Cabinet of lord Liverpool. He desired to strengthen the
government of the duke of Wellington by the introduction of
some of the more important of Mr. Canning's friends into the
Cabinet and to fill some of the lesser offices. The earl of
Dudley, Mr. Huskisson, lord Palmerston, and Mr. Charles Grant,
became members of the new administration. Mr. William Lamb,
afterwards lord Melbourne, was appointed Chief Secretary for
Ireland. The ultra-Tories were greatly indignant at these
arrangements. They groaned and reviled as if the world was
unchanged."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
Sir T. Martin,
Life of Lord Lyndhurst,
chapter 9.
W. M. Torrens,
Life of Viscount Melbourne,
volume 1, chapter 15.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1827-1829.
Intervention on behalf of Greece.
Battle of Navarino.
See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1828.
Corn Law amendment.
The Sliding Scale.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1815-1828.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1829.
Catholic Emancipation.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1830.
The state of the Parliamentary representation before Reform.
Death of George IV.
Accession of William IV.
Fall of the Wellington Ministry.
"Down to the year 1800, when the Union between Great Britain
and Ireland was effected, the House consisted of 558 members;
after 1800, it consisted of 658 members. In the earlier days
of George III., it was elected by 160,000 voters, out of a
population of a little more than eight millions; in the later
days of that monarch, it was elected by about 440,000 voters,
out of a population of twenty-two millions. ... But the
inadequacy of the representation will be even more striking if
we consider the manner in which the electors were broken up
into constituencies. The constituencies consisted either of
counties, or of cities or boroughs. Generally speaking, the
counties of England and Wales (and of Ireland, after the
Union) were represented by two members, and the counties of
Scotland by one member; and the voters were the forty-shilling
freeholders. The number of cities and boroughs which returned
members varied; but, from the date of the Union, there were
about 217 in England and Wales, 14 in Scotland, and 39 in
Ireland,--all the English and Welsh boroughs (with a few
exceptions) returning two members, and the Scotch and Irish
boroughs one member. How the particular places came to be
Parliamentary boroughs is a question of much historic
interest, which cannot be dealt with here in detail.
Originally, the places to which writs were issued seem to have
been chosen by the Crown, or, not unfrequently, by the
Sheriffs of the counties. Probably, in the first instance, the
more important places were selected; though other
considerations, such as the political opinions of the owners
of the soil, and the desire to recognise services (often of a
very questionable character) rendered by such owners to the
King, no doubt had their weight. In the time of Cromwell, some
important changes were made. In 1654, he disfranchised many small
boroughs, increased the number of county members, and
enfranchised Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. All these reforms
were cancelled after the Restoration; and from that time very
few changes were made. ... In the hundred and fifty years
which followed the Restoration, however, there were changes in
the condition of the country, altogether beyond the control of
either kings or parliaments. Old towns disappeared or decayed,
and new ones sprang up. Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds were
remarkable examples of the latter,--Old Sarum was an example
of the former. ... At one time a place of some importance, it
declined from the springing up of New Sarum (Salisbury); and,
even so far back as the reign of Henry VII., it existed as a
town only in imagination, and in the roll of the Parliamentary
boroughs. ... Many other places might be named [known as Rotten
Boroughs and Pocket Boroughs]--such as Gatton in Surrey, and
Ludgershall in Wiltshire--which represented only their owners.
In fact, the representation of owners, and of owners only, was
a very prominent feature of the electoral system now under
consideration. Thus, the Duke of Norfolk was represented by
eleven members, who sat for places forming a part of his
estates; similarly, Lord Lonsdale was represented by nine
members, Lord Darlington by seven, the Duke of Rutland and
several other peers by six each; and it is stated by one
authority that the Duke of Newcastle, at one time, returned
one third of all the members for the boroughs, while, up to
1780, the members for the county of York--the largest and most
influential of the counties--were always elected in Lord
Rockingham's dining-room. But these are only selected
instances. Many others might be cited. According to a
statement made by the Duke of Richmond in 1780, 6,000 persons
returned a clear majority of the House of Commons. In 1793,
the Society of the Friends of the People asserted, and
declared that they were able to prove, that 84 individuals
returned 157 members; that 70 individuals returned 150
members; and that of the 154 individuals who thus returned 307
members--the majority of the House before the Union with
Ireland--no fewer than 40 were peers. The same Society
asserted in the same year, and declared that they were able to
prove, that 70 members were returned by 35 places, in which
there were scarcely any electors; that 90 members were
returned by 46 places, in which there were fewer than 50
electors; that 37 members were returned by 19 places, with not
more than 100 electors; and that 52 members were returned by
26 places, with not more than 200 electors: all these in
England alone. Even in the towns which had a real claim to
representation, the franchise rested upon no uniform basis.
... In some cases the suffrage was practically household
suffrage; in other cases the suffrage was extremely
restricted. But they all returned their two members equally;
it made no difference whether the voters numbered 3,000 or
only three or four. Such being the state of the
representation, corruption was inevitable. Bribery was
practised to an inconceivable extent. Many of the smaller
boroughs had a fixed price, and it was by no means uncommon to
see a borough advertised for sale in the newspapers. ...
{954}
As an example of cost in contesting a county election, it is
on record that the joint expenses of Lord Milton and Mr.
Lascelles, in contesting the county of York in 1807, were
£200,000. ... It is not to be supposed that a condition of
things which appears to us so intolerable attracted no
attention before what may be called the Reform era. So far
back as 1745, Sir Francis Dashwood (afterwards Lord de
Spencer) moved an amendment to the Address in favour of
Reform; Lord Chatham himself, in 1766 and 1770, spoke of the
borough representation as 'the rotten part of the
constitution,' and likened it to a 'mortified limb'; the Duke
of Richmond of that day, in 1780, introduced a bill into the
House of Lords which would have given manhood suffrage and
annual parliaments; and three times in succession, in 1782,
1783, and 1785, Mr. Pitt proposed resolutions in favour of
Reform. ... After Mr. Pitt had abandoned the cause, Mr.
(afterwards Earl) Grey took up the subject. First, in 1792, he
presented that famous petition from the Society of the Friends
of the People, to which allusion has been already made, and
founded a resolution upon it. He made further efforts in 1793,
1795, and 1797, but was on every occasion defeated by large
majorities. ... From the beginning of the 19th century to the
year 1815--with the exception of a few months after the Peace
of Amiens in 1802--England was at war. During that time Reform
dropped out of notice. ... In 1817, and again in 1818 and
1819, Sir Francis Burdett, who was at that time member for
Westminster and a leading Reformer, brought the question of
Reform before the House of Commons. On each occasion he was
defeated by a tremendous majority. ... The next ten years were
comparatively uneventful, so far as the subject of this
history is concerned. ... Two events made the year 1830
particularly opportune for raising the question of
Parliamentary Reform. The first of these events was the death
of George IV. [June 26],--the second, the deposition of
Charles X. of France. ... For the deposition of
Charles--followed as it was very soon by a successful
insurrection in Belgium--produced an immense impression upon
the Liberals of this country, and upon the people generally.
In a few days or weeks there had been secured in two
continental countries what the people of England had been
asking for in vain for years. ... We must not omit to notice
one other circumstance that favoured the cause of Reform. This
was the popular distress. Distress always favours agitation.
The distress in 1830 was described in the House of Lords at
the time as 'unparalleled in any previous part of our
history.' Probably this was an exaggeration. But there can be
no doubt that the distress was general, and that it was acute.
... By the law as it stood when George IV. died, the demise of
the Crown involved a dissolution of Parliament. The Parliament
which was in existence in 1830 had been elected in 1826. Since
the beginning o£ 1828 the Duke of Wellington had been Prime
Minister, with Mr. (soon after Sir Robert) Peel as Home
Secretary, and Leader of the House of Commons. They decided to
dissolve at once. ... In the Parliament thus dissolved, and
especially in the session just brought to a close, the
question of Reform had held a prominent place. At the very
beginning of the session, in the first week of February, the
Marquis of Blandford (afterwards Duke of Marlborough) moved an
amendment to the Address, in which, though a Tory, he affirmed
the conviction 'that the State is at this moment in the most
imminent danger, and that no effectual measures of salvation
will or can be adopted until the people shall be restored to
their rightful share in the legislation of the country.' ...
He was supported on very different grounds by Mr. O'Connell,
but was defeated by a vote of 96 to 11. A few days later he
introduced a specific plan of Reform--a very Radical plan
indeed--but was again ignominiously defeated; then, on the 23d
of February, Lord John Russell ... asked for leave to bring in
a bill for conferring the franchise upon Leeds, Manchester,
and Birmingham, as the three largest unrepresented towns in
the kingdom, but was defeated by 188 votes to 140; and
finally, on the 28th of May--scarcely two months before the
dissolution--Mr. O'Connell brought in a bill to establish
universal suffrage, vote by ballot, and triennial parliaments,
but found only 13 members to support him in a House of 332.
... Thus, the question of Reform was now before the country,
not merely as a popular but as a Parliamentary question. It is
not too much to say that, when the dissolution occurred, it
occupied all minds. ... The whole of August and a considerable
part of September, therefore, were occupied with the
elections, which were attended by an unparalleled degree of
excite merit. ... When all was over, and the results were
reckoned up, it was found that, of the 28 members who
represented the thirteen greatest cities in England (to say
nothing of Wales, Scotland, or Ireland), only 3 were
Minsterialists. ... Of the 236 men who were returned by
elections, more or less popular, in England, only 79 were
Ministerialists. ... The first Parliament of William IV. met
on the 26th of October, but the session was not really opened
till the 2d of November, when the King came down and delivered
his Speech. ... The occasion was made memorable, however, not
by the King's Speech, but by a speech by the Duke of
Wellington, who was then Prime Minister. ... 'The noble Earl
[Grey],' said the Duke, 'has alluded to something in the shape
of a Parliamentary Reform, but he has been candid enough to
acknowledge that he is not prepared with any measure of
Reform; and I have as little scruple to say that his Majesty's
Government is as totally unprepared as the noble lord. Nay, on
my own part, I will go further, and say, that I have never
read or heard of any measure, up to the present moment, which
could in any degree satisfy my mind that the state of the
representation could be improved, or be rendered more
satisfactory to the country at large than at the present
moment. ... I am not only not prepared to bring forward any
measure of this nature, but I will at once declare that, as
far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any station in the
government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty to
resist such measures when proposed by others.' Exactly
fourteen days after the delivery of this speech, the Duke's
career' as Prime Minister came for the time to a close. On the
16th of November he came down to Westminster, and announced
that he had resigned office. In the meantime, there had been
something like a panic in the city, because Ministers,
apprehending disturbance, had advised the King and Queen to
abandon an engagement to dine, on the 9th, with the Lord Mayor
at the Guildhall.
{955}
On the 15th, too, the Government had sustained a defeat in the
House of Commons, on a motion proposed by Sir Henry Parnell on
the part of the Opposition, having reference to the civil
list. This defeat was made the pretext for resignation. But it
was only a pretext. After the Duke's declaration in regard to
Reform, and in view of his daily increasing unpopularity, his
continuance in office was impossible."
W. Heaton,
The Three Reforms of Parliament,
chapters 1-2.
ALSO IN:
A. Paul,
History of Reform,
chapters 1-6.
W. Bagehot,
Essays on Parliamentary Reform,
essay 2.
H. Cox,
Antient Parliamentary Elections.
S. Walpole,
The Electorate and the Legislature,
chapter 4.
E. A. Freeman,
Decayed Boroughs
(Historical Essays, 4th series).
England: A. D. 1830-1832.
The great Reform of Representation in Parliament, under the
Ministry of Earl Grey.
"Earl Grey was the new Minister; and Mr. Brougham his Lord
Chancellor. The first announcement of the premier was that the
government would 'take into immediate consideration the state
of the representation, with a view to the correction of those
defects which have been occasioned in it, by the operation of
time; and with a view to the reestablishment of that
confidence upon the part of the people, which he was afraid
Parliament did not at present enjoy, to the full extent that
is essential for the welfare and safety of the country, and
the preservation of the government.' The government were now
pledged to a measure of parliamentary reform; and during the
Christmas recess were occupied in preparing it. Meanwhile, the
cause was eagerly supported by the people. ... So great were
the difficulties with which the government had to contend,
that they needed all the encouragement that the people could
give. They had to encounter the reluctance of the king,--the
interests of the proprietors of boroughs, which Mr. Pitt,
unable to overcome, had sought to purchase,--the opposition of
two thirds of the House of Lords; and perhaps of a majority of
the House of Commons,--and above all, the strong Tory spirit
of the country. ... On the 3d February, when Parliament
reassembled, Lord Grey announced that the government had
succeeded in framing 'a measure which would be effective,
without exceeding the bounds of a just and well-advised
moderation,' and which 'had received the unanimous consent of
the whole government.' ... On the 1st March, this measure was
brought forward in the House of Commons by Lord John Russell,
to whom,--though not in the cabinet,--this honorable duty had
been justly confided. ... On the 22d March, the second reading
of the bill was carried by a majority of one only, in a House
of 608,--probably the greatest number which, up to that time,
had ever been assembled at a division. On the 19th of April,
on going into committee, ministers found themselves in a
minority of eight, on a resolution proposed by General
Gascoyne, that the number of members returned for England
ought not to be diminished. On the 21st, ministers announced
that it was not their intention to proceed with the bill. On
that same night, they were again defeated on a question of
adjournment, by a majority of twenty-two. This last vote was
decisive. The very next day, Parliament was prorogued by the
king in person, 'with a view to its immediate dissolution.' It
was one of the most critical days in the history of our
country. ... The people were now to decide the question;--and
they decided it. A triumphant body of reformers was returned,
pledged to carry the reform bill; and on the 6th July, the
second reading of the renewed measure was agreed to, by a
majority of 136. The most tedious and irritating discussions
ensued in committee,--night after night; and the bill was not
disposed of until the 21st September, when it was passed by a
majority of 109. That the peers were still adverse to the bill
was certain; but whether, at such a crisis, they would venture to
oppose the national will, was doubtful. On the 7th October,
after a debate of five nights,--one of the most memorable by
which that House has ever been distinguished, and itself a
great event in history,--the bill was rejected on the second
reading, by a majority of forty-one. The battle was to be
fought again. Ministers were too far pledged to the people to
think of resigning; and on the motion of Lord Ebrington, they
were immediately supported by a vote of confidence from the
House of Commons. On the 20th October, Parliament was
prorogued; and after a short interval of excitement,
turbulence, and danger [see BRISTOL: A. D. 1831], met again on
the 6th December. A third reform bill was immediately brought
in,--changed in many respects,--and much improved by reason of
the recent census, and other statistical investigations.
Amongst other changes, the total number of members was no
longer proposed to be reduced. This bill was read a second
time on Sunday morning, the 18th of December, by a majority of
162. On the 23d March, it was passed by the House of Commons,
and once more was before the House of Lords. Here the peril of
again rejecting it could not be concealed,--the courage of some
was shaken,--the patriotism of others aroused; and after a
debate of four nights, the second reading was affirmed by the
narrow majority of nine. But danger still awaited it. The
peers who would no longer venture to reject such a bill, were
preparing to change its essential character by amendments.
Meanwhile the agitation of the people was becoming dangerous.
... The time had come, when either the Lords must be coerced;
or the ministers must resign. This alternative was submitted
to the king. He refused to create peers: the ministers
resigned, and their resignation was accepted. Again the
Commons came to the rescue of the bill and the reform
ministry. On the motion of Lord Ebrington, an address was
immediately voted by them, renewing their expressions of
unaltered confidence in the late ministers, and imploring his
Majesty 'to call to his councils such persons only as will
carry into effect, unimpaired in all its essential provisions,
that bill for reforming the representation of the people,
which has recently passed this House.' ... The public
excitement was greater than ever; and the government and the
people were in imminent danger of a bloody collision, when
Earl Grey was recalled to the councils of his sovereign. The
bill was now secure. The peers averted the threatened addition
to their numbers by abstaining from further opposition; and
the bill,--the Great Charter of 1832,--at length received the
Royal Assent. It is now time to advert to the provisions of
this famous statute; and to inquire how far it corrected the
faults of a system, which had been complained of for more than
half a century.
{956}
The main evil had been the number of nomination, or rotten
boroughs enjoying the franchise. Fifty-six of these,--having
less than 2,000 inhabitants, and returning 111 members,--were
swept away. Thirty boroughs, having less than 4,000
inhabitants, lost each a member. Weymouth and Melcombe Regis
lost two. This disfranchisement extended to 143 members. The
next evil had been, that large populations were unrepresented;
and this was now redressed. Twenty-two large towns, including
metropolitan districts, received the privilege of returning
two members; and 20 more of returning one. The large county
populations were also regarded in the distribution of
seats,--the number of county members being increased from 94
to 159. The larger counties were divided; and the number of
members adjusted with reference to the importance of the
constituencies. Another evil was the restricted and unequal
franchise. This too was corrected. All narrow rights of
election were set aside in Boroughs; and a £10 household
franchise was established. The freemen of corporate towns were
the only class of electors whose rights were reserved; but
residence within the borough was attached as a condition to
their right of voting. ... The county constituency was
enlarged by the addition of copyholders and leaseholders, for
terms of years, and of tenants-at-will paying a rent of £50 a
year. ... The defects of the Scotch representation, being even
more flagrant and indefensible than those of England, were not
likely to be omitted from Lord Grey's general scheme of
reform. ... The entire representation was remodelled.
Forty-five members had been assigned to Scotland at the Union:
this number was now increased to 53 of whom 30 were allotted
to counties, and 23 to cities and burghs. The county franchise
was extended to all owners of property of £10 a year, and to
certain classes of leaseholders; and the burgh franchise to
all £10 householders. The representation of Ireland had many
of the defects of the English system. ... The right of
election was taken away from the corporations, and vested in
£10 householders; and large additions were made to the county
constituency. The number of members in Ireland, which the Act
of Union had settled at 100, was now increased to 105."
T. E. May,
Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860,
chapter 6 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. N. Molesworth,
History of the Reform Bill of 1832.
W. Jones,
Biographical Sketches of the Reform Ministers.
Lord Brougham, Life and Times, by Himself,
chapters 21-22.
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 11 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1831.
First assumption of the name Conservatives by the Tories.
See CONSERVATIVE PARTY.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1831-1832.
Intervention in the Netherlands.
Creation of the kingdom of Belgium.
War with Holland.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1830-1832.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833.
Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies.
Trade monopoly of the East India Company withdrawn.
Factory Bill.
Irish tithes.
"The period which succeeded the passing of the Reform Bill was
one of immense activity and earnestness in legislation. ...
The first great reform was the complete abolition of the
system of slavery in the British colonies. The slave trade had
itself been suppressed so far as we could suppress it long
before that time, but now the whole system of West Indian
slavery was brought to an end [see SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D.
1834-1838]. ... A long agitation of the small but energetic
anti-slavery party brought about this practical result in
1833. ... Granville Sharpe, Zachary Macaulay, father of the
historian and statesman, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Wilberforce,
Brougham, and many others, had for a long time been striving
hard to rouse up public opinion to the abolition of the slave
system." The bill which passed Parliament gave immediate
freedom to all children subsequently born, and to all those
who were then under six years of age; while it determined for
all other slaves a period of apprenticeship, lasting five
years in one class and seven years in another, after which
they attained absolute freedom. It appropriated £20,000,000
for the compensation of the slave-owners. "Another reform of
no small importance was accomplished when the charter of the
East India Company came to be renewed in 1833. The clause
giving them a commercial monopoly of the trade of the East was
abolished, and the trade thrown open to the merchants of the
world [see INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833]. There were other slaves in
those days as well as the negro. There were slaves at home,
slaves to all intents and purposes, who were condemned to a
servitude as rigorous as that of the negro, and who, as far as
personal treatment went, suffered more severely than negroes in
the better class plantations. We speak now of the workers in
the great mines and factories. No law up to this time
regulated with anything like reasonable stringency the hours
of labour in factories. ... A commission was appointed to
investigate the condition of those who worked in the
factories. Lord Ashley, since everywhere known as the Earl of
Shaftesbury, ... brought forward the motion which ended in the
appointment of the commission. The commission quickly brought
together an immense amount of evidence to show the terrible
effect, moral and physical, of the over-working of women and
children, and an agitation set in for the purpose of limiting
by law the duration of the hours of labour. ... The principle
of legislative interference to protect children working in
factories was established by an Act passed in 1833, limiting
the work of children to eight hours a day, and that of young
persons under eighteen to 69 hours a week [see FACTORY
LEGISLATION]. The agitation then set on foot and led by Lord
Ashley was engaged for years after in endeavouring to give
that principle a more extended application. ... Irish tithes
were one of the grievances which came under the energetic
action of this period of reform. The people of Ireland
complained with justice of having to pay tithes for the
maintenance of the church establishment in which they did not
believe, and under whose roofs they never bent in worship." In
1832, committees of both Houses of Parliament reported in
favor of the extinction of tithes; but the Government
undertook temporarily a scheme whereby it made advances to the
Irish clergy and assumed the collection of tithes among its
own functions. It only succeeded in making matters worse, and
several years passed before the adoption (in 1838) of a bill
which "converted the tithe composition into a rent charge."
J. McCarthy,
The Epoch of Reform,
chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN: C. Knight, Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 17.
H. Martineau,
History of the Thirty Years' Peace,
book 4, chapters 6-9 (volumes 2-3).
{957}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1833-1840.
Turko-Egyptian question and its settlement.
The capture of Acre.
Bombardment of Alexandria.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1833-1845.
The Oxford or Tractarian Movement.
See OXFORD OR TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1834-1837.
Resignation of Lord Grey and the Reform Ministry.
The first Melbourne Administration.
Peel's first Ministry and Melbourne's second.
Death of William IV.
Accession of Queen Victoria.
"On May 27th, Mr. Ward, member of St. Albans, brought forward
... resolutions, that the Protestant Episcopal Church of
Ireland much exceeded the spiritual wants of the Protestant
population; that it was the right of the State, and of
Parliament, to distribute church property, and that the
temporal possessions of the Irish church ought to be reduced.
The ministers determined to adopt a middle course and appoint
a commission of inquiry; they hoped thereby to induce Mr. Ward
to withdraw his motion, because the question was already in
government hands. While the negotiations were going on, news
was received of the resignation of four of the most
conservative members of the Cabinet, who regarded any
interference with church property with abhorrence; they were
Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the Duke of Richmond, and the
Earl of Ripon. ... Owing to the difference of opinion in the
Cabinet on the Irish coercion bill, on July 9, 1834, Earl Grey
placed his resignation as Prime Minister in the hands of the
king. On the 10th the House of Commons adjourned for four
days. On the 14th, Viscount Melbourne stated in the House of
Lords that his Majesty had honored him with his commands for
the formation of a ministry. He had undertaken the task, but
it was not yet completed. There was very little change in the
Cabinet; Lord Melbourne's place in the Home Department was
filled by Lord Duncannon; Sir John Cam Hobhouse obtained a
seat as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and Lord
Carlisle surrendered the Privy Seal to Lord Mulgrave. The
Irish Church Bill was again brought forward, and although it
passed the Commons, was defeated in the Lords, August 1st. The
king much disliked the church policy of the Whigs, and dreaded
reform. He was eager to prevent the meeting of the House, and
circumstances favored him. Before the session Lord Spencer
died, and Lord Althorpe, his son, was thus removed to the
upper House. There was no reason why this should have broken
up the ministry, but the king seized the opportunity, sent for
Lord Melbourne, asserted that the ministry depended chiefly on
the personal influence of Lord Althorpe in the Commons,
declared that, deprived of it as it now was, the government
could not go on, and dismissed his ministers, instructing
Melbourne at once to send for the Duke of Wellington. The
sensation in London was great; the dismissal of the ministry
was considered unconstitutional; the act of the king was
wholly without precedent. ... The Duke of Wellington, from
November 15th to December 9th, was the First Lord of the
Treasury, and the sole Secretary of State, having only one
colleague, Lord Lyndhurst, who held the great seal, while at
the same time he sat as Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer.
This temporary government was called a dictatorship. ... On
Sir Robert Peel's return from Italy, whence he had been
called, he waited upon the king and accepted the office of
First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
With the king's permission, he applied to Lord Stanley and Sir
James Graham, entreating them to give him the benefit of their
co-operation as colleagues in the Cabinet. They both declined.
Prevented from forming a moderate Conservative ministry, he
was reduced to fill his places with men of more pronounced
opinions, which promised ill for any advance in reform. ...
The Foreign, Home, War, and Colonial offices were filled by
Wellington, Goulburn, Herries, and Aberdeen; Lord Lyndhurst
was Lord Chancellor; Harding, Secretary for Ireland; and Lord
Wharncliffe, Privy Seal. With this ministry Peel had to meet a
hostile House of Commons. ... The Prime Minister therefore
thought it necessary to dissolve Parliament, and took the
opportunity [in what was called 'the Tamworth manifesto'] of
declaring his policy. He declared his acceptance of the Reform
Bill as a final settlement of the question. ... The elections,
though they returned a House, as is generally the case, more
favorable to the existing government than that which had been
dissolved, still gave a considerable majority to the Liberals.
... Lord John Russell, on April 7th, proposed the resolution,
'That it is the opinion of this House that no measure upon the
subject of the tithes in Ireland can lead to satisfactory and
final adjustment which does not embody the temporalities of
the Church in Ireland.' This was adopted by a majority of 27,
and that majority was fatal to the ministry. On the following
day the Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, stated that
in consequence of the resolution in the House of Commons, the
ministry had tendered their resignation. Sir Robert made a
similar explanation in the Commons. Ten days later, Viscount
Melbourne, in moving the adjournment of the House of Lords,
stated that the king had been pleased to appoint him First
Lord of the Treasury. ... On June 9, 1837, a bulletin issued
from Windsor Castle informing a loyal and really affectionate
people that the king was ill. From the 12th they were
regularly issued until the 19th, when the malady, inflammation
of the lungs, had greatly increased. ... On Tuesday, June 20th,
the last of these official documents was issued. His Majesty
had expired that morning at 2 o'clock. William died in the
seventy-second year of his age and seventh year of his reign,
leaving no legitimate issue. He was succeeded by his niece,
Alexandrina Victoria."
A. H. McCalman,
Abridged History of England,
pages 565-570.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 2, chapters 10-12.
W. M. Torrens,
Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne,
volume 2, chapters 1-8.
J. W. Croker,
Correspondence and Diaries,
chapters 18-20 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1836-1839.
Beginning of the Anti-Corn-Law Agitation.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1836-1839.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1837.
Separation of Hanover.
See HANOVER: A. D. 1837.
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ENGLAND: A. D. 1837-1839.
Opening of the reign of Queen Victoria.
End of personal rule.
Beginning of purely constitutional government.
Peel and the Bedchamber Question.
"The Duke of Wellington thought the accession of a woman to
the sovereign's place would be fatal to the present hopes of
the Tories [who were then expecting a turn of events in their
favor, as against the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne].
'Peel,' he said, 'has no manners, and I have no small talk.'
He seemed to take it for granted that the new sovereign would
choose her Ministers as a school-girl chooses her companions.
He did not know, did not foresee, that with the accession of
Queen Victoria the real reign of constitutional government in
these islands was to begin. The late King had advanced
somewhat on the ways of his predecessors, but his rule was
still, to all intents and purposes, a personal rule. With the
accession of Victoria the system of personal rule came to an
end. The elections which at that time were necessary on the
coming of a new sovereign went slightly in favour of the
Tories. The Whigs had many troubles. They were not reformers
enough for the great body of their supporters. ... The
Radicals had split off from them. They could not manage
O'Connell. The Chartist fire was already burning. There was
many a serious crisis in foreign policy--in China and in
Egypt, for example. The Canadian Rebellion and the mission of
Lord Durham involved the Whigs in fresh anxieties, and laid
them open to new attacks from their enemies. On the top of all
came some disturbances, of a legislative rather than an
insurrectionary kind, in Jamaica, and the Government felt
called upon to bring in a Bill to suspend for five years the
Constitution of the island. A Liberal and reforming Ministry
bringing in a Bill to suspend a Constitution is in a highly
awkward and dangerous position. Peel saw his opportunity, and
opposed the Bill. The Government won by a majority of only 5.
Lord Melbourne accepted the situation, and resigned [May 7,
1839]. The Queen sent for the Duke of Wellington, and he, of
course, advised her to send for Peel. When Peel came, the
young Queen told him with all the frankness of a girl that she
was sorry to part with her late Ministers, and that she did
not disapprove of their conduct, but that she felt bound to
act in accordance with constitutional usages; Peel accepted
the task of forming an Administration. And then came the
famous dispute known as the 'Bedchamber Question'--the
'question de jupons.' The Queen wished to retain her
ladies-in-waiting; Peel insisted that there must be some
change. Two of these ladies were closely related to Whig
statesmen whose policy was diametrically opposed to that of
Peel on no less important a question than the Government of
Ireland. Peel insisted that he could not undertake to govern
under such conditions. The Queen, acting on the advice of her
late Ministers, would not give way. The whole dispute created
immense excitement at the time. There was a good deal of
misunderstanding on both sides. It was quietly settled, soon
after, by a compromise which the late Prince Consort
suggested, and which admitted that Peel had been in the right.
... Its importance to us now is that, as Peel would not give
way, the Whigs had to come back again, and they came back
discredited and damaged, having, as Mr. Molesworth puts it,
got back 'behind the petticoats of the ladies-in-waiting.'"
J. McCarthy,
Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 1.
H. Dunckley,
Lord Melbourne,
chapter 11.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1837.
The Victorian Age in Literature.
"It may perhaps be assumed without any undue amount of
speculative venturesomeness that the age of Queen Victoria
will stand out in history as the period of a literature as
distinct from others as the age of Elizabeth or Anne, although
not perhaps equal in greatness to the latter, and far indeed
below the former. At the opening of Queen Victoria's reign a
great race of literary men had come to a close. It is curious
to note how sharply and completely the literature of Victoria
separates itself from that of the era whose heroes were Scott,
Byron, and Wordsworth: Before Queen Victoria came to the
throne, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, and Keats were dead.
Wordsworth lived, indeed, for many years after; so did Southey
and Moore; and Savage Landor died much later still. But
Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, and Landor had completed their
literary work before Victoria came to the throne. Not one of
them added a cubit or an inch to his intellectual stature from
that time; some of them even did work which distinctly proved
that their day was done. A new and fresh breath was soon after
breathed into literature. Nothing, perhaps, is more remarkable
about the better literature of the age of Queen Victoria than
its complete severance from the leadership of that which had
gone before it, and its evidence of a fresh and genuine
inspiration. It is a somewhat curious fact, too, very
convenient for the purposes of this history, that the
literature of Queen Victoria's time thus far divides itself
clearly enough into two parts. The poets, novelists, and
historians who were making their fame with the beginning of
the reign had done all their best work and made their mark
before these later years, and were followed by a new and
different school, drawing inspiration from wholly different
sources, and challenging comparison as antagonists rather than
disciples. We speak now only of literature. In science the
most remarkable developments were reserved for the later years
of the reign."
J. McCarthy,
The Literature of the Victorian Reign
(Appletons' Journal, January, 1879, page 498).
"The age of Queen Victoria is as justly entitled to give name
to a literary epoch as any of those periods on which this
distinction has been conferred by posterity. A new tone of
thought and a new colour of style are discernible from about
the date of the Queen's accession, and, even should these
characteristics continue for generations without apparent
break, it will be remembered that the Elizabethan age did not
terminate with Elizabeth. In one important respect, however,
it differs from most of those epochs which derive their
appellation from a sovereign. The names of Augustus, Lorenzo,
Louis XIV., Anne, are associated with a literary advance, a
claim to have bequeathed models for imitation to succeeding
ages. This claim is not preferred on behalf of the age of
Victoria. It represents the fusion of two currents which had
alternately prevailed in successive periods. Delight and
Utility met, Truth and Imagination kissed each other.
Practical reform awoke the enthusiasm of genius, and genius
put poetry to new use, or made a new path for itself in prose.
The result has been much gain, some loss, and an originality
of aspect which would alone render our Queen's reign
intellectually memorable.
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Looking back to the 18th century in England, we see the spirit
of utility entirely in the ascendant. Intellectual power is as
great as ever, immortal books are written as of old, but there
is a general incapacity not only for the production, but for
the comprehension of works of the imagination. Minds as robust
as Johnson's, as acute as Hume's, display neither strength nor
intelligence in their criticism of the Elizabethan writers,
and their professed regard for even the masterpieces of
antiquity is evidently in the main conventional. Conversely,
when the spell is broken and the capacity for imaginative
composition returns, the half-century immediately preceding
her Majesty's accession does not, outside the domain of the
ideal, produce a single work of the first class. Hallam, the
elder Mill, and others compose, indeed, books of great value,
but not great books. In poetry and romantic fiction, on the
other hand, the genius of that age reaches a height unattained
since Milton, and probably not destined to be rivalled for
many generations. In the age of Victoria we witness the fusion
of its predecessors."
R. Garnett,
Literature (The Reign of Queen Victoria,
edited by T. H. Ward, volume 2, pages 445-446).
"The most conspicuous of the substantial distinctions between
the literature of the present day and that of the first
quarter or third of the century may be described as consisting
in the different relative positions at the two dates of Prose
and Verse. In the Georgian era verse was in the ascendant; in
the Victorian era the supremacy has passed to prose. It is not
easy for anyone who has grown up in the latter to estimate
aright the universal excitement which used to be produced in
the former by a new poem of Scott's, or Byron's, or Moore's,
or Campbell's, or Crabbe's, or the equally fervid interest
that was taken throughout a more limited circle in one by
Wordsworth, or Southey, or Shelley. There may have been a
power in the spirit of poetry which that of prose would in
vain aspire to. Probably all the verse ages would be found to
have been of higher glow than the prose ones. The age in
question, at any rate, will hardly be denied by anyone who
remembers it to have been in these centuries, perhaps from the
mightier character of the events and circumstances in the
midst of which we were then placed, an age in which the
national heart beat more strongly than it does at present in
regard to other things as well as this. Its reception of the
great poems that succeeded one another so rapidly from the
first appearance of Scott till the death of Byron was like its
reception of the succession of great victories that, ever
thickening, and almost unbroken by a single defeat, filled up
the greater part of the ten years from Trafalgar to
Waterloo--from the last fight of Nelson to the last of
Wellington. No such huzzas, making the welkin ring with the
one voice of a whole people, and ascending alike from every
city and town and humblest village in the land, have been
heard since then. ... Of course, there was plenty of prose
also written throughout the verse era; but no book in prose
that was then produced greatly excited the public mind, or
drew any considerable amount of attention, till the Waverley
novels began to appear; and even that remarkable series of
works did not succeed in at once reducing poetry to the second
place, however chief a share it may have had in hastening that
result. Of the other prose writing that then went on what was
most effective was that of the periodical press,--of the
Edinburgh Review and Cobbett's Register, and, at a later date,
of Blackwood's Magazine and the London Magazine (the latter
with Charles Lamb and De Quincey among its
contributors),--much of it owing more or less of its power to
its vehement political partisanship. A descent from poetry to
prose is the most familiar of all phenomena in the history of
literature. Call it natural decay or degeneracy, or only a
relaxation which the spirit of a people requires after having
been for a certain time on the wing or on the stretch, it is
what a period of more than ordinary poetical productiveness
always ends in."
G. L. Craik,
Compendious History of English Literature,
volume 2, pages 553-555.
"What ... are the specific channels of Victorian utterance in
verse? To define them is difficult, because they are so subtly
varied and so inextricably interwoven. Yet I think they may be
superficially described as the idyll and the lyric. Under the
idyll I should class all narrative and descriptive poetry, of
which this age has been extraordinarily prolific; sometimes
assuming the form of minstrelsy, as in the lays of Scott;
sometimes approaching to the classic style, as in the
Hellenics of Landor; sometimes rivalling the novellette, as in
the work of Tennyson; sometimes aiming at psychological
analysis, as in the portraits drawn by Robert Browning;
sometimes confining art to bare history, as in Crabbe;
sometimes indulging flights of pure artistic fancy, as in
Keats' "Endymion" and "Lamia." Under its many metamorphoses
the narrative and descriptive poetry of our century bears the
stamp of the idyll, because it is fragmentary and because it
results in a picture. ... No literature and no age has been
more fertile of lyric poetry than English literature in the
age of Victoria. The fact is apparent. I should superfluously
burden my readers if I were to prove the point by reference to
Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Rossetti,
Clough, Swinburne, Arnold, Tennyson, and I do not know how
many of less illustrious but splendid names, in detail. The
causes are not far to seek. Without a comprehensive vehicle
like the epic, which belongs to the first period of national
life, or the drama, which belongs to its secondary period, our
poets of a later day have had to sing from their inner selves,
subjectively, introspectively, obeying impulses from nature
and the world, which touched them not as they were Englishmen,
but as they were this man or that woman. ... When they sang,
they sang with their particular voice; and the lyric is the
natural channel for such song. But what a complex thing is
this Victorian lyric! It includes Wordsworth's sonnets and
Rossetti's ballads, Coleridge's' Ancient Mariner' and Keats'
odes, Clough's 'Easter day' and Tennyson's 'Maud,' Swinburne's
'Songs before Sunrise' and Browning's 'Dramatis Personæ,'
Thomson's 'City of Dreadful Night' and Mary Robinson's
'Handful of Honeysuckles,' Andrew Lang's Ballades and Sharp's
'Weird of Michael Scot,' Dobson's dealings with the eighteenth
century and Noel's 'Child's Garland,' Barnes's Dorsetshire
Poems and Buchanan's London Lyrics, the songs from Empedocles
on Etna and Ebenezer Jones's 'Pagan's Drinking Chant,'
Shelley's Ode to the West Wind and Mrs. Browning's 'Pan is
Dead,' Newman's hymns and Gosse's Chant Royal.
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The kaleidoscope presented by this lyric is so inexhaustible
that any man with the fragment of a memory might pair off
scores of poems by admired authors, and yet not fall upon the
same parallels as those which I have made. The genius of our
century, debarred from epic, debarred from drama, falls back
upon idyllic and lyrical expression. In the idyll it satisfies
its objective craving after art. In the lyric it pours forth
personality. It would be wrong, however, to limit the wealth
of our poetry to these two branches. Such poems as
Wordsworth's 'Excursion,' Byron's 'Don Juan' and 'Childe
Harold,' Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh,' William Morris's
'Earthly Paradise,' Clough's 'Amours de Voyage,' are not to be
classified in either species. They are partly
autobiographical, and in part the influence of the tale makes
itself distinctly felt in them. Nor again can we omit the
translations, of which so many have been made; some of them
real masterpieces and additions to our literature."
J. A. Symonds,
A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry
(Fortnightly Review, January 1, 1889,
pages 62-64).
The difference between the drama and the novel "is one of
perspective; and it is this which in a wide sense
distinguishes the Elizabethan and the Victorian views of life,
and thence of art. ... It is ... the present aim of art to
throw on life all manner of side-lights, such as the stage can
hardly contrive, but which the novel professes to manage for
those who can read. The round unvarnished tale of the early
novelists has been dead for over a century, and in its place
we have fiction that seeks to be as complete as life itself.
... There is, then, in each of these periods an excellence and
a relative defect: in the Elizabethan, roundness and balance,
but, to us, a want of fulness; in the Victorian, amplified
knowledge, but a falling short of comprehensiveness. And
adapted to each respectively, the drama and the novel are its
most expressive literary form. The limitations and scope of
the drama are those of its time, and so of the novel. Even as
the Elizabethan lived with all his might and was not troubled
about many things, his art was intense and round, but
restricted; and as the Victorian commonly views life by the
light of a patent reading-lamp, and so, sitting apart, sees
much to perplex, the novel gives a more complex treatment of
life, with rarer success in harmony. This rareness is not,
however, due to the novel itself, but to the minds of its
makers. In possibility it is indeed the greater of the two,
being more epical; for it is as capable of grandeur, and is
ampler. This largeness in Victorian life and art argues in the
great novelists a quality of spirit which it is difficult to
name without being misunderstood, and which is peculiarly
non-Elizabethan. It argues what Burns would call a castigated
pulse, a supremacy over passion. Yet they are not Lucretian
gods, however calm their atmosphere; their minds are not built
above humanity, but, being rooted deep in it, rise high. ...
Both periods are at heart earnest, and the stamp on the great
literature of each is that of reality, heightened and made
powerful by romance. Nor is their agreement herein greatly
shaken by the novel laying considerable stress on the outside
of life, while the drama is almost heedless of it; for they
both seek to break into the kernel, their variance being
chiefly one of method, dictated by difference of knowledge,
taste, and perception."
T. D. Robb,
The Elizabethan Drama and the Victorian Novel
(Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, April, 1891,
pages 520-522).
England: A. D. 1838-1842.
The Chartist agitation.
"When the Parliament was opened by the Queen on the 5th of
February, 1839, a passage in the Royal Speech had reference to
a state of domestic affairs which presented an unhappy
contrast to the universal loyalty which marked the period of
the Coronation. Her Majesty said: 'I have observed with pain
the persevering efforts which have been made in some parts of
the country to excite my subjects to disobedience and
resistance to the law, and to recommend dangerous and illegal
practices.' Chartism, which for ten subsequent years
occasionally agitated the country, had then begun to take
root. On the previous 12th of December a proclamation had been
issued against illegal Chartist assemblies, several of which
had been held, says the proclamation, 'after sunset by
torchlight.' The persons attending these meetings were armed
with guns and pikes; and demagogues, such as Feargus O'Connor
and the Rev. Mr. Stephens at Bury, addressed the people in the
most inflammatory language. ... The document called 'The People's
Charter,' which was embodied in the form of a bill in 1838,
comprised six points:--universal suffrage, excluding,
however, women; division of the United Kingdom into equal
electoral districts; vote by ballot; annual parliaments; no
property qualification for members; and a payment to every
member for his legislative services. These principles so
quickly recommended themselves to the working-classes that in
the session of 1839 the number of signatures to a petition
presented to Parliament was upwards of a million and a
quarter. The middle classes almost universally looked with
extreme jealousy and apprehension upon any attempt for an
extension of the franchise. The upper classes for the most
part regarded the proceedings of the Chartists with a contempt
which scarcely concealed their fears. This large section of the
working population very soon became divided into what were
called physical-force Chartists and moral-force Chartists. As
a natural consequence, the principles and acts of the
physical-force Chartists disgusted every supporter of order
and of the rights of property."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 23.
"Nothing can be more unjust than to represent the leaders and
promoters of the movement as mere factious and self-seeking
demagogues. Some of them were men of great ability and
eloquence; some were impassioned young poets, drawn from the
class whom Kingsley has described in his 'Alton Locke'; some
were men of education; many were earnest and devoted fanatics;
and, so far as we can judge, all, or nearly all, were sincere.
Even the man who did the movement most harm, and who made
himself most odious to all reasonable outsiders, the once
famous, now forgotten, Feargus O'Connor, appears to have been
sincere, and to have personally lost more than he gained by
his Chartism. ... He was of commanding presence, great
stature, and almost gigantic strength. He had education; he
had mixed in good society; he belonged to an old family. ...
There were many men in the movement of a nobler moral nature
than poor, huge, wild Feargus O'Connor. There were men like
Thomas Cooper, ... devoted, impassioned, full of poetic
aspiration, and no scant measure of poetic inspiration as
well. Henry Vincent was a man of unimpeachable character. ...
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