Lord Palmerston and Mid-Victorian Liberalism

Abstract

It has been seen that after the break-up of the Conservative Party in 1846, over the question of the repeal of the corn laws, a long period of political confusion followed, in which it proved impossible to establish a stable government of the ‘left-centre’ embracing all those elements, committed to the principle of Free Trade, who were collectively known as ‘Liberals’. Lord John Russell’s ministry of 1846–52, which never commanded a reliable majority in the House of Commons, was seriously weakened by its inability to come to terms with the leading Peelites, a problem that arose, all too clearly, out of mutual suspicions and rivalries. Even when a coalition government of Whigs and Peelites was formed, under the premiership of Lord Aberdeen, in December 1852, the experiment lasted for only a little more than two years, as the ministry was brought down on a motion of censure in the House of Commons, prompted by its inept handling of the military expedition to the Crimea. The acrimonious circumstances surrounding the fall of the Aberdeen coalition, and its eventual replacement by a more purely Whiggish administration, formed by Lord Palmerston,¹ presented major obstacles to co-operation between the various Liberal groups. Palmerston’s first ministry, indeed, was confronted by the most formidable array of opponents in the House of Commons imaginable, for quite apart from the official Conservative opposition, under the occasionally brilliant generalship of Disraeli, there was a small band of alienated Peelites, including Gladstone, Herbert and Graham, a number of radicals openly hostile to Palmerston’s leadership, notably Cobden and Bright, and, for most of the time, the ex-Whig premier, Russell.