January 22, 1924: James Ramsay MacDonald becomes the 1st Leader of Britain's Labor Party to become Prime Minister. He ends up only serving for 9 months, but then serves again from 1929 to 1935, as the Labour Party succeeded the Liberal Party as Britain's main left-of-center party.
He was born on October 12, 1866 in Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland, and turned to socialism in 1887, after seeing "Bloody Sunday" in London on November 13. A contemporary report noted that 400 anti-unemployment demonstrators were arrested, and 75 people were badly injured, including many police, two policemen being stabbed and one protester bayonetted.
He began referring to himself as "Ramsay MacDonald" to avoid confusion with Jimmie MacDonald, a prominent London trade unionist of the time. He was first elected to Parliament in 1892, as a member of the Liberal Party. In 1893, he joined the Independent Labour Party, and in 1906, merged it with the Labour Representation Committee, which became the Labour Party. Officially, he was its Leader from 1911 to 1914, and again from 1922 to 1931.
In the election of December 6, 1923, the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, lost 86 seats. MacDonald led Labour to gain 49 seats, while the Liberal Party, under former Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, gained 43 seats. That made the count in the House of Commons as follows: Conservatives (or "Tories") 258, Labour 191, Liberals 158. No party had a majority.
Asquith didn't want the Tories to stay in charge, and joining a coalition with them would have antagonized Labour to the point where national strife might have resulted. He knew that his Party was now doomed to being the 2nd-biggest left-of-center party in the country, so it would be better to work with the bigger one.
At a party meeting on December 18, Asquith convinced former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the other major living Liberal figure, to go along with him. After a series of negotiations, on January 22, 1924, Ramsay MacDonald was able to visit King George V, and tell him, "I can form a government."
But the government didn't last long. Neither Asquith nor Lloyd George could keep the Liberals in line with Labour, and a vote of no confidence in MacDonald passed. In the general election of October 29, the Tories gained 154 seats, and Labour lost 40. The Liberals were devastated, losing 118 seats and dropping to just 40.
From 1931 to 1935, MacDonald headed a National Government dominated by the Conservative Party and supported by only a few Labour members. MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party as a result.
Such gratitude. For half a century, he was demonized by Labour Party as a turncoat who consorted with the enemy and drove the Party to its lowest point. Later, however, scholarly opinion raised his status as an important founder and leader of the Labour Party, and a man who held Britain together during its darkest economic times.
He lost the 1935 general election, and the death a few weeks later of King George V, who had called MacDonald his favorite Prime Minister, devastated him. His physical and mental health collapsed as a result, and he died on November 9, 1937, on a Liverpool-to-Valparaíso, Chile voyage aboard the cruise ship MV Reina del Pacifico, which had been recommended for his health. He was 71 years old.
The original Liberal Party went out of business in 1988. Since then, the 3rd-largest party in Britain has been the Liberal Democratic Party.
Other Prime Ministers from the Labour Party: Clement Attlee, 1945-51; Harold Wilson, 1964-70 and 1974-76; James Callaghan, 1976-79; Tony Blair, 1997-2007; and Gordon Brown, 2007-10. The current Party Leader is Sir Keir Starmer. Despite having been knighted, he still serves in the House of Commons, rather than the House of Lords. Britain's next national election must be held no later than January 28, 2025.
UPDATE: The election came on July 4, 2024, and Starmer led Labour to victory. The Liberal Democrats won 72 seats, their highest total ever, and the highest for a party other than Labour or the Conservatives since 1924.
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January 22, 1924 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And there were no games scheduled in the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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