Sir Michael Hicks Beach is one of the least well- known chancellors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet he was one of the longest-serving chancellors of the exchequer, fulfilling the role in 1885—1886 and again from 1895 to 1902, a period during which he introduced seven consecutive budgets.
Background
Michael Edward Hicks Beach was born on 23 October 1837, the son of a landowner with 4,000 acres in Gloucestershire and 8,000 acres in Wiltshire. On his father’s death in 1854, he inherited the land and a baronetcy. he was elected for his father’s parliamentary constituency of Gloucester East, which he represented between 1864 and 1885, before representing Bristol West between 1885 and 1906. His income came entirely from agriculture. As a result, he faced financial difficulties during the agricultural depression of the late nineteenth century, which forced him to rent out his Williamstrep Park mansion, near Cirencester in Gloucester, and move to the manor house at Netheravon, on his Wiltshire estate. After the latter property was purchased by the War Office for an extension to the Salisbury Plain training area, Hicks Beach moved to the Coin St. Aldwyn Manor in Gloucester. He was always facing financial difficulties and always acted as his own estate manager, even when he was chancellor of the exchequer. While chancellor he was often helped out by private subventions, mainly raised by W. H. Smith, the newsagent. While out of office between 1892 and 1895, he drew a ministerial pension (such pensions were made available to those whose private income was inadequate to maintain their customary social position).
Education
Hicks Beach was educated at Eton, and in 1854 went to Christ Church, Oxford, where in 1858 he obtained a first-class degree from the school of jurisprudence and modern history.
Career
In 1864, he was elected M.P. for Gloucester East. He gained his first office in the Derby- Disraeli government of 1866 to 1868, as secretary of the Poor Law Board in 1868, before becoming secretary of the Home Office later that year. He served as chief secretary for Ireland between 1874 and 1878, and gained a place in the cabinet in 1876. In 1878 he moved on to become secretary for the colonies, a post in which he supported Disraeli’s aggressive imperialist policies, particularly with respect to the Zulu War in southern Africa in 1878.
Out of office between 1880 and 1885, Hicks Beach used this period to develop his political position within the Conservative Party. He acted as chairman of the National Union (of Conservative Associations), a position he gained because it was felt that he could bring together the Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote sections of the Conservative Party.
The defeat of Gladstone’s bill led to a general election and the return of Salisbury at the head of a Conservative administration that enjoyed a substantial parliamentary majority. Hicks Beach had hoped to be chancellor of the exchequer again but was given the post of chief secretary for Ireland—the same post he had occupied 12 years before. It was a brief appointment, since his liberal attitudes toward Ireland conflicted with the harsher tone of the Salisbury administration. An eye disorder saved him from embarrassment by giving him an excuse to resign in March 1887, upon which he was given the post of minister without portfolio (without a department) in the cabinet; however, he later withdrew entirely from the cabinet. When his eyesight improved again, he returned to government as president of the Board of Trade in February 1888, holding the post in a relatively uneventful period, until 1892.
After three years of Liberal administration, between 1892 and 1895, the fourth Salisbury Conservative administration was formed. Hicks Beach was appointed chancellor of the exchequer.
Hicks Beach decided to resign the chancellorship in the wake of Lord Salisbury’s decision to retire in July 1902. He must have realized that unlike many chancellors before him, he had little chance of becoming prime minister, for at that point he was almost 65 years of age. He was apparently content to remain on the Conservative backbench until the end of 1905, opposing Joseph Chamberlain’s tariff reform campaign of 1903 to 1905. After he was raised to the House of Lords in 1906, Hicks Beach also opposed the Lords’ rejection of Lloyd George’s “people’s budget” of 1909.
During this time, Hicks Beach was engaged also in numerous financial and industrial activities. He was an alderman of the Gloucestershire county council, and he presided over the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline between 1904 and 1906. He died on 30 April 1916, a largely forgotten figure.
Achievements
He made some useful speeches in the House of Commons, and he was responsible for moving a successful amendment to the Finance Bill (in other words, he opposed part of the budget) that brought about the end of the second Gladstone government in June 1885. In the subsequent, Salisbury government, he was made both chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the Commons, holding both posts from 1885 to 1886. It was a short term of office, in which he never introduced a budget—one of only four occasions when a chancellor of the exchequer has not done so. As leader of the House of Commons, he was closely involved in organizing the opposition to Gladstones Home Rule campaign; and following the formation of a Liberal government in 1886, as leader of the opposition, he was involved in opposing Gladstones Home Rule bill (for Ireland), although it is clear that he had some sympathy with Home Rule ideas.
Hicks Beach was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, and held the post from 1895 until 1902, during which period he introduced seven annual budgets. The first four of these budgets occurred during years of good economic conditions; but the last three were in periods of relative economic decline, during the South African/Boer War.
In his early budgets, those for 1895-1896 and 1897-1898, government expenditure increased from £98 million per year to £118 million; but revenues then were so buoyant that he was able nonetheless to reduce the national debt of about £650 million, by about £7.5 million per year. In contrast, his budgets in a period of growing government income were more cautious. From 1898 onward, he faced rising expenditure, mainly caused by the South African Boer War of 1899 to 1902. Government expenditure rose to £144 million in 1898-1899, £193 million in 1899-1900, and £205 million in 1900—1901. He financed three-quarters of the increased expenditure by government loans and the rest by increasing taxation. Nevertheless, he increased income tax three times, raising it from 8d (3.3p) on the pound to Is 3d (6.25p), and raised taxes on tobacco, tea, spirits, beer, sugar imports, and coal exports. In 1902 he revived the shilling (5p) “registration” duty on corn and flour imports, which had been removed thirty years earlier.
Hicks Beach’s budgets of 1900, 1901, and 1902 were considered conservative, although he did almost double the level of income tax. These budgets did not increase taxation substantially, overall. Income tax levels remained low, in com-parison with what was needed in order to enable the government to meet its obligations; and the other taxes that were increased were indirect and were imposed on a narrow range of goods. This gave rise to the comment, “We have a government which dare not tax the poor and will not tax the rich". To make up the difference, Hicks Beach raised substantial loans of £30 million in 1900 and £32 million in 1901.
Connections
In the early 1860s he married Caroline Elwes, but she died in childbirth 18 months later. He married again in 1874, to Lucy, the daughter of Earl Fortescue. The couple later had four children.
Toward the end of his life, he was awarded the titles of first (although he was in fact the ninth holder of the title) Viscount St. Aldwyn (in 1906) and of first Earl of Aldwyn (in 1915). The latter title was granted him by a Liberal wartime administration, in recognition of his personal contribution to securing industrial peace.
