The English statesman Herbert Henry Asquith, Ist Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852-1928), was prime minister of Great Britain from 1908 to 1916. His government sponsored significant social legislation, restricted the power of the House of Lords, and led Britain into World War I.

Herbert Asquith was born in Morley (near Leeds), Yorkshire, on Sept. 12, 1852, the son of a small employer in wool spinning and weaving. The death of his father when Herbert was 8 years old brought the family under the care of his mother's father, a wool stapler in Huddersfield. There Herbert and his brother, William Willans, went to day school; later they attended a Moravian boarding school in Fulneck. At the age of 11 Herbert was sent to London with his brother to live with relatives and to attend the City of London School, then under a celebrated headmaster, Dr. Edwin Abbott. Young Asquith distinguished himself as a classical...