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Stanley Baldwin

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

   The Rt Hon Stanley Baldwin
   Stanley Baldwin
     __________________________________________________________________

   Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
   In office
   23 May 1923 –  16 January 1924
   Preceded by Andrew Bonar Law
   Succeeded by Ramsay MacDonald
   In office
   4 November 1924 –  5 June 1929
   Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald
   Succeeded by Ramsay MacDonald
   In office
   7 June 1935 –  28 May 1937
   Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald
   Succeeded by Neville Chamberlain
     __________________________________________________________________

   Chancellor of the Exchequer
   In office
   October 27, 1922 –  August 27, 1923
   Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law
   Preceded by Robert Stevenson Horne
   Succeeded by Neville Chamberlain
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born 3 August 1867
   Bewdley, Worcestershire, England
   Died 14 December 1947 (age 80)
   Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, England
   Political party Conservative
   Spouse Lucy Ridsdale
   Religion Anglican

   Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC ( 3 August 1867 –
   14 December 1947) was a British statesman and thrice Prime Minister of
   the United Kingdom.

Early life

   Born at Lower Park House, Lower Park, Bewdley in Worcestershire,
   England, Baldwin was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge,
   and after receiving a third-class degree in history went into the
   family business. He married on 12 September 1892.

   In the 1906 general election he contested Kidderminster but lost amidst
   the Conservative landslide defeat after the party split on the issue of
   free trade. However, in 1908 he succeeded his deceased father, Alfred
   Baldwin, as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bewdley. During the First
   World War he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Conservative
   leader Andrew Bonar Law and in 1917 he was appointed to the junior
   ministerial post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury where he sought
   to encourage voluntary donations by the rich in order the repay the
   United Kingdom's war debt, notably writing to The Times under the
   pseudonym 'FST'. He personally donated one fifth of his quite small
   fortune. He served jointly with Sir Hardman Lever, who had been
   appointed in 1916, but after 1919 Baldwin carried out the duties
   largely alone. In 1921 he was promoted to the Cabinet as President of
   the Board of Trade.

   In late 1922 dissatisfaction was steadily growing within the
   Conservative Party over its existing governing coalition with the
   Liberal David Lloyd George. At a meeting of Conservative MPs at the
   Carlton Club in October Baldwin announced that he would no longer
   support the coalition and famously condemned Lloyd George for being a
   "dynamic force" that was bringing destruction across politics. The
   meeting chose to leave the coalition—against the wishes of most of the
   party leadership. As a result the new Conservative leader Andrew Bonar
   Law was forced to search for new ministers for his Cabinet and so
   promoted Baldwin to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the
   November 1922 general election the Conservatives were returned with a
   majority in their own right.

First appointment as Prime Minister

   In May 1923 Bonar Law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and retired
   immediately. With many of the party's senior leading figures standing
   aloof and outside of the government, there were only two candidates to
   succeed him: Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary, and Stanley Baldwin.
   The choice formally fell to King George V acting on the advice of
   senior ministers and officials. It is not entirely clear what factors
   proved most crucial, but some Conservative politicians felt that Curzon
   was unsuitable for the role of Prime Minister because he was a member
   of the House of Lords (though this did not stop other Lords being
   seriously considered for the premiership on subsequent occasions).
   Likewise, Curzon's lack of experience in domestic affairs, his personal
   character (found objectionable), and his aristocratic background at a
   time when the Conservative Party was seeking to shed its patrician
   image were all deemed impediments. Much weight at the time was given to
   the intervention of Arthur Balfour.

   The King turned to Baldwin to become Prime Minister. Initially Baldwin
   also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer whilst he sought to recruit
   the former Liberal Chancellor Reginald McKenna to join the government.
   When this failed he instead appointed Neville Chamberlain.

   The Conservatives now had a clear majority in the House of Commons and
   could govern for another five years before being constitutionally
   required to hold a new general election, but Baldwin felt bound by
   Bonar Law's old pledge at the previous election that there would be no
   introduction of tariffs without a further election. With the country
   facing growing unemployment in the wake of free-trade imports driving
   down prices and profits, Baldwin decided to call an early general
   election in December 1923 to seek a mandate to introduce protectionist
   tariffs and thus drive down unemployment. Although this succeeded in
   reuniting his divided party, the election outcome was inconclusive: the
   Conservatives won 258 MPs, Labour 191 and the Liberals 159. Whilst the
   Conservatives retained a plurality in the House of Commons, they had
   been clearly defeated on the central election issue of tariffs. Baldwin
   remained Prime Minister until the opening session of the new Parliament
   in January 1924, at which time the government was defeated in a motion
   of confidence vote. He resigned immediately.

Return to office

   For the next ten months, an unstable minority Labour government under
   Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald held office, but it too fell and
   another general election was held in October 1924. This election
   brought a landslide majority of 223 for the Conservative party,
   primarily at the expense of the now terminally declining Liberals. This
   period included the General Strike of 1926, a crisis which the
   government managed to weather, despite the havoc it caused throughout
   the UK.

   At Baldwin's instigation Lord Weir headed a committee to 'review the
   national problem of electrical energy'. It published its report on May
   14, 1925 and with it Weir recommended the setting up of a Central
   Electricity Board, a state monopoly half-financied by the Government
   and half by local undertakings. Baldwin accepted Weir's recommendations
   and they became law by the end of 1926. The Board was a success. By
   1929 electrical output was up four-fold and generating costs had
   fallen. Consumers of electricity rose from three-quarters of a million
   in 1926 to nine million in 1929.

   In 1929 Labour returned to office, but by 1931 Baldwin and the
   Conservatives had entered into a coalition with Labour PM Ramsay
   MacDonald. This decision led to MacDonald's expulsion from his own
   party, and Baldwin, as Lord President of the Council became de facto
   Prime Minister for the increasingly senile MacDonald, until he once
   again officially became Prime Minister in 1935. His government then
   secured with great difficulty the passage of the landmark Government of
   India Act 1935.

   In 1932 Baldwin would tell the Commons: "The bomber will always get
   through. The only defence is offence". He started a rearmament
   programme and reorganised and expanded the RAF, in the face of strong
   opposition from the opposition Labour Party. During his third term of
   office from 1935 to 1937 the worsening political situation on the
   Continent brought his own foreign policy under greater criticism, and
   he also faced the abdication crisis of King Edward VIII. With the
   abdication successfully weathered he would retire after the coronation
   of the new King George VI and was created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley.

Later life

   Baldwin's years in retirement were quiet. With Neville Chamberlain
   dead, Baldwin's perceived part in pre-war appeasement made him an
   unpopular figure during and after World War II. During the war, Winston
   Churchill consulted him only once, on the advisability of Britain's
   taking a tougher line toward the continued neutrality of Éamon de
   Valera's Irish Free State (Baldwin advised against it).

   In June 1945 Baldwin's wife died. Baldwin himself by now suffered with
   arthritis and needed a stick to walk. When he made his final public
   appearance in London in October 1947 at an unveiling of a statue of
   King George V. A crowd of people recognized the former Prime Minister
   and cheered him, but Baldwin by this time was deaf and asked, "Are they
   booing me?" Having been made Chancellor of Cambridge University in
   1930, he continued in this capacity until his death in his sleep at
   Astley Hall, near Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, on 14 December
   1947. He was cremated and his ashes buried in Worcester Cathedral.

   His estate was probated at £280,971.

   Baldwin was essentially a One Nation Conservative. Upon his retirement
   in 1937 he had indeed received a great deal of praise; the onset of the
   Second World War would change his public image for the worse. Rightly
   or wrongly, Baldwin, along with Chamberlain and MacDonald, was held
   responsible for the United Kingdom's military unpreparedness on the eve
   of war in 1939. His defenders counter that the moderate Baldwin felt he
   could not start a programme of aggressive re-armament without a
   national consensus on the matter. Certainly, pacifist appeasement was
   the dominant mainstream political view of the time in Britain, France,
   and the United States.

   For Winston Churchill, however, that was no excuse. He firmly believed
   that Baldwin's conciliatory stance toward Hitler gave the German
   dictator the impression that Britain would not fight if attacked.
   Though known for his magnanimity toward political opponents such as
   Neville Chamberlain, Churchill had none to spare for Baldwin. "I wish
   Stanley Baldwin no ill," Churchill said when declining to send 80th
   birthday greetings to the retired prime minister in 1947, "but it would
   have been much better had he never lived."

First Government, May 1923 - January 1924

     * Stanley Baldwin - Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and
       Leader of the House of Commons
     * Lord Cave - Lord Chancellor
     * Lord Salisbury - Lord President of the Council
     * Lord Cecil of Chelwood - Lord Privy Seal
     * William Clive Bridgeman - Home Secretary
     * Lord Curzon of Kedleston - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
       and Leader of the House of Lords
     * The Duke of Devonshire - Secretary of State for the Colonies
     * Lord Derby - Secretary of State for War
     * Lord Peel - Secretary of State for India
     * Sir Samuel Hoare - Secretary of State for Air
     * 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 Anderson Montague-Barlow - Minister of Labour
     * Neville Chamberlain - Minister of Health
     * Sir William Joynson-Hicks - Financial Secretary to the Treasury
     * Sir Laming Worthington-Evans - Postmaster-General

Changes

     * August 1923 - Neville Chamberlain took over from Baldwin as
       Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir William Joynson-Hicks succeeded
       Chamberlain as Minister of Health. Joynson-Hicks' successor as
       Financial Secretary to the Treasury was not in the Cabinet.

Second Cabinet, November 1924 - June 1929

     * Stanley Baldwin - Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons
     * Lord Cave - Lord Chancellor
     * Lord Curzon of Kedleston - Lord President of the Council and Leader
       of the House of Lords
     * Lord Salisbury - Lord Privy Seal
     * Winston Churchill - Chancellor of the Exchequer
     * Sir William Joynson-Hicks - Home Secretary
     * Sir Austen Chamberlain - Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader of the
       House of Commons
     * Leo Amery - Colonial Secretary
     * Sir Laming Worthington-Evans - Secretary of State for War
     * Lord Birkenhead - Secretary of State for India
     * Sir Samuel Hoare - Secretary for Air
     * Sir John Gilmour - Secretary for Scotland
     * William Clive Bridgeman - First Lord of the Admiralty
     * Lord Cecil of Chelwood - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
     * Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister - President of the Board of Trade
     * Edward Frederick Lindley Wood - Minister of Agriculture
     * Lord Eustace Percy - President of the Board of Education
     * Lord Peel - First Commissioner of Works
     * Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland - Minister of Labour
     * Neville Chamberlain - Minister of Health
     * Sir Douglas Hogg - Attorney-General

Changes

     * April 1925 - On Lord Curzon of Kedleston's death, Lord Balfour
       succeeded him as Lord President. Lord Salisbury becomes the new
       Leader of the House of Lords, remaining also Lord Privy Seal.
     * June 1925 - The post of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs is
       created and held by Leo Amery in tandem with Secretary of State for
       the Colonies.
     * November 1925 - Walter Guinness succeeds E.F.L. Wood as Minister of
       Agriculture.
     * July 1926 - The post of Secretary of Scotland is upgraded to
       Secretary of State for Scotland.
     * October 1927 - Lord Cushendun succeeded Lord Cecil of Chelwood as
       Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
     * March 1928 - Lord Hailsham (former Sir D. Hogg) succeeded Lord Cave
       as Lord Chancellor. Lord Hailsham's successor as Attorney-General
       was not in the Cabinet.
     * October 1928 - Lord Peel succeeded Lord Birkenhead as Secretary of
       State for India. Lord Londonderry succeeded Lord Peel as First
       Commissioner of Public Works

Third Cabinet, June 1935 - May 1937

     * Stanley Baldwin - Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons
     * Lord Hailsham - Lord Chancellor
     * Ramsay MacDonald - Lord President of the Council
     * Lord Londonderry - Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords
     * Neville Chamberlain - Chancellor of the Exchequer
     * Sir John Simon - Home Secretary and Deputy Leader of the House of
       Commons
     * Sir Samuel Hoare - Foreign Secretary
     * Malcolm MacDonald - Colonial Secretary
     * J.H. Thomas - Dominions Secretary
     * Lord Halifax - Secretary for War
     * Lord Zetland - Secretary of State for India
     * Lord Swinton - Secretary of State for Air
     * Sir Godfrey Collins - Secretary of State for Scotland
     * Bolton Eyres-Monsell - First Lord of the Admiralty
     * Walter Runciman - President of the Board of Trade
     * Walter Elliot - Minister of Agriculture
     * Joe Budden - President of the Board of Education
     * Ernest Brown - Minister of Labour
     * Sir Kingsley Wood - Minister of Health
     * William Ormsby-Gore - First Commissioner of Works
     * Anthony Eden - Minister without Portfolio with responsibility for
       League of Nations Affairs
     * Lord Eustace Percy - Minister without Portfolio with responsibility
       for government policy

Changes

     * November 1935 - Malcolm MacDonald succeeds J.H. Thomas as Dominions
       Secretary. Thomas succeeds MacDonald as Colonial Secretary. Lord
       Halifax succeeds Lord Londonderry as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of
       the House of Lords. Duff Cooper succeeds Lord Halifax as Secretary
       for War. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister becomes Viscount Swinton and
       Bolton Eyres-Monsell becomes Viscount Monsell, both remaining in
       the Cabinet.
     * December 1935 Anthony Eden succeeds Sir Samuel Hoare as Foreign
       Secretary and is not replaced as Minister without Portfolio.
     * March 1936 - Sir Thomas Inskip enters the cabinet as Minister for
       the Coordination of Defense. Lord Eustace Percy leaves the cabinet.
     * May 1936 - William Ormsby-Gore succeeds J.H. Thomas as Colonial
       Secretary. Lord Stanhope succeeds Ormsby-Gore as First Commissioner
       of Works.
     * June 1936 - Sir Samuel Hoare succeeds Lord Monsell as First Lord of
       the Admiralty.
     * October 1936 - Walter Elliot succeeds Collins as Secretary for
       Scotland. William Shepherd Morrison succeeds Elliot as Minister of
       Agriculture. Leslie Hore-Belisha enters the Cabinet as Minister of
       Transport.

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