Stanley Baldwin

Stanley Baldwin married Lucy Ridsdale on September 12, 1892 and together they had six children, Diana Lucy, Leonara Stanley, Pamela Margaret, Oliver Ridsdale, Esthera Louisa and Arthur Windham.

He passed away in his sleep at Astley Hall in Worcestershire on December 14, 1947 and was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium.

Stanley Baldwin was born on August 3, 1867 in Worcestershire, England, to Alfred Baldwin and Louisa Baldwin. His family owned iron and steel making business.

He received his schooling from St. Michael’s and the Harrow School and then went onto the Trinity College, University of Cambridge to study history. He was in the college’s debate team (Magpie & Stup), but was asked to resign as he never spoke up and he returned home with a third-class degree.

At home he began helping in the family business and then attended Mason College (now University of Birmingham) for a while.

He was a Second Lieutenant at Malvern’s Artillery Volunteers in his teens and in 1897 he became Worcestershire County’s Justice of the Peace.

In 1908, Stanley Baldwin was elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Bewdley, a post previously held by his father.

He became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the party leader Andrew Bonar Law during the First World War and in 1917 he was named the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In this position he did tremendous work to arrange funds for repaying UK’s war debt.

In the 1920 Birthday Honors he was elevated to the Privy Council and a year later he was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade.

At a meeting of Conservative MPs Stanley Baldwin expressed his views that the party’s coalition with Liberal David George was bringing nothing but bad news for the party and soon the coalition was broken. The Conservative party, now in dearth of Cabinet ministers, promoted Baldwin to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Conservative Party won the 1922 general elections and Andrew Law became the Prime Minister, but within a year he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he retired. The two available options to succeed Law were Lord Curzon and Stanley Baldwin, a choice that fell upon King George V, who chose Baldwin

Stanley Baldwin’s political career had several highlights. He was given credit for sustaining the government peacefully and successfully through the turbulent times of the 1926 General Strike and a year later when the government passed the 1927 Trades Disputes Act to restrict the interference of the power unions.

The work that let him bid a happy adieu was the successful abdication of King Edward. The king wished to marry Wallis Simpson, a woman thoroughly despised by Baldwin and distrusted by the government. Even the citizens wouldn’t have tolerated a 2-time divorced woman as their queen. Baldwin understood the dicey equation and asked the king to chose the path that would rebuild the constitutional integrity and love for the king or quit the throne altogether. This bold and outright proclamation raised the status of Baldwin amongst the citizens.