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The Right Honourable James Ramsay MacDonald (12
October 1866–9 November 1937), United
Kingdom|British politician, was twice Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom. One of the
pioneers of British socialism, he rose from humble
origins to become the first Labour Party
(UK)|Labour Prime Minister in 1924. During his
second government, faced with the crisis of the
Great Depression, he formed a "UK National
Government|National Government" in coalition with
the British Conservative Party|Conservatives and
was expelled from the Labour Party. 

==Early career==

MacDonald was born in Lossiemouth, in Morayshire
in northern Scotland, the illegitimate son of John
MacDonald, a farm labourer, and Anne Ramsay, a
housemaid. At first known as James Ramsay, he
later adopted his father's surname and used Ramsay
as his preferred given name. Illegitimacy was a
serious handicap in 19th century Presbyterian
Scotland, and the associated stigma affected
MacDonald throughout his life. He received an
elementary education at the nearby town of
Drainie, and worked there as a pupil teacher until
he was 18, when he left for London. For the
remainder of his life he had little affection for
Scotland or Scottish attitudes.

Working as a clerk in London, MacDonald furthered
his education through night classes and incessant
reading, particularly in science, economics and
social issues. In 1894 he joined the Independent
Labour Party (ILP), one of the earliest socialist
parties in Britain, and began writing for
socialist papers. He met and was heavily
influenced by Keir Hardie, one of the first Labour
Members of Parliament. He stood for Parliament for
the first time in 1895, and again in 1900. In that
year he became Secretary of the Labour
Representation Committee, the forerunner of the
Labour Party, while retaining his membership of
the ILP. The ILP, while not a Marxism|Marxist
party, was more rigorously socialist than the
Labour Party, and ILP members operated as a
"ginger group" within Labour for many years.

As Party Secretary MacDonald negotiated an
agreement with the leading British Liberal
Party|Liberal politician Herbert Gladstone (son of
the late Prime Minister William Gladstone), which
allowed Labour to contest a number of
working-class seats without Liberal opposition,
thus giving Labour its first breakthrough into the
British House of Commons|House of Commons. His
closeness to Gladstone was helped by his marriage
in 1896 to Margaret Gladstone, a distant cousin of
Herbert's. During this period he also travelled
widely: to Canada and the United States in 1897,
to South Africa in 1902, to Australia and New
Zealand in 1906 and to India several times.

In 1906 MacDonald was elected MP for Leicester,
and became one of the leaders of the Parliamentary
Labour Party, which at this time was a minor party
supporting the Liberal governments of Henry
Campbell-Bannerman and Henry Asquith. MacDonald,
despite his links to the Gladstonian Liberals,
became the leader of the left wing of the party,
arguing that Labour must seek to displace the
Liberals as the main progressive party.

==Party leader==

In 1911 MacDonald became Party Leader (formally
"Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party"), but
in 1914 he adopted a position of opposition to
British involvement in World War I. The party
majority, led by Arthur Henderson, refused to
support this stand, and MacDonald resigned as
Leader. During the early part of the war he was
extremely unpopular and was accused of treason and
cowardice, but as the war dragged on his
reputation recovered. Nevertheless he lost his
seat in the 1918 "United Kingdom general election,
1918|khaki election", which saw the David Lloyd
George coalition government win a huge majority.

In 1922 MacDonald returned to the House as MP for
Aberavon in Wales. By now the party was reunited
and MacDonald was re-elected as Leader. The
Liberals were in rapid decline and at the 1922
election Labour became the main opposition party
to the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin,
making MacDonald Leader of the Opposition. By this
time he had moved away from the left and abandoned
the rigorous socialism of his youth. He strongly
opposed the wave of radicalism that swept through
the labour movement in the wake of the Russian
revolution, and became a determined enemy of
Communism. Unlike the French Socialist Party and
the Social Democratic Party of Germany|German SPD,
the Labour Party did not split and the Communist
Party of Great Britain remained small and
isolated.

Although he was a gifted speaker, MacDonald became
noted for "woolly" rhetoric, and it was unclear
what his policies were. There was already some
unease in the party about what he would do if
Labour was able to form a government. At the 1923
election the Conservatives lost their majority,
and when they lost a vote of confidence in the
House in January 1924 George V of the United
Kingdom|King George V called on MacDonald to form
a minority Labour government, with the tacit
support of the Liberals under Asquith from the
corner benches. MacDonald thus became the first
Labour Prime Minister, the first (and some would
say last) from a working class background and one
of the very few not to have had a university
education.

==First government==

MacDonald took the post of Foreign Secretary as
well as Prime Minister, and made it clear that his
main priority was to undo the damage which he
believed had been caused by the 1919 Treaty of
Versailles, by settling the reparations issue and
coming to terms with Germany. He left domestic
matters to his ministers, including John Robert
Clynes|J.R. Clynes as Lord Privy Seal, Philip
Snowden as Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Henderson as Home Secretary. Since the government
did not have a majority in either House of the
Parliament, there was in any case no possibility
of passing any radical legislation.

In June MacDonald convened a conference in London
of the wartime Allies, and achieved an agreement
on a new plan for settling the reparations issue
and the French occupation of the Ruhr. German
delegates then joined the meeting, and the London
Settlement signed. This was followed by an
Anglo-German commercial treaty. These were great
achievements for a neophyte minority Prime
Minister, and MacDonald was widely praised. In
September he put a plan for general European
disarmament to the League of Nations Assembly in
Geneva. 

MacDonald's government came to grief when he
proposed extending diplomatic recognition to the
Soviet Union. The Conservatives and their
supporters in the press whipped up an
anti-Communist campaign, and the Liberals withdrew
their support in the House of Commons. The
Conservatives then moved a censure motion, in
which Labour was defeated, and MacDonald sought
and obtained a dissolution. He knew Labour would
be defeated, but his objective was to wipe out the
Liberals and create a two-party system in which
voters would have only the choice of Labour or
Conservative. This objective was achieved in the
October 1924 election. Labour fell from 191 seats
to 151, but the Liberals fell from 158 to 40.

==Second government==

Baldwin formed a strong majority Conservative
government, but it was racked by crisis throughout
its term, particularly the General Strike of 1926
and the sharply deteriorating economic situation,
marked by a rapid rise in unemployment. At the May
1929 election, Labour won 287 seats to the
Conservatives' 260, with 59 Liberals under Lloyd
George holding the balance of power. (At this
election MacDonald moved from Aberavon to the seat
of Seaham in County Durham.) Baldwin resigned and
MacDonald again formed a minority government, at
first with Lloyd George's cordial support. This
time MacDonald knew he had to concentrate on
domestic matters. Henderson became Foreign
Secretary, with Snowden again at the Exchequer.
James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas became Lord Privy
Seal with a mandate to tackle unemployment,
assisted by the young radical Oswald Mosley. 

MacDonald's second government was in a stronger
parliamentary position than his first, and during
1930 he was able to pass a revised Old Age
Pensions Act, a more generous Unemployment
Insurance Act and an act to improve wages and
conditions in the coal industry, which had been
the issues behind the General Strike. He also
convened a conference in London with the leaders
of the Indian National Congress, at which he
offered responsible government, but not
independence, to India. In April 1930 he
negotiated a treaty limiting naval armaments with
the United States and Japan.

Like all governments of the time, MacDonald's
government had no effective response to the
economic crisis which followed the Wall Street
Crash of October 1929. Snowden was a rigid
exponent of orthodox finance and would not permit
any deficit spending to stimulate the economy,
despite the pleadings of Mosley, Lloyd George and
the economist John Maynard Keynes. Even if the
government had proposed such measures, the
Conservatives and the more conservative Liberals
(let alone the House of Lords) would not have
supported them. 

During 1931 the economic situation deteriorated,
and pressure from orthodox economists and the
press for sharp cuts in government spending,
including pensions and unemployment benefits,
increased. MacDonald, Snowden and Thomas supported
such measures, as necessary to maintain a balanced
budget and to prevent a run on the pound, but the
rest of the Cabinet, almost the whole of the
Labour Party, and the trade unions, bitterly
opposed them. In August 1931 MacDonald, without
consulting his colleagues, resigned his commission
and obtained a new one for a "National
Government," including the Conservatives and
Liberals (minus Lloyd George). MacDonald, Snowden
and Thomas were expelled from the Labour Party and
formed a new National Labour Party, but this had
little support in the country or the unions.

==National Government==

MacDonald did not want an immediate election, but
the Conservatives forced him to agree to one in
October 1931. The National Government won 554
seats, comprising 470 Conservatives, 35 National
Labour, 32 Liberals and various others, while
Labour won only 52 and the Lloyd George Liberals
four. This was the largest mandate ever won by a
British Prime Minister at a democratic election,
but it left MacDonald a prisoner of the
Conservatives, as was shown after the election
when Neville Chamberlain became Chancellor and
Baldwin, as Lord President of the Council|Lord
President, the real power in the government.
MacDonald was deeply affected by the anger and
bitterness caused by the fall of the Labour
government. He continued to regard himself as a
socialist and a true Labour man, but the rupturing
of virtually all his old friendships left him an
isolated figure. 

During 1933 and 1934 MacDonald's health declined,
and he became an increasingly ineffective leader
as the international situation grew more
threatening. His pacifism, which had been widely
admired in the 1920s, led Winston Churchill and
others to accuse him of failure to stand up to the
threat of Adolf Hitler: he was later seen as the
father of appeasement. In May 1935 he was forced
to resign as Prime Minister, taking the largely
honorary post of Lord President vacated by
Baldwin, who returned to power. At the election
later in the year MacDonald was defeated at Seaham
by Emanuel Shinwell. Shortly after he was elected
at a bye-election for the Combined Scottish
Universities (constituency)|Combined Scottish
Universities seat, but his physical and mental
health collapsed in 1936. A sea voyage was
recommended to restore his health, and he died at
sea in November 1937.

MacDonald's defection from Labour and his alliance
with the Conservatives, as well as the decline in
his powers as Prime Minister after 1931, left him
a discredited figure at the time of his death, and
he received rough treatment from generations of
Labour-inclined British historians. It was not
until 1977 that he received a sympathetic
biography, when Professor David Marquand wrote
Ramsay MacDonald with the stated intention of
giving MacDonald his due for his work in founding
and building the Labour Party, and in trying to
preserve peace in the years between the two world
wars. He tried also to place MacDonald's fateful
decision in 1931 in the context of the crisis of
the times and the limited choices open to him.

==Personal life==

The marriage between Ramsay MacDonald and Margaret
Gladstone was a very happy one, and they had two
children, Malcolm MacDonald (1901-1981|81), who
had a prominent career as a politician, colonial
governor and diplomat, and Ishbel MacDonald
{1903-1982|82), who was very close to her father.
MacDonald was devastated by Margaret's death from
blood poisoning in 1911, and had few significant
personal relationships after that time, apart from
Ishbel, who cared for him for the rest of his
life. In the 1920s and '30s he was frequently
entertained by the society hostess Edith
Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of
Londonderry|Lady Londonderry, which was much
disapproved of in the Labour Party since her
husband was a Conservative cabinet minister, and
it was said that MacDonald was infatuated with
her.

==MacDonald's Governments==

First Labour government: January - November 1924

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister, Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs|Foreign Secretary and
Leader of the House of Commons
*Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane|Lord
Haldane - Lord Chancellor and joint Leader of the
House of Lords
*Charles Alfred Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor|Lord
Parmoor - Lord President of the Council and joint
Leader of the House of Lords
*John Robert Clynes - Lord Privy Seal and Deputy
Leader of the House of Commons
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Philip
Snowden - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*Arthur Henderson - Secretary of State for the
Home Department|Home Secretary
*James Henry Thomas - Secretary of State for the
Colonies
*Stephen Walsh - Secretary of State for War
*Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier|Sir Sydney
Olivier - Secretary of State for India
*William Adamson - Secretary for Scotland
*Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron
Thomson|Lord Thomson - Secretary of State for
Air|Secretary for Air
*Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford|Lord
Chelmsford - First Lord of the Admiralty
*Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood|Josiah
Wedgwood - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
*Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield|Sidney
Webb - President of the Board of Trade
*Noel Buxton - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food|Minister of Agriculture
*Charles Philips Trevelyan - President of the
Board of Education
*Vernon Hartshorn - United Kingdom Postmaster
General|Postmaster-General
*Frederick William Jowet - First Commissioner of
Works
*Thomas Shaw - Secretary of State for
Employment|Minister of Labour
*John Wheatley - Secretary of State for
Health|Minister of Health

Second Labour government: June 1929 - August 1931

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister and Leader of
the House of Commons
*John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey|Lord Sankey -
Lord Chancellor
*Charles Alfred Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor|Lord
Parmoor - Lord President of the Council and Leader
of the House of Lords
*James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas - Lord Privy Seal
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Philip
Snowden - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*John Robert Clynes|J.R. Clynes - Secretary of
State for the Home Department|Home Secretary
*Arthur Henderson - Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs|Foreign Secretary
*Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield|Lord
Passfield - Secretary of State for the Colonies
and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
*Thomas Shaw - Secretary of State for War
*William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount
Stansgate|William Wedgwood Benn - Secretary of
State for India
*Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron
Thomson|Lord Thomson - Secretary of State for Air
*William Adamson - Secretary of State for Scotland
*A. V. Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of
Hillsborough|A. V. Alexander - First Lord of the
Admiralty
*William Graham (UK politician)|William Graham -
President of the Board of Trade
*Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan - President of the
Board of Education
*Noel Buxton, 1st Baron Noel-Buxton|Noel Buxton -
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food|Minister of Agriculture
*Margaret Bondfield - Secretary of State for
Employment|Minister of Labour
*Arthur Greenwood - Secretary of State for
Health|Minister of Health
*George Lansbury - First Commissioner of Works

Changes

*1930 - J.H. Thomas succeeds Lord Passfield as
Dominions Secretary.  Passfield remains Colonial
Secretary.  Vernon Hartshorn succeeds Thomas as
Lord Privy Seal. William Warrender Mackenzie, 1st
Baron Amulree|Lord Amulree succeeds Lord Thomson
as Secretary of State for Air.  Christopher
Addison, 1st Viscount Addison|Christopher Addison
succeeds N. Buxton as Minister of Agriculture.  
*1931 - H.B. Lees-Smith succeeds Sir C.P.
Trevelyan at the Board of Education. Herbert
Morrison (politician)|Herbert Morrison enters the
cabinet as Secretary of State for
Transport|Minister of Transport.

First national government: August - November 1931

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister and Leader of
the House of Commons
*John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey|Lord Sankey -
Lord Chancellor
*Stanley Baldwin - Lord President
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Philip
Snowden - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*Sir Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel|Herbert
Samuel - Home Secretary
*Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading|Lord
Reading - Foreign Secretary and Leader of the
House of Lords
*Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood|Samuel
Hoare - Secretary for India
*James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas - Dominions
Secretary and Colonial Secretary
*Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of
Swinton|Philip Cunliffe-Lister - President of the
Board of Trade
*Neville Chamberlain - Minister of Health

Second national government: November 1931 - May
1935

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister and Leader of
the House of Commons
*John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey|Lord Sankey -
Lord Chancellor
*Stanley Baldwin - Lord President
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Lord Snowden
- Lord Privy Seal
*Neville Chamberlain - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*Sir Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel|Herbert
Samuel - Home Secretary
*Sir John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount
Simon|John Simon - Foreign Secretary
*Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of
Swinton|Philip Cunliffe-Lister - Colonial
Secretary
*James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas - Dominions
Secretary
*Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham|Lord Hailsham
- Secretary of State for War and Leader of the
House of Lords
*Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood|Samuel
Hoare - Secretary of State for India
*Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of
Londonderry|Lord Londonderry - Secretary for Air
*Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso|Sir
Archibald Sinclair - Secretary of State for
Scotland
*Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell|B.
Eyres-Monsell - First Lord of the Admiralty
*Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of
Doxford|Walter Runciman - President of the Board
of Trade
*Sir John Gilmour - Minister of Agriculture
*Sir Donald Maclean|D. Maclean - President of the
Board of Education
*Sir Henry Betterton, 1st Baron Rushcliffe|Henry
Betterton - Minister of Labour
*Sir Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet|E.
Hilton-Young - Minister of Health
*William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech|William
Ormsby-Gore - First Commissioner of Works

Changes

*1932 - Stanley Baldwin succeeds Lord Snowden as
Lord Privy Seal.  Sir John Gilmour succeeds Sir
Herbert Samuel as Home Secretary.  Sir Godfrey
Collins succeeds Sir Archibald Sinclair as
Scottish Secretary.  Walter Elliot succeeds Sir
John Gilmour as Minister of Agriculture.  Edward
Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax|Lord Irwin succeeds Sir
Donald Maclean as President of the Board of
Education.
*1933 - Stanley Baldwin ceases to be Lord Privy
Seal, and his successor in that office is not in
the cabinet.  He continues as Lord President. 
Kingsley Wood enters the cabinet as
Postmaster-General.
*1934 - Oliver Stanley succeeds Sir H. Betterton
as Minister of Labour.

==Further reading==

*Bernard Barker (author)|Bernard Barker (editor),
Ramsay MacDonald's Political Writings, Allen Lane,
London 1972
*David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, Jonathan Cape,
London 1977
*Jane Cox, A Singular Marriage: a Labour Love
Story in Letters and Diaries (of Ramsay and
Margaret MacDonald), Harrap, London 1988
*Ramsay MacDonald, Labour and Peace, Labour Party
1912   
*Ramsay MacDonald, Parliament and Revolution,
Labour Party 1919 
*Ramsay MacDonald, Foreign Policy of the Labour
Party, Labour Party 1923   
*Ramsay MacDonald, Margaret Ethel MacDonald, 1924

start box

succession box | before=Founding Secretary |
title=General Secretary of the Labour Party|Labour
Party Secretary | years=1900–1912 |
after=Arthur Henderson
succession box | before=George Nicoll Barnes |
title=Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party |
years=1911–1914 | after=Arthur Henderson
succession box | before=John Robert Clynes |
title=Labour Party (UK)|Leader of the British
Labour Party | years=1922–1931 |
after=Arthur Henderson
succession box two to two | before=Stanley Baldwin
| title1=Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom|Prime Minister | years1=1924 |
title2=Leader of the House of Commons |
years2=1924 | after=Stanley Baldwin
succession box | before=George Nathaniel Curzon,
1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|The Marquess
Curzon of Kedleston | title=Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs|Foreign Secretary | years=1924 |
after=Austen Chamberlain|Sir Austen Chamberlain
succession box two to two | before=Stanley Baldwin
| title1=Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom|Prime Minister | years1=1929–1935 |
title2=Leader of the House of Commons |
years2=1929–1935 | after=Stanley Baldwin
succession box | before=Stanley Baldwin |
title=Lord President of the Council |
years=1935–1937 | after=Edward Wood, 1st
Earl of Halifax|The Viscount Halifax

end box

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

The Right Honourable James Ramsay MacDonald (12
October 1866–9 November 1937), United
Kingdom|British politician, was twice Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom. One of the
pioneers of British socialism, he rose from humble
origins to become the first Labour Party
(UK)|Labour Prime Minister in 1924. During his
second government, faced with the crisis of the
Great Depression, he formed a "UK National
Government|National Government" in coalition with
the British Conservative Party|Conservatives and
was expelled from the Labour Party. 

==Early career==

MacDonald was born in Lossiemouth, in Morayshire
in northern Scotland, the illegitimate son of John
MacDonald, a farm labourer, and Anne Ramsay, a
housemaid. At first known as James Ramsay, he
later adopted his father's surname and used Ramsay
as his preferred given name. Illegitimacy was a
serious handicap in 19th century Presbyterian
Scotland, and the associated stigma affected
MacDonald throughout his life. He received an
elementary education at the nearby town of
Drainie, and worked there as a pupil teacher until
he was 18, when he left for London. For the
remainder of his life he had little affection for
Scotland or Scottish attitudes.

Working as a clerk in London, MacDonald furthered
his education through night classes and incessant
reading, particularly in science, economics and
social issues. In 1894 he joined the Independent
Labour Party (ILP), one of the earliest socialist
parties in Britain, and began writing for
socialist papers. He met and was heavily
influenced by Keir Hardie, one of the first Labour
Members of Parliament. He stood for Parliament for
the first time in 1895, and again in 1900. In that
year he became Secretary of the Labour
Representation Committee, the forerunner of the
Labour Party, while retaining his membership of
the ILP. The ILP, while not a Marxism|Marxist
party, was more rigorously socialist than the
Labour Party, and ILP members operated as a
"ginger group" within Labour for many years.

As Party Secretary MacDonald negotiated an
agreement with the leading British Liberal
Party|Liberal politician Herbert Gladstone (son of
the late Prime Minister William Gladstone), which
allowed Labour to contest a number of
working-class seats without Liberal opposition,
thus giving Labour its first breakthrough into the
British House of Commons|House of Commons. His
closeness to Gladstone was helped by his marriage
in 1896 to Margaret Gladstone, a distant cousin of
Herbert's. During this period he also travelled
widely: to Canada and the United States in 1897,
to South Africa in 1902, to Australia and New
Zealand in 1906 and to India several times.

In 1906 MacDonald was elected MP for Leicester,
and became one of the leaders of the Parliamentary
Labour Party, which at this time was a minor party
supporting the Liberal governments of Henry
Campbell-Bannerman and Henry Asquith. MacDonald,
despite his links to the Gladstonian Liberals,
became the leader of the left wing of the party,
arguing that Labour must seek to displace the
Liberals as the main progressive party.

==Party leader==

In 1911 MacDonald became Party Leader (formally
"Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party"), but
in 1914 he adopted a position of opposition to
British involvement in World War I. The party
majority, led by Arthur Henderson, refused to
support this stand, and MacDonald resigned as
Leader. During the early part of the war he was
extremely unpopular and was accused of treason and
cowardice, but as the war dragged on his
reputation recovered. Nevertheless he lost his
seat in the 1918 "United Kingdom general election,
1918|khaki election", which saw the David Lloyd
George coalition government win a huge majority.

In 1922 MacDonald returned to the House as MP for
Aberavon in Wales. By now the party was reunited
and MacDonald was re-elected as Leader. The
Liberals were in rapid decline and at the 1922
election Labour became the main opposition party
to the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin,
making MacDonald Leader of the Opposition. By this
time he had moved away from the left and abandoned
the rigorous socialism of his youth. He strongly
opposed the wave of radicalism that swept through
the labour movement in the wake of the Russian
revolution, and became a determined enemy of
Communism. Unlike the French Socialist Party and
the Social Democratic Party of Germany|German SPD,
the Labour Party did not split and the Communist
Party of Great Britain remained small and
isolated.

Although he was a gifted speaker, MacDonald became
noted for "woolly" rhetoric, and it was unclear
what his policies were. There was already some
unease in the party about what he would do if
Labour was able to form a government. At the 1923
election the Conservatives lost their majority,
and when they lost a vote of confidence in the
House in January 1924 George V of the United
Kingdom|King George V called on MacDonald to form
a minority Labour government, with the tacit
support of the Liberals under Asquith from the
corner benches. MacDonald thus became the first
Labour Prime Minister, the first (and some would
say last) from a working class background and one
of the very few not to have had a university
education.

==First government==

MacDonald took the post of Foreign Secretary as
well as Prime Minister, and made it clear that his
main priority was to undo the damage which he
believed had been caused by the 1919 Treaty of
Versailles, by settling the reparations issue and
coming to terms with Germany. He left domestic
matters to his ministers, including John Robert
Clynes|J.R. Clynes as Lord Privy Seal, Philip
Snowden as Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Henderson as Home Secretary. Since the government
did not have a majority in either House of the
Parliament, there was in any case no possibility
of passing any radical legislation.

In June MacDonald convened a conference in London
of the wartime Allies, and achieved an agreement
on a new plan for settling the reparations issue
and the French occupation of the Ruhr. German
delegates then joined the meeting, and the London
Settlement signed. This was followed by an
Anglo-German commercial treaty. These were great
achievements for a neophyte minority Prime
Minister, and MacDonald was widely praised. In
September he put a plan for general European
disarmament to the League of Nations Assembly in
Geneva. 

MacDonald's government came to grief when he
proposed extending diplomatic recognition to the
Soviet Union. The Conservatives and their
supporters in the press whipped up an
anti-Communist campaign, and the Liberals withdrew
their support in the House of Commons. The
Conservatives then moved a censure motion, in
which Labour was defeated, and MacDonald sought
and obtained a dissolution. He knew Labour would
be defeated, but his objective was to wipe out the
Liberals and create a two-party system in which
voters would have only the choice of Labour or
Conservative. This objective was achieved in the
October 1924 election. Labour fell from 191 seats
to 151, but the Liberals fell from 158 to 40.

==Second government==

Baldwin formed a strong majority Conservative
government, but it was racked by crisis throughout
its term, particularly the General Strike of 1926
and the sharply deteriorating economic situation,
marked by a rapid rise in unemployment. At the May
1929 election, Labour won 287 seats to the
Conservatives' 260, with 59 Liberals under Lloyd
George holding the balance of power. (At this
election MacDonald moved from Aberavon to the seat
of Seaham in County Durham.) Baldwin resigned and
MacDonald again formed a minority government, at
first with Lloyd George's cordial support. This
time MacDonald knew he had to concentrate on
domestic matters. Henderson became Foreign
Secretary, with Snowden again at the Exchequer.
James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas became Lord Privy
Seal with a mandate to tackle unemployment,
assisted by the young radical Oswald Mosley. 

MacDonald's second government was in a stronger
parliamentary position than his first, and during
1930 he was able to pass a revised Old Age
Pensions Act, a more generous Unemployment
Insurance Act and an act to improve wages and
conditions in the coal industry, which had been
the issues behind the General Strike. He also
convened a conference in London with the leaders
of the Indian National Congress, at which he
offered responsible government, but not
independence, to India. In April 1930 he
negotiated a treaty limiting naval armaments with
the United States and Japan.

Like all governments of the time, MacDonald's
government had no effective response to the
economic crisis which followed the Wall Street
Crash of October 1929. Snowden was a rigid
exponent of orthodox finance and would not permit
any deficit spending to stimulate the economy,
despite the pleadings of Mosley, Lloyd George and
the economist John Maynard Keynes. Even if the
government had proposed such measures, the
Conservatives and the more conservative Liberals
(let alone the House of Lords) would not have
supported them. 

During 1931 the economic situation deteriorated,
and pressure from orthodox economists and the
press for sharp cuts in government spending,
including pensions and unemployment benefits,
increased. MacDonald, Snowden and Thomas supported
such measures, as necessary to maintain a balanced
budget and to prevent a run on the pound, but the
rest of the Cabinet, almost the whole of the
Labour Party, and the trade unions, bitterly
opposed them. In August 1931 MacDonald, without
consulting his colleagues, resigned his commission
and obtained a new one for a "National
Government," including the Conservatives and
Liberals (minus Lloyd George). MacDonald, Snowden
and Thomas were expelled from the Labour Party and
formed a new National Labour Party, but this had
little support in the country or the unions.

==National Government==

MacDonald did not want an immediate election, but
the Conservatives forced him to agree to one in
October 1931. The National Government won 554
seats, comprising 470 Conservatives, 35 National
Labour, 32 Liberals and various others, while
Labour won only 52 and the Lloyd George Liberals
four. This was the largest mandate ever won by a
British Prime Minister at a democratic election,
but it left MacDonald a prisoner of the
Conservatives, as was shown after the election
when Neville Chamberlain became Chancellor and
Baldwin, as Lord President of the Council|Lord
President, the real power in the government.
MacDonald was deeply affected by the anger and
bitterness caused by the fall of the Labour
government. He continued to regard himself as a
socialist and a true Labour man, but the rupturing
of virtually all his old friendships left him an
isolated figure. 

During 1933 and 1934 MacDonald's health declined,
and he became an increasingly ineffective leader
as the international situation grew more
threatening. His pacifism, which had been widely
admired in the 1920s, led Winston Churchill and
others to accuse him of failure to stand up to the
threat of Adolf Hitler: he was later seen as the
father of appeasement. In May 1935 he was forced
to resign as Prime Minister, taking the largely
honorary post of Lord President vacated by
Baldwin, who returned to power. At the election
later in the year MacDonald was defeated at Seaham
by Emanuel Shinwell. Shortly after he was elected
at a bye-election for the Combined Scottish
Universities (constituency)|Combined Scottish
Universities seat, but his physical and mental
health collapsed in 1936. A sea voyage was
recommended to restore his health, and he died at
sea in November 1937.

MacDonald's defection from Labour and his alliance
with the Conservatives, as well as the decline in
his powers as Prime Minister after 1931, left him
a discredited figure at the time of his death, and
he received rough treatment from generations of
Labour-inclined British historians. It was not
until 1977 that he received a sympathetic
biography, when Professor David Marquand wrote
Ramsay MacDonald with the stated intention of
giving MacDonald his due for his work in founding
and building the Labour Party, and in trying to
preserve peace in the years between the two world
wars. He tried also to place MacDonald's fateful
decision in 1931 in the context of the crisis of
the times and the limited choices open to him.

==Personal life==

The marriage between Ramsay MacDonald and Margaret
Gladstone was a very happy one, and they had two
children, Malcolm MacDonald (1901-1981|81), who
had a prominent career as a politician, colonial
governor and diplomat, and Ishbel MacDonald
{1903-1982|82), who was very close to her father.
MacDonald was devastated by Margaret's death from
blood poisoning in 1911, and had few significant
personal relationships after that time, apart from
Ishbel, who cared for him for the rest of his
life. In the 1920s and '30s he was frequently
entertained by the society hostess Edith
Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of
Londonderry|Lady Londonderry, which was much
disapproved of in the Labour Party since her
husband was a Conservative cabinet minister, and
it was said that MacDonald was infatuated with
her.

==MacDonald's Governments==

First Labour government: January - November 1924

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister, Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs|Foreign Secretary and
Leader of the House of Commons
*Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane|Lord
Haldane - Lord Chancellor and joint Leader of the
House of Lords
*Charles Alfred Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor|Lord
Parmoor - Lord President of the Council and joint
Leader of the House of Lords
*John Robert Clynes - Lord Privy Seal and Deputy
Leader of the House of Commons
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Philip
Snowden - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*Arthur Henderson - Secretary of State for the
Home Department|Home Secretary
*James Henry Thomas - Secretary of State for the
Colonies
*Stephen Walsh - Secretary of State for War
*Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier|Sir Sydney
Olivier - Secretary of State for India
*William Adamson - Secretary for Scotland
*Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron
Thomson|Lord Thomson - Secretary of State for
Air|Secretary for Air
*Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford|Lord
Chelmsford - First Lord of the Admiralty
*Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood|Josiah
Wedgwood - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
*Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield|Sidney
Webb - President of the Board of Trade
*Noel Buxton - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food|Minister of Agriculture
*Charles Philips Trevelyan - President of the
Board of Education
*Vernon Hartshorn - United Kingdom Postmaster
General|Postmaster-General
*Frederick William Jowet - First Commissioner of
Works
*Thomas Shaw - Secretary of State for
Employment|Minister of Labour
*John Wheatley - Secretary of State for
Health|Minister of Health

Second Labour government: June 1929 - August 1931

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister and Leader of
the House of Commons
*John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey|Lord Sankey -
Lord Chancellor
*Charles Alfred Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor|Lord
Parmoor - Lord President of the Council and Leader
of the House of Lords
*James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas - Lord Privy Seal
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Philip
Snowden - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*John Robert Clynes|J.R. Clynes - Secretary of
State for the Home Department|Home Secretary
*Arthur Henderson - Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs|Foreign Secretary
*Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield|Lord
Passfield - Secretary of State for the Colonies
and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
*Thomas Shaw - Secretary of State for War
*William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount
Stansgate|William Wedgwood Benn - Secretary of
State for India
*Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron
Thomson|Lord Thomson - Secretary of State for Air
*William Adamson - Secretary of State for Scotland
*A. V. Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of
Hillsborough|A. V. Alexander - First Lord of the
Admiralty
*William Graham (UK politician)|William Graham -
President of the Board of Trade
*Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan - President of the
Board of Education
*Noel Buxton, 1st Baron Noel-Buxton|Noel Buxton -
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food|Minister of Agriculture
*Margaret Bondfield - Secretary of State for
Employment|Minister of Labour
*Arthur Greenwood - Secretary of State for
Health|Minister of Health
*George Lansbury - First Commissioner of Works

Changes

*1930 - J.H. Thomas succeeds Lord Passfield as
Dominions Secretary.  Passfield remains Colonial
Secretary.  Vernon Hartshorn succeeds Thomas as
Lord Privy Seal. William Warrender Mackenzie, 1st
Baron Amulree|Lord Amulree succeeds Lord Thomson
as Secretary of State for Air.  Christopher
Addison, 1st Viscount Addison|Christopher Addison
succeeds N. Buxton as Minister of Agriculture.  
*1931 - H.B. Lees-Smith succeeds Sir C.P.
Trevelyan at the Board of Education. Herbert
Morrison (politician)|Herbert Morrison enters the
cabinet as Secretary of State for
Transport|Minister of Transport.

First national government: August - November 1931

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister and Leader of
the House of Commons
*John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey|Lord Sankey -
Lord Chancellor
*Stanley Baldwin - Lord President
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Philip
Snowden - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*Sir Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel|Herbert
Samuel - Home Secretary
*Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading|Lord
Reading - Foreign Secretary and Leader of the
House of Lords
*Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood|Samuel
Hoare - Secretary for India
*James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas - Dominions
Secretary and Colonial Secretary
*Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of
Swinton|Philip Cunliffe-Lister - President of the
Board of Trade
*Neville Chamberlain - Minister of Health

Second national government: November 1931 - May
1935

*Ramsay MacDonald - Prime Minister and Leader of
the House of Commons
*John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey|Lord Sankey -
Lord Chancellor
*Stanley Baldwin - Lord President
*Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden|Lord Snowden
- Lord Privy Seal
*Neville Chamberlain - Chancellor of the Exchequer
*Sir Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel|Herbert
Samuel - Home Secretary
*Sir John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount
Simon|John Simon - Foreign Secretary
*Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of
Swinton|Philip Cunliffe-Lister - Colonial
Secretary
*James Henry Thomas|J.H. Thomas - Dominions
Secretary
*Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham|Lord Hailsham
- Secretary of State for War and Leader of the
House of Lords
*Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood|Samuel
Hoare - Secretary of State for India
*Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of
Londonderry|Lord Londonderry - Secretary for Air
*Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso|Sir
Archibald Sinclair - Secretary of State for
Scotland
*Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell|B.
Eyres-Monsell - First Lord of the Admiralty
*Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of
Doxford|Walter Runciman - President of the Board
of Trade
*Sir John Gilmour - Minister of Agriculture
*Sir Donald Maclean|D. Maclean - President of the
Board of Education
*Sir Henry Betterton, 1st Baron Rushcliffe|Henry
Betterton - Minister of Labour
*Sir Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet|E.
Hilton-Young - Minister of Health
*William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech|William
Ormsby-Gore - First Commissioner of Works

Changes

*1932 - Stanley Baldwin succeeds Lord Snowden as
Lord Privy Seal.  Sir John Gilmour succeeds Sir
Herbert Samuel as Home Secretary.  Sir Godfrey
Collins succeeds Sir Archibald Sinclair as
Scottish Secretary.  Walter Elliot succeeds Sir
John Gilmour as Minister of Agriculture.  Edward
Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax|Lord Irwin succeeds Sir
Donald Maclean as President of the Board of
Education.
*1933 - Stanley Baldwin ceases to be Lord Privy
Seal, and his successor in that office is not in
the cabinet.  He continues as Lord President. 
Kingsley Wood enters the cabinet as
Postmaster-General.
*1934 - Oliver Stanley succeeds Sir H. Betterton
as Minister of Labour.

==Further reading==

*Bernard Barker (author)|Bernard Barker (editor),
Ramsay MacDonald's Political Writings, Allen Lane,
London 1972
*David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, Jonathan Cape,
London 1977
*Jane Cox, A Singular Marriage: a Labour Love
Story in Letters and Diaries (of Ramsay and
Margaret MacDonald), Harrap, London 1988
*Ramsay MacDonald, Labour and Peace, Labour Party
1912   
*Ramsay MacDonald, Parliament and Revolution,
Labour Party 1919 
*Ramsay MacDonald, Foreign Policy of the Labour
Party, Labour Party 1923   
*Ramsay MacDonald, Margaret Ethel MacDonald, 1924

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succession box | before=Founding Secretary |
title=General Secretary of the Labour Party|Labour
Party Secretary | years=1900–1912 |
after=Arthur Henderson
succession box | before=George Nicoll Barnes |
title=Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party |
years=1911–1914 | after=Arthur Henderson
succession box | before=John Robert Clynes |
title=Labour Party (UK)|Leader of the British
Labour Party | years=1922–1931 |
after=Arthur Henderson
succession box two to two | before=Stanley Baldwin
| title1=Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom|Prime Minister | years1=1924 |
title2=Leader of the House of Commons |
years2=1924 | after=Stanley Baldwin
succession box | before=George Nathaniel Curzon,
1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|The Marquess
Curzon of Kedleston | title=Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs|Foreign Secretary | years=1924 |
after=Austen Chamberlain|Sir Austen Chamberlain
succession box two to two | before=Stanley Baldwin
| title1=Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom|Prime Minister | years1=1929–1935 |
title2=Leader of the House of Commons |
years2=1929–1935 | after=Stanley Baldwin
succession box | before=Stanley Baldwin |
title=Lord President of the Council |
years=1935–1937 | after=Edward Wood, 1st
Earl of Halifax|The Viscount Halifax

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