Richard Haldane

Richard Haldane (1856-1928), British philosopher and statesman, who was responsible for reorganizing the British army and improving higher education. Richard Burdon Haldane was born in Edinburgh on July 30, 1856, and educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Göttingen. He was elected a Liberal member of Parliament in 1885 and became secretary of state for war in 1905. As war secretary until 1912, Haldane completely reorganized the British army and established a training program for reserve officers and a scientific research department. After 1909, Haldane also served the British government in several offices as an adviser on education; his recommendations resulted in the establishment of provincial universities and evening college courses, in government subsidies for education, and in other measures designed to make higher education more widely available.

Haldane was created Viscount Haldane of Cloan in 1911 and served as lord chancellor from 1912 to 1915. Because of his known admiration for German philosophy and his earlier attempts to prevent war with Germany, he was excluded from holding high government posts during World War I for political reasons. The war, however, proved the value of his earlier army reforms. In 1924 he was lord chancellor to the first British Labour government. Haldane died at Cloan, Scotland, on August 19, 1928.

As a philosopher, Haldane examined the doctrine of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the light of modern scientific discoveries. Haldane's books include The Reign of Relativity (1921) and The Philosophy of Humanism (1922). His Autobiography was posthumously published in 1929.