Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough

The Right Honourable The Viscount Brookeborough Bt., KG, CBE, MC, PC, HML
File:Brookeborough1.jpg
3rd Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
In office May 1, 1943 – March 26, 1963
Preceded by	John Miller Andrews
Succeeded by	Terence O'Neill
Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament for Lisnaskea
In office 1929–1968
Preceded by	New constituency
Succeeded by	John Brooke
Personal details
Born	(1888-06-09)June 9, 1888 Brookeborough, Ireland
Died	(1973-08-18)August 18, 1973
Political party	Ulster Unionist Party

Basil Stanlake Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, Bt., KG, CBE, MC, PC, HML (June 9 1888 – August 18 1973) was a British Ulster Unionist politician who became the third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1943 and held office until 1963.

He had previously held several ministerial positions in the Government of Northern Ireland, and has been described as "perhaps the last Unionist leader to command respect, loyalty and affection across the social and political spectrum of the movement". He has also been described as one of the most hardline anti-Catholic leaders of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Early life

Basil Stanlake Brooke was born on June 9 1888 at his family's 300,000-acre (1,200 km²) estate, Colebrooke Park, Brookeborough, County Fermanagh. He was the eldest son of Sir Arthur Douglas Brooke, 4th Baronet, whom he succeeded as 5th Baronet on the latter's death in 1907. He was a nephew of Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during World War II, who was only five years his senior. Brookeborough's sister, Sheelah, married Sir Henry Mulholland; their son would succeed as Baron Dunleath. He was educated for five years at St. George's School in Pau, France and then at Winchester College (1901-05) and Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers in 1908, but transferred to the 10th Hussars in 1911. He was awarded the Military Cross and Croix de Guerre with palm for his service during World War I. In 1920 he left the British Army to farm his large estate at Colebrooke.

Personal life

He married, firstly, Cynthia Mary (1897–1970), second daughter and co-heir of Captain Charles Warden Surgison, of Cuckfield Park, Sussex. They were married on 3 June 1919 at St. George's Chapel, Hanover Square, London. Their families were already close due to Miss Surgison's sister being married to Sir Basil's cousin. Following their marriage the Brookes went to live at Colebrooke. They had three sons, two of whom were killed in action during the Second World War.

Lady Brookeborough died in 1970 and the following year, aged 83, Brookeborough married Sarah Eileen Bell, daughter of Henry Healey, of Belfast, and widow of Cecil Armstrong Calvert FRCS, director of neurosurgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. She died in 1989.

In his private life, he was a man of the simplest and most modest tastes and habits. His greatest recreation was farming, and he won many awards. But he also liked shooting, fishing, and golf.

Children

By his first wife Lord Brookeborough had the following children:

• Lieutenant Basil Julian David Brooke (18 April 1920 - March 1943 - Killed in action)
• John Warden Brooke, 2nd Viscount Brookeborough (9 November 1922 - 5 March 1987)
• Lieutenant Henry Alan Brooke (29 October 1923 - April 1945 - killed in action)

Political career

Brooke had a very long political career. When he resigned the Premiership of Northern Ireland in March, 1963, he was Northern Ireland's longest serving Prime Minister, having held office for two months short of 20 years. He had also established a United Kingdom record by holding government office continuously for 33 years.

In 1921 he was elected to the Senate of Northern Ireland, but he resigned the following year to become Commandant of the Ulster Special Constabulary in their fight against the IRA. He was created CBE in 1921.

In 1929 he was elected to the Northern Ireland House of Commons as Ulster Unionist Party MP for the Lisnaskea division of County Fermanagh. In the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography;

His thin, wiry frame, with the inevitable cigarette in hand, and clipped, Anglicized accent were to be a feature of Stormont for the next forty years.

Cabinet Minister

In 1933 he was appointed Minister of Agriculture. By virtue of this appointment, Brooke was also made a Privy Councillor of Northern Ireland.. In 1941 he became Minister of Commerce.

Brooke addressed an Orange Institution rally on 12 July 1933, where he said:

Many in this audience employ Catholics, but I have not one about my place. Catholics are out to destroy Ulster...If we in Ulster allow Roman Catholics to work on our farms we are traitors to Ulster...I would appeal to loyalists, therefore, wherever possible, to employ good Protestant lads and lassies.

As Prime Minister

In 1943 he succeeded John M. Andrews as Prime Minister.

In 1952 Sir Basil, whilst Prime Minister, was raised to the House of Lords as Viscount Brookeborough, the title taken from the village named after the Brookes. Although a peer he retained his seat in the House of Commons at Stormont and remained PM for another decade.

As Northern Ireland's economy began to de-industrialize in the mid-1950s, leading to high unemployment amongst the Protestant working classes, Brookeborough faced increasing disenchantment from Unionist Party backbenchers for what was perceived to be his indifferent and ineffectual approach to mounting economic problems. As this disenchantment grew, British civil servants and some members of the Unionist Party combined to exert discreet and ultimately effective pressure on Brookeborough to resign to make way for the more 'progressive' Terence O'Neill who served as Finance Minister.

Lord Brookebrough resigned as Prime Minister in 1963 due to illness, he was 75 years old. He remained a member of the Northern Ireland House of Commons until the 1969 general election (when he was 81), becoming the Father of the House in 1965. During his last years in the Commons he publicly opposed the liberal policies of his successor as PM, Terence O'Neill, who actively sought to improve relationships with the Republic of Ireland and attempted to grant the civil rights demanded by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

Brookeborough was noted for his casual style towards his Ministerial duties. His successor as Prime Minister, Terence O'Neill wrote of Brookeborough that "he was good company and a good raconteur, and those who met him imagined that he was relaxing away from his desk. However they did not realize that there was no desk."

Decorations

Having been appointed CBE in 1921, Brooke was, on July 1 1952, raised to the House of Lords as Viscount Brookeborough, of Colebrooke, County Fermanagh. He was appointed a Knight of the Garter in 1965. He held the office of Vice-Admiral of Ulster between 1961 and 1973. He held the office of Lord Lieutenant of County Fermanagh and was Custos Rotulorum of County Fermanagh between 1963 & 1969.

Later life and Death

In his retirement Brookeborough developed commercial interests; as chairman of Carreras (Northern Ireland), a director of Devenish Trade, and president of the Northern Ireland Institute of Directors. He was also made an honorary LLD of Queen's University, Belfast.

In the last three years of his life, years in which the Stormont institution came under its greatest strain and eventually crumbled, Brookeborough made only occasional forays into political life. In 1972 he appeared next to Mr William Craig on the balcony of the Stormont Parliament building, a diminutive figure beside the leader of the Vanguard movement who was rallying right-wing Unionists against the Government. He opposed the Westminster White Paper on the future of Northern Ireland and caused some embarrassment to his son, Captain John Brooke, the Unionist chief whip and an ally of Brian Faulkner by speaking against the Faulkner Government's proposals.

In 1971, following Lady Brookeborough's death in 1970 Lord Brookeborough married Sarah Eileen Bell, he was 83.

Lord Brookeborough died at his home in Colebrooke on August 18 1973. His remains were cremated at Roselawn cemetery, Belfast, three days later, and in deference to his wishes his ashes were scattered on the demesne. In its obituary, The Times remarked that “Brookeborough was a man of courage, conviction and great charm. But his political sense was seriously found wanting by the intransigence with which he excluded the Roman Catholic minority from responsibility and participation.” The obituary continued remarking that Brookeborough was “[a] staunch representative of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and an unyielding believer in the Protestant ascendancy...The sectarian strife now tearing at the fabric of Northern Ireland's society is in part attributable to the immobility imposed in his long period of political leadership.”

Lord Brookeborough’s estate was valued at £406,591.83: probate, 5 December 1975, CGPLA NIre. • £42,793 in England and Wales: probate, 7 November 1973, CGPLA Eng. & Wales. His only surviving son, John Warden Brooke, succeeded to the viscountcy.

See also

• List of Northern Ireland Members of the House of Lords

External links

• "The Peerage".

Further reading

Brian Barton, Brookeborough: the making of a Prime Minister, The Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University, Belfast, 1988.