Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was the first man to be given official use of the title ‘Prime Minister’. Known as CB, he was a firm believer in free trade, Irish Home Rule and the improvement of social conditions.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was the son of the Lord Provost of Glasgow, and was educated at Glasgow High School and at Glasgow and Cambridge universities.
In 1868 he was elected the Liberal MP for Stirling Burghs. William Ewart Gladstone appointed him Financial Secretary at the War Office, and then Secretary of State for War in his next 2 governments. He held the position again under Lord Rosebery. Later, he became the Liberal leader, and was seen as ‘a safe pair of hands’.
The Liberals split over the Boer War, with David Lloyd George joining Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in condemning the campaign. He himself caused a public uproar by refusing to take back his remarks about Kitchener’s “methods of barbarism” being used to win the war.
Following Arthur James Balfour’s resignation in 1905, Edward VII invited Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman,
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Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (né Campbell; 7 September 1836 – 22 April 1908) was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908. He also was Secretary of State for War twice, in the cabinets of Gladstone and Rosebery. He was the first First Lord of the Treasury to be officially called the "Prime Minister", the term only coming into official usage five days after he took office. He remains the only person to date to hold the positions of Prime Minister and Father of the House at the same time, and the last Liberal leader to gain a UK parliamentary majority.
Known colloquially as "CB", Campbell-Bannerman firmly believed in free trade, Irish Home Rule and the improvement of social conditions, including reduced working hours. A. J. A. Morris, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, called him "Britain's first and only Radical prime minister". Following a general-election defeat in 1900, Campbell-Bannerman went on to lead the