Draft:Early Career of H.H. Asquith

A discussion took place about 5 years ago, and it's perfectly common nowadays for people of first rank importance (eg. US Presidents) to have families of articles devoted to different parts of their careers, but that's not really the point. This is a draft, with the new material largely coming from me, and it's nowhere near finished. Whoever keeps putting this up for article creation, please stop doing so.Paulturtle (talk) 05:03, 13 September 2021 (UTC) Probably ought to move all this to a sandbox to be honest. Bear with me.Paulturtle (talk) 05:36, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 until 1916, the last to lead that party in government without a coalition. Asquith took the United Kingdom into the First World War, but resigned amid political conflict in December 1916 and was succeeded by his War Secretary David Lloyd George.

Asquith was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father owned a small establishment in the woollen trade, but died when his son was age 7, and after a brief stay with an uncle and at boarding school in Yorkshire, Asquith lodged in London with families not his own. He was educated at City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. He trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, and after a slow start to his career achieved great success. In 1886, he was adopted as Liberal candidate for East Fife, a seat he held over thirty years. In 1892, he was appointed as Home Secretary in Gladstone's fourth ministry, remaining in the post until the Liberals lost the 1895 election. In the decade of opposition that followed, Asquith became a major figure in the party, and when the Liberals regained power under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905, Asquith was named as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1908, when the dying Campbell-Bannerman resigned, Asquith succeeded him as prime minister, with Lloyd George as chancellor.

Family background
Asquith was born in Morley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the younger son of Joseph Dixon Asquith (1825–1860) and his wife Emily, née Willans (1828–1888). The couple also had three daughters, of whom only one survived infancy. The Asquiths were an old Yorkshire family, with a long nonconformist tradition. It was a matter of family pride, shared by Asquith, that an ancestor, Joseph Asquith, was imprisoned for his part in the pro-Roundhead Farnley Wood Plot of 1664.

Both Asquith's parents came from families associated with the Yorkshire wool trade. Dixon Asquith inherited the Gillroyd Mill Company, founded by his father. Emily's father, William Willans, ran a successful wool-trading business in Huddersfield. Both families were middle-class, Congregationalist, and politically radical. Dixon was a mild man, cultivated and in his son's words "not cut out" for a business career. He was described as "a man of high character who held Bible classes for young men". Emily suffered persistent poor health, but was of strong character, and a formative influence on her sons.

Childhood and schooling
In his younger days he was called Herbert ("Bertie" as a child) within the family, but his second wife called him Henry. His biographer Stephen Koss entitled the first chapter of his biography "From Herbert to Henry", referring to upward social mobility and his abandonment of his Yorkshire Nonconformist roots with his second marriage. However, in public, he was invariably referred to only as H. H. Asquith. "There have been few major national figures whose Christian names were less well known to the public," writes his biographer Roy Jenkins. He and his brother were educated at home by their parents until 1860, when Dixon Asquith died suddenly. Willans took charge of the family, moved them to a house near his own, and arranged for the boys' schooling. After a year at Huddersfield College they were sent as boarders to a Moravian Church school at Fulneck, near Leeds. In 1863 Willans died, and the family came under the care of Emily's brother, John. The boys went to live with him in London; when he moved back to Yorkshire in 1864 for business reasons, they remained in London and were lodged with various families. The biographer Naomi Levine writes that in effect Asquith was "treated like an orphan" for the rest of his childhood. The departure of his uncle effectively severed Asquith's ties with his native Yorkshire, and he described himself thereafter as "to all intents and purposes a Londoner". Another biographer, H. C. G. Matthew, writes that Asquith's northern nonconformist background continued to influence him: "It gave him a point of sturdy anti-establishmentarian reference, important to a man whose life in other respects was a long absorption into metropolitanism."

The boys were sent to the City of London School as dayboys. Under the school's headmaster, the Rev E. A. Abbott, a distinguished classical scholar, Asquith became an outstanding pupil. He later said that he was under deeper obligations to his old headmaster than to any man living; Abbott disclaimed credit for the boy's progress: "I never had a pupil who owed less to me and more to his own natural ability." Asquith excelled in classics and English, was little interested in sports, read voraciously in the Guildhall Library, and became fascinated with oratory. He visited the public gallery of the House of Commons, studied the techniques of famous preachers, and honed his own skills in the school debating society. Abbott remarked on the cogency and clarity of his pupil's speeches, qualities for which Asquith became celebrated throughout the rest of his life. Asquith later recalled seeing, as a schoolboy, the corpses of five murderers left hanging outside Newgate.

Oxford
In November 1869 Asquith won a classical scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, going up the following October. The college's prestige, already high, continued to rise under the recently elected Master, Benjamin Jowett. He sought to raise the standards of the college to the extent that its undergraduates shared what Asquith later called a "tranquil consciousness of effortless superiority". Although Asquith admired Jowett, he was more influenced by T. H. Green, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy. The abstract side of philosophy did not greatly attract Asquith, whose outlook was always practical, but Green's progressive liberal political views appealed to him.

Asquith's university career was distinguished – "striking without being sensational" in the words of his biographer, Roy Jenkins. An easy grasp of his studies left him ample time to indulge his liking for debate. In the first month at university he spoke at the Oxford Union. His official biographers, J. A. Spender and Cyril Asquith, commented that in his first months at Oxford "he voiced the orthodox Liberal view, speaking in support, inter alia, of the disestablishment of the Church of England, and of non-intervention in the Franco-Prussian War". He sometimes debated against his Balliol contemporary Alfred Milner, who although then a Liberal was already an advocate of British imperialism. He was elected Treasurer of the Union in 1872 but was defeated at his first attempt at the Presidency. During the General Election in January and February 1874 he spoke against Lord Randolph Churchill, who was not yet a prominent politician, at nearby Woodstock. He eventually became President of the Union in Trinity (summer) Term 1874, his last term as an undergraduate.

Asquith was proxime accessit (runner-up) for the Hertford Prize in 1872, again proxime accessit for the Ireland Prize in 1873, and again for the Ireland in 1874, on that occasion coming so close that the examiners awarded him a special prize of books. However, he won the Craven Scholarship and graduated with what his biographers describe as an "easy" double first class degree in Mods and Greats. After graduating he was elected to a prize fellowship of Balliol.

Early professional career
After his graduation in 1874, Asquith spent several months coaching Viscount Lymington, the 18-year-old son and heir of the Earl of Portsmouth. He found the experience of aristocratic country-house life agreeable. He liked less the austere side of the nonconformist Liberal tradition, with its strong temperance movement. He was proud of ridding himself of "the Puritanism in which I was bred". His fondness for fine wines and spirits, which began at this period, eventually earned him the sobriquet "Squiffy".

Returning to Oxford, Asquith spent the first year of his seven-year fellowship in residence there. But he had no wish to pursue a career as a don; the traditional route for politically ambitious but unmoneyed young men was through the law. While still at Oxford Asquith had already entered Lincoln's Inn to train as a barrister, and in 1875 he served a pupillage under Charles Bowen. He was called to the bar in June 1876.

There followed what Jenkins calls "seven extremely lean years". Asquith set up a legal practice with two other junior barristers. With no personal contacts with solicitors, he received few briefs. Those that came his way he argued capably, but he was too fastidious to learn the wilier tricks of the legal trade: "he was constitutionally incapable of making a discreet fog ... nor could he prevail on himself to dispense the conventional patter". He did not allow his lack of money to stop him marrying. His bride, Helen Kelsall Melland (c.1855–1891), was the daughter of Frederick Melland, a physician in Manchester. She and Asquith had met through friends of his mother's. The two had been in love for several years, but it was not until 1877 that Asquith sought her father's consent to their marriage. Despite Asquith's limited income – practically nothing from the bar and a small stipend from his fellowship – Melland consented after making inquiries about the young man's potential. Helen had a private income of several hundred pounds a year, and the couple lived in modest comfort in Hampstead. They had five children: Raymond (1878–1916), Herbert (1881–1947), Arthur  (1883–1939), Violet (1887–1969) and Cyril (1890–1954).

Between 1876 and 1884 Asquith supplemented his income by writing regularly for The Spectator, which at that time had a broadly Liberal outlook. Matthew comments that the articles Asquith wrote for the magazine give a good overview of his political views as a young man. He was staunchly radical, but as unconvinced by extreme left-wing views as by Toryism. Among the topics that caused debate among Liberals were British imperialism, the union of Great Britain and Ireland, and female suffrage. Asquith was a strong, though not jingoistic, proponent of the Empire, and, after initial caution, came to support home rule for Ireland. He opposed votes for women for most of his political career. There was also an element of party interest: Asquith believed that votes for women would disproportionately benefit the Conservatives. In a 2001 study of the extension of the franchise between 1832 and 1931, Bob Whitfield concluded that Asquith's surmise about the electoral impact was correct. In addition to his work for The Spectator, he was retained as a leader writer by The Economist, taught at evening classes, and marked examination papers.

Asquith's career as a barrister began to flourish in 1883 when R. S. Wright invited him to join his chambers at the Inner Temple. Wright was the Junior Counsel to the Treasury, a post often known as "the Attorney General's devil", whose function included giving legal advice to ministers and government departments. One of Asquith's first jobs in working for Wright was to prepare a memorandum for the prime minister, W. E. Gladstone, on the status of the parliamentary oath in the wake of the Bradlaugh case. Both Gladstone and his chief law officer, the attorney general, Sir Henry James, were impressed. This raised Asquith's profile, though not greatly enhancing his finances. Much more remunerative were his new contacts with solicitors who regularly instructed Wright and now also began to instruct Asquith.

Member of Parliament and Queen's Counsel
In June 1886, with the Liberal party split on the question of Irish Home Rule, Gladstone called a general election. There was a last-minute vacancy at East Fife, where the sitting Liberal member, John Boyd Kinnear, had been deselected by his local Liberal Association for voting against Irish Home Rule. Richard Haldane, a close friend of Asquith's and also a struggling young barrister, had been Liberal MP for the nearby Haddingtonshire constituency since December 1885. He put Asquith's name forward as a replacement for Kinnear, and only ten days before polling Asquith was formally nominated in a vote of the local Liberals. The Conservatives did not contest the seat, putting their support behind Kinnear, who stood against Asquith as a Liberal Unionist. Asquith was elected with 2,863 votes to Kinnear's 2,489.

The Liberals lost the 1886 election, and Asquith joined the House of Commons as an opposition backbencher. He waited until March 1887 to make his maiden speech, which opposed the Conservative administration's proposal to give special priority to an Irish Crimes Bill. From the start of his parliamentary career Asquith impressed other MPs with his air of authority as well as his lucidity of expression. For the remainder of this Parliament, which lasted until 1892, Asquith spoke occasionally but effectively, mostly on Irish matters.

Asquith's legal practice was flourishing, and took up much of his time. In the late 1880s Anthony Hope, who later gave up the bar to become a novelist, was his pupil. Asquith disliked arguing in front of a jury because of the repetitiveness and "platitudes" required, but excelled at arguing fine points of civil law before a judge or in front of courts of appeal. These cases, in which his clients were generally large businesses, were unspectacular but financially rewarding.

From time to time Asquith appeared in high-profile criminal cases. In 1887 and 1888 he defended the radical Liberal MP, Cunninghame Graham, who was charged with assaulting police officers when they attempted to break up a demonstration in Trafalgar Square. Graham was later convicted of the lesser charge of unlawful assembly. In what Jenkins calls "a less liberal cause," Asquith appeared for the prosecution in the trial of Henry Vizetelly for publishing "obscene libels" – the first English versions of Zola's novels Nana, Pot-Bouille and La Terre, which Asquith described in court as "the three most immoral books ever published".

Asquith's law career received a great and unforeseen boost in 1889 when he was named junior counsel to Sir Charles Russell at the Parnell Commission of Enquiry. The commission had been set up in the aftermath of damaging statements in The Times, based on forged letters, that Irish MP Charles Stuart Parnell had expressed approval of Dublin's Phoenix Park Murders. When the manager of The Times, J.C. Macdonald, was called to give evidence Russell, feeling tired, surprised Asquith by asking him to conduct the cross-examination. Under Asquith's questioning, it became plain that in accepting the forgeries as genuine, without making any check, Macdonald had, in Jenkins's phrase, behaved "with a credulity which would have been childlike had it not been criminally negligent". The Manchester Guardian reported that under Asquith's cross-examination, Macdonald "squirmed and wriggled through a dozen half-formed phrases in an attempt at explanation, and finished none". The accusations against Parnell were shown to be false, The Times was obliged to make a full apology, and Asquith's reputation was assured. Within a year he had gained advancement to the senior rank of the bar, Queen's Counsel.

Asquith appeared in two important cases in the early 1890s. He played an effective low-key role in the sensational Tranby Croft libel trial (1891), helping to show that the plaintiff had not been libelled. He was on the losing side in Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co (1892), a landmark English contract law case that established that a company was obliged to meet its advertised pledges.

Widower and cabinet minister
In September 1891 Helen Asquith died of typhoid fever following a few days' illness while the family were on holiday in Scotland. Asquith bought a house in Surrey, and hired nannies and other domestic staff. He sold the Hampstead property and took a flat in Mount Street, Mayfair, where he lived during the working week.

The general election of July 1892 returned Gladstone and the Liberals to office, with intermittent support from the Irish Nationalist MPs. Asquith, who was then only 39 and had never served as a junior minister, accepted the post of Home Secretary, a senior Cabinet position. The Conservatives and Liberal Unionists jointly outnumbered the Liberals in the Commons, which, together with a permanent Unionist majority in the House of Lords, restricted the government's capacity to put reforming measures in place. Asquith failed to secure a majority for a bill to disestablish the Church of Wales, and another to protect workers injured at work, but he built up a reputation as a capable and fair minister. When Gladstone retired in March 1894, Queen Victoria chose the Foreign Secretary, Lord Rosebery, as the new prime minister. Asquith thought Rosebery preferable to the other possible candidate, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir William Harcourt, whom he deemed too anti-imperialist – one of the so-called "Little Englanders" – and too abrasive. Asquith remained at the Home Office until the government fell in 1895.

Asquith had known Margot Tennant slightly since before his wife's death, and grew increasingly attached to her in his years as a widower. On 10 May 1894 they were married at St George's, Hanover Square. Asquith became a son in law of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet. Margot was in many respects the opposite of Asquith's first wife, being outgoing, impulsive, extravagant and opinionated. Despite the misgivings of many of Asquith's friends and colleagues the marriage proved to be a success. Margot got on, if sometimes stormily, with her step-children and she and Asquith had five children of their own, only two of whom, Anthony and Elizabeth, survived infancy.

Out of office, 1895–1905
The general election of July 1895 was disastrous for the Liberals, and the Conservatives under Lord Salisbury won a majority of 152. With no government post, Asquith divided his time between politics and a return to his law practice. Jenkins comments that in this period Asquith earned a substantial, though not stellar, income and was never worse off and often much higher-paid than when in office. Matthew writes that his income as a QC in the following years was around £5,000 to £10,000 per annum (around £500,000–£1,000,000 at 2015 prices). According to Haldane, on returning to government in 1905 Asquith had to give up a £10,000 brief to act for the Khedive of Egypt. Margot later claimed (in the 1920s, when they were short of money) that he could have made £50,000 per annum had he remained at the bar. The Liberal Party, with a leadership – Harcourt in the Commons and Rosebery in the Lords – who detested each other, once again suffered factional divisions. Rosebery resigned in October 1896 and Harcourt followed him in December 1898. Asquith came under strong pressure to accept the nomination to take over as Liberal leader, but the post of Leader of the Opposition, though full-time, was then unpaid, and he could not afford to give up his income as a barrister. He and others prevailed on the former Secretary of State for War, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to accept the post.

During the Boer War of 1899–1902 Liberal opinion divided along pro-imperialist and "Little England" lines, with Campbell-Bannerman striving to maintain party unity. Asquith was less inclined than his leader and many in the party to censure the Conservative government for its conduct, though he regarded the war as an unnecessary distraction. Joseph Chamberlain, a former Liberal minister, now an ally of the Conservatives, campaigned for tariffs to shield British industry from cheaper foreign competition. Asquith's advocacy of traditional Liberal free trade policies helped to make Chamberlain's proposals the central question in British politics in the early years of the 20th century. In Matthew's view, "Asquith's forensic skills quickly exposed deficiencies and self-contradictions in Chamberlain's arguments." The question divided the Conservatives, while the Liberals were united under the banner of "free fooders" against those in the government who countenanced a tax on imported essentials.

Liberal Unionists
The Liberal Unionists were not just “right wing” Liberals; many of them were nonconformists deeply resentful of the concessions which Gladstone proposed to make to Catholic Ireland. Liberal reunion was still a very real possibility in the late 1880s.

Campbell-Bannerman
In 1895 Campbell-Bannerman increased his majority from 293 to 716.

Harcourt
Harcourt built Malwood near Lyndhurst in the New Forest in 1883. Later in life he inherited Nuneham (?SP), near Oxford, from his nephew.

“without you the new Government would be ridiculous, with you it is only impossible” Harcourt to Rosebery.

Asquith later wrote that Harcourt produced a “well-thumbed MS of highly elaborate eulogy” to which Gladstone listened with “hooded eyes and tightened lips”.

Harcourt was known as “The Great Gladiator”. “And yet, to tell the naked truth, he was an almost impossible colleague, and would have been a wholly impossible chief.” Asquith wrote years later. Harcourt insisted on access to Foreign Office information. [GRIGG YOUNG LLOYD GEORGE SAYS DIFFERENT]]

Milner, chair of the Inland Revenue, helped Harcourt draft his death duties budget. Rosebery was very critical and wrote a critical memo to Harcourt (who replied citing the parable of the rich young man being unable to enter the Kingdom of Heaven) and shared his misgivings with Queen Victoria. Thereafter Rosebery and Harcourt were barely on speaking terms, communicating only through official correspondence or via notes passed across the Cabinet table. Harcourt became increasingly obsessed with Local option and with keeping an eye on Kimberley’s “Forward Policy”. Harcourt told Spencer “As you know I am not a supporter of the present Government” when Rosebery proposed reform of the Lords’ powers (CHECK).

Asquith later wrote of Harcourt: “His lack of any sense of proportion, his incapacity for self-restraint, and his perverse delight in inflaming and embittering every controversy, made co-operation with him always difficult and often impossible. Cabinet life under such conditions was a weariness both to the flesh and to the spirit”.

Harcourt achieved debating triumphs on bimetallism and Fowler, Secretary of State for India, the defence of Indian cotton duties.

In 1895 Harcourt lost his seat at Derby, but won West Monmouthshire in the same election.

Milner
Milner, chair of the Inland Revenue, helped Harcourt draft his death duties budget.

Morley
Morley thought that he and his Irish policy would enjoy greater prominence under a Rosebery leadership.

Morley was the really decisive influence in the appointment of Rosebery, but soon switched back his allegiance on the appointment of Kimberley as Foreign Secretary.

In 1895 Morley lost Newcastle on Tyne, but got back in for Montrose Burghs later in the autumn.

Rosebery
Rosebery sent the message “So be it - R” after a meeting with the Prince of Wales, in the full knowledge that the Queen would insist on his appointment as Foreign Secretary.

Gladstone wanted Spencer as his successor but was not formally asked. The Cabinet (although the ministers in the Commons, apart from Asquith and Acland, favoured Harcourt) and the Liberal press preferred Rosebery. Morley was the really decisive influence in the appointment of Rosebery, but soon switched back his allegiance on the appointment of Kimberley as Foreign Secretary. Rosebery “kissed hands” (formally accepted appointment from the Queen) on 4 March 1894. He said that the grip of the government on life was too shallow to make a reshuffle pointful.

Within eight days of becoming Prime Minister Rosebery told the House of Lords that Irish Home Rule could not become law until a majority of English members were in favour. So Labouchere moved an amendment to the Address calling for an almost complete abolition of the Lords’ veto, which was carried by a majority of 2 after the Opposition abstained. The amended Address was then defeated so Rosebery did not have to resign. Rosebery was very critical of Harcourt's death duties budget and wrote a critical memo to Harcourt (who replied citing the parable of the rich young man being unable to enter the Kingdom of Heaven) and shared his misgivings with Queen Victoria. Thereafter Rosebery and Harcourt were barely on speaking terms, communicating only through official correspondence or via notes passed across the Cabinet table.

Rosebery’s government was “hanging on by the eyelids” as Harcourt put it. He suffered from insomnia and quarrels with colleagues, as well as statements on Ireland which annoyed Liberals. His expansionist imperial policy annoyed Liberal members.

In 1895 “the Liberal Party went into the fray disunited, and came out an absolute shambles”, in Stephen Koss' description. Morley fought on Home Rule and Harcourt on Local Option. Rosebery, who as a peer was by convention disbarred from campaigning, spent the campaign on a rented yacht sailing around the north of Scotland. The Liberals were reduced from 274 seats to 177. Salisbury won a majority of 152 seats.

Early Life etc
The name Asquith/Askwith is not uncommon in Yorkshire and he was sceptical of the family tradition, repeated as fact by his official biography, that his ancestors had been mayors of York in the sixteenth century and Roundheads in the seventeenth century.

Asquith’s brother, his growth stunted by a teenage spinal injury, became a schoolmaster at Clifton and died a bachelor in 1918. One of Asquith’s earliest childhood memories was the end of the Crimean War in 1856.

His grandfather William Willans had been active in the Anti-Corn Law agitation of the 1840s and had stood for Parliament for Huddersfield in 1851; his eldest son was married to the daughter of Edward Baines MP, whose family owned the “Leeds Mercury”.

Asquith (and his daughter Violet at a by-election at Colne Valley in 1951) displayed little later interest in his Yorkshire nonconformist roots, and Koss argues that other than a weakness for wine and good living they had little subsequent effect on his policies.

The Asquith boys were boarded out in Pimlico and Islington, visited Guildhall Library, Courts of Law and listened to preachers. As a schoolboy he supported Irish Disestablishment, was in the crowd at Crystal Palace to welcome Garibaldi, and several times went to the gallery of the House of Commons. Edward Baines’ bill to extend the franchise in 1865 was blocked by Robert Lowe, of whom Asquith disapproved.

Asquith was a bit sceptical of Jowett, thinking him something of “an exhausted volcano” by this time, and that his talk “had more bouquet than body”. He was impressed by Jowett’s worldliness but equally sceptical of Green. “Asquith will get on; he is so direct” said Jowett of him

He spoke for Brodrick against Lord Randolph Churchill.

Asquith acquired something of the air of “effortless superiority”, or even arrogance, and emotional detachment so often associated with Balliol. He spent three months tutoring Lord Lymington. Asquith quit Oxford in June 1875.

Charles Bowen was a Balliol connection. Bowen, a Balliol connection was a scholar and fellow of Balliol, President of the Oxford Union and won many University prizes; he was also a protégé of Jowett. He was famous for the Tichborne Claimaint Case. he was the Attorney-General’s devil, and went straight from the junior bar to the bench (i.e. without first taking silk) at the age of 44. However, he lacked the ability to delegate.

Asquith moved to Chambers at 6 Fig Tree Court. His Balliol fellowship lasted until 1881. Marked for O&C Board for public schools, reviewing the work of Curzon (then at Eton) and Austen Chamberlain (then at Rugby). He lectured for the Law Society and Society for the Extension of University Teaching, teaching himself the rudiments of economics so that he could teach it. He wrote for the Spectator between 1876 and 1886. He also wrote for the Economist for a salary of £150 per annum up until 1885.

The Asquiths lived in Hampstead and made trips to Europe.

Haldane was earning £1,000 per annum by 1883.

In 1883 Asquith was taken on to do research for R S Wright, Junior Counsel for the Treasury (known as the Attorney-General’s devil, making Asquith his italics devil). Asquith moved to work in Wright’s chambers at 1, Paper Buildings, where he worked until his retirement from the bar in 1905. Asquith was introduced to W.E.Gladstone in 1883 after preparing a statement for the Affirmation Bill. He helped to draft the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act and distributed a guide to the Liberal Central Association. In 1885 he wrote on the Corrupt Practices Act for the Liberal Central Association. He made a good deal of money from cases arising from this after the December 1885 General Election and by the start of 1886 his legal career was at last paying its way and starting to take off.

At that time it was not uncommon for leading barristers to become MPs for a time before becoming judges or even Lord Chief Justice. However, Asquith was taking a risk by entering the Commons before he had even become a QC. He was still member of the north-eastern circuit, centred on Leeds. In 1888 he began to take pupils of his own and was making £1,500-£2,000 per annum – he often had to give his pupils Wright’s briefs to study as well as his own. He defended Cunninghame Graham and prosecuted Vizetelly.

Boyd Kinnear was a radical rather than a Whig. The Home Rule Bill was defeated on 18 June 1886 and Asquith was selected on 26 June. He received and accepted the selection the following day, a Saturday. Polling was only ten days away, with two Sabbaths in between. The constituency depended on fishing, farming, mining and a bit of handloom waving, and it was very isolated as the Tay Bridge in the north had not yet been replaced whilst the Forth Bridge had not yet been built.

At that time it was not uncommon for Englishmen to sit for Scottish seats. Despite the electoral pact between Conservatives and Liberal Unionist, Conservative voters were reluctant to vote for a Radical, so Asquith was elected by 2862-2487.

His official biography wrote that “from the start he assumed the manner of a front bencher and the House accepted him at his own valuation” Asquith’s deliberate husbanding of his speeches helped to promote his reputation. By 1892 Asquith had spoken in the Commons on little more than a dozen occasions.

His maiden speech was on the proposal to give priority to the Irish Crimes Bill over all other measures. He spoke on 24 March 1887, on the third night of the debate, arguing that there was “a manufactured crisis” on the back of press panic.

Besides the Liberal Unionists Chamberlain and James, Asquith remained on friendly terms with Balfour, Curzon, Alfred Lyttelton and Lord Randolph Churchill. On 25 May 1887 he wrote to “The Times” defending the decision to exclude Joseph Chamberlain and other Liberal Unionists from membership of the Eighty Club. Asquith also impressed with a powerful speech at the National Liberal Federation at Nottingham in October 1877, where he praised Gladstone and strongly supported the removal of Chamberlain’s control from the NLF which he had helped to found.

Asquith’s rise was against a very fluid political situation (and Liberals short of talent in opposition, surely); Liberal reunion was still a very real possibility in the late 1880s. Asquith retained close links to Henry James and as early as August 1886 he was invited to a dinner party with Chamberlain, Harcourt, Collings and Broadhurst.

Asquith regarded himself as a radical, but not so much so as Labouchere, whom he felt had acquired too much influence in the absence of concrete party policies, and he had little time for Fabianism. He favoured payment for MPs.

Asquith was soon associated with a group of younger Liberal MPs, including Haldane and Grey (whose rebellion over the Irish Land Purchase Act of 1888 he did not join), AHD Acland, Sydney Buxton, TE Ellis (linked to Sir John Brunner and to the Welsh caucus) and Ronald Munro Ferguson (linked to Rosebery). However, Spender & Asquith exaggerated when they claimed that this was a coherent Parliamentary ginger group. Buxton was interested in sweated labour and housing, whilst Haldane (who was linked to the Webbs), Acland and Ellis were interested in education. Asquith and Haldane also co-chaired the dinners of the cross-party Articles Club until 1892. Asquith was not a rebel like Haldane or Grey because, as Haldane put it, “he had fewer views than most of us”.

In 1887 the Asquiths moved to a larger house on Maresfield Gardens off Fitzjohns Avenue.

On 18 April 1887 “The Times” published a letter in which Parnell apparently expressed approval of the Phoenix Park murders. Parnell stated in the House of Commons that it was a forgery but declined to sue for libel. In August 1888 FH O’Donnell, a former Irish Nationalist MP and an alleged co-signatory of the letter, sued for libel. The court did not believe him and further letters damaging to the Irish Nationalists were read out in court. Parnell made a personal statement in the House of Commons demanding a select committee. Instead the government offered a commission of three judges, all of them known Unionists, to inquire into all (italics) the “Times” accusations against Parnell. The Attorney-General appeared for “The Times”. Asquith spoke in the House of Commons against the composition and terms of reference of the committee. His selection for the Parnell case, which began on 18 September 1888, was largely political.

He abstained from the Opposition attack on the Attorney-General in March 1889 for being advocate for “The Times” in the Parnell Inquiry (possibly, in Jenkins’ view, because of professional solidarity or because he himself had been an advocate for the other side).

After Parnell had been vindicated, the only question was why CJ Macdonald had accepted the letter for publication.

After the Parnell case, Asquith's legal career really began to take off, and for the first time he had to turn away legal work. He became a QC in February 1890 and his income was estimated at £5,000 per annum.

Haldane and Asquith were also heavily involved in hearing colonial appeals before the Privy Council. This gave them imperial sympathies and made them sympathetic to Rosebery. Asquith joined the Imperial Federation League in 1889, angering Spencer and Harcourt. HCG Matthew argues that dissatisfaction with Morley’s record on social reform, rather than Imperialism, was what drew Asquith to Rosebery, who had a strong record as a reformer from his time as chairman of the London County Council at this time.

Harcourt was also angry at Asquith writing to Morley in 1890 that he “will never do a day’s work for us in the House, goes about the country, doing mischief” for demanding that the Party specify its Irish Policy in advance. Harcourt christened this “Asquithism”.

Asquith rated Parnell as one of the greatest men of the century, behind Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Bismarck and “perhaps” Cavour. Parnell’s divorce scandal broke in November 1891.

Helen Asquith died on 11 September 1891.

Asquith was not able to attend the National Liberal Federation at Newcastle where the Newcastle Programme was formulated. By November 1891 he was politically active again.

Home Secretary under Gladstone
Asquith held East Fife with a much reduced majority in 1892. Gladstone’s majority at Midlothian was down from over 4,000 in 1886 to 690 in 1892.

In April 1892 Asquith had a talk with Morley about a senior Cabinet job after the election, but on 28 May Rosebery had written that Gladstone did not want Asquith in the Cabinet, as he had not yet served an apprenticeship as a junior minister. Asquith had taken the advice of Balfour to hold out for a political rather than a law office. In a precursor to the events of autumn 1905, Asquith and Grey plotted to refuse office unless new blood was brought into the government. On 2 August Asquith and Thomas Burt were invited to move the amendment to the Address on 8 August 1892 to bring down Salisbury's government. He expected this to lead to appointment to the Cabinet, although Jesse Collings, who had done the same job in January 1886, had been rewarded only by a Parliamentary Secretaryship at the Local Government Board, with a pay cut.

By a few weeks he achieved his boyhood ambition of entering the Cabinet before he was forty. He was the youngest member of the Cabinet, and one of only three under 54. Queen Victoria thought him “an intelligent, rather good-looking man” and later in August “pleasant, straight-forward, and sensible”

Trafalgar Square was Crown property. After the Trafalgar Square Riot of 1887 the Tory Matthew authorised the Metropolitan Commisioner of Police to ban meetings. Within two days of taking office there were letters in the press and Asquith received a letter from William Saunders, Radical MP for Walworth (Jenkins says Streatham which appears to be an error) warning that the Metropolitan Radical Association planned a public demonstration in November 1892 to test the legality of the ban. Lushingham, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office, wanted to keep the status quo. Harcourt, then fighting a by-election at Derby to return to Parliament, urged that the Prime Minister be consulted. Queen Victoria was also known to be agitated about the issue. Asquith asked WH Eldridge, a barrister with good trade union contacts, to inquire about a compromise acceptable to trade union opinion. Eldridge reported that a limited right of meeting would be acceptable to all except Hyndman of the SDF. Asquith proposed a compromise to allow meetings in daylight on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and bank holidays (so as not to disrupt local businesses), provided the police were informed in advance and allowed to stipulate the approach route. This was presented as a fait accompli to the Metropolitan Radical Federation on 19 October 1892. Everybody was pleased apart from Queen Victoria.

Asquith became a powerful debater as Home Secretary “a consistent form of pungent and almost unanswerable argument”. In January 1893 the Parnellite rump, led by John Redmond, demanded release of 14 Irish “dynamiters” who had been in gaol since the early 1880s. Asquith refused to allow any such special treatment for political prisoners. The Parnellites moved an amendment to the Address at the opening of the first government session. Asquith had to reply in his first speech as a minister, impressing Balfour enormously. Passed with Tory support. Justin McCarthy, leader of the anti-Parnellite faction, declared that Asquith has “shut the gate of mercy with a clang” while John Morley was also privately sceptical. He disliked the death penalty and having to use the royal prerogative of mercy.

The Welsh Church Suspensory Bill, a measure which annoyed Queen Victoria, was introduced to the House of Commons on 23 February 1893, although it made no progress as the Parliamentary timetable was taken up by the Second Irish Home Rule Bill. Asquith spoke on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill on 14 April 1893.

Asquith was a staunch Irish Home Ruler and had campaigned on the issue in East Fife at the 1892 election. Although he had not been a member of the six-man drafting team (Gladstone, Morley, Spencer, Herschell, Campbell-Bannerman and Bryce), his name was on the Second Irish Home Rule Bill because of of his departmental position. In December 1892 Morley listed Asquith as the only minister apart from himself and Gladstone who was truly committed to the measure. The Irish Home Rule Bill emerged from committee on 13 February 1893. Morley moved its first reading four days later. On 2 September 1893 it passed Third Reading in the Commons by 307-267 (CHECK), then on 8 September it was rejected by the Lords by 419-41. However, the Cabinet, including Asquith, refused to back Gladstone when he suggested calling a General Election to obtain a mandate to face down the House of Lords over the issue. Asquith came to feel that Home Rule was causing the Liberal Party to be “shut in”, giving the Lords an excuse to butcher other measures like Employer's Liability, and he came to favour “a general plan of devolution” ("Home Rule All Round"). He also came to feel that it was time for Gladstone to retire.

Asquith’s Employer’s Liability Bill, which aimed to end the doctrine of common employment and so allow a worker to sue his employer for an accident caused by a fellow worker, was mangled by the Lords.

Early in his tenure of the Home Office, Asquith acted to strengthen the factory inspectorate. He appointed the first women inspectors, and another two in 1893. Inquiries were set up to inquire into conditions in paints, chemicals and potteries.

High unemployment and a decline in real wages caused labour unrest. There was a coal strike in West Yorkshire. In his capacity as ex officio head of the Metropolitan Police, Asquith sent 400 London policemen and arranged reinforcements from other police forces. On 7 September Asquith agreed to the use of troops, and a platoon of the Queen’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry were deployed. On 7 September 1893, after appeals from the magistrate to the rioting crowd to disperse, troops opened fire and two men were killed. Two coroners juries returned different verdicts as to whether the decision to fire was lawful. The issue was raised in the House of Commons on 20 September 1893, the day before the adjournment. Asquith set up a Special Commission to resolve the disagreement of the coroner’s juries. It was chaired by Bowen, his old pupilmaster, his friend Haldane who was regarded as the “left-wing” member, and Sir Arthur Rollitt, a Conservative MP and solicitor. Asquith was blind to accusations that he was guilty of bias in choosing the panel. For years afterwards the issue dogged Asquith, with people shouting “Featherstone!” at him at meetings, rather as the issue of Tonypandy dogged Churchill.

Home Secretary under Rosebery
On 9 January 1894 Gladstone opposed the naval estimates, and was supported only by Shaw-Lefevre, First Commissioner of Works. Gladstone fled to Biarritz. Like other ministers, Asquith refused to dissolve on the issue of the House of Lords, and he also shared their concerns about the Prime Minister’s deteriorating eyesight, deafness and mental balance. Even Morley and Rosebery thought it time Gladstone retired. Gladstone announced his impending resignation on 27 February and on 1 March the “blubbing Cabinet” took place.

Asquith was not quite the “imperialist” which people sometimes assumed. In 1892 he sided with Harcourt and other Cabinet ministers in opposing Rosebery’s protectorate over Uganda. He also thought Rosebery too Francophobe and supported Harcourt on domestic policy. Morley observed that Asquith was “very thick with Rosebery” but kept his own counsel, while Sir Edward Hamilton suspected Asquith was not being quite honest with Rosebery.

Asquith was a Roseberyite but was sympathetic to Harcourt on most of the issues.

It was rumoured that Asquith would have liked to succeed Kimberley as Secretary of State for India. Herbert Gladstone was promoted to First Commissioner of Works and replaced by the less competent George Russell as Under-Secretary at the Home Office. The House of Commons Radicals were becoming increasingly disillusioned with Asquith and Haldane (who was not even a minister).

Welsh Disestablishment had been introduced a second time in 1894, this time swallowed by Harcourt’s budget with its introduction of death duties. In 1895 a third attempt was made, and this time it was the major measure of the session. The strong opposition from Lloyd George probably, in Jenkins’ view, gave Asquith a lasting distaste for Welsh nonconformist Liberals. After 12 nights in Committee “it was with a sigh of relief that, when the Government was defeated on another issue, I laid down my thankless task”. Asquith also brushed aside Lloyd George’s amendment. “The episode did not serve to endear Asquith towards Welshmen in general or Lloyd George In particular” wrote KO Morgan. Asquith’s “lack of interest in the measure was ill-concealed” says Rosebery’s biographer Rhodes James.

During the debate on the Address at the start of the 1895 session, Asquith had to reply to an amendment on the Home Office. He also replied to an amendment by Chamberlain which accused the government of “filling up the cup” and demanding it lay proposals for constitutional reform before the House. Chamberlain was aiming to expose the split between Rosebery and Harcourt. Asquith, who still referred to Chamberlain as his “Right Honourable Friend”, scoffed at Chamberlain for defending the House of Lords. Chamberlain was also a supporter of Welsh Disestablishment. On 15 February 1895 Lloyd George wrote of “a fine duel between Chamberlain & Asquith … Asquith simply smashed Chamberlain up”. Harcourt wrote to his son that “He knocked Joe into a cocked hat. Even the Tories admit that the latter was nowhere".

Asquith improved factory inspectorate, penal conditions and dangerous trades (e.g. chemicals). The Employers Liability Bill was butchered by the Lords who permitted “contracting out”. A Factories and Workshops Bill was introduced in March 1895. It required minimum space for each worker, accident reporting, protection from moving machinery, compulsory fire escapes, restrictions on overtime. The regulations were extended for the first time to docks and laundries. The Bill was not controversial and the committee stage was conducted not on the floor of the House but by the Grand Committee on Trade. The Bill was still in Committee when the Government fell on 24 June 1895. However, the Conservatives took it over and it passed through the House of Lords on 6 July 1895 just before the Dissolution of Parliament. Asquith was praised by Ensor as one of three successful ministers (along with Acland at Education and Campbell-Bannerman at the War Office; Koss adds Fowler at Local Government Board and Harcourt as Chancellor for his revolutionary introduction of death duties.

In May and June 1895 small majorities were achieved in votes on the Welsh Church. Asquith was “paired” so was not present when the government was defeated in a thin House on the cordite vote. Rosebery, Harcourt, Tweedmouth and Ripon agreed to resign (i.e. allow Salisbury to form a Conservative government). Like most of the Cabinet, Asquith agreed reluctantly. He favoured dissolution rather than resignation.

In 1895 Asquith increased his majority from 294 to 716, even though there had been little swing in the Scottish Lowlands either towards the Liberals in 1892 or against them in 1895.

Harcourt told Margot: “you need not mind any of the quarrels: your man is the man of the future”, a view shared by WE Gladstone, Spencer and Rosebery. Asquith was also given an allowance of £5,000 per annum, equivalent to a Cabinet minister’s salary, from his father-in-law.

Marriage to Margot
Asquith first met Margot in 1891, while his first wife, with whom Margot tried to maintain friendly relations, was still alive. She later wrote “I had never heard of him, which gives some indication of how much I was wasting my time. “ and “I was much impressed by his conversation and his clear Cromwellian face”. They talked until dawn on the House of Commons terrace and by October 1891 were corresponding regularly.

Gladstone wrote her a poem after his 80th birthday. Milner proposed to her in 1892, which may have been the cause of later friction with Asquith. She also had a long-drawn out love affair with Peter Flower, a huntsman and younger brother of Lord Battersea who had first introduced her to Asquith.

Rosebery and Lord Randolph Churchill advised Asquith against marrying her.In the summer of 1892 Margot seemed likely to agree to marry Asquith soon, but in the event cooled for a while. He remarried on 10 May 1894, Cabinet being postponed to allow Cabinet ministers to attend. WE Gladstone, Rosebery and Balfour all signed the register.

Margot nearly died from her first labour in 1895. Afterwards she was ill with phlebitis and suffered from insomnia for years afterwards. Elizabeth was born early in 1897 and Anthony in 1902. Two more infants born in 1899 and 1907 died at birth.

He was still calling himself “Herbert” in a letter to his wife in March 1887. “Any reference to “Herbert” by the time of his premiership came as a faint echo from a distant past” “There can have been few national figures whose Christian names were less well known to the public”. Asquith’s second marriage encouraged but did not cause his increasing love of alcohol and socialising. “From Herbert to Henry”. Asquith had still been slim, alert and youthful in appearance until his second marriage, but his appearance changed dramatically from around 1895 onwards. After a brief smartening of his appearance under Margot’s influence, he grew plumper, with longer hair and baggy clothes.

In the autumn of 1894 the Asquiths took a lease on 20 Cavendish Square. There were 14 house servants, including a butler and two footmen, and a coachman and boy in the stables. They usually took a house in Scotland in the late summer and early autumn. Margot still ran horses until she sold them in 1906.

Opposition
Asquith was the first Cabinet minister to go back to the bar (Attorneys-General often went back to the bar, but no Attorney-General was formally a member of the Cabinet until Rufus Isaacs in 1912). As a Privy Councillor, he technically outranked judges.

He was earning £5,000 - £10,000 per annum, which Jenkins describes as “high without being sensational”. He continued to speak in the House of Commons and on platforms around the country.

Koss

Asquith never doubted that the Liberal Unionists would sooner or later be absorbed into the Conservatives, and deplored his friend Alfred Lyttelton’s decision to stand as one in 1892. He believed that the two-party system was natural in “England”, so he was careful never to allow the Liberal Imperialists to secede altogether and believed Labour would be a flash in the pan. Harcourt’s statement to Margot “your man is the man of the future” was actually said five years later during the Boer War. Asquith was not as inevitable as Jenkins believes.

Asquith was seen as part of a team, along with Campbell-Bannerman, and spent a lot of time trying to patch up agreement between Rosebery and Harcourt. Rosebery quit in October 1896, and wrote to Asquith “very soon, you will replace me”. He kept on good terms with everybody.

Margot’s private income was 5k per annum. Asquith earned 5-10k. Asquith was not unwilling to become leader in 1898. Haldane lobbied Balfour (!) and Rosebery to put in a word with Sir Charles Tennant to make it possible for Asquith to become leader after Harcourt. Tennant had just remarried and was partial to Campbell-Bannerman, a fellow Scot. On 6 February 1899 Campbell-Bannerman was elected leader by Liberal MPs at the Reform Club, but many, including Asquith, still regarded him as a stopgap.

A lot of Rosebery’s appeal to younger Liberals was the thought of replacing the faddism and crankery of Home Rule and the Newcastle Programme with order and principle. Asquith saw it as an alternative to socialism and a source for social reform. Morley sneered that Liberal Imperialism was “Chamberlain wine with a Rosebery label”. Gladstonian Liberals saw them as opportunists.

Asquith refused to serve on the Rhodes Commission. Jenkins thinks it would have been a waste of six months, Koss thinks it would have had no political credit against the jingoistic atmosphere, which was indicated by the Diamond Jubilee of June 1897 and Khartoum and Fashoda in 1898.

Asquith received much of his information about South Africa from Alfred Milner, sent out in March 1897. On 2 September 1899 Asquith addressed his constituents hoping that negotiation would avoid war, although when war broke out he believed that Boer intransigence was to blame. The Stanhope amendment to the address in October 1899 blamed the government for the outbreak of war: Campbell-Bannerman and 77 other abstained, 135 were supporters of the amendment. Grey, Haldane and the Liberal Imperialists, but not Asquith, voted with the government.

Rosebery anticipated that the centrists under Campbell-Bannerman would break with the Liberal Imperialists, not vice versa, although Asquith shared a platform with “pro-Boer” Liberals, as their differences were more about the causes of the war than about what future actions should be.

Asquith’s view In January 1900 was still that the Liberal Party needed to unite, and he agreed with Campbell-Bannerman that the Liberals should remain committed to Home Rule in principle whilst not pledging to do anything about it.

Relief of Mafeking in May 1900, and an ensuing by-election at Manchester South, made it clear that the government were going to be able to exploit the apparent victory. On 25 July 1900 Lloyd George, ironically in view of events 18 years later, denounced the government in the House of Commons for seeking to exploit victory for political ends. Sir Wilfrid Lawson moved a motion of censure. Asquith was one of 35 who abstained, 31 voted with Lawson and 40 voted in favour of the government. Campbell-Bannerman, whose recommendation of a general abstention was ignored, was widely expected to resign, with Asquith apparently willing to act as leader of one faction of the party split, although Haldane was vainly urging Rosebery to step forward as leader again.

Election set for October 1900. The Liberal Imperial Council was set up, under Lord Brassey as President, who “let slip” that it was to be the nucleus of a new party, leading to criticism from Morley and Labouchere. The LIC endorsed 56 candidates, of whom Asquith was one. R.W.Perks, called “Imperial Perks” by Beatrice Webb, MP for Louth and a leading Wesleyan lay leader, was the driving force, and his aim was to capture the Liberal Party, not to set up a new party. Fowler was connected to Perks by business and religion and worked closely with him; Grey also worked closely with him. Asquith was a bit detached and attracted less criticism from the “pro-Boers”. On 27 September 1900 Lloyd George, in a speech at Conwy, called Asquith “an abler man intellectually” than Chamberlain.

Chamberlain declared “A seat lost to the government is a seat lost to the Boers” (the phrase grew in the repetition into “sold (Italics) to the Boers”. Lawson lost Cockermouth by 209 votes and Lloyd George held Carnarvon Boroughs by a very narrow 194. Asquith increased his majority at East Fife from 716 to 1431, recording that in his constituency, unlike in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Liberals of all persuasions pulled together. Overall he thought the election a “damnable debacle” and “We have seen the worst fit of political debauch since 1877-78 [the jingo agitation], with the difference that the orgy was then presided over by a man of genius [Disraeli], whereas now the master of the feast [Chamberlain] has the manners of a cad & the tongue of a bargee”. Liberals won 184 seats, of whom “The Times” reckoned the Liberal Imperialists had increased their numbers from 63 to 81, with 106 “Radical and Labour” Liberals. Campbell-Bannerman was sceptical of the idea that the election had brought Liberals together, and pace Jenkins had become suspicious of Asquith as an old friend of Milner’s. Asquith was critical of Rosebery “He was afraid to plunge, yet not resolute enough to keep to hold to his determination to keep aloof”. Grey threatened to “chuck it” rather than carry on under Campbell-Bannerman.

Munro Ferguson resigned as Scottish whip and the LIC called for a new party leader in whose “Imperial” views “patriotic” voters could have confidence. Campbell-Bannerman reasserted his authority by giving a speech at Dundee on 15 November at which he referred to the LIC as the “Liberal Unionist Council”. In December Grey and Haldane spoke, and other Limps voted, in support of Lloyd George’s motion criticising Chamberlain for allowing his family form to profit from the war. In May 1901 Milner, who had sanctioned farm-burning and concentration camps, returned to the UK. Grey greeted him at Southampton on 24 May and Fowler accepted Chamberlain’s invitation to a dinner in his honour at Claridges. The Liberals were split again. On 14 June Campbell-Bannerman took his stance against Milner in a speech to the National Reform Union at Holborn Restaurant, with Morley, Harcourt and Stanhope in attendance. “Methods of Barbarism”.

It took a while for the press to pick up on Campbell-Bannerman’s phrase. The phrase took the emphasis away from arguments about pre-1899 diplomacy towards arguments about the future course of the war. Campbell-Bannerman at the time thought it “his worst gaffe”. Asquith was worried at the time about Morley’s speech at the same event, and wrote to Perks (19 June) to suggest that Lloyd George and his allies not be allowed to capture the party machine. On 20 June Asquith spoke at the Liverpool Street Hotel to South Essex Liberal Association. He wrote to Herbert Gladstone, “disingenuously” in the view of John Wilson, claiming that he had been put up to it. Gladstone wanted “to save A. from his friends”. Henry Lucy called it “War to the knife – and fork”.

Another dinner was planned at City Liberal Club on 19 July, with Rosebery to preside. 40 MPs, led by McKenna and Runciman, wrote to Asquith saying that despite their esteem for him they could not attend an event which was bound to inflame party divisions. On 9 July Campbell-Bannerman was re-elected leader and given a vote of confidence by a meeting which he had called at the Reform Club. Campbell-Bannerman wrote to Asquith on 10 July urging him to postpone the event until tempers had cooled. Asquith replied that it was too late to postpone. Campbell-Bannerman believed that Asquith was being used by Grey, Haldane and Fowler, but Grey testified that Asquith was “very angry” at Campbell-Bannerman’s intervention. In the event Asquith’s dinner made little impact. Rosebery had refused to attend Asquith’s dinner or another lunch planned for him that day, but instead made a speech saying that he would “plough his furrow alone”. In the end Grey chaired the dinner. Asquith stressed that the Liberals must be a national (italics) party, but stated that he had never called himself a “Liberal Imperialist”, but that “Liberal” was good enough for him. Rosebery wrote Asquith a letter of congratulation. Grey and Haldane both wrote to Rosebery urging him not to make things difficult for Asquith.

In late August Asquith made an important speech on belligerent rights, angering Campbell-Bannerman. What Haldane called “The Asquith Committee”: Grey, Haldane, Munro Ferguson and Perks, met at Cavendish Square and then in Scotland in the late summer and early autumn to discuss a coordinated plan of speeches for the remainder of the year. Haldane kept in touch with the Webbs and Perks with Rosebery. There was to be a campaign for “efficiency” – domestic reform, Ireland and the Empire. This followed a by-election at NE Lanark, where the Unionists had won over a split Liberal vote. Rosebery had rechristened the LIC the Liberal (Imperial) League, believing that he was implying it to be the “real” Liberal party. Grey now replaced Lord Brassey as chairman, Perks and Haldane took over organisation, and William Allard, who had been secretary of the Home Counties Liberal Federation, became organiser. Asquith did not join until 25 November, but Morley thought this boded ill for Campbell-Bannerman’s leadership.

Rosebery spoke at Chesterfield on 16 December 1901. Asquith and Grey were on the platform but had no idea what he was going to say. He called for a negotiated peace rather than unconditional surrender as Milner wanted. He also called for a “clean slate”, i.e. ditching Home rule and the 1891 Newcastle Programme. Campbell-Bannerman was contemptuous of “Master Grey” but thought Asquith, with whom he had little direct contact at this point, “the man of real importance”. After challenge by Campbell-Bannerman Rosebery wrote to “The Times” on 21 February 1902 to say that he was “outside [the] tabernacle but not, I think, in solitude”. 24 February the Liberal League was founded, with Rosebery as President, Asquith Fowler and Grey as Vice-Presidents and Perks as treasurer, with Tennant also involved. Asquith was among those who insisted that it not be a separate organisation but instead concentrate on organising support for Liberal Imperialist MPs who had been disavowed by their party, as in NE Lanark.

Campbell-Bannerman recorded that the Liberal League was “laughed at” at Westminster. The Liberal League was scuppered by peace in South Africa (May 1902) and by Balfour’s 1902 Education Act (which angered nonconformists by subsidising Church of England and even Roman Catholic schools with taxpayers’ money), the agitation against which pulled off Nonconformists who had previously been drawn to the Liberal League by Robert Perks. Haldane supported the Education Act as a step towards “National Efficiency”. Asquith, a nonconformist himself, opposed it and was able to share platforms with Lloyd George (10 June) and Campbell-Bannerman (1 November). Rosebery contributed further to Liberal reunion by vanishing from the scene.

Chamberlain came out in favour of protection. Margot later claimed that Asquith had come into her bedroom brandishing a copy of “The Times” on 16 May 1903 and exclaiming “Wonderful news today, and it is only a matter of time when we shall sweep the country”. Asquith made a major speech at Doncaster on 21 May, although Koss is sceptical of Jenkins’ belief that this was one of the reasons why Chamberlain resigned. Asquith’s speeches were lucid and displayed deep knowledge of economics and politics. Asquith wanted to concentrate on the free trade fight and to make common cause with the Unionist free traders, including the former Liberal Lord James of Hereford. However, many of the Unionist free traders were also supporters of the Education Act, and Perks and Lloyd George (who wrote to his wife “Asquith … must be stopped at once” on 23 December) opposed such an alliance. Campbell-Bannerman agreed that education was the more important issue, arguing that “It would not do, when we are going into battle, to blunt the edge of the Puritan sword”.

Campbell-Bannerman valued Asquith’s ability at speaking and debating. However, he told Gardiner of the “Daily News” that “Asquith qua Asquith is a fine fellow, an honest man & a sincere Liberal. But Asquith cum Margot is a lost soul” Koss believes that he was referring not just to Margot herself but to Asquith’s increasing taste for alcohol and socialising.

Asquith admired Campbell-Bannerman’s courage but had doubts that his health would hold up to the strains of office. Herbert Gladstone wrote to him (29 October 1903) that when the Liberals returned to power Campbell-Bannerman, with whom he had recently had a long talk, might want to accept a peerage and/or a sinecure job like Lord President of the Council, clearing the way for Rosebery or Asquith to become Prime Minister. Haldane reported to his mother that this put Asquith “in good spirits”. Rosebery told Haldane that he would work to make Asquith Prime Minister, but privately told his follower Munro Ferguson that he would “leave the country” if Asquith became Prime Minister. Asquith concentrated on attacking the Unionist government, and distancing himself from “Milnerism”, rather than striving to oust Campbell-Bannerman. But Campbell-Bannerman increased his activity in the next session.

Asquith had dined with Milner as recently as 29 October 1903, but in February 1904 the Liberal Imperialists (apart from Haldane who neither spoke nor voted) joined in the attacks on “Chinese slavery”, to the dismay of Milner who thought he had obtained their support on his visit to England the previous autumn. Leo Amery, in a letter to Milner, joked that Mrs Asquith was already measuring up the wallpaper for 10, Downing Street. At this point Asquith was expecting an election in spring 1905.

The Liberal League remained in existence until May 1910, but since 1901 its members had largely been at cross-purposes.

Jenkins

Before the new Parliament met Rosebery told Spencer – for circulation to other ministers – his “irrevocable desire not to meet Harcourt in council any more”. Harcourt thought it “a damned piece of impertinence” and there was talk of Asquith becoming leader.

It was agreed as a compromise that Harcourt would lead the Liberals in the Commons and Lord Kimberley in the Lords, with Rosebery as overall leader. Asquith spent 24 hours at Mentmore in January 1896, trying to persuade Rosebery to be more cooperative.

Rosebery circulated a memo in August 1896, urging that the Liberal Party drop the Newcastle Programme, so as to concentrate on reacting to the deeds of the present government. He thought the size of Salisbury’s majority would make his government the first “Tory” government since 1867, and that the Liberal Unionists, realising their lack of influence, would gradually drift back towards the mainstream Liberal Party, restoring the Liberals to the “richness, variety and strength” they had enjoyed then.

At the end of 1896 the aged WE Gladstone denounced the Turkish massacres of the Armenians. Rosebery was still on friendly terms with Gladstone but used this as an excuse to resign as Liberal Leader on 6 October. Harcourt was equally cross at Gladstone’s intervention. Asquith, who had not been consulted, arrived for a prior engagement at Dalmeny just afterwards, and suggested severing diplomatic links with Turkey. Rosebery spoke to an audience of 5,000 at the Empire Theatre at Edinburgh, with Fowler and Asquith in attendance. Asquith remained on friendly terms with Rosebery and visited him once or twice a year thereafter, but did not collaborate with him until briefly in 1902.

Asquith did not believe Chamberlain was guilty over the Jameson Road, but unlike Campbell-Bannerman or Harcourt he refused to serve on the “Rhodes Commission”.

In March 1897 Asquith presided over a dinner of farewell for Milner at which Chamberlain, Balfour and Morley spoke.

After a public exchange of letters with Morley, Harcourt resigned in December 1898. Asquith had not spoken to Harcourt or to Ellis, the Chief Whip, for some months. Harcourt cited as his excuse the fact that Ferguson and MacArthur, whips with Roseberyite leanings, had voted with the government on occasion. Ellis, Haldane and Spencer urged Asquith to accept the leadership. Asquith got on well with Haldane.

Rosebery spoke at a dinner to the City Liberal Club on 5 May 1899, calling for all the pre-1886 elements of the Liberal Party to be reunited. Asquith wrote him a long letter on 6 May, urging him not to reject the commitment to Home Rule or to demand reunion with the Liberal Unionists – but did not send it.

South Africa had been in crisis since February 1899 and Chamberlain had spoke on the subject at Birmingham in June. The Boers issued an ultimatum on 9 October and fighting began on 12 October. Asquith did not commit himself to war in advance, despite frequent letters from Milner. Campbell-Bannerman publically opposed military preparations on 17 and 28 June. On 2 September 1899 Asquith condemned “irresponsible clamours” for war.

Asquith blamed the war on the Boer ultimatum, which in fact pre-empted a British ultimatum already agreed by the Cabinet on 29 September but sent by mail steamer. The Shadow Cabinet did not meet until 14 October owing to Campbell-Bannerman’s leisurely return from his continental holiday.

Campbell-Bannerman was suspicious of Milner and claimed he was “anti-Joe, but never pro-Kruger”. He condemned Boer aggression on 17 October 1899. In the event 135 out of 186 Liberal MPs went into the lobby with Stanhope.

Rosebery made two provocative speeches in late October 1899, laying the blame for the South African situation on W.E.Gladstone allowing the Boers a compromise peace after Majuba Hill in 1882. Campbell-Bannerman spoke at Manchester on 8 November and Birmingham on 24 November – he was much more anti-war, probably provoked by Rosebery.

Bryce, Robert Reid, Spencer, Kimberley, Ripon, Harcourt, Morley and Lloyd George were all anti-war. Rosebery had vast charisma – in 1902 he spoke to an audience of 5,000 at Glasgow, out of 32,000 who had applied for tickets.

The Liberal press were broadly pro Imperialist except for the “Manchester Guardian” and “Westminster Gazette”. In November 1899 the pro-Boer HW Massingham was sacked as editor of the “Daily Chronicle”. But early in 1901 ET Cook was ousted as editor of the “Daily News”in favour of a pro Boer. George Cadbury took over, creating “the cocoa press” which lasted until 1960.

By July 1900 the war seemed won. Sir Wilfrid Lawson proposed a pro-Boer amendment to a motion. Bryce, Morley, Reid, Labouchere, Lloyd George and 25 others voted in favour. 40, including Asquith, Grey, Haldane and Fowler abstained. Campbell-Bannerman and 34 followers abstained. “A vote for the Liberals is a vote for the Boers” was originally a remark by the Mayor of Mafeking.

At East Fife Asquith’s majority increased from 716 to 1,431, whilst Campbell-Bannerman’s majority at Stirling Boroughs dropped from 1,127 to 630, although he blamed it on Catholic voting on the schools question rather than the war.

Campbell-Bannerman was criticised by the pro-Boers for accepting the annexation of the Boer Republics as virtually inevitable. In July 1900 the Liberal Imperial Council was set up under Rw Perks. It endorsed 56 Liberal candidates including Asquith, Grey and Haldane. Campbell-Bannerman publically rejected the Perks manifesto in October 1900.

Campbell-Bannerman spoke at Dundee on 15 November 1900. He praised Harcourt and Morley and denounced the Liberal Imperial Council, by a slip of the tongue referring to it as the “Liberal Unionist Council”, i.e. linking them to the hated Chamberlain. Contrary to Asquith’s advice he made a clumsy offer to Rosebery in the speech. In December 1900 he rebuffed Harcourt’s offer to rejoin the Shadow Cabinet, although they had a friendly exchange of letters. He respected Asquith but was not on particularly friendly terms with him. Campbell-Bannerman regarded “Master Haldane” and “Master Grey” as he called them, with gentle contempt.

Before Christmas 1900 the Liberal Imperialists joined a Lloyd George motion effectively censuring Chamberlain for profits made by his family during the war. The National Liberal Federation had a relatively easy meeting at the end of February 1901, in the calmer atmosphere after the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January. On 24 May 1901 Milner returned home to England on leave. Grey met him at Southampton. Fowler attended a banquet in his honour at which Chamberlain spoke. Morley denounced Milner as “an imitation Bismarck”. On 14 June 1901 Campbell-Bannerman used the phrase “methods of barbarism” in a speech to the National Reform Union. The next day Asquith wrote to Campbell-Bannerman remonstrating with him and blaming Morley. On 17 June 1901 Campbell-Bannerman repeated the word “barbarism” in the House of Commons. Haldane attacked him. There were 50 abstentions, of whom Asquith was one, in the debate in which Campbell-Bannerman used the words.

On 20 June 1901 Asquith spoke at the dinner of the South Essex Liberals at Liverpool Street Hotel. He attacked Morley and Labouchere. Henry Lucy wrote that the Liberal Party was engaged in “war to the knife and fork”. On 23 June Fowler wrote to congratulate Asquith that it would "smash the talk about secession" (i.e. that the Liberal Imperialists would remain in the Liberal Party). Another dinner in Asquith’s honour was planned on 19 July, but on 28 June 40 Liberal MPs wrote a letter to Asquith to say that although they were sympathetic to him, they would not attend such a potentially divisive event. It was organised by McKenna and Charles Hobhouse and the Master of Elibank was one signatory; all were later to be Asquith’s Cabinet colleagues. On 29 June a letter arrived from Kimberley protesting at Asquith's intention to speak.

A party meeting on 9 July backed Campbell-Bannerman unanimously, but Grey and Asquith would not back him over South Africa. Campbell-Bannerman wrote to Asquith on 10 July 1901 urging him to postpone the dinner. Campbell-Bannerman accepted Asquith’s explanation that it was too late to postpone the dinner. Grey wrote (12 July) that he had seen Rosebery and that Asquith was annoyed at Campbell-Bannerman’s suggestion that the dinner be postponed, and also that Asquith was not being kept fully informed of all dealings between Rosebery and Grey. Asquith also wrote to the 40 MPs in conciliatory terms.

Rosebery declined an invitation to preside at the Asquith dinner. He also declined to speak at a lunch at the City Liberal Club that day, although his anti-“Methods of Barbarism” letter was published in “The Times” on 17 July 1901. But then he turned up to the lunch anyway and gave a provocative speech, demanding a “clean slate” and stating that he would “plough [his] own furrow” alone but might hope to pick up some followers along the way. Even Grey rebuked Rosebery, and Jenkins suggests that he was jealous of Asquith, hence the lack of the usual press build-up for his speeches.

Asquith spoke at the dinner on 19 July 1901, saying that Imperialism needed to be accompanied by reforms for “Little England”. He received a letter of praise from Rosebery on 20 July.

Rosebery gave a much-trailed speech at Chesterfield on 16 December 1901. No fan of Milner, he came out in favour of a negotiated peace in South Africa and demanded that the Liberal Party “clean its slate” and abandon “fly-blown phylacteries”. Campbell-Bannerman called on Rosebery to seek rapprochement over South Africa. He was rebuffed as Rosebery rejected Irish Home Rule. Rosebery made clear his opposition to Irish Home Rule and to the Newcastle Programme in a speech at Liverpool on 14 February 1902.

In late 1901 Campbell-Bannerman publically reaffirmed the Liberal party’s commitment to Irish Home Rule in a speech at Dunfermline. Nobody was sure whether Asquith would follow Grey and Haldane and Rosebery. On 2 January 1902 Grey wrote to Campbell-Bannerman threatening to repudiate his leadership unless he accepted a compromise peace in South Africa as Rosebery had demanded at Chesterfield. Haldane wanted Rosebery to come out openly against Irish Home Rule. Asquith made a speech on 14 January 1902, rejecting any talk of compromise peace and saying that the Boers must be defeated and made not to renew the war. He suggested that a “clean slate” might allow the Liberal Unionists to rejoin the Liberals. On 23 January Asquith abstained on a major opposition amendment to the Address despite having helped to draft it, as Campbell-Bannerman did not want him proposing the amendment. Relations between the two men appear to have been strained at this point. On 19 February Campbell-Bannerman threw down the gauntlet to Rosebery in a speech at Leicester, demanding to know if Rosebery was inside “our political tabernacle”. On 1 March 1902 (CHECK) Rosebery wrote to “The Times” repudiating Campbell-Bannerman’s leadership.

Asquith wrote a public letter to his constituents on 1 March 1902. He commented that Rosebery’s remarks at Chesterfield were common ground (so effectively Asquith was challenging Campbell-Bannerman) and that there should be no immediate plans for Irish Home Rule.

In late February 1902 the Liberal Imperial Council was replaced by the Liberal League, to promote Liberal Imperialism and the “Clean Slate”. Rosebery was President, with Fowler, Asquith and Grey as Vice-Presidents. The Liberal Organiser in the Home Counties was appointed Chief Agent for the League, which was obviously likely to mean more pro-League candidates being selected for winnable seats. Campbell-Bannerman, who had apparently thought for a while that a split would be inevitable, made clear that promotion of candidacies would be the final straw. Asquith dissociated himself from any such move on 14 March. The Education Bill was presented to Parliament on 24 March and on 14 April Hicks Beach added a duty on imported corn in his last budget. Peace in South Africa (the Peace of Vereeniging) on 12 May. Rosebery gave a speech of unity on 23 May 1902.

Salisbury retired on 10 July 1902, and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Balfour. Despite electoral disaster, Balfour achieved the Education Act, the Entente Cordiale and set up the CID. Joseph Chamberlain was irritated by the Education Act, which angered nonconformist voters, and went on a trip to South Africa in the winter of 1902-3.

Asquith’s campaigning against the Education Act rehabilitated him with mainstream Liberals and left him well placed to campaign against Tariff Reform. Joseph Chamberlain, refusing to wait for an inquiry on tariff reform, spoke at Birmingham Town Hall on 15 May 1903. “You can burn your leaflets. We are going to talk about something else,” he told the Liberal Chief Whip.

Asquith made his first reply to Chamberlain at Doncaster on 21 May 1903.

Chamberlain resigned from the Cabinet on 9 September 1903, although his resignation was not accepted until a week later. A collection of Chamberlain’s speeches “Imperial Union and Tariff Reform” sold for a shilling, whilst a shorter anthology of Asquith’s speeches “Trade and the Empire: Mr Chamberlain’s Proposals Examined”. Jenkins comments on the irony that the Liberal Party had finally reunited on two conservative (italics) issues: defence of the 1870 education settlement and of free trade. Chamberlain claimed that the price of wheat was higher in the decade after the abolition of the Corn Laws (1846-56) than before. Asquith pointed out in rebuttal that Free Trade had not actually taken effect until 1849, and that prices had then fallen until 1853, after which the outbreak of the Crimean War had caused them to rise. At Cardiff on 20 November Chamberlain attacked Asquith as a lawyer with no business experience.

Campbell-Bannerman gave five public speeches that autumn, and was very pleased at Asquith’s “wonderful” speeches.

Lord Hugh Cecil, a high Anglican on schools but pro free trade, wrote to Asquith in December 1903 suggesting an amendment to the Address which might bring 30 free trade Tories over to the Liberal side. However, Herbert Gladstone was unsuccessful in persuading local Liberal Associations to stand down to allow Free Trade Conservatives a free ride. The Tory Free Traders disliked Campbell-Bannerman because of “methods of barbarism” and his preference for enacting the full radical programme (they would have preferred to serve under Devonshire, or Asquith or Rosebery). By late 1903 Campbell-Bannerman was unwell and thought he might not last the course. Herbert Gladstone wrote to Asquith on 29 October 1903. He thought Campbell-Bannerman might want to go to the Lords as Lord President of the Council. Asquith believed (28 December 1903) that the Free Fooders “look very well in the shop window” but that they would not bring many votes with them.

All the new ministers who had to seek re-election in 1903 were returned easily. The Liberals even lost a seat in an unrelated by-election at Rochester. But by 1904-5 the Liberals were polling better at by-elections. In July 1903 Asquith tried to get Rosebery to join a free trade committee. Haldane wrote to Asquith on 5 October 1903 that Rosebery had contempt for Earl Spencer and would instead work for the return of an Asquith government, although he accepted that a Spencer leadership might be a necessary price to get Campbell-Bannerman to agree to give up the Commons leadership. Grey and Haldane refused to serve under Campbell-Bannerman if he was Prime Minister in the Commons. Grey sent his own, similar, account to Asquith. In December 1903 Asquith tried, without success, to persuade Rosebery to come to a dinner.