Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson - A Famous Scottish Politician
Arthur Henderson (1863 - 1935) was the son of a Glasgow cotton spinner. He apprenticed at the Stevenson locomotive foundry in Newcastle, he became a leading trade unionist in north-east England, and was active in the organisation of conciliation machinery. Arthur Henderson was the first Labour politician to hold office, and his appointment by Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George in Coalition cabinets in 1915-1917 was rightly regarded as conferring recognition upon the Labour Party. Becoming an M.P. at a by-election at Barnard Castle in 1903, he was a fervent admirer of J. Ramsay Macdonald, but when MacDonald resigned from the House of Commons in 1914 enderson replaced him as leader of the Labour Party during the First World War.
Henderson broke with Lloyd George in 1917 over the propriety of sending representatives to the international Socialist conference at Stockholm at which Russian leaders would be present. Thsi made a deep impression on Henderson, and his contribution to Labour Policy after the war was to push it in the pronouncedly internationalist direction. Even as Home Secretary in 1924 in the first Labour government (Under Ramsay MacDonald) his main interest was in international affairs, the strengthening of the League of Nations, and the problems of disarmament.
MacDonald was less iadealistic than 'Uncle Arthur' on these issues, but Henderson had made reliance on the League the central feature of Labour's foreign policy. This theme once more dominated in his work in the 1929-1931 Labour government as Foreign Secretary. This work culminated for Henderson in his election as chairman of the Geneva world disarmament conference in 1932, a job he retained until 1935. But at home, in the financial crisis of 1931, Henderson was as lost as most of his colleagues and he probably approved the economy measures, including cuts in unemployment pay. But he could not support MacDonald's proposal that Labour should go into a National government: the Labour Party broke with MacDonald and Henderson became its leader again.
Hebderson's death in 1935 marked the close of the era of founding fathers of the Labour Party. He was a man of moral courage and conviction, a devoted Methodist lay preacher. He was not perhaps the radical that many supporters of Labour were looking for in 1931 and his criticism of the National government was softened by long years of association with MacDonald. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934.
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