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.
Death
H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith | Death
15 February 1928 15 February 1928 15 February 1928 5 February 1928.
at the beginning of world war i great britain
user
Great Britain was a leading Allied Power during the First World War
assistant
who was the prime minister of u.k. then?
user
H. H. Asquith
assistant
which political party did he represent?
user
Liberal Party
assistant
where was he born?
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Morley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire
assistant
who all were there in his family?
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Joseph Dixon Asquith his father,  Emily his mother. The couple also had three daughters, of whom only one survived infancy.
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what did he start his career as?
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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.
assistant
were women able to cast their votes then?
user
Asquith had opposed votes for women as early as 1882, and he remained well known as an adversary throughout his time as prime minister.
assistant
what were his leisure time activities?
user
Reading the classics, poetry and a vast range of English literature consumed much of his time. Travelling, often to country houses owned by members of Margot's family, was almost constant, Asquith being a devoted "weekender".
assistant
had he been a part of any notable events?
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Failures in both the East and the West began a tide of events that was to overwhelm Asquith's Liberal Government.  By the resignation of Admiral Fisher after continuing disagreements with Churchill and in frustration at the disappointing developments in Gallipoli.
assistant
when did he resign?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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when did he die?
user
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
Asquith at first assumed him to be trying to ingratiate himself with the churches and Labour, but then (20 May) sent him a public letter rebuking him for not attending the meeting to discuss his opinions with colleagues in private.
H. H. Asquith | Resignation
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
H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. Asquith may also refer to:
Asquith (disambiguation) | Introduction
Asquith also saw Law, who confirmed that he would resign if Asquith failed to implement the War Council agreement as discussed only the day before. In the evening, and having declined two requests for meetings, Asquith threw down the gauntlet to Lloyd George by rejecting the War Council proposal.
H. H. Asquith | Monday 4 December
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
He responded to a taunt, "Why did you murder the miners at Featherstone in '92?" by saying, "It was not '92, it was '93." 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.
H. H. Asquith | Widower and cabinet minister
On 11 November, Asquith asked King George to dissolve Parliament for another general election in December, and on the 14th met again with the King and demanded assurances the monarch would create an adequate number of Liberal peers to carry the Parliament Bill. The King was slow to agree, and Asquith and his cabinet informed him they would resign if he did not make the commitment. Balfour had told King Edward that he would form a Conservative government if the Liberals left office but the new King did not know this. The King reluctantly gave in to Asquith's demand, writing in his diary that, "I disliked having to do this very much, but agreed that this was the only alternative to the Cabinet resigning, which at this moment would be disastrous".
H. H. Asquith | 1910–1911: second election and Parliament Act
A Parliamentary seat was essential if Asquith was again to play any serious part in future events. By the autumn of 1919 J.M. Hogge was openly critical of Asquith's leadership, and by January 1920 it was rumoured that he had given Asquith an ultimatum that unless he returned to Parliament in a by-election the Independent Liberal MPs would repudiate him as their leader (had he lost a by-election, his position would have been untenable anyway, as he well knew). In January 1920, an opportunity arose at Paisley, in Scotland like his previous seat, after the death of the Liberal MP.
H. H. Asquith | Paisley
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
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
The Asquiths finally vacated 10 Downing Street on 9 December. Asquith, not normally given to displays of emotion, confided to his wife that he felt he had been stabbed. He likened himself (10 December) to the Biblical character Job, although he also commented that Aristide Briand's government was also under strain in France. Lord Newton wrote in his diary of meeting Asquith at dinner a few days after the fall; "It became painfully evident that he was suffering from an incipient nervous breakdown and before leaving the poor man completely collapsed." Asquith was particularly appalled at Balfour's behaviour, especially as he had argued against Lloyd George to retain Balfour at the Admiralty.
H. H. Asquith | Wartime Opposition Leader: 1916–1918
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
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
After graduating he was elected to a prize fellowship of Balliol.
H. H. Asquith | Oxford
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
In the British Liberal tradition, he patched rather than reformulated the constitution."
H. H. Asquith | 1910–1911: second election and Parliament Act
H. Asquith died.
1928 Ilford by-election | Campaign
In December 1916, Asquith was replaced as Prime Minister by Lloyd George. Lloyd George asked Samuel to continue as Home Secretary, but Samuel chose to resign instead. He attempted to strike a balance between giving support to the new government while remaining loyal to Asquith. At the end of the war he sought election at the general election of 1918 as a Liberal in support of the Coalition government. However, the government's endorsement was given to his Unionist opponent, and he was defeated.
Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel | Early political career
Campbell-Bannerman resigned as Prime Minister in April 1908 due to ill health and was replaced by his Chancellor, H. H. Asquith. He died only weeks later.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman | Introduction
Asquith also introduced a distinction between earned and unearned income, taxing the latter at a higher rate. He used the increased revenues to fund old-age pensions, the first time a British government had provided them. Reductions in selective taxes, such as that on sugar, were aimed at benefiting the poor. Asquith planned the 1908 budget, but by the time he presented it to the Commons he was no longer Chancellor. Campbell-Bannerman's health had been failing for nearly a year. After a series of heart attacks he resigned on 3 April 1908, less than three weeks before he died. Asquith was universally accepted as the natural successor.
H. H. Asquith | Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1905–1908
The end was near, and a further letter from Balfour declining to reconsider his earlier decision brought it about. The Home Secretary, Herbert Samuel, recorded in a contemporaneous note: "We were all strongly of opinion, from which [Asquith] did not dissent, that there was no alternative [to resignation]. We could not carry on without LlG and the Unionists and ought not to give the appearance of wishing to do so." At 7.00 pm, having been Prime Minister for eight years and 241 days, Asquith went to Buckingham Palace and tendered his resignation. Describing the event to a friend sometime later, Asquith wrote; "When I fully realised what a position had been created, I saw that I could not go on without dishonour or impotence, or both." That evening, he dined at Downing Street with family and friends, his daughter-in-law Cynthia describing the scene: "I sat next to the P.M.—he was too darling—rubicund, serene, puffing a guinea cigar and talking of going to Honolulu." Cynthia believed that he would be back "in the saddle" within a fortnight with his position strengthened.
H. H. Asquith | Tuesday 5 December
On 31 July 1919, after a lunch in honour of former Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch, Asquith wrote "he talked a lot of nonsense about Germany sinking never to rise again."
H. H. Asquith | 1919: out of Parliament
H. Asquith had lost his seat in the House of Commons. For those two years he also served as Leader of the Opposition, while Labour had no official leader and Sinn Féin refused to participate in parliamentary government.
Donald Maclean (British politician) | Life and career
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
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.
H. H. Asquith | Out of office, 1895–1905
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
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
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 the bar. 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.
H. H. Asquith | Out of office, 1895–1905
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
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.
H. H. Asquith | Out of office, 1895–1905
Huntingdon resigned his seat in the assembly at the end of 1850 due to poor health. He died in Yarmouth nine months later at the age of 52.
Herbert Huntington | Resignation and death
Difficulties continued with Lloyd George, who had been chairman of the Liberal MPs since 1924, over the party leadership and over party funds. In the autumn of 1925 Hobhouse, Runciman and the industrialist Sir Alfred Mond protested to Asquith at Lloyd George organising his own campaign for reform of land ownership. Asquith was "not enthusiastic" but Lloyd George ignored him and arranged for Asquith to be sent reports and calculations ("Lord Oxford likes sums" he wrote). At a meeting on 25 November 1925 Grey, Maclean, Simon, Gladstone and Runciman urged Asquith to have a showdown with Lloyd George over money.
H. H. Asquith | Resignation
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
Xavier died in 1980 in Chatham, Kent.
Asquith Xavier | Death
After a brief attempt to set up a joint committee with the Coalition Liberal MPs to explore reunion, the "Wee Frees" resigned the government whip on 4 April, although some Liberal MPs still remained of uncertain allegiance. The Liberals won by-elections in March and April 1919, but thereafter Labour performed better than the Liberals in by-elections. In April 1919 Asquith gave a weak speech to Liberal candidates, his first public speech since the election. In Newcastle (15 May) he gave a slightly stronger speech, encouraged by his audience to "Hit Out!" Asquith was also disappointed by the "terms and spirit" of the Treaty of Versailles in May, but did not oppose it very strongly in public.
H. H. Asquith | 1919: out of Parliament
Asquith's reputation will always be heavily influenced by his downfall at the height of the First World War. In 1930, Basil Liddell Hart summed up opinion as to the reasons for his fall; "Lloyd George (came to) power as the spokesman for a widespread demand for a more vigorous as well as a more efficient prosecution of the war." Asquith's collegiate approach; his tendency to "wait and see;" his stance as the chairman of the cabinet, rather than leader of a government—"content to preside without directing;" his "contempt for the press, regard(ing) journalists as ignorant, spiteful and unpatriotic;" and his weakness for alcohol—"I had occasion to speak to the P.M.
H. H. Asquith | Assessment
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
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
This initially proved difficult, and the King's speech opening Parliament was vague on what was to be done to neutralise the Lords' veto. Asquith dispirited his supporters by stating in Parliament that he had neither asked for nor received a commitment from the King to create peers. The cabinet considered resigning and leaving it up to Balfour to try to form a Conservative government. The budget passed the Commons again, and—now that it had an electoral mandate—it was approved by the Lords in April without a division. The cabinet finally decided to back a plan based on Campbell-Bannerman's, that a bill passed by the Commons in three consecutive annual sessions would become law notwithstanding the Lords' objections.
H. H. Asquith | 1910: election and constitutional deadlock
He was weakened by his own indecision over strategy, conscription, and financing. Lloyd George replaced him as prime minister in December 1916. They became bitter enemies and fought for control of the fast-declining Liberal Party. His role in creating the modern British welfare state (1906–1911) has been celebrated, but his weaknesses as a war leader and as a party leader after 1914 have been highlighted by historians.
H. H. Asquith | Introduction
Asquith was to be retained as prime minister, and given honorific oversight of the War Council, but day to day operations would be directed by Lloyd George. This scheme, although often reworked, remained the basis of all proposals to reform the government until Asquith's fall on 6 December. Until almost the end, both Law, and Lloyd George, wished to retain Asquith as premier, but Aitken, Carson and Lord Northcliffe emphatically did not.
H. H. Asquith | Triumvirate gathers
The 1916 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours were awards announced on 22 December 1916 to mark the exit of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, who resigned . The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and arranged by honour, with classes (Knight, Knight Grand Cross, etc.) and then divisions (Military, Civil, etc.) as appropriate.
1916 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours | Introduction
When H.H. Asquith (Prime Minister) learned of this he demanded that Gough return the document, which he refused to do. Asquith publicly repudiated the "peccant paragraphs" (25 March). French and Seely both had to resign.
Hubert Gough | The "Peccant paragraphs"
He returned to France (3 December), but Asquith had been exchanging further letters with Stamfordham and they agreed that French must now be pressed to quit. Walter Long telephoned French (4 December) passing on the Prime Minister's message that he "must" resign.
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres | Resignation
By the summer of 1922 Asquith's interest in politics was at a very low ebb. He was observed to be "very heavily loaded" and was helped up the stairs by Lloyd George at a party of Sir Philip Sassoon's on 16 July 1922, whilst his reputation was further damaged by his portrayal in Aldous Huxley's novel "Crome Yellow" and by the publication of the first volume of Margot's memoirs, which sold well in the UK and the USA, but were thought an undignified way for a former Prime Minister to make money. On 13 September 1922 Sir Donald Maclean told Harold Laski that Asquith was devoted to bridge and small talk and did not do enough real work.
H. H. Asquith | Leader of the Opposition: 1922
We were at War."
H. H. Asquith | July Crisis and outbreak of World War I
Gilmour and Adams. Crawford records how little he and his senior Unionist colleagues were involved in the key discussions, and by implication, how much better informed were the press lords, writing in his diary: "We were all in such doubt as to what had actually occurred, and we sent out for an evening paper to see if there was any news!" Asquith certainly did meet his senior Liberal colleagues on the evening of 4 December; they were unanimously opposed to compromise with Lloyd George and supported Asquith's growing determination to fight. His way forward had been cleared by his tendering the resignation of his government to the King earlier in the day.
H. H. Asquith | Monday 4 December
Salisbury's Conservative successor as Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, resigned in December 1905, but did not seek a dissolution of Parliament and a general election. King Edward VII invited Campbell-Bannerman to form a minority government. Asquith and his close political allies Haldane and Sir Edward Grey tried to pressure him into taking a peerage to become a figurehead Prime Minister in the House of Lords, giving the pro-empire wing of the party greater dominance in the House of Commons. Campbell-Bannerman called their bluff and refused to move. Asquith was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. He held the post for over two years, and introduced three budgets.
H. H. Asquith | Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1905–1908
Unless the King guaranteed that he would create enough Liberal peers to pass the bill, ministers would resign and allow Balfour to form a government, leaving the matter to be debated at the ensuing general election. On 14 April 1910, the Commons passed resolutions that would become the basis of the eventual Parliament Act 1911: to remove the power of the Lords to veto money bills, to reduce blocking of other bills to a two-year power of delay, and also to reduce the term of a parliament from seven years to five. In that debate Asquith also hinted—in part to ensure the support of the Irish MPs—that he would ask the King to break the deadlock "in that Parliament" (i.e.
H. H. Asquith | 1910: election and constitutional deadlock
In March 1923 a petition for reunion among Liberal backbenchers received 73 signatures, backed by the Lloyd Georgeite "Daily Chronicle" and the Asquithian "Liberal Magazine". But reunion was opposed by senior Asquithian Liberals like Sir John Simon, Viscount Gladstone and Charles Masterman, and as late as 30 June by journalists such as H. W. Massingham and Gardiner of "The Nation". Viscount Gladstone felt that "it was generally recognised that Asquith was no longer effective as an active leader" but that Lloyd George must not succeed him. By July Asquith was superficially friendly to Lloyd George and consulted him, but he did not include him in the Shadow Cabinet.
H. H. Asquith | Liberal reunion
H. Asquith. Asquith was deeply upset by the defeat, partly because he felt that Cave, an old friend, should not have stood against him.
George Cave, 1st Viscount Cave | Political career
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
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
He resigned on 12 December 1869.
H. D. Phillips | Life
He exercised little control over debate, seemed rather bored, but good humoured throughout." Lloyd George was less tolerant, George Riddell recording in his diary; "(He) says the P.M. should lead not follow and (Asquith) never moves until he is forced, and then it is usually too late." And crises, as well as criticism, continued to assail the Prime Minister, "envenomed by intra-party as well as inter-party rancour".
H. H. Asquith | War re-organisation
After the troops finally left in December 1919, the club was closed for a year for renovations (partly necessitated by the damage done by the troops), and did not re-open until 19 December 1920. As H. H. Asquith was deposed as Prime Minister by David Lloyd George, he spent his last full evening as Prime Minister on 8 December 1916 reporting to a full meeting of the Liberal Party at the club. It provided an overwhelming vote of confidence in his leadership.
National Liberal Club | World War I
Lloyd George accepted the challenge by return of post, writing: "As all delay is fatal in war, I place my office without further parley at your disposal." Asquith had anticipated this response, but was surprised by a letter from Arthur Balfour, who until that point had been removed from the crisis by illness. On its face, this letter merely offered confirmation that Balfour believed that Lloyd George's scheme for a smaller War Council deserved a chance and that he had no wish to remain at the Admiralty if Lloyd George wished him out. Jenkins argues that Asquith should have recognised it as a shift of allegiance.
H. H. Asquith | Tuesday 5 December
Offered either six weeks in prison or giving up campaigning for one year, the women all chose prison. Asquith was a target for militant suffragettes as they abandoned hope of achieving the vote through peaceful means. He was several times the subject of their tactics: approached (to his annoyance) arriving at 10 Downing Street (by Olive Fargus and Catherine Corbett whom he called 'silly women', confronted at evening parties, accosted on the golf course, and ambushed while driving to Stirling to dedicate a memorial to Campbell-Bannerman. On the last occasion, his top hat proved adequate protection against the dog whips wielded by the women.
H. H. Asquith | Votes for women
Significant though the loss was personally, its impact on Asquith politically can be overstated. The historian Stephen Koss notes that Asquith "was always able to divide his public and private lives into separate compartments (and) soon found new confidantes to whom he was writing with no less frequency, ardour and indiscretion." This personal loss was immediately followed, on 15 May, by the resignation of Admiral Fisher after continuing disagreements with Churchill and in frustration at the disappointing developments in Gallipoli. Aged 74, Fisher's behaviour had grown increasingly erratic and, in frequent letters to Lloyd George, he gave vent to his frustrations with the First Lord of the Admiralty; "Fisher writes to me every day or two to let me know how things are going.
H. H. Asquith | Other events
King Edward, who was on holiday in Biarritz, sent for Asquith, who took the boat train to France and kissed hands as prime minister in the Hôtel du Palais, Biarritz on 8 April.
H. H. Asquith | Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1905–1908
Asquith retained the leadership until his health failed in 1926, including periods when he was not in the Commons or was a peer. He was the last leader of the whole party under the original arrangements for leadership. When no overall party leader was a member of a House and a new leader was required in opposition, a leader emerged and was approved by party members in that House. From 1919 onward, the Chairman of the Liberal Parliamentary Party, elected by MPs, functioned as the leader in the House of Commons. This required all the leaders after Asquith to retain their seat in order to continue as leader.
Leader of the Liberal Party (UK) | Leadership selection 1859–1969
On 7 May 1918 a letter from a serving officer, Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice appeared in four London newspapers, accusing Lloyd George and Law of having misled the House of Commons in debates the previous month as to the manpower strength of the army in France. Asquith, who received a letter from Maurice on 6 May, and had also been in contact with the sacked Robertson, with whom Maurice discussed the letter, called for a Select Committee of the House to investigate the charges. In response to a private notice question, Law had offered a judicial inquiry, with Asquith free to choose the judges, but Asquith declined this offer on the evening of 7 May, thinking it contrary to the dignity of Parliament.
H. H. Asquith | Maurice Debate
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
Asquith would have been free to choose the judges, but he thought the proposal insulting to the independence of Parliament and declined the offer on the evening of 7 May. Instead Asquith demanded a Select committee to inquire into the allegations and pressed for a Parliamentary debate. On 8 May 1918 Howell Arthur Gwynne, editor of "The Morning Post", wrote to Asquith admitting that he was a long-standing political enemy of his, but that it was in the national interest that he be restored as Prime Minister in Lloyd George's place.
Maurice Debate | Reaction to the letter
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
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. In 1893, Asquith responded to a request from Magistrates in the Wakefield area for reinforcements to police a mining strike. Asquith sent 400 Metropolitan policeman. After two civilians were killed in Featherstone when soldiers opened fire on a crowd, Asquith was subject to protests at public meetings for a period.
H. H. Asquith | Widower and cabinet minister
Sunday 3 December saw the Conservative leadership meet at Law's house, Pembroke Lodge. They gathered against a backdrop of ever-growing press involvement, in part fermented by Max Aitken. That morning's "Reynold's News", owned and edited by Lloyd George's close associate Henry Dalziel, had published an article setting out Lloyd George's demands to Asquith and claiming that he intended to resign and take his case to the country if they were not met. At Law's house, the Conservatives present drew up a resolution which they demanded Law present to Asquith. This document, subsequently the source of much debate, stated that "the Government cannot continue as it is; the Prime Minister (should) tender the resignation of the Government" and, if Asquith was unwilling to do that, the Conservative members of the Government would "tender (their) resignations." The meaning of this resolution is unclear, and even those who contributed to it took away differing interpretations.
H. H. Asquith | Sunday 3 December
During his first year in office the health of his wife Charlotte deteriorated and she died on 30 August 1906. It is doubtful if Campbell-Bannerman ever properly recovered from this shock mentally or physically. He suffered a series of heart attacks over the following months, the last one in late November 1907. It affected him badly. He was forced to resign on 4 April 1908 and died on 22 April at No. 10 Downing Street, aged 71. Asquith succeeded him as Prime Minister and retained Grey as Foreign Secretary and Haldane as War Secretary. He went on to lead one of the most successful reforming governments of the 20th century.
Relugas Compact | Conclusion
"The tide of German success was stemmed and the ebb began under pressure of the great Allied counter-stroke." In response to the Allied offensives, "the governments of the Central Powers were everywhere in collapse".
H. H. Asquith | End of the war
Lord Elgin was sacked from the Colonial Office and the Earl of Portsmouth (whom Asquith had tutored) was too, as undersecretary at the War Office. The abruptness of their dismissals caused hard feelings; Elgin wrote to Tweedmouth, "I venture to think that even a prime minister may have some regard for the usages common among gentlemen … I feel that even a housemaid gets a better warning." Historian Cameron Hazlehurst wrote that "the new men, with the old, made a powerful team". The cabinet choices balanced the competing factions in the party; the appointments of Lloyd George and Churchill satisfied the radicals, while the whiggish element favoured Reginald McKenna's appointment as First Lord.
H. H. Asquith | Appointments and cabinet
Asquith formed a government with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by John Redmond. Another general election was soon held in December. The Labour Party, led by Arthur Henderson, continued to gather momentum, going from 29 seats to 40.
January 1910 United Kingdom general election | Introduction
If they rejected it, Asquith determined, he would have to ask the King to dissolve Parliament, four years into a seven-year term, as it would mean the legislature had refused supply. The budget passed the Commons on 4 November 1909, but was voted down in the Lords on the 30th, the Lords passing a resolution by Lord Lansdowne stating that they were entitled to oppose the finance bill as it lacked an electoral mandate. Asquith had Parliament prorogued three days later for an election beginning on 15 January 1910, with the Commons first passing a resolution deeming the Lords' vote to be an attack on the constitution.
H. H. Asquith | 1909: People's Budget
H. Asquith became Prime Minister in April 1908, and then served as Under-Secretary of State for India between 1909 and 1910. The latter year he was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Chief Government Whip). In 1911 he was sworn of the Privy Council. However, he was forced to resign in August 1912 after being accused of insider trading in the Marconi scandal. Later the same month he was raised to the peerage as Baron Murray of Elibank, of Elibank in the County of Selkirk.
Alexander Murray, 1st Baron Murray of Elibank | Political career
H. Asquith. He died at the age of 92.
John Boyd Kinnear | Biography
H. Asquith and his replacement by Lloyd George in December 1916.
Shell Crisis of 1915 | Introduction
Following the end of the war, Asquith chaired the committee which established the Royal Naval Division War Memorial outside the Admiralty building in London. In the Directory of Directors for 1935, the Hon Arthur M Asquith of 1 London Wall Buildings EC2 is listed as chairman of Brazil Plantations Syndicate Ltd, chairman of Parana Plantations Ltd and a director of San Paulo (Brazilian) Railway Co Ltd. Asquith came across many risk factors throughout his military career and eventually died of Hodgkin Lymphoma at Clovelly Court, Devon on 25 August 1939.
Arthur Asquith | Later life
Asquith had taken Pease’s defeat quite hard and had sent him a telegram on 12 January 1910 saying: ‘This is the worst incident of the election and grieves me more than I can say...’ In return for his resignation Holland was rewarded with a peerage in the King’s birthday honours list in June 1910.
1910 Rotherham by-election | Vacancy
Asquith then asked Esher to convey to French in person the news that he must resign, but that he was being offered a peerage and the newly created job of Commander-in-Chief Home Forces. However, French insisted on seeing Asquith again (29 November) at which meeting Asquith told him that he must take the first step and that he was not being "recalled" (sacked). French's official critique of Haig's performance at Loos finally reached the War Office on 1 December. He wrote to Asquith (2 December) suggesting that Kitchener be removed to be replaced by a civilian Secretary of State to avoid friction with the new job of Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, and writing that he would await Asquith's decision on this point.
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres | Resignation
Instead of resigning MacDonald requested, and was granted, a General Election. The 1924 election was intended by MacDonald to cripple the Liberals, and it did. Lloyd George refused to hand over money from his fund until he had more say over the Liberal whips office, Liberal Party Headquarters at Arlington Street and an election there was a chance of winning. Meetings at Paisley were tumultuous and Asquith was barracked by hecklers singing "The Red Flag". Asquith was widely expected to lose his seat and did so by 2,228. He received 46.5 per cent of the vote in his final parliamentary election, a straight fight against Labour.
H. H. Asquith | 1924 election
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
Herbert Samuel told Lloyd George that he could not serve in the new government and that he did not like the way it had come about. Herbert Samuel did not resign and sat on the Opposition front bench with Asquith until the end of the War. Against this background it seems possible that Stuart Samuel felt it was time leave politics particularly as in July 1917 he was elected president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and may have been aware his name was being considered for this position.
1916 Whitechapel by-election | Vacancy
Asquith retired from the military following his wound and worked for the Ministry of Munitions.
Arthur Asquith | Introduction
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)
The events that led to the collapse of the First Coalition were exhaustively chronicled by almost all of the major participants, (although Asquith himself was a notable exception), and have been minutely studied by historians in the 100 years since. Although many of the accounts and studies differ in detail, and present a somewhat confusing picture overall, the outline is clear. As R. J. Q. Adams wrote; "The Prime Minister depended upon [a] majority [in] Parliament. The faith of that majority in Asquith's leadership had been shaken and the appearance of a logical alternative destroyed him."
H. H. Asquith | Fall: November–December 1916
He held the seat until his retirement in 1969, when he received a knighthood. Haworth died in 1984.
William Haworth | Introduction
Asquith remained leader of the Liberal Party, despite McKenna vainly urging him, almost immediately after the election, to offer his resignation to the National Liberal Federation and help with building an alliance with Labour. At first Asquith was extremely unpopular, and there is no evidence that he was invited to address any Liberal Association anywhere in the country for the first six months of 1919. He continued to be calumnied in the press and Parliament over the supposed presence of Germans in Downing Street during the war. Although accounts differ as to the exact numbers, around 29 uncouponed Liberals had been elected, only three with any junior ministerial experience, not all of them opponents of the coalition.
H. H. Asquith | 1919: out of Parliament
He resigned his seat on December 3, 1844.
Henry W. Strong | Life
The declaration of war on 4 August 1914 saw Asquith as the head of an almost united Liberal Party. Having persuaded Sir John Simon and Lord Beauchamp to remain, Asquith suffered only two resignations from his cabinet, those of John Morley and John Burns. With other parties promising to co-operate, Asquith's government declared war on behalf of a united nation, Asquith bringing "the country into war without civil disturbance or political schism". The first months of the War saw a revival in Asquith's popularity. Bitterness from earlier struggles temporarily receded and the nation looked to Asquith, "steady, massive, self-reliant and unswerving", to lead them to victory.
H. H. Asquith | Asquith's wartime government
Prior to the debate, he received a surprising communication (8 May) from H. A. Gwynne, the editor of "The Morning Post", and previously a fervent opponent. "The effect of the Maurice letter, and your motion, must be the dissolution of the present government (and) your accession to power." At this point "Asquith hated Lloyd George with a passion" but he did not want the premiership for himself. Asquith's opening speech on the Select Committee motion was lengthy and lacked punch. Bridgeman recorded; "He did not make much of a case, and did not even condemn Maurice's breach of the King's Regulations, for which he got a very heavy blow from L.G.".
H. H. Asquith | Maurice Debate
Books purchased by George III of England in 1762, and the Second Folio of Shakespeare bought in 1800, were added to the King's Library.
Anthony Askew | Death
The relationship with France disquieted some Liberal backbenchers and Asquith felt obliged to assure them that nothing had been secretly agreed that would commit Britain to war. This quieted Asquith's foreign policy critics until another naval estimates dispute erupted early in 1914.
H. H. Asquith | Foreign and defence policy
It ran 'Sir J. French has placed in my hands his resignation … Subject to the King's approval, I have the pleasure of proposing to you that you should be his successor. Asquith also appointed Sir William Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff with increased powers, reporting directly to the Cabinet and with the sole right to give them military advice, relegating the Secretary of State for War to the tasks of recruiting and supplying the army. Lastly, he instituted a smaller Dardanelles Committee, re-christened the War Committee, with himself, Balfour, Law, Lloyd George and Reginald McKenna as members although, as this soon increased, the Committee continued the failings of its predecessor, being "too large and lack(ing) executive authority".
H. H. Asquith | Progress of the war
In a four-day crisis Asquith was unaware how fast he was losing support. Lloyd George now had growing Unionist support, the backing of Labour and (thanks to the efforts of Christopher Addison) a majority of Liberal MPs. Asquith fell and Lloyd George answered the loud demands for a much more decisive government. He energetically set up a new small war cabinet, a cabinet secretariat under Hankey, and a secretariat of private advisors in the 'Garden Suburb'; and moved towards prime ministerial control.
H. H. Asquith | Last four days: Sunday 3 December to Wednesday 6 December