Addington to Melbourne

Abstract

Addington’s post-premiership is in some ways one for the record books. Aged only 47 when he resigned as prime minister in 1804, he lived for nearly another 40 years (only Grafton lived longer after being PM). During that time he held ministerial office for a total of 14 years and served in the Cabinets of four of his successors in Number 10 (on both counts no one else has equalled this achievement). However, his stance as an arch reactionary during this period did his reputation little good at the time and for long afterwards. He was attacked in verse by Shelley as like a viper or a vulture, as ‘hypocrisy on a crocodile’, while government spies sent back reports on the radical poet to him as a Home Secretary who almost revelled in his unpopularity as a sign he was doing his job properly.¹