Number 10 Downing Street

The Earl of Rosebery did not enjoy the success in office of his Liberal predecessor Gladstone. His 15-month term as prime minister suffered from divisions within his party and Cabinet. He is best known today as a staunch upholder of the British Empire.

Born Archibald Primrose into a Scottish aristocratic family, Rosebery attended Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he developed an interest in both politics and horseracing.

While at Oxford, Primrose succeeded to his grandfather’s title as 5th Earl of Rosebery in 1868, and took up his seat in the House of Lords. A year later Rosebery bought his first racehorse, Ladas, against university rules.

Offered a choice by the university authorities between selling his horse or abandoning his studies, he chose the racehorse.

Rosebery first became a public figure when he managed Gladstone’s successful Midlothian Campaign in 1879.

In 1881 Gladstone persuaded him to take up the post of Under Secretary at the Home Office, with special responsibility for Scotland.

Travelled the world

But Rosebery was not convinced that Gladstone was interested in Scottish affairs and resigned after two years. He then travelled the world, promoting his imperialist ideas.

In Australia he made a celebrated speech announcing: “The British Empire is a Commonwealth of Nations.”

In 1885 Rosebery joined Gladstone’s Cabinet as Commissioner of the Board of Works and Lord Privy Seal. A year later, he became Foreign Secretary in Gladstone’s third administration. Queen Victoria, an admirer, described it as the ‘only really good appointment’ in the whole government.

The death of his wife Hannah in 1890 kept Rosebery out of politics for some time, but he was eventually persuaded, by Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, to return. In 1892 he became Foreign Secretary again in Gladstone’s last administration.

When Gladstone resigned in March 1894, Rosebery accepted the post of PM, although he did so reluctantly, regarding it as a dangerously poisoned chalice. He would have preferred to spend his time on horseracing and literature.

It was a short-lived administration. Rosebery inherited a divided Cabinet and faced an obstructive, Tory-dominated House of Lords. He was heavily attacked in the Commons for opposing Irish Home Rule.

Imperialist designs

His imperialist designs in foreign policy, such as expansion of the fleet, were defeated by disagreements within the Liberal Party, while the House of Lords stopped the Liberals’ domestic legislation.

Rosebery’s government lasted only 15 months, falling over in June 1895 a vote of censure on military supplies. In the following year, Rosebery resigned as leader of the Liberal Party in the interests of party unity.

He became the leader of the Liberal Imperialist division of the party, but retired from politics altogether in 1905 when Henry Campbell-Bannerman was chosen as Liberal prime minister. In his later years, he turned to writing political biographies.

He died in 1929, requesting to hear the Eton Boating Song before he passed away.