The Earl of Liverpool | |
|---|---|
_-_Robert_Banks_Jenkinson_(1770-1828)%2c_2nd_Earl_of_Liverpool_-_RCIN_404930_-_Royal_Collection.jpg) | |
| Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
| In office 8 June 1812 – 9 April 1827 | |
| Monarchs | |
| Regent | George, Prince Regent(1812–1820) |
| Preceded by | Spencer Perceval |
| Succeeded by | George Canning |
| Secretary of State for War and the Colonies | |
| In office 1 November 1809 – 11 June 1812 | |
| Prime Minister | Spencer Perceval |
| Preceded by | The Viscount Castlereagh |
| Succeeded by | The Earl Bathurst |
| Leader of the House of Lords | |
| In office 25 March 1807 – 9 April 1827 | |
| Prime Minister |
|
| Preceded by | The Lord Grenville |
| Succeeded by | The Viscount Goderich |
| In office 17 August 1803 – 5 February 1806 | |
| Prime Minister | |
| Preceded by | The Lord Pelham |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Grenville |
| Home Secretary | |
| In office 25 March 1807 – 1 November 1809 | |
| Prime Minister | The Duke of Portland |
| Preceded by | The Earl Spencer |
| Succeeded by | Richard Ryder |
| In office 12 May 1804 – 5 February 1806 | |
| Prime Minister | William Pitt the Younger |
| Preceded by | Charles Philip Yorke |
| Succeeded by | The Earl Spencer |
| Foreign Secretary | |
| In office 20 February 1801 – 14 May 1804 | |
| Prime Minister | Henry Addington |
| Preceded by | The Lord Grenville |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Harrowby |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Banks Jenkinson 7 June 1770 London, England |
| Died | 4 December 1828(1828-12-04) (aged 58) Kingston upon Thames,Surrey, England |
| Resting place | Hawkesbury Parish Church,Gloucestershire, England |
| Political party | Tory |
| Spouses | |
| Parent(s) | Charles Jenkinson (father) Amelia Watts (mother) |
| Education | Charterhouse School |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
| Signature |  |
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828), was a BritishTory statesman who served asPrime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. Before becoming Prime Minister he had beenForeign Secretary,Home Secretary andSecretary of State for War and the Colonies. He held the constituency of Rye from 1790 until 1803, when he was elevated to theHouse of Lords, where he wasLeader 1803–1806 and 1807–1827.
Liverpool's fifteen years as Prime Minister saw the end of theNapoleonic Wars followed by a period of unrest andradicalism at home. During the first part of his premiership, repressive measures were taken to restore order at home, theCorn Laws were introduced and income tax was repealed. In the 1820s his leadership became more liberal, and the period saw a reform of thecriminal law and prisons. Throughout his tenure as Prime Minister, Liverpool sought a compromise over the issue ofCatholic emancipation. He resigned following a stroke in February 1827. Important events during Liverpool's premiership included the defeat ofNapoleon at theBattle of Waterloo, theCongress of Vienna, the1812–1814 war with America, thePeterloo massacre, theCato Street Conspiracy and theQueen Caroline affair.
Liverpool, known as Jenkinson until 1803 and as Hawkesbury from 1803 to 1808, was the son of Tory politicianCharles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool. He was educated atCharterhouse School andChrist Church, Oxford. Twice married, he had no children; on his death the earldom passed to his younger half-brother.
Jenkinson was born on 7 June 1770, the son of politicianCharles Jenkinson (who was later created the firstEarl of Liverpool) and his first wife,Amelia Watts. Jenkinson's 19-year-old mother, who was the daughter of seniorEast India Company officialWilliam Watts and his wifeFrances Croke, died one month after his birth.[1] Through his mother's maternal grandmother, Isabella Beizor, Jenkinson was descended from Portuguese settlers in India, and he may also have hadIndian ancestors.[2]: 10 He was baptised on 29 June 1770 atSt. Margaret's, Westminster.[1]
Charles Jenkinson did not remarry until 1782, and as a small child Robert was looked after by his widowed paternal grandmother, Amarantha Jenkinson, inWinchester. Robert's maternal aunt, Sophia Watts, and his paternal aunt Elizabeth, wife ofCharles Wolfran Cornwall, were also involved in his early years. He briefly attended schools in Winchester andChelsea before starting, aged nine, at Albion Housepreparatory school inParsons Green.[2]: 24–25
When he was thirteen, Jenkinson became a boarder at his father's old school,Charterhouse School, under the headmasterSamuel Berdmore. His father had ambitions of high office for him and exhorted him in letters to apply himself not just to his studies, but also to his appearance and personal habits.[1][2]: 27 From Charterhouse, he went up toChrist Church, Oxford, in April 1787. At university he was a sober and hardworking student. He formed what was to be a lifelong friendship withGeorge Canning, although at times they would be political rivals. Together with a few other students, includingLord Henry Spencer, they set up a debating society in which Jenkinson would present the Tory and Canning the Whig point of view. Having spent a summer in Paris, where he witnessed theStorming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, Jenkinson was created aMaster of Arts at Oxford in May 1790.[1][2]: 31
Jenkinson's political career began when he was elected to two seats in the1790 general election,Rye andAppleby. He chose to represent the former, and never sat for Appleby. Still under age when he was elected, he spent several months touringcontinental Europe and did not take up his seat for Rye until after his twenty-first birthday, near the end of the 1791 session.[1][2]: 40
He made his maiden speech in February 1792, giving the government's reply toSamuel Whitbread's critical motion on the government's foreign policy.The Times praised it as "able and learned; cloathed in the best language and delivered with all the powers and graces of oratory". Several speeches followed, including one opposingWilliam Wilberforce's motion toabolish Britain's involvement in theAtlantic slave trade and one in opposition to an inquiry into thePriestley Riots.[2]: 40–44
After the 1792 parliamentary session ended in June, Jenkinson travelled toKoblenz, which was a centre forFrench émigrés. French newspapers accused him of being an agent of the government;The Times denied the rumours.[1][2]: 44 His services as a capable speaker for the government were recognised in 1793 when he was appointed to theIndia Board.[2]: 48–49 After the outbreak of theWar of the First Coalition withFrance in 1793, Jenkinson becamecolonel of theCinque Ports Light Dragoons, afencible cavalry regiment, in 1794.[1]
There was a rare conflict between Jenkinson and his father when he fell in love withLady Louisa Hervey, daughter of theEarl of Bristol and his wife Elizabeth. Lord Bristol approved of the match and offered a £10,000 dowry, but Jenkinson's father thought that Jenkinson should not marry before he was thirty unless it was to a fortune. He also objected to the Hervey family's eccentricity and Whig connections, only relenting after the intervention of Pitt andGeorge III. The couple married on 25 March 1795 atWimbledon.[1][2]: 51–53
Jenkinson's father was created Earl of Liverpool in May 1796, bringing Jenkinson the courtesy title ofLord Hawkesbury.[2]: 51–54 The Cinque Ports Light Dragoons were posted to Scotland, where they provided a guard for the funeral ofRobert Burns in 1796 and perpetrated themassacre of Tranent in 1797. Jenkinson was not present at the massacre, and "was blamed for remaining atHaddington, as his presence might have prevented the outrages of the soldiery."[2]: 51, 54 . In March 1799 he became aPrivy Councillor, member of theBoard of Trade and master of theRoyal Mint.[3]
Hawkesbury, as he now was, obtained his firstCabinet position in 1801 when he becameSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs inHenry Addington's administration and was responsible for negotiating theTreaty of Amiens with France. In 1803 he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Hawkesbury in order to support the government againstLord Grenville's attacks.[1] When Pitt returned to power in May 1804, Hawkesbury becameHome Secretary and remained as Leader of the House of Lords. After Pitt's death in January 1806,the King asked Hawkesbury to form a government but he refused and instead was awarded the lucrativesinecure ofLord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Following the resignation of Grenville in March 1807, Hawkesbury advised the King to askthe Duke of Portland to form a ministry and returned to his roles as Home Secretary and Leader of the House of Lords. In December 1808, on the death of his father, Hawkesbury becameLord Liverpool.[1] Portland was more of a figurehead than the head of government.[4] As a result of Portland's weakness, the departments were left to themselves while the government was without a higher authority to smooth down differences between departments and arbitrate disagreements between ministers.[5]: 91ff The real figures of importance were a foursome of Pittites, consisting of Viscount Castlereagh, George Canning, Spencer Perceval and Lord Hawkesbury.[5]: 87ff The government was soon torn apart from inner disputes and rivalries. After theduel between Castlereagh and Canning, the government collapsed.
Liverpool accepted the position ofSecretary of State for War and the Colonies whenSpencer Perceval formed a ministry in November 1809. During his time in office, he ensured that the Cabinet gave sufficient support to thePeninsular War.[1] In 1810, he was made a colonel of militia.[3]
Following theassassination of Spencer Perceval on 11 May 1812, the Cabinet proposed Liverpool as his successor, butJames Stuart-Wortley moved a vote of no confidence in theHouse of Commons. The resolution was passed by four votes and Liverpool resigned, only to be reinstated whenGeorge, the Prince Regent, failed in his attempts to find an alternative. Liverpool was confirmed as Prime Minister on 8 June 1812.[2]: 143 [1]
Liverpool then assembled a Cabinet, withViscount Castlereagh as Foreign Secretary andLeader of the House of Commons,Viscount Sidmouth at the Home Office,Nicholas Vansittart at theExchequer andBathurst at the War Office. Canning was offered a place in the Cabinet, but turned the offer down as he refused to serve under Castlereagh in the House of Commons.[2]: 145 Liverpool's first actions as Prime Minister were to cancel theOrders in Council in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the outbreak ofwar with the United States, and to assure the Prince Regent of the Cabinet's neutrality on the question ofCatholic emancipation. He then called a general election in October 1812 in order to increase the government majority in the House of Commons.[1]
Liverpool chose not to move intoDowning Street, instead dividing his time between his London home,Fife House, Whitehall, his modest country home atCoombe, Kingston upon Thames, andWalmer Castle.[2]: 152
The early years of Liverpool's tenure as Prime Minister saw theWar of 1812 with the United States, which ended whenThe Treaty of Ghent was signed on 24 December 1814.[2]: 163 , and the final campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. After the downfall of Napoleon in April 1814, Liverpool was appointed to theOrder of the Garter and London hosted the allied monarchs. Foreign Secretary Castlereagh was sent to theCongress of Vienna to negotiate the post-war terms of European settlement.[1] In February 1815, Napoleon escaped from the Isle ofElba, where he had been exiled, and renewed his leadership of France until defeated at theBattle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, nine days after the final act at the Congress of Vienna had been signed.[2]: 167
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the country experienced social and economic distress. In March 1815 Parliament passed an act forbidding the importation of wheat until the domestic price reached 80shillings perquarter. Known as thecorn law, the act protected the interests of landowners at the cost of increased bread prices.[1] In 1816 the House of Commons voted to repeal the income tax that had been introduced to fund the war with France; Liverpool had argued that the tax should be retained in peacetime.[2]: 177–178
During the post-war years, unrest inspired by hardship or the desire for reform spread throughout the country and repressive measures were taken in response.[6]: 226–27 After poor harvests led to rising bread prices, riots broke out inEast Anglia in 1816. InLittleport a rioter was killed when troops opened fire and five rioters were subsequently executed. There was also a revival ofLuddite activity.[6]: 227 In November and December 1816, followers ofThomas Spence organised two meetings atSpa Fields in London at which the radicalHenry Hunt was invited to speak. The second meeting was followed by theSpa Fields riots and an unsuccessful attempt to seize theTower of London andBank of England. The following month, the Prince Regent's carriage window was broken in a possible assassination attempt. In response to these incidents, a measure to temporarily suspendhabeas corpus was passed by both Houses of Parliament.[2]: 184–186
On 16 August 1819, between 20,000 and 60,000 people gathered atSt Peter's Fields,Manchester, to hearHenry Hunt and other speakers demand parliamentary reform in the form ofuniversal suffrage and annual parliaments. Against the advice of home secretary Sidmouth, local magistrates ordered troops to disperse the crowd and arrest the speakers. Eleven people were killed and hundreds injured in what became known as thePeterloo Massacre.[2]: 184–186 Later that year, after the Whigs had tried to make political capital out of the Peterloo Massacre, parliament passed theSix Acts, which were designed to curtail disturbances of the peace while preserving traditional liberties.[1] In February 1820, theCato Street conspiracy, a plot to assassinate the cabinet and take over the government was uncovered. Two months later, there were outbreaks of unrest inBonnymuir andGlasgow in Scotland.[6]: 242
King George III died in January 1820 and the Prince Regent became King George IV. He immediately demanded a divorce from his estranged wifeCaroline of Brunswick; the Cabinet preferred the option of giving her an allowance on condition she remained abroad. When Caroline returned to London in June 1820 to public acclaim, Liverpool reluctantly issued abill of pains and penalties to deprive her of her titles and dissolve her marriage. After evidence had been heard in the House of Lords, the bill was dropped at the third reading due to a lack of parliamentary support. The King nevertheless denied Caroline entry to his coronation in July 1821; she died the following month.[6]: 245–249
Following what is sometimes seen as the reactionary early years of his premiership, the later years, from 1822 to 1827, have been described as a more liberal phase.[6]: 264–265 In January 1822Robert Peel replaced Sidmouth as home secretary and went on to introduce a number reforms to prisons and the criminal law.[7] Later in 1822, following the suicide of Castlereagh, Canning became foreign secretary and leader of the House of Commons, while two of his followers were promoted,F. J. Robinson to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer andWilliam Huskisson to the Presidency of the Board of Trade.[1]
On 28 February 1827, Liverpool suffered astroke at Fife House. He made only a partial recovery and was unable to return to office; the King appointed Canning as Prime Minister in April 1827. Liverpool suffered another stroke at Coombe in July 1827 and died on 4 December 1828 after a third attack. He was buried atHawkesbury Church in Gloucestershire alongside his first wife and his parents.[2]: 261–263
Liverpool married Louisa Hervey on 25 March 1795 and was widowed on 12 June 1821. His second marriage, on 24 September 1822, was to Mary, daughter of Reverend Charles Chester (formerly Bagot), who outlived him.[3] Both marriages were childless and the earldom of Liverpool passed to his half-brotherCharles Jenkinson on his death.[1]
Liverpool was one of the founders of theNational Gallery and was the first president of the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later theRNLI.[8]
Robert William Seton-Watson sums up Jenkinson's strengths and weaknesses:
No one would claim Liverpool as a man of genius, but he had qualities of tact, firmness and endurance to which historians have rarely done full justice: and thus it came about that he held the office of Premier over a period more than twice as long as any other successor of Pitt, long after peace had been restored to Europe. One reason for his ascendancy was that he had an unrivalled insight into the whole machinery of government, having filled successively every Secretaryship of State, and tested the efficiency and mutual relations of politicians and officials alike.... He had a much wider acquaintance with foreign affairs than many who have held his high office.[9]
John W. Derry says Jenkinson was:
[A] capable and intelligent statesman, whose skill in building up his party, leading the country to victory in the war against Napoleon, and laying the foundations for prosperity outweighed his unpopularity in the immediate post-Waterloo years.[10]
Jenkinson was the first British Prime Minister to regularly wear long trousers instead ofbreeches. He entered office at the age of 42 years and one day, younger than all of his successors. Liverpool served as Prime Minister for a total of 14 years and 305 days, making him the longest-serving Prime Minister of the 19th century. As of 2023, none of Liverpool's successors has served longer.
InLondon, Liverpool Street andLiverpool Road, Islington, are named after Lord Liverpool. The Canadian town ofHawkesbury, Ontario, theHawkesbury River and theLiverpool Plains, New South Wales, Australia,Liverpool, New South Wales, and theLiverpool River in theNorthern Territory of Australia were also named after Lord Liverpool.[11]
Lord Liverpool was portrayed by American actorGilbert Emery in the 1934 filmThe House of Rothschild.
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| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forAppleby 1790 With:Richard Ford | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forRye 1790–1801 With:Charles Long1790–1796 Robert Dundas1796–1801 | Succeeded by Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by Parliament of Great Britain | Member of Parliament forRye 1801–1803 With:Sir John Blaquiere1801–1802 Thomas Davis Lamb1802–1803 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Master of the Mint 1799–1801 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Foreign Secretary 1801–1804 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Leader of the House of Lords 1803–1806 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Home Secretary 1804–1806 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Home Secretary 1807–1809 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Leader of the House of Lords 1807–1827 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1809–1812 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 8 June 1812 – 9 April 1827 | Succeeded by |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by | Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 1806–1827 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Earl of Liverpool 1808–1828 Member of theHouse of Lords (1808–1828) | Succeeded by |
| Baron Hawkesbury (writ of acceleration) 1803–1828 Member of theHouse of Lords (1803–1808) | ||
| Baronetage of England | ||
| Preceded by | Baronet of Walcot and Hawkesbury 1803–1828 | Succeeded by |
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