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Of Former Prime Ministers Is a Small A Sooner or later, every prime minister becomes a former prime minister, and the ‘club’ of former prime ministers is a tHe aFTERLiVES oF FORMER small and exclusive one. However, over the years, few of its members have left Number 10 Downing LIBERAL PRIMe MINISTERS Street as happy, contented or fulfilled people, or at a time and in a manner of their own choosing. There has been (and there still is) no fixed or established role in public and political life for former prime ministers. What they do after they leave office depends very much on personal choices and on circumstances, including the reaction and attitudes of still- active politicians and of political parties to the former political and governmental leader. There is little in the way of a common pattern. Kevin Theakston looks at the afterlives of five former Liberal prime ministers: Russell, Gladstone, Rosebery, Asquith and Lloyd George. 4 Journal of Liberal History 71 Summer 2011 tHe aFTERLiVES oF FORMER LIBERAL PRIMe MINISTERS t one point, in the (Aberdeen and Palmerston), before they were retiring but, rather, still 1920s, there were, resuming the premiership in 1865. believed they had, and were per- remarkably, three Gladstone had withdrawn from the ceived to have, political futures. former Liberal prime party leadership after the Liber- When Rosebery resigned in ministers alive at the als’ electoral defeat in 1874 and for 1895 he was only forty-eight years Asame time: Lord Rosebery, Asquith a while disengaged from politics old – the youngest former prime and Lloyd George. Before that, Earl (although he did not give up his par- minister there had been for sixty- Russell and Gladstone were Victo- liamentary seat). However, he then seven years, and there has not been rian members of the former Liberal resumed the leadership, becoming a younger former prime minister prime ministers’ ‘club’. Two other prime minister again in 1880, and since then. He lived nearly another Liberal premiers – Palmerston, who during his next period out of office, thirty-four years before he died in died in office (the last prime minister after 1886, he was clearly Leader of 1929; no one since Rosebery has to do so) in 1865 aged eighty-one, the Opposition. This article focuses had so long a post-premiership. and Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- only on former prime ministers Certainly for the first decade of that man, who died aged seventy-one after their final departures from the post-premiership, there was a wide- in 1908, only seventeen days after premiership. Leaving the premier- spread expectation that he would resigning office (the shortest post- ship need not mean relinquishing soon be back, heading another premiership of any prime minister) the party leadership. Gladstone government or otherwise in high – fall outside the scope of this arti- gave up both roles in 1894, but Rus- national office. He remained in that cle. Campbell-Bannerman is some- sell continued as Liberal leader in at one point, period a celebrity figure and a major times described as the last prime the Lords at any rate for two years presence on the political stage. But minister to die ‘on the premises’ but (1866–68), Rosebery remained in the 1920s, his star then pretty soon faded, he he is in fact the only prime minis- party leader for nearly sixteen dropped out of public life and he ter (or, more strictly, former prime months after quitting as prime there were, became a sad, isolated and reclusive minister) actually to die in Number minister, and Asquith was Liberal figure many years before he died. 10 itself. (None of the seven other leader for almost ten years after los- remarkably, Asquith was sixty-four when he British premiers who died while ing office. In contrast, Lloyd George lost power in 1916, but he did not still holding that post died in only became party leader four years three former want to give up office and resented Downing Street, but at other loca- after leaving the premiership. being forced out in a ‘palace coup’. tions.) Although no longer in office, Liberal prime He did not take a peerage and it was simply out of the question for declined the Garter, thus signalling the dying Campbell-Bannerman Leaving Number 10 ministers that he did not intend to retire but to be moved from Number 10 after Two of the Liberal premiers left alive at the to stay in frontline politics. He lived Asquith took over. office as old men – Russell was for another twelve years, dying in Both Russell and Gladstone had seventy-four when he resigned in same time: 1928, but his glory days were all had previous departures from the 1866 and Gladstone was eighty-four behind him. topmost office before their final cur- when he finally quit the scene in Lord rose- Lloyd George was only fifty- tain calls in 1866 and 1894 respec- 1894. Russell then lived for another nine years old, world famous, and tively. Russell had resigned as prime twelve years before dying in 1878, bery, asquith still at the height of his powers minister in 1852 and then played a while Gladstone lived for only four when he was forced out in 1922. sometimes awkward role in front- years in retirement, dying in 1898. and Lloyd But no one believed that he would bench politics, serving in the Cabi- In contrast, the other three left at be out forever. The King, political nets of two other prime ministers ages when they did not feel that George. allies and enemies, advisers, friends Journal of Liberal History 71 Summer 2011 5 tHe aFterLiVes oF ForMer LiberaL PriMe Ministers and family members, and Lloyd unlike life. He left £9,345 on his death thousands of acres, a yacht. At death George himself – all expected that (about £300,000 in today’s money). he left £1.5 million (equivalent to he would return to government, asquith, As a younger son, Russell had over £50 million today), a sum that and fairly soon at that. No one spent most of his life at the finan- did not include extensive proper- suspected that, in the twenty-two Lloyd George cially hard-pressed end of the upper ties made over to his heir several more years he would live, he would classes, admitting at one point that years before. He poured money into never be in power again. left office he had never been in debt before horseracing, winning the Derby We are now familiar with becoming prime minister, feeling twice during his short premiership the televised exit from Number substantially the loss of a ministerial salary when and then for a third time in 1905. He 10 of the resigning or defeated out of office, and dependent on an once joked that ‘politics and racing prime minister – the brief farewell wealthier annuity from his brother (the Duke were inconsistent which seemed a remarks, the posing in front of the than when of Bedford). He was unable to afford good reason to give up politics.’ cameras with spouse and family, a country house of his own befit- Unlike Asquith, Lloyd George and the brave waves before the offi- he entered it. ting his prime-ministerial status, left office substantially wealthier cial car speeds them out of Down- although his position was helped than when he entered it. He turned ing Street for the last time. Lloyd by inheriting an estate in Ireland down offers of City directorships George’s fall and exit from power (in 1861) and by Queen Victoria but received an annuity of £2,000 in October 1922 was actually the giving the Russells a house, Pem- a year from the American tycoon first to be captured on film in this broke Lodge in Richmond Park, Andrew Carnegie and made seri- way. A short silent newsreel film for their lifetime use. His grandson, ous money from his writing and shows Conservative MPs spilling the philosopher Bertrand Russell, journalism, being paid one pound out of the Carlton Club meeting lived there as a child and recalled the per word by the Hearst Press of after the dramatic party debate and ex-prime minister as an old man: America for thousand-word arti- vote there which triggered his res- warm, kindly and affectionate in his cles on contemporary political and ignation, stilted footage of other family circle, being wheeled around international issues which were top politicians of the time and the his overgrown garden in a bath given world syndication. He has King, and – with the caption ‘I am chair and sitting in his room reading been described as the highest paid no longer Prime Minister’ – a top- Hansard.2 political journalist of his time, and hatted and smartly dressed Lloyd Most of Gladstone’s retirement he once admitted that in his first George, with his wife and daughter, years were spent at Hawarden, four years out of office his journal- stepping out of Number 10, being interspersed with a number of trips istic income was much greater than saluted by the police constable on in the winter months to Cannes the aggregate of his ministerial sala- duty, and pausing for the camera- in the South of France (wealthy ries during his seventeen years in men. The film ends with a caption friends picking up the bills and government. It cannot be said that ‘In the Wilderness but with one providing accommodation). By Lloyd George was personally cor- faithful friend at least’, showing a any reckoning Gladstone was a rupt but he did realise and exploit relaxed former prime minister, in rich man.
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