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Raymond Asquith, the eldest of the five children of Herbert Henry Asquith and his first wife, Helen Melland, was born in Hampstead on 6th November 1878. His father was a lawyer but In the 1886 General Election he was elected as the Liberal MP for East Fife.

His mother died of typhoid on 11th September 1891 while on the family's holiday on the Isle of Arran. After the 1892 General Election, William Gladstone formed a new Liberal administration and his father was appointed as Home Secretary.

Asquith was educated at Winchester College (1892–7) and at Balliol College (1897–1902), winning scholarships at both institutions. Asquith was strongly against the Boer War and as Colin Clifford, the author of The Asquiths (2002) has pointed out: "The war broke out... infecting even the Oxford Union with jingoism, Raymond's chances of ever winning the presidency must have seemed bleak, with the handicap of his liberalism aggravated by his anti-war stance." Despite this, he still became president of the Oxford Union in 1900. He also won the chief university prizes, including the Ireland, Craven, and Derby scholarships, and took first-class honours in classics and law.

Asquith's biographer, John Jolliffe, has pointed out: "Asquith became a fellow of All Souls in 1902, an honour he prized greatly, although, like his other successes, he appeared at the time to wear it lightly.... Apart from his talent as a classical scholar, he had a fluent and distinctive style in prose and verse, in speech and oratory, and most memorably in his letters of which many hundreds have survived."

Margot Tennant has argued: "He (Raymond) was intellectually one of the most distinguished young men of his day and beautiful to look at, added to which he was light in hand, brilliant in answer and interested in affairs. When he went to Balliol he cultivated a kind of cynicism which was an endless source of delight to the young people around him; in a good-humoured way he made a butt of God and smiled at man. If he had been really keen about any one thing - law or literature - he would have made the world ring with his name, but he lacked temperament and a certain sort of imagination and was without ambition of any kind. In spite of this record, a more modest fellow about his own achievements never lived." The idea that he was cynical was rejected by his friend, Hugh Godley: "There never was a more absurd idea than that Raymond was cynical or unfeeling, he was most tenderhearted and affectionate. But no one was ever more shy about his enthusiasms."

His friend at university, John Buchan, argued that Asquith was one of those men "whose brilliance in boyhood and early manhood dazzles their contemporaries and becomes a legend." Winston Churchill wrote: "He was a character of singular charm and distinction - so gifted and yet so devoid of personal ambition, so critically detached from ordinary affairs yet capable of the utmost willing sacrifice".

Herbert Henry Asquith married Margot Tennanton 10th May 1894. She wrote to Raymond about her new role as stepmother: "You must not think that I could imagine even a possibility of filling your mother's (and my friend's) place. I only ask you to let me be your companion - and if needs be your help-mate. There is room for everyone in life if they have the power to love. I shall count upon your help in making my way with Violet and your brothers... I should like you to let me gradually and without effort take my place among you, and if I cannot - as indeed I would not - take your mother's place among you, you must at least allow me to share with you her beautiful memory."

Over the next few years Margot had five children but only Elizabeth Asquith (1897–1945) and Anthony Asquith (1902–1968) survived, three dying at birth. Margot had a reputation for speaking her mind and relations with her step-children, including Raymond and Violet Bonham Carter, were difficult.

In 1904 Asquith was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. It has been pointed out that like his father "he had a low tolerance for the dull work required of juniors and little professional ambition" and always desired a career in politics. Colin Clifford, the author of The Asquiths (2002) has argued: "The truth was that Raymond never much liked London society. He confessed to Aubrey Herbert that there were half a dozen women and perhaps a dozen men whose company he enjoyed, but he found intolerable the myriad of insincere conventions and pompous restrictions with which one had to contend, to say nothing of twittering women and vacuous men. He was no more enamoured of the Bar. Writing from his dingy chambers whose windows were encrusted with pigeon droppings, he described his fellow lawyers as hundreds of tedious men, as like real men as a pianola was to a piano, reading dust-covered books reeking of decay, which were as like real books as a beetle was to a butterfly."

Asquith married Katharine Frances Horner (1885–1976) on 25th July, 1907. Over the next few years she had three children. John Jolliffe, the author of Raymond Asquith: Life and Letters (1980) has pointed out: "Asquith's outstandingly happy marriage brought to light his capacity for deep feeling and personal commitment, always present in his character but which he concealed in youth, giving rise at times to a mistaken impression of cynicism."

In April, 1908, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman resigned and Herbert Henry Asquith replaced him as Prime Minister. Working closely with David Lloyd George, his radical Chancellor of the Exchequer, Asquith introduced a whole series of reforms including the Old Age Pensions Act and the People's Budget that resulted to a conflict with the House of Lords.

The Conservatives, who had a large majority in the House of Lords, objected to this attempt to redistribute wealth, and made it clear that they intended to block these proposals. David Lloyd George reacted by touring the country making speeches in working-class areas on behalf of the budget and portraying the nobility as men who were using their privileged position to stop the poor from receiving their old age pensions. After a long struggle with the House of Lords Asquith and the Liberal government finally got his budget through parliament.

With the House of Lords extremely unpopular with the British people, the Liberal government decided to take action to reduce its powers. The 1911 Parliament Act drastically cut the powers of the Lords. They were no longer allowed to prevent the passage of "money bills" and it also restricted their ability to delay other legislation to three sessions of parliament.

When the House of Lords attempted to stop this bill's passage, Asquith, appealed to George V for help. Asquith, who had just obtained a victory in the 1910 General Election, was in a strong position, and the king agreed that if necessary he would create 250 new Liberal peers to remove the Conservative majority in the Lords. Faced with the prospect of a House of Lords with a permanent Liberal majority, the Conservatives agreed to let the 1911 Parliament Act to become law.

Raymond agreed with his father's political philosophy and in 1913 he was adopted as Liberal Party candidate for Derby, where the sitting member was retiring. However, his political career came to an end with the outbreak of the First World War. Although he was 36 year old, he thought that as his father was prime minister, he was duty bound to enlist in the British Army. In January 1915 he joined the Queen's Westminster Rifles.

His friend, Hugh Godley, later wrote: "Raymond was so absolutely unmilitary and when the war came, he went into it not with any burning enthusiasm, but just as a sort of matter of course, and he went on with his soldiering just as he went on with his own profession before, in the conscientious methodical way which was so characteristic of him... fully realizing what the end might be, but never to all appearances in the least conscious of it."

Aware that he would not see active service in this regiment he transferred as a lieutenant into the 3rd battalion of the Grenadier Guards in July 1915, and went out to the Western Front in October. Herbert Henry Asquith was furious with his son and refused to write to him while he was on the front-line. Asquith was critical of the tactics used on the front-line. He wrote to Katharine Frances Asquith complaining "that almost every night there were raids on the german lines accompanied by the usual ridiculous artillery barrage." he added that the "whole business was a charade" and this strategy caused far more British than German casualties.

Winston Churchill was one of those who visited him on the front-line: "When I saw him at the Front he seemed to move through the cold, squalor and peril of the winter trenches as if he were above and immune from the common ills of the flesh, a being clad in polished armour, entirely undisturbed, presumably invulnerable."

Asquith resisted attempts by his father to use his influence to transfer him onto the General Staff but against his wishes he did serve for four months at general headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force. In May, 1916, Asquith insisted on returning to the front-line and took part in the Somme offensive. As Mark Pottle has pointed out: "Though the staff position had been arranged without his knowledge and against his will, it naturally invited the conclusion that he had used his influence to escape the expected spring offensive. By returning to his regiment Raymond had set the record straight."

Asquith was very unimpressed with the training for creeping barrage that took place before the attack on the German front-line trenches. Colin Clifford has commented: "He had been up since five o'clock participating in an exercise designed to simulate an attack on enemy trenches behind a creeping barrage, the recently devised tactic of laying down a steadily moving curtain of shell fire some fifty yards in front of the infantry as they advanced. In the exercise the barrage was simulated by drummers, allowing him to give full rein to his sense of the ridiculous. To him the sight of four battalions walking in lines at a funeral pace across cornfields preceded by a row of drummers was more like some ridiculous religious ritual ceremony performed by a Maori tribe, than a brigade of Guards training for battle."

On 7th September, 1916, Herbert Henry Asquith visited the front-line and managed to obtain a meeting with his son. He wrote to Margot Asquith that evening: "He was very well and in good spirits. Our guns were firing all round and just as we were walking to the top of the little hill to visit the wonderful dug-out, a German shell came whizzing over our heads and fell a little way beyond... We went in all haste to the dug-out - 3 storeys underground with ventilating pipes electric light and all sorts of conveniences, made by the Germans. Here we found Generals Horne and Walls (who have done the lion's share of all the fighting): also Bongie's brother who is on Walls's staff. They were rather disturbed about the shell, as the Germans rarely pay them such attention, and told us to stay with them underground for a time. One or two more shells came, but no harm was done. The two generals are splendid fellows and we had a very interesting time with them."

On 15th September, Raymond Asquith led his men on a attack on the German trenches at Lesboeufs. He was hit in the chest by a bullet and died on the way to the dressing station. According to a soldier quoted by John Jolliffe: "there is not one of us who would not have changed places with him if we had thought that he would have lived, for he was one of the finest men who ever wore the King's uniform, and he did not know what fear was." Only five of the twenty-two officers in Asquith's battalion survived the battle unscathed."

His sister, Violet Bonham Carter, wrote: "He was shot through the chest and carried back to a shell-hole where there was an improvised dressing station. There they gave him morphia and he died an hour later. God bless him. How he has vindicated himself - before all those who thought him merely a scoffer - by the modest heroism with which he chose the simplest and most dangerous form of service - and having so much to keep for England gave it all to her with his life."

Winston Churchill added: "It seemed quite easy for Raymond Asquith, when the time came, to face death and to die.... The War which found the measure of so many, never got to the bottom of him, and when the Grenadiers strode into the crash and thunder of the Somme, he went to his fate cool, poised, resolute, matter of fact, debonair. And well we know that his father, then bearing the supreme burden of the State, would proudly have marched at his side."

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(1) Margot Asquith, letter to Raymond Asquith (14th February, 1894)

You must not think that I could imagine even a possibility of filling your mother's (and my friend's) place. I only ask you to let me be your companion - and if needs be your help-mate. There is room for everyone in life if they have the power to love. I shall count upon your help in making my way with Violet and your brothers... I should like you to let me gradually and without effort take my place among you, and if I cannot - as indeed I would not - take your mother's place among you, you must at least allow me to share with you her beautiful memory.

(2) Colin Clifford, The Asquiths (2002)

The truth was that Raymond never much liked London society. He confessed to Aubrey Herbert that there were half a dozen women and perhaps a dozen men whose company he enjoyed, but he found intolerable the myriad of insincere conventions and pompous restrictions with which one had to contend, to say nothing of twittering women and vacuous men. He was no more enamoured of the Bar. Writing from his dingy chambers whose windows were encrusted with pigeon droppings, he described his fellow lawyers as hundreds of tedious men, as like real men as a pianola was to a piano, reading dust-covered books reeking of decay, which were as like real books as a beetle was to a butterfly.

(3) Margot Asquith, Autobiography (1920)

He (Raymond) was intellectually one of the most distinguished young men of his day and beautiful to look at, added to which he was light in hand, brilliant in answer and interested in affairs. When he went to Balliol he cultivated a kind of cynicism which was an endless source of delight to the young people around him; in a good-humoured way he made a butt of God and smiled at man. If he had been really keen about any one thing - law or literature - he would have made the world ring with his name, but he lacked temperament and a certain sort of imagination and was without ambition of any kind. In spite of this record, a more modest fellow about his own achievements never lived.

(4) Colin Clifford, The Asquiths (2002)

He (Raymond Asquith) had been up since five o'clock participating in an exercise designed to simulate an attack on enemy trenches behind a creeping barrage, the recently devised tactic of laying down a steadily moving curtain of shell fire some fifty yards in front of the infantry as they advanced. In the exercise the barrage was simulated by drummers, allowing him to give full rein to his sense of the ridiculous. To him the sight of four battalions walking in lines at a funeral pace across cornfields preceded by a row of drummers was more like some ridiculous religious ritual ceremony performed by a Maori tribe, than a brigade of Guards training for battle.

(5) Herbert Henry Asquith, letter to Margot Asquith (7th September, 1916)

He was very well and in good spirits. Our guns were firing all round and just as we were walking to the top of the little hill to visit the wonderful dug-out, a German shell came whizzing over our heads and fell a little way beyond... We went in all haste to the dug-out - 3 storeys underground with ventilating pipes electric light and all sorts of conveniences, made by the Germans. Here we found Generals Horne and Walls (who have done the lion's share of all the fighting): also Bongie's brother who is on Walls's staff. They were rather disturbed about the shell, as the Germans rarely pay them such attention, and told us to stay with them underground for a time. One or two more shells came, but no harm was done. The two generals are splendid fellows and we had a very interesting time with them.

(6) Violet Bonham Carter, letter to Hugh Godley (22nd September, 1916)

He was shot through the chest and carried back to a shell-hole where there was an improvised dressing station. There they gave him morphia and he died an hour later. God bless him. How he has vindicated himself - before all those who thought him merely a scoffer - by the modest heroism with which he chose the simplest and most dangerous form of service - and having so much to keep for England gave it all to her with his life.

(7) Margot Asquith, Autobiography (1920)

On Sunday, September the 17th, we were entertaining a weekend party, which included General and Florry Bridges, Lady Tree, Nan Tennant, Bogie Harris, Arnold Ward, and Sir John Cowans. While we were playing tennis in the afternoon my husband went for a drive with my cousin, Nan Tennant. He looked well, and had been delighted with his visit to the front and all he saw of the improvement in our organization there: the tanks and the troops as well as the guns. Our Offensive for the time being was going amazingly well. The French were fighting magnificently, the House of Commons was shut, the Cabinet more united, and from what we heard on good authority the Germans more discouraged. Henry told us about Raymond, whom he had seen as recently as the 6th at Fricourt.

As it was my little son's last Sunday before going back to Winchester I told him he might run across from the Barn in his pyjamas after dinner and sit with us while the men were in the dining-room.

While we were playing games Clouder, our servant - of whom Elizabeth said, "He makes perfect ladies of us all" - came in to say that I was wanted.

I left the room, and the moment I took up the telephone I said to myself, "Raymond is killed".

With the receiver in my hand, I asked what it was, and if the news was bad.

Our secretary, Davies, answered, "Terrible, terrible news. Raymond was shot dead on the 15th. Haig writes full of sympathy, but no details. The Guards were in and he was shot leading his men the moment he had gone over the parapet."

I put back the receiver and sat down. I heard Elizabeth's delicious laugh, and a hum of talk and smell of cigars came down the passage from the dining-room.

I went back into the sitting-room.

"Raymond is dead," I said, "he was shot leading his men over the top on Friday."

Puffin got up from his game and hanging his head took my hand; Elizabeth burst into tears, for though she had not seen Raymond since her return from Munich she was devoted to him. Maud Tree and Florry Bridges suggested I should put off telling Henry the terrible news as he was happy.

I walked away with the two children and rang the bell:

"Tell the Prime Minister to come and speak to me", I said to the servant.

Leaving the children, I paused at the end of the dining-room passage; Henry opened the door and we stood facing each other.

He saw my thin, wet face, and while he put his arm round me I said: "Terrible, terrible news."

At this he stopped me and said: "I know... I've known it.... Raymond is dead."

He put his hands over his face and we walked into an empty room and sat down in silence.

(8) Winston Churchill, Nash's Magazine (August, 1928)

It seemed quite easy for Raymond Asquith, when the time came, to face death and to die. When I saw him at the Front he seemed to move through the cold, squalor and peril of the winter trenches as if he were above and immune from the common ills of the flesh, a being clad in polished armour, entirely undisturbed, presumably invulnerable. The War which found the measure of so many, never got to the bottom of him, and when the Grenadiers strode into the crash and thunder of the Somme, he went to his fate cool, poised, resolute, matter of fact, debonair. And well we know that his father, then bearing the supreme burden of the State, would proudly have marched at his side.