| Honorific-Prefix: | The Most Honourable |
| The Marquess of Salisbury | |
| Order: | Leader of the House of Lords |
| Term Start: | 27 April 1925 |
| Term End: | 4 June 1929 |
| Primeminister: | Stanley Baldwin |
| Predecessor: | The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston |
| Successor: | The Lord Parmoor |
| Order1: | Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal |
| Term Start1: | 6 November 1924 |
| Term End1: | 4 June 1929 |
| Monarch1: | George V |
| Primeminister1: | Stanley Baldwin |
| Predecessor1: | John Robert Clynes |
| Successor1: | James Henry Thomas |
| Term Start2: | 17 October 1903 |
| Term End2: | 4 December 1905 |
| Monarch2: | Edward VII |
| Primeminister2: | The Marquess of Salisbury (his father) Arthur Balfour |
| Predecessor2: | Arthur Balfour |
| Successor2: | The Marquess of Ripon |
| Order3: | Lord President of the Council |
| Term Start3: | 24 October 1922 |
| Term End3: | 22 January 1924 |
| Monarch3: | George V |
| Primeminister3: | Bonar Law Stanley Baldwin |
| Predecessor3: | Arthur Balfour |
| Successor3: | The Lord Parmoor |
| Order4: | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster |
| Term Start4: | 24 October 1922 |
| Term End4: | 25 May 1923 |
| Monarch4: | George V |
| Primeminister4: | Bonar Law Stanley Baldwin |
| Predecessor4: | Sir William Sutherland |
| Successor4: | J. C. C. Davidson |
| Office8: | President of the Board of Trade |
| Monarch8: | Edward VII |
| Primeminister8: | Arthur Balfour |
| Term Start8: | 12 March 1905 |
| Term End8: | 4 December 1905 |
| Predecessor8: | Gerald Balfour |
| Successor8: | David Lloyd George |
| Office9: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs |
| Monarch9: | Victoria Edward VII |
| Primeminister9: | The Marquess of Salisbury Arthur Balfour |
| Term Start9: | 12 November 1900 |
| Term End9: | 9 October 1903 |
| Predecessor9: | The Earl Midleton |
| Successor9: | The Earl Percy |
| Office11: | Member of Parliament for Rochester |
| Term Start11: | 8 February 1893 |
| Term End11: | 22 August 1903 |
| Predecessor11: | Horatio Davies |
| Successor11: | Charles Tuff |
| Office12: | Member of Parliament for Darwen |
| Term Start12: | 18 December 1885 |
| Term End12: | 26 July 1892 |
| Predecessor12: | Constituency created |
| Successor12: | Sir Charles Huntington |
| Office10: | Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
| Term Start10: | 22 August 1903 |
| Term End10: | 4 April 1947 Hereditary peerage |
| Predecessor10: | The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury |
| Successor10: | The 5th Marquess of Salisbury |
| Birth Date: | 23 October 1861 |
| Birth Place: | London, United Kingdom |
| Death Place: | London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality: | British |
| Party: | Conservative |
| Alma Mater: | University College, Oxford |
| Spouse: | Lady Cicely Gore (1867–1955) |
James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, (23 October 1861 – 4 April 1947), known as Viscount Cranborne from 1868 to 1903, was a British statesman.
Born in London, Salisbury was the eldest son of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, who served as British Prime Minister, by his wife Georgina (née Alderson). The Right Reverend Lord William Cecil, Lord Cecil of Chelwood and Lord Quickswood were his younger brothers, and Prime Minister Arthur Balfour his first cousin.[1] He was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford, graduating BA in 1885.
He started public life early, being of a very young age when he accompanied his father to the 1876–1877 Constantinople Conference and a year later to the Congress of Berlin.
Lord Cranborne sat as Conservative Member of Parliament for Darwen, then called North-East Lancashire, from 1885 to 1892.[2] He lost his seat at the general election of the latter year. He was elected for Rochester at a by-election in 1893, continuing as MP there until 1903,[2] when he succeeded his father and was elevated to the House of Lords.[1]
On 29 October 1892, Lord Cranborne was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 4th (Militia) Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, (formerly the Hertfordshire Militia) of which his father was Honorary Colonel.[3] Cranborne was in command when the battalion saw active service in South Africa from March to November 1900, during the Second Boer War. The battalion, numbering 24 officers and 483 men, left Queenstown on 27 February in the transport Goorkha, with Lord Cranborne as the senior officer in command,[4] arriving in Cape Town the following month. He received the Queen's South Africa Medal and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) for his service during the war. In July 1902 he received the Honorary Freedom of the borough of Hertford in recognition of his service during the war.[5] [6] He was still in command of the battalion on the outbreak of World War I.[3] He was also Colonel of the wartime Hertfordshire Volunteer Regiment and Hon Col of the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, of the Territorial Force.[1] [3] Lord Salisbury was ADC to Edward VII, and George V until 1929.[1]
He served under his father and then his cousin Arthur Balfour as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1900[2] to 1903, under Balfour as Lord Privy Seal from 1903 to 1905, and as Lord President of the Board of Trade in 1905.[7] [8] In 1903 he was sworn of the Privy Council. In December 1908, he was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Hertfordshire. From 1906, following his uncle, he served as Chairman of the Canterbury House of Laymen.[1]
Salisbury played a leading role in opposing David Lloyd George's People's Budget and the Parliament Bill of 1911. He commanded the 61st (2nd South Midland) Division in the UK from September 1915 to December 1916.[9] He continued as a committed and eager member of the Territorial Army: he was Honorary Colonel of 86th (East Anglian) (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, and of 48th (South Midland) Divisional Engineers.[1] [3]
In 1917 he was made a Knight Companion of the Garter. He returned to the government in the 1920s and served under Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1922 to 1923, as Lord President of the Council from 1922 to 1924, as Lord Privy Seal from 1924 to 1929 and as Leader of the House of Lords from 1925 to 1929[2] in successive Conservative governments of Bonar Law and Baldwin.[1] He resigned as leader of the Conservative peers in June 1931[10] and became one of the most prominent opponents of Indian Home Rule in the Lords, supporting the campaign waged in the House of Commons by Winston Churchill against the Home Rule legislation.[11]
Salisbury was part of two parliamentary deputations which called on the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, in the autumn of 1936 to remonstrate with them about the slow pace of British rearmament in the face of the growing threat from Nazi Germany. The delegation was led by Sir Austen Chamberlain, a former Foreign Secretary and its most prominent speakers included Winston Churchill, Leo Amery and Roger Keyes. The Marquess of Salisbury was Lord High Steward at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937.
Lord Salisbury married Lady Cicely Alice Gore (born 15 July 1867, died 5 February 1955), second daughter of Arthur Gore, 5th Earl of Arran, on 17 May 1887 at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.[1] [12] Between 1907 and 1910 she served as a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Alexandra; additionally she was appointed an Officer of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, and as a Justice of the Peace for Hertfordshire.[13]
The couple had four children:[1]
Lord Salisbury died in April 1947, at 85, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Robert. The Marchioness of Salisbury died in February 1955.[1]
He was the grandfather of actor Jonathan Cecil by his youngest son, David.
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