Everything about Sir Henry Campbell-bannerman totally explained
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman,
GCB (
7 September 1836 –
22 April 1908) was a
British Liberal statesman who served as
Prime Minister from
5 December 1905 until resigning due to ill health on
3 April 1908. No previous
First Lord of the Treasury had been officially called "Prime Minister"; this term only came into official usage 5 days after he took office.
Life
Campbell-Bannerman was born at
Kelvinside House in
Glasgow,
Scotland, in 1836 as
Henry Campbell. The surname
Bannerman was added to his surname in 1871 as required by his maternal uncle's
will. It was a condition of his
inheritance of his uncle's
Kent estate, Hunton Court.
He was the second son and youngest of six children born to Sir
James Campbell (1790-1876), who was
Lord Provost of Glasgow 1840-1843, and his wife Janet Bannerman (d. 1873). Campbell-Bannerman was educated at the
High School of Glasgow (1845-1847), the
University of Glasgow (1851), and
Trinity College, Cambridge (1854-1858), where he achieved a
Third-Class Degree in
Classical Tripos. After graduating, he joined J.& W. Campbell & Co., his family's firm, who were warehousemen and
drapers in Glasgow.
In
1868 he was elected to the
House of Commons as Liberal
Member of Parliament for
Stirling Burghs — a constituency he was to represent for forty years.
He was appointed as
Financial Secretary to the War Office in November 1871, serving in this position until 1874, and again from 1880 to 1882. After serving as
Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty from 1882 to 1884, he entered
Gladstone's second cabinet as
Chief Secretary for Ireland in
1884.
In Gladstone's Third (
1886) and Fourth (
1892-
1894) Cabinets and Rosebery's Government (
1894-
1895) he served as
Secretary of State for War, where he persuaded the
Duke of Cambridge, the
Queen's cousin, to resign as Commander-in-Chief. This earned Campbell-Bannerman a knighthood. In
1898 Sir Henry succeeded
Sir William Vernon Harcourt as leader of the Liberals in the House of Commons. Campbell-Bannerman had a difficult time in holding together the strongly divided party, which was defeated in the "
khaki election" of
1900. But when the Liberals returned to power in
1905, he became
Prime Minister, and led the Liberals to a great victory in the
election of 1906.
Campbell-Bannerman's premiership saw the introduction of the so-called
Liberal reforms, which included the introduction of sick pay and old age pensions, as well as the achievement of an
Entente with Russia in
1907, brought about principally by the Foreign Secretary,
Sir Edward Grey. In that same year, Campbell-Bannerman achieved the honour of becoming the
Father of the House, the only serving British Prime Minister to do so to date. Nevertheless his health soon took a turn for the worse, and he resigned as Prime Minister on
3 April 1908, to be succeeded by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Herbert Henry Asquith. Campbell-Bannerman remained in residence at
10 Downing Street in the immediate aftermath of his resignation, and became the only (former) Prime Minister to die there, on
22 April 1908.
His last words were "This isn't the end of me." Campbell-Bannerman was buried in the churchyard of
Meigle Parish Church,
Perthshire, near his home,
Belmont Castle. A relatively modest stone plaque set in the exterior wall of the church serves as a memorial.
In an uncharacteristically emotional speech on the day of Campbell-Bannerman's funeral, his successor
H. H. Asquith told the House of Commons: "He wasn't ashamed, even on the verge of old age, to see visions and to dream dreams... He met both good and evil fortune with the same unclouded brow, the same unruffled temper, the same unshakeable confidence in the justice and righteousness of his cause."
Another of Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet Ministers — who was also later to serve as Prime Minister (and, years after his premiership, as Father of the House as well) —
David Lloyd George, said of his passing, "I have never met a great public figure who so completely won the attachment and affection of the men who came into contact with him. He wasn't merely admired and respected; he was absolutely loved by us all. The masses of the people of the country, especially the more unfortunate of them, have lost the best friend they've ever had in the high place of the land. ... He was a truly great man. A great head and a great heart. He was absolutely the bravest man I ever met in politics."
There is a
blue plaque outside Campbell-Bannerman's house at 6 Grosvenor Place, London SW1. His bronze bust, sculpted by
Paul Raphael Montford is in
Westminster Abbey (1908).
Campbell-Bannerman's Government
Changes
January 1907 — Augustine Birrell succeeds Bryce as Irish Secretary. Reginald McKenna succeeds Birrell at the Board of Education.
March 1907 — Lewis Harcourt, the First Commissioner of Public Works, enters the Cabinet.
Political offices
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