Craig, James

Craig, James (1871–1940), 1st Viscount Craigavon, architect of Ulster Unionist opposition to the third home rule bill, and first prime minister of Northern Ireland. The son of a millionaire distiller, he typified the wealthy professional and commercial interests who were enjoying increasing political significance in Edwardian Ulster: he was returned to the United Kingdom House of Commons in 1906, representing East Down until 1918, and Mid‐Down until 1921. He was one of the leaders of the Ulster Unionist revival of the mid‐Edwardian era, and simultaneously established a reputation within parliament as an unflappable, if prosaic, debater. He was not strong enough to assume the leadership of the Irish Unionist parliamentary party when it became vacant in February 1910; but he was probably responsible for the nomination of Sir Edward Carson to this position. With Carson he led the Ulster Unionist opposition to home rule: Craig mediated between Carson and the local leadership, and was responsible for the detailed planning of local Ulster Unionist activity. He held junior office in the Lloyd George coalition government between 1917 and 1921, and was able to exercise some control over Irish policy. In particular he was one of the influences behind the Government of Ireland Act (1920), and was partly responsible for the choice of a six‐county territory for Northern Ireland rather than the nine counties favoured by English ministers.

Although reluctant to abandon a promising ministerial career at Westminster, Craig accepted the premiership of Northern Ireland in 1921. He remained in this office until his death in November 1940. He overcame the military and political opposition which the new state faced, especially from the IRA campaign in 1920–2; he withstood Lloyd George's efforts during the negotiation of the Anglo‐Irish treaty to subordinate Northern Ireland to a Dublin parliament. He sustained powerful Unionist majorities in elections for the devolved parliament held in 1921, 1925, 1929, 1933, and 1938. But these constitutional successes were bought at the price of a tough crimes policy and the neglect of other pressing problems. No sustained effort was made to integrate the disaffected nationalist minority within Northern Ireland; no energetic effort was launched to halt, or compensate for, the decline of the regional industrial economy.

Early assessments of Craig's political achievement tended to divide along party lines, but more recent interpretations emphasize his tactical and administrative skill. He was a talented manager, with an unusually keen eye for political symbolism. He occupied junior ministerial office with distinction. His premiership was, after the troubled early years, marked by an increasing political disengagement: he ruled Northern Ireland in a paternalist and clientilist manner, overriding civil service advice and budgetary constraints in the dispensation of patronage. Spending much time out of Northern Ireland, he kept Unionism in contact with Westminster and with the Commonwealth. He bridged the transition from a cosmopolitan Edwardian Unionism through to the increasingly parochial Unionism of the Stormont years. Craig helped to create Northern Ireland, but his ambitions were rooted in Westminster, and his convictions were rooted in the empire.

Bibliography

Buckland, Patrick , James Craig (1980)
Ervine, St John , Craigavon: Ulsterman (1949)
Follis, Bryan , A State under Siege: The Establishment of Northern Ireland, 1920–25 (1995)

Alvin Jackson