Richard
Haldane was born in Edinburgh in July,
1856. Educated at Edinburgh University and Gottingen University. He
studied law in London was called to the
bar in 1879. A Liberal, he was elected
to represent the Scottish seat of East Lothian in the 1885
General Election. A supporter of the Boer
War, he joined the government of Henry
Campbell-Bannerman in 1905 as Secretary of State for War. While
in office he created the General Staff (1906), the Territorial Army
(1907).
In 1911 he was granted the title, Viscount Haldane. The following
year Herbert Asquith appointed Haldane
as his Lord Chancellor. Unfairly accused of being pro-German by the
press during the First World War, Haldane left
Asquith's coalition government in 1915.
A member of the Fabian Society, Haldane
campaigned for the Labour Party in the 1923
General Election. In 1924 Haldane became Lord Chancellor in the
Labour Government formed by Ramsay
MacDonald. For the next four years he was also leader of the House
of Lords. Richard Haldane died in 1928.
(1)
Charles Trevelyan, letter to Caroline
Trevelyan (28th May, 1915)
The
throwing over of Haldane by Asquith and Grey to the Tory wolves is
the dirtiest political thing that has occurred in my political life,
except the lie which those two same gentlemen told the nation that
we were bound to fight for France when we were in fact bound in their
opinions.
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