This shift was best exemplified by the Liberal government of Herbert Henry Asquith and his Chancellor David Lloyd George, whose Liberal reforms in the early 1900s created a basic welfare state.

Although he presided over a large majority, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was overshadowed by his ministers, most notably Herbert Henry Asquith at the Exchequer, Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Richard Burdon Haldane at the War Office and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade.

He was succeeded by Asquith, who stepped up the government's radicalism.

Lloyd George succeeded Asquith at the Exchequer, and was in turn succeeded at the Board of Trade by Winston Churchill, a recent defector from the Conservatives.

As a result Asquith was forced to introduce a new third Home Rule bill in 1912.

Asquith and his followers moved to the opposition benches in Parliament and the Liberal Party was split once again.

Lloyd George and the Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law wrote a joint letter of support to candidates to indicate they were considered the official Coalition candidates – this " coupon " as it became known was issued against many sitting Liberal MPs, often to devastating effect, though not against Asquith himself.

The Third Home Rule Bill was introduced by British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith in 1912.

As a result, Herbert was offered the crown of Albania, but was dissuaded by the British Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, from accepting.

In his first major speech after he had lost his seat in the 1918 general election, Asquith said: " That is the purpose and the spirit of Liberalism, as I learned it as a student in my young days, as I was taught it both by the precept and the example of the great Liberal statesman Mr Gladstone ... that remains the same today.

The King was displeased at Liberal attacks on the peers, including Lloyd George's Limehouse speech and Churchill's public demand for a general election ( for which Asquith apologised to the King's adviser Lord Knollys and rebuked Churchill at a Cabinet meeting ).

He was so depressed at the tone of class warfare – although Asquith told him that party rancour had been just as bad over the First Home Rule Bill in 1886 – that he introduced the Prince of Wales to War Minister Haldane as " the last King of England ".

At this time the Liberal Party was badly split as Herbert Henry Asquith, Richard Burdon Haldane and others were supporters of the war and formed the Liberal Imperial League.

Although old-age pensions had already been introduced by Asquith as Chancellor, Lloyd George was largely responsible for the introduction of state financial support for the sick and infirm ( known colloquially as " going on the Lloyd George " for decades afterwards ) — legislation often referred to as the Liberal reforms.

The weakness of Asquith as a planner and organiser was increasingly apparent to senior officials.

Asquith was forced out in December 1916, with the war still raging and almost two years from its end, and Lloyd George became Prime Minister, with the nation demanding he take charge of the war in vigorous fashion.

( The independent Liberal parliamentary leadership was briefly taken over by the unknown Donald Maclean until Asquith, who had lost his seat like other leading Liberals, returned to the House at a by-election ).

Before the 1923 election, he resolved his dispute with Asquith, allowing the Liberals to run a united ticket against Stanley Baldwin's policy of tariffs ( although there was speculation that Baldwin had adopted such a policy in order to forestall Lloyd George from doing so ).

) The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, was sympathetic to Kitchener but was unwilling to overrule Morley, who threatened resignation, so Kitchener was finally turned down for the post of Viceroy of India in 1911.

At the outset of World War I, the Prime Minister, Asquith, quickly had Lord Kitchener appointed Secretary of State for War ; Asquith had been filling the job himself as a stopgap following the resignation of Colonel Seeley over the Curragh Incident earlier in 1914, and Kitchener was by chance briefly in Britain on leave when war was declared.

Asquith responded with two notes, the first countering the Unionist claim that it would be acceptable for the King to dismiss Parliament or withhold assent of the Bill to force an election, and the second arguing that a Home Rule election would not prove anything, since a Unionist victory would only be due to other problems and scandals and would not assure supporters of the current government that Home Rule was truly opposed.

This was opposed by Kitchener, who disliked Wilson, ( the War Secretary was one of the few senior British players apart from Wilson who could speak fluent French ) and Prime Minister Asquith, who felt he was too Francophile and too fond of " mischief " ( political intrigue ).

As Chancellor of the Exchequer in Asquith's coalition government, he opposed the introduction of conscription, and retired into opposition upon the fall of Asquith at the end of 1916.

He opposed the routine evasiveness of the Prime Minister, Asquith ( a close friend ), by speaking in the House four times on Mesopotamia, and his critics saw in his obstinacy a personal vendetta against Sir Beauchamp Duff, the Commander-in-Chief in India, and Sir William Meyer, the Financial Secretary., but his persistence paid off, and a Special Commission Mesopotamia was subsequently appointed.

* 1915 – The last British Liberal Party government ( led by Herbert Henry Asquith ) falls.

* Underground ( 1928 film ), a drama by Anthony Asquith

Aside from multiple " made-for-television " versions, The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted for the English-language cinema at least three times, first in 1952 by Anthony Asquith who adapted the screenplay and directed it.

During the Great War the Liberal Party split into those led by former Premier Herbert Henry Asquith and the new Premier David Lloyd George.

In the last year of his life, Edward became embroiled in a constitutional crisis when the Conservative majority in the House of Lords refused to pass the " People's Budget " proposed by the Liberal government of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.

* Portraits of Elizabeth Asquith by John and others

French felt ( wrongly ) that the war would be over by the summer before the New Army divisions were deployed, as Germany had recently redeployed some divisions to the east, and took the step of appealing to the Prime Minister, Asquith, over Kitchener ’ s head, but Asquith refused to overrule Kitchener.

) That failure, combined with the Shell Crisis of 1915 – amidst press publicity engineered by Sir John French – dealt Kitchener's political reputation a heavy blow ; Kitchener was popular with the public, so Asquith retained him in office in the new coalition government, but responsibility for munitions was moved to a new ministry headed by David Lloyd George.

Asquith as caricatured by Leslie Ward | Spy, in Vanity Fair ( British magazine ) | Vanity Fair, 1891

Others stress his continued high administrative ability, and argue that many of the major reforms popularly associated with Lloyd George as " the man who won the war " as actually having been implemented by Asquith.

The Asquith government became involved in an expensive naval arms race with the German Empire and began an extensive social welfare programme ( See Liberal reforms ), spearheaded by David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and-at this stage-Winston Churchill who at the Board of Trade had passed measures against sweatshop conditions.

Asquith was a hate figure amongst the suffragettes, the windows of 10 Downing Street had been smashed in 1908 and in 1912 in Dublin his carriage was attacked by Mary Leigh.

By autumn 1915, with Asquith ’ s Coalition close to breaking up over conscription, he was blamed for the failure to bring in that measure and for the excessive influence which civilians like Churchill and Haldane had come to exert over strategy, allowing ad hoc campaigns to develop in Sinai, Mesopotamia and Salonika.

By autumn 1915 Asquith ’ s Coalition was close to breaking up over conscription, and in the absence of firm leadership ad hoc campaigns had developed in Sinai, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and Salonika.

'" Andrew Bonar Law and the fall of the Asquith Coalition: The December 1916 cabinet crisis ," Journal of History ( 1997 ) 32 # 2 pp 185-200 ; sees Bonar Law as the key player

His father was chosen as chairman of the rump of the 23 independent MPs who backed Herbert Asquith in the Liberal Party in the House of Commons whilst the bulk of the Liberal MPs had followed David Lloyd George into the Coalition Liberal party in the November 1918 election.

The all-party coalitions of Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George in the First World War and of Winston Churchill in the Second World War were sometimes referred to as National Governments at the time, but are now more commonly called Coalition Governments.

Unlike his fellow Northampton MP Charles McCurdy, Lees-Smith allied with H. H. Asquith rather than David Lloyd George in the Liberal split during the First World War, and as a consequence was not offered support by the Coalition in the 1918 general election.