Henderson, Arthur

Henderson, Arthur, 1863–1935, British statesman, organizer and leader of the British Labour party. In early life he was an ironworker and a labor union leader. Elected (1903) to Parliament, he was chairman of the parliamentary Labour party (1908–10, 1914–17), president of the Board of Education (1915–16), paymaster general (1916), and a member of the war cabinet (1916–17). In Ramsay MacDonald's first ministry (1924) he was home secretary. As foreign secretary (1929–31) Henderson worked to moderate Franco-German problems and supported the League of Nations. He led Labour opposition to the formation of the National government in 1931 and lost his seat in Parliament. From 1932 until his death he was president of the World Disarmament Conference, and he was awarded the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize. His writings include The Aims of Labour (1919).

Bibliography

See biography by M. A. Hamilton (1938); study by D. Carlton (1970).

---

Henderson, Arthur 

Born Sept. 13, 1863, in Glasgow; died Oct. 20, 1935, in London. English political figure. One of the right-wing leaders of the Labour Party; from 1911 to 1934 its secretary.

From 1915 to 1917 during World War I, Henderson was a member of the governments of H. Asquith and D. Lloyd George, supporting a policy of “war until victory.” In 1924 he was home secretary in the first Labour cabinet of R. MacDonald. From 1929 to 1931 he was foreign secretary in MacDonald’s second cabinet. In 1929 this cabinet, under pressure from the popular masses, reestablished diplomatic relations with the USSR, which had been severed by Great Britain in 1927. In 1932 to 1933, Henderson was chairman of the international disarmament conference.