Constituency : Haddingtonshire 1885-1911
Richard was one of the most important of the new crop of MPs in 1885. He easily removed the defector Lord Elcho who had won the seat in a by-election in 1883.
Richard was born in Edinburgh. He was a cousin of the Whig peer Lord Camperdown. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, fatefully Gottingen University and Edinburgh University where he studied philosophy. He became a barrister in London in 1879. Richard was a deep thinker who was particularly interested in the work of Schopenauer and Hegel. He published some translations of Schopenauer into English. In 1881 he joined the Eighty Club, a dining and discussion forum for Liberals under the age of forty where he met and befriended the young Asquith.
In 1888 Richard wrote an article in the Contemporary Review entitled The Liberal Creed where he expounded the idea that it was Liberalism's mission to relieve frustration among the masses. He observed that public opinion is "stimulated and shaped out of a mass of sentiment , which requires moulding by men occupying commanding positions in the public imagination and confidence". In an 1890 article "the Eight Hours Question " he rejected the idea.
In 1892 Richard was nearly defeated by the Liberal Unionist candidate. He was not given a government post when Gladstone returned to power but was not too disappointed since this allowed him to make more money at the bar. He specialised in appearing before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which dealt with colonial matters. Richard saw the British Empire as a vehicle for the spread of Hegelian ideas about the "Spirit of Freedom". However he lobbied for the inclusion of Arthur Acland and the establishment of a Ministry of Labour to cultivate working class support. Acland was appointed but as a minister of education. In 1893 he wrote an approving preface to L T Hobhouse's The Labour Movement , seeing collectivism as a part of the "New Liberalism". He encouraged Rosebery's plans to reform the House of Lords. Despite this he was passed over for Solicitor-General in 1894 , a decision Asquith described as " a very wrong decision come to upon inadequate grounds".
In 1895 , Rosebery and Asquith urged him to take the Speakership knowing the Tories respected him. He turned it down partly for financial reasons and partly because it would hamper his pursuit of social and education reform. He despaired of the party telling Beatrice Webb "Rot has set in. There is now no hope but to be beaten and then reconstruct a new party." That same year he helped the Webbs found the London School of Economics. He sided with Rosebery against Harcourt but found him exasperating .
Richard and his friends Asquith and Grey broadly supported the government position in the Boer War and were perceived as leaders , along with the erratic Rosebery , of the Liberal Imperialist wing of the party. As it became increasingly clear that the Liberals would return to power after the Tariff Reform issue devastated the Conservatives the three devised the so-called "Relugas Compact" in 1905 whereby they would refuse to serve under the veteran Radical Campbell-Bannerman unless he went to the Lords leaving Asquith in control of the Commons. However he called their bluff and offered Asquith the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. Having failed to arouse any lead from Rosebery, Asquith accepted and Grey and Richard soon followed suit the latter accepted the War Office.
In his five years there Richard worked to remedy the deficiencies exposed by the Boer War . He established the Imperial General Staff, the Officer Training Corps, the Territorial Army and the Advisory Committee on Aeronautics.
Richard disliked Lloyd George ,describing him as " an illiterate with an unbalanced mind " and favoured a tactical retreat on the Peoples Budget. In 1911 Richard went to the Lords as Viscount Haldane to steer the passage of the Parliament Act. In 1912 Lord Loreburn retired and Richard became Lord Chancellor. He is remembered in Canada for some controversial judgments on constitutional issues there.
Richard fatally accepted a mission from Grey in 1912 to go to Germany in a bid to dampen down friction between the nations caused by the naval arms race. The mission completely failed and whilst over there Richard made his ill-fated remark that Gottingen University was his "spiritual home".
When the War minister Seely resigned over the Curragh mutiny in March 1914 Asquith took over the running himself formally though he placed much in Richard's hands. When war broke out he was offered the job but perhaps sensing the trouble ahead he declined. He came under fierce attack from the right wing press particularly Northcliffe's Daily Mail and Beaverbrook's Daily Express for his supposed pro-German sympathies with the "spiritual home" remark taken out of contest and used against him. Asquith refused his resignation in September 1914 and denounced the press campaign against him.
When Asquith was forced by events to construct a coalition in May 1915, the Tories made the removal of Haldane and Churchill a condition of their participation and Asquith concurred , a decision that considerably weakened the personal loyalty of many Liberal MPs towards him. Asquith continued to seek his advice informally during the remainder of his premiership. Richard had no interest in helping Lloyd George but did accept an appointment as chair of a committee on the machinery of government on which his friend Beatrice Webb also served. Its report coincided with the Armistice and was virtually ignored.
Over the next few years Richard gravitated towards the Labour party encouraged by his friends the Webbs. Although the Liberal party reunited for the 1923 election campaign this was also when Richard broke cover and supported Labour candidates. Mindful of his Cabinet experience McDonald appointed him Lord Chancellor once more in the first Labour government. He remained Leader of the small band of Labour peers after the government's fall and supported the miners during the General Strike.
Richard was a large clumsy man who remained a bachelor. He was friendly with fellow MP Ronald Ferguson and had a relationship with his sister Emma who subsequently lampooned him in her novel Betsy of 1892. He was friendly with Beatrice Webb but never became romantically involved with her. She wrote of him in 1897 :
"His bulky awkward form and pompous ways , his absolute lack of masculine vices and manly tastes ( beyond a good dinner ) , his intense superiority and constant attitude of a teacher , his curiously woolly mind would make him an unattractive figure if it were not for the beaming kindliness of his nature, warm appreciation of friends and a certain pawky humour with which he surveys the world .. He was made to be husband , father and close comrade. He has had to put up with pleasant intercourse with political friends and political foes".
He died in 1928 aged 72 . The New Statesman 's obituary declared that he was vastly over-rated as an intellectual and correspondingly under-rated as a practical politician and administrator.
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