Andrew Bonar Law
Andrew Bonar Law (1858-1923), was a British politician and leader of the Conservative party (1911-21), and prime minister briefly in 1922-23. His surname is either Bonar Law or Law.
Early career
He was born in New Brunswick (now part of Canada), the son of a Free Church of Scotland Presbyterian minister. orphaned, he sent to Scotland at age 12 to be brought up by wealthy cousins operating a business near Glasgow. He was educated at Glasgow High School but was not sent to university; at the age of sixteen went into business, eleven years later becoming a partner in a firm of iron merchants.
Entering Parliament in 1900 as a Conservative member for a Glasgow constituency, he became parliamentary secretary to the Board of Trade in 1902. He was prominent but by no means foremost during the Conservative opposition after 1906.
Party leader
In 1911 after Liberal landslides in two general elections in 12910 the party needed new leadership. The Earl of Balfour resigned the Conservative leadership; Bonar Law, skillfully guided by Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook), who had become his close friend, profited from the deadlock between Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long to become leader of the party--the first Conservative leader who can fairly be described as of middle-class origin.
Bonar Law was a formidable fighter in the bitter political struggle which ensued over Ulster and Irish home rule, at times alarming his followers by his extremism in his support of Ulster's threat of violent resistance. The Irish crisis was put on hold during the war.
World War I
The outbreak of war in 1914 brought political unity across party lines; in 1915 Bonar Law joined Herbert Asquith's coalition government as colonial secretary. At the end of 1916--again closely in touch with Aitken--he played, almost despite himself, a critical part in the negotiations which led to the replacement of Asquith by David Lloyd George. In the new government he was chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. At the end of the war he relinquished the former post but remained leader until, in March 1921, illness forced him to resign from Lloyd George's coalition government. In October 1922, Bonar Law, with much reluctance, became the leader of a successful Conservative revolt. Lloyd George resigned and Bonar Law became prime minister. Although many senior Tories refused to join the right-wing Conservative government which Bonar Law formed, he still won a majority of seventy-seven seats over all other parties. After only seven months in office inoperable throat cancer caused him to resign.
He helped modernize the Conservative party, setting the stage for its dominance of British politics from 1924 to 1945. Bonar Law's virtues -- transparent honesty, a complete lack of pomposity, obvious practical competence, and, above all, instinctive British patriotism -- made him into one of the most successful politician of his era.
Bibliography
- Adams, R. J. Q. Bonar Law (1999), 458pp; a standard biography
- Adams, R. J. Q. "Andrew Bonar Law and the Fall of the Asquith Coalition: the December 1916 Cabinet Crisis." Canadian Journal of History 1997 32(2): 185-200. Issn: 0008-4107 Fulltext: in Ebsco
- Blake, Robert. The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923 (1955), a standard biography online edition
- Taylor, Andrew. Bonar Law (2006) 176pp, short biographyonline excerpt