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Reginald McKenna

Reginald McKenna (6 July 1863 – 6 September 1943) was a British banker and Liberal politician. His first Cabinet post under Henry Campbell-Bannerman was as President of the Board of Education, after which he served as First Lord of the Admiralty. His most important roles were as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer during the premiership of H. H. Asquith. He was studious and meticulous, noted for his attention to detail, but also for being bureaucratic and partisan.[2][page needed][3]

Reginald McKenna
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office
27 May 1915 – 10 December 1916
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith
Preceded byDavid Lloyd George
Succeeded byBonar Law
Home Secretary
In office
23 October 1911 – 27 May 1915
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith
Preceded byWinston Churchill
Succeeded bySir John Simon
First Lord of the Admiralty
In office
12 April 1908 – 23 October 1911
Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith
Preceded byEdward Marjoribanks
Succeeded byWinston Churchill
President of the Board of Education
In office
23 January 1907 – 12 April 1908
Prime MinisterHenry Campbell-Bannerman
Preceded byAugustine Birrell
Succeeded byWalter Runciman
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
In office
12 December 1905 – 23 January 1907
Prime MinisterHenry Campbell-Bannerman
Preceded byVictor Cavendish
Succeeded byWalter Runciman
Member of Parliament
for North Monmouthshire
In office
7 August 1895 – 14 December 1918
Preceded byThomas Phillips Price
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Personal details
Born(1863-07-06)6 July 1863
Kensington, London[1]
Died6 September 1943(1943-09-06) (aged 80)
London
NationalityBritish
Political partyLiberal
SpousePamela Jekyll (d. 1943)
Alma materTrinity Hall, Cambridge

Background and education

Born in Kensington, London,[1] McKenna was the son of William Columban McKenna and his wife Emma, daughter of Charles Hanby.[1] Sir Joseph Neale McKenna was his uncle. McKenna was educated at King's College School and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.[4] At Cambridge he was a notable rower. In 1886, he was a member of the Trinity Hall Boat Club eight that won the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta.[5] He rowed bow in the winning Cambridge boat in the 1887 Boat Race. Also in 1887 he was a member of the Trinity Hall coxless four that won the Stewards' Challenge Cup at Henley.

Political career

 
Reginald McKenna c1895

McKenna was elected at the 1895 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for North Monmouthshire. McKenna was a Liberal Imperialist. After the Khaki Election of 1900, he favoured the return to government of former Liberal Prime Minister Lord Rosebery, although this did not happen.[6]

 
"Crusoe Dilke and Man Friday McKenna," a Punch cartoon c. 1900 depicting McKenna as a loyal servant of Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet.

In December 1905 McKenna was appointed, in preference to Winston Churchill, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He then served in the Liberal Cabinets of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith as President of the Board of Education, First Lord of the Admiralty (1908–11), and Home Secretary.

He was considered methodical and efficient, but his opponents thought him priggish, prissy and lacking in charisma. McKenna's estimates were submitted to unprecedented scrutiny by the 'economists' David Lloyd George and Churchill. McKenna submitted large naval estimates in December 1906 for the years 1909-10 of £36 m. This was the Dreadnought building programme inspired by naval reformer Admiral Fisher.

 
Reginald McKenna by Leslie Ward (Vanity Fair caricatures) entitled "In the winning crew"

In 1907 James Bryce was appointed Ambassador to the US, Augustine Birrell replaced him as Chief Secretary for Ireland, and McKenna succeeded Birrell as President of the Board of Education. He was responsible for such reforms as the introduction of free places in secondary schools[7][8] and the bestowing upon local authorities the powers to deal with the health and physical needs of children,[9] and was promoted to the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty only a year later.

First Lord

 
Electors! Do You Like McKenna's Navy Cut?

At the Admiralty McKenna started the Labour Exchange Bill from May 1909, a policy later associated with Churchill, in an effort to relieve unemployment. He was increasingly attacked in speeches outside Parliament. The number of Dreadnoughts to be built was increased from six to eight ships; four initially and four later. Lloyd George and Churchill had attacked McKenna's position in a plan to persuade the Liberal left of the need for defence cuts. Nonetheless McKenna was on the Cabinet finance committee that discussed Lloyd George's budget proposal of 7 March 1910, and on 12 April refused to contemplate the chancellor's proposed defence cuts.[10]

He held his seat in the General Elections of 1910, and kept his post at the Admiralty in Asquith's government.[11] McKenna had attended the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) on 17 December 1908 and 23 March 1909, during which periods he had fully comprehended the gravity of the naval threat.[11] He also attended the famous meeting on 23 August 1911, chaired by the Prime Minister, at which Brigadier-General Wilson, over naval opposition, persuaded ministers to deploy an expeditionary force to France in the event of war.[12] Asquith dismissed the Royal Navy's war plans as "wholly impracticable".[13]

McKenna had little support in Cabinet, and Asquith, Richard Haldane, and Churchill wanted the latter to replace him at the Admiralty. Fortunately war was averted despite the Agadir Crisis.[14] On 16 November McKenna accepted the Home Office, swapping jobs with Churchill.[13]

In total McKenna had 'laid the keels' of 18 new battleships that contributed mightily to the British fleet that would fight at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. McKenna commenced the Dreadnought Arms Race: the fundamental strategic basis was for a vast fleet, large enough to intimidate Germany to decline to fight. But in the event Britain's advantage was ephemeral and fleeting.[15]

Peacetime Home Secretary

McKenna accepted his move to the Home Office in October 1911 partly because he had recovered from an appendicitis operation. He was one of numerous Cabinet appointments at the time which, according to historian Duncan Tanner, "pushed the (Liberal) party still further to the left".[16] McKenna and Charles Hobhouse were responsible for the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill finally drafted on 20 February 1912. The ODNB calls him a wise and judicious Home Secretary. He was stolidly opposed by the Conservative F.E.Smith.

Another piece of legislation ensued in the Coal Mines Bill regulating pay and conditions. McKenna enthusiastically supported the minimum wage bill in principle, but partly to prevent 'civil war' in the coalfields.[17] With Asquith's approval McKenna left a Cabinet meeting, at which he was on the majority side, to attend on the King, having left behind an "admirable memo."[18]

Throughout the summer of 1912 he opposed the escalation of the naval race, occasioned by Churchill's plan to build a new Mediterranean fleet.[19]

He opposed a Temperance Bill. He also made a radical proposal to let prisoners out on short licence, which he sponsored to deal with militant suffragists, a bill unanimously approved by cabinet.

 
Political cartoon from 1913 depicting McKenna force feeding a nameless suffragette

On 13 March 1913 he voted against compulsory military training.[20]

At a "council of war" with Lloyd George on 13 June, McKenna was left in no doubt that Asquith had refused the chancellor's resignation over the Marconi scandal. McKenna himself was categorical as to their innocence of the share dealings. This advice may have saved the Welsh Wizard's career. He made it clear that the Government could not secure any contracts for favours whether from Marconi or Lord Cowdray.

With Irish parentage in his own family, McKenna was happy to support the half-cash, half-stock scheme on 16 July for the Irish Purchase Act introduced by Augustine Birrell, as the prospect for Irish Home Rule drew ever nearer. Dublin was in turmoil, to McKenna and others on the Left (Walter Runciman, Charles Hobhouse, and John Burns) it was as much Edward Carson's fault as James Larkin's.

McKenna blamed Churchill for stirring up the Northcliffe press against the cabinet's plans to boost the army's budget by £800,000 and a proposed increase of £6 million in the Royal Navy's bi-annual estimate.[21] In the new year McKenna was one of Lloyd George's group to analyse Churchill's plans for Dreadnought construction; they insisted that expenditure must be reduced to that of 1912–13.

In late January 1914 his friends Charles Hobhouse and Sir John Simon agreed to lobby the Chancellor. The following day at the Treasury their "entire sitting was taken up" by the group's tirade against Churchill's management of the Admiralty. They retired the next morning to Smith Square to discuss the Home Rule crisis in Ireland; a dissolution "would be a complete practical triumph for the Tory Party", wrote Hobhouse; their group was expanded to include Beauchamp and Runciman.[22] On 29 January the group sent a petition to Asquith protesting against the Naval Estimates, now assumed to total £52.5 million.

McKenna had been receiving messages of grave concern from Irish leader John Redmond. On 17 July, before the weekend, McKenna proposed an Amending Bill to the Government of Ireland Bill to allow any Ulster county to opt out of Home Rule.

Wartime Home Secretary

The problems of Ireland paled into insignificance in early August. Broadly-speaking McKenna, an Asquithian, supported the pledge to go to war to defend Belgium's neutrality, but he did not want to send the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Charles Masterman, Runciman and McKenna all wanted to stall the Kaiser for invaluable time.[23][24] Most of the cabinet opposed armed intervention in France, almost up until the declaration of war.[25]

The Home Secretary remained in charge of State Security: more than 6,000 espionage cases were investigated, none of which produced any traitors. The smuggling of German arms during the Irish Home Rule Crisis had sparked fears that Britain was infiltrated by a network of spies. In response cable telegraphs were laid from Dartmouth to Brest in Brittany to guarantee Allied communications links. On 20 October a warrant went out for the arrest of 23,000 Germanic aliens, and food supplies to Belgium were cut lest they fell into German hands. McKenna refused to allow the publication of the sinking of HMS Audacious; in the event it was 'leaked' to The Evening News anyway. And on 30 October the Cabinet announced a general policy of censorship.[26] In the Wilhelmina case he again referred to the legal situation, seeking a solution in international law.

McKenna disliked the autocratic and dismissive Lord Kitchener, appointed Secretary of State for War at the start of the war. Immediately on his appointment their relations soured: the policy of voluntary recruitment continued as the Army needed one million men, until the Adjutant-General complained there were too many new recruits. On 5 March 1915 McKenna reported that the Ritz Carlton Hotel, New York was being used as a spy network to inform on British intelligence; the government, determined to prevent the USA entering the war on Germany's side, informed Washington.[27] McKenna supported Asquith and gradually fell out with Lloyd George.

Internal wrangling in Cabinet conversations reached fever pitch: Edwin Montagu, a cousin of Herbert Samuel and ally of Lloyd George suggested that Asquith was jealous of Sir Edward Grey's prowess in the Foreign Office. When in April 1915 the Home Secretary banned Montagu from his home for six months, the scene was set for a final split in the party. McKenna was a Teetotaller, something he had impressed upon the King was necessary for good government. His Majesty "took the pledge" for the duration of the war, an example which Lord Chancellor Haldane felt he had to follow for the remainder of his time in office. McKenna's asceticism won few new friends, so that when the end came for his career it was both dramatic and complete.[28]

Asquith's Liberal Chancellor

In May 1915 Asquith formed a coalition government. McKenna, a reluctant coalitionist,[29] became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the meantime, McKenna oversaw the issue of the Second War Loan in June 1915, at an interest rate of 4.5%, although his first budget was actually on 21 September 1915 was a serious attempt to deal with an impending debt crisis. Revenues were rising, but not by enough to cover the £1.6 billion government expenditure. McKenna increased income tax rates and introduced a 50% excess profit tax, and increases in indirect taxation of goods such as tea, coffee, and tobacco.[30] Post Office charge increases could not be included in the Budget (as they would have endangered its status as a money bill), and were instead introduced in a Post Office and Telegraph Bill.[30]

McKenna duties

In September 1915 he introduced a 3313% levy on luxury imports in order to fund the war effort. The McKenna duties applied to cinematographic film; clocks and watches; motorcars and motorcycles; and musical instruments.[31] The duties were revoked by Ramsay MacDonald's short-lived Labour government in 1924, only to be reimposed in 1925.

Fiscal relations and Lloyd George

The April 1916 budget saw further large rises in income and excess profit taxes, at a time when prices of basic food commodities were rising. Sales taxes were extended to rail tickets, mineral water, cider and perry, and entertainments. The government pledged that if they issued War Loan at the even higher interest (as they did with the 5% issue of 1917), holders of the 4.5% bonds might also convert to the new rate. His predecessor David Lloyd George criticised McKenna in his memoirs for increasing the interest rate from 3.5% on the 1914 War Loan at a time when investors had few alternatives and might even have had their capital "conscripted" by the government. Not only did the change ultimately increase the nation's interest payments by £100 million/year but it meant rates were higher throughout the economy during the post-war depression.[32] Compared with France, the British government relied more on short-term financing in the form of treasury bills and exchequer bonds during World War I; Treasury bills provided the bulk of British government funds in 1916.[33] McKenna fell out with Lord Cunliffe, Governor of the Bank of England. Furthermore, he tried to sequestrate the assets of the US Prudential Assurance Company to pay for American war materiel purchases.

An opponent of Lloyd George,[34] McKenna was critical of the Prime Minister's political approach, telling Conservative politician Arthur Balfour that "you disagree with us, but you can understand our principles. Lloyd George doesn't understand them and we can't make him".[35] But unlike McKenna, Lloyd George had no problem with relations with Cunliffe.

McKenna nevertheless saw the state as having an important role in society, a sentiment that he shared with Asquith. As noted by his biographer and nephew, Stephen McKenna,

Without trying to define the whole duty of Liberal man, Asquith and McKenna were at one in seeing that if certain services were not undertaken by the state, they would not be undertaken at all. Old age pensions were a case in point. They had not been dangled as an electioneering bait; Asquith made no appeal to sentiment or emotion when the Cabinet committee of investigation was set up, but from their first days together at the Treasury he and McKenna had agreed that, if the money could be found, this was a matter on which a beginning must be made forthwith.[36]

Conscription

The issue of enforced service in the armed forces was controversial in Britain. The Conservatives were almost entirely in favour, but the Liberals were split, with Asquithians largely opposed on libertarian grounds, whilst Lloyd George united with the Tories in what he declared to be a vital national interest. Sir John Simon, Liberal Home Secretary and an ally of McKenna, resigned over the conscription of bachelors in January 1916. As Chancellor of Exchequer McKenna objected to the conscription of married men in May 1916 on purely economic grounds, arguing that it would 'deplete' Britain's war industries. McKenna knew that for Asquith to remain in office he had to move towards conscription, whether he liked it or not; if he did not, the Tories would topple the government.[37]

At a decisive meeting on 4 December 1916 McKenna tried to persuade Asquith to sack Lloyd George to save the government. McKenna retired into opposition upon the fall of Asquith at the end of 1916.

Chairman of the Midland Bank

He lost his seat in the 1918 general election and became a non-executive member of the board of the Midland Bank at the invitation of the chairman, Liberal MP Sir Edward Holden. Before Holden died in 1919, McKenna had sat in his office every day to observe the activities of a chairman. An elaborate coda was drafted to allow the bank's directors to determine whether he should resign his Pontypool seat where he was presently the Liberal candidate (his previous seat of North Monmouthshire had disappeared in boundary changes). But the situation did not arise as he was not elected in 1922. The new Prime Minister Bonar Law hoped to persuade him to come out of retirement and serve once again at the Exchequer in a Conservative Cabinet, but he refused, and remained in private life.[38] His refusal was partly because he wanted to promote an alliance between Bonar Law and Asquith, who was still official leader of the Liberal Party.[39] The following year Bonar Law's successor Stanley Baldwin repeated the request and McKenna was more agreeable, but again declined.[38]

McKenna used his status as chairman of one of the big five British banks to argue that monetary policy could be used to achieve domestic macroeconomic objectives. At the Chamberlain-Bradbury committee he questioned whether a return to the gold standard was desirable. John Maynard Keynes was the only other witness to do so, although others proposed a delayed return.[40]

Possible return to government

 
Time Cover, 3 Mar 1924

According to Lord Birkenhead, Lloyd George's Liberals were of poor intellect, with no great leaders to take the government onwards. McKenna was certainly a technocrat but did not want to be Prime Minister although he might conceivably have been offered the post. In reality, the Conservatives wanted one of their own. However, he wished to enter Parliament in July 1923 as MP for the City of London, and neither of the incumbent MPs would agree to vacate in order to make room. As a result, McKenna declined, as he had no wish to vacate the bank. McKenna continued to write economic reports for Whitehall and Westminster, but by August 1923, his political career had come to an end.

The lasting impression was one of the pin-striped merchant banker, a model of precision but not a clubbable leader of men; his absence from London society and Brooks's seemed to imply retirement.[41] However, his financial reputation was such as to prompt Stanley Baldwin to demand his return to government in the 1930s. As late as 1939, it was proposed that he should be brought back to replace Liberal National Chancellor Sir John Simon. McKenna was the last of the Asquithians to die, in 1943.[42]

Family

McKenna was married in 1908 to Pamela Jekyll (who died November 1943), younger daughter of Sir Herbert Jekyll (brother of landscape gardener Gertrude Jekyll) and his wife Dame Agnes Jekyll, née Graham.[1] They had two sons – Michael (died 1931) and David, who married Lady Cecilia Elizabeth Keppel (12 April 1910 – 16 June 2003), a daughter of Walter Keppel, 9th Earl of Albemarle in 1934. McKenna was a talented financier, and a champion bridge player in his free time. In royal company at Balmoral McKenna played golf.[43][incomplete short citation]

Reginald McKenna died in London on 6 September 1943, and was buried at St Andrew's Church in Mells, Somerset. His wife died two months later, and is buried beside him. McKenna was a regular client of Sir Edwin Lutyens who designed the Midland Bank headquarters in Poultry, London, and several branches. Pamela McKenna was a high society hostess whose dinner parties charmed Asquith at their Lutyens-built townhouse in Smith Square. Lutyens the unofficial imperial-government architect built several homes for McKenna, and the political classes, as well as his grave.[44] Lutyens was commissioned to build 36 Smith Square in 1911,[45] followed by Park House in Mells Park, Somerset, built in 1925.[46] The owners of Mells Park were Sir John Horner and his wife Frances, née Graham, who was Agnes Jekyll's sister,[47] and they agreed to let the park to McKenna for a nominal rent, on the understanding that he would rebuild the house.[48] Lutyens built a final house for McKenna at Halnaker Park, in Halnaker, Sussex,[49] in 1938.[50] Lutyens designed the McKenna family tomb in St Andrew's Church, Mells, in 1932.[51]

His nephew Stephen McKenna was a popular novelist who published a biography of his uncle in 1948.

Publications

  • (1928) Post-War Banking Policy: A Series of Addresses London: William Heinemann.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Cregier, D. M. "McKenna, Reginald". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34744. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ McKenna (1948)
  3. ^ Jenkins (1998), pp. 158–206
  4. ^ "McKenna, Reginald (MKN882R)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  5. ^ R C Lehmann "The Complete Oarsman"
  6. ^ on 17 November 1900, in conversation with Thomas Wemyss Reid, in McKinstry, L. (2005) Rosebery, page 425.
  7. ^ Foden, Frank (1970). Philip Magnus: Victorian Educational Pioneer. Vallentine Mitchell. p. 217. ISBN 0853030448.
  8. ^ Carr, Wilfred; Hartnett, Anthony (1996). ""Secondary Education for All"". Education and the Struggle for Democracy: The Politics of Educational Ideas. Buckingham: Open University Press. pp. 96–97. ISBN 0335195210.
  9. ^ Reynolds, E. E.; Brasher, N. H. (1966). "Liberals in Power". Britain in the Twentieth Century 1900-1964. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 32.
  10. ^ Hobhouse (1977), pp. 75–77
  11. ^ a b Owen (2014), p. 127.
  12. ^ Owen (2014), p. 98.
  13. ^ a b Owen (2014), p. 121.
  14. ^ Owen (2014), pp. 115, 121.
  15. ^ Jenkins (1998), pp. 151–158.
  16. ^ Tanner, Duncan (2002). "Ideas and politics, 1906-1914". Political Change and the Labour Party 1900-1918 (First paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 60. ISBN 0521530539.
  17. ^ Hobhouse (1977), p. 113
  18. ^ Hobhouse (1977), p. 116
  19. ^ Hobhouse (1977), p. 117
  20. ^ Hobhouse (1977), pp. 133–134
  21. ^ Hobhouse (1977), pp. 152–153
  22. ^ Hobhouse (1977), pp. 159–160
  23. ^ Cabinet Discussions, 1 August 1914
  24. ^ Owen (2014), p. 205
  25. ^ Hobhouse (1977), pp. 179–181
  26. ^ Hobhouse (1977), p. 204
  27. ^ Hobhouse (1977), p. 226
  28. ^ Hobhouse (1977), pp. 238–239
  29. ^ Jenkins (1998), p. 197
  30. ^ a b Jenkins (1998), p. 199
  31. ^ Varian, Brian D. (2019). "The growth of manufacturing protection in 1920s Britain". Scottish Journal of Political Economy. 66 (5): 703–711. doi:10.1111/sjpe.12223. ISSN 1467-9485. S2CID 159346581.
  32. ^ Lloyd George, David (1938). War Memoirs Volume I. London: Odhams Press. pp. 73–4.
  33. ^ Horn (2002), p. 82
  34. ^ Douglas, Roy (2005). "Politics in Chaos". Liberals: A History of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat Parties. Hambledon Continuum. p. 197. ISBN 1852853530.
  35. ^ Sykes, Alan (2014). "Welfare, Finance and Freedom". The Rise and Fall of British Liberalism: 1776-1988. Routledge. p. 156. ISBN 978-0582060579.
  36. ^ McKenna 1948, p. 46.
  37. ^ Jenkins (1998), pp. 102–103
  38. ^ a b Jenkins (1998), pp. 203–204
  39. ^ Jenkins (1964), p. 495
  40. ^ Skidelsky, Robert (15 February 1998). "The First 100 Years: A policy that crippled: The Gold Standard debate". robertskidelsky.com. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  41. ^ Jenkins (1998), pp. 205–206
  42. ^ Jenkins (1998), p. 389
  43. ^ Haig, Diaries, p.285-6
  44. ^ Jenkins (1998), pp. 192–193
  45. ^ Brown (1996), p. 133
  46. ^ Historic England. "Mells Park (1001150)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  47. ^ Brown (1996), pp. 108–109
  48. ^ Brown (1996), pp. 218–219
  49. ^ Brown (1996), p. 226
  50. ^ Historic England. "Halnaker Park (1026406)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  51. ^ Historic England. "Chest tomb of McKenna family (1345270)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 November 2014.

Bibliography

  • Brown, Jane (1996). Lutyens and the Edwardians. London: Viking. ISBN 0-670-85871-4.
  • Asquith, Earl of Oxford and (1926). Fifty Years of Parliament.
  • Hobhouse, Charles (1977). David, Edward (ed.). Inside Asquith's Cabinet: From the Diaries of Charles Hobhouse. London: John Murray. ISBN 0719533872.
  • Farr, Martin (2007). Reginald McKenna 1863-1916: Financier Among Statesmen. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Horn, Martin (2002). Britain, France, and the Financing of the First World War. McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN 9780773522947.
  • Jenkins, Roy (1964). Asquith. London: Collins.
  • Jenkins, Roy (1998). The Chancellors. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-73057-7.
  • Lloyd George, David (1938). War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. London: Odhams Press.
  • McKenna, Stephen (1948). Reginald McKenna, 1863-1943. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
  • McKinstry, Leo (2005). Rosebery: Statesman in Turmoil. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Owen, David (2014). The Hidden Perspective: The Military Conversations 1906-1914. ISBN 978-1-908323-67-5.
  • Philpott, William (1995). "Britain and France go to war: Anglo-French relations on the Western Front 1914–1919". War in History. 2 (1): 43–64. doi:10.1177/096834459500200103. S2CID 161699834.
  • Spender, J. A.; Asquith, Cyril (1932). Life of Herbert Henry Asquith, Lord Oxford & Asquith.
  • Wilson, John (1973). C-B: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • "Obituary, Mr Reginald McKenna, Statesman and Banker". The Times. London (49644): 6. 7 September 1943.

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for North Monmouthshire
18951918
Constituency abolished
Political offices
Preceded by Financial Secretary to the Treasury
1905–1907
Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the Board of Education
1907–1908
Succeeded by
Preceded by First Lord of the Admiralty
1908–1911
Succeeded by
Preceded by Home Secretary
1911–1915
Succeeded by
Preceded by Chancellor of the Exchequer
1915–1916
Succeeded by
Awards and achievements
Preceded by Cover of Time Magazine
3 March 1924
Succeeded by

reginald, mckenna, july, 1863, september, 1943, british, banker, liberal, politician, first, cabinet, post, under, henry, campbell, bannerman, president, board, education, after, which, served, first, lord, admiralty, most, important, roles, were, home, secret. Reginald McKenna 6 July 1863 6 September 1943 was a British banker and Liberal politician His first Cabinet post under Henry Campbell Bannerman was as President of the Board of Education after which he served as First Lord of the Admiralty His most important roles were as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer during the premiership of H H Asquith He was studious and meticulous noted for his attention to detail but also for being bureaucratic and partisan 2 page needed 3 The Right HonourableReginald McKennaChancellor of the ExchequerIn office 27 May 1915 10 December 1916MonarchGeorge VPrime MinisterH H AsquithPreceded byDavid Lloyd GeorgeSucceeded byBonar LawHome SecretaryIn office 23 October 1911 27 May 1915MonarchGeorge VPrime MinisterH H AsquithPreceded byWinston ChurchillSucceeded bySir John SimonFirst Lord of the AdmiraltyIn office 12 April 1908 23 October 1911Prime MinisterH H AsquithPreceded byEdward MarjoribanksSucceeded byWinston ChurchillPresident of the Board of EducationIn office 23 January 1907 12 April 1908Prime MinisterHenry Campbell BannermanPreceded byAugustine BirrellSucceeded byWalter RuncimanFinancial Secretary to the TreasuryIn office 12 December 1905 23 January 1907Prime MinisterHenry Campbell BannermanPreceded byVictor CavendishSucceeded byWalter RuncimanMember of Parliamentfor North MonmouthshireIn office 7 August 1895 14 December 1918Preceded byThomas Phillips PriceSucceeded byConstituency abolishedPersonal detailsBorn 1863 07 06 6 July 1863Kensington London 1 Died6 September 1943 1943 09 06 aged 80 LondonNationalityBritishPolitical partyLiberalSpousePamela Jekyll d 1943 Alma materTrinity Hall Cambridge Contents 1 Background and education 2 Political career 2 1 First Lord 2 2 Peacetime Home Secretary 2 3 Wartime Home Secretary 2 4 Asquith s Liberal Chancellor 2 5 McKenna duties 2 6 Fiscal relations and Lloyd George 2 7 Conscription 2 8 Chairman of the Midland Bank 2 9 Possible return to government 3 Family 4 Publications 5 See also 6 References 6 1 Bibliography 7 External linksBackground and education EditBorn in Kensington London 1 McKenna was the son of William Columban McKenna and his wife Emma daughter of Charles Hanby 1 Sir Joseph Neale McKenna was his uncle McKenna was educated at King s College School and at Trinity Hall Cambridge 4 At Cambridge he was a notable rower In 1886 he was a member of the Trinity Hall Boat Club eight that won the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta 5 He rowed bow in the winning Cambridge boat in the 1887 Boat Race Also in 1887 he was a member of the Trinity Hall coxless four that won the Stewards Challenge Cup at Henley Political career Edit Reginald McKenna c1895McKenna was elected at the 1895 general election as Member of Parliament MP for North Monmouthshire McKenna was a Liberal Imperialist After the Khaki Election of 1900 he favoured the return to government of former Liberal Prime Minister Lord Rosebery although this did not happen 6 Crusoe Dilke and Man Friday McKenna a Punch cartoon c 1900 depicting McKenna as a loyal servant of Sir Charles Dilke 2nd Baronet In December 1905 McKenna was appointed in preference to Winston Churchill as Financial Secretary to the Treasury He then served in the Liberal Cabinets of Campbell Bannerman and Asquith as President of the Board of Education First Lord of the Admiralty 1908 11 and Home Secretary He was considered methodical and efficient but his opponents thought him priggish prissy and lacking in charisma McKenna s estimates were submitted to unprecedented scrutiny by the economists David Lloyd George and Churchill McKenna submitted large naval estimates in December 1906 for the years 1909 10 of 36 m This was the Dreadnought building programme inspired by naval reformer Admiral Fisher Reginald McKenna by Leslie Ward Vanity Fair caricatures entitled In the winning crew In 1907 James Bryce was appointed Ambassador to the US Augustine Birrell replaced him as Chief Secretary for Ireland and McKenna succeeded Birrell as President of the Board of Education He was responsible for such reforms as the introduction of free places in secondary schools 7 8 and the bestowing upon local authorities the powers to deal with the health and physical needs of children 9 and was promoted to the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty only a year later First Lord Edit Electors Do You Like McKenna s Navy Cut At the Admiralty McKenna started the Labour Exchange Bill from May 1909 a policy later associated with Churchill in an effort to relieve unemployment He was increasingly attacked in speeches outside Parliament The number of Dreadnoughts to be built was increased from six to eight ships four initially and four later Lloyd George and Churchill had attacked McKenna s position in a plan to persuade the Liberal left of the need for defence cuts Nonetheless McKenna was on the Cabinet finance committee that discussed Lloyd George s budget proposal of 7 March 1910 and on 12 April refused to contemplate the chancellor s proposed defence cuts 10 He held his seat in the General Elections of 1910 and kept his post at the Admiralty in Asquith s government 11 McKenna had attended the Sub Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence CID on 17 December 1908 and 23 March 1909 during which periods he had fully comprehended the gravity of the naval threat 11 He also attended the famous meeting on 23 August 1911 chaired by the Prime Minister at which Brigadier General Wilson over naval opposition persuaded ministers to deploy an expeditionary force to France in the event of war 12 Asquith dismissed the Royal Navy s war plans as wholly impracticable 13 McKenna had little support in Cabinet and Asquith Richard Haldane and Churchill wanted the latter to replace him at the Admiralty Fortunately war was averted despite the Agadir Crisis 14 On 16 November McKenna accepted the Home Office swapping jobs with Churchill 13 In total McKenna had laid the keels of 18 new battleships that contributed mightily to the British fleet that would fight at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 McKenna commenced the Dreadnought Arms Race the fundamental strategic basis was for a vast fleet large enough to intimidate Germany to decline to fight But in the event Britain s advantage was ephemeral and fleeting 15 Peacetime Home Secretary Edit McKenna accepted his move to the Home Office in October 1911 partly because he had recovered from an appendicitis operation He was one of numerous Cabinet appointments at the time which according to historian Duncan Tanner pushed the Liberal party still further to the left 16 McKenna and Charles Hobhouse were responsible for the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill finally drafted on 20 February 1912 The ODNB calls him a wise and judicious Home Secretary He was stolidly opposed by the Conservative F E Smith Another piece of legislation ensued in the Coal Mines Bill regulating pay and conditions McKenna enthusiastically supported the minimum wage bill in principle but partly to prevent civil war in the coalfields 17 With Asquith s approval McKenna left a Cabinet meeting at which he was on the majority side to attend on the King having left behind an admirable memo 18 Throughout the summer of 1912 he opposed the escalation of the naval race occasioned by Churchill s plan to build a new Mediterranean fleet 19 He opposed a Temperance Bill He also made a radical proposal to let prisoners out on short licence which he sponsored to deal with militant suffragists a bill unanimously approved by cabinet Political cartoon from 1913 depicting McKenna force feeding a nameless suffragetteOn 13 March 1913 he voted against compulsory military training 20 At a council of war with Lloyd George on 13 June McKenna was left in no doubt that Asquith had refused the chancellor s resignation over the Marconi scandal McKenna himself was categorical as to their innocence of the share dealings This advice may have saved the Welsh Wizard s career He made it clear that the Government could not secure any contracts for favours whether from Marconi or Lord Cowdray With Irish parentage in his own family McKenna was happy to support the half cash half stock scheme on 16 July for the Irish Purchase Act introduced by Augustine Birrell as the prospect for Irish Home Rule drew ever nearer Dublin was in turmoil to McKenna and others on the Left Walter Runciman Charles Hobhouse and John Burns it was as much Edward Carson s fault as James Larkin s McKenna blamed Churchill for stirring up the Northcliffe press against the cabinet s plans to boost the army s budget by 800 000 and a proposed increase of 6 million in the Royal Navy s bi annual estimate 21 In the new year McKenna was one of Lloyd George s group to analyse Churchill s plans for Dreadnought construction they insisted that expenditure must be reduced to that of 1912 13 In late January 1914 his friends Charles Hobhouse and Sir John Simon agreed to lobby the Chancellor The following day at the Treasury their entire sitting was taken up by the group s tirade against Churchill s management of the Admiralty They retired the next morning to Smith Square to discuss the Home Rule crisis in Ireland a dissolution would be a complete practical triumph for the Tory Party wrote Hobhouse their group was expanded to include Beauchamp and Runciman 22 On 29 January the group sent a petition to Asquith protesting against the Naval Estimates now assumed to total 52 5 million McKenna had been receiving messages of grave concern from Irish leader John Redmond On 17 July before the weekend McKenna proposed an Amending Bill to the Government of Ireland Bill to allow any Ulster county to opt out of Home Rule Wartime Home Secretary Edit The problems of Ireland paled into insignificance in early August Broadly speaking McKenna an Asquithian supported the pledge to go to war to defend Belgium s neutrality but he did not want to send the British Expeditionary Force BEF Charles Masterman Runciman and McKenna all wanted to stall the Kaiser for invaluable time 23 24 Most of the cabinet opposed armed intervention in France almost up until the declaration of war 25 The Home Secretary remained in charge of State Security more than 6 000 espionage cases were investigated none of which produced any traitors The smuggling of German arms during the Irish Home Rule Crisis had sparked fears that Britain was infiltrated by a network of spies In response cable telegraphs were laid from Dartmouth to Brest in Brittany to guarantee Allied communications links On 20 October a warrant went out for the arrest of 23 000 Germanic aliens and food supplies to Belgium were cut lest they fell into German hands McKenna refused to allow the publication of the sinking of HMS Audacious in the event it was leaked to The Evening News anyway And on 30 October the Cabinet announced a general policy of censorship 26 In the Wilhelmina case he again referred to the legal situation seeking a solution in international law McKenna disliked the autocratic and dismissive Lord Kitchener appointed Secretary of State for War at the start of the war Immediately on his appointment their relations soured the policy of voluntary recruitment continued as the Army needed one million men until the Adjutant General complained there were too many new recruits On 5 March 1915 McKenna reported that the Ritz Carlton Hotel New York was being used as a spy network to inform on British intelligence the government determined to prevent the USA entering the war on Germany s side informed Washington 27 McKenna supported Asquith and gradually fell out with Lloyd George Internal wrangling in Cabinet conversations reached fever pitch Edwin Montagu a cousin of Herbert Samuel and ally of Lloyd George suggested that Asquith was jealous of Sir Edward Grey s prowess in the Foreign Office When in April 1915 the Home Secretary banned Montagu from his home for six months the scene was set for a final split in the party McKenna was a Teetotaller something he had impressed upon the King was necessary for good government His Majesty took the pledge for the duration of the war an example which Lord Chancellor Haldane felt he had to follow for the remainder of his time in office McKenna s asceticism won few new friends so that when the end came for his career it was both dramatic and complete 28 Asquith s Liberal Chancellor Edit In May 1915 Asquith formed a coalition government McKenna a reluctant coalitionist 29 became Chancellor of the Exchequer In the meantime McKenna oversaw the issue of the Second War Loan in June 1915 at an interest rate of 4 5 although his first budget was actually on 21 September 1915 was a serious attempt to deal with an impending debt crisis Revenues were rising but not by enough to cover the 1 6 billion government expenditure McKenna increased income tax rates and introduced a 50 excess profit tax and increases in indirect taxation of goods such as tea coffee and tobacco 30 Post Office charge increases could not be included in the Budget as they would have endangered its status as a money bill and were instead introduced in a Post Office and Telegraph Bill 30 McKenna duties Edit In September 1915 he introduced a 331 3 levy on luxury imports in order to fund the war effort The McKenna duties applied to cinematographic film clocks and watches motorcars and motorcycles and musical instruments 31 The duties were revoked by Ramsay MacDonald s short lived Labour government in 1924 only to be reimposed in 1925 Fiscal relations and Lloyd George Edit The April 1916 budget saw further large rises in income and excess profit taxes at a time when prices of basic food commodities were rising Sales taxes were extended to rail tickets mineral water cider and perry and entertainments The government pledged that if they issued War Loan at the even higher interest as they did with the 5 issue of 1917 holders of the 4 5 bonds might also convert to the new rate His predecessor David Lloyd George criticised McKenna in his memoirs for increasing the interest rate from 3 5 on the 1914 War Loan at a time when investors had few alternatives and might even have had their capital conscripted by the government Not only did the change ultimately increase the nation s interest payments by 100 million year but it meant rates were higher throughout the economy during the post war depression 32 Compared with France the British government relied more on short term financing in the form of treasury bills and exchequer bonds during World War I Treasury bills provided the bulk of British government funds in 1916 33 McKenna fell out with Lord Cunliffe Governor of the Bank of England Furthermore he tried to sequestrate the assets of the US Prudential Assurance Company to pay for American war materiel purchases An opponent of Lloyd George 34 McKenna was critical of the Prime Minister s political approach telling Conservative politician Arthur Balfour that you disagree with us but you can understand our principles Lloyd George doesn t understand them and we can t make him 35 But unlike McKenna Lloyd George had no problem with relations with Cunliffe McKenna nevertheless saw the state as having an important role in society a sentiment that he shared with Asquith As noted by his biographer and nephew Stephen McKenna Without trying to define the whole duty of Liberal man Asquith and McKenna were at one in seeing that if certain services were not undertaken by the state they would not be undertaken at all Old age pensions were a case in point They had not been dangled as an electioneering bait Asquith made no appeal to sentiment or emotion when the Cabinet committee of investigation was set up but from their first days together at the Treasury he and McKenna had agreed that if the money could be found this was a matter on which a beginning must be made forthwith 36 Conscription Edit The issue of enforced service in the armed forces was controversial in Britain The Conservatives were almost entirely in favour but the Liberals were split with Asquithians largely opposed on libertarian grounds whilst Lloyd George united with the Tories in what he declared to be a vital national interest Sir John Simon Liberal Home Secretary and an ally of McKenna resigned over the conscription of bachelors in January 1916 As Chancellor of Exchequer McKenna objected to the conscription of married men in May 1916 on purely economic grounds arguing that it would deplete Britain s war industries McKenna knew that for Asquith to remain in office he had to move towards conscription whether he liked it or not if he did not the Tories would topple the government 37 At a decisive meeting on 4 December 1916 McKenna tried to persuade Asquith to sack Lloyd George to save the government McKenna retired into opposition upon the fall of Asquith at the end of 1916 Chairman of the Midland Bank Edit He lost his seat in the 1918 general election and became a non executive member of the board of the Midland Bank at the invitation of the chairman Liberal MP Sir Edward Holden Before Holden died in 1919 McKenna had sat in his office every day to observe the activities of a chairman An elaborate coda was drafted to allow the bank s directors to determine whether he should resign his Pontypool seat where he was presently the Liberal candidate his previous seat of North Monmouthshire had disappeared in boundary changes But the situation did not arise as he was not elected in 1922 The new Prime Minister Bonar Law hoped to persuade him to come out of retirement and serve once again at the Exchequer in a Conservative Cabinet but he refused and remained in private life 38 His refusal was partly because he wanted to promote an alliance between Bonar Law and Asquith who was still official leader of the Liberal Party 39 The following year Bonar Law s successor Stanley Baldwin repeated the request and McKenna was more agreeable but again declined 38 McKenna used his status as chairman of one of the big five British banks to argue that monetary policy could be used to achieve domestic macroeconomic objectives At the Chamberlain Bradbury committee he questioned whether a return to the gold standard was desirable John Maynard Keynes was the only other witness to do so although others proposed a delayed return 40 Possible return to government Edit Time Cover 3 Mar 1924According to Lord Birkenhead Lloyd George s Liberals were of poor intellect with no great leaders to take the government onwards McKenna was certainly a technocrat but did not want to be Prime Minister although he might conceivably have been offered the post In reality the Conservatives wanted one of their own However he wished to enter Parliament in July 1923 as MP for the City of London and neither of the incumbent MPs would agree to vacate in order to make room As a result McKenna declined as he had no wish to vacate the bank McKenna continued to write economic reports for Whitehall and Westminster but by August 1923 his political career had come to an end The lasting impression was one of the pin striped merchant banker a model of precision but not a clubbable leader of men his absence from London society and Brooks s seemed to imply retirement 41 However his financial reputation was such as to prompt Stanley Baldwin to demand his return to government in the 1930s As late as 1939 it was proposed that he should be brought back to replace Liberal National Chancellor Sir John Simon McKenna was the last of the Asquithians to die in 1943 42 Family EditMcKenna was married in 1908 to Pamela Jekyll who died November 1943 younger daughter of Sir Herbert Jekyll brother of landscape gardener Gertrude Jekyll and his wife Dame Agnes Jekyll nee Graham 1 They had two sons Michael died 1931 and David who married Lady Cecilia Elizabeth Keppel 12 April 1910 16 June 2003 a daughter of Walter Keppel 9th Earl of Albemarle in 1934 McKenna was a talented financier and a champion bridge player in his free time In royal company at Balmoral McKenna played golf 43 incomplete short citation Reginald McKenna died in London on 6 September 1943 and was buried at St Andrew s Church in Mells Somerset His wife died two months later and is buried beside him McKenna was a regular client of Sir Edwin Lutyens who designed the Midland Bank headquarters in Poultry London and several branches Pamela McKenna was a high society hostess whose dinner parties charmed Asquith at their Lutyens built townhouse in Smith Square Lutyens the unofficial imperial government architect built several homes for McKenna and the political classes as well as his grave 44 Lutyens was commissioned to build 36 Smith Square in 1911 45 followed by Park House in Mells Park Somerset built in 1925 46 The owners of Mells Park were Sir John Horner and his wife Frances nee Graham who was Agnes Jekyll s sister 47 and they agreed to let the park to McKenna for a nominal rent on the understanding that he would rebuild the house 48 Lutyens built a final house for McKenna at Halnaker Park in Halnaker Sussex 49 in 1938 50 Lutyens designed the McKenna family tomb in St Andrew s Church Mells in 1932 51 His nephew Stephen McKenna was a popular novelist who published a biography of his uncle in 1948 Publications Edit 1928 Post War Banking Policy A Series of Addresses London William Heinemann See also EditList of Cambridge University Boat Race crews Liberal Government 1905 15References Edit a b c d Cregier D M McKenna Reginald Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 34744 Subscription or UK public library membership required McKenna 1948 Jenkins 1998 pp 158 206 McKenna Reginald MKN882R A Cambridge Alumni Database University of Cambridge R C Lehmann The Complete Oarsman on 17 November 1900 in conversation with Thomas Wemyss Reid in McKinstry L 2005 Rosebery page 425 Foden Frank 1970 Philip Magnus Victorian Educational Pioneer Vallentine Mitchell p 217 ISBN 0853030448 Carr Wilfred Hartnett Anthony 1996 Secondary Education for All Education and the Struggle for Democracy The Politics of Educational Ideas Buckingham Open University Press pp 96 97 ISBN 0335195210 Reynolds E E Brasher N H 1966 Liberals in Power Britain in the Twentieth Century 1900 1964 Cambridge Cambridge University Press p 32 Hobhouse 1977 pp 75 77 a b Owen 2014 p 127 Owen 2014 p 98 a b Owen 2014 p 121 Owen 2014 pp 115 121 Jenkins 1998 pp 151 158 Tanner Duncan 2002 Ideas and politics 1906 1914 Political Change and the Labour Party 1900 1918 First paperback ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press p 60 ISBN 0521530539 Hobhouse 1977 p 113 Hobhouse 1977 p 116 Hobhouse 1977 p 117 Hobhouse 1977 pp 133 134 Hobhouse 1977 pp 152 153 Hobhouse 1977 pp 159 160 Cabinet Discussions 1 August 1914 Owen 2014 p 205 Hobhouse 1977 pp 179 181 Hobhouse 1977 p 204 Hobhouse 1977 p 226 Hobhouse 1977 pp 238 239 Jenkins 1998 p 197 a b Jenkins 1998 p 199 Varian Brian D 2019 The growth of manufacturing protection in 1920s Britain Scottish Journal of Political Economy 66 5 703 711 doi 10 1111 sjpe 12223 ISSN 1467 9485 S2CID 159346581 Lloyd George David 1938 War Memoirs Volume I London Odhams Press pp 73 4 Horn 2002 p 82 Douglas Roy 2005 Politics in Chaos Liberals A History of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat Parties Hambledon Continuum p 197 ISBN 1852853530 Sykes Alan 2014 Welfare Finance and Freedom The Rise and Fall of British Liberalism 1776 1988 Routledge p 156 ISBN 978 0582060579 McKenna 1948 p 46 Jenkins 1998 pp 102 103 a b Jenkins 1998 pp 203 204 Jenkins 1964 p 495 Skidelsky Robert 15 February 1998 The First 100 Years A policy that crippled The Gold Standard debate robertskidelsky com Retrieved 30 September 2019 Jenkins 1998 pp 205 206 Jenkins 1998 p 389 Haig Diaries p 285 6 Jenkins 1998 pp 192 193 Brown 1996 p 133 Historic England Mells Park 1001150 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 4 November 2014 Brown 1996 pp 108 109 Brown 1996 pp 218 219 Brown 1996 p 226 Historic England Halnaker Park 1026406 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 4 November 2014 Historic England Chest tomb of McKenna family 1345270 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 4 November 2014 Bibliography Edit Brown Jane 1996 Lutyens and the Edwardians London Viking ISBN 0 670 85871 4 Asquith Earl of Oxford and 1926 Fifty Years of Parliament Hobhouse Charles 1977 David Edward ed Inside Asquith s Cabinet From the Diaries of Charles Hobhouse London John Murray ISBN 0719533872 Farr Martin 2007 Reginald McKenna 1863 1916 Financier Among Statesmen London and New York Routledge Horn Martin 2002 Britain France and the Financing of the First World War McGill Queen s Press ISBN 9780773522947 Jenkins Roy 1964 Asquith London Collins Jenkins Roy 1998 The Chancellors London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 73057 7 Lloyd George David 1938 War Memoirs of David Lloyd George London Odhams Press McKenna Stephen 1948 Reginald McKenna 1863 1943 Eyre amp Spottiswoode McKinstry Leo 2005 Rosebery Statesman in Turmoil London a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Owen David 2014 The Hidden Perspective The Military Conversations 1906 1914 ISBN 978 1 908323 67 5 Philpott William 1995 Britain and France go to war Anglo French relations on the Western Front 1914 1919 War in History 2 1 43 64 doi 10 1177 096834459500200103 S2CID 161699834 Spender J A Asquith Cyril 1932 Life of Herbert Henry Asquith Lord Oxford amp Asquith Wilson John 1973 C B A Life of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman London a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Obituary Mr Reginald McKenna Statesman and Banker The Times London 49644 6 7 September 1943 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Reginald McKenna Hansard 1803 2005 contributions in Parliament by Reginald McKenna Buckle George Earle 1922 McKenna Reginald Encyclopaedia Britannica 12th ed The Papers of Reginald McKenna held at Churchill Archives Centre Newspaper clippings about Reginald McKenna in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBWParliament of the United KingdomPreceded byThomas Phillips Price Member of Parliament for North Monmouthshire1895 1918 Constituency abolishedPolitical officesPreceded byVictor Cavendish Financial Secretary to the Treasury1905 1907 Succeeded byWalter RuncimanPreceded byAugustine Birrell President of the Board of Education1907 1908 Succeeded byWalter RuncimanPreceded byThe Lord Tweedmouth First Lord of the Admiralty1908 1911 Succeeded byWinston ChurchillPreceded byWinston Churchill Home Secretary1911 1915 Succeeded bySir John SimonPreceded byDavid Lloyd George Chancellor of the Exchequer1915 1916 Succeeded byBonar LawAwards and achievementsPreceded byBernard M Baruch Cover of Time Magazine3 March 1924 Succeeded byWarren S Stone Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Reginald McKenna amp oldid 1161521379, wikipedia, wiki, 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