Arthur Henderson

Arthur Henderson 1863-1935, British statesman, organizer and leader of the British Labour party . In early life he was an ironworker and a labor union leader. Elected (1903) to Parliament, he was chairman of the parliamentary Labour party (1908-10, 1914-17), president of the Board of Education (1915-16), paymaster general (1916), and a member of the war cabinet (1916-17). In Ramsay MacDonald's first ministry (1924) he was home secretary. As foreign secretary (1929-31) Henderson worked to moderate Franco-German problems and supported the League of Nations. He led Labour opposition to the formation of the National government in 1931 and lost his seat in Parliament. From 1932 until his death he was president of the World Disarmament Conference, and he was awarded the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize. His writings include The Aims of Labour (1919).

Bibliography: See biography by M. A. Hamilton (1938); study by D. Carlton (1970).

Henderson, Arthur (1863–1935). Labour politician. Brought up on Tyneside and apprenticed as an ironfounder, Henderson, then a Gladstonian Liberal, moved slowly to the view that the political future of the working classes lay in separation from Liberalism. Elected for Barnard Castle under the auspices of the Labour Representation Committee in 1903, Henderson succeeded to the secretaryship of its successor, the Labour Party, in 1911. Unlike Ramsay MacDonald, Henderson approved of the war in 1914; he succeeded MacDonald as leader of the parliamentary Labour party, and in 1915 agreed to serve in Asquith's government, becoming a member of Lloyd George's war cabinet the following year. In 1917 he resigned from the government over his support for a negotiated peace. He was foreign secretary in the second Labour government.

Henderson, Arthur (1863–1935). Labour politician. Brought up on Tyneside and apprenticed as an ironfounder, Henderson, then a fervent Gladstonian Liberal, moved slowly to the view that the political future of the manual working classes lay in separation from Liberalism. Elected as MP for Barnard Castle under the auspices of the Labour Representation Committee in 1903, Henderson succeeded to the secretaryship of its successor, the Labour Party, in 1911. Unlike Ramsay MacDonald, Henderson approved of the British war effort in 1914; he succeeded MacDonald as leader of the parliamentary Labour party, and in 1915 agreed to serve in Asquith's government, becoming a member of Lloyd George's war cabinet the following year. In 1917 he resigned from the government over his support for a negotiated peace, and while playing a major part in the constitutional restructuring of the Labour Party in 1918 he devoted himself increasingly to international reconciliation and support for the League of Nations; he was foreign secretary in the second Labour government.

Geoffrey Alderman