English author and politician, son of a Nonconformist minister; born near Liverpool on the 19th of January 1850. He was educated at Amersham Hall school and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He went to the bar, and gradually obtained a good practice; in 1893 he became a K.C., and he was professor of law at University College from 1896 to 1899. But it was as a literary critic of unusually clever style and an original vein of wit, that he first became known to the public, with his volume of essays entitled Obiter Dicta (1884). In 1889 he was returned to parliament for West Fifeshire as a Liberal. In the House of Commons his light but pointed humour gradually led to the coining of a new word, “barrelling,” and his literary and oratorical reputation grew apace. Whether he was writing miscellaneous essays or law-books, his characteristic style prevailed, and his books on copyright and on trusts were novelties indeed among legal textbooks, no less sparkling than his literary Obiter Dicta. A second series of the latter appeared in 1887. Res Judicatae in 1892 and various other volumes followed, for he was in request among publishers and editors, and his easy charm of style and acute grasp of interesting detail gave him a front place among contemporary men of letters. Mr. Birrell was first married in 1878, but his wife died next year, and in 1888 he married Mrs. Lionel Tennyson, daughter of the poet Frederick Locker (Locker-Lampson). At the general election of 1900 he preferred to contest the N.E. division of Manchester rather than retain his seat in Fifeshire, but was defeated. He did valuable service, however, to his party by presiding over the Liberal Publication Department, and at the general election of 1906 he was returned for a division of Bristol. He had been included in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s cabinet, and as minister for education he was responsible for the education bill which was the chief government measure in their first session. But the prolonged controversy over the bill, and its withdrawal in the autumn owing to the refusal of the government to accept modifications made by the House of Lords in the denominational interest, made his retention of that office impossible, and he was transferred (Jan. 1907) to the post of chief secretary for Ireland, which he subsequently retained when Mr. Asquith became prime minister in 1908. In the session of 1907 he introduced an Irish Councils bill, a sort of halfway house to Home Rule; but it was unexpectedly repudiated by a Nationalist convention in Dublin and the bill was promptly withdrawn. His prestige as a minister, already injured by these two blows, suffered further during the autumn and winter from the cattle-driving agitation in Ireland, which he at first feebly criticized and finally strongly denounced, but which his refusal to utilize the Crimes Act made him powerless to stop by the processes of the “ordinary law”; and the scandal arising out of the theft of the Dublin crown jewels in the autumn of 1907 was a further blot on the Irish administration. On the other hand his scheme for a reconstituted Irish Roman Catholic university was very favourably received, and its acceptance in 1908 did much to restore his reputation for statesmanship. He continued to be Chief Secretary for Ireland till the Dublin rebellion of Easter 1916, over nine years in all—a tenure of exceptional length of this particular office. The cattle-driving agitation died down, and Irish politics, save for labour troubles, were comparatively quiet, till the two general elections of 1910 had once again made retention of office by the leaders of the Liberal party dependent on the Irish vote. A third Home Rule bill was now inevitable, and Mr. Birrell spent much of the autumn of 1911 in preparation for it, being cheered by the appreciation of him shown by his young Scottish fellow-countrymen in his election to the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow. The main conduct of the bill was, however, taken out of his hands in the sessions of 1912, 1913, and 1914 by Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister; but he frequently wound up the debates, and was largely responsible for the treatment of details in committee. When resistance was organized in Ulster, when volunteers were enlisted and drilled in the province, and a provisional government constituted, he adopted the laisser-faire attitude which had throughout been the mark of his Irish administration; and he applied the same treatment to the Irish volunteers who were raised in reply in the Sinn Fein and Nationalist interest. In all the earlier discussions in Parliament, he made light of the Ulster difficulty, and was frequently betrayed into inappropriate flippancy. Talking of Ulster and religious bigotry, he said that he had his own views of ecclesiastics; he had been in close touch with cardinals and archbishops, and “commended them all to God.” But towards the end of the debates, he adopted a worthier manner, and advocated a national solution, and settlement by consent. In a striking phrase in the debate on the address in 1914, he spoke of a new Ireland, not necessarily Home Rule or Nationalist, but “the renaissance of a nation.” When the World War broke out the controversy about Ulster was stilled as Home Rule was in abeyance, and in the Coalition Government of 1915 Mr. Birrell had Sir Edward Carson as a colleague, and would have had Mr. Redmond also had Mr. Redmond consented to accept Mr. Asquith’s invitation. The danger with which he had to cope now came not from Orangemen or constitutional Nationalists, but from extremists of the Sinn Fein, Irish-American and Irish Labour parties, of whom Casement and Larkin were the apparent leaders. They promoted a strong and largely successful propaganda against enlistment in Ireland, which he entirely failed to extinguish, and which culminated suddenly in open rebellion at Easter 1916. Immediately after the suppression of the rising Mr. Birrell resigned, rather plaintively explaining that he was aware that he had run grave and considerable risks in not tackling Sinn Fein, but that he had subordinated everything in order to maintain unbroken the front of Ireland towards the enemies of the Empire. His retirement from office was followed by retirement from Parliament in 1918. He resumed his literary work, and published in 1920 a life of his father-in-law, the poet Frederick Locker-Lampson. His wife died in 1915. See also “Dr. Johnson,” “The Office of Literature,” “Truth-Hunting,” “Benvenuto Cellini,” “On the Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Browning’s Poetry,” “The Distinction of Burke.”
