Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long

Walter Hume Long, 1st Viscount Long (13 July 1854 - 26 September 1924 was a British Unionist politician.

Coming on his father's side from an old family of Wiltshire gentry, and on his mother's side from Anglo-Irish gentry in County Wicklow, Long was educated at Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford. Upon his father's death in 1875, he took over management of the family properties. In 1880, Long was elected to parliament as a Conservative, serving in the Commons with a few breaks until he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Long in 1921.

Long entered government for the first time in the second Salisbury administration as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, serving under Charles Thomson Ritchie, and became one of the architects of the Local Government Act 1888, which established elected county councils. After the Conservative defeat in 1892, Ritchie's defeat made Long the chief opposition spokesman on local government, and when the Tories returned to power in 1895, he entered the cabinet as President of the Board of Agriculture. In this role he was notable for his efforts to prevent the spread of rabies.

With the ministerial shuffle in 1900, Long became President of the Local Government Board. In this role, Long was criticized as too radical for his support of the Unemployed Workmen's Act 1905, which created an unemployment board to give work and training to the unemployed.

Long was best known, however, for his involvement with Irish Unionism. In March 1905, Long became Chief Secretary for Ireland. Due to his Irish connections (both his wife and his mother were Irish ), it was hoped that Long might be more acceptable to Irish Unionists than his predecessor, George Wyndham, who had become increasingly unpopular.

Following the Unionist fall from power in December 1905, Long became one of the leading opposition voices against the Liberals' plans for home rule in Ireland, helping to found the Ulster Defence League in 1907, although he never openly supported the most militant Unionists, who were prepared to fight the British army to prevent home rule for Ireland. At the same time, Long was one of the more free trade oriented Unionists, and opposed last ditch resistance to the Parliament Act 1911.

When Balfour resigned as party leader in November 1911, Long was the leading candidate to succeed him. However, he was opposed by Austen Chamberlain, who was supported by the protectionists and Liberal Unionists. A divisive contest was avoided by the withdrawal of both candidates in favor of Andrew Bonar Law, a relatively unknown figure.

With the formation of the wartime coalition government in May 1915, Long returned to office at the Local Government Board, and there dealt with the plight of thousands of Belgian refugees. With the fall of Asquith and the accession of the Lloyd George government in December 1916, Long was promoted to the Colonial Office, serving until January 1919, when he became First Lord of the Admiralty, a position in which he served until his retirement in 1921.

However, from October 1919 on, he was, once again, largely concerned with Irish affairs, serving as the chair of the cabinet committee on Ireland. In this capacity, he was largely responsible for the Government of Ireland Act, which created separate home rule governments for Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland. Although in southern and western Ireland, this was soon superseded by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which gave the new Irish Free State a much greater share of independence, the measure survived as the basis for the government of Northern Ireland until 1972.

Long retired in 1921 and was created Viscount Long, dying at his home in Wiltshire three years later.

Preceded by: Herbert Gardner	President of the Board of Agriculture 1895-1900	Followed by: Robert Hanbury
Preceded by: Henry Chaplin	President of the Local Government Board 1900-1905	Followed by: Gerald William Balfour
Preceded by: George Wyndham	Chief Secretary for Ireland 1905	Followed by: James Bryce
Preceded by: Herbert Samuel	President of the Local Government Board 1915-1916	Followed by: William Hayes Fisher
Preceded by: Andrew Bonar Law	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1916-1919	Followed by: The Viscount Milner
Preceded by: Sir Eric Geddes	First Lord of the Admiralty 1919-1921	Followed by: The Lord Lee of Fareham