Andrew Bonar Law
Robert Pearce argues that we should get better acquainted with the 'unknown prime minister'.
At the funeral of Andrew Bonar Law, in Westminster Abbey on 5 November 1923, Herbert Asquith stated, with a certain satisfaction, that 'the unknown Prime Minister' was being buried by the side of the Unknown Soldier. The phrase has served as epitaph to the man who was prime minister for only 211 days, the shortest tenure in the twentieth century. Yet this dismissive remark should not lead us to underestimate the political importance of Bonar Law or to misunderstand the man.
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