| Governor of Northern Ireland | |
|---|---|
.svg) | |
| Style | Excellency |
| Residence | Hillsborough Castle |
| Appointer | British Monarch |
| Precursor | Lord Lieutenant of Ireland |
| Formation | 9 December 1922 |
| First holder | The 3rd Duke of Abercorn |
| Final holder | The Lord Grey of Naunton |
| Abolished | 18 July 1973 |
| Succession | Secretary of State for Northern Ireland |
Thegovernor of Northern Ireland was the principal officer and representative inNorthern Ireland of theBritish monarch. The office was established on 9 December 1922 and abolished on 18 July 1973.
The office of Governor of Northern Ireland was established on 9 December 1922 underletters patent to:[1]
do and execute in due manner as respects Northern Ireland all things which by virtue of the[1920] Act and our said Letters Patent of 27 April 1921 or otherwise belonged to the office ofLord Lieutenant at the time of the passing of theIrish Free State Constitution Act 1922.
The governor was the successor to theLord Lieutenant of Ireland in Northern Ireland, itself established on 3 May 1921.[a] The office of the governor was abolished on 18 July 1973 under Section 32 of theNorthern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.[3] Thesecretary of state for Northern Ireland, acabinet office that had been created in 1972, took over the functions of the governor on 20 December 1973 under Letters Patent.[4]
Analogous to thegovernor-general of a CommonwealthDominion, the governor's formal power was ceremonial, exercised on the "advice" of theGovernment of Northern Ireland.[5][6] The government was technically an "executive committee" of the governor'sPrivy Council of Northern Ireland, which was ceremonial and rarely met.[7] The governorsummoned andprorogued theParliament of Northern Ireland (latterly atStormont Castle) and delivered thespeech from the throne at the Parliament's annualState Opening (except for the first such in 1921, delivered in person byGeorge V).[5] The governor had possession of theGreat Seal of Northern Ireland,[8] and exercised theprerogative of mercy.[5]
The governor gaveroyal assent to bills passed by Stormont.[5] While he had the formal power todisallow or reserve legislation, this was never exercised. The only instance of reservation in relation to Stormont was made byViscount FitzAlan, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, shortly before the office was replaced by that of Governor of Northern Ireland. FitzAlan referred theLocal Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1922 to theHome Office in London from concern that its abolition ofsingle transferable vote inlocal elections would violate the 1920 act's prohibition ofreligious discrimination. The Home Office agreed with FitzAlan but theLaw ministry advised FitzAlan to assent regardless, afterJames Craig threatened the resignation ofhis ministry in Stormont.[9] This precedent dissuaded later London governments from interfering in Northern Ireland, although newly enacted Stormont bills were sent to theHome Secretary for review as a matter of course.[5][10]
A 1951 visit by the governor toLondonderry Corporation was the focus of anationalist protest led byEddie McAteer againstgerrymandering by the unionist corporation againstDerry's nationalist majority.[11] WhenViscount Brookeborough resigned asprime minister in 1963, governorBaron Wakehurst was active in choosingTerence O'Neill as his successor.[12] O'Neill in his memoirs compared this toElizabeth II's appointment byroyal prerogative ofAlec Douglas-Home as UK prime minister the same year.[13] Ken Bloomfield, a leading Stormont civil servant in the 1960s, "never had any sense of the Governor as a significant factor in [Northern Ireland prime ministers'] plans or calculations".[14] While the Governor might in theory have been a channel of communication between Stormont and London, in practice the Stormont Cabinet Office talked directly to the Home Office in Whitehall.[15] In 1966, an early sign of Northern Ireland'simpending troubles came with the unpopularity amongloyalists of GovernorLord Erskine, who had successfully lobbied fora new Belfast bridge to be named after Elizabeth II rather than loyalist heroEdward Carson. A crowd led byIan Paisley jostled and heckled Erskine and his wife as they left theGeneral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.[16][17]
The official residence of the governor of Northern Ireland wasHillsborough Castle inCounty Down. Following refurbishment of the Castle, theDuke of Abercorn took up residence in 1925. It remained the official residence until the abolition of the office of governor in 1973; henceforth it has been the official residence of thesecretary of state for Northern Ireland.[18]
The Governor's standard term of office was six years, renewable without limit, and with no dependency on general elections to the Stormont Parliament. These provisions were carried over in 1922 from those applied by the 1920 act to the office of Lord Lieutenant. The Duke of Abercorn, whose third term as Governor expired in December 1940, agreed to stay on until the end of the Second World War, at which point Earl Granville served out the balance of Abercorn's term and a full term of his own. In 1968, Lord Erskine resigned owing to his wife's ill health. His successor Lord Grey's term was cut short by the 1972 imposition of direct rule.
| No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Term of office | Monarch | Prime Minister | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Time in office | |||||
| 1 |  | James Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Abercorn (1869–1953) | 12 December 1922 | 6 September 1945 | 22 years, 268 days | George V Edward VIII George VI | Craigavon Andrews Brooke |
| 2 |  | William Leveson-Gower, 4th Earl Granville (1880–1953) | 7 September 1945 | 1 December 1952 | 7 years, 85 days | George VI Elizabeth II | Brooke |
| 3 |  | John Loder, 2nd Baron Wakehurst (1895–1970) | 3 December 1952 | 1 December 1964 | 11 years, 364 days | Elizabeth II | Brookeborough O'Neill |
| 4 | | John Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine of Rerrick (1893–1980) | 3 December 1964 | 2 December 1968 | 3 years, 365 days | O'Neill | |
| 5 | Ralph Grey, Baron Grey of Naunton (1910–1999) | 3 December 1968 | 18 July 1973 | 4 years, 205 days | O'Neill Chichester-Clark Faulkner | ||
The 1922 "Instructions" sent alongside theletters patent establishing the office required the governor of Northern Ireland to get the monarch's permission to leave Northern Ireland, and empowered the governor in such cases to issue letters patent under theGreat Seal of Northern Ireland appointing a "Deputy or Deputies, Justice or Justices" during his absence. This emulated the practice of appointingLords Justices of Ireland when the lord lieutenant was absent from Ireland. These were formally called "Lords Justices for the government of Northern Ireland".[19] Each new governor upon taking office would select a slate of eligible deputies from among thePrivy Council of Northern Ireland, and at each of his subsequent absences a subset of these would be sworn in for its duration.[19] Many wereLord Chief Justice orLord Justice of Appeal:Denis Henry,[20][21]William Moore,[20][21][22][23]James Andrews,[20][21][22][23][24]Anthony Babington,[24]John MacDermott, Baron MacDermott,[25]Samuel Clarke Porter.[25]Others wereSenators and/orcounty lieutenants:Robert Sharman-Crawford,[21][22]Robert David Perceval-Maxwell,[21]Henry Armstrong,[22][23]Sir Thomas Dixon, 2nd Baronet,[23][24]Maurice McCausland,[23]Francis Needham, 4th Earl of Kilmorey.[24][25]
Obviously the decision was the Governor's alone, for in those days Unionist Prime Ministers were selected in the same way as their Conservative counterparts in Britain, where the Queen used to send for the person she thought most suitable.