Number 10 Downing Street

Stanley Baldwin had a double inheritance. His father’s family were substantial industrialists, and he helped his father create what was from 1902 one of the Britain’s largest iron and steel firms, Baldwins Ltd. His mother’s family had artistic and literary interests: his uncles included the artists Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Sir Edward Poynter, and Rudyard Kipling was a cousin.

His father, Alfred Baldwin, was also Conservative MP for West Worcestershire (Bewdley) from 1892. On Alfred’s death in 1908, Stanley succeeded him as MP. His business experience assisted his appointment as Financial Secretary of the Treasury in 1917, in Lloyd George’s wartime coalition government. Concerned at the financial costs of the war, under the pseudonym of ‘FST’ in a 1919 letter in The Times he appealed for voluntary donations by the rich to help reduce the war debt; he himself gave a fifth of his own wealth.

In 1921 he entered the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, but in October 1922 he played a leading part in a Conservative rebellion which overthrew the coalition government and the premiership of Lloyd George. In Bonar Law’s Conservative government he became Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Prime minister in the 1920s

When Bonar Law retired through illness in May 1923, Baldwin became prime minister. Determined to help reduce unemployment, in November he called a general election to seek support for a policy of trade protection. Failing to retain a majority, his government resigned in January 1924. Its replacement, the first Labour government also lacked an overall majority, and after it was defeated in another general election in October 1924, Baldwin returned as prime minister.

Baldwin’s second Conservative government was responsible for several notable achievements: the Locarno non-aggression pact, expansion of pensions and house building, local government reform and extending the right to vote to women aged over 21. Baldwin’s particular concern was to reduce social tensions and secure industrial peace. Although faced by the General Strike in May 1926, his combination of firmness and conciliation ensured its defeat.

After the Conservatives lost the May 1929 election Baldwin endured a severe party crisis, with attempts to force his resignation as party leader. Against considerable criticism from the main popular newspapers, Baldwin successfully fought back with a still-famous denunciation of the great ‘press lords’.

National government in the 1930s

During the 1931 financial and political crisis, Baldwin contributed to the formation of a ‘National’ coalition government, led by the former Labour prime minister, MacDonald. As Lord President of the Council, Baldwin at first sought to promote international disarmament, warning of the difficulty of defence against air attack: ‘the bomber will always get through’. But as the threat from Nazi Germany became obvious, he accepted the need for rearmament and introduced new defence programmes each year from 1934 to 1937, against Labour and Liberal opposition.

Baldwin became prime minister of the National government in June 1935. In the autumn he won a general election, promising to continue to strengthen national defences. When seeking to avoid war with Mussolini’s Italy over Abyssinia in order to focus effort against Hitler’s Germany, his Cabinet was embarrassed by premature disclosure of a compromise settlement (‘the Hore-Laval pact’). In retrospect the National Government’s policy of combining armed deterrence with efforts to bind Hitler and Mussolini into a general European settlement seemed insufficient, and after the Second World War broke out in 1939 Baldwin became a leading target for those – especially Churchill – who thought more could have been done to accelerate rearmament and prevent war.

Faced in late 1936 with King Edward VIII’s proposed marriage to the twice-divorced Mrs Wallis Simpson, which met widespread disapproval, Baldwin took the lead in making it plain that if the King persisted he should abdicate. His management of this abdication crisis was highly praised. On his retirement from government and party politics in May 1937 he was created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley.

Baldwin’s most notable aspect was his advocacy of parliamentary democracy during times when revolution and dictatorship were common European experiences. In the 1920s he sought to prevent class conflict and integrate the Labour movement into the party system, and in the 1930s he became an international figure in the defence of democratic and Christian values. In 1938-9 he led a major appeal to provide financial assistance for Jewish refugees from Nazi brutality. His post-1939 reputation as a ‘guilty man’ who ‘failed’ to ‘resist’ Hitler or to ‘rearm’ persists as a popular myth, but has been overtaken by modern historical scholarship.