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Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as
prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
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 Bewdley ( pronunciation) is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley west of Kidderminster and southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the Riv ...
, Worcestershire, Baldwin was educated at Hawtreys, Harrow School and
Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
. He joined the family iron and steel making business and entered the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
in 1908 as the member for
Bewdley Bewdley ( pronunciation) is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley west of Kidderminster and southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the Riv ...
, succeeding his father Alfred. He served as
Financial Secretary to the Treasury The financial secretary to the Treasury is a mid-level ministerial post in His Majesty's Treasury. It is nominally the fifth most significant ministerial role within the Treasury after the first lord of the Treasury, the chancellor of the Excheq ...
(1917–1921) and President of the Board of Trade (1921–1922) in the
coalition ministry A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...
of
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...
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 A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and po ...
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 Sir
Austen Chamberlain Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (twice) and was briefly ...
(Foreign Secretary),
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
(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 The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 ( 17 and 18 Geo V c 22) was a British Act of Parliament passed in response to the General Strike of 1926, introduced by the Attorney General for England and Wales, Sir Douglas Hogg MP. Provisions ...
to curb the powers of trade unions. 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, and 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 The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 192 ...
status to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, while taking the first step towards the
Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the ...
. 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 The remilitarization of the Rhineland () began on 7 March 1936, when German military forces entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared for a milita ...
, and the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
. Baldwin retired in 1937 and was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain. At that time, 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 the "
Guilty Men ''Guilty Men'' is a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. A classic denunciation of the former government policy, i ...
" who had tried to appease
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
and who had supposedly not rearmed sufficiently to prepare for the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. Today, modern scholars generally rank him in the upper half of British prime ministers.


Early life: family, education and marriage

Baldwin was born at Lower Park House (Lower Park,
Bewdley Bewdley ( pronunciation) is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley west of Kidderminster and southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the Riv ...
) in Worcestershire, England, to Alfred and Louisa (MacDonald) Baldwin, and through his mother was a first cousin of the writer and poet
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...
, with whom he was close for their entire lives. A summer spent with Kipling and his sister with the freedom of farm and forest at
Loughton Loughton () is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest District of Essex. Part of the metropolitan and urban area of London, the town borders Chingford, Waltham Abbey, Theydon Bois, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill, and is northeast of Chari ...
in 1877 was seminal in 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 Richard Thomas and Baldwins Ltd (RTB) was a major iron, steel and tinplate producer, primarily based in Wales and formed in 1948 by the merger of Richard Thomas & Co Ltd with Baldwins Ltd. It was absorbed into British Steel Corporation in 1967. The ...
. Baldwin's schools were 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 school masters, and in relation to them I once had every qualification as a passive resister." Baldwin then went on to the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
, where he studied history at Trinity College. His time at university was blighted by the presence, as Master of Trinity, of
Henry Montagu Butler Henry Montagu Butler (2 July 1833 – 14 January 1918) was an English academic and clergyman, who served as headmaster of Harrow School (1860–85), Dean of Gloucester (1885–86) and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1886–1918). Early ...
, his former headmaster who had punished him at Harrow for writing a piece of schoolboy smut. He was asked to resign from the Magpie & Stump (the Trinity College debating society) for never speaking, and, after receiving a third-class degree in history, he went into the family business of iron manufacturing. His father sent him to
Mason College Mason Science College was a university college in Birmingham, England, and a predecessor college of Birmingham University. Founded in 1875 by industrialist and philanthropist Sir Josiah Mason, the college was incorporated into the University ...
for one session of technical training in metallurgy as preparation. 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 still-born son in January 1894, the couple had six surviving children: * Lady Diana Lucy Baldwin (born 8 April 1895, died 1982) * Lady Leonora Stanley Baldwin (born 10 July 1896, died 1989) * Lady Pamela Margaret Baldwin (born 16 September 1897, died 14 August 1976) * Major Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (born 1 March 1899, died 10 August 1958) * Lady Esther Louisa (Betty) Baldwin (born 16 March 1902, died 1981) * Arthur Windham Baldwin, 3rd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (born 22 March 1904, died 5 July 1976) Baldwin's youngest daughter, Lady Betty, was severely injured by shrapnel in March 1941 as a result of a
bombing raid Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systemati ...
which destroyed the Café de Paris nightclub she was attending and decapitated the famous bandleader Ken "Snakehips" Johnson.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 proved to be adept as a 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

In the 1906 general election he contested
Kidderminster Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it ha ...
but lost amidst the
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
landslide defeat after the party split on the issue of free trade. In a by-election in 1908 he was elected
Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
(MP) for
Bewdley Bewdley ( pronunciation) is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley west of Kidderminster and southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the Riv ...
, 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 The financial secretary to the Treasury is a mid-level ministerial post in His Majesty's Treasury. It is nominally the fifth most significant ministerial role within the Treasury after the first lord of the Treasury, the chancellor of the Excheq ...
, where he sought to encourage voluntary donations by the rich to repay the United Kingdom's war debt, writing letters to ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' 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.


Joins Cabinet

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 Sir 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 Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...
. 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 November 1922 general election the Conservatives were returned with a majority in their own right.


Prime minister: first term (1923–1924)

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 George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), styled Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and then Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman ...
, the foreign secretary, and Baldwin. The choice formally fell to King
George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...
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 The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
. Curzon was strong and experienced in international affairs, but his lack of experience in domestic affairs, his personal character quirks and his huge inherited wealth and many directorships 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 Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the ...
. 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 Reginald McKenna (6 July 1863 – 6 September 1943) was a British banker and Liberal politician. His first Cabinet post under Henry Campbell-Bannerman was as President of the Board of Education, after which he served as First Lord of the Admir ...
to join the government. When this failed he appointed Neville Chamberlain to that position. The Conservatives now had a clear majority in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
and could govern for five years before holding a general election, but Baldwin felt bound by Bonar Law's pledge at the previous election that there would be no introduction of tariffs without a further election. Thus Baldwin turned towards a degree of
protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulatio ...
which would remain a key party message during his lifetime.Maurice Cowling, ''The Impact of Labour. 1920–1924. The Beginnings of Modern British Politics'' (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 329. 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 which, he hoped, would drive down unemployment and spur an economic recovery. He expected to unite his party but he divided it, for protectionism proved a divisive issue. The election was inconclusive: the Conservatives had 258 MPs, Labour 191 and the reunited Liberals 159. Whilst the Conservatives retained a plurality in the House of Commons, they had been clearly defeated on the central issue: tariffs. Baldwin remained prime minister until the opening of the new Parliament in January 1924, when his administration was defeated in a vote on its legislative programme set out in the King's Speech. He offered his resignation to
George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...
immediately.


Leader of the Opposition (1924)

Baldwin successfully held on to the party leadership amid some colleagues' calls for his resignation. For the next ten months, an unstable minority Labour government under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald held office. On 13 March 1924, the Labour government was defeated for the first time in the Commons, although the Conservatives decided to vote with Labour later that day against the Liberals.Cowling, ''The Impact of Labour'', p. 410. During a debate on the naval estimates the Conservatives opposed Labour but supported them on 18 March in a vote on cutting expenditure on the Singapore military base. Baldwin also cooperated with MacDonald over Irish policy to stop it becoming a party-political issue. The Labour government was negotiating with the Soviet government over intended commercial treaties – 'the Russian Treaties' – to provide most favoured nation privileges and diplomatic status for the UK trade delegation; and a treaty that would settle the claims of pre-revolutionary British bondholders and holders of confiscated property, after which the British government would guarantee a loan to the Soviet Union. Baldwin decided to vote against the government over the Russian Treaties, which brought the government down on 8 October. The general election held in October 1924 brought a landslide majority of 223 for the Conservative party, primarily at the expense of an unpopular
Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...
. Baldwin campaigned on the "impracticability" of socialism, the
Campbell Case The Campbell Case of 1924 involved charges against a British communist newspaper editor, J. R. Campbell, for alleged "incitement to mutiny" caused by his publication of a provocative open letter to members of the military. The decision of the go ...
, the Zinoviev letter (which Baldwin thought was genuine, and the Conservatives leaked to the ''Daily Mail'' at a most damaging time to the Labour campaign; the letter is now widely believed to have been a forgery) and the Russian Treaties. In a speech during the campaign Baldwin said:
It makes my blood boil to read of the way which Mr. Zinoviev is speaking of the Prime Minister today. Though one time there went up a cry, "Hands off Russia", I think it's time somebody said to Russia, "Hands off England".


Prime minister: second term (1924–1929)

Baldwin's new Cabinet now included many former political associates of Lloyd George: former Coalition Conservatives:
Austen Chamberlain Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (twice) and was briefly ...
(as foreign secretary), Lord Birkenhead (secretary for India) and Arthur Balfour (lord president after 1925), and the former Liberal
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
as chancellor of the exchequer. Baldwin created the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, a volunteer body of those opposed to the strike which was intended to complete essential work. A defining feature of Baldwin's Second term was the
1926 General Strike The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British governme ...
, Baldwin handled the strike by using powers awarded to him in the Emergency Powers Act of 1920. He deployed the military and volunteers to keep essential services running. The strike ended when it was found to not be protected by the Trade Disputes Act of 1906, leading to the strike being called of on the 12th of May lasting just 9 days. Baldwin's government was widely credited for such an effective response to the strik

At Baldwin's instigation William Weir, 1st Viscount Weir, Lord Weir headed a
committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
to "review the national problem of electrical energy". It published its report on 14 May 1925 and in it Weir recommended the setting up of a Central Electricity Board, a state monopoly half-financed by the
Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...
and half by local undertakings. Baldwin accepted Weir's recommendations and they became law by the end of 1926.Middlemas and Barnes, pp. 393–4. The Board was a success. By 1939 electrical output was up fourfold and generating costs had fallen. Consumers of electricity rose from three-quarters of a million in 1920 to nine million in 1938, with annual growth of 700,000 to 800,000 a year (the fastest rate of growth in the world). One of his legislative reforms was a paradigm shift in his party. This was the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act of 1925, which provided a pension of 10 shillings a week for widows with extra for children, and 10 shillings a week for insured workers and their wives at 65. This transformed Toryism, away from its historic reliance on community (particularly religious) charities, and towards acceptance of a humanitarian
welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...
which would guarantee a minimum living standard for those unable to work or who took out national insurance. In 1927, he was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
.


Leader of the Opposition (1929–1931)

In
1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...
Labour returned to office as the largest party in the House of Commons (although without an overall majority) despite obtaining fewer votes than the Conservatives. In opposition, Baldwin was almost ousted as party leader by the press barons Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook, whom he accused of enjoying "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages". Ramsden argues that Baldwin made dramatic permanent improvements to the organisation and effectiveness of the Conservative Party. He enlarged the headquarters with professionals, professionalised the party agents, raised ample funds, and was an innovative user of the new mass media of radio and film.


Lord President of the Council (1931–1935)

By 1931, as the economy headed towards crisis, both in Britain and around the world, with the onset of the Great Depression, Baldwin and the Conservatives entered into a coalition with Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. This decision led to MacDonald's expulsion from his own party, and Baldwin, as Lord President of the Council, became ''
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' prime minister, deputising for the increasingly senile MacDonald, until he once again officially became prime minister in 1935. One central and vitally important agreement was the Statute of Westminster 1931, which conferred full self-government upon the Dominions
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
, Australia, The Irish Free State and
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, while preparing the first steps towards the eventual
Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the ...
, and away from the designation 'British Empire'.''Baldwin: The Unexpected Prime Minister'', by Montgomery Hyde, 1973 In 1930, the first British Empire Games sports competition was held successfully among Empire nations in
Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a Canada 2016 Census, population of 569,353, and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington, ...
, Canada. His government then secured with great difficulty the passage of the landmark Government of India Act 1935, in the teeth of opposition from Winston Churchill, spokesman for the die-hard imperialists who filled the Conservative ranks.


Disarmament

Baldwin did not advocate total disarmament but believed that, as Lord Grey of Falloden had stated in 1925, "great armaments lead inevitably to war". However he came to believe that, as he put it on 10 November 1932: "the time has now come to an end when Great Britain can proceed with unilateral disarmament".Middlemas and Barnes, p. 735. On 10 November 1932 Baldwin said:
I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through, The only defence is in offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves...If the conscience of the young men should ever come to feel, with regard to this one instrument ombingthat it is evil and should go, the thing will be done; but if they do not feel like that – well, as I say, the future is in their hands. But when the next war comes, and European civilisation is wiped out, as it will be, and by no force more than that force, then do not let them lay blame on the old men. Let them remember that they, principally, or they alone, are responsible for the terrors that have fallen upon the earth.
This speech was often used against Baldwin as allegedly demonstrating the futility of rearmament or disarmament, depending on the critic. With the second part of the Disarmament Conference starting in January 1933, Baldwin attempted to see through his hope of air disarmament. However he became alarmed at Britain's lack of defence against air raids and German rearmament, saying it "would be a terrible thing, in fact, the beginning of the end". In April 1933 the Cabinet agreed to follow through with the construction of the
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
military base. On 15 September 1933 the German delegate at the Disarmament Conference refused to return to the Conference and Germany left altogether in October. On 6 October Baldwin, in a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, pleaded for a Disarmament Convention and then said:
when I speak of a Disarmament Convention I do not mean disarmament on the part of this country and not on the part of any other. I mean the limitation of armaments as a real limitation...and if we find ourselves on some lower rating and that some other country has higher figures, that country has to come down and we have to go up until we meet.
On 14 October Germany left the
League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
. The Cabinet decided on 23 October that Britain should still attempt to cooperate with other states, including Germany, in international disarmament. However between mid-September 1933 and the beginning of 1934 Baldwin's mind changed from hoping for disarmament to favouring rearmament, including parity in aircraft. In late 1933 and early 1934 he rejected an invitation from Hitler to meet him, believing that visits to foreign capitals were the job of Foreign Secretaries. On 8 March 1934 Baldwin defended the creation of four new squadrons for the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
against Labour criticisms and said of international disarmament:
If all our efforts for an agreement fail, and if it is not possible to obtain this equality in such matters as I have indicated, then any Government of this country—a National Government more than any, and ''this'' Government—will see to it that in air strength and air power this country shall no longer be in a position inferior to any country within striking distance of our shores.Middlemas and Barnes, p. 754.
On 29 March 1934 Germany published its defence estimates, which showed a total increase of one-third and an increase of 250% in its air force. A series of by-elections in late 1933 and early 1934 with massive swings against government candidates—most famous was Fulham East with a 26.5% swing— convinced Baldwin that the British public was profoundly pacifist. Baldwin also rejected the "belligerent" views of those like Churchill and Robert Vansittart because he believed that the Nazis were rational men who would appreciate the logic of mutual and equal deterrence. He also believed war to be "the most fearful terror and prostitution of man's knowledge that ever was known".


Prime minister: third term (1935–1937)

With MacDonald's health in decline, he and Baldwin changed places in June 1935: Baldwin was now prime minister, MacDonald Lord President of the council. In October that year, Baldwin called a general election. Neville Chamberlain advised Baldwin to make rearmament the leading issue in the election campaign against Labour and said that if a rearmament programme was not announced until after the election, his government would be seen as having deceived the people. However, Baldwin did not make rearmament the central issue in the election. He said that he would support the League of Nations, modernise Britain's defences and remedy deficiencies, but he also said: "I give you my word that there will be no great armaments".Taylor, p. 383. The main issues in the election were housing, unemployment and the special areas of economic depression. The election gave 430 seats to National Government supporters (386 of these Conservative) and 154 seats to Labour.


Rearmament

Baldwin's younger son A. Windham Baldwin, writing in 1955, argued that his father, Stanley, had planned a rearmament programme as early as 1934 but had to do so quietly to avoid antagonising the public, whose pacifism was revealed by the Peace Ballot of 1934–35 and endorsed by both the Labour and the Liberal oppositions. His thorough presentation of the case for rearmament in 1935, his son argued, defeated pacifism and secured a victory that allowed rearmament to move ahead. On 31 July 1934, the Cabinet approved a report that called for expansion of the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
to the 1923 standard by creating 40 new squadrons over the next five years. On 26 November 1934, six days after receiving the news that the German air force would be as large as the RAF within one year, the Cabinet decided to speed up air rearmament from four years to two.Barnett, p. 413. On 28 November 1934, Churchill moved an amendment to the vote of thanks for the King's Speech: "the strength of our national defences, and especially our air defences, is no longer adequate". His motion was known eight days before it was moved, and a special Cabinet meeting decided how to deal with the motion, which dominated two other Cabinet meetings. Churchill said Germany was rearming and requested that the money spent on air armaments be doubled or tripled to deter an attack and that the ''Luftwaffe'' was nearing equality with the RAF. Baldwin responded by denying that the Luftwaffe was approaching equality and said it was "not 50 per cent" of the RAF. He added that by the end of 1935 the RAF would still have "a margin of nearly 50 per cent" in Europe. After Baldwin said that the government would ensure the RAF had parity with the future German air force, Churchill withdrew his amendment. In April 1935, the Air Secretary reported that although Britain's strength in the air would be ahead of Germany's for at least three years, air rearmament needed to be increased; so the Cabinet agreed to the creation of an extra 39 squadrons for home defence by 1937. However, on 8 May 1935, the Cabinet heard that it was estimated that the RAF was inferior to the
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
by 370 aircraft and that to reach parity, the RAF must have 3,800 aircraft by April 1937, an extra 1,400 above the existing air programme. It was learnt that Germany was easily able to outbuild that revised programme as well. On 21 May 1935, the Cabinet agreed to expanding the home defence force of the RAF to 1,512 aircraft (840 bombers and 420 fighters). On 22 May 1935 Baldwin confessed in the Commons, "I was wrong in my estimate of the future. There I was completely wrong." On 25 February 1936, the Cabinet approved a report calling for expansion of the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
and the re-equipment of the
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
(though not its expansion), along with the creation of "shadow factories" built by public money and managed by industrial companies. The factories came into operation in 1937. In February 1937, the Chiefs of Staff reported that by May 1937, the Luftwaffe would have 800 bombers, compared to the RAF's 48. In the debate in the Commons on 12 November 1936, Churchill attacked the government on rearmament as being "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on, preparing more months and years – precious, perhaps vital, to the greatness of Britain – for the locusts to eat". Baldwin replied:
I put before the whole House my own views with an appalling frankness. From 1933, I and my friends were all very worried about what was happening in Europe. You will remember at that time the Disarmament Conference was sitting in Geneva. You will remember at that time there was probably a stronger pacifist feeling running through the country than at any time since the War. I am speaking of 1933 and 1934. You will remember the election at Fulham in the autumn of 1933.... That was the feeling of the country in 1933. My position as a leader of a great party was not altogether a comfortable one. I asked myself what chance was there... within the next year or two of that feeling being so changed that the country would give a mandate for rearmament? Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming and we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cry at that moment! I cannot think of anything that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more certain.... We got from the country – with a large majority – a mandate for doing a thing that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible.
Churchill wrote to a friend: "I have never heard such a squalid confession from a public man as Baldwin offered us yesterday". In 1935 Baldwin wrote to J. C. C. Davidson in a letter now lost that said of Churchill: "If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister".Middlemas and Barnes, p. 872. Thomas Dugdale also claimed Baldwin said to him: "If we do have a war, Winston must be Prime Minister. If he is in he Cabinetnow we shan't be able to engage in that war as a united nation". The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Walter Citrine, recalled a conversation he had had with Baldwin on 5 April 1943: "Baldwin thought his hurchill'spolitical recovery was marvellous. He, personally, had always thought that if war came Winston would be the right man for the job". The Labour Party strongly opposed the rearmament programme. Clement Attlee said on 21 December 1933: "For our part, we are unalterably opposed to anything in the nature of rearmament".Barnett, p. 422. On 8 March 1934, Attlee said, after Baldwin defended the Air Estimates, "we on our side are out for total disarmament". On 30 July 1934, Labour moved a motion of censure against the government because of its planned expansion of the RAF. Attlee spoke for it: "We deny the need for increased air arms...and we reject altogether the claim of parity". Sir Stafford Cripps also said on that occasion that it was fallacy that Britain could achieve security through increasing air armaments. On 22 May 1935, the day after Hitler had made a speech claiming that German rearmament offered no threat to peace, Attlee asserted that Hitler's speech gave "a chance to call a halt in the armaments race". Attlee also denounced the Defence White Paper of 1937: "I do not believe the Government are going to get any safety through these armaments".


Abdication of Edward VIII

The accession of King Edward VIII, and the ensuing abdication crisis, brought Baldwin's last major test in office. The new monarch was "an ardent exponent of the cause of Anglo-German understanding" and had "strong views on his right to intervene in affairs of state," but the "Government's main fears... were of indiscretion."Middlemas and Barnes, p. 979. The King proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American woman who was twice divorced. The high-minded Baldwin felt that he could tolerate her as "a respectable whore" as long as she stayed behind the throne but not as "Queen Wally". Mrs. Simpson was also distrusted by the government for her known pro-German sympathies and was believed to be in "close contact with German monarchist circles". During October and November 1936, Baldwin joined the royal family in trying to dissuade the King from that marriage, arguing that the idea of having a twice-divorced woman as the Queen would be rejected by the government, by the country and by the Empire and that "the voice of the people must be heard." As the public standing of the King would be gravely compromised, the Prime Minister gave him time to reconsider the notion of this marriage.Middlemas and Barnes, p. 992. According to the historian Philip Williamson, "The offence lay in the implications of he King'sattachment to Mrs. Simpson for the broader public morality and the constitutional integrity which were now perceived—especially by Baldwin—as underpinning the nation's unity and strength." News of the affair was broken in the newspapers on 2 December.Lowe, p. 488. There was some support for the wishes of the King, especially in and around London. The romantic royalists Churchill, Mosley, and the press barons, Lord Beaverbrook of the '' Daily Express'' and Lord Rothermere of the '' Daily Mail'', all declared that the king had a right to marry whichever woman he wished. The crisis assumed a political dimension when Beaverbrook and Churchill tried to rally support for the marriage in
Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
. However, the King's party could muster only 40
Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
in support, and the majority opinion sided with Baldwin and his Conservative government. The Labour leader, Clement Attlee, told Baldwin "that while Labour people had no objection to an American becoming Queen, ewas certain they would not approve of Mrs. Simpson for that position", especially in the provinces and in the
Commonwealth countries The Commonwealth of Nations is a voluntary association of 56 sovereign states. Most of them were British colonies or dependencies of those colonies. No one government in the Commonwealth exercises power over the others, as is the case in a p ...
. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
Cosmo Lang William Cosmo Gordon Lang, 1st Baron Lang of Lambeth, (31 October 1864 – 5 December 1945) was a Scottish Anglican prelate who served as Archbishop of York (1908–1928) and Archbishop of Canterbury (1928–1942). His elevation to Archbishop ...
, held that the King, as the head of the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
, should not marry a divorcée. ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' argued that the monarchy's prestige would be destroyed if "private inclination were to come into open conflict with public duty and be allowed to prevail". While some recent critics have complained that "Baldwin refused the reasonable request for time to reflect, preferring to keep the pressure on the King – once again suggesting that his own agenda was to force the crisis to a head" and that he "never mentioned that the alternative o the marriagewas abdication", the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
immediately and overwhelmingly came out against the marriage. The Labour and
Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...
parties, the Trades Union Congress,Williamson, p. 328. and the dominions of Australia and Canada, all joined the
British cabinet The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the senior decision-making body of His Majesty's Government. A committee of the Privy Council, it is chaired by the prime minister and its members include secretaries of state and other senior ministers. ...
in rejecting the King's compromise, initially supported and perhaps conceived by Churchill, for a
morganatic marriage Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spous ...
that had originally been made on 16 November. The crisis threatened the unity of the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
, since the King's personal relationship with the Dominions was their "only remaining constitutional link". Baldwin still hoped that the King would choose the throne over Mrs. Simpson. For the King to act against the wishes of the cabinet would have precipitated a constitutional crisis. Baldwin would have had to resign, and no other party leader would have served as the prime minister under the King, with the Labour Party having already indicated that it would not form a ministry to uphold impropriety. Baldwin told the Cabinet, one Labour MP had asked, "Are we going to have a fascist monarchy?" When the Cabinet refused the morganatic marriage, Edward decided to abdicate. The King's final plea, on 4 December, to broadcast an appeal to the nation was rejected by the Prime Minister as too divisive. Nevertheless, at his final audience with King Edward on 7 December, Baldwin offered to strive all night with the King's conscience, but he found Edward to be determined to go. Baldwin announced the King's abdication in the Commons on 10 December. Harold Nicolson, an MP who witnessed Baldwin's speech, wrote in his diary:
There is no moment when he overstates emotion or indulges in oratory. There is intense silence broken only by the reporters in the gallery scuttling away to telephone the speech.... When it was over... efile out broken in body and soul, conscious that we have heard the best speech that we shall ever hear in our lives. There was no question of applause. It was the silence of Gettysburg...No man has ever dominated the House as he dominated it tonight, and he knows it.
After the speech, the House adjourned and Nicolson bumped into Baldwin as he was leaving, who asked him what he thought of the speech. Nicolson said it was superb to which Baldwin replied: "Yes ... it was a success. I know it. It was almost wholly unprepared. I had a success, my dear Nicolson, at the moment I most needed it. Now is the time to go". The King abdicated on 11 December and was succeeded by his brother,
George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of I ...
. Edward VIII was assigned the title of the
Duke of Windsor Duke of Windsor was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 8 March 1937 for the former monarch Edward VIII, following his abdication on 11 December 1936. The dukedom takes its name from the town where Windsor Castle, ...
by his brother and then married Mrs. Simpson in France in June 1937 after her divorce from
Ernest Simpson Ernest Aldrich Simpson (6 May 1897 – 30 November 1958) was an American-born British shipbroker, best known as the second husband of Wallis Simpson, later wife of the former King Edward VIII. Simpson served as an officer in the Coldstream Gu ...
had become final. Baldwin had defused a political crisis by turning it into a constitutional question. His discreet resolution met with general approval and restored his popularity. He was praised on all sides for his tact and patience and was not in the least put out by the protestors' cries of "God save the King—from Baldwin!" "Flog Baldwin! Flog him!! We—want—Edward." John Charmley argued in his history of the Conservative Party that Baldwin was pushing for more democracy and less of an old aristocratic upper-class tone. Monarchy was to be a national foundation by which the head of the Church. the State, and the Empire would draw upon 1000 years of tradition and could unify the nation. George V was an ideal fit: "an ordinary little man with the philistine tastes of most of his subjects, he could be presented as the archetypical English paterfamilias getting on with his duties without fuss." Charmley finds that George V and Baldwin, "made a formidable conservative team, with their ordinary, honest, English decency proving the first (and most effective) bulwark against revolution". Edward VIII, flaunting his upper-class playboy style, suffered from an unstable neurotic character and needed a strong stabilising partner, a role that Mrs. Simpson was unable to provide. Baldwin's final achievement was to smooth the way for Edward to abdicate in favour of his younger brother, who became George VI. Both father and son demonstrated the value of a democratic king during the severe physical and psychological hardships of the world wars, and the tradition was carried on by
Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
.


Retirement


Leaving office and peerage

After the coronation of George VI, Baldwin announced on 27 May 1937 that he would resign the premiership the next day. His last act as prime minister was to raise the salaries of MPs from £400 a year to £600 and to give the leader of the Opposition a salary. That was the first rise in MPs' wages since their introduction in 1911, and it particularly benefited Labour MPs. Harold Nicolson wrote in his diary that it "was done with Baldwin's usual consummate taste. No man has ever left in such a blaze of affection". Baldwin was knighted as a
knight of the Garter The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III of England in 1348. It is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system, outranked in precedence only by the Victoria Cross and the George ...
(KG) on 28 May and ennobled as Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and Viscount Corvedale, ''of Corvedale in the County of Salop'' on 8 June. In a BBC radio broadcast transmitted on 8 December 1938, Baldwin made a nationwide appeal for funds to help Jewish and other refugees fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany. For this, Baldwin was dubbed a “guttersnipe” by a Berlin newspaper. The “Lord Baldwin Fund for Refugees”, helping the kindertransport and other relief schemes, raised over £500,000 �36,000,000 in 2022


Attitude to appeasement

Baldwin supported the
Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...
and said to Chamberlain on 26 September 1938: "If you can secure peace, you may be cursed by a lot of hotheads but my word you will be blessed in Europe and by future generations". Baldwin made a rare speech in the House of Lords on 4 October and said that he could not have gone to Munich but praised Chamberlain's courage. He also said the responsibility of a prime minister was not to commit a country to war until he was sure that it was ready to fight. If there was a 95% chance of war in the future, he would still choose peace. He also said he would put industry on a war footing the next day, as the opposition to such a move had disappeared. Churchill said in a speech: "He says he would mobilise tomorrow. I think it would have been much better if Earl Baldwin had said that two and a half years ago when everyone demanded a Ministry of Supply". Two weeks after Munich, Baldwin said prophetically in a conversation with Lord Hinchingbrooke: "Can't we turn Hitler East?
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
broke himself against the Russians. Hitler might do the same". Baldwin's years in retirement were quiet. After Chamberlain's death in 1940, Baldwin's perceived part in prewar appeasement made him an unpopular figure during and after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.Middlemas and Barnes, p. 1055. With a succession of British military failures in 1940, Baldwin started to receive critical letters: "insidious to begin with, then increasingly violent and abusive; then the newspapers; finally the polemicists who, with time and wit at their disposal, could debate at leisure how to wound the deepest". He did not have a secretary and so was not shielded from the often-unpleasant letters that were sent to him. After a bitterly-critical letter was sent to him by a member of the public, Baldwin wrote: "I can understand his bitterness. He wants a scapegoat and the men provided him with one". His biographers Middlemas and Barnes claim that "the men" almost certainly meant the authors of ''
Guilty Men ''Guilty Men'' is a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. A classic denunciation of the former government policy, i ...
''.


Letter to Lord Halifax

After Lord Halifax made a speech on the strength of prayer as the instrument that could be invoked by the humblest to use in their country's service, Baldwin wrote to him on 23 July 1940:
With millions of others I had prayed hard at the time of Dunkirk and never did prayer seem to be more speedily answered to the full. And we prayed for France and the next day she surrendered. I thought much, and when I went to bed I lay for a long time vividly awake. And I went over in my mind what had happened, concentrating on the thoughts that you had dwelt on, that prayer to be effective must be in accordance with God's will, and that by far the hardest thing to say from the heart and indeed the last lesson we learn (if we ever do) is to say and mean it, 'Thy will be done.' And I thought what mites we all are and how we can never see God's plan, a plan on such a scale that it ''must'' be incomprehensible. And suddenly for what must have been a couple of minutes I seemed to see with extraordinary and vivid clarity and to hear someone speaking to me. The words at the time were clear, but the recollection of them had passed when I seemed to come to, as it were, but the sense remained, and the sense was this. 'You cannot see the plan'; then 'Have you not thought there is a purpose in stripping you one by one of all the human props on which you depend, that you are being left alone in the world? You have now one upon whom to lean and I have chosen you as my instrument to work with my will. Why then are you afraid?' And to prove ourselves worthy of that tremendous task is our job.


Iron gates criticism

In September 1941, Baldwin's old enemy, Lord Beaverbrook, asked all local authorities to survey their area's iron and steel railings and gates that could be used for the war effort. Owners of such materials could appeal for an exemption on grounds of artistic or historic merit, which would be decided by a panel set up by local authorities. Baldwin applied for exemption for the iron gates of his country home on artistic grounds and his local council sent an architect to assess them. In December, the architect advised for them to be exempt, but in February 1942, the Ministry of Supply overruled that and said all his gates must go except the ones at the main entrance. A newspaper campaign hounded him for not donating the gates to war production. The ''
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...
'' columnist ''
Cassandra Cassandra or Kassandra (; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, , also , and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be belie ...
'' denounced Baldwin:
Here was the country in deadly peril with half the Empire swinging in the wind like a busted barn door hanging on one hinge. Here was Old England half smothered in a shroud crying for steel to cut her way out, and right in the heart of beautiful Worcestershire was a one-time Prime Minister, refusing to give up the gates of his estate to make guns for our defence – and his. Here was an old stupid politician who had tricked the nation into complacency about rearmament for fear of losing an election.... Here is the very shrine of stupidity.... This National Park of Failure....
There were fears that if the gates were not taken by the proper authorities, "others without authority might". Thus, months before any other collections were made, Baldwin's gates were removed except for those at the main entrance. Two of Beaverbrook's friends after the war claimed that it was Beaverbrook's decision despite Churchill saying, "Lay off Baldwin's gates". At
Question Time A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...
in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Captain Alan Graham said: "Is the honourable Member aware that it is very necessary to leave Lord Baldwin his gates in order to protect him from the just indignation of the mob?"


Comments on politics

During the war, Churchill consulted him only once, in February 1943, on the advisability of his speaking out strongly against the continued neutrality of
Éamon de Valera Éamon de Valera (, ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of govern ...
's
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. Baldwin saw the draft of Churchill's speech and advised against it, which Churchill followed. A few months after this visit to Churchill, Baldwin told Harold Nicolson, "I went into Downing Street.... a happy man. Of course it was partly because an old buffer like me enjoys feeling that he is still not quite out of things. But it was also pure patriotic joy that my country at such a time should have found such a leader. The furnace of the war has smeltered out all base metals from him". To D. H. Barber, Baldwin wrote of Churchill: "You can take it from me he is a really big man, the War has brought out the best that was in him. His head isn't turned the least little bit by the great position he occupies in the eyes of the world. I pray he is spared to see us through". In private, Baldwin defended his conduct in the 1930s:
the critics have no historical sense. I have no Cabinet papers by me and do not want to trust my memory. But recall the Fulham election, the peace ballot, Singapore, sanctions, Malta. The English will only learn by example. When I first heard of Hitler, when Ribbentrop came to see me, I thought they were all crazy. I think I brought Ramsay and Simon to meet Ribbentrop. Remember that Ramsay's health was breaking up in the last two years. He had lost his nerve in the House in the last year. I had to take all the important speeches. The moment he went, I prepared for a general election and got a bigger majority for rearmament. No power on earth could have got rearmament without a general election except by a big split. Simon was inefficient. I had to lead the House, keep the machine together with those Labour fellows.Middlemas and Barnes, p. 1063.
In December 1944, strongly advised by friends, Baldwin decided to respond to criticisms of him through a biographer. He asked G. M. Young, who accepted and asked Churchill to grant permission to Young to see Cabinet papers. Baldwin wrote:
I am the last person to complain of fair criticism, but when one book after another appears and I am compared, for example, to Laval, my gorge rises; but I am crippled and cannot go and examine the files of the Cabinet Office. Could G. M. Young go on my behalf?


Last years and death

In June 1945, Baldwin's wife,
Lucy Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Lu ...
, died. Baldwin himself now suffered from arthritis and needed a cane to walk. When he made his final public appearance in London in October 1947 at the unveiling of a statue of
George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...
, a crowd of people recognised and cheered him, but he had become deaf and so asked: "Are they booing me?" Having been made Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 1930, he continued in that capacity until his death in his sleep at Astley Hall, near Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, on 14 December 1947. He was cremated in Birmingham, and his ashes were buried in Worcester Cathedral. No cause of death was revealed. Baldwin was a member of the Oddfellows and Foresters Friendly Society.


Legacy

Upon his retirement in 1937, he had received a great deal of praise, but the onset of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
would change his public image for the worse. Baldwin, Chamberlain and MacDonald were held responsible for Great Britain's military unpreparedness on the eve of war in 1939. Peter Howard, writing in the ''Sunday Express'' (3 September 1939), accused Baldwin of deceiving the country of the dangers that faced it in order not to rearm and so win the 1935 general election. During the ill-fated Battle of France in May 1940, Lloyd George in conversation with Churchill and General Ironside railed against Baldwin and said that "he ought to be hanged". In July 1940, a bestseller ''
Guilty Men ''Guilty Men'' is a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. A classic denunciation of the former government policy, i ...
'' appeared, which blamed Baldwin for failing to rearm enough. In May 1941,
Hamilton Fyfe Henry Hamilton Fyfe (29 September 1869 – 15 June 1951) was a British journalist and writer who was editor of both the newspapers the ''Daily Mirror'' and the '' Daily Herald''. Career Born in London, and educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh ...
wrote an article ("Leadership and Democracy") for ''Nineteenth Century and After'', which also laid those charges against Baldwin. In 1941, A. L. Rowse criticised Baldwin for lulling the people into a false sense of security and as a practitioner in "the art of taking the people in":
what can this man think in the still watches of the night, when he contemplates the ordeal his country is going through as the result of the years, the locust years, in which he held power?
Churchill firmly believed that Baldwin's conciliatory stance toward Hitler gave the impression that in the case of an attack by the German dictator, Britain would not fight. Churchill was known for his magnanimity toward political rivals such as Chamberlain but had none to spare for Baldwin. "I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill," Churchill said in declining to send him 80th birthday greetings in 1947, "but it would have been much better had he never lived." Churchill also believed that Baldwin, rather than Chamberlain, would be most blamed by subsequent generations for the policies that led to "the most unnecessary war in history". An index entry in the first volume of Churchill's "History of the Second World War" (''The Gathering Storm'') records Baldwin "admitting to putting party before country" for his alleged admission that he would not have won the 1935 election if he had pursued a more aggressive policy of rearmament. Churchill selectively quoted a speech in the Commons by Baldwin that gave the false impression that Baldwin was speaking of the general election, instead of the Fulham by-election in 1933, and omitted Baldwin's actual comments about the 1935 election: "We got from the country, a mandate for doing a thing substantial rearmament programmethat no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible". In his speech on Baldwin's death, Churchill paid him a double-edged yet respectful tribute: "He was the most formidable politician I ever encountered in public life". In 1948, Reginald Bassett published an essay disputing the claim that Baldwin "confessed" to putting party before country and claimed that Baldwin was referring to 1933 and 1934 when a general election on rearmament would have been lost. In 1952, G. M. Young published an authorised biography of Baldwin that asserted that Baldwin united the nation and helped moderate the policies of the Labour Party. However, Young accepted the chief criticisms of Baldwin that he failed to rearm early enough and that he put party before country. Young contends that Baldwin should have retired in 1935. Churchill and Beaverbrook deemed several passages in the biography to be defamatory of their own actions and threatened to sue if they were not removed or altered. A settlement was reached to remove the offending sentences, and the publisher
Rupert Hart-Davis Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis (28 August 1907 – 8 December 1999) was an English publisher and editor. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his ''Hugh Walpole'' (1952), as an editor, f ...
had the "hideously expensive" job of removing and replacing seven leaves from 7,580 copies. In response to Young's biography, D. C. Somervell published ''Stanley Baldwin: An examination of some features of Mr. G. M. Young's biography'' in 1953 with a foreword by Ernest Brown. This attempted to defend Baldwin against the charges made by Young. Both Young and Somervell were criticised by C. L. Mowat in 1955, who claimed that they both failed to rehabilitate Baldwin's reputation. In 1956, Baldwin's son A. W. Baldwin published a biography entitled ''My Father: The True Story''. It has been written that his son "evidently could not decide whether he was answering the charge of inanition and deceit which grew out of the war, or the radical "dissenters" of the early 1930s who thought the Conservatives were warmongers and denounced them for rearming at all". In an article written to commemorate the centenary of Baldwin's birth, in ''
The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' ("Don't Let's Be Beastly to Baldwin", 14 July 1967),
Rab Butler Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party politician. ''The Times'' obituary c ...
defended Baldwin's moderate policies and claimed that it helped heal social divisions. In 1969 the first major biography of Baldwin appeared, of over 1,000 pages, written by
Keith Middlemas Robert Keith Middlemas (1935–2013) was an English historian, known for works on modern European political history. Life Middlemas was born in Alnwick, Northumberland on 26 May 1935. He was educated at Stowe School and then joined the Northumb ...
and John Barnes, both Conservatives who wished to defend Baldwin. In 1998, historian Andrew Thorpe wrote that apart from the questions of war and peace, Baldwin had a mixed reputation. He was moved by social deprivation but not to the point of legislation and systematically avoided intervention in the economy and social system. He had a ruthless style that included insincerity. His advisors were second rank figures like Davidson and Bridgeman. Thorpe wrote, "Essentially, Baldwin was a much more neurotic and insecure character than his public persona would have suggested", as shown by his nervous breakdown in 1936 that kept him out of action for three months. On the other hand, Thorpe says that Baldwin was a good co-ordinator of his coalition who did not block colleagues who proposed various small reforms. Thorpe argued that Baldwin's handling of the 1926 general strike was "firm and uncompromising" but disliked the harsh Trade Disputes Act that followed because it was too far to the right of Baldwin's preferred moderation. Thorpe praised Baldwin's handling of the Abdication Crisis in 1936, which allowed Baldwin to leave office in a blaze of glory. Thorpe said that Baldwin often lacked drive and was too easily depressed, too pessimistic and too neglectful of foreign affairs. On the other hand, he achieved his primary goals of preserving capitalism, maintaining the parliamentary system and strengthening the Conservative Party as a leading opponent of socialism. In 1999, Philip Williamson published a collection of essays on Baldwin that attempted to explain his beliefs and defended his policies as prime minister. Baldwin's defenders argued that with pacifist appeasement the dominant political view in Britain, France and the United States, he felt he could not start a programme of rearmament without a national consensus on the matter. Williamson argued that Baldwin had helped create "a moral basis for rearmament in the mid 1930s" that contributed greatly to "the national spirit of defiance after Munich". Williamson admitted that there was a clear postwar consensus that repudiated and denigrated all interwar governments: Baldwin was targeted with the accusation that he had failed to rearm Britain in the 1930s, despite Hitler's threat. Williamson said that the negative reputation was chiefly the product of partisan politics, the bandwagon of praise for Churchill, selective recollections, and the need for scapegoats to blame for Britain's very close call in 1940. Only during the 1960s would political distance and then the opening of government records lead to more balanced historical assessments, but the myth had become so central to larger myths about the 1930s and 1940s that it persists as conventional wisdom about the period. By 2004, Ball could report, "The pendulum has swung almost completely towards a positive view." Ball noted, "Baldwin is now seen as having done more than most and perhaps as much as was possible in the context, but the fact remains that it was not enough to deter the aggressors or ensure their defeat. Less equivocal was his rediscovery as a moderate and inclusive Conservative for the modern age, part of a ' one nation tradition'."


Governments as prime minister


First government, May 1923 – January 1924

* Stanley Baldwin –
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
, Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Leader of the House of Commons The leader of the House of Commons is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom whose main role is organising government business in the House of Commons. The leader is generally a member or attendee of the cabinet of t ...
* Lord Cave
Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...
* Lord SalisburyLord President of the Council * Lord Robert CecilLord Privy Seal (Viscount Cecil of Chelwood from 28 December 1923) * William Bridgeman
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
* Lord Curzon of Kedleston
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...
and
Leader of the House of Lords The leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The post is also the leader of the majority party in the House of Lords who acts as ...
* The Duke of DevonshireSecretary of State for the Colonies *
Lord Derby Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, (29 March 1799 – 23 October 1869, known before 1834 as Edward Stanley, and from 1834 to 1851 as Lord Stanley) was a British statesman, three-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ...
Secretary of State for War * Lord PeelSecretary of State for India * Sir Samuel HoareSecretary of State for Air * Lord NovarSecretary for Scotland * Leo Amery
First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...
* Sir Philip Lloyd-GreamePresident of the Board of Trade * Sir Robert Sanders
Minister of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...
* E. F. L. WoodPresident of the Board of Education * Sir Anderson Montague-Barlow
Minister of Labour Minister of Labour (in British English) or Labor (in American English) is typically a cabinet-level position with portfolio responsibility for setting national labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, traini ...
* Neville Chamberlain
Minister of Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Coun ...
*
Sir William Joynson-Hicks William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford, (23 June 1865 – 8 June 1932), known as Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Bt, from 1919 to 1929 and popularly known as Jix, was an English solicitor and Conservative Party politician. He first attr ...
Financial Secretary to the Treasury The financial secretary to the Treasury is a mid-level ministerial post in His Majesty's Treasury. It is nominally the fifth most significant ministerial role within the Treasury after the first lord of the Treasury, the chancellor of the Excheq ...
* Sir Laming Worthington-Evans
Postmaster-General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official responsible ...


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 The leader of the House of Commons is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom whose main role is organising government business in the House of Commons. The leader is generally a member or attendee of the cabinet of t ...
* Lord Cave
Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...
* Lord Curzon of KedlestonLord President of the Council and
Leader of the House of Lords The leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The post is also the leader of the majority party in the House of Lords who acts as ...
* Lord SalisburyLord Privy Seal *
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
Chancellor of the Exchequer *
Sir William Joynson-Hicks William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford, (23 June 1865 – 8 June 1932), known as Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Bt, from 1919 to 1929 and popularly known as Jix, was an English solicitor and Conservative Party politician. He first attr ...
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
* Sir Austen ChamberlainForeign Secretary and Deputy
Leader of the House of Commons The leader of the House of Commons is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom whose main role is organising government business in the House of Commons. The leader is generally a member or attendee of the cabinet of t ...
* Leo AmeryColonial Secretary * Sir Laming Worthington-EvansSecretary of State for War * Lord BirkenheadSecretary of State for India * Sir Samuel HoareSecretary for Air * Sir John GilmourSecretary for Scotland * William Bridgeman
First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...
* Lord Cecil of Chelwood
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...
* Sir Philip Cunliffe-ListerPresident of the Board of Trade * E. F. L. Wood
Minister of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...
* Lord Eustace PercyPresident of the Board of Education * Lord Peel
First Commissioner of Works The First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and subsequent to 1922, within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ir ...
* Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland
Minister of Labour Minister of Labour (in British English) or Labor (in American English) is typically a cabinet-level position with portfolio responsibility for setting national labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, traini ...
* Neville Chamberlain
Minister of Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Coun ...
* Sir Douglas Hogg
Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...


Changes

* April 1925 – On Curzon's death, Lord Balfour succeeded him as Lord President. Lord Salisbury became the new Leader of the House of Lords, remaining also Lord Privy Seal. * June 1925 – The post of
Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs The position of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was a British cabinet-level position created in 1925 responsible for British relations with the Dominions – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Irish Free S ...
was created, held by Leo Amery in tandem with Secretary of State for the Colonies. * November 1925 – Walter Guinness succeeded E. F. L. Wood as Minister of Agriculture. * July 1926 – The post of Secretary of Scotland was 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 Douglas Hogg) succeeded Lord Cave as Lord Chancellor. 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 Marquess of Londonderry, of the County of Londonderry ( ), is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. History The title was created in 1816 for Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Londonderry. He had earlier represented County Down in the Irish House of ...
succeeded Peel as First Commissioner of Public Works


Third cabinet, June 1935 – May 1937

* Stanley Baldwin – Prime Minister and
Leader of the House of Commons The leader of the House of Commons is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom whose main role is organising government business in the House of Commons. The leader is generally a member or attendee of the cabinet of t ...
For membership and dates see David Butler, ''British Political Facts 1900–1985'' (6th ed. 1986) pp 22–25. *
Lord Hailsham Viscount Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1929 for the lawyer and Conservative politician Douglas Hogg, 1st Baron Hailsham, who twice served as Lord High Chancello ...
Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...
* Ramsay MacDonaldLord President of the Council *
Lord Londonderry Marquess of Londonderry, of the County of Londonderry ( ), is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. History The title was created in 1816 for Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Londonderry. He had earlier represented County Down in the Irish House of ...
Lord Privy Seal and
Leader of the House of Lords The leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The post is also the leader of the majority party in the House of Lords who acts as ...
* Neville ChamberlainChancellor of the Exchequer * Sir John Simon
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons * Sir Samuel HoareForeign Secretary *
Malcolm MacDonald Malcolm Ian Macdonald (born 7 January 1950) is an English former professional footballer, manager and media figure. Nicknamed 'Supermac', Macdonald was a quick, powerfully built prolific goalscorer. He played for Fulham, Luton Town, Newcastle ...
Colonial Secretary * J. H. ThomasDominions Secretary * Lord HalifaxSecretary for War * Lord ZetlandSecretary of State for India *
Lord Swinton Earl of Swinton is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1955 for the prominent Conservative politician Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Viscount Swinton. He had already been created Viscount Swinton, of Masham in the Coun ...
Secretary of State for Air * Sir Godfrey CollinsSecretary of State for Scotland * Bolton Eyres-Monsell
First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...
* Walter RuncimanPresident of the Board of Trade * Walter Elliot
Minister of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...
* Oliver StanleyPresident of the Board of Education * Ernest Brown
Minister of Labour Minister of Labour (in British English) or Labor (in American English) is typically a cabinet-level position with portfolio responsibility for setting national labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, traini ...
* Sir
Kingsley Wood Sir Howard Kingsley Wood (19 August 1881 – 21 September 1943) was a British Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance. He became a membe ...
Minister of Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Coun ...
* William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech, William Ormsby-Gore –
First Commissioner of Works The First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and subsequent to 1922, within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ir ...
* Anthony Eden – Minister without portfolio (United Kingdom), Minister without Portfolio with responsibility for League of Nations Affairs * Lord Eustace Percy – Minister without portfolio (United Kingdom), Minister without Portfolio with responsibility for government policy


Changes

* November 1935 – Malcolm MacDonald succeeded J. H. Thomas as Dominions Secretary. Thomas succeeded MacDonald as Colonial Secretary. Lord Halifax succeeded Lord Londonderry as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, Duff Cooper succeeded Halifax as Secretary for War. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister became Viscount Swinton and Bolton Eyres-Monsell became Viscount Monsell, both remaining in the Cabinet. * December 1935 Anthony Eden succeeded Sir Samuel Hoare as Foreign Secretary and was not replaced as Minister without Portfolio. * March 1936 – Thomas Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote, Sir Thomas Inskip entered the Cabinet as Minister for the Coordination of Defence. Lord Eustace Percy left the Cabinet. * May 1936 – William Ormsby-Gore succeeded J. H. Thomas as Colonial Secretary. James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope, Lord Stanhope succeeded Ormsby-Gore as First Commissioner of Works. * June 1936 – Sir Samuel Hoare succeeded Lord Monsell as First Lord of the Admiralty. * October 1936 – Walter Elliot succeeded Collins as Scottish Secretary. William Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, William Morrison succeeded Elliot as Minister of Agriculture. Leslie Hore-Belisha entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport, Minister of Transport.


Honours


Cultural depictions


Bibliography

* Baldwin, Stanley. ''Service of Our Lives: Last Speeches as Prime Minister'' (London: National Book Association, Hutchinson & Co., 1937). viii, 167 pp. speeches from between 12 December 1935 to 18 May 1937.


See also

* Interwar Britain * * List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s


Notes


Further reading

* a short scholarly biography * Ball, Stuart. ''Baldwin & the Conservative Party: The Crisis of 1929–1931'' (1988) 266pp * * John Campbell (biographer), Campbell, John. "Stanley Baldwin" in John P, McIntosh, ed, ''British Prime Ministers in the 20th Century: volume 1 Balfour to Chamberlain'' (1977) 1:188–218 * Cowling, Maurice. ''The Impact of Labour. 1920–1924. The Beginnings of Modern British Politics'' (Cambridge University Press, 1971). * Cowling, Maurice. ''The Impact of Hitler. British Politics and British Policy, 1933–1940'' (U of Chicago Press, 1977). * Dunbabin, J. P. D. "British Rearmament in the 1930s: a Chronology and Review." ''Historical Journal'' 18#3 (1975): 587–609. Argues Baldwin rearmed enough to save Britain while it stood alone in 1940–41. Delays in rearmament were caused by slow decision-making. not by any political scheme to insure Baldwin's return to office in 1935. * Hyde, H. Montgomery. ''Baldwin: The Unexpected Prime Minister'' (1973); 616pp; * Jenkins, Roy. ''Baldwin'' (1987) * McKercher, B. J. C. ''Second Baldwin Government & the United States, 1924–1929: Attitudes & Diplomacy'' (1984), 271pp. * Malament, Barbara C. 'Baldwin Re-restored?', ''The Journal of Modern History'', (Mar. 1972), 44#1 pp. 87–96
in JSTOR
historiography * Mowat, C. L. 'Baldwin Restored?', ''The Journal of Modern History'', (June. 1955) 27#2 pp. 169–174
in JSTOR
* Middlemas, Keith, and John Barnes, ''Baldwin: A Biography'' (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969); 1100 pp of details * Ramsden, John. ''The age of Balfour and Baldwin, 1902–1940''. Vol. 3 Of the history of the Conservative Party (1978). * Raymond, John. "The Baldwin Age" ''History Today'' (Sep 1960) 10#9 pp 598–607. on the frivolous features of frivolous years of the Baldwin era, 1923–1937. * * Rowse, A. L. 'Reflections on Lord Baldwin', ''Political Quarterly'', XII (1941), pp. 305–17. Reprinted in Rowse, ''End of an Epoch'' (1947). * Stannage, Tom. ''Baldwin Thwarts the Opposition: The British General Election of 1935'' (1980) 320pp. * Somervell, D.C. ''The Reign of King George V,'' (1936) pp 342 – 40
online free
* Taylor, A. J. P. ''English History, 1914–1945'' (Oxford University Press, 1990). * Taylor, Andrew J. "Stanley Baldwin, Heresthetics and the Realignment of British Politics," ''British Journal of Political Science,'' (July 2005), 35#3 pp 429–463, Baldwin polarized politics with Labour, squeezing out the Liberals * Thorpe, Andrew. "Stanley Baldwin, first Earl Baldwin of Bewdley." in Robert Eccleshall and Graham S. Walker, eds. ''Biographical Dictionary of British Prime Ministers'' (1998): 273–280. * Williamson, Philip. ''Stanley Baldwin. Conservative Leadership and National Values'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999). * Williamson, Philip. "Baldwin's Reputation: Politics and History, 1937–1967," ''Historical Journal'' (Mar 2004) 47#1 pp 127–16
in JSTOR
* Williamson, Philip. Safety First': Baldwin, the Conservative Party, and the 1929 General Election," ''Historical Journal,'' (June 1982) 25#2 pp 385–40
in JSTOR
* Williamson, Philip. ''Stanley Baldwin: conservative leadership and national values'' ( Cambridge UP, 1999)
Introduction


External links

*
Churchill, Baldwin & The Gold Standard – UK Parliament Living Heritage

Stanley Baldwin
on the Downing Street website.
Recording of Baldwin's youth speech at the Empire Rally of Youth (1937)
– a British Library sound recording *

* * * *
Rudyard Kipling Papers and other Kipling related collections
at The Keep, Brighton, The Keep, University of Sussex {{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, Stanley Stanley Baldwin, 1867 births 1947 deaths 20th-century prime ministers of the United Kingdom Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Alumni of University of London Worldwide Alumni of the University of London Alumni of the University of Birmingham Leaders of the Conservative Party (UK) Chancellors of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom Lord Presidents of the Council Lords Privy Seal Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1906–1910 UK MPs 1910 UK MPs 1910–1918 UK MPs 1918–1922 UK MPs 1922–1923 UK MPs 1923–1924 UK MPs 1924–1929 UK MPs 1929–1931 UK MPs 1931–1935 UK MPs 1935–1945 UK MPs who were granted peerages Royal Artillery officers Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada Rectors of the University of Edinburgh Rectors of the University of Glasgow Chancellors of the University of Cambridge Chancellors of the University of St Andrews English Anglicans Fellows of the Royal Society (Statute 12) People educated at Harrow School People educated at Hawtreys Earls Baldwin of Bewdley Knights of the Garter Burials at Worcester Cathedral People from Bewdley People from Stourport-on-Severn Leaders of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom English people of Scottish descent Abdication of Edward VIII Presidents of the Marylebone Cricket Club Conservative Party prime ministers of the United Kingdom Presidents of the Board of Trade Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom English justices of the peace Politicians awarded knighthoods Earls created by George VI Presidents of the Classical Association