John Baldwin Mackenzie Baldwin Popular Books

John Baldwin Mackenzie Baldwin Biography & Facts

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 1867 – 14 December 1947) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, from May 1923 to January 1924, from November 1924 to June 1929, and from June 1935 to May 1937. Born to a prosperous family in Bewdley, Worcestershire, Baldwin was educated at Hawtreys, Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the family iron and steel making business and entered the House of Commons in 1908 as the member for Bewdley, succeeding his father Alfred. He served as Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1917–1921) and President of the Board of Trade (1921–1922) in the coalition ministry of David Lloyd George and then rose rapidly: in 1922, Baldwin was one of the prime movers in the withdrawal of Conservative support from Lloyd George; he subsequently became Chancellor of the Exchequer in Bonar Law's Conservative ministry. Upon Law's resignation for health reasons in May 1923, Baldwin became prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party. He called an election in December 1923 on the issue of tariffs and lost the Conservatives' parliamentary majority, after which Ramsay MacDonald formed a minority Labour government. After winning the 1924 general election, Baldwin formed his second government, which saw important tenures of office by Austen Chamberlain (Foreign Secretary), Winston Churchill (at the Exchequer) and Neville Chamberlain (Health). The latter two ministers strengthened Conservative appeal by reforms in areas formerly associated with the Liberal Party. They included industrial conciliation, unemployment insurance, a more extensive old-age pension system, slum clearance, more private housing and expansion of maternal care and childcare. However, continuing sluggish economic growth and declines in mining and heavy industry weakened Baldwin's base of support. His government also saw the General Strike in 1926 and introduced the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 to curb the powers of trade unions. Baldwin narrowly lost the 1929 general election and his continued leadership of the party was subject to extensive criticism by press barons Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook. In 1931, with the onset of the Great Depression, Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald formed a National Government, most of whose ministers were Conservatives, and which won an enormous majority at the 1931 general election. As Lord President of the Council and one of four Conservatives among the small ten-member Cabinet, Baldwin took over many of the Prime Minister's duties when MacDonald's health deteriorated. This government saw an Act delivering increased self-government for India, a measure opposed by Churchill and by many rank-and-file Conservatives. The Statute of Westminster 1931 gave Dominion status to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, while taking the first step towards the Commonwealth of Nations. As party leader, Baldwin made many striking innovations, such as clever use of radio and film, that made him highly visible to the public and strengthened Conservative appeal. In 1935, Baldwin replaced MacDonald as prime minister and won the 1935 general election with another large majority. During this time, he oversaw the beginning of British rearmament and the abdication of King Edward VIII. Baldwin's third government saw a number of crises in foreign affairs, including the public uproar over the Hoare–Laval Pact, the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Baldwin retired in 1937 and was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain. At that time, Baldwin was regarded as a popular and successful prime minister, but for the final decade of his life and for many years afterwards he was vilified for having presided over high unemployment in the 1930s and as one of several British public figures who had tried to appease Adolf Hitler and who had supposedly not rearmed sufficiently to prepare for the Second World War. Today, modern scholars generally rank him in the upper half of British prime ministers. Early life: family, education and marriage Baldwin was born at Lower Park House (Lower Park, Bewdley) in Worcestershire, England, to Alfred and Louisa (MacDonald) Baldwin, and through his mother was a first cousin of the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling, with whom he was close for their entire lives. A summer spent with Kipling and his sister with the freedom of farm and forest at Loughton in 1877 was seminal in the development of both boys. The family was prosperous, and owned the eponymous iron and steel making business that in later years became part of Richard Thomas and Baldwins. Baldwin's schools were St Michael's School, at the time located in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), followed by Harrow School. He later wrote that "all the king's horses and all the king's men would have failed to have drawn me into the company of school masters, and in relation to them I once had every qualification as a passive resister." Baldwin then went on to the University of Cambridge, where he studied history at Trinity College. His time at university was blighted by the presence, as Master of Trinity, of Henry Montagu Butler, his former headmaster who had punished him at Harrow for writing a piece of schoolboy smut. He was asked to resign from the Magpie & Stump (the Trinity College debating society) for never speaking, and, after receiving a third-class degree in history, he went into the family business of iron manufacturing. His father sent him to Mason College for one session of technical training in metallurgy as preparation. As a young man he served briefly as a second lieutenant in the Artillery Volunteers at Malvern, and in 1897 became a JP for the county of Worcestershire. Baldwin married Lucy Ridsdale on 12 September 1892. Following the birth of a still-born son in January 1894, the couple had six surviving children: Lady Diana Lucy Baldwin (8 April 1895 – 21 May 1982) Lady Leonora Stanley Baldwin (10 July 1896 – 23 June 1989) Lady Pamela Margaret Baldwin (16 September 1897 – 14 August 1976) Major Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (1 March 1899 – 10 August 1958) Lady Esther Louisa (Betty) Baldwin (16 March 1902 – 22 June 1981) Arthur Windham Baldwin, 3rd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (22 March 1904 – 5 July 1976) Baldwin's youngest daughter, Lady Betty, was severely injured by shrapnel in March 1941 as a result of a bombing raid which destroyed the Café de Paris nightclub she was attending and decapitated the famous bandleader Ken "Snakehips" Johnson. She required facial reconstruction surgery from the pioneering surgeon Archibald MacIndoe. Baldwin proved to be adept as a businessman, and acquired a reputation as a modernising industrialist. He inherited £200,000, equivalent to £22,215,635 in 2021, and a directorship of the Great Wes.... Discover the John Baldwin Mackenzie Baldwin popular books. Find the top 100 most popular John Baldwin Mackenzie Baldwin books.