Arthur Henderson

Arthur Henderson (1863-1935), British politician and trade unionist, an important figure among the organizers of the Labour Party, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934 for his work on international disarmament. Henderson helped to transform the Labour Party from a pressure group into a governing party.

Henderson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the younger son of a cotton spinner. He left school at the age of 12 and became an engineering apprentice. His interest in politics developed through his involvement in trade union activities, and he rose through the local and regional trade union movement. He attended the 1899 meeting in London that led to the formation of the Labour Representation Committee, which was later renamed the Labour Party. In 1903 he became treasurer of the committee, whose goal was to support the election of candidates sympathetic to labor. That same year Henderson was also elected to Parliament as a member for Durham.

Henderson worked closely with other leading Labour politicians, including James Ramsay MacDonald, who later became Britain’s first Labour prime minister. Henderson served as party chairman from 1908 to 1910, and in 1911 succeeded MacDonald as party secretary, a post he held until shortly before his death.

At the start of World War I in August 1914, the Labour Party split over supporting the war, and MacDonald resigned as party leader. Henderson succeeded him and took Labour into the 1915 coalition government, serving as the first Cabinet minister from the Labour Party. Henderson later served in the war Cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. In 1917 Henderson visited Russia after the first Russian Revolution. To keep Russia in the war, he agreed to British attendance at an international conference of socialists in Stockholm. This caused a breach with Lloyd George, and Henderson resigned from the Cabinet.

As party secretary, Henderson then built Labour into a broad-based party with a new, socialist constitution. His success led to the formation of the first Labour government in 1924, with MacDonald as prime minister and Henderson as home secretary. In a later Labour government he served as foreign secretary (1929-1931), taking an active role in European affairs and forging close links with several leading European statesmen. A believer in international cooperation, he brought Labour to support the ideas of the League of Nations. He also extended full recognition to the government of the Soviet Union.

Henderson again served as Labour Party leader from 1931 to 1932. He then worked for the League of Nations on issues of peace and arms control. He headed the World Disarmament Conference from 1932 to 1934, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of his contribution to peace during the turbulent postwar years.