Balfour, Arthur James, 1st Earl Balfour and Viscount Traprain

Balfour, Arthur James, 1st Earl Balfour and Viscount Traprain (b. 25 July 1848, d. 19 Mar. 1930). British Prime Minister 1902–5 Born in Whittinghame, East Lothian, he was educated at Eton and Cambridge, entering Parliament in 1874 for the Conservative Party to represent Hertford. Initially associated with a rebellious group of Conservative MPs called the ‘Fourth Party’, he became Chief Secretary for Ireland (1887–91). His time there was successful from the point of view of British politics, even though in Ireland his repression of the Home Rule movement gained him the nickname of ‘Bloody Balfour’. He became leader of the House of Commons in 1891, and succeeded his uncle, Lord Salisbury, as Prime Minister in 1902.

Thereafter, he began to display the lack of political judgement that became his hallmark. His 1902 Education Act enraged Nonconformists who were faced with having to pay for the upkeep of Anglican schools through rates (taxation), and galvanized their previously dormant support for the Liberal Party. Furthermore, he was unable to prevent the deep splits within his party following Joseph Chamberlain's tariff-reform campaign from 1903. In foreign affairs, he created the Committee of Imperial Defence and helped establish the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904.

In 1906, the Conservatives were heavily defeated at the polls, and Balfour then used the House of Lords, described by Lloyd George as ‘Mr Balfour's Poodle’, to attempt to block Liberal legislation. Since he lacked his uncle's command and knowledge of the Lords, however, his policy backfired as the Lords' intransigence was used by Asquith to crush their absolute veto over non-financial legislation, thereby virtually annulling the importance of this bastion of Conservatism. He resigned the leadership of a demoralized and defeated Conservative Party to Bonar Law in 1911. Perhaps his biggest positive contribution to British political life came when, relieved of the responsibility of leadership, he was able to use his formidable intellectual skills on specific policies and departments. He returned to office in 1916 as Foreign Secretary in Lloyd George's wartime government, when he issued the Balfour Declaration. He was a prominent British representative at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and participated at the Washington Conference of 1921–2. As Lord President of the Council in 1925–9 he was a strong supporter of the concept of dominion status, and the Statute of Westminster of 1931 owed much to his inspiration.