“I think I know our people. They will tolerate a lot in private life, but they will not stand for this sort of thing in a public personage.”
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Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime minister on three occasions, from May 1923 to January 1924, from November 1924 to June 1929 and from June 1935 to May 1937.
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politics · Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1923–1924; 1924–1929; 1935–1937) · politician · also Stanley Baldwin, Lord Baldwin, Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin, Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, Sir Stanley Baldwin, Baldwin
Born 3 August 1867 · Died 14 December 1947 · Q166635
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Stanley Baldwin's last speech as Prime Minister
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you may have had better educational advantages, do not presume upon that, they know more about unemployment insurance than you. Above all, never be sarcastic at their expense.
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2026· 9 entries
“you may have had better educational advantages, do not presume upon that, they know more about unemployment insurance than you. Above all, never be sarcastic at their expense.”
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“I can understand his bitterness. He wants a scapegoat and the men provided him with one”
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“I went out into Downing Street a happy man. Of course it was partly because an old buffer like me enjoys feeling that he is still not quite out of things. But it was also pure patriotic joy that my country at such a time should have found such a leader. The furnace of the war has smelted out all base metals from him.”
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“You can take it from me he is a really big man, the War has brought out the best that was in him. His head isn”
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“s abdication in the Commons on 10 December. Harold Nicolson, an MP who witnessed Baldwin”
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“Are we going to have a fascist monarchy?”
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“If we do have a war, Winston must be Prime Minister. If he is in [the Cabinet] now we shan”
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Public attention spiked: 3,433 Wikipedia readers in one day, 4.4× the usual 782, with 1 article edits. Editors noted: Appointment removed uncited
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2025· 1 entry
And a directorship of the Great Western Railway on the death of his father in 1908
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1999· 1 entry
Philip Williamson published a collection of essays on Baldwin that attempted to explain his beliefs and defended his policies as prime minister
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1998· 1 entry
Historian Andrew Thorpe wrote that apart from the questions of war and peace, Baldwin had a mixed reputation
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1969· 1 entry
The first major biography of Baldwin appeared, of over 1,000 pages, written by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, both Conservatives who wished to defend Baldwin
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1955· 2 entries
Argued that his father, Stanley, had planned a rearmament programme as early as 1934 but had to do so quietly to avoid antagonising the public, whose pacifism was revealed by the Peace Ballot of 1934–35 and endorsed by b
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Who claimed that they both failed to rehabilitate Baldwin's reputation
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1948· 2 entries
Reginald Bassett published an essay disputing the claim that Baldwin "confessed" to putting party before country and claimed that Baldwin was referring to 1933 and 1934 when a general election on rearmament would have be
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“The Second World War : Volume I : The Gathering Storm”
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1947· 6 entries
Died 1947-12-14.
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“I owe a great deal of my public and private life to my Nonconformist ancestry.”
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“There is no real republicanism except that of literature. If I find a human face light up at some quotation which everyone ought to know, that man, be he duke or dustman, is my brother. That is the bond of literature. Study it, the glorious literature of the first country in the world—your own.”
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“There is no greater need in the world, abroad and at home, than peace, peace from the warfare of arms and peace of spirit. Those are the things I intended to fight for during the time that I am Prime Minister, whether that time be long or short, and it is with that object—the object of peace above and before all things.”
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"but it would have been much better had he never lived
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“Byron, a man who gave the world a better heart and a new pulse...The man who finds new pulses in the world is the man who will enjoy immortality. Byron was, if anything, a sower of new seed that had a great germinal force...Byron found the eyes of the people sealed, and opened them, and for that reason the gratitude of the nation should be given to him.”
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1940· 2 entries
Baldwin started to receive critical letters: "insidious to begin with, then increasingly violent and abusive; then the newspapers; finally the polemicists who, with time and wit at their disposal, could debate at leisure
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Baldwin's perceived part in prewar appeasement made him an unpopular figure during and after World War II
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1937· 1 entry
Had received a great deal of praise, but the onset of World War II would change his public image for the worse
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1936· 2 entries
Which allowed Baldwin to leave office in a blaze of glory
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That kept him out of action for three months
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1935· 5 entries
Career landmark: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1935–1937).
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Baldwin replaced MacDonald as prime minister and won the 1935 general election with another large majority
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His son argued, defeated pacifism and secured a victory that allowed rearmament to move ahead
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“If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war Prime Minister”
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Career landmark: member of the 37th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1935–1937).
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1933· 1 entry
And omitted Baldwin's actual comments about the 1935 election: "We got from the country, a mandate for doing a thing [a substantial rearmament programme] that no one, twelve months before, would have believed possible"
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1931· 3 entries
With the onset of the Great Depression, Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald formed a National Government, most of whose ministers were Conservatives, which won an enormous majority at the 1931 general election
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Career landmark: Lord President of the Council (1931–1935).
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Career landmark: member of the 36th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1931–1935).
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1930· 2 entries
The first British Empire Games sports competition (now the Commonwealth Games) was held successfully among Empire nations in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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Continued in that capacity until his death in his sleep at Astley Hall, near Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, on 14 December 1947
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1929· 3 entries
Career landmark: member of the 35th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1929–1931).
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Career landmark: Leader of the Opposition (1929–1931).
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Labour returned to office as the largest party in the House of Commons (although without an overall majority) despite obtaining fewer votes than the Conservatives
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1927· 1 entry
Was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the King's Privy Council for Canada
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1926· 1 entry
And introduced the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 to curb the powers of trade unions
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1925· 2 entries
Awarded Cross of Liberty 3rd Division, 1st Class (1925).
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"great armaments lead inevitably to war"
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1924· 4 entries
Career landmark: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1924–1929).
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Career landmark: member of the 34th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1924–1929).
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Career landmark: Leader of the Opposition (1924–1924).
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Campaign: 1924 re-election.
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1923· 4 entries
Election lost: 1923 general election.
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Campaign: 1923 general election.
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Career landmark: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1923–1924).
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Career landmark: member of the 33rd Parliament of the United Kingdom (1923–1924).
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1922· 3 entries
Baldwin was one of the prime movers in the withdrawal of Conservative support from Lloyd George; he subsequently became Chancellor of the Exchequer in Bonar Law's Conservative ministry
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Career landmark: Chancellor of the Exchequer (1922–1923).
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Career landmark: member of the 32nd Parliament of the United Kingdom (1922–1923).
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1921· 2 entries
Career landmark: President of the Board of Trade (1921–1922).
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Was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade
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1920· 1 entry
To nine million in 1938, with annual growth of 700,000 to 800,000 a year (the fastest rate of growth in the world)
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1918· 1 entry
Career landmark: member of the 31st Parliament of the United Kingdom (1918–1922).
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1917· 2 entries
Career landmark: Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1917–1921).
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Was appointed to the junior ministerial post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury, where he sought to encourage voluntary donations by the rich to repay the United Kingdom's war debt, writing letters to The Times un
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1916· 1 entry
But after 1919 Baldwin carried out the duties largely alone
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1911· 1 entry
And it particularly benefited Labour MPs
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1910· 2 entries
Career landmark: member of the 29th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1910–1910).
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Career landmark: member of the 30th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1910–1918).
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1908· 3 entries
Was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Bewdley, in which role he succeeded his father, who had died earlier that year
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Career landmark: member of the 28th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1908–1910).
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As the member for Bewdley, succeeding his father Alfred
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1897· 1 entry
Became a JP for the county of Worcestershire
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1877· 1 entry
Was seminal to the development of both boys
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1867· 2 entries
Born 1867-08-03.
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“. Two weeks after Munich, Baldwin said prophetically in a conversation with Lord Hinchingbrooke:”
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