When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet was formed in December 1905 he became foreign minister, and he retained this office when in April 1908 Mr Asquith became prime minister.
In 1886 he was made under secretary for foreign affairs; in 1892 he joined the cabinet as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; in 1894 he was president of the Board of Trade, and acted as chairman of the royal commission on secondary education; and in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet (1905) he was made chief secretary for Ireland; but in February 1907 he was appointed British ambassador at Washington, and took leave of party politics, his last political act being a speech outlining what was then the government scheme for university reform in Dublin - a scheme which was promptly discarded by his successor Mr Birrell.
A violent agitation for his recall, in which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman joined, was organized, but without success, and in August he returned to South Africa, where he plunged into the herculean task of remodelling the administration.
In 1905 he entered Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Government as parliamentary secretary to the Local Government Board.
An incident which marked the beginning of this rebellion brought the Natal ministry into sharp conflict with the Imperial government (the Campbell-Bannerman administration).
