Herbert
Asquith was born in Morley, Yorkshire in 1852. Educated at the City
of London and Balliol College, Oxford,
he became a lawyer in 1876.
In the 1886 General Election Asquith was
elected as the Liberal MP for East Fife.
He was a member of the opposition for his first six years in the House
of Commons but after the 1892 General Election,
William Gladstone formed a new Liberal
administration. Gladstone had been impressed by Asquith and appointed
him as Home Secretary. Asquith held the post until the Marquees
of Salisbury and the Conservatives
took power in 1895.
The Liberals were out of power until the
1906 General Election. The new Prime Minister,
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, gave Asquith
the important post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Asquith's strong
opposition to women's suffrage made him extremely unpopular with the
NUWSS. Suffragists were particularly angry
that the man who was responsible for deciding how much tax they paid,
should deny them political representation. Several times in 1906 members
of the WSPU made attempts to disrupt meetings
where he was speaking.
In April,
1908, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman resigned
and Asquith replaced him as Prime Minister. Working closely with David
Lloyd George, his radical Chancellor of the Exchequer, Asquith
introduced a whole series of reforms including the Old
Age Pensions Act and the People's Budget
that resulted to a conflict with the House of
Lords.
The Conservatives, who had a large
majority in the House of Lords, objected
to this attempt to redistribute wealth, and made it clear that they
intended to block these proposals. David Lloyd
George reacted by touring the country making speeches in working-class
areas on behalf of the budget and portraying the nobility as men who
were using their privileged position to stop the poor from receiving
their old age pensions. After a long struggle
with the House of Lords Asquith and the Liberal
government finally got his budget through parliament.
With the House of Lords extremely unpopular
with the British people, the Liberal government
decided to take action to reduce its powers. The 1911
Parliament Act drastically cut the powers of the Lords. They were
no longer allowed to prevent the passage of 'money bills' and it also
restricted their ability to delay other legislation to three sessions
of parliament.
When the House of Lords attempted to stop
this bill's passage, Asquith, appealed to George
V for help. Asquith, who had just obtained a victory in the 1910
General Election, was in a strong position, and the king agreed
that if necessary he would create 250 new Liberal
peers to remove the Conservative majority
in the Lords. Faced with the prospect of a House
of Lords with a permanent Liberal majority,
the Conservatives agreed to let the 1911 Parliament
Act to become law.
Although several leading members of the government favoured granting
women the vote, Asquith still opposed the measure. However, during
the 1910 General Election campaign Asquith
announced that if he was returned to power he would make sure that
women with property would get the franchise. When Asquith changed
his mind in November 1911 and instead announced legislation that would
enable all adult males to vote, the WSPU organised
a window breaking campaign including an attack on Asquith's home.
After
the outbreak of the First World War Asquith
made strenuous attempts to achieve political solidarity and in May
1915 formed a coalition government. Gradually the Conservatives in
the cabinet began to question Asquith's abilities as a war leader.
So also did Lord Northcliffe, the powerful
newspaper baron, and his newspapers, The
Daly Mail and The Times
led the attack on Asquith. In December, 1916 David
Lloyd George agreed to collaborate with the Conservatives
in the cabinet to remove Asquith from power.
Lloyd George's decision to join the Conservatives
in removing Asquith
split the Liberal Party. In the 1918
General Election, many Liberals supported candidates who remained
loyal to Asquith. Despite this, Lloyd George's Coalition group won
459 seats and had a large majority over the Labour
Party and the Liberal Party.
Asquith lost his seat in East Fife in 1918 and William Wedgwood Benn
led the groups opposed to Lloyd George's government. John
Benn, who was also opposed to Lloyd George, gave the group the
name, Wee Frees, after a small group of Free Church of Scotland members
who refused to accept the union of their church with the United Presbyterian
Church.
The Conservative members of the coalition
government decided to replace David Lloyd George
with Andrew Bonar Law in October, 1922.
In the General Election that followed, the
Conservatives won 345 seats. Only 54 Liberals
in the House of Commons supported Lloyd
George whereas Asquith had the support of 62 MPs.
Asquith returned to the House of Commons
after the 1923 General Election when he was
elected to represent Paisley. Herbert Asquith,
who was granted the title, the Earl of Oxford in 1925, died in 1928.
(1)
J.
R. Clynes, Memoirs (1937)
At the opening of the new Parliament in 1910, with Asquith's Liberals
still in power, scenes occurred as stormy as any I have ever seen
at Westminster. I refer to the disgraceful behaviour exhibited when
the Liberal Prime Minister entered the House for the first time in
this new session. "Who killed King Edward? Dirty traitor! Don't
bully King George!" was yelled from the Tory benches.
(2)
On 30th March 1915, Robert Donald wrote
an article in the Daily Chronicle
claiming that a group of cabinet ministers were conspiring against
the prime minister, Herbert Asquith. Lord Riddell recorded how David
Lloyd George reacted to the article.
He (David Lloyd George) spoke very strongly about the Daily Chronicle
article, which he described as indiscreet and foolish. He said that
the Prime Minister is much perturbed. "The old boy was in tears,"
Lloyd George continued. "I shall not let this rest. I have never
intrigued for place or office. I have intrigued to carry through my
schemes, but that is a different matter. The Prime Minister has been
so good to me that I would never be disloyal to him in the smallest
detail."
