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H. H. Asquith

Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC, FRS (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister to command a majority government, and the most recent Liberal to have served as Leader of the Opposition. He played a major role in the design and passage of major liberal legislation and a reduction of the power of the House of Lords. In August 1914, Asquith took Great Britain and the British Empire into the First World War. During 1915, his government was vigorously attacked for a shortage of munitions and the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. He formed a coalition government with other parties but failed to satisfy critics, was forced to resign in December 1916 and never regained power.

"Asquith" redirects here. For other uses, see Asquith (disambiguation).

The Right Honourable
The Earl of Oxford and Asquith
KG PC KC FRS

Henry Campbell-Bannerman

David Lloyd George

George V

Donald Maclean

Ramsay MacDonald

George V

David Lloyd George

Edward Carson

Donald Maclean

Henry Campbell-Bannerman

David Lloyd George

Himself

Himself

J. E. B. Seely

The Earl Kitchener

Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Austen Chamberlain

David Lloyd George

Henry Matthews

Matthew White Ridley

The 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith

The 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith

John McCallum

Edward Mitchell

John Boyd Kinnear

Alexander Sprot

Herbert Asquith

(1852-09-12)12 September 1852
Morley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

15 February 1928(1928-02-15) (aged 75)
Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire, England

All Saints' Church, Sutton Courtenay

Liberal

10, including Raymond, Herbert, Arthur, Violet, Cyril, Elizabeth and Anthony

City of London School

Barrister

After attending Balliol College, Oxford, he became a successful barrister. In 1886, he was the Liberal candidate for East Fife, a seat he held for over thirty years. In 1892, he was appointed 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 Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1908, Asquith succeeded him as prime minister. The Liberals were determined to advance their reform agenda. An impediment to this was the House of Lords, which rejected the People's Budget of 1909. Meanwhile, the South Africa Act 1909 passed. Asquith called an election for January 1910, and the Liberals won, though they were reduced to a minority government. After another general election in December 1910, he 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, verging on civil war.


When Britain declared war on Germany in response to the German invasion of Belgium, high-profile domestic conflicts were suspended regarding Ireland and women's suffrage. Asquith was more of a committee chair than a dynamic leader. He oversaw national mobilization, the dispatch of the British Expeditionary Force to the Western Front, the creation of a mass army, and the development of an industrial strategy designed to support the country's war aims. The war became bogged down and the demand rose for better leadership. He was forced to form a coalition with the Conservatives and Labour early in 1915. He was weakened by his own indecision over strategy, conscription, and financing.[1] Lloyd George replaced him as prime minister in December 1916. They became bitter enemies and fought for control of the fast-declining Liberal Party. His role in creating the modern British welfare state (1906–1911) has been celebrated, but his weaknesses as a war leader and as a party leader after 1914 have been highlighted by historians. He remained the only prime minister between 1827 and 1979 to serve more than eight consecutive years in a single term.

(6 November 1878 – 15 September 1916), who married Katharine Horner (daughter of Sir John Horner) on 25 July 1907. They had three children.

Raymond Asquith

(11 March 1881 – 5 August 1947), who married Lady Cynthia Charteris (daughter of Hugo Richard Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss and 7th Earl of March) on 28 July 1910. They had three children.

Herbert Asquith

(24 April 1883 – 25 August 1939), who married Betty Constance Manners (daughter of John Manners-Sutton, 3rd Baron Manners) on 30 April 1918. They had four daughters.

Arthur Asquith

(15 April 1887 – 19 February 1969), who married Sir Maurice Bonham Carter on 30 November 1915. They had four children.

Violet Asquith

(5 February 1890 – 24 August 1954),[10] who married Anne Pollock (daughter of Sir Adrian Donald Wilde Pollock) on 12 February 1918. They had four children.

Cyril Asquith, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone

Member of Parliament: 1886-1908[edit]

Queen's Counsel[edit]

In June 1886, with the Liberal party split on the question of Irish Home Rule, Gladstone called a general election.[38] There was a last-minute vacancy at East Fife, where the sitting Liberal member, John Boyd Kinnear, had been deselected by his local Liberal Association for voting against Irish Home Rule. Richard Haldane, a close friend of Asquith's and also a struggling young barrister, had been Liberal MP for the nearby Haddingtonshire constituency since December 1885. He put Asquith's name forward as a replacement for Kinnear, and only ten days before polling Asquith was formally nominated in a vote of the local Liberals.[39] The Conservatives did not contest the seat, putting their support behind Kinnear, who stood against Asquith as a Liberal Unionist. Asquith was elected with 2,863 votes to Kinnear's 2,489.[40]


The Liberals lost the 1886 election, and Asquith joined the House of Commons as an opposition backbencher. He waited until March 1887 to make his maiden speech, which opposed the Conservative administration's proposal to give special priority to an Irish Crimes Bill.[41][42] From the start of his parliamentary career Asquith impressed other MPs with his air of authority as well as his lucidity of expression.[43] For the remainder of this Parliament, which lasted until 1892, Asquith spoke occasionally but effectively, mostly on Irish matters.[44][45]


Asquith's legal practice was flourishing, and took up much of his time. In the late 1880s Anthony Hope, who later gave up the bar to become a novelist, was his pupil. Asquith disliked arguing in front of a jury because of the repetitiveness and "platitudes" required, but excelled at arguing fine points of civil law before a judge or in front of courts of appeal.[46] These cases, in which his clients were generally large businesses, were unspectacular but financially rewarding.[47]

Decline and eclipse: 1918–1926[edit]

Coupon election[edit]

Even before the Armistice, Lloyd George had been considering the political landscape and, on 2 November 1918, wrote to Law proposing an immediate election with a formal endorsement—for which Asquith coined the name "Coupon", with overtones of wartime food rationing—for Coalition candidates.[423] News of his plans soon reached Asquith, causing considerable concern. On 6 November he wrote to Hilda Henderson, "I suppose that tomorrow we shall be told the final decision about this accursed election."[424] A Liberal delegation met Lloyd George in the week of 6 November to propose Liberal reunification but was swiftly rebuffed.[425][424]


Asquith joined in the celebrations of the Armistice, speaking in the Commons, attending the service of thanksgiving at St Margaret's, Westminster and afterwards lunching with King George.[426] Asquith had a friendly meeting with Lloyd George a few days after the Armistice (the exact date is unclear), which Lloyd George began by saying "I understand you don't wish to join the government." [427] Asquith was instead keen to go to the Peace Conference, where he considered his expertise at finance and international law would have been an asset.[428] As he refused to accept public subordination, Lloyd George, despite lobbying from the King and Churchill, refused to invite him.[429][427]


Asquith led the Liberal Party into the election, but with a singular lack of enthusiasm, writing on 25 November: "I doubt whether there is much interest. The whole thing is a wicked fraud."[429] The Liberal leaders expected to lose the 1918 election badly, as they had lost the "Khaki Election" in 1900, but did not foresee the sheer scale of the defeat.[430] Asquith hoped for 100 Liberal MPs to be returned.[431] He began by attacking the Conservatives, but was eventually driven to attack the "blank cheque" which the government was demanding.[430]


Asquith was one of five people given a free pass by the Coalition but the East Fife Unionist Association defied national instructions and put up a candidate, Alexander Sprot, against him.[430] Sprot was refused a Coalition "coupon".[432] Asquith assumed his own seat would be safe and spent only two and half days there, speaking only to closed meetings; in one speech there on 11 December he conceded that he did not want to "displace" the current government. He scoffed at press rumours that he was being barracked by a gang of discharged soldiers.[430] Postwar reconstruction, the desire for harsh peace terms, and Asquith's desire to attend the peace talks, were campaign issues, with posters asking: "Asquith nearly lost you the War. Are you going to let him spoil the Peace?"[433] James Scott, his chairman at East Fife, wrote of "a swarm of women going from door to door indulging in a slander for which they had not a shadow of proof. This was used for such a purpose as to influence the female vote very much against you."[p][434]


At the poll on 14 December, Lloyd George's coalition won a landslide, with Asquith and every other former Liberal Cabinet minister losing his seat.[435] Margot later recorded having telephoned Liberal headquarters for the results: "Give me the East Fife figures: Asquith 6994—Sprott [sic] 8996." She said she had exclaimed "Asquith beat? ... Thank God!"[436] Augustine Birrell also wrote to him "You are surely better off out of it for the time, than watching Ll.G. lead apes to Hell".[437] But for Asquith personally, "the blow was crippling, a personal humiliation which destroyed his hope of exercising any influence on the peace settlement."[432]

Death[edit]

Asquith died, aged 75, at The Wharf on the morning of 15 February 1928.[527] "He was buried, at his own wish, with great simplicity,"[535] in the churchyard of All Saints' at Sutton Courtenay, his gravestone recording his name, title, and the dates of his birth and death. A blue plaque records his long residence at 20 Cavendish Square[536] and a memorial tablet was subsequently erected in Westminster Abbey.[537] Viscount Grey, with Haldane Asquith's oldest political friend, wrote, "I have felt (his) death very much: it is true that his work was done but we were very close together for so many years. I saw the beginning of his Parliamentary life; and to witness the close is the end of a long chapter of my own."[538]


Asquith's will was proved on 9 June 1928, with his estate amounting to £9345 9s. 2d. (roughly equivalent to £599,011 in 2021)[539].[540]

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1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Oxford

Hansard

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

held at The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics

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Tregidga, Garry

from BBC History

Asquith biography

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Asquith entry

Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Scheme

Blue plaque to Asquith on his house in Sutton Courtenay

at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Portraits of Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith

. UK National Archives.

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Works by or about H. H. Asquith

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Works by H. H. Asquith

in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Newspaper clippings about H. H. Asquith