Brian Faulkner
Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament for East Down | |
|---|---|
| In office 19 February 1949 – 30 March 1972 | |
| Preceded by | Alexander Gordon |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Arthur Brian Deane Faulkner 18 February 1921 Helen's Bay, Ireland |
| Died | 3 March 1977 (aged 56) Saintfield, Northern Ireland |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | UUP (until 1974) UPNI (1974–1977) |
| Spouse | Lucy Forsythe |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | St Columba's College |
| Alma mater | Queen's University Belfast (dropped out) |
Arthur Brian Deane Faulkner, Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick,
Faulkner was also the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1971 to 1974.
Early life
Faulkner was born in
Faulkner entered the
Early political career
Faulkner became involved in
In 1956 Faulkner was offered and accepted the job of Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, or Government Chief Whip.
Ministerial office
In 1959, he became Minister of Home Affairs and his handling of security for most of the
When Terence O'Neill became Prime Minister in 1963 he appointed Faulkner, his chief rival for the job, as Minister of Commerce. Faulkner resigned in 1969 over the technicalities of how and when to bring in the local government reforms which the British Labour government was pushing for. This was a factor in the resignation of Terence O'Neill,[citation needed] who resigned as Prime Minister in the aftermath of his failure to achieve a good enough result in the 1969 Northern Ireland general election.
In the ensuing leadership contest, Faulkner lost out again when O'Neill gave his casting vote to his cousin, James Chichester-Clark. In 1970, Faulkner became the Father of the House.
Faulkner came back into government as Minister of Development under Chichester-Clark and in a sharp turn-around, began the implementation of the political reforms that were the main cause of his resignation from O'Neill's cabinet.
Chichester-Clark himself resigned in 1971; the political and security situation and the more intensive British interest proving difficult.
Prime Minister
Promising beginnings
In March 1971 Faulkner was elected leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and thus became Prime Minister. In his initial innovative approach to government, he gave a non-unionist, David Bleakley, a former Northern Ireland Labour Party MP, a position in his cabinet as Minister for Community Relations. In June 1971, he proposed three new powerful committees at Stormont which would give the opposition salaried chairmanships of two of them.
Initial troubles
However, this initiative (radical at the time) was soon overtaken by events. The shooting of two Catholic youths in Derry by British soldiers prompted the SDLP, the largest Nationalist party and main opposition to boycott the Stormont parliament. The political climate deteriorated further when, in response to the worsening security situation, and in a move without precedent in the United Kingdom in modern times, Faulkner introduced internment on 9 August 1971.[3] This was a disaster; instead of lessening the violence, it caused the situation to worsen.
David Bleakley resigned in September 1971 over internment and Faulkner appointed Dr G. B. Newe, a prominent Catholic, as Minister of State in the Cabinet Office. Faulkner's administration staggered on through the rest of 1971, insisting that security was the paramount issue.
In January 1972, an incident occurred during a
Chief Executive
In June 1973, elections were held to a new devolved parliament, the
The power-sharing Executive which he led lasted only six months and was brought down by a
The UPNI fared badly in the
Personal life
Faulkner married
Brian Faulkner was a member of the Apprentice Boys of Derry but was expelled from the group in 1971.[6]
Faulkner considered himself to be both Irish and British, writing "the Northern Ireland citizen is Irish and British; it is a question of complement, not of conflict" and reacted to the
Death
Lord Faulkner, a keen huntsman, died on 3 March 1977 at the age of 56 following a
See also
References
- ^ John Andrews was educated at RBAI; the others were educated in Scotland, England, and France.
- ^ "Ulster Biography". Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 9 February 2007.
- ^ "1971: NI activates internment law". BBC News. 9 August 1971. Archived from the original on 9 July 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2009.
- ^ Whyte, Nicholas. "South Down 1973–85". www.ark.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 25 October 2018. Retrieved 26 February 2008.
- ^ "No. 47146". The London Gazette. 10 February 1977. p. 1879.
- ^ [1] Archived 1 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine "Who are the Apprentice Boys"-BBC News
- ^ Walker, Brian (10 December 2008). "British or Irish – who do you think you are?". Belfast Telegraph. Belfast. Archived from the original on 3 September 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
- ^ "Peerage records". Leigh Rayment's peerage pages. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014.
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Further reading
- The Lord Faulkner, Memoirs of a Statesman, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1978 (An autobiography published posthumously)
- David Bleakley, Faulkner, Mowbrays, London, 1974
- Andrew Boyd, Brian Faulkner and the Crisis of Ulster Unionism, Anvil Books, Tralee, Ireland, 1972.
- The Honourable Michael Faulkner, The Blue Cabin, Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 2006.
- Mark Carruthers, Brian Faulkner 'Soft Hardliner': an assessment of political leadership in a divided society, unpublished MSc thesis Queen's University Belfast (QUB), 1989.
- James P. Condren, Brian Faulkner – Ulster Unionist: The long road to the premiership, PhD thesis, University of Ulster, 2005.
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