Herbert Henry Asquith

Asquith, Herbert Henry, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852-1928) , British statesman, and Prime Minister (1908-1916), who led the Liberal party to a series of reforms, including social insurance. He led the nation into World War I, but his faltering leadership in the midst of military crises let to his replacement in late 1916 by David Lloyd George

Career

Asquith was born at Morley, in Yorkshire, Sept. 12, 1852. Educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, he was admitted to the bar in 1876 and became a queen's counsel in 1890, having made his reputation as junior counsel to the Parnell Commission in 1889. He entered Parliament in 1886 as a Liberal and was home secretary under William Gladstone from 1892 to 1895. When Joseph Chamberlain raised the question of tariff reform (that is, imposing taxes on imports which had been untaxed), Asquith campaigned for free trade and as a result was made chancellor of the exchequer under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman from 1905 to 1908. In his final budget he introduced old age pensions. In 1908 he became prime minister, and he, working with David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill passed legislation regarding unemployment and sweatshops that set the stage for the welfare state in Britain.

His enemies, representing the landed aristocracy, controlled the House of Lords, which rejected his budget. Therefore he passed in 1911 the Parliament bill that abolished the veto power of the House of Lords. His Irish Home Rule bill was not so successful; he was intimidated by the Protestants in Ulster who threatened forcible resistance, and who had significant support in the Army; the Irish crisis was postponed by the outbreak of World War I and the bill was not enforced.

World War

Although the Liberals had traditionally been the pacifistic party, the German invasion of Belgium in violation of treaties angered the Liberals, and raised the spectre of German control of the entire continent, which was intolerable. Asquith led the nation to war in alliance with France. In 1915 the Asquith cabinet was vigorously attacked for the shortage of munitions and the naval failure at Gallipoli. A coalition cabinet proved no more successful, and the resignation of David Lloyd George and other members brought about its fall in December 1916. Lloyd George became Prime Minister. Asquith's achievements in peacetime have been overshadowed by his failures in wartime. Most historians portray a vacillating prime minister, barely handling forces he could not contain, at best acting as the crumbling fulcrum on which men of greater determination and ambition levered their way into power.

In the 1924 election Asquith was defeated, and in 1925 he entered the House of Lords as Earl of Oxford and Asquith. In 1926 he split finally with Lloyd George and the majority of the Liberal Party.

Bibliography

• Adams, R. J. Q. "Andrew Bonar Law and the Fall of the Asquith Coalition: the December 1916 Cabinet Crisis." Canadian Journal of History 1997 32(2): 185-200. Issn: 0008-4107 Fulltext: in Ebsco
• Bates, Stephen. Asquith (2006) 176pp excerpt online
• 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
• 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, Stephem. 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
• Taylor, A. J. P. English History, 1914-1945. 1965, standard political history of the era
• 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.

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