Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

British Liberal politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1847–1929)

Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (7 May 1847 – 21 May 1929) was a British Liberal politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, also known as Archibald Primrose (1847–1851), Lord Dalmeny (1851–1868).


The Earl of Rosebery

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office
5 March 1894 – 22 June 1895
MonarchVictoria
Preceded byWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Succeeded byThe Marquess of Salisbury
Leader of the Opposition
In office
22 June 1895 – 6 October 1896
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterThe Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded byThe Marquess of Salisbury
Succeeded bySir William Harcourt
Lord President of the Council
In office
10 March 1894 – 21 June 1895
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterHimself
Preceded byThe Earl of Kimberley
Succeeded byThe Duke of Devonshire
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office
18 August 1892 – 10 March 1894
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byThe Marquess of Salisbury
Succeeded byThe Earl of Kimberley
In office
6 February 1886 – 3 August 1886
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byThe Marquess of Salisbury
Succeeded byThe Earl of Iddesleigh
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
In office
5 March 1885 – 9 June 1885
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byThe Lord Carlingford
Succeeded byThe Earl of Harrowby
First Commissioner of Works
In office
13 February 1885 – 9 June 1885
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byGeorge Shaw-Lefevre
Succeeded byDavid Plunket
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department
In office
August 1881 – June 1883
MonarchVictoria
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byLeonard Courtney
Succeeded byJ. T. Hibbert
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
7 May 1868 – 21 May 1929
Hereditary peerage
Preceded byThe 4th Earl of Rosebery
Succeeded byThe 6th Earl of Rosebery
Personal details
Born
Archibald Philip Primrose

(1847-05-07)7 May 1847
Mayfair, Middlesex, England
Died21 May 1929(1929-05-21) (aged 82)
Epsom, Surrey, England
Resting placeDalmeny Parish Church, Edinburgh, Scotland
Political partyLiberal
Spouse(s)
Hannah de Rothschild
(m. 1878; died 1890)
Children4, including Sybil, Harry, and Neil
ParentsArchibald Primrose, Lord Dalmeny
Wilhelmina Powlett, Duchess of Cleveland
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford
Signature

After an education at Eton and Oxford, Dalmeny succeeded to his grandfather's Scottish earldom in 1868.[1]

Political career change

Becoming involved in politics, he became a Liberal, and was involved in Gladstone's Midlothian campaign, which brought the Liberals back into power in 1880. In the Liberal administration that followed, Rosebery served in junior offices, including that of Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, before entering the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in March 1885.

Rosebery became a leader of the Liberal Imperialist faction of the Liberal Party,[2] and in Gladstone's third (1886) and fourth (1892–1894) administrations, Rosebery served as Foreign Secretary. When Gladstone retired in 1894, Rosebery became his successor as Prime Minister, much to the disgust of the more left-wing Liberals. Rosebery's government was largely unsuccessful—his designs in foreign policy, such as expansion of the fleet, were defeated by disagreements within the Liberal Party, while the Tory-dominated House of Lords stopped the whole of the Liberals' domestic legislation. In 1895, Rosebery resigned, and a Conservative government under Lord Salisbury took his place.

Rosebery resigned as leader of the Liberal Party in 1896, and gradually moved further and further from the mainstream of the party, supporting the Boer War and opposing Irish Home Rule, a position which prevented him from taking part in the Liberal government that returned to power in 1905. In his later years, Rosebery turned to writing, including biographies of Lord Chatham, Pitt the Younger, Napoleon, and Lord Randolph Churchill. He was also famous for his champion racehorses.

Roseberry's landholdings change

Roseberry was extremely wealthy, even by the standards of the aristocracy before the First World War. He owned 12 houses, all of them grand, and some of huge size.

 
Dalmeny House was the ancestral seat of the Earls of Rosebery and the setting for Lord and Lady Rosebery's political houseparties.
 
Mentmore Towers
 
Villa Delahente now Villa Rosebery

By marriage, he acquired:

With his fortune, he bought:

As Earl of Rosebery, he was laird of:

He rented:

Rumours change

It was rumoured that Rosebery was homosexual or bisexual. Like Oscar Wilde, he was hounded by Queensbury for his association with one of Queensberry's sons.[3] It was Francis Douglas, who was Roseberry's private secretary.[4] The suggestion was that Queensberry had threatened to expose the Prime Minister if his government did not vigorously prosecute Wilde for Wilde's relationship with Francis Douglas's younger brother, Lord Alfred Douglas. Queensberry believed, as he put it in a letter, that "Snob Queers like Rosebery" had corrupted his sons, and he held Rosebery indirectly responsible for Drumlanrig's death.[5]

References change

  1. As a Scottish peer he did not also have a seat in the House of Lords, so he was made Baron Rosebery in 1868, and the Earl of Midlothian in 1911.
  2. In 1884 Lord Rosebery visited Australia. There in Adelaide he noticed that the country was developing more independently. From there he got the idea of free nations bringing up an association called the "Commonwealth of Nations".[6]
  3. Murray, Douglas Bosie: a biography of Lord Alfred Douglas ISBN 0-340-76770-7
  4. McKenna, Neil: The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde 2003.
  5. ^ Lord Queensberry to Alfred Montgomery, 1 November 1894. Quoted in Murray, Douglas (2000). Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-76770-2.
  6. "History – Though the modern Commonwealth is just 60 years old, the idea took root in the 19th century". Commonwealth Secretariat. Archived from the original on 19 June 2010. Retrieved 29 July 2011.

Other websites change