As we stand in 2006 looking back a century we are aware that when future generations look at the history of Great Britain they will look back at four or five Prime Ministers. They are David Lloyd-George (who was lucky enough to be Premier when the Great War ended), Winston Churchill (who was the Premier who beat Hitler in World War II), Clement Atlee (the man who beat Churchill in 1945 and had the most effective Labor Government), Margaret Thatcher (who was the longest reigning Premier of the 20th Century and the first female Premier), and one other. Here's the problem. You have a choice of two possible men for the fifth spot. The first is Herbert Asquith (of whom, more later) and the second (who I personally favor) is Stanley Baldwin.

Baldwin was, in the opinion of his Tory Party rival Churchill, the most formidable politician in Parliament in his lifetime. He was formidable. Not only did he knock out Lord Curzon to first become Prime Minister in 1923, but he subsequently nullified Churchill's presence by making him Chancellor of Exchequer for five years, and then preventing him from holding state office for nearly a decade. He also beat the Labor Party in 1924, and basically took over Labor Prime Minister's Ramsay MacDonald's National Government from 1931 to 1935 (when he was technically the leader of the main opposition), and kept David Lloyd George from ministerial resurrection in said National Goverment.
He also broke the national strike (the only one that was handled in Britain in
it's history) in 1926. He was the man responsible for the creation of the Commonwealth of Nations to replace the out-dated empire, and the man who began the work of undoing British Imperial control of India in 1931 - after meeting Gandhi (an act that left Churchill angry and totally isolated). He succeeded MacDonald for a third term as Premier in 1935 and LEFT ON HIS OWN CHOICE in 1937, after he had eased the Nazi-loving King Edward VIII to abdicate, for the "woman I love". Formidable indeed - he has my vote as fifth important British Prime Minister.

But Asquith is recalled too for his eight year stretch at Downing Street. And no one can deny his greatness for his one leading success: he was the Prime Minister who succeeded in declawing the Tory stronghold of the House of Lords in 1911, leaving it as a learned debating room at best. But this success made him and his policies and government marked targets for Tory retaliation.

Asquith had been a moderately successful barrister in the 1880s and 1890s, when he was made Attorney General in the 4th Liberal Government of William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone tried to get the Home Rule Bill through and failed. Disgusted he left politics, and chose his successor Lord Rosebery,
Asquith remained Attorney General under Roseberry for another year and a half
(1894 - 1895), until that incompetent resigned on a minor defeat in Parliament
(they were voting on the use of "cordite" as an explosive - Roseberry just wanted an excuse and took it). Asquith was one of the leaders of the Liberal Party, but they were out of office for a decade. Then in 1905 a split Tory government was defeated by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannermann, leader of the Liberal
Party.

It was Campbell-Bannermann who pushed the Liberal party agenda for three years. Notably feisty and no - pushover, he was not removed from his power by the Liberal leadership of Asquith and Lloyd George (nor of their growing ally, the young Winston Churchill who would be a Liberal from 1903 to 1923). But Sir Henry was elderly and his health fading. Shortly before his death in 1908 he resigned, and Asquith (who was his Chancellor of Exchequer) became Prime Minister.

Asquith would remain in office until unceremoniously kicked out for botching the prosecution of World War I in November 1916. He was really an effective peacetime Prime Minister, and was fortunate to have first rate assistance, in particular Lloyd George (who with Churchill were the architects of the social legislation that Asquith was credited for). The build-up of the navy (it's ill fated "Naval Race" with Wilhelmine Germany) began under Asquith with the
building of the H.M.S. Dreadnaught in 1906. It was while he was Prime Minister that Louis Bleriot (a Frenchman) flew the English Channel, and that
Henry Royce and Charles Rolls met and manufactured their car. But it was also under his watch that the Board of Trade rules on lifeboat space was not modernized, and that the White Star Line launched R.M.S. Titanic!

Asquith can't be blamed for the Titanic Disaster. But he certainly began fumbling more often than not politically after his success of 1911 with the House of Lords. For a detailed discussion read George Dangerfield's THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND, wherein Dangerfield showed that due to class similarities between the leadership of the Tories and Liberal (except for Lloyd George, perhaps), the Labor Party began making inroads into the Liberal's majority. Similarly the Tories found they had an unexpected ally in the budding Suffragette movement, which under the guidance of Mrs. Pankhurst's daughters became more outspoken and dangerous. The first real terror campaign in modern English history was not from foreigners but from frustrated politically active women.

Then there was Ireland. Campbell-Bannermann had been smart or lucky - he never pushed for the resumption of that Home Rule Bill that was defeated a second time in 1894. But the Home Rule Party (led by John Redmond) kept pushing for it. Unfortunately a Tory supported anti-Home Rule Party in Ireland, led by Edward Carson, fought it. A watered down version of the bill was presented in 1914, but in the middle of the presentation the army (mostly led by Tory gentry officers) "revolted" at the Curragh. This event was a bloodless revolt - basically they said that they would not support the government if the Home Rule bill passed. The officers would all resign.
Instead of facing down this threat (Asquith could have allowed them to resign, but then replaced them with junior offices), Asquith watered the bill down more. It did pass, and became a law to go in affect at some date after the end of hostilities (it passed in August 1914). The vagueness of the date really ended the dream of Home Rule Ireland).

That was his problem - Asquith was very easy going, and felt that compromise would get things through (his success in 1911 is all the more remarkable - he actually proved to be more of a fighter in that struggle than before or after).
He shows the same weakness in his memoirs (written in the 1920s). While easy to read, he does not discuss unpleasant events of his Parliamentary career. He treats the House of Commons like it was the world's best debating club - he keeps referring to the abilities of members to make epigrammic statements or in the purity of their Latin or Greek quotes. The real struggle of personalities rarely rises out of his pages (the exception is in his volume about World War I's origins).

He also had a tendency (shared by Sir John MacDonald of Canada and Calvin Coolidge) of putting off unpleasant decisions as long as possible. In the movie THE WINSLOW BOY (which was set in 1910-11: it's based on the Archer-Shee Case which happened in Asquith's administration), there is a vaudeville show with a song sung by Stanley Holloway about the current politicians - Asquith is Mr. "Wait and see".

He got along during peace time - he was successful at least until the Marconi Scandal in 1912 began chipping away at his success. Had war not come he probably would have collapsed about 1915. But the war gave his leadership new impetus. It carried him on for about a year. Then (in 1915) he found he had to form a coalition with the Tories. By 1916 it was apparent the war was bogging into stalemate, and Asquith was out of any ideas (if he really ever had any) regarding winning it. The result was that the leading Liberal and Tory party figures met in a series of secret discussions in the late fall of 1916, and finally tossed out Asquith. Replaced by Lloyd George, there would still be problems in the war effort in 1917, but the war was won (with American aid) in 1918. Lloyd George would prove to be pretty adroit as Prime Minister for the next six years, even figuring out how to settle the suffragette and Irish problems (without Home Rule). Which is probably why the little Welshman is regarded as one of the three top Prime Ministers of the 20th Century.

Asquith worked for vindication throughout the 1920s (until his death in 1928)
trying to keep together his rump of loyal Liberals against Lloyd George. But
as a result of Lloyd George's large war chest, the bulk of the Liberals stuck with the Welshman. Seldom has a man who was Prime Minister for so long been ditched so effectively in Parliament. He did, however, get a hereditary title
(Earl Asquith of Oxford). But that was little consolation. He hoped his historical writings would right the record of his career. In part it helped, but he still came across as a man more at home at a garden party or a social event than in serious government activity.