Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede

The International Council of the War Resisters' International (WRI), meeting in Broederschapshuis (The Brotherhood House), Bilthoven, Netherlands in July 1938, during the Spanish Civil War. Lord Ponsonby is pictured, standing, far right of the photograph. Click on the image for further details of people in the photograph.

Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 13 March – 25 August 1931
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Clement Attlee
Succeeded by	The Marquess of Lothian

Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede (16 February 1871 – 23 March 1946) was a British politician, writer, and social activist. He was the third son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Private Secretary to Queen Victoria, and the great-grandson of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough. Frederick Edward Grey Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby, was his elder brother.

Lord Ponsonby is possibly best remembered for the statement: "When war is declared, truth is the first casualty", which he made in his book Falsehood in Wartime: Propaganda Lies of the First World War (1928). A similar line previously had been spoken in 1917 by US Republican Senator Hiram Johnson.

Education and early career

He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, and joined the Diplomatic Service, taking assignments in Constantinople and Copenhagen.

Politics

At the 1906 general election he ran unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate, but was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Stirling Burghs at a by-election in 1908.

He was opposed to Britain's involvement in World War I, and joined with George Cadbury, Ramsay MacDonald, E. D. Morel, Arnold Rowntree and Charles Trevelyan, to form the Union of Democratic Control (UDC), which became a very prominent anti-war organisation in Britain.

He was defeated in the 1918 general election, when he stood as an "Independent Democrat" in the new Dunfermline Burghs constituency. He then joined the Labour Party and was elected at the 1922 general election as the MP for the Brightside division of Sheffield.

Ramsay MacDonald appointed him to be Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1924, and Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and later Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport in 1929. He became a Baron in 1930 and served as leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords from 1931 until 1935, resigning in opposition to the party's policy on sanctions against Italy for its invasion of Abyssinia.

In 1927-1928 he ran a significant Peace Letter campaign against increasing preparations for war, and from 1936 he became active in the Peace Pledge Union and contributed regularly to Peace News.

Lord Ponsonby opposed the initiative of Lord Charnwood and Archbishop of Canterbury to ask his Majesty's Government to react on the genocidal Holodomor policies of the Soviet Government.

Resignation

In 1940 Ponsonby resigned from the Labour Party, opposing its decision to join the coalition government of Winston Churchill.

He wrote a biography of his father which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1942: Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria's Private Secretary: His Life and Letters.

Death

Lord Ponsonby died on 23 March 1946. He was succeeded by his son Matthew Ponsonby.

Personal life and family

On 12 April 1893 he married Dorothea Parry, daughter of Hubert Parry and Elizabeth Herbert, daughter of Sidney Herbert. He had one son named Matthew and a daughter, Elizabeth, who, during the 1920s, made a name for herself by being part of the nucleus of the Bright Young People.

See also

• Ponsonby Rule

References

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Falsehood in War-Time: Propaganda Lies of the First World War by Arthur Ponsonby MP
• Review of Falsehood in Wartime
• Two pictures of Ponsonby at The National Portrait Gallery (UK)
• Brief bio at Spartacus Schoolnet
• The Ponsonby Rule Google HTML of a PDF document.
• Arthur Ponsonby's Dream
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Arthur Ponsonby

Court offices
Preceded by Albert Wellesley	Page of Honour 1882–1887	Succeeded by Victor Wellesley
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman	Member of Parliament for Stirling Burghs 1908–1918	Constituency abolished
Preceded by Sir Tudor Walters	Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside 1922–1930	Succeeded by Fred Marshall
Political offices
Preceded by Ronald McNeill	Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1924	Succeeded by Ronald McNeill
Preceded by The Earl of Plymouth	Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs 1929	Succeeded by William Lunn
Preceded by The Earl Russell	Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport 1929–1931	Succeeded by John Allen Parkinson
Preceded by Clement Attlee	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1931	Succeeded by The Marquess of Lothian
Party political offices
Preceded by The Lord Parmoor	Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords 1931–1935	Succeeded by The Lord Snell
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by Fenner Brockway	Chair of War Resisters' International 1934–1937	Succeeded by George Lansbury
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New Creation	Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede 1930-1946	Succeeded by Matthew Henry Hubert Ponsonby