Editing Cabinet of the United Kingdom (section)

==History==
{{More citations needed section|date=August 2021}}
Until at least the 16th century, individual officers of state had separate property, powers and responsibilities granted with their separate offices by royal command, and the Crown and the Privy Council constituted the only co-ordinating authorities. In England, phrases such as "cabinet counsel", meaning advice given in private, in a [[cabinet (room)|cabinet]] in the sense of a small room, to the monarch, occur from the late 16th century, and, given the non-standardised spelling of the day, it is often hard to distinguish whether "council" or "counsel" is meant.<ref name="oedCabinet">[[OED]] Cabinet</ref> The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary|OED]]'' credits [[Francis Bacon]] in his ''[[Essays (Francis Bacon)|Essays]]'' (1605) with the first use of "Cabinet council", where it is described as a foreign habit, of which he disapproves: "For which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings' times, hath introduced cabinet counsels; a remedy worse than the disease".<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. > Francis Bacon > Essays, Civil and Moral. XX. Of Counsel. |url=http://www.bartleby.com/3/1/20.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304030736/http://www.bartleby.com/3/1/20.html |archive-date=4 March 2016 |website=bartleby.com}}</ref> [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] began a formal "Cabinet Council" from his accession in 1625, as his Privy Council, or "private council", and the first recorded use of "cabinet" by itself for such a body comes from 1644, and is again hostile and associates the term with dubious foreign practices.<ref name="oedCabinet"/>

There were [[List of English ministries|ministries in England]] led by the [[List of English chief ministers|chief minister]], which was a personage leading the English government for the monarch. Despite primary accountability to the monarch, these ministries, having a group of ministers running the country, served as a predecessor of the modern perspective of cabinet. After the ministry of [[James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope|Lord Stanhope]] and [[Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland|Lord Sunderland]] collapsed, [[Robert Walpole|Sir Robert Walpole]] rose to power as [[First Lord of the Treasury]]. Since the reign of [[George I of Great Britain|King George I]] the Cabinet has been the principal executive group of British government. Both he and [[George II of Great Britain|George II]] made use of the system, as both were not native [[English language|English]] speakers, unfamiliar with British politics, and thus relied heavily on selected groups of advisers. The term "minister" came into being since the royal officers "ministered" to the sovereign. The name and institution have been adopted by most English-speaking countries, and the [[Cabinet (government)|Council of Ministers]] or similar bodies of other countries are often informally referred to as cabinets.{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}}

[[File:Cabinet Office (29542331802).jpg|thumb|Cabinet Office, London]]

The modern Cabinet system was set up by Prime Minister [[David Lloyd George]] during his premiership, 1916–1922, with a [[Cabinet Office]] and secretariat, committee structures, unpublished [[minutes]], and a clearer relationship with departmental Cabinet ministers. The formal procedures, practice and proceedings of the Cabinet remain largely unpublished.{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}}

This development grew out of the exigencies of the [[World War I|First World War]], where faster and better co-ordinated decisions across government were seen as a crucial part of the war effort. Decisions on mass [[conscription]], co-ordination worldwide with other governments across international theatres, and armament production tied into a general war strategy that could be developed and overseen from an inner "[[War cabinet|War Cabinet]]". The country went through successive crises after the war: the [[1926 United Kingdom general strike|1926 general strike]]; the [[Great Depression]] of 1929–32; the rise of [[Bolshevism]] after 1917 and [[fascism]] after 1922; the [[Spanish Civil War]] 1936 onwards; the invasion of [[Ethiopian Empire|Abyssinia]] 1936; the League of Nations Crisis which followed; and the re-armament and resurgence of Germany from 1933, leading into the [[World War II|Second World War]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}}