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July 25, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum

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Andrew Bonar Law to do in T/F Andrew Bonar Law commonly called Bonar Law (/'b?n?r 'l??/), was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1922 to 1923. Law was born on 16 September 1858 in Kingston (now Rexton), New Brunswick, to Eliza Kidston Law and the Reverend James Law, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland with Scottish and Irish (mainly Ulster Scots) ancestry. At the time of his birth, New Brunswick was still a separate colony, as Canadian confederation did not occur until 1867. Born in the British colony of New Brunswick (now in Canada), Law is the only British prime minister to have been born outside the British Isles. Law was of Scottish and Ulster Scots descent, and having moved to Scotland in 1870, he left school aged sixteen to work in the iron industry, becoming a wealthy man by the age of thirty. He entered the House of Commons at the 1900 general election, relatively late in life for a front-rank politician, and was made a junior minister, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, in 1902. Law joined the Shadow Cabinet in opposition after the 1906 election. In 1911, he was appointed a Privy Councillor, and stood for the vacant party leadership. Despite never having served in the Cabinet, and despite trailing third after Walter Long and Austen Chamberlain, Law became leader when the two frontrunners withdrew rather than risk a draw splitting the party. As Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, Law focused his attentions in favour of tariff reform and against Irish Home Rule. His campaigning helped turn Liberal attempts to pass the Third Home Rule Bill into a three-year struggle eventually halted by the start of the First World War, with much argument over the status of the six predominantly Protestant counties which would later become Northern Ireland. Law first held Cabinet office as Secretary of State for the Colonies in Asquith's Coalition Government (May 1915 – December 1916). Upon Asquith's fall from power, he declined to form a government, instead serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lloyd George's Coalition Government. He resigned on grounds of ill health in early 1921. In October 1922, with Lloyd George's Coalition having become unpopular with the Conservatives, he wrote an anonymous letter to the press giving only lukewarm support to the Government's actions over Chanak. After Conservative MPs voted to end the Coalition, he again became Party Leader and, this time, Prime Minister. In November he won a clear majority at the 1922 general election. His brief premiership saw negotiation with the United States over Britain's war loans. Seriously ill with throat cancer, Law resigned in May 1923, and died later that year. He was the shortest-serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century (211 days in office), and is sometimes called "The Unknown Prime Minister". Law was born on 16 September 1858 in Kingston (now Rexton), New Brunswick, to Eliza Kidston Law and the Reverend James Law, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland with Scottish and Irish (mainly Ulster Scots) ancestry. At the time of his birth, New Brunswick was still a separate colony, as Canadian confederation did not occur until 1867.

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