1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Carson, Edward Henry Carson, Baron

CARSON, EDWARD HENRY CARSON, Baron (1854-⁠),British statesman and lawyer, son of Edward Henry Carson,C.E., Dublin, was born Feb. 9 1854 and educated at Portarlingtonschool and afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin. He wascalled to the Irish bar, and made his reputation as Crown Prosecutorin Dublin in the difficult years when Mr. Balfour wasChief Secretary for Ireland. His pluck, readiness, wit, and skillin cross-examination soon brought him to the front both in legaland in political circles. He became a Q.C. at the Irish bar in1889; but his ambitions could not be satisfied with legal eminencein Dublin. He was called to the English bar, and took silk therein 1894. Meanwhile he had been returned to Parliament in 1892in the Unionist interest as member for his own university ofDublin and was for a few months Solicitor-General for Ireland.He entered Parliament just when Gladstone was about to makea second effort to pass a Home Rule bill, and he helped the Unionistleaders to defeat the measure. But during the next 20 years hewas mainly occupied with his professional work. Having risento a leading place at the bar in Ireland, he achieved an even morestriking success at the English bar; and in 1900 he was appointedSolicitor-General, a post which he held until the change of governmentin 1905-6. In the early years of the new century hegradually came to be regarded as the spokesman in the House ofCommons of the Irish Unionists, and in that capacity welcomedMr. Birrel's University bill of 1908.

It was not until 1911, when another Home Rule bill wasimminent, that Sir Edward Carson emerged as a political figure offirst-class importance. He bitterly resisted the Parliament bill,which was to curtail the power of the Lords and enable a measureof Home Rule to be passed over their heads and without a directappeal to the people. He was one of the “Die-hards” who urgedthe peers to take the responsibility of throwing out the bill inspite of the ministerial threat to swamp their House with sufficientnew creations to make its passage secure. He told the House ofCommons that the passing of Home Rule by force would beresisted by force and that the resisters would be constitutionallyright. Feeling against the bill was most bitter in Ulster, which,Protestant and loyal, would be placed by it at the mercy of theRoman Catholic and largely disloyal majority of the other threeprovinces. He went to Ulster in the autumn, and at an enormousUnionist demonstration at Graigavon, near Belfast, endorsed thethreats of rebellion against Home Rule which previous speakersmade. Belfast, he said, was the key of the situation; Ulster wouldnever submit to a Parliament in Dublin. They must be prepared,if necessary, to take over the administration of those districtswhich they were entitled to control. Practical measures wereimmediately undertaken in this direction, though Liberals andNationalists scoffed. His position was that he and his Ulsterfriends were loyal to the constitution as it existed; they wereonly rebels, he said, in the sense that they desired to remain underthe King and the imperial Parliament. In anticipation of theintroduction of the Home Rule bill in the spring of 1912, hepresided over a gigantic gathering in Belfast in Easter week,which Mr. Bonar Law, the newly appointed Unionist leader,came to address; and he made those present repeat after him,“We will never, in any circumstances, submit to Home Rule.”He himself, in a speech instinct with passion, moved the rejectionof the bill on its introduction, and took a leading part in oppositionduring its subsequent stages. But his activity was mainlyoutside. He made frequent speeches in the next couple of yearsin different parts of England and Scotland, particularly at agreat demonstration at Blenheim in July 1912, at which Mr.Bonar Law pledged the support of the Unionist party to Ulster.But his principal work was in the organization of resistance inUlster itself, including the formation of a local volunteer force,which speedily assumed large proportions. In Sept. 1912 he wasthe chief figure at a series of demonstrations in all parts of theprovince, culminating in an enormous assemblage at Belfast onSept. 28. There he took the lead in signing a solemn covenantby which the men of Ulster bound themselves to stand by oneanother in defending their position of equal citizenship in theUnited Kingdom, and in using all necessary means to defeat theconspiracy to set up Home Rule, and further pledged themselvesto refuse to recognize a Home Rule parliament. He followedthis up by moving unsuccessfully in Parliament on New Year'sday 1913, to exclude Ulster from the operation of the bill. Inthe autumn of 1913 the Ulster Unionist Council organized itself,under his supervision, into a provisional Government, of whichhe was the leading member, and a guarantee fund of £1,000,000was initiated to which he himself contributed £10,000. Hereviewed the volunteers, who were rapidly becoming a formidablemilitary force approaching in number 100,000 men. Butwhen ministers, who had refused to prosecute him or interferewith his activities, began to realize the determination of the sixnorth-eastern Protestant counties, he did not repulse theirovertures for a settlement by consent, but said that it must notestablish a basis for separation. His advice during the followingwinter to his Ulster friends was “peace but preparation.”He entirely declined to accept Mr. Asquith's offer, in the springof 1914, of a county option of exclusion for six years. That was“sentence of death with a stay of execution.” If that was thePrime Minister's last word, his place was in Belfast; and he andseveral of his fellow Unionist members from north-east Irelandmade a dramatic exit from the House on March 19 to go toUlster. When he returned for the debates on the Curraghincident he told the House that there was only one policypossible, “Leave Ulster out until you have won her consent to comein.” He became a member of the abortive Buckingham PalaceConference convened by the King in the hope of compromise;and when that broke down in the end of July it looked as if heand his Ulster friends would have to make good in action theirpolicy of force.

The World War supervened, and switched off his activityinto another direction. Though he resented, as a breach of thepolitical truce between parties, Mr. Asquith's determination topass the Home Rule bill into law while suspending its operationand promising some form of special treatment for Ulster, hewent to Belfast in order to stimulate Ulstermen and especiallyUlster volunteers to join the British army, and had a considerablesuccess. He was eager for a thorough prosecution of the war,and accordingly joined Mr. Asquith's Coalition Ministry of June1915 as Attorney-General, resigning however in Oct. because hethought that the policy of the Cabinet, after the defection ofGreece, involved the desertion of Serbia, a small country in whosefate he took a profound interest. He was strongly in favour of theCompulsory Service bill in 1916, and regretted that Mr.Redmond should insist on excepting Ireland from its provisions. Helooked favourably upok Mr. Lloyd George's efforts that summerto arrange an agreed settlement of the Irish question, and whenthat statesman formed a new government in Dec. for the moreefficient conduct of the war, joined his Cabinet as First Lordof the Admiralty. The great anxiety of the Board of Admiraltyat this period was how to counter the German submarine attackwhich was steadily increasing in intensity. He placed his reliancemainly on an Anti-Submarine Department which had beenestablished in Whitehall, consisting of the most experienced menserving at sea, and on the Board of Inventions, under LordFisher, with whom were associated some of the greatest men ofscience in the country. His shipbuilding programme was largelyone for making good losses in the mercantile marine. The losseshowever continued to increase, and led to a reorganization of theAdmiralty, with a view to strengthening the navy war staffas well as to put the supply on a sounder basis by revising theoffice of Admiralty Controller. Outside his departmental dutiesSir E. Carson warmly promoted the Irish Convention which theGovernment assembled this year. In July he quitted theAdmiralty to become a member of the War Cabinet withoutportfolio, a position which he resigned at the beginning of 1918. But,in or out of the office, his activity was directed wholeheartedlyto the vigorous prosecution of hostilities.

After the war was over, Ulster and Ireland regained the firstplace in his thoughts. At the general election of 1918 he leftDublin University, in order to represent one of the divisions ofUlster's capital, Belfast. On the anniversary in July 1919 of thebattle of the Boyne, he restated, speaking near Belfast, Ulster'sposition and claims, demanded the repeal of the Home RuleAct, threatened to call out the volunteers if any attempt weremade to change Ulster's status, declared Dominion Home Ruleto be merely a blind for an Irish Republic, and criticized SirHorace Plunkett as one who was distrusted by both sides. When,however, Mr. Lloyd George proposed in the winter his bill forthe reform of the government of Ireland, establishing parliamentsand executives both in Dublin and in Belfast, and a FederalCouncil for all Ireland, he moderated his attitude. Though hewould have preferred that Ulster should remain in the UnitedKingdom, yet, as this bill gave her a parliament of her own, hewould not oppose it. When the bill left the Commons in Nov.1920, he said that, though Ulster did not ask for a parliament,she would do her best to make the arrangement a success. Heexerted himself to that end in Ireland, with the result that theUnionists succeeded even beyond their hopes in the electionsin May 1921 for the first Ulster Parliament, and so started withan overwhelming majority. But he declined to sit in the newparliament himself; and he also resisted the suggestions that he,as the most outstanding fighter in the Unionist party, should beput forward to succeed Mr. Bonar Law as leader in the BritishHouse of Commons. He had done his best to save ProtestantUlster from domination by the Roman Catholic majorityof the south and west. He was 67 and had felt the strain of thelast 10 years; so he quitted active politics, and accepted a lordshipof Appeal and a life peerage as Baron Carson of Duncairn.

He was twice married — in 1879 to Sarah A. F. Kirwan, whodied in 1913, leaving two sons and a daughter; and in 1914 toRuby Frewen, by whom he had one son. (G. E. B.)