Stanley Baldwin becomes new British PM after illness forces Bonar Law to resign
London, 23 May 1923 - Mr. Stanley Balwin has been formally announced as the new British Prime Minister.
At an audience with King George V at Buckingham palace yesterday, the post of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury was offered to Mr. Baldwin, who has served as Chancellor of the Exchequer since October 1922.
Mr. Baldwin’s elevation follows the resignation Mr. Andrew Bonar Law, who stepped down from the position due to ill health.
A former Vice-Chairman of Baldwins, a major Swansea iron and coal company, Mr. Baldwin succeeded his father as MP for Bewdley, Worcesterhire, in 1908. Later, in 1917, he was appointed as Financial Secretary of the Treasury and in 1921 he entered the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in the wake of the Conservative party ructions that ended the coalition premiership of Mr. Lloyd George and began the Tory administration of Mr. Bonar Law. Mr. Baldwin will soon replace Mr. Bonar Law as chairman of the Conservative Party.
British Pathé footage of Stanley Baldwin succeeding Bonar Law as British Prime Minister
The dramatic changes to British government followed an urgent recommendation by Mr. Bonar Law’s medical advisors that he resign his position.
In the aftermath of his decision to do just that, Mr. W.T. Cosgrave joined a cast of international leaders to extend sympathy to Mr. Bonar Law. In an official message, Mr. Cosgrave expressed his and his colleagues regret that illness had compelled him to resign his high office. ‘During our short association’, he wrote, ‘you have have shown a scrupulous desire to fulfil to the letter the treaty between our nations, the obligations of which you took up from your predecessor in office, and I venture to think that the spirit of mutual confidence which has characterised our relations will have gone far towards fostering the peace and friendship between our respective peoples, which is the due fruit of the Treaty.’
Stanley Baldwin was not the only possible replacement for the retiring Bonar Law, nor indeed was he considered in some quarters as the most likely successor. Initially, the Press Association was reporting the belief of political insiders that Lord Curzon would be called upon to take up the position as Premier. However, it emerged that the majority of Conservative MPs were strongly of the view that the leader of the Government should sit in the House of Commons.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
