Britain's entry into World War I until public opinion had been aroused by the German attack on Belgium. In war, he trusted his military experts and in general favoured the view that victory could be won only on the Western Front.

      In May 1915 Asquith had to reconstruct his cabinet on a coalition basis, admitting Unionists as well as Liberals, and appointing Lloyd George minister of munitions. The coalition was not successful under his leadership. The Dardanelles expedition failed, and there was no sign of a breakthrough on the Western Front. At the end of 1915 Asquith substituted Sir Douglas Haig for Sir John French as British commander in chief in France and appointed Sir William Robertson as the new chief of the imperial general staff. But 1916 was an even unhappier year: the Easter Rising in Dublin caused a grave domestic crisis, and the Battle of the Somme resulted in terrible British losses on the Western Front. After a protracted struggle, conscription was belatedly introduced. But there was a general aura of dissatisfaction by the autumn, and Asquith was assailed by a strident press campaign. In December he resigned and was replaced by Lloyd George. He never held office again, though he remained leader of the Liberal Party until 1926. In this capacity he often opposed the policies of his successor.

      Asquith accepted a peerage as Earl of Oxford and Asquith in 1925 and was created a knight of the garter shortly afterward. In the last years of his life he was relatively impoverished and wrote a number of books to make money, the best known being The Genesis of the War (1923), Fifty Years of Parliament (1926), and Memories and Reflections (1928).

      Asquith was a competent statesman, but not a great one. He had no original or innovating genius and lacked the sense of the dramatic needed to convince Britain that it was in good hands in a time of national crisis.

Robert Norman William Blake, Baron Blake

Additional Reading
J.A. Spender and Cyril Asquith, Life of Herbert Henry Asquith, Lord Oxford and Asquith, 2 vol. (1932), is the official biography, cautious, discreet, and highly favourable. Roy Jenkins, Asquith, 3rd ed. (1986), is shorter and more critical, though in general pro-Asquith. Robert Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858–1923 (1955), gives the Conservative side of the period. Thomas Jones, Lloyd George (1951); and Frank Owen, Tempestuous Journey: Lloyd George, His Life and Times (1954), give the Lloyd Georgite point of view. Stephen Koss, Asquith (1976, reprinted 1985), offers a balanced judgment. George H. Cassar, Asquith as War Leader (1994), details the period 1914–16.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Earl of Oxford and Asquith — Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith Earl of Oxford and Asquith is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1925 for the Liberal politician H. H. Asquith. He was Home Secretary from 1892 to 1895, Chancellor …   Wikipedia

  • Earl of Annandale and Hartfell — William Johnstone, 1st Marquess of Annandale The title Earl of Annandale and Hartfell was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1661 for James Johnstone. In 1625, the title of Earl of Annandale had been created for John Murray, but it became… …   Wikipedia

  • Attlee, Clement, 1st Earl Attlee of Walthamstow, Viscount Prestwood — ▪ prime minister of United Kingdom Introduction in full  Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee of Walthamstow, Viscount Prestwood  born January 3, 1883, Putney, London, England died October 8, 1967, Westminster, London  British Labour Party… …   Universalium

  • Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl — ▪ British field marshal in full  Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and of Broome  also known as  Viscount Broome of Broome, Baron Denton of Denton , also called  Baron Kitchener of Khartoum and of Aspall (from 1898)  and… …   Universalium

  • Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham — Daniel Finch, 7th Earl of Winchilsea and 2nd Earl of Nottingham Earl of Winchilsea and Earl of Nottingham are two titles in the Peerage of England held by the Finch family that have been united under a single holder since 1729. The Finch family… …   Wikipedia

  • Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener — Infobox Military Person name=Field Marshal The Earl Kitchener lived= 24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916 caption= nickname= placeofbirth= Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland placeofdeath= HMS Hampshire , sunk west of the Orkney Islands, Scotland (aged… …   Wikipedia

  • Michael Hicks Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn — The Right Honourable The Earl St Aldwyn PC, PC (Ire) …   Wikipedia

  • Earl of Suffolk — Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk Earl of Suffolk is a title that has been created four times in the Peerage of England. The first creation, in tandem with the creation of the title of Earl of Norfolk, came before 1069 in favour of Ralph the… …   Wikipedia

  • H. H. Asquith — Infobox Officeholder honorific prefix = The Right Honourable name =The Earl of Oxford and Asquith honorific suffix = KG order =Prime Minister of the United Kingdom term start =5 April 1908 term end =5 December 1916 monarch =Edward VII George V… …   Wikipedia

  • Prime ministers of Great Britain and the United Kingdom — ▪ Table Prime ministers of Great Britain and the United Kingdom* party** term Robert Walpole (Walpole, Robert, 1st earl of Orford) (from 1725, Sir Robert Walpole; from 1742, earl of Orford) Whig 1721–42 Spencer Compton (Wilmington, Spencer… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”