Charles Masterman (1873-1927) Politician and Journalist ‘The Splendid Failure’

This is the first scholarly biography of the Rt. Hon. Charles Masterman, and is based on the Masterman Papers recently made available in the University of Birmingham Library. Masterman was a man of outstanding intellectual ability. After gaining a Cambridge Double First, and becoming a Fellow of Christ’s College, he settled down to a career in journalism. He considered himself a Christian Socialist, and was elected Liberal MP for North-West Ham in 1906. Once in parliament, he made rapid progress and became a close confidant of Lloyd George. He was put in charge of the National Health Insurance Commission which administered the National Insurance Act, 1911.This biography sets him firmly in his political and social context, a portrait of a complex man of enormous promise whose career fell tragically short of expectations.