Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime minister on three occasions, from May 1923 to January 1924, from November 1924 to June 1929 and from June 1935 to May 1937.
Born to a prosperous family in Bewdley, Worcestershire, Baldwin was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the family iron- and steel-making business and entered the House of Commons in 1908 as the member for Bewdley, succeeding his father Alfred. He was Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1917–1921) and President of the Board of Trade (1921–1922) in the coalition ministry of David Lloyd George and then rose rapidly. In 1922, Baldwin was one of the prime movers in the withdrawal of Conservative support from Lloyd George; he subsequently became Chancellor of the Exchequer in Bonar Law's Conservative ministry. Upon Law's resignation for health reasons in May 1923, Baldwin became prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party. He called an election in December 1923 on the issue of tariffs and lost the Conservatives' parliamentary majority, after which Ramsay MacDonald formed a minority Labour government.
After winning the 1924 general election, Baldwin formed his second government, which saw important tenures of office by Austen Chamberlain (Foreign Secretary), Winston Churchill (at the Exchequer) and Neville Chamberlain (Health). The latter two ministers strengthened Conservative appeal by reforms in areas formerly associated with the Liberal Party. They included industrial conciliation, unemployment insurance, a more extensive old-age pension system, slum clearance, more private housing and expansion of maternal care and childcare. However, continuing sluggish economic growth and declines in mining and heavy industry weakened Baldwin's base of support. His government also saw the General Strike in 1926 and introduced the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 to curb the powers of trade unions.Philip Williamson, "The Conservative Party 1900 – 1939," in Chris Wrigley, ed., A Companion to Early 20th-Century Britain, (2003) pp 17–18
Baldwin narrowly lost the 1929 general election and his continued leadership of the party was subject to extensive criticism by press barons Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook. In 1931, with the onset of the Great Depression, Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald formed a National Government, most of whose ministers were Conservatives, which won an enormous majority at the 1931 general election. As Lord President of the Council and one of four Conservatives among the small ten-member Cabinet, Baldwin took over many of the Prime Minister's duties when MacDonald's health deteriorated. This government saw an Act delivering increased self-government for India, a measure opposed by Churchill and by many rank-and-file Conservatives. The Statute of Westminster 1931 gave Dominion status to Canada, Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa, while taking the first step towards the Commonwealth of Nations. As party leader, Baldwin made many striking innovations, such as clever use of radio and film, that made him highly visible to the public and strengthened Conservative appeal.
In 1935, Baldwin replaced MacDonald as prime minister and won the 1935 general election with another large majority. During this time, he oversaw the beginning of British rearmament and the abdication of King Edward VIII. Baldwin's third government saw a number of crises in foreign affairs, including the public uproar over the Hoare–Laval Pact, the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Baldwin stepped down on 28 May 1937 and was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain.
Historical retrospection and analysis of Baldwin's political career have been complex. During his tenure, Baldwin was regarded as a popular and successful prime minister, but for the final decade of his life and for many years afterwards he was vilified for having presided over high unemployment in the 1930s and as one of those who appeased Adolf Hitler and supposedly failed to rearm sufficiently to prepare for the Second World War. Baldwin has been widely praised for forcing and expediting the abdication of Edward VIII. Today, modern scholars generally rank him in the upper half of British prime ministers.
Early life: family, education and marriage Stanley Baldwin was born on 3 August 1867 at Lower Park House (Lower Park, Bewdley) in Worcestershire, England. He was the first and only son of Alfred and Louisa (MacDonald) Baldwin. Through his mother he was a first cousin of, and had a lifelong friendship with, the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling. A summer spent with Kipling and his sister with the freedom of farm and forest at Loughton, Essex, in 1877 was seminal to the development of both boys.
The family was prosperous, and owned the eponymous iron- and steel-making business that in later years became part of Richard Thomas and Baldwins. His ancestors had been involved in the iron industry since the days of the Industrial Revolution. On his father's side Baldwin was English, while on his mother's side he was of Scottish and Welsh descent.
Baldwin was the first in his family to receive an upper-class education. He attended St Michael's School, at the time located in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), followed by Harrow School. He later wrote that "all the king's horses and all the king's men would have failed to have drawn me into the company of schoolmasters, and in relation to them I once had every qualification as a passive resister." Baldwin was academically gifted, winning prizes in history, classics and mathematics. He was a keen squash player and cricketer. While at Harrow, he was punished by the headmaster, Henry Montagu Butler, for writing a piece of schoolboy smut.
Baldwin then went on to the University of Cambridge, where he studied history at Trinity College. His time at university was blighted by the presence of Butler, his former headmaster at Harrow, as Master of Trinity. He was asked to resign from the Magpie & Stump (the Trinity College debating society) for never speaking. After receiving a third-class degree in history, he went into the family business of iron manufacturing. His father sent him to Mason College for one session of technical training in metallurgy as preparation.K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1970), pg. 11 As a young man he served briefly as a second lieutenant in the Artillery Volunteers at Malvern, and in 1897 became a JP for the county of Worcestershire.
Baldwin married Lucy Ridsdale on 12 September 1892. Following the birth of a stillborn son in January 1894, the couple had six surviving children: Lady Diana Lucy Baldwin (8 April 1895 – 21 May 1982) Lady Leonora Stanley Baldwin (10 July 1896 – 23 June 1989) Lady Pamela Margaret Baldwin (16 September 1897 – 14 August 1976) Major Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (1 March 1899 – 10 August 1958) Lady Esther Louisa (Betty) Baldwin (16 March 1902 – 22 June 1981) Arthur Windham Baldwin, 3rd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (22 March 1904 – 5 July 1976)
Baldwin's youngest daughter, Lady Betty, was severely injured by shrapnel in March 1941 as a result of a bombing raid which destroyed the Café de Paris nightclub she was attending.Belton, Neil. The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, a Life against Cruelty. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998, p.52 She required facial reconstruction surgery from the pioneering surgeon Archibald MacIndoe. Baldwin himself was visiting the cafe with her but also survived the bombing.
Business career Baldwin joined the ironmaster's trade out of duty and in line with family tradition rather than interest. He proved to be an adept businessman, and acquired a reputation as a modernising industrialist. He inherited £200,000, , and a directorship of the Great Western Railway on the death of his father in 1908.
Early political career Member of Parliament 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. In a by-election in 1908 he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Bewdley, in which role he succeeded his father, who had died earlier that year. During the First World War he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the party leader Bonar Law. 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 to repay the United Kingdom's war debt, writing letters to The Times under the pseudonym 'FST', many of which were published. He relinquished to the Treasury one fifth of his own fortune (its total estimated at own account as £580,000) held in the form of War Loan stock worth £120,000.
Treasury and President of the Board of Trade
Although he entered politics at a relatively late age, his rise to the top leadership was very rapid. In the Treasury he served jointly with Hardman Lever, who had been appointed in 1916, but after 1919 Baldwin carried out the duties largely alone. He was appointed to the Privy Council in the 1920 Birthday Honours. In 1921 he was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade.
Chancellor of the Exchequer In late 1922 dissatisfaction was steadily growing within the Conservative Party over its 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 direct result Bonar Law was forced to search for new ministers for a Cabinet which he would lead, and so promoted Baldwin to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the 15 November 1922 general election the Conservatives were returned with a majority in their own right.
First premiership (1923–1924) Appointment
In May 1923 Bonar Law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and retired immediately; he died five months later. 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 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. Curzon was intelligent and experienced in international affairs, but his dislike of domestic affairs and his many directorships, at a time when the Conservative Party was seeking to shed its patrician image, were 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 was also Chancellor of the Exchequer whilst he sought to recruit the former Liberal Chancellor Reginald McKenna to join the government. When this failed he appointed Neville Chamberlain to that position.
1923 general election