Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane

Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane KTOMPCKCFRSFSAFBA (/ˈhɔːldeɪn/; 30 July 1856 – 19 August 1928) was an influential British Liberal Imperialist and later Labour politician, lawyer and philosopher. He was Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912 during which time the "Haldane Reforms" were implemented. Raised to the peerage as Viscount Haldane in 1911, he was Lord Chancellor between 1912 and 1915, when he was forced to resign because of his German sympathies. He later joined the Labour Party and once again served as Lord Chancellor in 1924 in the first ever Labour administration. Apart from his legal and political careers, Haldane was also an influential writer on philosophy, in recognition of which he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1914. A radical liberal, Haldane was also, according to historian Martin Pugh, one of the “best supporters” of David Lloyd George’s “People’s Budget.”