Ramsay MacDonald

Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), Britain's first Labour prime minister.

MacDonald was born October 12, 1866, in Lossiemouth and Branderburgh, Scotland, and was largely self-educated. He moved to London about 1884 and thereafter was active in the labour movement and in socialist organizations. He helped found the Labour party in 1900 and was elected to the House of Commons in 1906. He became party chairman in 1911 but resigned three years later, when his party refused to support his opposition to the entry of Great Britain into World War I. He lost his seat in the House in 1918 but regained both the seat and the party leadership in 1922. From January 24, 1924, to November 4, 1924, he was Prime Minister and foreign secretary of the first Labour government in British history. The fall of his ministry stemmed from charges that he was too friendly with the leaders of the Soviet Union. Subsequently, at the Labour party conference of 1925, he influenced the emphatic repudiation of communism by Labour. When his party secured a majority in the elections of May 1929, MacDonald formed his second ministry. Later that year, he became the first British prime minister to visit the United States. On his return to England, he was confronted with the growing difficulties of the economic depression. Rather than adopt the remedies suggested by his own party, on August 23, 1931, he resigned as prime minister. The next day, however, he formed a coalition government that was chiefly supported by Conservatives and Liberals: Labour deprived MacDonald of the party chairmanship. His new government abandoned the gold standard, instituted economic reform measures, and began a programme of rearmament as the military strength of Germany increased. MacDonald resigned because of ill health in June 1935 and thereafter served as lord president of the Council in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. He died November 9, 1937.