Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937): 1st Labour Prime Minister
The 22 January 2024 marks exactly a hundred years since the United Kingdom’s first short-lived Labour Government. What follows is a brief account of the First Labour Prime Minister’s biography, political career and periods in office.
Short biography of Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937)
Ramsay MacDonald, the illegitimate child of servant and later seamstress, grew up in Lossiemouth, a small fishing port on the North East coast of Scotland. A precocious and bright child he received a high standard of schooling in a local parish school and later served as a pupil teacher during which time he read widely. He realised that if he wanted to make something of himself he needed to head south, and aged 19, he accepted a position in Bristol moving to London shortly afterwards. Here, after a short dalliance with the Liberals, he joined the Independent Labour Party in 1894 and in 1900 became the first secretary of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), a predecessor of the Labour Party. He was elected as Labour MP for Leicester in 1906. In 1911 he was elected as the Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He resigned in August 1914 as his pacifist beliefs preventing him from supporting the proposed war budget. His anti-war stance earned him much abuse that continue to dog him long after the war.
The First Labour Government: (22 January 1924–4 November 1924)
The December 1923 election resulted in a hung parliament and the Labour and Liberal parties agreed to support Ramsay MacDonald, Leader of the Labour Party, in a Minority Government which took office on 22 January 1924. The First Labour Government was hampered by its minority status and repeatedly found itself hamstrung. The Labour Party was roundly defeated in a second election held in 29 October 1924 and Ramsay MacDonald left office for the first time on the 4 November.
Ramsay MacDonald first premiership coincided with a troubled period in Britain’s economic history and, as he led a minority government, his capacity for driving political change was limited. His achievements in his first period of office were an expansion in social housing and measures to improve farm wages and pensions (as described in the 1924 Labour Party Poster above). Yet these successes (and his years of hard work chairing the Parliamentary Labour Party) were quickly forgotten during his second period as Prime Minister.
Second Labour Government: (5 June 1929–24 August 1931)
At the 1929 General Election Labour won 287 seats to the Conservatives 260 and again James Ramsay MacDonald was Prime Minister heading a minority government. Margaret Bondfield was appointed Minister for Labour, the first woman to serve in the Cabinet.
Following a major economic crisis which brought down the Labour Government, Ramsay MacDonald split the Parliamentary Labour Party. His alliance with the Conservative Party and formation of the National Government in 1931, was seen as a betrayal of his socialist roots and working-class background. His enemies in the labour movement had slandered him for many years due to his fraternisation with the upper classes, particularly his close friendship with the high society hostess, Lady Londonderry [See file RMD/1/13].
Ramsay MacDonald resigned the Premiership in June 1935, but remained in the Cabinet as Lord President of the Council until May 1937, when he retired due mainly to ill-health. He died at sea on 9th November on the way to a tour of South America.
His decision to remain as Prime Minister cost Ramsay MacDonald his reputation and effectively erased the memory of years of hard work on behalf of the Labour Party. Ramsay MacDonald died lonely and disappointed, reviled by both Labourites and Conservatives, and worn out by the last painful years of office. Writing some twenty years after the event Clement Attlee described MacDonald’s decision to abandon the 1931 Labour Government as “the greatest betrayal in the political history of the country.”
His reputation was partially rehabilitated in the 1980s, notably by David Marquand’s massive and scholarly biography and work by the Labour historian, John Shepherd.
Additional Resources
David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, (Jonathan Cape Ltd, London 1977).
Kevin Morgan, Ramsay Macdonald, (Haus publishing, 2006)
John Shepherd and Keith Laybourn, Britain’s First Labour Government (Palgrave, 2006, 2013)
The catalogue for the Ramsay MacDonald Papers held at the John Rylands Library can be accessed here Ramsay MacDonald Papers — Archives Hub (jisc.ac.uk)
You can find out more on the Ramsay MacDonald Papers at Manchester University in an article by David Howell published in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library
The People’s History Museum in Manchester holds the Middleton Papers and the Archives of the Labour Party which include much material on Ramsay MacDonald.
