3-057-039 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Hugh Culling Eardley Childers, 1878. After serving as a member of the Government of Victoria, in Australia, Childers returned to Britain and, in 1860, was elected as MP for Pontefract, representing the Liberal Party. He held various government posts, including First Lord of the Admiralty between 1868 and 1871. He became Secretary for War in 1880, then succeeded Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1882. He supported Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule, and served as Home Secretary in the short-lived Liberal government of 1886, by which time he was MP for Edinburgh South, having lost Pontefract in 1885. Childers retired from active politics at the General Election of 1892.