HENDERSON, ARTHUR (1863-1935), British politician, was born in Glasgow of working-class parents on Sept. 15, 1863; but his work and interests subsequently lay at Newcastle (where he served an apprenticeship as moulder at Robert Stephenson & Co.'s works), and in the county of Durham. He became promi nent in the trade union movement. He was for some years a member of the Newcastle city council and the Darlington borough council. He was mayor in 1903; and was made a magistrate for the county of Durham. He entered parliament for Barnard Cas tle, as a Labour member, at a by-election in 1903, and soon made his mark. In 1908 he was elected chairman of the party, a post which he held for two years and to which he was re-elected after the outbreak of war in 1914, when the then chairman, Ramsay MacDonald, had to resign owing to his pacifist views. As chair man, at the opening of the new session in that autumn, Hender son promised the full support of organized Labour in maintain ing the "splendid unity" of the nation.
When the first Coalition Ministry was formed by H. H. Asquith in 1915, Henderson was included in the cabinet mainly as adviser of the Government on labour questions arising out of the World War, with the office, first of president of the board of education, and afterwards of paymaster general. He showed himself resolved on a strenuous prosecution of the war, strongly advocating both the Munitions Bill and the Registration Bill, and having no hesi tation in taking the further step of compulsory service. He fol lowed up this action by urging the Labour Party to rally in Dec. 1916 to Lloyd George, and by accepting himself the position of an original member of the war cabinet of four without portfolio. In the spring of 1917 he visited Russia, just after the Revolu tion, on behalf of the British Government, and found the then provisional Government at St. Petersburg (Leningrad) strongly in favour of an international labour and socialist conference, which was to meet at Stockholm under the auspices of the International Socialist Bureau. He came to the conclusion that, provided the conference were merely consultative, it would be better that British representatives should go, rather than permit Russian rep resentatives to meet German representatives there alone; and accordingly, on his return to England, being still secretary of the Labour Party as well as a member of the war cabinet, he pro moted the participation of British Labour therein. Two Labour Party conferences endorsed his attitude, but the Sailors and Fire men's Union refused to carry the delegates ; and most other Labour Parties in allied countries did not follow his lead. Mr. Lloyd George and his fellow cabinet ministers indicated publicly their dissent from his policy, in terms which immediately led to his resignation.
Henderson espoused the Labour decision of the latter part of 1918 to take the Labour men out of the government and to appeal for support on a purely Labour platform. This cost him his seat in Parliament at the general election of Dec. 1918. Indeed, ill luck pursued him also at the next two general elections, in 1922 and 1923 ; but in all three cases he returned to the House of Commons a few months later at a by-election. In the parliament of 1923-4 he had the satisfaction of having two sons as fellow members, though they were both defeated in the autumn of 1924. In MacDonald's ministry he was secretary of state for home affairs. He actively endorsed the policy of his party in 1925-6 in severing themselves definitely from the Communists. In the Socialist government of 1929-31 Henderson was secretary of state for foreign affairs; but on the formation of the National Govern ment in 1931 he went into opposition. He was defeated in the general election of that year, but was elected for the Clay Cross division in 1933. He was president of the World Disarmament Conference at Geneva, 1932-33. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1934. He died October 20, 1935.