Henry Campbell-Bannerman

The Right Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Period in Office:	5 February, 1906 - 3 April, 1908
PM Predecessor:	Arthur James Balfour
PM Successor:	Herbert Asquith
Date of Birth:	9 July 1836
Place of Birth:	Glasgow, Scotland
Political Party:	Liberal

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (September 7, 1836 - April 22, 1908) was a British Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister from February 5 1906 until resigning due to ill health on April 3 1908.

Campbell-Bannerman was born at Kelvinside House in Glasgow in 1836 as "Henry Campbell" to Sir James Campbell, Lord Provost of Glasgow and Janet Bannerman. He was educated at Glasgow High School, Glasgow University and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1868 he was elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal, and entered Gladstone's second cabinet as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1884. In Gladstone's Third (1886) and Fourth (1892-1894) Cabinets and Rosebery's Government (1894-1895) he served as Secretary for War, where his most notable accomplishment was persuading the Duke of Cambridge, the Queen's cousin, and on obstacle to necessary army reforms, to resign as Commander-in-Chief. This earned Campbell-Bannerman a knighthood. In 1898 Sir Henry succeeded Sir William Vernon Harcourt as leader of the Liberals in the House of Commons. Campbell-Bannerman had a difficult job holding together the strongly divided party, and when the Liberals returned to power in 1906, he became Prime Minister.

Campbell-Bannerman's premiership was a frustrating one, as the Conservative Lords blocked most of the Liberals' reform measures, but it did see the achievement of an Entente with Russia in 1907 by his Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. In that same year, Campbell-Bannerman achieved the honour of becoming the Father of the House, the only British Prime Minister to do so to date. But his health soon took a turn for the worse, and he died on 22 April 1908 at 10 Downing Street. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Herbert Henry Asquith.

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Government, February 1906 - April 1908

• Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons
• Lord Loreburn - Lord Chancellor
• Lord Houghton - Lord President of the Council
• Lord Ripon - Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords
• Herbert Henry Asquith - Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Herbert John Gladstone - Secretary of State for the Home Department
• Sir Edward Grey - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• Lord Elgin - Secretary of State for the Colonies
• Richard Burdon Haldane - Secretary of State for War
• John Morley - Secretary of State for India
• Lord Tweedmouth - First Lord of the Admiralty
• David Lloyd George - President of the Board of Trade
• Sir Henry Hartley Fowler - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
• Sir John Sinclair - Secretary for Scotland
• James Bryce - Chief Secretary for Ireland
• John Burns - President of the Local Government Board
• Lord Carrington - President of the Board of Agriculture
• Augustine Birrell - President of the Board of Education
• Sydney Buxton - Postmaster-General

Changes

• January 1907 - Augustine Birrell succeeds Bryce as Irish Secretary. Reginald McKenna succeeds Birrell at the Board of Education.
• March 1907 - Lewis Vernon Harcourt, the First Commissioner of Public Works, enters the Cabinet.

|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
The Viscount Cranbrook | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |War Secretary
1886 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
William Henry Smith

|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Edward Stanhope | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |War Secretary
1892–1895 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
The Marquess of Lansdowne