Balfour, Arthur

Balfour, Arthur (1848–1930), 1st earl of Balfour. Balfour succeeded his uncle Lord Salisbury as Conservative prime minister 1902–5. As chief secretary for Ireland 1887–91 he influenced Conservative Irish policy for a generation. Intellectual, sceptical, and uninspiring, he was a ruthless administrator. He became known as ‘Bloody Balfour’ after the ‘Mitchelstown massacre’ in 1887, when police fired on an angry crowd, and his tenure in Ireland was dominated by resolute efforts to resist the Plan of Campaign. He introduced ‘perpetual’ coercion legislation in 1887. But he was also associated with what came to be called ‘constructive unionism’, establishing the Congested Districts Board, 1891, and supporting proposals for a Catholic university. Intellectually he despised nationalism; he probably despised Ulster Unionism too, but gave it pragmatic respect, especially after the devolution crisis. He expected Irish independence to come, and as an elder statesman in cabinet supported Lloyd George's abortive home rule proposals in 1916 and the Anglo‐Irish treaty of 1921. His brother Gerald Balfour (1853–1945), who also served as chief secretary for Ireland (1895–1900), gave a greater boost to nationalism than perhaps he intended with his Local Government Act of 1898.

A. C. Hepburn