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Portrait of Arthur Balfour

Prime Ministers · 20th century

Arthur Balfour

1848–1930 · British (Scottish)

Conservative

In office: 1902–1905

Arthur James Balfour succeeded his uncle Lord Salisbury as Conservative prime minister in 1902. His government passed the Education Act 1902 and signed the Entente Cordiale with France, but split over tariff reform and was crushed in the 1906 Liberal landslide. As Lloyd George's Foreign Secretary he issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and he was also a published philosopher.

How to spot them

  • ▸Nephew of Lord Salisbury; supposed origin of 'Bob's your uncle'
  • ▸The Balfour Declaration (1917) supporting a Jewish national home in Palestine
  • ▸'Bloody Balfour' as Chief Secretary for Ireland; nicknamed 'Pretty Fanny'
  • ▸Philosopher-politician: A Defence of Philosophic Doubt
  • ▸Lost his own seat in the 1906 Liberal landslide

In office

Education Act 1902 abolishing school boards (1902)

Handed schools to county and borough councils as Local Education Authorities

The Entente Cordiale with France (1904)

Settled colonial disputes and began Anglo-French rapprochement

Creation of the Committee of Imperial Defence (1902–1904)

Body for coordinating strategic planning across the armed services

Cabinet split over Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform campaign (1903)

Free traders versus imperial preference; fatally divided the Unionists

Aliens Act 1905 (1905)

First modern UK legislation controlling immigration

The 1917 declaration favouring 'a national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine (1917)

Letter to Lord Rothschild written as Foreign Secretary

Report defining the dominions as 'autonomous communities' equal in status (1926)

Imperial Conference report that led to the Statute of Westminster 1931

Key ideas

  • Philosophical scepticism: argued that science rests on unprovable beliefs no firmer than those of religion
  • Remained a senior statesman long after his premiership, serving under Asquith, Lloyd George and Baldwin

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born at Whittingehame, East Lothian; never married
  • •Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1887, earning the nickname 'Bloody Balfour'
  • •Succeeded Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915
  • •Led the British delegation to the Washington Naval Conference (1921–22)
  • •Created Earl of Balfour in 1922
  • •President of the Society for Psychical Research
  • •Resigned in December 1905; the Conservatives lost heavily in the January 1906 election and he lost Manchester East

Drill it — 7 cards

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Sources