He remains the only person to date to hold the positions of Prime Minister and Father of the House at the same time, and the last Liberal leader to gain a UK parliamentary majority.

Known colloquially as "CB", Campbell-Bannerman firmly believed in free trade, Irish Home Rule and the improvement of social conditions, including reduced working hours.

[2] The government he subsequently led passed legislation to ensure trade unions could not be liable for damages incurred during strike action, introduced free school meals for all children, and empowered local authorities to purchase agricultural land from private landlords.

[13] Campbell-Bannerman spoke French, German and Italian fluently, and every summer he and his wife spent a couple of months in Europe, usually in France and at the spa town of Marienbad in Bohemia.

This earned Campbell-Bannerman a knighthood in the form of a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in Rosebery's 1895 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours.

[22] After the 1895 general election, Campbell-Bannerman lobbied strongly to succeed Arthur Peel as Speaker of the House of Commons, in part because he sought a less stressful role in public life.

Rosebery, backed by the Liberal Leader in the Commons, Sir William Harcourt, refused since Campbell-Bannerman was viewed as indispensable to the Government's front-bench team in the lower House.

Campbell-Bannerman caused particular friction within his own party when in a speech to the National Reform Union in June 1901 and shortly after meeting Emily Hobhouse, he described the concentration camps set up by the British in the Boer War as "methods of barbarism".

[27]However, it was Joseph Chamberlain's proposals for Tariff Reform in May 1903 that provided the Liberals with a great and nationally resonating cause on which to campaign and unify, due to its protectionist nature.

At 69, he was the oldest person to become prime minister for the first time in the 20th century,[33] though Balfour had hoped that Campbell-Bannerman would not be able to form a strong government, ushering in a general election that he could win.

[34]Helped by the Lib–Lab pact that he had negotiated, the splits in the Conservatives over free trade and the positive election campaign that he fought, the Liberals won by a landslide, gaining 216 seats.

In his election address, Campbell-Bannerman spoke in favour of reforming the poor law, reducing unemployment and improving working conditions in sweated factories.

The Liberal Imperialist Richard Haldane claimed that Campbell-Bannerman's government "was if anything, too conservative...with that dear old Tory, C.B., at the head of it, determined to do as little as a fiery majority will allow him".

A. Morris disagreed with this judgment, stating that Campbell-Bannerman was in 1906 what he had always been: a Gladstonian Liberal who favoured retrenchment in public expenditure that was perhaps at odds with any ambitious scheme of social reform.

[44] In March 1907, he published "The Hague Conference and the Limitation of Armaments", an article in which he cited the growing popular and moral authority of the peace movement as reasons to freeze the status quo in the naval arms race between Germany and Britain.

His effort was generally considered a failure; in the words of historian Barbara Tuchman, "the argument was narrow steering between the rocks of conscience and the shoals of political reality and it pleased nobody.

"[45] The 1907 conference ultimately restricted only a few new classes of armaments, such as submarine mines and projectiles fired or dropped from hot air balloons, but placed no limitations on naval expenditures.

That...Grey and Haldane did not inform the Cabinet is astonishing; that a true-hearted apostle of peace like Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman should have known of the danger and yet concealed it from his colleagues is incredible, and I am happy to conclude...with an assurance that in the days of his triumph the Liberal leader, having fought a good fight, kept the faith to the end and was in no way responsible for the European tragedy that came to pass six years after his death".

[53] Campbell-Bannerman's government granted the Boer states, the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, self-government within the British Empire through an Order in Council so as to bypass the House of Lords.

[55] The former Boer general, Jan Smuts, wrote to David Lloyd George in 1919: "My experience in South Africa has made me a firm believer in political magnanimity, and your and Campbell-Bannerman's great record still remains not only the noblest but also the most successful page in recent British statesmanship".

[56] However the Unionist politician Lord Milner opposed it, saying in August 1907: "People here – not only Liberals – seem delighted, and to think themselves wonderfully fine fellows for having given South Africa back to the Boers.

Campbell-Bannerman remained both a Member of Parliament and Leader of the Liberal Party, and continued to live at 10 Downing Street in the immediate aftermath of his resignation, intending to make other arrangements in the near future.

St Mary's Church, Hunton (English Heritage Legacy ID: 432265) contains a marble tablet on the nave wall dedicated to Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

[64] On the day of Campbell-Bannerman's death the flag of the National Liberal Club was lowered to half-mast, the blinds were drawn and his portrait was draped in black as a sign of mourning.

[65] John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalist Party, paid tribute to Campbell-Bannerman by saying that "We all feel that Ireland has lost a brave and considerate friend".

...he was singularly sensitive to human suffering and wrongdoing, delicate and even tender in his sympathies, always disposed to despise victories won in any sphere by mere brute force, an almost passionate lover of peace.

And yet we have not seen in our time a man of greater courage—courage not of the defiant or aggressive type, but calm, patient, persistent, indomitable...In politics I think he may be fairly described as an idealist in aim, and an optimist by temperament.

He met both good and evil fortune with the same unclouded brow, the same unruffled temper, the same unshakable confidence in the justice and righteousness of his cause...He has gone to his rest, and to-day in this House, of which he was the senior and the most honoured Member, we may call a truce in the strife of parties, while we remember together our common loss, and pay our united homage to a gracious and cherished memory—How happy is he born and taughtThat serveth not another's will;Whose armour is his honest thought,And simple truth his utmost skill;This man is freed from servile bandsOf hope to rise or fear to fall;Lord of himself, though not of lands,And, having nothing, yet hath all.

According to one study, Campbell-Bannerman's views "were broadly those of the party's centre-left: a belief in individual freedom, a desire to help the disadvantaged, an aversion to imperialism and support for Irish self-government.

"[75] During his time as prime minister, Campbell-Bannerman supported such measures as safeguards for trade unions,[76] old-age pensions,[77] and urban planning to improve housing.