Arthur Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (/ˈbælfər, -fɔːr/; 25 July 1848 – 19 March 1930), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the Lloyd George ministry, he issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917 on behalf of the cabinet, which supported a "home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, and later issued the Balfour Declaration of 1926 as Lord of the Privy Council, which announced a co-equal relationship between the United Kingdom and its Dominions, laying the groundwork for the Statute of Westminster 1931 which granted full independence to the former colonies.

Entering Parliament in 1874, Balfour achieved prominence as Chief Secretary for Ireland, in which position he suppressed agrarian unrest whilst taking measures against absentee landlords. He opposed Irish Home Rule, saying there could be no half-way house between Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom or becoming independent. From 1891 he led the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, serving under his uncle, Lord Salisbury, whose government won large majorities in 1895 and 1900. An esteemed debater, he was bored by the mundane tasks of party management.

In July 1902, he succeeded his uncle as prime minister. In domestic policy he passed the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903, which bought out most of the Anglo-Irish landowners. The Education Act 1902 had a major long-term impact in modernising the school system in England and Wales and provided financial support for schools operated by the Church of England and by the Catholic Church. Nonconformists were outraged and mobilised their voters, but were unable to reverse it. In foreign and defence policy, he oversaw reform of British defence policy and supported Jackie Fisher's naval innovations. He secured the Entente Cordiale with France, an agreement that paved the way for improved relations between the two states. He cautiously embraced imperial preference as championed by Joseph Chamberlain, but resignations from the Cabinet over the abandonment of free trade left his party divided. He also suffered from public anger at the later stages of the Boer War (counter-insurgency warfare characterised as "methods of barbarism") and the importation of Chinese labour to South Africa ("Chinese slavery"). He resigned as prime minister in December 1905 and the following month the Conservatives suffered a landslide defeat at the 1906 election, in which he lost his own seat. He soon re-entered Parliament and continued to serve as Leader of the Opposition throughout the crisis over Lloyd George's 1909 budget, the narrow loss of two further General Elections in 1910, and the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. He resigned as party leader in 1911.

Balfour returned as First Lord of the Admiralty in Asquith's Coalition Government (1915–1916). In December 1916, he became foreign secretary in David Lloyd George's coalition. He was frequently left out of the inner workings of foreign policy, although the Balfour Declaration on a Jewish homeland bore his name. He continued to serve in senior positions throughout the 1920s, and died in 1930, aged 81, having spent a vast inherited fortune. He never married. Balfour trained as a philosopher – he originated an argument against believing that human reason could determine truth – and was seen as having a detached attitude to life.

Arthur James Balfour was born on 25 July 1848 at Whittingehame House, East Lothian, Scotland, the eldest son of James Maitland Balfour and Lady Blanche Gascoyne-Cecil.

The name of Balfour is an ancient one in Scotland which was probably derived from a settlement near Markinch in Fife.

His father was a Scottish MP, as was his grandfather James; his mother, a member of the Cecil family descended from Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, was the daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury and his first wife, Mary Frances Gascoyne (born 1802; m. 1821; died 1839), and she was a sister of the 3rd Marquess, the future prime minister. Arthur's godfather was the Duke of Wellington, after whom he was named. He was the eldest son, third of eight children, and had four brothers and three sisters: His elder sisters Eleanor and Evelyn, his younger siblings Cecil, Alice, Francis Maitland Balfour (later a Cambridge embryologist), Gerald (who also became a politician) and then his youngest brother Eustace, who became an architect. Arthur Balfour was educated at Grange Preparatory School at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire (1859–1861), and Eton College (1861–1866), where he studied with the influential master, William Johnson Cory. He then went up to the University of Cambridge, where he read moral sciences at Trinity College (1866–1869).

Balfour met May Lyttelton in 1870 when she was 19. After her two previous serious suitors had died, Balfour is said to have declared his love for her in December 1874. She died of typhus on Palm Sunday, 21 March 1875; Balfour arranged for an emerald ring to be buried in her coffin. Lavinia Talbot, May's older sister, believed that an engagement had been imminent, but her recollections of Balfour's distress (he was "staggered") were not written down until thirty years later.