Henry Campbell-Bannerman - the forgotten PM

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Callaghan is perhaps understandable - he is still alive and was but briefly (and fairly successfully) premier. Chamberlain, a man of honour who was conned by Hitler, is still overshadowed by that failure. But Campbell-Bannerman...

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Q.� So who was he

A.� Henry Campbell, the son of the Lord Provost of Glasgow, was born in 1836. After being educated at Glasgow High School and Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined the family drapery business. His uncle's surname, Bannerman, was added in 1871 after the uncle left him a life interest in his estate at Hunton.

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In 1868, he was elected Liberal MP for Stirling. After the 1884 General Election, Prime Minister William Gladstone appointed Campbell-Bannerman as his Chief Secretary for Ireland, but he did not enter the Cabinet until he became War Secretary in 1886.

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Q.� And what was he like

A.� Gentile and courteous. Campbell-Bannerman was not much of an orator but was known as an efficient political operator. In 1898, he became leader of the House of Commons. A year later he succeeded Sir William Harcourt as Liberal leader. Campbell-Bannerman opposed the Boer War and advocated comprehensive social reforms, becoming one of the most important figures on the progressive wing of the party.

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Q.� Number 10

A.� Arthur Balfour and his Conservative government resigned in 1905, when King Edward VII invited Campbell-Bannerman to form a government. He accepted and in the 1906 General Election that followed the Liberal Party had a landslide victory. Important legislation passed during the first few months of office included the Trades Disputes Act and the Provision of School Meals Act.

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In 1908 Campbell-Bannerman appointed David Lloyd George as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lloyd George started to introduce a series of progressive reforms that he had been campaigning for since he was elected MP.

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Q.� So they made a good team

A.� Sadly, no. Campbell-Bannerman was ill and getting old. He had suffered a heart attack the previous June and soon after appointing Lloyd George, he had another one. On 5 April, 1908, he resigned. He died at 10 Downing Street two weeks later.

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Q.� So he's well worth remembering

A.� Yes. George Lansbury, the Labour leader of the 1930s, wrote of him:

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Campbell-Bannerman was kindness itself. I often wonder what the developments in English politics would have been had this genial, kindly Scotsman lived. There might have been no war in 1914; the course of the Labour movement might have been different - for this man believed in peace and was not afraid of the word Socialism, and did believe unemployment was a national problem and the unemployed the care of the state.

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�The Labour Home Secretary Joseph Clynes said in his memoirs:

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Campbell-Bannerman was a remarkable man. Appointed as Liberal leader when the party fortunes had almost vanished, he built them up again by calm, patient, indomitable work, until his gentle and unflinching courage had its reward in a sweeping Liberal victory. He was deeply sensitive, a passionate lover of peace, a man of wide outlook and great understanding. He was not a brilliant orator, but the House always listened to him with respect and sympathy, simply because of his quiet sincerity.

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Steve Cunningham