Talk:Arthur Henderson

Another Arthur Henderson
There was another Arthur Henderson who was a Cabinet Minister in Attlee's government - I presume he was a son. Does anyone know for certain, and if so want to add some details as some links for them go here. Timrollpickering 16:36, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The MacDonald "betrayal"
I've made a significant edit to this paragraph. As some of the details were in contention at the time and some history books still recycle them, I'm including the original text here with an explanation of the changes.

The crisis began in 1931 when Phillip Snowden, the Chancellor of the Exechequer, proposed balancing the budget by reducing unemployment pay.

Not quite true - the crisis was triggered when the May Committee had investigated the government's finances and concluded that it was facing a severe deficit - this combined with a crisis in the continental banking system which moved to London as bankers began to lose confidence, threatening the pound on the Gold Standard. The Labour Cabinet agreed that the Budget needed to be balanced but could not agree how - introducing tariffs was blocked by a minority (although lifelong free traders like Henderson were prepared to resort to them for revenue) whilst others found the proposed unemployment cuts impossible to stomach.

As the world was in the middle of the Great Depression with poverty and unemployment figures rising every other day, Henderson and most of the rest of the cabinet were able to vote this measure down.

It was actually a minority - when MacDonald tallied opinions, 12 (including Mac himself) voted to make the cut, 9 against. However the 9 made it clear they would resign rather than aquiese and as they included a lot of heavyweight figures in the party it was clear the government as a whole could not go on.

MacDonald was furious that his cabinet had voted against him and promptly resigned, but was (allegedly) persuaded by the King to create a "National" government, in effect a Tory dominated coalition that would also include the Liberals and some Labour members.

MacDonald seems to have been more worn out than anything. There is a massive historical debate about who exactly pushed for the National Government (and one article of a decade ago that focused on the King's role provoked one of the fiercest debates ever seen in a scholarly journal). However as there as a hung Parliament and as many newspapers and commentators had been discussing the idea for months it wasn't as novel as it now seems.

Initially the National Government presented itself (and appears to have seen itself) as a "co-operation of individuals from all parties" formed for only a few weeks, rather than a coalition on a common programme. I'd also dispute the "Tory dominated" tag at this stage - most of the key positions such as Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor were held by non-Conservatives. It was only later that this changed, as the Conservatives took a stronger position and the Liberals divided, with one half withdrawing from the Government altogether.

Henderson and the vast majority of the Labour Party regarded a pact with the Tories as a betrayal of everything they stood for, and resigned along with all but three other cabinet members.

MacDonald had already tended the government's resignation and the Cabinet was expecting to be in opposition anyway. 4 members joined MacDonald (3 in the new reduced cabinet, 1 outside) and it was only in the next few weeks that the Labour Party's attitude to the Government hardened. Henderson himself was one of the most concilliatory and on the National Executive he cast the one vote against the decision to expel MacDonald and followers from the aprty.

''But it was too late. MacDonald decided to call an election and unsurprisingly, the National Government won by a landslide and Labour was reduced to just 46 MPs. Yet again Henderson lost his seat.''

MacDonald seems to have been pushed into the election by elements in the Conservative Party wanting a mandate to introduce tariffs. The victory itself was easy to predict (especially as in most seats the Conservative and Liberal votes were now united behind a single candidate, along with extra votes gained from MacDonald's participation) but the scale of the rout was a shock to everyone.

Hope that explains things. Timrollpickering 19:01, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PoV Issue?
Why does this article have a PoV tag?FRS 22:50, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * "The coupon election and the 1920s" section is too pov. ex: "against punishing Germany too harshly"-the degree to which Germany could be punished is arguable, thus making this statement a bad truism. freestylefrappe 23:32, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, I fixed it (I think)FRS 00:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Opposition?
The information box says he was Leader of the Opposition when Ramsey Macdonald was Prime Minister. Since they were both members of the Labour Party, I assume this is an error? Daibhid C (talk) 16:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I've re-read the bit about Labour's opposition to National Government. Daibhid C (talk) 16:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Birth and parents
My research at the National Records of Scotland into Arthur Henderson's birth in Glasgow in 1863 has revealed that in the 1860s no Arthur Henderson was born in Scotland with a father "David" listed on their birth certificate. The only Arthur Henderson born in Glasgow in 1863 (according to his birth certificate he was born on 20th September instead of 13th) was born in the Anderston area of the city and was illegitimate, the son of Agnes Henderson, a domestic servant, and no father is listed. There is a birth certificate for another illegitimate son born in Anderston in 1861 to an Agnes Henderson named David Watt Henderson. This may indicate that a certain "David Watt" was the father of both boys and explain the mention of a David as Arthur Henderson's father. There is no record of the marriage of Agnes and any David Henderson. In light of this I will add Arthur Henderson's birthplace, true birthdate and family to his wikipedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.199.121.94 (talk) 00:12, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

This is "self research" from a throwaway account. Interestingly, this resembles Wrigley's book (Wrigley, Chris [1991]. "Arthur Henderson". GPC Books, publisher. ISBN 9780708310830) and is probably para-phrased from it, however Wrigley identified that he was speculating. There is a multitude of other biographical data on Henderson such as Leventhal (Leventhal, F. M. [1989]. "Arthur Henderson".  Manchester University Press, publisher.  ISBN 9780719021503.  books.google.com ), Hamilton (Hamilton, Mary Agnes [1938]. "Arthur Henderson: a Biography". W. Heinemann Ltd., publisher.), and Jenkins (Jenkins, Edwin Alfred [1933].  "From Foundry to Foreign Office: The Romantic Life-story of the Rt. Hon. Arthur Henderson, M. P.".  Grayson and Grayson, publisher.), all which state the standard date of September 13th and David Henderson, a cotton spinner or manual laborer who died young as the father. The sites that reference these books, including Wrigley's, refrain from promulgating the speculation: Encyclopedia Of World War I, www.encyclopedia.com, www.britannica.com, www.nobelprize.org. Will revert to the standard accounting. Wiseprincebambi (talk) 05:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Added note, several of the above mentioned sources report him celebrating specific birthdays on September 13th. Wiseprincebambi (talk) 05:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Ramsay MacDonald was PM in 1924 when he was home secretary, not Baldwin
How do you edit the side boxes?

Ganpati23 (talk) 22:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Can't display first constituency represented
The infobox template only permits 17 offices to be displayed at once, meaning in this case that Henderson's tenure as the Member of Parliament for Barnard Castle is missing. I'll be making an note and requesting a change to the template on the template's talk page, since it's the only thing I think can be done, but I wanted to let any editors (or readers who might wander onto this talk page) know about this really annoying but so far unfixable problem. &mdash;Calisthenis(Talk) 10:29, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * 17 seems like a very odd and arbitrary limit. Thanks for the info. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:34, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I may have been overly hasty; Winston Churchill's page seems to have some code which gets around the problem there. I'm trying to make it work now – not with a great deal of success so far though. &mdash;Calisthenis(Talk) 10:41, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * My plan was to make the page (in preview) show Henderson with Churchill's constituency list by importing the code wholesale from the latter's page, and then edit the details to display Henderson's parliamentary career instead. I can't do it though. I can make it display Churchill's constituencies; I can even put it into its collapsible, but I cannot for the life of me make it appear between his tenure as President of the Board of Education and his personal details. I'm out of my depth when it comes to this level of wiki markup, to be quite honest. I hope someone who is more proficient than I am can make it work. Here is the code I poached from Winston Churchill with the necessary details filled in; all that remains is to make the page put it in the right place in the infobox:

&mdash;Calisthenis(Talk) 11:28, 22 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Probably best to ask at Template talk:Infobox officeholder? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:37, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Consider collapsible sections in infobox
Henderson held many officers, most of which have been listed in the infobox. This can make it look a bit of a mess, so I would like to suggest making collapsible sections, perhaps divideed by parliamentry constituencies, cabinet offices, and leadership roles, or something similar to those. This has been done with Churchill's various offices. GibbNotGibbs (talk) 00:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)