How to look for records of... Bonar Law papers

1. Why use this guide?

Use this guide if you are interested in the life of former Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law (1858-1923).

The collection covers his political career and personal life.

2. What are these records?

The papers of Andrew Bonar Law cover his political career from 1900 to 1923, including his brief term as Prime Minister during 1922-1923. Some of the main themes within the collection are tariff reform and Irish home rule. The collection also includes his involvement in the First World War and the post-war period.

In addition to his political career, the collection holds records connected to his family and personal life.

3. How to get a search started

The collection begins with family, personal, and business correspondence from c.1881, before his political career had begun, to his death in 1923.

Most of the collection is catalogued by the different political roles he held throughout his career. These include:

• Member of Parliament (1900-1923)
• Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (1902-1905)
• Secretary of State for the Colonies (1915-1916)
• Chancellor of the Exchequer (1916-1919)
• Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal (1919-1921)
• Leader of the House of Commons (1916-1921 & 1922-1923)
• Leader of the Conservative Party (1911-1921 & 1922-1923)
• Prime Minister (1922-1923)

The last few series in the collection are additional papers provided by Bonar Law’s grandson, Bonar Sykes, many years later.

Some of the collection is catalogued in detail, listing each individual letter in the folder. For letters, the title will include the sender’s name, address (if provided), and date of the letter, as well as a brief summary of the letter’s contents in the description.

However, not all series within the collection have this level of detail. Instead, they are catalogued by folder or bundle with a general description of the contents.

The main types of documents within this collection are letters and political papers, but there are also other records such as speech extracts, press cuttings and photographs. You can search the collection using keywords or browse through the online catalogue from collection level YBL.

Example of hierarchy:

YBL/112: Prime Minister, Special Series, Correspondence ([1922-1923])

The orderable reference is:

Containing:

4. Other sources

Bonar Law’s contributions to debates in Parliament can be found in Hansard.

Bonar Law’s contributions can also be found on the Historic Hansard website.

Other collections of records can be found using the record creator search in Discovery5. Further reading

R J Q Adams, ‘Bonar Law’ (1999)

Robert Blake, ‘The Unknown Prime Minister’ (1955)

A J P Taylor, ‘British Prime Ministers and Other Essays’ (1999), pp. 100-103

Andrew Taylor, ‘Bonar Law’ (2006)

H A Taylor, ‘The Strange Case of Andrew Bonar Law’ (1932)

History of the UK Government – Past Prime Ministers – Andrew Bonar Law

Parliamentary Archives blog – Andrew Bonar Law