Balfour, Arthur James, 1848-1930

Arthur James Balfour was born on July 25, 1848, in Whittingehame, East Lothian, Scotland.

He was a British politician and philosopher. He was educated at Eaton College (1861–1866) and Trinity College, Cambridge (1866–1869). His political career started in 1874 when he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Hertford and later for Manchester East (1885-1906). In 1878, he became private secretary to his uncle Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister of the UK. After several political positions in Scotland and Ireland, Balfour, a great parliamentary debater, became a Leader of the House of Commons and First Lord of the Treasury in 1891. He served as Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905 and as Foreign Secretary from 1916 to 1919. He is perhaps best remembered for his World War I statement (the Balfour Declaration) expressing official British approval of Zionism. Balfour received the Order of Merit in 1916 and a Garter knighthood, followed by an earldom, in 1922. He was Chancellor of both Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, a Fellow of the Royal Society, president of the British Academy, the British Association and the Aristotelian Society, and co-founder of the Scots Philosophical Club. In 1924, he was appointed Hon. President of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalists’ Society. He was the author of “A Defence of Philosophic Doubt” (1879).

He died unmarried on March 19, 1930, in Woking, Surrey, England.