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Andrew Bonar Law Biography |
Andrew Bonar Law (September 16, 1858 - October 30, 1923) was a Conservative British statesman and Prime Minister.
Although born in Kingston, New Brunswick, Canada, son of a Presbyterian minister, Law was raised by wealthy Scottish cousins. Law eventually became a partner in a Glasgow iron-working firm, and was elected to parliament as a Conservative in 1900. He associated himself with the Protectionist wing of the party led by Joseph Chamberlain, and after Chamberlain withdrew from politics in 1906, Law came to lead that wing of the party along with Chamberlain's son, Austen. In 1911, Arthur Balfour resigned as leader of the Tories, and after a deadlock between Chamberlain and Walter Long, Law was elected Leader as a compromise candidate. Law's closest associate was his fellow Canadian, newspaper mogul William Maxwell Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook). In the years prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Law focused most of his attention on the tariff issue and on the issue of Irish Home Rule, which he furiously opposed.
He entered the Coalition government as Colonial Secretary in 1915, and actually had a chance to be prime minister in 1916 but deferred to Lloyd George. He served in Lloyd George's War Cabinet first as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. At war's end he gave up the exchequer for the less demanding sinecure office of Lord Privy Seal, but remained Leader of the Commons. In 1921, ill health forced his resignation as Tory leader and Leader of the Commons in favor of Austen Chamberlain, but he returned in October 1922 to become Prime Minister when Tory backbenchers led by Stanley Baldwin forced the Conservatives to leave Lloyd George's coalition as a result of the complete failure of the Lloyd George government's policies in Turkey. He was replaced in May of 1923 by Baldwin, with whom he did not get along, because he was suffering from terminal throat cancer, of which he died later in the year in London.
Bonar Law's Government, October 1922 - May 1923
Andrew Bonar Law - Prime Minister
Lord Cave - Lord Chancellor
Lord Salisbury - Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Lord Cecil of Chelwood - Lord Privy Seal
Stanley Baldwin - Chancellor of the Exchequer
William Clive Bridgeman - Secretary of State for the Home Department
Lord Curzon - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
The Duke of Devonshire - Secretary of State for the Colonies
Lord Derby - Secretary of State for War
Lord Peel - Secretary of State for India
Lord Novar - Secretary for Scotland
Leo Amery - First Lord of the Admiralty
Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame - President of the Board of Trade
Sir Robert Sanders - Minister of Agriculture
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood - President of the Board of Education
Sir A. Montague-Barlow - Minister of Labour
Sir Arthur Griffith Boscawen - Minister of Health |
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