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George Ranken Askwith Askwith

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"GEORGE RANKEN ASKWITH ASKWITH, 1ST Baron (1861), English lawyer and civil servant, was born at Morley, Yorks, Feb. 17 1861, and was educated at Marlborough and Brasenose College, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1886 (K.C. 1908), and in 1899 was one of the counsel in the Venezuelan arbitration case. In 1907 he entered the railways section of the Board of Trade as assistant secretary, and in 1909 was appointed comptroller-general of the Commercial, Labour and Statistical Departments of the Board of Trade. He acted as arbitrator in many industrial disputes, and in 1911 was created K.C.B. in recognition of his valuable work in that capacity. In 1911 he became chairman of the recently constituted Industrial Council, in 1912 he made a special report for the Government on the Canadian labour laws, and in 1915 was appointed chairman of the Government Arbitration Committee under the Munitions of War Acts, holding this post till 1917. On the Committee of Production he did important work for the Government. In 1919 he retired from his position as chief industrial commissioner, and was raised to the peerage. His wife, whom he married in 1908, was a daughter of Archibald Peel, nephew of the statesman Sir Robert Peel, and the widow of Maj. Henry Graham (d. 1907). During the World War she was an active and energetic member of the Central Committee on Women's Employment, and was created C.B.E. in 1918.