Baldwin

Baldwin (Stanley Baldwin, 1867-1947, Earl Baldwin 1937) Conservative politician and prime minister three times, 1924-4, 1924-9, 1935-7. Baldwin held various ministerial appointments in Lloyd-George’s coalition governments. A supporter of Bonar Law, he succeeded him as Prime Minister and alternated the premiership with Ramsay MacDonald over the next 14 years. Baldwin’s terms of office included two major political crises, the General Strike and the Abdication. His cultivated image of being a plain man, typical of the average citizen (‘Mr Suburbia’), was to some extent justified and it helped him in coping with each of these problems.

ANNE PERKINS is a writer, broadcaster and former Guardian correspondent. As a historian of the British Labour movement she wrote the authorised biography of Barbara Castle and is the author of A Very British Strike, a history of the 1926 General Strike, one of the most significant events in Baldwin’s second premiership.