Andrew Bonar Law was famously known as the Unknown Prime Minister. He was the shortest serving Prime Minister of the 20th century with only 209 days in office from 23 October 1922 to 19 May 1923. He had to resign after 6 months in office due to serious health issues and died soon after.
In this blog, Katherine Emery, Assistant Archives Officer, will look at the long and impactful political career of Bonar Law with two decades in politics before he became Prime Minister.
Political career
Bonar Law was a successful businessman and only went into politics in his early 40s. He was first elected as the Conservative MP for Glasgow Blackfriars in the 1900 ‘Khaki’ election, so-called as it was held in the middle of the Second Boer War. Bonar Law gave his maiden speech in Parliament on 19 February 1901, but this was dwarfed in significance by Winston Churchill’s maiden speech given the day before.
Tariff reform and Irish Home Rule would remain a constant passion for Bonar Law throughout his political career. In 1902 Bonar Law was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and soon became involved with the issue of tariff reform, which proposed to tariff foreign imported goods as a way for British industry and agriculture to compete with foreign imports. Bonar Law was from an Ulster family and was against Home Rule for Ireland, favouring instead the Ulster Unionists. In 1912 he gave a speech against Home Rule at a large Unionist rally held at Blenheim Palace.
Leader of the Conservative Party
In 1911 the current leader of the Conservative Party, Arthur Balfour resigned, and Bonar Law put his name forward, alongside the two main frontrunners of Walter Long and Austen Chamberlain. Support for Long and Chamberlain was neck-and-neck, so to avoid a split vote they both withdrew, and Bonar Law was elected party leader as a compromise. He was the Party Leader and Leader of the Opposition from 1911 to 1915.
After the outbreak of World War One, the Liberal government formed a coalition with the Conservative Party, first with Prime Minister Asquith and then with Prime Minister Lloyd George in 1915. Bonar Law sat on the War Council where he stated his scepticism of the Dardanelles Campaign, more commonly known as the Gallipoli Campaign. The campaign was clearly a priority as the War Council was reorganised into the Dardanelles Committee with Bonar Law alongside Lloyd George, Churchill, and Kitchener.
In May 1915 he was made Colonial Secretary but left this post in December 1916 when he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Bonar Law as the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat on Lloyd George’s War Cabinet. He was also Leader of the House of Commons from December 1916 to March 1921 and after stepping down from his Exchequer role, he became the Lord Privy Seal from 1919 to 1921.
Carlton Club & 1922 Election
On 19 October 1922 a meeting was called at the Carlton Club, which was the original home of the Conservative Party. They discussed whether to stay in the post-war coalition with Lloyd George. It was put to a vote and resulted in the Conservative Party leaving the coalition under the leadership of Bonar Law. Lloyd George resigned, and an election was held on 15 November 1922. The Conservative Party won by a large majority and Bonar Law became Prime Minister.
Fun Fact: The 1922 Committee which oversees the election of Conservative Party leaders, is not named after the 1922 Carlton Club meeting. But because it was formed by newly elected Conservative MPs first elected in the 1922 election. The Committee was actually established in April 1923.
Prime Minister
During Bonar Law’s short time in office, although still passionate about tariff reform laws, his major focus was on inter-allied war debts. Britain owed serious war debts to the United States, who had been pushing for action on debt payments.
Britain was owed four times as much by France and other allies, but Bonar Law intended to honour the Balfour Note, signed by Arthur Balfour in August 1922. It agreed that Britain would only claim from the allies what was needed to repay the American debt.
Stanley Baldwin was sent overseas to the United States of America in January 1923 to negotiate the debt repayment percentage rate and he announced the deal to the press before the Cabinet could consider the offer. Bonar Law was not impressed with the suggested rates, but the rest of the Cabinet agreed. Bonar Law even threatened to resign over this issue, but he eventually conceded and agreed to the deal.
Health Issues & Resignation
Bonar Law’s health began to seriously decline, after decades of smoking pipes and cigars he was diagnosed with throat cancer. By April 1923 he could hardly speak in debates. He took a month-long retreat to rest and hopefully improve his health, but it continued to decline. On 20 May 1923, he sent a letter of resignation to King George V as he was too ill to attend in person.
Bonar Law died only a few months later, on 30 October 1923. His funeral was held in Westminster Abbey and despite his wishes to be buried beside his wife in Helensburgh cemetery, Scotland, he was buried in the Abbey. Famously, Asquith remarked that the Unknown Prime Minister was to be buried next to the Unknown Soldier, leading to the title to which he is now often referred.
Bonar Law did not name a successor for Prime Minister, so it was decided that Stanley Baldwin would step up to carry the torch. Apart from a short Labour government in 1924, Baldwin held the office of Prime Minister for the rest of the 1920s.
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