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.
Family background
H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith | Family background
Joseph Dixon Asquith his father,  Emily his mother. The couple also had three daughters, of whom only one survived infancy. Joseph Dixon Asquith (father),  Emily, "née" Willans (mother) Father Joseph Dixon Asquith, and mother Emily, "née" Willans and  three daughters, He was the younger son of Joseph Dixon Asquith and his Emily, he couple also had three daughters, of whom only one survived infancy.
at the beginning of world war i great britain
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Great Britain was a leading Allied Power during the First World War
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who was the prime minister of u.k. then?
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H. H. Asquith
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which political party did he represent?
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Liberal Party
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where was he born?
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Morley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire
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who all were there in his family?
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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.
H. H. Asquith | Family background
The Asquiths were originally a middle-class family from the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. They were members of the Congregational church, whose family name derived from the village of Askwith. The first prominent member of the family was H. H. Asquith, who was prime minister from 1908 to 1916. In 1925, Asquith was raised to the peerage as Earl of Oxford and Asquith. His great-grandson Raymond is the present Earl. All of H. H. Asquith's seven children achieved some prominence in national affairs. By his first wife Helen Kelsall Melland (d. 1891), he had four sons and one daughter. All of the sons volunteered for the Front early in the war.
Asquith family | Introduction
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" according to biographer Roy Jenkins. He and his brother were educated at home by their parents until 1860, when Dixon Asquith died suddenly.
H. H. Asquith | Childhood and schooling
H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. Asquith may also refer to:
Asquith (disambiguation) | Introduction
William 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 Fulneck School, a Moravian Church school near Leeds. In 1863 William Willans died, and the family came under the care of Emily's brother, John Willans. 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.
H. H. Asquith | Childhood and schooling
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.
H. H. Asquith | Family background
Asquith died, aged 75, at The Wharf on the morning of 15 February 1928. "He was buried, at his own wish, with great simplicity," in the churchyard of All Saints' at Sutton Courtenay, his gravestone recording his name, title, and the dates of his birth and death. A blue plaque records his long residence at 20 Cavendish Square and a memorial tablet was subsequently erected in Westminster Abbey. Viscount Grey, with Haldane Asquith's oldest political friends, wrote; "I have felt (his) death very much: it is true that his work was done but we were very close together for so many years.
H. H. Asquith | Death
She married Asquith's Personal Private Secretary Maurice Bonham Carter in 1915. His fourth son Cyril (1890–1954) was born on the day Asquith became a QC and later became a Law Lord. His two children by Margot were Elizabeth, later Princess Antoine Bibesco (1897–1945), a writer, who also struggled with alcohol and Anthony Asquith (1902–1968), known as "Puffin", a film-maker, whose life was also severely affected by alcoholism. Among his living descendants are his great-granddaughter, the actress Helena Bonham Carter (b. 1966), and two great-grandsons, Dominic Asquith, British High Commissioner to India since March 2016, and Raymond Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who inherited Asquith's earldom.
H. H. Asquith | Descendants
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last prime minister to lead a majority Liberal government, and he played a central role in the design and passage of major liberal legislation and a reduction of the power of the House of Lords. In August 1914, Asquith took Great Britain and the British Empire into the First World War. In 1915, his government was vigorously attacked for a shortage of munitions and the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign.
H. H. Asquith | Introduction
Asquith had five children by his first wife, Helen, and two surviving children (three others died at birth or in infancy) by his second wife, Margot. His eldest son Raymond, after an academic career that outstripped his father's was killed at the Somme in 1916. His second son Herbert (1881–1947) became a writer and poet and married Cynthia Charteris. His later life was marred by alcoholism. His third son Arthur (1883–1939), became a soldier and businessman. His only daughter by his first wife, Violet, later Violet Bonham Carter (1887–1969), became a well-regarded writer and a life peeress as Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury.
H. H. Asquith | Descendants
Asquith was the eldest son of British prime minister H. H. Asquith by his first wife, Helen Kelsall Melland (died 1891). His father was created Earl of Oxford and Asquith in 1925. He was educated at Winchester, from where he won a scholarship to Balliol in 1896, taking with him a reputation for brilliance. He won the Ireland, Derby, and Craven scholarships, and graduated with first-class honours. Elected a fellow of All Souls in 1902, he was called to the bar in 1904. The tall, handsome Asquith was a member of the Coterie, a group of Edwardian socialites and intellectuals.
Raymond Asquith | Career and honours
Asquith was the only son of Raymond Asquith, a barrister, by his wife, the former Katharine Horner. He was the grandson of H. H. Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, British Prime Minister from 1908 until 1916. Lord Oxford's two older sisters both predeceased him; the younger of these was Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith, later Lady Hylton (1910–1996), who was married to William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton and became the grandmother of the actress Anna Chancellor. He inherited the earldom in 1928 on the death of his grandfather, since his father had been killed in the First World War.
Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith | Background and education
1. Raymond Asquith 2. Herbert Asquith 3. Brig.-Gen. Arthur Asquith 4. Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury 5. Cyril Asquith, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone 6. Elizabeth, Princess Bibesco 7. Anthony Asquith
List of children of prime ministers of the United Kingdom | <a href="H.%20H.%20Asquith">H. H. Asquith</a> (created Earl of Oxford and Asquith)
Born in London, he was the son of H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916, and Margot Asquith, who was responsible for 'Puffin' as his family nickname. He was educated at Eaton House, Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford. The film industry was viewed as disreputable when Asquith was young, and according to the actor Jonathan Cecil, a family friend, Asquith entered this profession in order to escape his background. At the end of the 1920s, he began his career with the direction of four silent films, the last of which, "A Cottage on Dartmoor", established his reputation with its meticulous and often emotionally moving frame composition.
Anthony Asquith | Life and career
"Living descendants are omitted unless they are notable and/or have a separate Wikipedia entry."
Asquith family | Prominent members
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.
H. H. Asquith | Childhood and schooling
I saw the beginning of his Parliamentary life; and to witness the close is the end of a long chapter of my own." Asquith's will was proven on 9 June 1928, with his estate amounting to £9345 9s. 2d. (roughly equivalent to £ in ).
H. H. Asquith | Death
Raymond Herbert Asquith (6 November 1878 – 15 September 1916) was an English barrister and eldest son of British prime minister H. H. Asquith. A distinguished Oxford scholar, he was a member of the fashionable group of intellectuals known as the Coterie, notable for their unconventional lifestyles and lavish hospitality. Like several of them, Asquith was killed in action in the First World War during his father's term in office.
Raymond Asquith | Introduction
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.
H. H. Asquith | Childhood and schooling
After graduating he was elected to a prize fellowship of Balliol.
H. H. Asquith | Oxford
The eldest son, Raymond, a barrister and poet, was killed in action in 1916. The second son, Herbert, was a poet who married Lady Cynthia Charteris, a writer and anthologist. The third son, Arthur, became a Brigadier. The fourth son, Cyril (1890–1954), became a Law Lord. The daughter, Violet (1887–1969), became a Liberal politician and a Life Peeress in her own right in 1964. By his second wife, the former Margot Tennant, Asquith had two more children. His daughter Elizabeth (1897–1945) was a writer who married a Romanian prince, becoming Princess Antoine Bibesco. His youngest son Anthony (1902–1968) became a well-known film director.
Asquith family | Introduction
The 1924 election was Asquith's last Parliamentary campaign, and there was no realistic chance of a return to the Commons. He told Charles Masterman "I'd sooner go to hell than to Wales," the only part of the country where Liberal support remained strong. The King offered him a peerage (4 November 1924). Asquith felt he was not rich enough to accept, and would have preferred to die a commoner like Pitt or Gladstone. He accepted in January 1925 after a holiday in Egypt with his son Arthur. He deliberately chose the title "Earl of Oxford", saying it had a splendid history as the title chosen by Robert Harley, a Conservative statesman of Queen Anne's reign.
H. H. Asquith | Elevation
The Asquith family were butchers based in Knottingley, Wakefield, West Yorkshire. In the 1920s, they expanded their business to seven butchers shops in the area. Their sons, Peter and Fred, later became founding members of Asda. Around the same time, a group of West Riding dairy farmers, including the Stockdale family and Craven Dairies, joined together under the banner of J.W Hindell Dairy Farmers Ltd. The company diversified in 1949 to become Associated Dairies and Farm Stores Ltd, with Arthur Stockdale as the managing director.
Asda | Early years
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.
H. H. Asquith | Early professional career
Frederick Thomas Asquith (5 February 1870 – 11 January 1916) was an English cricketer, who played one game of first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1903, making his debut at the age of 33 against Gloucestershire at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. A specialist wicket-keeper, he took two catches in the match but in his only innings failed to score, being bowled for a duck by Gilbert Jessop after coming in at number six in the order. Asquith was born in Kirkstall, Leeds. Asquith played occasionally for Yorkshire Second XI around the turn of the century, and was associated with Morley Cricket Club among several others.
Frederick Asquith | Introduction
Through his eldest daughter Cicely, he was a grandfather of Ann Lambton, a historian and expert on medieval and early modern Persian history, Persian language, Islamic political theory, and Persian social organisation. Through his second daughter Katharine, he was a grandfather of Lady Helen Asquith OBE, who did not marry but was a teacher and school inspector, Lady Perdita Asquith, who married William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton and had three children (including the actress Anna Chancellor), and Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who married Anne Palairet and had five children (including Raymond Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith).
John Francis Fortescue Horner | Descendants
Another leading British actress, Anna Chancellor (b. 1965), is also a descendant, being Asquith's great-great-granddaughter on her mother's side.
H. H. Asquith | Descendants
It is believed he batted left-handed. He learnt his cricket in Leeds with the Sheepscar Leather Works Club, and later kept wicket for Hull Town C.C. He once scored 123 against York C.C. At one time he was landlord of the Locomotive public house in Hessle Road, Hull. Asquith died in January 1916, at the age of 45, in Hull.
Frederick Asquith | Introduction
Arthur Asquith was born in 1883, the third son of politician H. H. Asquith and his wife Helen Melland, who died when Arthur was seven in 1891. Asquith was educated at Winchester College with his brothers and later attended New College, Oxford as an undergraduate. After completing his studies, he joined the trading firm Franklin & Herrera, with whom he did extensive business in Argentina.
Arthur Asquith | Early life
In 1908, when Asquith became prime minister, Violet was the only child of his first wife still at home, and the two shared a deep interest in politics. In contrast, relations between stepmother and stepdaughter were frequently strained, prompting H. H. Asquith to write lamentingly of how the two were 'on terms of chronic misunderstanding.' A huge house in Cavendish Square in London with a staff of 14 servants was the Asquith home until they moved to the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street in 1908. The residence of most importance in the life of the Asquiths was The Wharf in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, built in 1912.
Margot Asquith | Mrs Asquith
Asquith is the younger son of The 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith and Anne (born Palairet). He was a great-grandson of H. H. Asquith, the former British Prime Minister. Asquith's elder brother Raymond, father Lord Oxford, and maternal grandfather Sir Michael Palairet, all served as British diplomats. Like his father and brother, he was educated at Ampleforth College. In 1975 he was involved in the Musa Alami project in the West Bank, Palestine, and worked as a researcher at the Institute of Palestine Studies in Beirut. In 1981 he worked as a freelance journalist in Amman, Jordan and then as the Executive Secretary to the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Co-operation in London, until 1983.
Dominic Asquith | Background and education
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.
H. H. Asquith | Widower and cabinet minister
Two Prime Ministers spent part of their childhood in Huddersfield: Harold Wilson, born locally who attended Royds Hall School, and H. H. Asquith. Wilson is commemorated by a statue on the large front square (forecourt) to the town's station.
Huddersfield | H. H. Asquith and H. Wilson
Born in Hampstead, London, Cyril Asquith was the fourth son and youngest child of the barrister H. H. Asquith, later Prime Minister and subsequently Earl of Oxford and Asquith, from his first marriage to Helen Kelsall Melland. His mother died in 1891, a year after his birth. Known to his friends as Cys, Asquith was educated at Summer Fields School, Winchester College, where he was a scholar, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a foundation scholar. Following in the steps of his father and his brother Raymond, Cyril Asquith obtained first-class honours in Classical Moderations in 1911 and in "literae humaniores" in 1913.
Cyril Asquith, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone | Early life and career
In 1910, he married Lady Cynthia Charteris, who was also a writer. She was the eldest daughter of Hugo Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss, and his wife, Mary Constance Wyndham. They had two sons.
Herbert Asquith (poet) | Introduction
H. Asquith (born in Morley), who served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1908 and 1916. The actress Lena Headey, who was born in Bermuda, grew up in Shelley from the age of five.
Huddersfield | Notable people
He did not allow his lack of money to stop him marrying. His bride, Helen Kelsall Melland (1854–1891), 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.
H. H. Asquith | Early professional career
They had five children: 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.
H. H. Asquith | Early professional career
Later that evening Law, who had been to the Palace to receive the King's commission, arrived to enquire whether Asquith would serve under him. Lord Crewe described Asquith's reply as "altogether discouraging, if not definitely in the negative."
H. H. Asquith | Tuesday 5 December
Possessed of "a faculty for working quickly", Asquith had considerable time for leisure. Reading the classics, poetry and a vast range of English literature consumed much of his time. So did correspondence; intensely disliking the telephone, Asquith was a prolific letter writer. Travelling, often to country houses owned by members of Margot's family, was almost constant, Asquith being a devoted "weekender". He spent part of each summer in Scotland, with golf, constituency matters, and time at Balmoral as duty minister. He and Margot divided their time between Downing Street and The Wharf, a country house at Sutton Courtenay in Berkshire which they bought in 1912; their London mansion, 20 Cavendish Square, was let during his premiership.
H. H. Asquith | Prime minister at leisure
A derivative surname from the village is that of "Asquith".
Askwith | Introduction
He is the elder son of the 4th Baron Hylton and Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith (d. 1996; daughter of Katharine and Raymond Asquith, and sister of Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith and thus the granddaughter of former Prime Minister H.H. Asquith). He was educated at Eton College in Berkshire and Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in History in 1955. In 1951 and 1952, he served in the Coldstream Guards, and in 1967, he succeeded to his father's title.
Raymond Jolliffe, 5th Baron Hylton | Early life
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 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 in Mods and Greats.
H. H. Asquith | Oxford
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.
H. H. Asquith | Member of Parliament and Queen's Counsel
H. Asquith as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) from 1907 to 1910.
Maurice Towneley-O'Hagan, 3rd Baron O'Hagan | Introduction
Her paternal grandparents were Francis Charteris, 10th Earl of Wemyss and, his first wife, Lady Anne Frederica Anson (second daughter of Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield). Her maternal grandparents were Capt. Hon. Percy Scawen Wyndham MP for Cumberland West (second son of George Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield), and the former Frances Eden Campbell (sixth daughter of Maj.-Gen. Sir Guy Campbell, 1st Baronet).
Lady Cynthia Asquith | Early life
He wrote that he "gloated" over the senior Coalition Liberals—Churchill, Hamar Greenwood, Freddie Guest and Edwin Montagu—who lost their seats.
H. H. Asquith | Leader of the Opposition: 1922
At St Margaret's, Westminster on 12 February 1918, Asquith married Anne Stephanie Pollock (27 April 1896 – 1964), daughter of Sir Adrian Donald Wilde Pollock, Chamberlain of the City of London. Through her father she was the great-granddaughter of the judge Sir Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet. They had two sons and two daughters. His younger daughter, the Hon Frances Rose Asquith (b. 1925), married in 1951 John Stephenson, later a Lord Justice of Appeal.
Cyril Asquith, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone | Family
On 29 January 1925, at a two-day London convention, Asquith launched a Million Fund Appeal in an unsuccessful attempt to raise Liberal Party funds independent of Lloyd George. One more disappointment remained. In 1925 he stood for the Chancellorship of Oxford University, vacant on the death of Lord Curzon. He was eminently suited and was described by Lord Birkenhead, one of his many Conservative supporters, as "the greatest living Oxonian." Asquith suspected he might lose because of country clergy's hostility to Welsh Disestablishment, blaming "Zadok the Priest and Abiathar the Priest—with their half-literate followers in the rural parsonages". The election was also seen as a settling of party scores and a mockery of his title.
H. H. Asquith | Elevation
Julian Edward George Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (22 April 1916 – 16 January 2011) was a British colonial administrator and hereditary peer.
Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith | Introduction
H. Asquith became Prime Minister in 1908 he was promoted to Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Chief Whip) and sworn of the Privy Council. In 1910 he entered Asquith's cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a post he held until 1911, and then served under Asquith as President of the Board of Education between 1911 and 1915 and as Postmaster-General in 1916. In 1917 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Gainford, of Headlam in the County of Durham. He served on the Claims Commission in France in 1915 and between 1917 and 1920 and in Italy between 1918 and 1919 and was also a Deputy Lieutenant of County Durham and a Justice of the Peace for County Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Jack Pease, 1st Baron Gainford | Political career
Raymond Asquith was married on 25 July 1907 to Katharine Frances Horner (1885–1976), younger daughter of Sir John Francis Fortescue Horner, of Mells, Somerset, descended from Thomas Horner, the Tudor figure on whom the nursery rhyme 'Little Jack Horner' is sometimes said to be based. Her mother, Lady Horner (d. 1940), was Frances Jane Graham, elder daughter of William Graham, a rich merchant, passionate art collector, and Liberal member of parliament for Glasgow. Lady Horner was a notable hostess and patron of the arts, especially the Pre-Raphaelites and John Singer Sargent. The Horners had four children – Cicely (born 1883), Katharine (1885), Mark (who died in his teens), and Edward (1888).
Raymond Asquith | Family
Born at The Glen, Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, Tennant was a younger son of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet, by his first wife Emma, daughter of Richard Winsloe. He was the brother of Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner and Margot Asquith (and hence the brother-in-law of H. H. Asquith) and the half-brother of Baroness Elliot of Harwood. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Harold Tennant | Background and education
He formed a coalition government with other parties, but failed to satisfy critics. As a result, he was forced to resign in December 1916, and he never regained power. After attending Balliol College, Oxford, he became a successful barrister. In 1886 he was the Liberal candidate for East Fife, a seat he held for 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 Chancellor of the Exchequer.
H. H. Asquith | Introduction
Earl of Oxford and Asquith is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1925 for the Liberal politician H. H. Asquith. He was Home Secretary from 1892 to 1895, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1905 to 1908, Leader of the Liberal Party from 1908 to 1926 and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. Asquith was made Viscount Asquith, of Morley in the West Riding of the County of York, at the same time, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. This title is used as a courtesy title by the heir apparent to the earldom.
Earl of Oxford and Asquith | Introduction
Asquith filled his retirement with reading, writing, a little golf, travelling and meeting with friends. Since 1918 he had developed an interest in modern painting and sculpture. His health remained reasonable, almost to the end, though financial concerns increasingly beset him. A perhaps surprising contributor to an endowment fund established to support Asquith in 1927 was Lord Beaverbrook (the former Max Aitken), who contributed £1,000. Violet was highly embarrassed by her step-mother's attempts to enlist the aid of Aitken, Lord Reading and others of her husband's friends and acquaintances. "It is monstrous that other people (should) be made to foot Margot's bridge bills.
H. H. Asquith | Final years: 1926–1928
How she has dragged his name through the mud!" Asquith suffered a second stroke in January 1927, disabling his left leg for a while and leaving him a wheelchair-user for the spring and early summer of 1927. Asquith's last visit was see the widowed Venetia Montagu in Norfolk. On his return to The Wharf, in autumn 1927, he was unable to get out of his car and "he was never again able to go upstairs to his own room." He suffered a third stroke at the end of 1927. His last months were difficult, and he became increasingly confused, his daughter Violet writing; "To watch Father's glorious mind breaking up and sinking—like a great ship—is a pain beyond all my imagining."
H. H. Asquith | Final years: 1926–1928
H. Asquith as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1908 to 1911. He was a member of Asquith's cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster between 1911 and 1914 and as Postmaster-General between 1914 and 1915. In 1909 he was sworn of the Privy Council. Apart from his career in national politics, Hobhouse was an Alderman on Wiltshire County Council from 1893 to 1924. He succeeded his father as fourth Baronet in 1916. At the Coupon election in 1918 he lost his seat, as did Asquith, McKenna, Runciman, Simon, Samuel and McKinnon Wood. In 1922 Hobhouse stood again in North Buckinghamshire but came third, behind both Conservative and Labour.
Charles Hobhouse | Political career
Through his son Henry, he was the grandfather of Sir Maurice Bonham-Carter, the Principal Private Secretary to H. H. Asquith, his father-in-law, during his time as Prime Minister. Maurice was married to life peer Violet, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury.
John Bonham-Carter (1788–1838) | Descendants
In 1912, Montagu accompanied the prime minister on holiday in Sicily. H. H. Asquith brought along his daughter Violet, and she in turn brought her friend Venetia Stanley, daughter of Edward Stanley, 4th Baron Stanley of Alderley. It appears that during this holiday, both men fell in love with Stanley. During the next three years Asquith wrote more and more frequently to her, even during Cabinet meetings. At the same time, Montagu was attempting to court her, unsuccessfully proposing marriage in 1913. She liked him but did not reciprocate his love. Also, Montagu had to marry within his Jewish faith to keep his inheritance.
Edwin Montagu | Family
John Asquith (1 February 1932 – 10 September 2009) was an English cricketer. He played in five first-class matches for Cambridge University Cricket Club between 1953 and 1954. He was a school teacher. He and his wife Clare had two daughters and a son.
John Asquith | Introduction
William George Hervey Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton (2 December 1898 – 14 November 1967), was a British peer and soldier. Hylton was the son of Hylton Jolliffe, 3rd Baron Hylton, and Lady Alice Adeliza Hervey. He achieved the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Coldstream Guards and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Somerset from 1949 to 1964. Lord Hylton married Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith, daughter of Katharine and Raymond Asquith, eldest son of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, in 1931. He died in November 1967, aged 68, and was succeeded in his titles by his son Raymond. The writer John Hedworth Jolliffe is his younger son; the actress Anna Chancellor is a granddaughter.
William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton | Introduction
Lincoln G Asquith (born 1964), is a male former athlete who competed for England.
Lincoln Asquith | Introduction
The house has a blue plaque in honour of Asquith. He and his family remained in the village after he resigned as Prime Minister. He is buried in All Saints' parish churchyard (see below).
Sutton Courtenay | Prime Minister's home
Forrest was always proud of his Yorkshire birth and heritage. He was of the Society of Yorkshiremen in London and also chaired the Yorkshire Society. In 1928, after the death of H H Asquith a memorial to the former Liberal prime minister in the form of a bronze bust and panel was unveiled in the Town Hall in Morley, where he had been born. The ceremony was attended by some members of Asquith's family and Forrest, as the local Liberal MP, placed a wreath on the memorial. He is buried in Pudsey cemetery along with his father and his second wife, Mary.
Walter Forrest | Yorkshire heritage
Principal casts of all professional major productions. Note: The D'Ysquith family includes Asquith D'Ysquith, Jr., Lord Adalbert D'Ysquith, Reverend Lord Ezekial D'Ysquith, Lord Asquith D'Ysquith, Sr., Henry D'Ysquith, Lady Hyacinth D'Ysquith, Major Lord Bartholomew D'Ysquith, Lady Salome D'Ysquith Pumphrey, and Chauncey D'Ysquith. Chauncey is almost never listed in the family tree to preserve the surprise of his appearance.
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder | Casts
The heir apparent is the present holder's only son, Mark Julian Asquith, Viscount Asquith (b. 1979), who is married to Helen, daughter of Christopher Prentice. The heir apparent's heir apparent is his son, George Hannibal Asquith (b. 2011).
Earl of Oxford and Asquith | Earls of Oxford and Asquith (1925)
This became their weekend home away from home. It is here that literary, artistic and political luminaries would gather.
Margot Asquith | Mrs Asquith
Additionally, there were on-going difficulties with Margot's inheritance. In 1920, as an economy measure, 20 Cavendish Square was sold to Viscountess Cowdray and Asquith and Margot moved to 44, Bedford Square. Criticism of Asquith's weak leadership continued. Lloyd George's mistress Frances Stevenson wrote (18 March) that he was "finished … no fight left in him"; the press baron Lord Rothermere, who had supported him at Paisley, wrote on 1 April of his "obvious incapacity for the position he is expected to fill". In fact Asquith spoke in the House of Commons far more frequently than he had ever previously done when not a minister.
H. H. Asquith | Leader of the Opposition: 1920–1921
Thomson certainly made a hasty trip down to London immediately after the election for political meetings but he denied he had been asked to stand aside and no such by-election ever took place. Asquith was made a peer in 1925.
Trevelyan Thomson | The 1924 general election
that he would ask for the mass creation of peers, contrary to the King's earlier stipulation that there be a second election).
H. H. Asquith | 1910: election and constitutional deadlock
Herbert Dixon Asquith (11 March 1881 – 5 August 1947) was an English poet, novelist, and lawyer. Nicknamed "Beb" by his family, he was the second son of H. H. Asquith, British Prime Minister — with whom he is frequently confused — and younger brother of Raymond Asquith. Asquith was greatly affected by his service with the Royal Artillery in World War I. His poems include "The Volunteer" and "The Fallen Subaltern", the latter being a tribute to fallen soldiers. His poem "Soldiers at Peace" was set to music by Ina Boyle. His novels include the best-selling "Young Orland" (set during and after the First World War), "Wind's End", "Mary Dallon", and "Roon".
Herbert Asquith (poet) | Introduction
Asquith was left politically discredited by the Maurice Debate and by the clear turn of the war in the Allies' favour from the summer of 1918. He devoted far more effort to his Romanes Lecture "Some Aspects of the Victorian Age" at Oxford in June 1918 than to any political speech. However, Lady Ottoline Morrell thought it "a dull address". A letter of July 1918 describes a typical couple of days. "Nothing much is happening here. I dined with the usual crowd at Mrs. Astor's last night. The Duke of Connaught lunches here on Friday: don't you wish you were coming!" The beginning of the end of the war began where it had begun, with the last German offensive on the Western Front, the Second Battle of the Marne.
H. H. Asquith | End of the war
At Oxford he won the Hertford, Craven, Ireland, and Eldon scholarships. In 1913, while still an undergraduate, he was elected a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Naturally reserved, he did not follow his brothers Raymond and Herbert, both former presidents of the Oxford Union, in becoming involved with the Union. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, he was commissioned into the 1/16th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles) as a second lieutenant, eventually reaching the rank of captain. From 1916 to 1918 Asquith, who was deemed medically unfit for military service abroad, was employed by the Ministry of Munitions, serving for a time on the British War Mission in the United States.
Cyril Asquith, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone | Early life and career
Although such an event was forbidden by the 1829 act, planners counted on the British reputation for religious tolerance, and Francis Cardinal Bourne, the Archbishop of Westminster, had obtained permission from the Metropolitan Police. When the plans became widely known, King Edward objected, as did many other Protestants. Asquith received inconsistent advice from his Home Secretary, Herbert Gladstone, and successfully pressed the organisers to cancel the religious aspects of the procession, though it cost him the resignation of his only Catholic cabinet minister, Lord Ripon.
H. H. Asquith | Social, religious and labour matters
Asquith's thorough enjoyment of "comfort and luxury" during peacetime, and his unwillingness to adjust his behaviour during conflict, ultimately contributed to the impression of a man out of touch. Lady Tree's teasing question, asked at the height of the conflict; "Tell me, Mr Asquith, do you take an interest in the war;" conveyed a commonly held view. Asquith enjoyed alcohol and his drinking was the subject of considerable gossip. His relaxed attitude to drink disappointed the temperance element in the Liberal coalition and some authors have suggested it affected his decision-making, for example in his opposition to Lloyd George's wartime attacks on the liquor trade.
H. H. Asquith | Prime minister at leisure
He was a nephew of Leicestershire fast bowler Thomas Jayes.
Ewart Astill | Introduction
Katharine Frances Asquith (; 9 September 18859 July 1976) was an English landowner and patron of the arts. During the First World War, she served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. She was the wife of Raymond Asquith and the daughter-in-law of wartime prime minister H. H. Asquith.
Katharine Asquith | Introduction
But the whole trouble arose from the fact that there was no fierce resolute Asquith to win this war or any other."
H. H. Asquith | Wednesday 6 December
One of the three, presumably Lloyd George although this was not explicit, would be chairman. Asquith, as Prime Minister, would retain "supreme control."
H. H. Asquith | To-ing and fro-ing
In the British Liberal tradition, he patched rather than reformulated the constitution."
H. H. Asquith | 1910–1911: second election and Parliament Act
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.
H. H. Asquith | Member of Parliament and Queen's Counsel
Xavier was born on 18 July 1920 in Dominica, which was then a British colony. He was a member of the Windrush generation of British African-Caribbean people who migrated to the United Kingdom after the Second World War to fill vacancies in service industries.
Asquith Xavier | Early life
She also remained in touch with Evelyn Waugh, another convert. All three of her children were brought up as Roman Catholics.
Raymond Asquith | Family
Thompson, Northcliffe's most recent biographer, concludes; "From the evidence, it appears that Northcliffe and his newspapers should be given more credit than they have generally received for the demise of the Asquith government in December 1916."
H. H. Asquith | Power without responsibility
"Full name:" Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith
List of nicknames of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom | H. H. Asquith
He was born in Paddington, London, to Sir Maurice Bonham Carter (1880–1960), a politician and cricketer, and his wife, Lady Violet Asquith (1887–1969), a political activist who was created Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury in 1964. Her father was H. H. Asquith (1852–1928), who served as Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916 and became the 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith in 1925. His elder siblings were Cressida Ridley, Laura Grimond and Mark Bonham Carter, Baron Bonham-Carter. He was educated at St. Ronan's School, Hawkhurst, Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating in 1952. He then went to Harvard.
Raymond Bonham Carter | Early life
The Asquith was a short-lived English automobile manufactured by William Asquith at his Halifax machine tool works from 1901 to 1902. The car originally had a front-mounted De Dion engine and belt-drive; this last was later replaced by a two-speed gearbox because the belts kept slipping disastrously. Probably only one example of the car was built before the firm decided to concentrate on the production of boring machinery.
Asquith (1901 automobile) | Introduction
This was seen by many as the prelude to conscription but the appointment of Lord Derby as Director-General of Recruiting instead saw an attempt to rejuvenate the voluntary system, the Derby Scheme. Asquith's slow steps towards conscription continued to infuriate his opponents, Sir Henry Wilson writing to Leo Amery; "What is going to be the result of these debates? Will 'wait and see' win, or can that part of the Cabinet that is in earnest and is honest force that damned old Squiff into action?" The Prime Minister's balancing act, within Parliament and within his own party, was not assisted by a strident campaign against conscription conducted by his wife.
H. H. Asquith | Conscription
The most recent Pevsner, although published in 2010, also follows this convention. Asquith was addicted to "weekending" and many Friday-to-Mondays were spent at the Wharf. Asquith died at the house on the morning of 5 February 1928. His daughter Violet recorded his last weeks: "To watch Father's glorious mind breaking up and sinking - like a great ship - is a pain beyond all my imagining. I did not know life could be as cruel as this". Asquith is buried in the churchyard at Sutton Courtenay. In 1932, facing continuing financial worries, Margot sold the house. In 2012 Asquith's great-grandson, Raymond, unveiled a Blue plaque at the Wharf commemorating Asquith's residence at the house.
Mill House and The Wharf, Sutton Courtenay | History
Read is the great-grandson of British Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith. He is the son of the novelist and historian Piers Paul Read and is the grandson of Sir Herbert Read, poet, art critic and founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He lives in London with his wife and editor, Catherine Ostler.
Albert Read (executive) | Personal life and family
H. Asquith and the following month he was raised to the peerage as Baron Emmott, of Oldham in the County Palatine of Lancaster. He remained at the Colonial Office until 1914 and was then a member of Asquith's cabinet as First Commissioner of Works between 1914 and 1915. Emmott was also Director of the War Trade Department between 1915 and 1919, chaired the Royal Commission on Decimal Coinage between 1918 and 1920 and was President of the Royal Statistical Society between 1922 and 1924. He was a churchman, but his education at the Friends' School and his ancestry led him to sympathize with nonconformists.
Alfred Emmott, 1st Baron Emmott | Political career
Raymond Benedict Bartholomew Michael Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (born 24 August 1952) is a British former diplomat and hereditary peer. Styled Viscount Asquith until he succeeded to his father's peerage titles on 16 January 2011, the earldom of Oxford and Asquith was created for his paternal great-grandfather, H. H. Asquith, a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Raymond Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith | Introduction
He lost to the Conservative candidate, Lord Cave, by 987 votes to 441 on 20 March. He claimed to be "more disappointed than surprised", but his friend Desmond MacCarthy wrote that it affected him "more than any disappointment, save one, in his life after he ceased to be Prime Minister."
H. H. Asquith | Elevation
In 1912 the then Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, chose The Wharf (which he built in 1913) and the adjoining Walton House for his country residence. Asquith and his large family spent weekends at The Wharf where his wife Margot held court over bridge and tennis. She converted the old barn directly on the river which served for accommodation for the overflow of her many weekend parties. A painting of the period by Sir John Lavery (now in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin) shows Elizabeth Asquith and her young friends lounging in boats by the riverside. Asquith signed the declaration that took Britain into the First World War here.
Sutton Courtenay | Prime Minister's home
Leonard considers that responsibility for this must also be carried, in part, by Asquith; "this gifted, fastidious, proud yet ultimately indecisive man must bear his share of the blame."
H. H. Asquith | Assessment
The arrested men were taken to await the assizes in York, where they were remanded in Clifford's tower. Those tried and sentenced to death for treason were Thomas Oates, Samuel Ellis, John Nettleton snr, John Nettleton jnr, Robert Scott, William Tolson, John Fozzard, Robert Olroyd, John Asquith, Peregrine Corney, John Snowden, John Smith, William Ash, John Errington, Robert Atkinson, William Colton, George Denham ("The Grand Agitator"), Henry Watson, Richard Wilson, Ralph Rymer and John Carre. One of the plotters, John Asquith, was an ancestor of the future UK prime minister H.H. Asquith. Most were executed on a single morning in York and three at Northallerton.
Farnley Wood Plot | Aftermath
Cyril Asquith, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone, PC (5 February 1890 – 24 August 1954) was an English barrister and judge who served as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1951 until his death three years later. The youngest child of British prime minister H. H. Asquith by his first wife, Cyril Asquith followed the steps of his father and eldest brother into a distinguished academic career at Balliol College, Oxford, before serving in the British Army during the First World War. After the war he practised, with modest success, at the common law bar until 1938, when he was appointed to the High Court.
Cyril Asquith, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone | Introduction
Hastings was the eldest son of Sir Jacob Astley, 5th Baronet, and Hester, daughter of Samuel Browne. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1817 he succeeded his father to the baronetcy and to the family seat of Melton Constable Hall in Norfolk.
Jacob Astley, 16th Baron Hastings | Background and education
twice yesterday and on both occasions I was nearly gassed by the alcoholic fumes he discharged;" all contributed to a prevailing sense that Asquith was unable to rise to "the necessities of total warfare." Grigg concludes, "In certain vital respects, he was not qualified to run the war. A great head of government in peacetime, by the end of 1916 he was in a general state of decline, his obvious defects as a war leader (exposed)." Cassar, reflecting on Asquith's work to bring a united country to war, and his efforts in the year thereafter, goes towards a reassessment; "His achievements are sufficiently impressive to earn him a place as one of the outstanding figures of the Great War" His contemporary opponent, Lord Birkenhead paid tribute to his bringing Britain united into the War, ""A statesman who rendered great service to his country at a time when no other living Englishman could have done what he did." The Coalition Whip, William Bridgeman, provided an alternative Conservative view, comparing Lloyd George to Asquith at the time of the latter's fall; "however unpopular or mistrusted (Lloyd George) was in the House, he carried much more weight in the Country than Asquith, who was almost everywhere looked on as a lazy and dilatory man." Sheffield and Bourne provide a recent historical reassessment; "Asquith's governments arguably took all the key decisions of the War: the decision to intervene, to send the BEF; to raise a mass volunteer army; to start and end the Gallipoli Campaign; the creation of a Coalition government; the mobilisation of industry; the introduction of conscription." But the weight of opinion continues to agree with Asquith's own candid assessment, in a letter written in the midst of war in July 1916; "I am (as usual) encompassed by a cloud of worries, anxieties, problems and the rest.
H. H. Asquith | Assessment