[This is the first of a series of articles describing the
distinctive contribution of Scotsmen to UK politics]
Scotland
had a very different history to that of England
until the Union of the Parliaments in 1707 but by the Victorian Age Scotland
was well woven into the fabric of an extremely prosperous United Kingdom.
Scotland was in the forefront
of industrialisation; her brightest and best found appointments in government
in London and in the burgeoning Empire; her
physical splendours had been celebrated by Scott, Landseer and by the Queen
herself while splendid opportunities in Parliament at Westminster beckoned.
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| Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister 1905-08 |
Henry lived a life of high bourgeois ease in a large house
with many servants. He became a partner in the family business in 1860 and
married Charlotte Bruce that year but, although he drew a comfortable income,
he left executive management to his elder brother, who in due course became a
Tory MP. In 1868 Henry, who had unexpectedly converted to Liberalism at Cambridge, (“not through
prayer and fasting” wryly observed Augustine Birrell later) duly entered
Parliament as the MP for Stirling Burghs, then a safe Liberal seat. He was to
flower as a great Liberal hero.
Three years on the back-benches and then he was appointed
financial secretary at the War Office under the reforming Secretary Edward
Cardwell. Fortune favoured him in other ways too; in 1871 a maternal uncle,
Henry Bannerman, bequeathed him a life interest in the estate at Hunton, near Maidstone on condition that he adopted Bannerman in his
name. This irritated our Henry but the property included a number of valuable
farms and a large country house called Gennings, so he prudently pocketed his
pride and changed his name to Henry Campbell-Bannerman, something of a
mouthful: henceforth he became generally known as “CB”.
CB had 3 periods at the War Office under Gladstone and
Rosebery, rising to Secretary of State. He won a reputation for common sense
and conciliation, while echoing the Liberal principles of “Peace, Retrenchment
and Reform”. Although the Navy was undoubtedly accountable to Parliament, the
Monarch retained much influence over the Army and interfered in the details of
commissions, uniforms, reorganisations and contractors. CB managed this deftly
and finally persuaded the Queen’s cousin, George, Duke of Cambridge, a
hidebound Crimean War veteran, to resign as Commander-in-Chief in 1895 after 39
years in that post. CB was knighted in 1895 for his services.
CB made more friends on all sides in Ireland, where
he was briefly Chief Secretary in 1884-5, joining the Cabinet for the first
time. Ireland
was in agitated turmoil but CB’s bonhomie
and calmness was admired in the run-up to the Home Rule debates. Typically, CB
was more concerned about the state of the drains at his Dublin Lodge rather
than the fear of assassination, although his secretary at the War Office had
gifted a revolver to him.
The life of senior politicians was much less hectic then
than now and CB was somewhat indolent even by the relaxed standards of his day.
Parliament had lengthy recesses and ministers delegated much business to their
departmental civil servants. CB liked to be in Scotland
and had acquired a well-loved country house at Belmont, near Meigle in Angus. He spoke with
an attractive Perthshire accent and his tastes in food were traditional. He
described his ideal meal - “Mutton broth,
fresh herring or salmon, haggis, roast mutton, grouse, apple tart, strawberries
– maistly Scotch”. CB only drank a little whisky maintaining that “Claret is the wide-spread drink of Scotland”.
He did a little shooting but was not guilty of golf or of taking exercise: it
is perhaps no surprise that in later life both CB and his wife tipped the
scales at more than 19 stone.
CB confessed, a little tongue-in-cheek, as Prime Minister in
1906: “Personally I am an immense
believer in bed, in constantly keeping horizontal: the heart and everything
else go slower, and the whole system is
refreshed………” The first 5 months of the year saw the parliamentary session
and thereafter CB usually decamped to Scotland,
believing London
society was unhealthy for a radical politician, though his wit and urbanity
made him a most welcome guest. For 30 years he took a 6-week holiday, always at
the Bohemian spa of Marienbad with a week or so in his beloved Paris. Many English people came to Marienbad
but it did not become fashionable until Edward, Prince of Wales came in the
late 1890s. CB also loved France,
her food, her furniture and her literature; his wife spoke good French too.
The contrast with the hyper-active politicians of 2013 is
striking; not for CB the endless interviews and constituency “surgeries” – CB
was rarely seen in Stirling Burghs but this was not exceptional; he was well
regarded by the burghers of Stirling and the labourers of Dunfermline.
CB maintained a very large house in London
at 6 Grosvenor Place,
with some 20 servants and entertained generously. He had no children and few
obligations. One imagines that with his establishments at Meigle, Maidstone and Grosvenor
Place, he would not be an enthusiast for the
“Mansion Tax” currently being promoted so noisily by his Lib-Dem successors!
With Mr Gladstone’s final retirement in 1894, the Liberals
were led by the mercurial and imperialistic Lord Rosebery, who quarrelled with
Sir William Harcourt, the Gladstonian Liberal leader in the Commons. Their
differences became irreconcilable, the Tories returned, Rosebery and later
Harcourt resigned their posts and faute
de mieux the leadership of the Liberals in 1899 fell into the lap of CB.
This least ambitious of politicians was now Leader of the Opposition.
He soon ran into a storm. The Boer War broke out in 1899 and
the Liberals were split between the pro-Boers led by Lloyd George and the
Liberal Imperialists including Rosebery and Asquith who favoured the war. CB
trod a middle road, opposing the war in principle and seeking its end but urging
support for the British army, which as a past Secretary for War he knew so well
and greatly cherished. A “Khaki Election” in 1900 saw an easy Tory victory;
with public opinion polarised, CB was insulted as a traitor when he denounced
the “methods of barbarism” deployed against Boer civilians. CB kept steady to
his policy and when the war ended in 1902 he had somehow saved his party from
total oblivion.
With Arthur Balfour as Prime Minister, the Tories now made
fatal mistakes. They unified the Liberals against a new Education Bill,
proposed to apply duties and surrender fiscal sovereignty to a 10-nation sugar
board (CB’s contrary views then echo Cameron’s now) but worse the Tories
supported the Tariff Reform programme of maverick Joseph Chamberlain, anathema
to all free-trading Liberals. The Tories were badly split on this issue.
It was clear that Balfour could not survive long and that CB
would be asked to form a government. A plot was hatched against him by his
gifted but power-hungry colleagues Asquith, Grey and Haldane known as “The
Relugas Compact” after Grey’s Moray fishing lodge where they had assembled.
Their plan was for CB to move to the Lords as a nominal Prime Minister but
Asquith would take the substantive leadership in the Commons as Chancellor with
the others gaining plum portfolios. CB faced down the conspirators, declined to
budge and on becoming Prime Minister of a minority government in December 1905,
promptly called a general election. The Relugas trio beat a hasty retreat,
professing undying loyalty.
The 1906 Liberal election landslide under CB was a famous
high-water mark in that party’s history. They gained 216 seats and with 397 members had an overall
majority of 125. An electoral pact had allowed there to be some 30 Labour
seats, a concession warmly supported by CB who sought greater working-class
participation in parliament and who invited erstwhile trades union firebrand
John Burns to his cabinet. The Relugas conspirators got their important
portfolios but CB’s ascendancy was in no doubt. The framework had been set for
the great Liberal ministry of 1906 to 1916, with its far-reaching
constitutional, welfare and budgetary reforms.
CB’s career was coming to an end. Perhaps his last great
service was the granting of self-government to the Boer Transvaal and Orange Free State. This
was generous after their defeat only some 4 years before and laid the
foundation of the Union of South Africa of 1910 and 50 years of mutual
friendship between Briton and Afrikaner.
CB was now 69 and in 1907 became Father of the House. His
beloved wife had died and his own heart was failing. In November he made his
last public speech and in April 1908 resigned in favour of Asquith. CB died in Downing Street 19 days later. He was buried in the
churchyard at Meigle.
There were more intellectually curious politicians than CB
and some bolder in taking new initiatives. CB’s qualities were of a more human
kind: Queen Victoria
once described him as “couthie”, a Scots expression meaning friendly and
homely. He was that but he was also shrewd and wordly-wise with a keen
understanding of how differences could be bridged and personalities
managed. He served the British nation
well and was a great credit to Scotland.
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| CB's statue in Stirling |
SMD
18.02.13
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013
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