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Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916, the last to lead that party in government without a coalition. Asquith took his nation into the First World War, but resigned amid political conflict in December 1916 and David Lloyd George became prime minister.
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The Earl of Oxford and Asquith | |
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Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
In office 5 April 1908 – 5 December 1916 | |
Monarchs | Edward VII George V |
Preceded by | Henry Campbell-Bannerman |
Succeeded by | David Lloyd George |
Chancellor of the Exchequer | |
In office 10 December 1905 – 12 April 1908 | |
Prime Minister | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman |
Preceded by | Austen Chamberlain |
Succeeded by | David Lloyd George |
Home Secretary | |
In office 18 August 1892 – 25 June 1895 | |
Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone The Earl of Rosebery |
Preceded by | Henry Matthews |
Succeeded by | Matthew White Ridley |
Secretary of State for War | |
In office 30 March 1914 – 5 August 1914 | |
Preceded by | J. E. B. Seely |
Succeeded by | The Earl Kitchener |
Leader of the Opposition | |
In office 12 February 1920 – 21 November 1922 | |
Monarch | George V |
Prime Minister | David Lloyd George Andrew Bonar Law |
Preceded by | Donald Maclean |
Succeeded by | Ramsay MacDonald |
In office 6 December 1916 – 14 December 1918 | |
Monarch | George V |
Prime Minister | David Lloyd George |
Preceded by | Sir Edward Carson |
Succeeded by | Donald Maclean |
Leader of the Liberal Party | |
In office 30 April 1908 – 14 October 1926 | |
Preceded by | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman |
Succeeded by | David Lloyd George |
Personal details | |
Born | Herbert Asquith (1852-09-12)12 September 1852 Morley, England, UK |
Died | 15 February 1928(1928-02-15) (aged 75) Sutton Courtenay, England, UK |
Resting place | All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay |
Political party | Liberal |
Spouses | |
Children | 10, including Raymond, Herbert, Arthur, Violet, Cyril, Elizabeth, Anthony |
Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford Inns of Court School of Law |
Profession | Barrister |
Signature | |
Asquith was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father owned a small establishment in the woolen trade, but died when his son was age 7, and after a brief stay with an uncle, the young Asquith spent the remainder of his childhood at boarding school and lodged with families not his own. He was educated at City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. He trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, but after being called to the bar, received few briefs in his early years. Thereafter he gained prominence for his legal skills. In 1886, he was adopted as Liberal candidate for East Fife, a seat he held over thirty years. In 1892, he was appointed as Home Secretary in Gladstone's fourth ministry, remaining in the post until the Liberals lost the 1895 election. In the decade of opposition that followed, Asquith became a major figure in the party, and when the Liberals regained power under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905, Asquith was named as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1908, when the dying Campbell-Bannerman resigned, Asquith succeeded him as prime minister, with Lloyd George as chancellor .
With their first majority government since the 1880s, the Liberals were determined to advance their agenda. An impediment to this was the unelected House of Lords, dominated by the Conservatives. When Lloyd George proposed, and the Commons passed, the People's Budget of 1909, the Lords rejected it. Asquith called an election for January 1910, and the Liberals won, though only with a minority government. Although the Lords then passed the budget, Asquith was determined to reform the upper house, and after another general election in December 1910, gained passage of the Parliament Act 1911, allowing a bill three times passed by the Commons in consecutive sessions to be enacted regardless of the Lords. Asquith was less successful in dealing with Irish Home Rule; repeated crises led to gun running and violence, a pattern that continued past the start of the First World War in 1914.
Asquith's action in taking the country to war has been described as the most important individual prime ministerial decision of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and he did it with Britain united. Historians have also acknowledged the contribution to Britain's ultimate success made by some his early decisions on national mobilisation; the despatch of the British Expeditionary Force, the creation of a mass army, and the development of an industrial strategy designed to support the country's war aims. But Asquith's technique of acting as mediator among talented cabinet members such as Lloyd George and Winston Churchill was less effective in war than in peace, and difficulties with the war effort led him to form a coalition with the Conservatives early in 1915. Continued crises, over conscription, in Ireland, and as a result of military failures, shook the confidence of MPs in him, and when conflict with Lloyd George erupted in December 1916, Asquith could not keep their support, and he resigned. Asquith remained as leader of the Liberal Party, but the internal conflict, both during and after the war, helped demolish the party's electoral prospects as Labour continued its rise to be the party of the left. Asquith accepted a peerage after his final parliamentary campaign (in 1924) ended in defeat; he died in 1928. His role in the First World War, and in the fall of the Liberal Party, remain controversial.