| Ben Hammer - there were no Labour Party members in the House of Lords until 1924, so that's not the issue.
It is true, though, that there was no official leader until 1922 - before that there was a party chairman, who only fulfilled some of the roles of a party leader. MacDonald in 1922 was the first true leader of the party.
Beyond that, Arthur Henderson was a fairly important figure - leader of Labour during most of World War I, a member of Lloyd George's war cabinet, MacDonald's foreign secretary and then the leader of those Labourites who broke with MacDonald over the National Government and went into opposition. He lost his seat in the 1931 general election and then couldn't find a new one, so he resigned as leader. After that he was the British representative to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva that didn't accomplish anything. A fairly important second tier politician for about 20 years.
Lansbury was also an interesting figure - a Quaker and a pacifist, he was the only Labour former cabinet member to break with MacDonald and then survive the disastrous election of 1931, so he became leader more or less by default. As Germany fell to Hitler and began to rearm, the party got concerned about having a pacifist as leader, and forced him out in favor of Attlee before the 1935 elections. |
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