J. M. Andrews

Family life

Andrews was born in Comber, County Down, Ireland in 1871, the eldest child in the family of four sons and one daughter of Thomas Andrews, flax spinner, and his wife Eliza Pirrie, a sister of Viscount Pirrie, chairman of Harland and Wolff shipbuilders.

He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. In business, Andrews was a landowner, a director of his family linen-bleaching company and of the Belfast Ropeworks. His younger brother, Thomas Andrews, who died in the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, was managing director of the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast; another brother, Sir James Andrews, 1st Baronet, was Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.

In 1902 he married Jessie (died 1950), eldest daughter of Bolton stockbroker Joseph Ormrod at Rivington Unitarian Chapel, Rivington, near Chorley, Lancashire, England. They had one son and two daughters. His younger brother, Sir James, married Jessie's sister.

Political career

Andrews was elected as a member of parliament in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, sitting from 1921 until 1953 (for County Down constituency from 1921 to 1929 and for Mid-Down from 1929 to 1953). He was a founder member of the Ulster Unionist Labour Association, which he chaired, and was Minister of Labour from 1921 to 1937. He was Minister of Finance from 1937 to 1940, succeeding to the position on the death of Hugh MacDowell Pollock; on the death of Lord Craigavon, in 1940, he became leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the second Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Andrews was an opponent of the Irish language and called for it to be banned in schools. While serving as Minister of Labour (during the Partition of Ireland) Andrews commented on potential loss of areas within Northern Ireland by the Irish Boundary Commission. Speaking at a Unionist rally in Newry, County Armagh, Anderson said that the Northern Government would not concede the town to the newly formed Irish Free State "even if the Boundary Commission recommended it."

In April 1943 backbench dissent forced him from office. He was replaced as Prime Minister by Sir Basil Brooke. Andrews remained, however, the recognised leader of the UUP for a further three years. Five years later he became the Grand Master of the Orange Order. From 1949, he was the last parliamentary survivor of the original 1921 Northern Ireland Parliament, and as such was recognised as the Father of the House. He is the only Prime Minister of Northern Ireland not to have been granted a peerage; his predecessor and successor received hereditary viscountcies, and later Prime Ministers were granted life peerages.

Throughout his life he was deeply involved in the Orange Order; he held the positions of Grand Master of County Down from 1941 and Grand Master of Ireland (1948–1954). In 1949 he was appointed Imperial Grand Master of the Grand Orange Council of the World.

Andrews was a committed and active member of the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland. He regularly attended Sunday worship, in the church built on land donated by his great-grandfather James Andrews in his home town Comber. Andrews served on the Comber Congregational Committee from 1896 until his death in 1956 (holding the position of Chairman from 1935 onwards). He is buried in the small graveyard adjoining the church.

He was named after his maternal great-uncle, John Miller of Comber (1795–1883).

References

Sources

• Prominent Persons Index card from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
• History of Party leaders at the Ulster Unionist Party website
• The National Archives of the United Kingdom, with reference to the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland and containing a link to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (for subscribers only)
• Scoular, Clive (2004). John M. Andrews: Northern Ireland's Wartime Prime Minister by Clive Scoular. Printed by W & G Baird Ltd. An online review can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20060622100740/http://www.irishsecrets.ie/history-secrets/prominent-people/thomas-andrews.php.

References

1. (2003). "The Encyclopaedia of Ireland". Gill & Macmillan.
2. (2012). "A Political History of the Two Irelands: From Partition to Peace". Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Murray, Paul. (2011). "The Irish Boundary Commission and its Origins 1886–1925".
4. (2 May 1943). "NORTHERN IRELAND GETS NEW PREMIER". [[The New York Times]].
5. The Times, Obituary, 6 August 1956
6. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/religious/rl02b.shtml Plantation of Ulster – Religious Legacy] {{Webarchive. link. (4 March 2016 — from the [[BBC]] History website, retrieved 28 November 2006.)