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The Canadian-born British Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law
September 26, 2014 in Columns , Leaders from History Leave a comment
By Arthur Milnes
Since his tragic death in 1923, only months after he became Britain’s prime minister, Andrew Bonar Law (who served only 209 days in the UK’s top political job) has not done well in the historical sweepstakes.  Despite his significance in British politics during the early part of the 20th century, especially considering his service as Tory leader in the run-up to the First World War and beyond, he has, sadly, remained, “The Unknown Prime Minister.”
This sad descriptive is said to have been bequeathed him by Herbert Henry Asquith the very day Bonar Law was interred at Westminster Abbey. Asquith is reputed to have remarked it was very fitting the “Unknown Prime Minister” was buried near the Unknown Soldier in the Abbey. Few biographies have been written, and his name is rarely invoked by either historians or his heirs to leadership in the modern-day British Conservative party.
Since the Brits have done as much as possible to forget him, it high time we Canadians fill the void. Bonar Law, after all, was the only British prime minister to have been born in Canada — and the only one ever born outside the U.K. It also has to be noted that his closest friend in adult life was none other than his fellow Canadian Max Aitken, known in British society, and now, before history, as Lord Beaverbrook.
We should start the campaign to repatriate Bonar Law’s historical reputation back to Canada, where at least we do our best to honour it already. The Presbyterian manse in Rexton, N.B., where the future statesman of Britain and Empire was born on Sept. 16, is already a historic site. (It was called Kingston at the time of Bonar Law’s birth). It is proudly funded by the residents of the tiny village and a few years back the provincial government of New Brunswick provided a generous infusion of funds. (Bonar Law’s father ministered to the congregation there for more than 30 years).
Open from June until mid-September each year, the Bonar Law Historic Site, restored to interpret life on a 19th century working farm in Canada, boasts free admission, offers guided tours in French or English, has a gift shop, and has a place where visitors can picnic.  Thanks to concern for the historical memory of a British prime minister, visitors to the Canadian site will continue in the years ahead to learn about the early years of a British PM. The site is located on Andrew Bonar Law Avenue and features a cairn to honour Bonar Law, which was unveiled in 1925. Though the population of Rexton is only about 1,000 people, the village’s website proudly trumpets the fact that a British prime minister was born there and villagers have taken the time to place a biography of Bonar Law on their homepage. It might not be Trafalgar Square or Chartwell, but it is something.
So, I have to ask my British friends the age-old question: What have you done for Bonar Law lately?
Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has done his part. During his historic address to the British Parliament in 2013, Harper invoked Bonar Law.
“Some will tell you that I am the second Canadian Prime Minister to address the British Parliament,” he said, ““the truth be told, I am the third. It is true that William Lyon Mackenzie King was the only other Prime Minister of Canada to address a gathering such as this. But Andrew Bonar Law often addressed this Parliament, during the 1920s, in his capacity as Prime Minister of Great Britain. And he was also Canadian, born in New Brunswick, just a few leagues removed  from the place where my own ancestors settled after arriving from England in 1774.”
While visiting London a few years ago, I stood in awe at Westminster Abbey, breathing in millennia of British history in that hallowed place. During a special moment on the tour for me as a Canadian, I was able to look down at the simple marker of Bonar Law’s in the Abbey floor. My British tour guide, in a gesture I’ll always be grateful for, had taken the time to find my “fellow” Canadian for me.
Afterwards, I purchased a copy of R.J.Q. Adams’ Bonar Law, a full-length biography of my “Canadian” comrade (published in 1999).
Back at my hotel in Covent Garden, I was shattered after I cracked it open. There I was expecting to read about the 12 years of his early life this British prime minister had lived amongst us as a fellow Canadian who went to bigger things in the mighty Empire my grandparents use to tell me we once belonged to.  It wasn’t to be.  “Andrew Bonar Law is often recalled as Britain’s Canadian Prime Minister,” the Professor wrote. “Technically, this is not the case … in those days, nine years before Canadian federation. New Brunswick was a separate colony.”
I searched for British sources to counter the good Professor’s claim in his (otherwise) excellent book. Back in Canada, and using the Internet, I finally found it, more than a year after that terrible night at the Mountbatten in Covent Garden. It was a staring straight at me the whole time: Number10gov.uk – the official site of the British Prime Minister’s office on the Internet.  “Andrew Bonar Law was the Canadian-born son of a Scottish clergyman,” the site announces. “He worked as a boy on his father’s smallholding. At 12 he went to live with his late mother’s cousins who were rich Glaswegian merchant bankers in Scotland.”
So, if Bonar Law’s Canadian bona fides are good enough for No. 10, they are good enough for me. And they should be good enough for all Britons and Canadians today.  In fact, Downing Street’s generosity has given me a thought. Let’s share him and jointly, starting now, honour Bonar Law together and resolve in the future to do as much as we can to trumpet the joint friendship and historical ties between our two great nations. Bonar Law, I suspect, would like that.
The Unknown Prime Minister no more.
— Kingston’s Arthur Milnes, a veteran journalist, speechwriter and public historian, is the City of Kingston’s Sir John A. Macdonald Bicentennial Ambassador