Constituency : Chester 1885-6, Ilkeston 1887-1910
Balthazar won the now-single member seat of Chester after representation had been suspended in 1880 with the seat split 50/50 between the parties.
Balthazar was born in Cambridge but mainly brought up in Ireland. He was educated at Drogheda Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin where he studied medicine. He became an academic rather than practitioner, He worked as a Demonstrator of Practical Anatomy at Queen's College Birmingham . In 1870 he published Method and Medicine , a defence of scientific research in medicine. An interest in public health led him towards politics.
Balthazar was an advocate of free education and improving dwellings and began as a strong supporter of Chamberlain. In 1886 he became President of the National Liberal Federation to try and keep it loyal to Gladstone and he was unseated by the influence of the Duke of Westminster that year. He was knighted then returned to Parliament for Ilkeston the following year.
Balthazar opposed efforts by the Tories to put more university men on the Medical Council.
In 1892 Balthazar was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board making him the first doctor to hold a ministerial post. He was credited with preventing the 1893 cholera epidemic reaching Britain.He acquired the reputation of a competent and hard working minister.
After Balthazar's re-election in January 2010 he was approached to stand down for the war minister Seely who had lost his own seat. Balthazar did so and was granted a peerage as Baron Ilkeston.
Balthazar's health was already in decline. He had an operation to remove a bowel obstruction in 1911 but died of bowel cancer two years later aged 72.
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