Oh dear, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury has a headache! Or he’s superglued his hand to his head 😛 …photo taken by the London Stereoscopic Company.

Controversial first British Prime Minister of the 20th century, last of the aristocratic PMs, and probably the origin of ‘Bob’s Yer Uncle’ since he promoted his nephew Arthur Balfour who took over from him. Also lead Britain into the Boer wars, but also created acts to improve worker’s housing so definitely one of the old-school conservatives who also believed in philanthropy and God, rather than the Thatcherite pale imitations today.

I get the sense of a rather complex man during a time that the Victorian expansion was slowing and some really big issues that still exist today (Ireland, Africa…) and far from just a Tory – for instance:

Salisbury wrote to Lady John Manners on 14 June that he did not regard female suffrage as a question of high importance “but when I am told that my ploughmen are capable citizens, it seems to me ridiculous to say that educated women are not just as capable. A good deal of the political battle of the future will be a conflict between religion and unbelief: & the women will in that controversy be on the right side”.