John Miller Andrews, (17 July 1871 – 5 August 1956) was the second Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1940 to 1943.

Family life

Andrews was born in Comber,

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, 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. 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 Sir James Andrews, 1st Baronet, PC (NI) (3 January 1877 – 18 February 1951) was Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and brother of Prime Minister J. M. Andrews and Thomas Andrews, builder of the Titanic. Early life Andrews was born in Comb ...

, 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 Chorley is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England, north of Wigan, south west of Blackburn, north west of Bolton, south of Preston and north west of Manchester. The town's wealth came pr ...

, 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 Hugh MacDowell Pollock, CH, PC(Ire) (16 November 1852 – 15 April 1937) was an Ulster Unionist member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland from 1921 until his death in 1937, being appointed as the country's first Minister of Finance. Life ...

; on the death of

Lord Craigavon James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon PC PC (NI) DL (8 January 1871 – 24 November 1940), was a leading Irish unionist and a key architect of Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom. During the Home Rule Crisis of 1912 ...

, in 1940, he became leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the second Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. In April 1943

backbench In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the " ...

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 The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It also ...

. 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 Father of the House is a title that has been traditionally bestowed, unofficially, on certain members of some legislatures, most notably the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. In some legislatures the title refers to the longest continuously- ...

. 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.The Times, Obituary, 6 August 1956 Andrews Family

Andrews was a committed and active member of the

Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland The Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland is a non-creedal Christian Church, which maintains a great emphasis on individual conscience in matters of Christian faith. The Church became part of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free C ...

.Plantation of Ulster – Religious Legacy
— from the BBC History website, retrieved 28 November 2006. 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

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