Bonar Law

Bonar Law
Portrait by Walter Stoneman, 1923
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office
23 October 1922 – 20 May 1923
MonarchGeorge V
Preceded byDavid Lloyd George
Succeeded byStanley Baldwin
Leader of the Conservative Party
In office
23 October 1922 – 28 May 1923
ChairmanSir George Younger, Bt
Preceded byAusten Chamberlain
Succeeded byStanley Baldwin
In office
13 November 1911 – 21 March 1921
Chairman
Preceded byArthur Balfour
Succeeded byAusten Chamberlain
Leader of the House of Commons
In office
23 October 1922 – 20 May 1923
Prime MinisterHimself
Preceded byAusten Chamberlain
Succeeded byStanley Baldwin
In office
10 December 1916 – 23 March 1921
Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George
Preceded byH. H. Asquith
Succeeded byAusten Chamberlain
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
In office
10 January 1919 – 1 April 1921
Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George
Preceded byThe Earl of Crawford
Succeeded byAusten Chamberlain
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office
10 December 1916 – 10 January 1919
Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George
Preceded byReginald McKenna
Succeeded byAusten Chamberlain
Secretary of State for the Colonies
In office
25 May 1915 – 10 December 1916
Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith
Preceded byLewis Harcourt
Succeeded byWalter Long
Leader of the Opposition
In office
13 November 1911 – 25 May 1915
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith
Preceded byArthur Balfour
Succeeded bySir Edward Carson[a]
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade
In office
11 July 1902 – 5 December 1905
Prime MinisterArthur Balfour
Preceded byThe Earl of Dudley
Succeeded byHudson Kearley
Parliamentary offices
Member of Parliament
for Glasgow Central
In office
15 December 1918 – 30 October 1923
Preceded byJohn Mackintosh MacLeod
Succeeded byWilliam Alexander
Member of Parliament
for Bootle
In office
28 March 1911 – 25 November 1918
Preceded byThomas Myles Sandys
Succeeded byThomas Royden
Member of Parliament
for Dulwich
In office
16 May 1906 – 20 December 1910
Preceded byFrederick Rutherfoord Harris
Succeeded byFrederick Hall
Member of Parliament
for Glasgow Blackfriars
In office
25 October 1900 – 13 January 1906
Preceded byAndrew Dryburgh Provand
Succeeded byGeorge Nicoll Barnes
Personal details
Born
Andrew Bonar Law

(1858-09-16)16 September 1858
Kingston, Colony of New Brunswick[b]
Died30 October 1923(1923-10-30) (aged 65)
London, Middlesex, England
Resting placeWestminster Abbey
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
Other political
affiliations
Unionist
Spouse
Annie Robley
(m. 1891; died 1909)
Children6, including Richard
ProfessionIron merchant
SignatureCursive signature in ink

Andrew Bonar Law (/ˈbɒnər ˈlɔː/ BONN-ər;[1] 16 September 1858 – 30 October 1923) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1922 to May 1923.

Law was born in the British colony of New Brunswick (now a Canadian province). He was of Scottish and Ulster Scots descent and moved to Scotland in 1870. He left school aged sixteen to work in the iron industry, becoming a wealthy man by the age of thirty. He entered the House of Commons at the 1900 general election, relatively late in life for a front-rank politician; he was made a junior minister, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, in 1902. Law joined the Shadow Cabinet in opposition after the 1906 general election. In 1911, he was appointed a Privy Councillor, before standing for the vacant party leadership. Despite never having served in the Cabinet and despite trailing third after Walter Long and Austen Chamberlain, Law became leader when the two front-runners withdrew rather than risk a draw splitting the party.

As Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, Law focused his attentions in favour of tariff reform and against Irish Home Rule. His campaigning helped turn Liberal attempts to pass the Third Home Rule Bill into a three-year struggle eventually halted by the start of World War I, with much argument over the status of the six counties in Ulster which would later become Northern Ireland, four of which were predominantly Protestant.

Law first held Cabinet office as Secretary of State for the Colonies in H. H. Asquith's Coalition Government (May 1915 – December 1916). Upon Asquith's fall from power he declined to form a government, instead he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in David Lloyd George's Coalition Government. He resigned on grounds of ill health early in 1921. In October 1922, with Lloyd George's Coalition having become unpopular with the Conservatives, he wrote a letter to the press giving only lukewarm support to the Government's actions over Chanak. After Conservative MPs voted to end the Coalition, he again became party leader and, this time, prime minister. Bonar Law won a clear majority at the 1922 general election, and his brief premiership saw negotiation with the United States over Britain's war loans. Seriously ill with throat cancer, Law resigned in May 1923, and died later that year. He was the fourth shortest-serving prime minister of the United Kingdom (211 days in office).

  1. ^ "Bonar Law – Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 May 2015.