page_title: Henry Campbell-Bannerman
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Campbell-Bannerman / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: This is his statue in The Back Walk, Stirling, the city he represented in Parliament for forty years until his death in 1908.. His father, Sir James Campbell, was the Conservative Lord Provost of Glasgow from 1840 to 1843 and his older brother – also James – was a Conservative MP from 1880 to 1906. However, Henry was a life-long Liberal. He was elected the member of parliament for Stirling Burghs in 1868 at the age of thirty-one and served as Secretary of State for War twice, once under Gladstone and once under Rosebery. He was leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908 and Prime Minister from 1905 to 1908. He was the first First Lord of the Treasury to be officially called "Prime Minister", the term only coming into official usage five days after he took office. He is also the only person to have held the positions of Prime Minister and Father of the House at the same time. He was one of at least nine British prime ministers with Scottish blood since 1900, some with little more than a trace. Here are the ones I was thinking of along with some of the things they said or were said of them:: Arthur Balfour – "Bob's your uncle!" &#160;&#160;Said of him when his uncle, prime minister Lord Salisbury (Robert Cecil), appointed him Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887. Henry Campbell-Bannerman – “The Duma Is dead. Long live the Duma". &#160;&#160;On hearing that the Russian Parliament had been dissolved by Tsar Nicholas II in 1906. It was later reinstated only to be dissolved again by the Bolsheviks when they took power in 1917. In 1993, four years after the fall of the communist regime, the Duma was resurrected. It is now the lower legislative house of the Russian Federation. Andrew Bonar Law – "The unknown Prime Minister is being buried by the side of the Unknown Soldier". &#160;&#160;Said of him by Herbert Henry Asquith during his funeral in Westminster Abbey in 1923. Ramsay MacDonald – "We hear war called murder. It is not: it is suicide". &#160;&#160;A comment made in 1930 at the midpoint between the two world wars. Harold Macmillan – "The wind of change is blowing through this continent". &#160;&#160;Said of Africa when many Commonwealth countries were becoming independent. Alec Douglas-Home – "After half a century of democratic advance, the whole process has ground to a halt with a Fourteenth Earl". &#160;&#160;Said of him by Harold Wilson when, whilst still Baron Home of the Hirsel, he was chosen by the ruling Conservative party to be Prime Minister. On 23 October 1963, four days after assuming the post, he disclaimed his earldom and associated lesser peerages. Tony Blair – "Education, education, education." .&#160;&#160;When asked what his priorities were on becoming Prime Minister in 1997. Gordon Brown – "Prudence is the other woman in Gordon's life". .&#160;&#160;Said of him by an unknown aide and reported on the BBC website. David Cameron – "This house shouldn’t block the will of the British people to leave the European Union". &#160;&#160;Comment on the movements to seek to change the result of the referendum to leave the EU.
context_page_description: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman GCB PC was a British statesman and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908. He also served as Secretary of State for War twice, in the Cabinets of Gladstone and Rosebery. He was the first First Lord of the Treasury to be officially called "Prime Minister", the term only coming into official usage five days after he took office. He also remains the only person to date to hold the positions of Prime Minister and Father of the House at the same time.
  Known colloquially as "CB", he was a firm believer in free trade, Irish Home Rule and the improvement of social conditions. He has been referred to as "Britain's first, and only, radical Prime Minister". Following a general election defeat in 1900, Campbell-Bannerman went on to lead the Liberal Party to a landslide victory over the Conservative Party at the 1906 general election, also the last election in which the Liberals gained an overall majority in the House of Commons.
context_section_description: On the day of Campbell-Bannerman's death the flag of the National Liberal Club was lowered to half-mast, the blinds were drawn and his portrait was draped in black as a sign of mourning. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalist Party, paid tribute to Campbell-Bannerman by saying that "We all feel that Ireland has lost a brave and considerate friend". David Lloyd George said on hearing of Campbell-Bannerman's death:
  I think it will be felt by the community as a whole as if they had lost a relative. Certainly those who have been associated with him closely for years will feel a deep sense of personal bereavement. I have never met a great public figure since I have been in politics who so completely won the attachment and affection of the men who came into contact with him. He was not merely admired and respected; he was absolutely loved by us all. I really cannot trust myself to say more. The masses of the people of this country, especially the more unfortunate of them, have lost the best friend they ever had in the high places of the land. His sympathy in all suffering was real, deep, and unaffected. He was truly a great man—a great head and a great heart. He was absolutely the bravest man I ever met in politics. He was entirely free from fear. He was a man of supreme courage. Ireland has certainly lost one of her truest friends, and what is true of Ireland is true of every section of the community of this Empire which has a fight to maintain against powerful foes.
  In an uncharacteristically emotional speech on 27 April, the day of Campbell-Bannerman's funeral, his successor H. H. Asquith told the House of Commons:
  What was the  secret of the hold which in these later days he unquestionably had on  the admiration and affection of men of all parties and all creeds? ...he was singularly  sensitive to human suffering and wrong doing, delicate and even tender  in his sympathies, always disposed to despise victories won in any  sphere by mere brute force, an almost passionate lover of peace. And yet  we have not seen in our time a man of greater courage—courage not of  the defiant or aggressive type, but calm, patient, persistent,  indomitable...In politics I think he may be fairly described as an idealist in  aim, and an optimist by temperament. Great causes appealed to him. He  was not ashamed, even on the verge of old age, to see visions and to dream dreams. He had no misgivings as to the future of democracy. He had  a single-minded and unquenchable faith in the unceasing progress and  the growing unity of mankind...He never put himself  forward, yet no one had greater tenacity of purpose. He was the least  cynical of mankind, but no one had a keener eye for the humours and  ironies of the political situation. He was a strenuous and  uncompromising fighter, a strong Party man, but he harboured no  resentments, and was generous to a fault in appreciation of the work of  others, whether friends or foes. He met both good and evil fortune with the same unclouded brow, the same unruffled temper, the same unshakable  confidence in the justice and righteousness of his cause...He has gone  to his rest, and to-day in this House, of which he was the senior and  the most honoured Member, we may call a truce in the strife of parties, while we remember together our common loss, and pay our united homage to a gracious and cherished memory—
  How happy is he born and taught
  That serveth not another's will;
  Whose armour is his honest thought,
  And simple truth his utmost skill;
  This man is freed from servile bands
  Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
  Lord of himself, though not of lands,
  And, having nothing, yet hath all.
  Robert Smillie, the trade unionist and Labour MP, said that, after Gladstone, Campbell-Bannerman was the greatest man he had ever met.
  George Dangerfield said Campbell-Bannerman's death "was like the passing of true Liberalism. Sir Henry had believed in Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform, those amiable deities who presided so complacently over large portions of the Victorian era... And now almost the last true worshipper a
caption: Statue of Campbell-Bannerman in Stirling
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