The history of the name Balfour – Memorial At Peninsula Balfour is a Scottish family name Earls of Balfour Arthur Balfour ( 25th July 1848- 19th March 1930), was a British Conservative politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from July 1902 to December 1905. When he came into his inheritance at the age of 21, Balfour became the wealthiest young man in Britain. He rose to prominence by suppressing agrarian unrest in Ireland through punitive action combined with measure against absentee landlords. After being influential in government, he succeeded his uncle, Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader in the July of 1902. Balfour was seen as an ambivalent personality and a weak Prime Minister, his embrace of the imperial preference championed by Joseph Chamberlain was nuanced, but brought resignations and the end of his spell as party leader. He opposed Irish Home Rule, saying there could be no half-way house between Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom or becoming independent.

He oversaw the Entente Cordiale, an agreement with France that influenced Britain`s decision to join the First Wold War, in 1915 he became Foreign Secretary in David Lloyd George`s wartime administration, but was frequently left out of the inner workings of government, although the declaration of 1917 promising Jews a ” National Home” in Palestine bore his name. He resigned as Foreign Secretary following the Versailles Conference in 1919, he died on the 19th of March aged 81, having spent an inherited fortune and never marrying. Balfour trained as a philosopher – he originated an argument against believing that human reason could determine truth – and had a detached attitude to life, epitomised by a remark attributed to him: ” Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all”. Arthur Balfour was born at Whittinghame House, East Lothian, Scotland, the eldest son of James Maitland Balfour(1820–1856) and Lady Blanche Gascoyne-Cecil(1825-1872).

His father was a ScottishMP; his mother, a member of the Cecil family descended from Robert Cecil, the 1st Earl of Salisbury, was the daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury and a sister to the 3rd Marquess, the future Prime Minister. His godfather was the Duke of Wellington, after whom he was named. He was the eldest son, third of eight children, and had four brothers and three sisters. Arthur Balfour had was educated at Grange preparatory school in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire (1859–1861), and Eaton (1861–1866), where he studied with the influential master, William Johnson Cory. He went to the University of Cambridge, where he read moral sciences at Trinity College (1866–1869), graduating with a second-class honours degree. His younger brother was the Cambridge embryologist, Francis Maitland Balfour (1851–1882).

Although he coined the saying, “Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all”, Balfour was distraught at the early death from typhus in 1875 of his cousin May Lyttelton, whom he hoped to marry: later, mediums claimed to pass on messages from her – the ” Palm Sunday Case”.Balfour remained a bachelor. Margot Tennant (later Margot Asquith) wished to marry him, but Balfour said: “No, that is not so. I rather think of having a career of my own.”His household was maintained by his unmarried sister, Alice. In middle age, Balfour had a 40-year friendship with Mary Charteris (née Wyndham), Lady Elcho, later Countess of Wemyss and March.Although one biographer writes that “it is difficult to say how far the relationship went”, her letters suggest they may have become lovers in 1887 and may have engaged in , sado-masochism a claim echoed by A.N.

Wilson.Another biographer believes they had “no direct physical relationship”, although he dismisses as unlikely suggestions that Balfour was homosexual, or, in view of a time during the Boar War when he replied to a message while drying himself after his bath, Lord Beaverbrook’s claim that he was “a hermaphrodite” whom no-one saw naked. In 1874 he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament(MP) for Hertford until 1885. In the spring of 1878, Balfour became Private Secretary to his uncle, Lord Salisbury. He accompanied Salisbury (then Foreign Secretary) to the Congress in Berlin and gained his first experience in international politics in connection with the settlement of the Russo-Turkish conflict. At the same time he became known in the world of letters; the academic subtlety and literary achievement of his Defence of Philosophic Doubt (1879) suggested he might make a reputation as a philosopher. Balfour divided his time between politics and academic pursuits. Released from his duties as private secretary by the general election of 1880, he began to take more part in parliamentary affairs.

He was for a time politically associated with Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and John Gorst. This quartet became known as the “Forth Party” and gained notoriety for leader Lord Randolph Churchill’s free criticism of Sir Stafford Northcote, Lord Cross and other prominent members of the “old gang”. In 1885, Lord Salisbury appointed Balfour President of the Local Government Board; the following year he became the Secretary for Scotland with a seat in the cabinet. These offices, while offering few opportunities for distinction, were an apprenticeship. In early 1887, Sir Micheal Hicks Beach, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned because of illness and Salisbury appointed his nephew in his place. That surprised the political world and possibly led to the British phrase ” Bob`s your uncle!”. Balfour surprised critics by ruthless enforcement of the Crimes Act, earning the nickname “Bloody Balfour“. His steady administration did much to dispel his reputation as a political lightweight. In Parliament he resisted overtures to the Irish Parliamentary Party on Home Rule, and, allied with Joseph Chamberlain’s Liberal Unionists, encouraged Unionist activism in Ireland.

Balfour also helped the poor by creating the Congested Districts Board for Ireland in 1890. In 1886–1892 he became one of the most effective public speakers of the age. Impressive in matter rather than delivery, his speeches were logical and convincing, and delighted an ever wider audience. On the death of W.H. Smith in 1891, Balfour became First Lord of the Treasury— the last in British history not to have been concurrently Prime Minister as well — and Leader of the House of Commons. After the fall of the government in 1892 he spent three years in opposition. When the Conservatives returned to power, in coalition with the Liberal Unionists, in 1895, Balfour again became Leader of the House and First Lord of the Treasury. His management of the abortive education proposals of 1896 showed a disinclination for the drudgery of parliamentary management, yet he saw the passage of a bill providing Ireland with improved local government and joined in debates on foreign and domestic questions between 1895 to 1900.

During the illness of Lord Salisbury in 1898, and again in Salisbury’s absence abroad, Balfour was in charge of the Foreign Office, and he conducted negotiations with Russia on the question of railways in North China. As a member of the cabinet responsible for the Transvaal negotiations in 1899, he bore his share of controversy and, when the war began disastrously, he was first to realise the need to use the country’s full military strength. His leadership of the House was marked by firmness in the suppression of obstruction, yet there was a slight revival of the criticisms of 1896. On Lord Salisbury’s resignation on the of 11th July 1902, Balfour succeeded him as Prime Minister, with the approval of all the Unionist party. The new Prime Minister came into power practically at the same moment as the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra and the end of the South African War. The Liberal party was still disorganised over the Boers.

The two chief items of the ministerial parliamentary programme were the extension of the new Education Act to London and the Irish Land Purchase Act, by which the British exchequer would advance the money for tenants in Ireland to buy land. An achievement of Balfour’s government was establishment of the Committee on Imperial Defence. In foreign affairs, Balfour and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, improved relations with France, culminating in the Entente cordiale of 1904. The period also saw the Russo-Japanese War, when Britain, an ally of the Japanese, came close to war with Russia after the Dogger Bank incident. On the whole, Balfour left the conduct of foreign policy to Lansdowne, being busy himself with domestic problems. Balfour distrusted the American concept of equality. During negotiations over creation of the League of Nations, the topic of “all men being created equal” came up in the context of the American Declaration of Independence. Speaking to Col House, an aide to President Wilson and David Hunter Miller, the chief legal adviser to the US Commission, Balfour said “that was an 19th century proposition that he didn’t believe was true.

He believed that it was true that in a sence all men in a particular nation were created equal, but not that a man in Central Africa was created equal to a European.” The budget was certain to show a surplus and taxation could be remitted. Yet as events proved, it was the budget that would sow dissension, override other legislative concerns and signal a new political movement. Charles Thomson Ritchie’s remission of the shilling import-duty on corn led to Joseph Chamberlain’s crusade in favour of tariff reform. These were taxes on imported goods with trade preference given to the Empire, to protect British industry from competition, strengthen the Empire in the face of growing German and American economic power, and provide revenue, other than raising taxes, for the social welfare legislation. As the session proceeded, the rift grew in the Unionist ranks. Tariff reform was popular with Unionist supporters, but the threat of higher prices for food imports made the policy an electoral albatross. Hoping to split the difference between the free traders and tariff reformers in his cabinet and party, Balfour favoured retaliatory tariffs to punish others who had tariffs against the British, in the hope of encouraging global free trade.

This was not sufficient for either the free traders or the extreme tariff reformers in government. With Balfour’s agreement, Chamberlain resigned from the Cabinet in late 1903 to campaign for tariff reform. At the same time, Balfour tried to balance the two factions by accepting the resignation of three free-trading ministers, including Chancellor Ritchie, but the almost simultaneous resignation of the free-trader Duke of Devonshire (who as Lord Hartington had been the Liberal Unionist leader of the 1880s) left Balfour’s Cabinet weak. By 1905 few Unionist MPs were still free traders (Winston Churchill crossed to the Liberals in 1904 when threatened with deselection at Oldham), but Balfour’s act had drained his authority within the government. Balfour resigned as Prime Minister in December 1905, hoping the Liberal leader Campbell-Bannerman would be unable to form a strong government. This was dashed when Campbell-Bannerman faced down an attempt (” The Relugas Compact”) to “kick him upstairs” to the House of Lords.

The Conservatives were defeated by the Liberals at the general election the following January (in terms of MPs, a Liberal landslide), with Balfour losing his seat at Manchester East to Thomas Gardner Horride, a solicitor and king`s counsel. Only 157 Conservatives were returned to the Commons, at least two-thirds followers of Chamberlain, who chaired the Conservative MPs until Balfour won a safe seat in the City of London. After the disaster of 1906 Balfour remained party leader, his position strengthened by Joseph Chamberlain’s leaving politics after his stroke in the July of 1906, but he was unable to make much headway against the huge Liberal majority in the Commons. An early attempt to score a debating triumph over the government, made in Balfour’s usual abstruse, the oretical style, saw Campbell-Bannerman respond with: “Enough of this foolery,” to the delight of his supporters. Balfour made the controversial decision, with Lord Lansdowne, to use the heavily Unionist House of Lords as a check on the political programem and legislation of the Liberal party in the Commons.

Legislation was vetoed or altered by amendments between 1906 and 1909, leading David Lloyd George to remark that the Lords had become “not the watchdog of the Constitution, but Mr. Balfour’s poodle.” The issue was forced by the Lierals with Lloyd George’s People`s Budget, provoking the constitutional crisis that led to the Parliament Act 1911, which limited the Lords to delaying bills for up to two years. After the Unionists lost the general elections of 1910 (despite softening the tariff reform policy with Balfour’s promise of a referendum on food taxes), the Unionist peers split to allow the Parliament Act to pass the House of Lords, in order to prevent mass creation of Liberal peers by the new King, George V. The exhausted Balfour resigned as party leader after the crisis, and was succeeded in late 1911 by Andrew Bonar Law. Balfour remained important in the party, however, and when the Unionists joined Asquith’s coalition government in the May 1915, Balfour succeeded Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.

When Asquith’s government collapsed in the December of 1916, Balfour, who seemed a potential successor to the premiership, he became Foreign Secretary in Lloyd George’s new administration, but not in the small War Cabinet, and was frequently left out of inner workings of government. Balfour’s service as Foreign Secretary was notable for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a letter to Lord Rothschild promising the Jews a “national home” in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Balfour resigned as Foreign Secretary following the Versailles Conference in 1919, but continued in the government (and the Cabinet after normal peacetime political arrangements resumed) as Lord President of the Council. In 1921–1922 he represented the British Empire at the Washington Naval Conference and during the summer of 1922 stood in for the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, who was ill. He put proposed for an international settlement of war debts and reparations, called the Balfour Note, but met with an unfavourable response.

n 1922 he, with most of the Conservative leadership, resigned with Lloyd George’s government following the Conservative back-bench revolt against continuance of the coalition. Bonar Law became Prime Minister. In 1922 Balfour was created Earl of Balfour. Like many Coalition leaders, he did not hold office in the Conservative governments of 1922–4, although as an elder statesman he was consulted by the King in the choice of Baldwin as Bonar Law’s successor as Conservative leader in May 1923. When asked whether “dear George” (the much more experienced Lord Curzon) would be chosen he replied, referring to Curzon’s wealthy wife Grace, “No, dear, George will not but he will still have the means of Grace.” Balfour was not initially included in Stanley Baldwin’s second government in 1924, but in 1925 he returned to the Cabinet, in place of the late Lord Curzon as Lord President of the Council until the government ended in 1929. In 1925 he visited the Holy Land.

Apart from a number of colds and occasional influenza, Balfour had good health until 1928, and remained until then a regular tennis player. Four years previously he had been the first president of the International Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain. At the end of 1928 most of his teeth were removed and he suffered the unremitting circulatory trouble which ended his life. Late in January 1929 Balfour was taken from Whittingehame to Fisher’s Hill, his brother Gerald’s home near Woking, Surrey. In the past he had suffered occasional phlebitis and by late 1929 he was immobilised by it. Finally, soon after receiving a visit from his friend Chaim Weizmann, Balfour died at Fisher’s Hill on 19th March 1930. At his request a public funeral was declined and he was buried on the 22nd of March beside members of his family at Whittingehame in a Church of Scotland service, though he also belonged to the Church of England. By special remainder, the title passed to his brother Gerald. Balfour developed a manner known to friends as the Balfourian manner.

Harold Begbie, a journalist, in a book called Mirrors of Downing Street, criticised Balfour for his manner, personality and self-obsession. Begbie disagreed with Balfour’s political views, but even his one-sided criticisms do not entirely conceal Balfour’s shyness and diffidence. The sections of the work dealing with Balfour’s personality were: This Balfourian manner, as I understand it, has its roots in an attitude of mind—an attitude of convinced superiority which insists in the first place on complete detachment from the enthusiasms of the human race, and in the second place on keeping the vulgar world at arm’s length. It is an attitude of mind which a critic or a cynic might be justified in assuming, for it is the attitude of one who desires rather to observe the world than to shoulder any of its burdens; but it is a posture of exceeding danger to anyone who lacks tenderness or sympathy, whatever his purpose or office may be, for it tends to breed the most dangerous of all intellectual vices, that spirit of self-satisfaction which Dostoievsky declares to be the infallible mark of an inferior mind. To Mr.

Arthur Balfour this studied attitude of aloofness has been fatal, both to his character and to his career. He has said nothing, written nothing, done nothing, which lives in the heart of his countrymen. To look back upon his record is to see a desert, and a desert with no altar and with no monument, without even one tomb at which a friend might weep. One does not say of him, “He nearly succeeded there”, or “What a tragedy that he turned from this to take up that”; one does not feel for him at any point in his career as one feels for Mr. George Wyndham or even for Lord Randolph Churchill; from its outset until now that career stretches before our eyes in a flat and uneventful plain of successful but inglorious and ineffective self-seeking. There is one signal characteristic of the Balfourian manner which is worthy of remark. It is an assumption in general company of a most urbane, nay, even a most cordial spirit.

I have heard many people declare at a public reception that he is the most gracious of men, and seen many more retire from shaking his hand with a flush of pride on their faces as though Royalty had stooped to inquire after the measles of their youngest child. Such is ever the effect upon vulgar minds of geniality in superiors: they love to be stooped to from the heights. But this heartiness of manner is of the moment only, and for everybody; it manifests itself more personally in the circle of his intimates and is irresistible in week-end parties; but it disappears when Mr. Balfour retires into the shell of his private life and there deals with individuals, particularly with dependants. It has no more to do with his spirit than his tail-coat and his white tie. Its remarkable impression comes from its unexpectedness; its effect is the shock of surprise. In public he is ready to shake the whole world by the hand, almost to pat it on the shoulder; but in private he is careful to see that the world does not enter even the remotest of his lodge gates.

“The truth about Arthur Balfour,” said George Wyndham, “is this: he knows there’s been one ice-age, and he thinks there’s going to be another.” Little as the general public may suspect it, the charming, gracious, and cultured Mr. Balfour is the most egotistical of men, and a man who would make almost any sacrifice to remain in office. It costs him nothing to serve under Mr. Lloyd George; it would have cost him almost his life to be out of office during a period so exciting as that of the Great War. He loves office more than anything this world can offer; neither in philosophy nor music, literature nor science, has he ever been able to find rest for his soul. It is profoundly instructive that a man with a real talent for the noblest of those pursuits which make solitude desirable and retirement an opportunity should be so restless and dissatisfied, even in old age, outside the doors of public life. There is one signal characteristic of the Balfourian manner which is worthy of remark. It is an assumption in general company of a most urbane, nay, even a most cordial spirit.

I have heard many people declare at a public reception that he is the most gracious of men, and seen many more retire from shaking his hand with a flush of pride on their faces as though Royalty had stooped to inquire after the measles of their youngest child. Such is ever the effect upon vulgar minds of geniality in superiors: they love to be stooped to from the heights. But this heartiness of manner is of the moment only, and for everybody; it manifests itself more personally in the circle of his intimates and is irresistible in week-end parties; but it disappears when Mr. Balfour retires into the shell of his private life and there deals with individuals, particularly with dependants. It has no more to do with his spirit than his tail-coat and his white tie. Its remarkable impression comes from its unexpectedness; its effect is the shock of surprise. In public he is ready to shake the whole world by the hand, almost to pat it on the shoulder; but in private he is careful to see that the world does not enter even the remotest of his lodge gates.

“The truth about Arthur Balfour,” said George Wyndham, “is this: he knows there’s been one ice-age, and he thinks there’s going to be another.” Little as the general public may suspect it, the charming, gracious, and cultured Mr. Balfour is the most egotistical of men, and a man who would make almost any sacrifice to remain in office. It costs him nothing to serve under Mr. Lloyd George; it would have cost him almost his life to be out of office during a period so exciting as that of the Great War. He loves office more than anything this world can offer; neither in philosophy nor music, literature nor science, has he ever been able to find rest for his soul. It is profoundly instructive that a man with a real talent for the noblest of those pursuits which make solitude desirable and retirement an opportunity should be so restless and dissatisfied, even in old age, outside the doors of public life. Begbie, Harold (as ‘A Gentleman with a Duster’): Mirrors of Downing Street: Some political reflections, Mills and Boon (1920), p.

76–79 Churchill compared Balfour to Herbert Asquith: “The difference between Balfour and Asquith is that Arthur is wicked and moral, while Asquith is good and immoral.” Balfour said of himself, “I am more or less happy when being praised, not very comfortable when being abused, but I have moments of uneasiness when being explained.” Balfour is thought to have formulated the basis for the evolutionary argument against naturalism, the idea that it is rational to think human cognitive facilities beliefs are not designed to perceive the truth. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, a society studying psychic and paranormal phenomena, and was its president from 1892–1894. Balfour was the subject of two parody novels based on Alice in Wonderlander, Clara in Blunderland (1902) and Lost in Blunderland (1903), which appeared under the pseudonym Caroline Lewis; one of the co-authors was Harold Begbie.

The character Arthur Balfour plays a supporting, off-screen role in Upstairs, Downstairs, Promoting the family patriarch,Richard Bellamy, to the position of Civil Lord of the Admiralty. A fictionalised version of Arthur Balfour (identified as “Mr. Balfour”) appears as British Prime Ministerin the science fiction romance The Angel of the Revolution by George Griffith, published in 1893 (when Balfour was still in opposition) but set in an imagined near future of 1903-1905. The indecisive Balfour (identified as “Halfan Halfour”) appears in a satirical short story by Sakiin which he, and other leading politicians including Quinston, are changed into animals appropriate to their characters. Gerald William Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour PC (9th April 1853 – 14th January 1945), known as Gerald Balfour or TR Hon G.W. Balfour until 1930, he was a senior British Conservative Politician who became a nobleman on the death of his brother in 1930, who had been the Prime Minister.

Balfour was the fourth son of James Maitland Balfour, of Whittinghame, Haddingtonshire and Lady Blanche Cecil, daughter of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury. Two Prime Ministers were immediate relations: Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, his elder brother and Lord Salisbury, his uncle. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity Collage, Cambridge, where he gained a 1st Class Honours in the Classical Tripos. Balfour sat as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Leeds Central from 1885 to 1906. During this time he was a member of Commission on Labour and was private secetary to his brother, Arthur Balfour, when he was president of the local Government Board from 1885 to 1886. He also served as Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1895 to 1900 as president of the Board of Trade from 1900 to 1905 and as president of the local Government Board in 1905.

He was admitted to the Privy Council of Ireland in 1895 and to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1905. On retiring from the House of Commons, he was chairman of the Commission on Lighthouse Administration in 1908 and chairman of the Cambridge Committee of the Commission on Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He succeeded his brother Arthur as second Earl of Balfour in 1930, according to a special remainder in the letters patent and took a seat in the House of Lords During his first spell at the Houses of Parliament, Balfour received an honorary LLD from Cambridge University and was a fellow of Trinity. From 1901 Balfour lived at Fisher`s Hill House, a large home which he had built by Lutyens in Hook Hearth, Woking, Surry, also living in rural hamlet by 1911 were Alfred Lyttelton (Lib.U.) Seretary of State for the Colonies (1903-1905) who married into his wider family and the Duke of Sutherland.

Lord Balfour married Lady Elizabeth “Betty” Balfour, daughter of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton in 1887. They had six children: Lady Eleanor Balfour Lady Ruth Balfour (d. August 1967) Mary Edith Balfour (d 21st January 1894) Lady Evelyn Barbara “Eve” Balfour (16th July 1898- 1990) Robert Arthur Lytton Balfour, 3rd Earl of Balfour (31st December 1902 -28th November 1968) Lady Kathleen Constance Blanche Balfour (1912-20th August 1996) The Countess of Balfour died in 1942, aged 74. Lord Balfour survived her by 3 years and died in January 1945, aged 91, which time he was the last surviving member of any long-serving Prime Minister Salisbury`s cabinets. He was succeeded in the earldom by his only son Robert.

Barons of Kinross John Blair Balfour, 1st Baron of Kinross, PC, QC, (11th July 1837 – 22nd January 1905) was a scottish lawyer and a Liberal Politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 to 1899. John Patrick Douglas Balfour, 3rd Baron of Kinross (1904-1976) was a Scottish historian and writer, noted for his biography of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and other works on Islamic history. He was educated at Winchester Collage and Balliol Collage, Oxford. He then became a journalist and writer, during the Second World War he served with the Royal Air Force and from 1944 to 1947 he was the First Secretary at the British Embassy at Cairo. Balfours of Balbirnie Robert Balfour of Balbirnie (1698-1766) was a Scottish gentleman from Fife. He was later styled later as, Robert Balfour-Ramsay after his marriage to Ann Ramsay in 1736.

Robert was a son of George Balfour of Balbirnie and Angus Lumsdaine. Balfour Ramsay was also a member of Parliament for Edinburgshire, 1751 to 1754. His wife Ann was the daughter of Sir Andrew Ramsay, 4th Baronet of Whitehill, Their surviving children were; John Balfour, 5th of Balbirnie (1739-1813) married Mary Gordon. George Balfour, later Ramsay (1740-1806) of Whitehill. Andrew Balfour, later Ramsey (1741-1814) of Whitehill. Robert Balfour (1742-1807) of Balcurvie. General James Balfour (1743-1823) of Whitehill. Elizabeth Balfour, married Captain William Wardlaw. William Balfour (1755-1793) of the Honourable East India Company. Ann Balfour (ca 1757-1826).

John Balfour, 5th of Balbirnie (1739-1813) he was a Scottish gentleman from Fife, he was the son of Robert Balfour, 4th of Balbirnie, and Ann Ramsey. John married Mary Gordon, daughter of James Gordon of Ellon. Balfour lived at Balbirnie House Fif, John Balfours children where; General Robert Balfour (1772-1837), married to Eglantine Fordyce. Elizabeth Balfour (d 1844), married Sir Archibald Campbell, 2nd Baronet. Anne Balfour (ca 1775-1839) of Kingsdale. James Balfour (ca 1776-1845) of Whittingehame, married Eleanor Maitland ( grandparents of the British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour) Lieutenant-General Robert Balfour of Balbirnie (3rd May 1772-31st October 1837) was a son of John Balfour of Balbirnie and Mary Gordon, daughter of James Goedon of Ellon.

He was an officer in the 2nd Dragoons and the Fife Light Horse. He married, on the 8th August 1808 to Eglantyne Katherine Fordyce d 9th Jan 1851), who was the daughter of John Fordyce of Ayton. His Military Career; Captain on the 9th July 1793 in the 2nd Dragoons. Major in the Army on the 1st January 1798 and Major in the 2nd Dragoons on the 3rd April 1801. Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army on the 25th September 1803; Lieutenant- Colonel in the 2nd Dragoons 22nd of August 1805. Colonel in the Army on the 1st January 1812. Major-General on the 4th June 1814. Honorary Colonel of the Fife Light Horse in 1831 until his death in 1837.

Whilst Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd Dragoons he was, for misconstruction of regulation, subjected to a Court Martial, and sentenced to be cashiered; the Prince Regent confirmed the sentence, but immediately after restored him to the functions of his commission, neither dishonorable or unworthy motives appearing in the charges preferred and established against him. When not living at his London residence of 14 Carlton House Terrace, General Balfour spent much of his time in Fife, Scotland. He inherited Balbirnie House in Glenrothes from his father John Balfour and it has been in the family since the 1640`s. General Balfour was heavily involved in the adaption of Balbirnie House in Glenrothes into a grand country mansion and expansion of its lands including the acquisition of the Forthar estate from Dr David Pitcairn in 1830. The present mansion is largely unchanged from General Balfour`s works in 1815 which incorporated much of the earlier house at its north end. The architect was Richard Crichton who added the new apartments to the south of the old house and designed the two new grand neo-classical facades.

General Balfour extended the landscaped garden and moved the roads on the estate. These improvements were funded partly by increased rentals and income from coal mining but slso from the General`s share of a large inheritance from his aunt which is reputed to have funded his two brother`s new houses and landscaping at Whittinghame and Newton Don. The General was succeeded by his son john in 1837 who continued to enlarge the estate. General Balfour had four sons and three daughters: Colonel John Balfour, 7th of Balbirnie (1811-1895). Katherine Jane Balfour (1812-1864) who married in 1834 to Edward Ellice ( Scottish politician). Captain Charles James Balfour (1814-3rd Feb 1878) Major Robert William Balfour (1817-1854) Eglantine Charlotte Louisa Balfour (1819-18th April 1907) who married in March 1853 to Robert Ellice, son of Eliza Courtney.

Elizabeth Anne Balfour (1820-10th August 1889) who married on the 1st November 1842 to Edward Pleydel-Bouverie. George Gordon Balfour (1821-1901) George Balfour (1872 – 26th September 1941) was a British Conservative Party politician and engineer. He was of Scottish parentage where he also spent part of his upbringing but was born in Portsmouth, England. He served his long parliamentary career representing a constituency in the County of London and lived much of his life in England. George Balfour joined the Blackness Foundry in Dundee as an apprentice in 1888. He subsequently qualified as a mechanical and electrical engineer.In 1909, together with Andrew Beatty, an English accountant, he founded Balfour Beatty which was to become an international construction business.Under his leadership the company installed a new tramway system in Dunfermline in Fife.The two partners also founded Power Securities, a business established to pursue opportunities in hydro-electric power, in 1922.

From 1918 to 1941, Balfour sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hampstead, He contributed to many debates on employment issues. Balfour died on the 26th September 1941 at which time he was still a serving MP Balfour Beatty plc is a multinational infrastructure group with capabilities in professional services, construction services, support services and infrastructure investments. A constituent of the FTSE 250 Index Balfour Beatty operates in over 80 countries, working for customers principally in the UK, the US, South-East Asia, Australia and the Middle East. BB is the largest construction contractor in the UK. Balfour Beatty was formed in 1909 with a capital of £50,000 (2012:£4,410,000) – an exceptionally large sum for the time. The two principals were George Balfour, a qualified mechanical and electrical engineer, and Andrew Beatty, an accountant, who had met while working for the London branch of the New York engineers JG White & Company.

Initially the Company concentrated on tramways, the first contract being for the Fife Tramway Light and Power Company at Dunfermline; its general construction expertise was extended during World War I with, for example, army camps. George Balfour was elected to the House of Commons in 1918 and played a large part in the debates which established the National Grid. To service this new market, George Balfour, Andrew Beatty and others formed Power Securities to finance projects and the two companies, with their common directors, worked closely together. Balfour Beatty was heavily involved in the development of Scotland’s hydro-electric power, building dams, transmission lines and power stations. Other work between the wars included the standardisation of the electricity supply in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and the construction of tunnels and escalators for the London Underground. Extensive overseas work started in 1924 when Balfour Beatty took over the management of the East African Power & Lighting company; construction work included hydro-electric schemes in the Dolomites, Malaya and India; power stations in Argentina and Uruguay and the Kut Barrage on the Tigris in Iraq.

By World War II, control of the firm had passed on: Andrew Beatty had died in 1934 and George Balfour died in 1941. Construction work was now dominated by the war effort and notable projects included blocking the approaches to Scupa Flow and the building of six of the units for the Mulberry Harbour. Peace saw a resumption of Balfour Beatty’s traditional work, power stations and railway work dominating at home. Overseas, a construction company was bought in Canada in 1953 and other work included the Mto Mtwara harbour in Tanganyika and the Wadi Tharthar irrigation scheme in Iraq. In 1969 Power Securities, which by then owned Balfour Beatty, was taken over by cable manufacturer BICC.Then in 2000 BICC, having sold its cable operations, renamed itself Balfour Beatty. Balfour Beatty moved away from its traditional area of expertise in 1986 when it formed Balfour Beatty Homes, building on a modest scale from its office in Nottingham.

It also opened offices in Paisley and Leatherhead and in 1987 bought the Derbyshire firm of David M Adams to give it an annualised production rate of 700 houses. Little more than a year before the housing market collapsed, through its parent BICC, Clarke Homes was bought for £51m, giving housing sales of over 1600 in 1988. By the mid-1990s, sales were down to only 500 a year and although no financial figures were ever published, the housing operation was believed to have suffered heavy losses. Balfour Beatty Homes was renamed Clarke Homes and then sold to Westbury in 1995. More recently Balfour Beatty has embarked on a series of acquisitions including Mansell plc, another construction services business, for £42m in 2003, Birse plc, a UK construction & Civils contractor, for £32 m in 2006, Centex Construction, the commercial construction division of the US builder Centex, for £180m in 2007 and Cowlin Construction, a UK construction company based in Bristol also in 2007.

In 2008 the Company bought GMH Military Housing, a US-based military accommodation business, for £180mand Dean & Dyball, a leading UK regional contractor, for £45 million. n March 2009 the company was found to be a subscriber to the Consulting Association, a firm which has now been prosecuted in the UK by the Information Commissioner for breaching the Data Protection Act by holding a secret database of construction workers details, including union membership and political affiliations.As of January 2010, individual workers started suing the company for being on the blacklist.The first of these cases however was ruled in favour of the Company. In the September of 2009 the Company agreed to buy Parsons Brinckerhoff, a US-based project management firm, for $626 million.In October 2010 the company bought Halsall Group, a Canadian professional services firm, for £33 million and then in November 2010 the company bought the remnant of collapsed UK construction company ROK plc for £7 million.In June 2011 it went on to buy Howard S.

Wright, one of the oldest contractors on the West Coast of the United States, for £58 million as well as Fru-Con Construction, a US water and waste-water contractor, for £12 million and in January 2013 it bought Subsurface Group, a US consulting and engineering firm. Some of the Balfour Family moved over to Ireland Castle Balfour is situated just off the Main Street of Lisnaskea, County Fermanagh Northern Ireland George Balfour (Liberal MP) General Sir George Balfour KCB (1809 – 12th of March 1894) was British Army officer and a Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1872 to 1892. Balfour was the son of the George Balfour, of Montrose. He was educated at the Addiscombe Military Seminary and became a lieutenant in the Madras Artillery in 1825.

From 1832, he served with Malacca Field Force and was Staff Officer of Artillery with the Malacca Field Force from 1832 to 1833 when it was active in the capture of Chusan, Canton, and Amoy. He was adjutant of Artillery from 1833 to 1842, and A.A.G. from 1834 to 1835, He was with the Field Force in the ceded districts, and in action of Zorapore in 1839 when he became Brigade Major in India. From 1840 to 1842 he was in China with the China Force from 1840 to 1842, He was agent for captured property in China from 1841 to 1842 and receiver of public money paid by China under the Treaty of Nanking. He was consul at Shanghai from 1843 to 1846.

He arrived in Shanghai on November the 8th, 1843, and immediately began discussions with the ranking local Chinese official, the Taotai, on the opening of foreign trade and the site of a foreign settlement. Shanghai was declared open to foreign trade on November 14th, 1843, and agreement was reached on the terms under which the foreign settlement would be established. The Chinese official position was that land could not be sold outright to foreigners, but a compromise was reached whereby it was allowed for land to be rented in perpetuity. Balfour first rented a house within the Shanghai town walls for use as the official British consular residence. He left the post of Shanghai consul in 1846, and was replaced by Rutherford Alcock. In 1844, Balfour became captain and major. From 1849 to 1857 he was a member of Madras Military Board and from 1852 to 1854 he was Commissioner of Public Works in Madras. In 1854, Balfour was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and awarded the CB.

He became colonel in 1856 and was Inspector-General of Ordnance, in Madras from 1857 to 1859, member of Military Finance Commission of India from 1859 to 1860 and president of the Finance Committee and chairman of the Military. Finance Department of India from 1860 to 1862. In 1865 he was promoted to major-general and was a member of Royal Commission on Recruiting for the Army from 1866 to 1867, and assistant to the Controller-in-Chief at the War Office from 1868 to 1871. He was awarded KCB in 1870 Balfour was elected Member of Parliament for Kincardineshire at a by-election in 1872. He held the seat until 1892. Balfour was promoted to lieutenant general in 1874, and to general in 1877 when he was colonel-commandant of the Royal Artillery. He was a Deputy Lieutenant and J.P. for Kincardineshire.

Balfour died at the age of 84. Balfour married in 1848, Charlotte Isabella Hume, daughter of Joseph Hume M.P _________ Jamie Balfour Leading his men Also President for many years of The Royal Green Jacket Association Sourced from Wikipedia and You-Tube

Question: Which common expression comes from the act in 1887, of Lord Salisbury promoting his nephew, A J Balfour, to the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland?
Answer: BOB'S YOUR UNCLE