Bonar Law: Fundraiser to create memorial for Ulster Scots Prime Minister

A Limavady man has launched a project to raise awareness of the only Ulster Scots man to become prime minister.
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Andrew Bonar Law, the son of a Presbyterian minister of Ulster stock, was born in 1858 in New Brunswick, Canada.

He was prime minister from October 1922 to May 1923, however his leadership was cut short by ill health.

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From the age of 12 was reared by wealthy cousins in Scotland. Leaving school at 16, he eventually became a partner in a Glasgow firm of iron merchants and was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative in 1900.

Ulster Scots man Bonar Law was Prime Minister of GB from 1922 to 1923, when he resigned with ill health.Ulster Scots man Bonar Law was Prime Minister of GB from 1922 to 1923, when he resigned with ill health.
Ulster Scots man Bonar Law was Prime Minister of GB from 1922 to 1923, when he resigned with ill health.

Aaron Callan from Limavady is Chairman of the Andrew Bonar Law Memorial Project.

“He was the only person with direct Ulster heritage to become Prime Minister and the only Ulster Scots Prime Minister,” he said.

“As well as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party he was a founding father of Northern Ireland. Like too many significant people in our history his legacy has declined.

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“As Chairman of the Project I and my colleagues are pledged to increase knowledge and awareness about him and his very positive legacy.”

The project is fundraising to have a bust of Law placed in Coleraine Town Hall.

“The plans and design are well underway and we are making progress.”

The total cost is £18k of which they have raised £11k.

They are currently selling mini busts to help fundraise the rest, along with donations from individuals and businesses.

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The project website says Bonar Law’s father, James Law, emigrated from Coleraine and became a Free Church of Scotland minister in New Brunswick. When Bonar’s mother died, he was sent to live with family in Scotland. When his father eventually retired, he came home to the Antrim coast where Bonar’s brother was a doctor in Portrush. Bonar became a regular visitor, and he installed a window in memory of his parents at Ballywillan Presbyterian Church in Portrush.

“Although his time as Prime Minister was cut short by ill health, Bonar Law is regarded by some as the saviour of the Conservative Party,” the site says. “During the third Home Rule crisis, he stood resolutely with his fellow Ulster-Scots and can be regarded as a founder of Northern Ireland.

“Blessed with an extraordinarily powerful memory, enabling him to make all his Commons speeches without notes from the moment of his arrival at Westminster, he could also quote from memory passages of his opponents’ speeches made years earlier, to their discomfort.”

As Chancellor he introduced war loans and war bonds and was described as “among the greatest achievements in the history of British finance”; his budgets were widely praised, it adds.

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He fought two elections as leader, in 1918 and 1922, and won both.

Encyclopaedia Britannica says that until the outbreak of World War I, he was concerned primarily with tariffs “and with Irish Home Rule, which, as an Ulsterman, he furiously opposed”.

In a new coalition in 1916, Law was leader of the House of Commons, a member of the war cabinet, and chancellor of the Exchequer, in which capacity he “astutely managed war-loan and war-bond programs” it adds.

See: www.andrewbonarlawmemorial.uk or contact [email protected]