He was responsible for such reforms as the introduction of free places in secondary schools[7][8] and the bestowing upon local authorities the powers to deal with the health and physical needs of children,[9] and was promoted to the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty only a year later.

Lloyd George and Churchill had attacked McKenna's position in a plan to persuade the Liberal left of the need for defence cuts.

[11] McKenna had attended the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) on 17 December 1908 and 23 March 1909, during which periods he had fully comprehended the gravity of the naval threat.

McKenna commenced the Dreadnought Arms Race: the fundamental strategic basis was for a vast fleet, large enough to intimidate Germany to decline to fight.

He also made a radical proposal to let prisoners out on short licence (the Cat and Mouse Act), which he sponsored to deal with militant suffragists, a bill unanimously approved by cabinet.On 13 March 1913 he voted against compulsory military training.

[20] At a "council of war" with Lloyd George on 13 June, McKenna was left in no doubt that Asquith had refused the chancellor's resignation over the Marconi scandal.

Dublin was in turmoil, to McKenna and others on the Left (Walter Runciman, Charles Hobhouse, and John Burns) it was as much Edward Carson's fault as James Larkin's.

McKenna blamed Churchill for stirring up the Northcliffe press against the cabinet's plans to boost the army's budget by £800,000 and a proposed increase of £6 million in the Royal Navy's bi-annual estimate.

[21] In the new year McKenna was one of Lloyd George's group to analyse Churchill's plans for Dreadnought construction; they insisted that expenditure must be reduced to that of 1912–13.

They retired the next morning to Smith Square to discuss the Home Rule crisis in Ireland; a dissolution "would be a complete practical triumph for the Tory Party", wrote Hobhouse; their group was expanded to include Beauchamp and Runciman.

Broadly-speaking McKenna, an Asquithian, supported the pledge to go to war to defend Belgium's neutrality, but he did not want to send the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

The smuggling of German arms during the Irish Home Rule Crisis had sparked fears that Britain was infiltrated by a network of spies.

Internal wrangling in Cabinet conversations reached fever pitch: Edwin Montagu, a cousin of Herbert Samuel and ally of Lloyd George suggested that Asquith was jealous of Sir Edward Grey's prowess in the Foreign Office.

In the meantime, McKenna oversaw the issue of the Second War Loan in June 1915, at an interest rate of 4.5%, although his first budget was actually on 21 September 1915 was a serious attempt to deal with an impending debt crisis.

His predecessor David Lloyd George criticised McKenna in his memoirs for increasing the interest rate from 3.5% on the 1914 War Loan at a time when investors had few alternatives and might even have had their capital "conscripted" by the government.

Not only did the change ultimately increase the nation's interest payments by £100 million/year but it meant rates were higher throughout the economy during the post-war depression.

An opponent of Lloyd George,[33] McKenna was critical of the Prime Minister's political approach, telling Conservative politician Arthur Balfour that "you disagree with us, but you can understand our principles.

The Conservatives were almost entirely in favour, but the Liberals were split, with Asquithians largely opposed on libertarian grounds, whilst Lloyd George united with the Tories in what he declared to be a vital national interest.

As Chancellor of Exchequer McKenna objected to the conscription of married men in May 1916 on purely economic grounds, arguing that it would 'deplete' Britain's war industries.

He lost his seat in the 1918 general election and became a non-executive member of the board of the Midland Bank at the invitation of the chairman, Liberal MP Sir Edward Holden.

The new Prime Minister Bonar Law hoped to persuade him to come out of retirement and serve once again at the Exchequer in a Conservative Cabinet, but he refused, and remained in private life.

[37] His refusal was partly because he wanted to promote an alliance between Bonar Law and Asquith, who was still official leader of the Liberal Party.

[38] The following year Bonar Law's successor Stanley Baldwin repeated the request and McKenna was more agreeable, but again declined.

[37] McKenna used his status as chairman of one of the big five British banks to argue that monetary policy could be used to achieve domestic macroeconomic objectives.

However, he wished to enter Parliament in July 1923 as MP for the City of London, and neither of the incumbent MPs would agree to vacate in order to make room.

The lasting impression was one of the pin-striped merchant banker, a model of precision but not a clubbable leader of men; his absence from London society and Brooks's seemed to imply retirement.

[42][incomplete short citation] Reginald McKenna died in London on 6 September 1943, and was buried at St Andrew's Church in Mells, Somerset.

McKenna was a regular client of Sir Edwin Lutyens who designed the Midland Bank headquarters in Poultry, London, and several branches.

Pamela McKenna was a high society hostess whose dinner parties charmed Asquith at their Lutyens-built townhouse, Mulberry House in Smith Square.