H. H. Asquith

Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928) served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916.^[1] He was the longest continuously serving Prime Minister in the 20th century until 5 January 1988.^[2]

As Prime Minister, he led his Liberal party to a series of domestic reforms, including social insurance and the reduction of the power of the House of Lords. He led the nation into the First World War, but a series of military and political crises led to his replacement in late 1916 by David Lloyd George. His falling out with Lloyd George played a major part in the downfall of the Liberal Party.

Before his term as Prime Minister he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1905–08) and as Home Secretary (1892–95). He was known as H. H. Asquith until his elevation to the peerage, when he became Lord Oxford.

Asquith's achievements in peacetime have been overshadowed by his weaknesses in wartime. Many historians portray a vacillating Prime Minister, unable to present the necessary image of action and dynamism to the public.^[3] Others stress his continued high administrative ability.^[4] The dominant historical verdict is that there were two Asquiths: the urbane and conciliatory Asquith, who was a successful peacetime leader, and the hesitant and increasingly exhausted Asquith, who practised the politics of muddle and delay during the Great War.^[5]

Childhood, education and legal career

He was born in Morley, West Yorkshire, England, to Joseph Dixon Asquith (10 February 1825 – 16 June 1860) and his wife Emily Willans (4 May 1828 – 12 December 1888). The Asquiths were a middle-class family and members of the Congregational church. Joseph was a wool merchant and came to own his own woollen mill.^[6][7]

Herbert was seven years old when his father died. Emily and her children moved to the house of her father William Willans, a wool-stapler of Huddersfield. Herbert received schooling there and was later sent to a Moravian Church boarding school at Fulneck, near Leeds. In 1863, Herbert was sent to live with an uncle in London, where he entered the City of London School. He was educated there until 1870 and mentored by its headmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott.^[6][7]

In 1870, Asquith won a classical scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1874, Asquith was awarded the Craven scholarship. Despite the unpopularity of the Liberals during the dying days of Gladstone's First Government, he became president of the Oxford Union in the Trinity (summer) term of his fourth year. He graduated that year and soon was elected a fellow at Balliol. Meanwhile he entered Lincoln's Inn as a pupil barrister and for a year served a pupillage under Charles Bowen.^[6][7]

He was called to the bar in 1876 and became prosperous in the early 1880s from practising at the chancery bar. Among other cases he appeared for the defence in the famous case of Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co when the case was heard at first instance in the Queen's Bench Division.^[8] His services were not employed when the case was heard on appeal in the Court of Appeal. Asquith took silk (was appointed QC) in 1890. It was at Lincoln's Inn that in 1882 Asquith met Richard Haldane, whom he would appoint as Lord Chancellor in 1912.^[6][7]

Name

In his younger days he was called Herbert within the family, but his second wife called him Henry. His biographer Stephen Koss entitled the first chapter of his biography "From Herbert to Henry", referring to upward social mobility and his abandonment of his Yorkshire Nonconformist roots with his second marriage. However, in public, he was invariably referred to only as H. H. Asquith. "There have been few major national figures whose Christian names were less well known to the public," writes his biographer Roy Jenkins.^[9] His opponents gave him the nickname "Squiff" or "Squiffy", a derogatory reference to his fondness for drink.^[6][7][10]

Marriages

He married Helen Kelsall Melland, daughter of a Manchester doctor in 1877, and they had four sons and one daughter before she died from typhoid fever in 1891. These children were Raymond (1878–1916), Herbert (1881–1947), Arthur (1883–1939), Violet (1887–1969), and Cyril (1890–1954). Of these children, Violet and Cyril became life peers in their own right, Cyril becoming a law lord.^[6][7] Raymond died during the First World War.^[11]

In 1894, he married Margot Tennant, a daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Bt. They had two children, Elizabeth Charlotte Lucy (later Princess Antoine Bibesco) (1897–1945) and the film director Anthony (1902–1968).^[6][7]

In 1912, Asquith fell in love with Venetia Stanley, and his romantic obsession with her continued into 1915, when she married Edwin Montagu, a Liberal Cabinet Minister; a volume of Asquith's letters to Venetia, often written during Cabinet meetings and describing political business in some detail, has been published; but it is not known whether or not their relationship was sexually consummated.^[6][7]

All his children, except Anthony, married and left issue. His best-known descendant today is the actress Helena Bonham Carter, a granddaughter of Violet.^[6][7]

Early political career (1886–1908)

Asquith was elected to Parliament in 1886 as the Liberal representative for East Fife, in Scotland. He never served as a junior minister, but achieved his first significant post in 1892 when he became Home Secretary in the fourth cabinet of Gladstone. He retained his position when Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery took over in 1894. The Liberals lost power in the 1895 general election and for ten years were in opposition. In 1898 he was offered and turned down the opportunity to lead the Liberal Party, then deeply divided and unpopular, preferring to use the opportunity to earn money as a barrister.

During Asquith's period as deputy to the new leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, "C. B." was known to request his presence in parliamentary debate by saying, "Send for the sledge-hammer," referring to Asquith's reliable command of facts and his ability to dominate verbal exchange. Asquith toured the country refuting the arguments of Joseph Chamberlain, who had resigned from the Cabinet to campaign for tariffs against imported goods.

After the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour fell in December 1905 there was some speculation that Asquith and his allies Richard Haldane and Sir Edward Grey would refuse to serve unless Campbell-Bannerman accepted a peerage, which would have left Asquith as the real leader in the House of Commons. However, the plot (called the "Relugas Compact" after the Scottish lodge where the men met) collapsed when Asquith agreed to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Campbell-Bannerman (Grey became Foreign Secretary and Haldane Secretary of State for War). The party won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election.

Asquith demonstrated his staunch support of free trade at the Exchequer. He also introduced the first of the so-called Liberal reforms, including (in 1908) small means-tested old age pensions for some people over age 70, with the aim of reducing poverty among the elderly. However, Asquith was not as successful as his successor as Chancellor David Lloyd George in getting reforms through Parliament as the House of Lords still had a veto over legislation at that stage.

Campbell-Bannerman resigned due to illness on 3 April 1908, dying 19 days later,^[12] and Asquith succeeded him as Prime Minister. The King, Edward VII, was holidaying in Biarritz, and refused to return to London, citing health grounds. Asquith was forced to travel to Biarritz for the official "kissing of hands" of the Monarch, the only time a British Prime Minister has formally taken office on foreign soil.

Prime Minister (1908–1916)

Liberal reforms

The Asquith government became involved in an expensive naval arms race with the German Empire and began an extensive social welfare programme (See Liberal reforms), spearheaded by David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and - at this stage - Winston Churchill who at the Board of Trade had passed measures against sweatshop conditions. The social welfare programme proved controversial, and Asquith's government faced resistance from the Conservative Party. This came to a head in 1909, when Lloyd George produced a deliberately provocative "People's Budget". Among the most controversial in British history, it systematically raised taxes on the rich, especially the landowners, to pay for the welfare programmes (and for new battleships). Many Conservatives continued to prefer tariffs (indirect taxes on imported goods) which, it was felt, would encourage British industry and trade within the Empire, although the proposal continued to be something of an electoral liability in the 1906 and 1910 General Elections as it also would have meant taxes on food imports.

House of Lords

The Conservatives, traditionally representing property owners and determined to stop passage of the budget, used their majority in the House of Lords to reject the bill. The Lords did not traditionally interfere with finance bills and their actions thus provoked a constitutional crisis, forcing the country to a general election in January 1910.

The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Liberals having two more seats than the Conservatives, but lacking an overall majority. The Liberals formed a minority government with the support of the Irish Nationalists.

At this point the Lords now allowed the budget – for which the Liberals had obtained an electoral mandate – to pass, but the argument had moved on. A possible radical solution in this situation was to threaten to have the king pack the House of Lords with freshly minted Liberal peers, who would override the Lords' veto. With the Conservatives remaining recalcitrant in spring of 1910 Asquith began contemplating such an option. King Edward VII agreed to do so, after another general election, but died on 6 May 1910 (so heated had passions become that Asquith was accused of having "Killed the King" through stress). His son, King George V, was reluctant to have his first act of his reign be the carrying out of such a drastic attack on the aristocracy and it required all of Asquith's considerable powers to convince him to make the promise. This the king finally did before the second election of 1910, in December, although Asquith did not make this promise public at the time.

In the December 1910 election the Liberals again won, though their majority in the Commons was now dependent on MPs from Ireland, who had their own price (at the election the Liberal and Conservative parties were exactly equal in size; by 1914 the Conservative Party was actually larger owing to by-election victories). Nonetheless, Asquith was able to curb the powers of the House of Lords through the Parliament Act 1911, which essentially broke the power of the House of Lords. The Lords could now delay for two years, but with some exceptions could not defeat outright, a bill passed by the Commons. Asquith's victory marked the permanent end of the House of Lords as a major base of political power.

Although Asquith himself was a right-wing Liberal,^[13] he continued to work with Lloyd George in setting up unemployment insurance, helping to set the stage for the welfare state in Britain.

Women's suffrage

Although the majority of Liberal MPs were in favour of women's suffrage, Asquith remained a long time opponent of it, his opposition going back to the 1880s.^[14] Although opposed to women's suffrage he believed it was up to the House of Commons to decide,^[15] during his premiership three Conciliation Bills were brought forth which would have extended the right to a limited number of women, however these foundered due to lack of parliamentary time and other delaying tactics.^[15]

Asquith was a hate figure amongst the suffragettes, the windows of 10 Downing Street had been smashed in 1908 and in 1912 in Dublin his carriage was attacked by Mary Leigh. In that attack Irish nationalist leader John Redmond was injured.^[16] Papers released in 2006 indicated the government's fears of an assassination attempt on Asquith.^[14]

In 1915 Asquith was forced to shore up his government with a number of pro-suffrage Conservatives in a coalition government,^[17] and when Lloyd George took over from Asquith the following year it paved the way for the extension of the vote in 1918. Asquith belatedly came around to support women's suffrage in 1917,^[18] in part aided by the abandonment of direct action by the WSPU.^[19] Ironically Asquith's reforms to the House of Lords eased the way for the passage of the bill.^[20]

Ireland

The price of Irish support in 1910 was the Third Irish Home Rule Bill, which Asquith delivered in legislation in 1912. Asquith's efforts over Irish Home Rule nearly provoked a civil war in Ireland over Ulster, only averted by the outbreak of a European war. Ulster Protestants, who wanted no part of a semi-independent Ireland, formed armed volunteer bands. British army officers (the so-called Curragh Mutiny) threatened to resign rather than move against Ulstermen whom they saw as loyal British subjects; Asquith was forced to take on the job of Secretary of State for War himself on the resignation of the incumbent, Seeley. The legislation for Irish Home Rule was due to come into effect, allowing for the two-year delay under the Parliament Act, in 1914 – by which time the Cabinet were discussing allowing the six predominantly Protestant counties of Ulster to opt out of the arrangement, which was ultimately suspended owing to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.

World War

Although the Liberals had traditionally been peace oriented, the German invasion of Belgium in violation of treaties angered the nation and raised the spectre of German control of the entire continent, which was intolerable. Asquith led the nation to war in alliance with France. The 1839 Treaty of London had committed Britain to guard Belgium's neutrality in the event of invasion, and talks with France since 1905 – kept secret even from most members of the Cabinet – had set up the mechanism for an expeditionary force to cooperate militarily with France.

Asquith and the Cabinet had the King declare war on the German Empire on 4 August 1914.

Wartime

Asquith headed the Liberal government going into the war. Only two Cabinet Ministers (John Morley and John Burns) resigned. At first the dominant figures in the management of the war were Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) and Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, who had taken over the War Office from Asquith himself.

However following a Cabinet split on 25 May 1915, caused by the Shell Crisis (or sometimes dubbed 'The Great Shell Shortage') and the failed offensive at the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli, Asquith became head of a new coalition government, bringing senior figures from the Opposition into the Cabinet. At first the Coalition was seen as a political masterstroke, as the Conservative leader Bonar Law was given a relatively minor job (Secretary for the Colonies), whilst former Conservative leader A.J.Balfour was given the Admiralty, replacing Churchill. Kitchener, popular with the public, was stripped of his powers over munitions (given to a new ministry under Lloyd George) and strategy (given to the General Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, who was given the right to report directly to the Cabinet - Robertson's enhanced position was one of several factors why the generals were felt to be under limited political control in the middle years of the war).

Critics increasingly complained about Asquith's lack of vigour over the conduct of the war. General Haig, recently appointed Commander-in-Chief of British forces in France, attended a Cabinet meeting in London (15 April 1916) to discuss the upcoming Somme offensive – the Cabinet agreed with some reluctance as Kitchener and Robertson were also both in favour, but were more concerned with the ongoing political crisis over the introduction of conscription, which could potentially have brought down the government – was disgusted that Asquith attended the meeting dressed for golf and clearly keen to get away for the weekend,^[21] although on a later occasion he recorded that Asquith was still capable of discussing military operations cogently despite being clearly the worse for drink. On Whit Monday 1916 Bonar Law discussed the succession to the job of Secretary of State for War (Kitchener had just drowned on a trip to Russia) - he was irritated not only at having to travel to Asquith's home – the Wharf, at Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire – but also, as he claimed, finding Asquith playing bridge with three ladies. (Asquith's daughter Violet Bonham Carter later denied that this had been so and explained that he was at home preparing a speech as it was a public holiday). After Bonar Law had refused to wait until the hand was finished, Asquith offered him the job, but he declined as he had already agreed with Lloyd George that the latter should have the job.^[22]

Women's Rights activists also turned against Asquith when he adopted the 'Business as Usual' policy at the beginning of the war, while the introduction of conscription was unpopular with mainstream Liberals. Opponents partly blamed Asquith for events such as the Easter Rising in Ireland (April 1916) and the slow progress and high casualties of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, at which Asquith's son Raymond was killed.

David Lloyd George, who had become Secretary of State for War but found himself frustrated by the reduced powers of that role, now campaigned with the support of the press baron Lord Northcliffe, to be made chairman of a small committee to manage the war. Asquith at first accepted, on condition that the committee reported to him daily and that he was allowed to attend if he chose, but then – furious at a Times editorial that made it clear that he was being sidelined – withdrew his consent unless he were allowed to chair the committee personally.

At this point Lloyd George resigned, and on 5 December 1916, no longer enjoying the support of the press or of leading Conservatives, Asquith himself resigned, declining to serve under any other Prime Minister (Balfour or Bonar Law having been mooted as potential new leaders of the coalition), possibly (although his motives are unclear) in the mistaken belief that nobody else would be able to form a government. After Bonar Law declined to form a government, citing Asquith's refusal to serve under him as a reason, Lloyd George became head of the coalition two days later – in accordance with his recent demands, heading a much smaller War Cabinet.

Later life (1916–1928)

Asquith, along with most leading Liberals, refused to serve in the new government. He remained leader of the Liberal Party after 1916, but found it hard to conduct an official opposition in wartime. The Liberal Party finally split openly during the Maurice Debate in 1918, at which Lloyd George was accused (almost certainly correctly ) of hoarding manpower in the UK to prevent Haig from launching any fresh offensives (e.g. Passchendaele, 1917), possibly with a view to sending more troops to Palestine or Italy instead, and thus contributing to Allied weakness during the temporarily successful German offensives of spring 1918, in which British casualties were actually heavier than in their own offensives the previous year. Lloyd George survived the debate.^[6][7]

In 1918 Asquith declined an offer of the job of Lord Chancellor, as this would have meant retiring from active politics in the House of Commons. By this time, Asquith had become very unpopular with the public (as Lloyd George was perceived to have "won the war" by displacing him) and, along with most leading Liberals, lost his seat in the 1918 elections, at which the Liberals split into Asquith and Lloyd George factions. Asquith was not opposed by a Coalition candidate; but the local Conservative Association eventually put up a candidate against him, who despite being refused the "Coupon" – the official endorsement given by Lloyd George and Bonar Law to Coalition candidates – defeated Asquith. Asquith returned to the House of Commons in a 1920 by-election in Paisley.

After Lloyd George ceased to be Prime Minister in late 1922, the two Liberal factions enjoyed an uneasy truce, which was deepened in late 1923 when Stanley Baldwin called an election on the issue of tariffs, which had been a major cause of the Liberal landslide of 1906. The election resulted in a hung Parliament, with the Liberals in third place behind Labour. Asquith played a major role in putting the minority Labour government of January 1924 into office, elevating Ramsay MacDonald to the Prime Ministership.

Asquith again lost his seat in the 1924 election held after the fall of the Labour government — at which the Liberals were reduced to the status of a minor party with only 40 or so MPs. In 1925 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Asquith of Morley in the West Riding of the County of York and Earl of Oxford and Asquith. Lloyd George succeeded him as chairman of the Liberal Members of Parliament, but Asquith remained overall head of the party until 1926, when Lloyd George, who had quarrelled with Asquith once again over whether or not to support the General Strike (Asquith supported the government), succeeded him in that position as well.^[23]

In 1894 Asquith was elected a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and served as Treasurer in 1920. In 1925 he was nominated for the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford, but lost to Viscount Cave in a contest dominated by party political feeling, and despite the support of his former political enemy, the Earl of Birkenhead. On 6 November 1925 he was made a Freeman of Huddersfield.^[6][7]

Asquith's death and descendants

Towards the end of his life, Asquith became a wheelchair user after suffering a stroke. He died at his country home The Wharf, Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire^[24] in 1928. Margot died in 1945. They are both buried at All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay (now in Oxfordshire); Asquith requested that there should be no public funeral.^[6][7]

Asquith's estate was probated at £9,345 on 9 June 1928 (about £420 thousand today),^[25] a modest amount for so prominent a man. In the 1880s and 1890s he had earned a handsome income as a barrister, but in later years had found it increasingly difficult to sustain his lavish lifestyle, and his mansion at Cavendish Square had had to be sold in the 1920s.^[6][7]

Asquith had five children by his first wife, Helen, and five by his second wife, Margot; but only his elder five children and two of his five younger children survived birth and infancy.^[6][7]

His eldest son Raymond Asquith was killed at the Somme in 1916; thus, the peerage passed to Raymond's only son Julian, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith (born in 1916, only a few months before his grandfather's resignation as Prime Minister).^[6][7]

His only daughter by his first wife, Violet (later Violet Bonham Carter), became a well-regarded writer and a life peeress (as Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury in her own right). His fourth son Sir Cyril, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone (1890–1954) became a Law Lord. His second and third sons married well. The poet Herbert Asquith (1881–1947) (who is often confused with his father) married the daughter of an Earl and Brigadier-General Arthur Asquith (1883–1939) married the daughter of a baron.^[6][7]

His two children by Margot were Elizabeth (later Princess Antoine Bibesco), a writer, and Anthony Asquith, a film-maker whose productions included The Browning Version and The Winslow Boy.^[6][7]

Among his living descendants are his great-granddaughter, the actress Helena Bonham Carter (b. 1966), and his great-grandson, Dominic Asquith, British Ambassador to Egypt since December 2007. Another leading British actress, Anna Chancellor (b. 1965), is also a descendant, being Herbert Asquith's great-great-granddaughter on her mother's side.^[6][7]

After the First World War, Bismarck Avenue in Toronto was renamed in Asquith's honour.

Asquith's Governments

• Liberal Government 1905–1915
• First Asquith ministry (1908–1915)
• Second Asquith ministry (1915–1916)

See also

List of Old Citizens

• Asquith family for a partial list of his descendants

References

Bibliography

• Bates, Stephen. Asquith (2006) 176pp excerpt online
• Blake, Robert. The Unknown Prime Minister (1955) (a biography of Bonar Law)
• Blewett, Neal. The Peers, the Parties, and the People: The British General Elections of 1910 (1971)
• Cassar, George H. Asquith as War Leader. 1994. 295 pp.
• Clifford, Colin. The Asquiths (John Murray, 2002) * Cregier, Don M. "The Murder of the British Liberal Party," The History Teacher Vol. 3, No. 4 (May 1970), pp. 27–36 online edition, blames Asquith, Lloyd George and the voters
• De Groot, Gerard Douglas Haig 1861–1928 (Larkfield, Maidstone: Unwin Hyman, 1988)
• Fair, John D. "Politicians, Historians, and the War: A Reassessment of the Political Crisis of December 1916," The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 49, No. 3, On Demand Supplement. (Sep. 1977), pp. D1329-D1343. in JSTOR
• Fry, Michael. "Political Change in Britain, August 1914 to December 1916: Lloyd George Replaces Asquith: The Issues Underlying the Drama," The Historical Journal Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep. 1988), pp. 609–627 in JSTOR
• Hankey, Lord. The Supreme Command, 1914–1918. 2 vols. 1961.
• Havighurst, Alfred F. Twentieth-Century Britain. 1966. standard survey online edition
• Hazlehurst, Cameron. "Asquith as Prime Minister, 1908–1916," The English Historical Review Vol. 85, No. 336 (Jul. 1970), pp. 502–531 in JSTOR
• Jenkins, Roy. Asquith: Portrait of a man and an era (1978), a standard biography
• Koss, Stephen. Asquith (1976), a standard biography
• Little, John Gordon. "H. H. Asquith and Britain's Manpower Problem, 1914–1915." History 1997 82(267): 397–409. Issn: 0018-2648; admits the problem was bad but exonerates Asquith Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Matthew, H. C. G. "Asquith, Herbert Henry, first earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852–1928)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online
• Powell, David. British Politics, 1910–1935: The Crisis of the Party System (2004)
• Rowland, Peter. The Last Liberal Governments: The Promised Land, 1905–1910 (1969) 404pp, highly detailed narrative
• Rowland, Peter. The Last Liberal Governments: Unfinished Business, 1911–1914 (1971) 405pp
• Spender, J.A., and Cyril Asquith, Life of Lord Oxford and Asquith (2 vols) (Hutchinson, 1932) * Taylor, A. J. P. English History, 1914–1945. 1965, standard political history of the era
• Simpson, William. Twentieth Century British History: A Teaching Resource Book (2005), 978-0415311151.
• Turner, John. British Politics and the Great War: Coalition and Conflict, 1915–1918 (1992)
• Wilson, Trevor. The Downfall of the Liberal Party 1914–1935. 1966.
• Woodward, Sir Llewellyn. Great Britain and the War of 1914–1918. 1967.

Primary sources

• H.H. Asquith, H.H.A.: Letters of the Earl of Oxford and Asquith to a Friend (2 vols) (Geoffrey Bles, 1933-4)
• H.H. Asquith, ed. Michael and Eleanor Brock, Letters to Venetia Stanley (Oxford University Press, 1982)
• Margot Asquith, Autobiography (2 vols) (Thornton Butterworth, 1920-2)
• Lord Oxford and Asquith, Fifty Years in Parliament (2 vols) (Cassell, 1926)
• Lord Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Recollections (2 vols) (Cassell, 1928)

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Oxford
• Bodleian Library catalogue record (finding aid) of H.H. Asquith's private papers
• Bodleian Library catalogue record (finding aid) of Margot Asquith's private papers
• Bodleian Library catalogue record (finding aid) of Lady Violet Bonham Carter's private papers
• [1] Catalogue record of items related to Asquith and Women's Suffrage held at The Women's Library London Metropolitan University
• Extended entry in the 1937 Dictionary of National Biography
• Asquith biography from BBC History
• Asquith entry in Encyclopædia Britannica