1916 - 1921

Andrew Bonar Law (1858-1923), the son of a Presbyterian minister from Northern Ireland, was elected to Parliament in 1898 on the Unionist wing of the Conservative-Unionist coalition; one of the staunchest supporters of Joseph Chamberlain's proposals for tariff reform and one of the most vigorous opponents of the Liberals' proposals for Irish Home Rule, he took over from Balfour as Leader of the Conservative parliamentary party in 1911. He took office in the wartime coalition with the Liberals and when Lloyd George engineered the removal of Asquith in 1916 and replaced him as premier, Bonar Law accepted the positions of chancellor of the exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. Their partnership became a close and effective one following the departure, with Asquith, of most of the Liberals, and the coalition survived the end of the war. Bonar Law's resignation in 1921 due to ill-health began a train of events which led to the end of the coalition; when the Conservative backbenchers insisted on the end of the coalition in 1922, Bonar Law returned to government as premier, at the head of a purely Conservative administration. A recurrence of his cancer, however, forced his resignation in 1923 and he died the same year.