Balfour

Balfour (Arthur James Balfour, 1848-1930, earl of Balfour 1922) Conservative politician, Prime Minister 1902-05. His early career was closely linked with that of his uncle, Lord Salisbury, becoming a member of his Cabinet in 1887 and succeeding him as Prime Minister in 1902, resigning in 1905. He served as Foreign Secretary from 1916-19 and in a letter of 2 November 1917 to Lord Rothschild, leader of the British Jewish community, Balfour wrote that Britain favoured ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’, the so-called ‘Balfour Declaration’.

E. H. H. GREEN of Magdalen College Oxford is one of Britain’s foremost experts on the history of the Conservative Party. He is the author of The Crisis of Conservatism: the politics, economics and ideology of the British Conservative Party, 1880-1914. His published academic writing includes ‘The Conservative Party, the State and the Electorate’ in Party, State and Society; ‘The political economy of Empire 1880-1914’ in The Oxford History of the British Empire; and ‘Thatcherism: An historical perspective’ in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.