Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool KG PC (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801. He was 42 years old when he became premier in 1812 which made him younger than all of his successors to date (the next-youngest being David Cameron, taking office at 43). During his time as Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827, Liverpool became known for repressive measures introduced to maintain order, but also for steering the country through the period of radicalism and unrest that followed the Napoleonic Wars.

Important events during his tenure as Prime Minister included the War of 1812, the Sixth and Seventh Coalitions against the French Empire, the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars at the Congress of Vienna, the Corn Laws, the Peterloo Massacre, the Trinitarian Act 1812 and the emerging issue of Catholic Emancipation.

Early life

Jenkinson was baptised on 29 June 1770 at St. Margaret's, Westminster, the son of George III's close adviser Charles Jenkinson, later the first Earl of Liverpool, and his first wife, Amelia Watts. Jenkinson's 19 year old mother, who was the part-Indian daughter of a senior East India Company official William Watts, died from the effects of childbirth one month after his birth. Most of his time as Foreign secretary was spent dealing with the nations of France and the United States. He continued to serve in the cabinet as Home Secretary in Pitt the Younger's second government. While Pitt was seriously ill, Liverpool was in charge of the cabinet and drew up the King's Speech for the official opening of Parliament. When William Pitt died in 1806, the King asked Liverpool to accept the post of Prime Minister, but he refused, as he believed he lacked a governing majority. He was then made leader of the Opposition during Lord Grenville's ministry (the only time that Liverpool did not hold government office between 1793 and after his retirement). In 1807, he resumed office as Home Secretary in the Duke of Portland's ministry.

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies

Lord Liverpool (as Hawkesbury had now become by the death of his father in December 1808) accepted the position of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in Spencer Perceval's government in 1809. Liverpool's first step on taking up his new post was to elicit from the Duke of Wellington a strong enough statement of his ability to resist a French attack to persuade the cabinet to commit themselves to the maintenance of his small force in Portugal.

Prime Minister

When Perceval was assassinated in May 1812, Lord Liverpool succeeded him as Prime Minister. The cabinet proposed Liverpool as his successor with Lord Castlereagh as leader in the Commons. But after an adverse vote in the Lower House, they subsequently gave both their resignations. The Prince Regent, however, found it impossible to form a different coalition and confirmed Liverpool as prime minister on 8 June. Liverpool's government contained some of the future great leaders of Britain, such as Lord Castlereagh, George Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel, and William Huskisson. Liverpool is considered a skilled politician, and held together the liberal and reactionary wings of the Tory party, which his successors, Canning, Goderich and Wellington, had great difficulty with.

Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna

, 1819]] Liverpool's ministry was a long and eventful one. The War of 1812 with the United States and the final campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars were fought during Liverpool's premiership. It was during his ministry that the Peninsular Campaigns were fought by the Duke of Wellington. Britain defeated France in the Napoleonic Wars, and Liverpool was awarded the Order of the Garter. At the peace negotiations that followed, Liverpool's main concern was to obtain a European settlement that would ensure the independence of the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, and confine France inside her pre-war frontiers without damaging her national integrity. To achieve this, he was ready to return all British colonial conquests. Within this broad framework, he gave Castlereagh a discretion at the Congress of Vienna, the next most important event of his ministry. At the congress, he gave prompt approval for Castlereagh's bold initiative in making the defensive alliance with Austria and France in January 1815. In the aftermath, many years of peace followed.

The Corn Laws and trouble at home

Agriculture remained a problem because good harvests between 1819 and 1822 had brought down prices and evoked a cry for greater protection. When the powerful agricultural lobby in Parliament demanded protection in the aftermath, Liverpool gave in to political necessity. Under governmental supervision the notorious Corn Laws of 1815 were passed prohibiting the import of foreign wheat until the domestic price reached a minimum accepted level. Liverpool, however, was in principle a free-trader, but had to accept the bill as a temporary measure to ease the transition to peacetime conditions. His chief economic problem during his time as Prime Minister was that of the nation's finances. The interest on the national debt, massively swollen by the enormous expenditure of the final war years, together with the war pensions, absorbed the greater part of normal government revenue. The refusal of the House of Commons in 1816 to continue the wartime income tax left ministers with no immediate alternative but to go on with the ruinous system of borrowing to meet necessary annual expenditure. Liverpool eventually facilitated a return to the gold standard in 1819.

Inevitably taxes rose to compensate for borrowing and to pay off the debt, which led to widespread disturbance between 1812 and 1822. Around this time, the group known as Luddites began industrial action, by smashing industrial machines developed for use in the textile industries of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. Throughout the period 1811-16, there were a series of incidents of machine-breaking and many of those convicted faced execution. In 1820, as a result of these measures, Liverpool and other cabinet ministers were almost assassinated in the Cato Street Conspiracy.

Although Lord Liverpool argued for the abolition of the slave trade at the Congress of Vienna, he was generally opposed to reform at home, often embracing repressive measures to ensure the status quo. He did however support the repeal of the Combination Laws banning workers from combining into trade unions in 1824, although the powers of these unions were restricted in 1825 following strikes.

Catholic emancipation

During the 19th century, and, in particular, during Liverpool's time in office, Catholic emancipation was a source of great conflict. In 1805, in his first important statement of his views on the subject, Liverpool had argued that the special relationship of the monarch with the Church of England, and the refusal of Roman Catholics to take the oath of supremacy, justified their exclusion from political power. Throughout his career, he remained opposed to the idea of Catholic emancipation, though did see marginal concessions as important to the stability of the nation.

The decision of 1812 to remove the issue from collective cabinet policy, followed in 1813 by the defeat of Grattan's Roman Catholic Relief Bill, brought a period of calm. Liverpool supported marginal concessions such as the admittance of English Roman Catholics to the higher ranks of the armed forces, the magistracy, and the parliamentary franchise; but he remained opposed to their participation in parliament itself. In the 1820s, pressure from the liberal wing of the Commons and the rise of the Catholic Association in Ireland revived the controversy.

By the date of Sir Francis Burdett's Catholic Relief Bill in 1825, emancipation looked a likely success. Indeed, the success of the bill in the Commons in April, followed by Robert Peel's tender of resignation, finally persuaded Liverpool that he should retire. When Canning made a formal proposal that the cabinet should back the bill, Liverpool was convinced that his administration had come to its end. George Canning then succeeded him as Prime Minister. Catholic emancipation however was not fully implemented until the major changes of the Catholic Relief Act of 1829 under the leadership of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, and with the work of the Catholic Association established in 1823.

Final years

Liverpool's first wife, Louisa, died at 54. He soon married again to Lady Mary Chester, a long-time friend of Louisa. Their marriage only lasted three years however, until Liverpool's death. Liverpool finally retired on 9 April 1827, when, at Fife House (his riverside residence in Whitehall since 1810), he suffered a severe cerebral hemorrhage, and asked the King to seek a successor. There was another minor stroke in July, after which he lingered on at Coombe until a third and fatal attack on 4 December 1828 when he died. He had no children and was succeeded in the Earldom of Liverpool by his younger half-brother Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool. He was buried in Hawkesbury parish church, Gloucestershire, beside his father and his first wife. His personal estate was registered at under £120,000.

Liverpool Street in London is named after Lord Liverpool.

Lord Liverpool's Administration (1812-1827)

Lord Liverpool - First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords

Lord Eldon - Lord Chancellor

Lord Harrowby - Lord President of the Council

Lord Westmorland - Lord Privy Seal

Lord Sidmouth - Secretary of State for the Home Department

Lord Castlereagh (Lord Londonderry after 1821) - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Commons

Lord Bathurst - Secretary of State for War and the Colonies

Lord Melville - First Lord of the Admiralty

Nicholas Vansittart - Chancellor of the Exchequer

Lord Mulgrave - Master-General of the Ordnance

Lord Buckinghamshire - President of the Board of Control

Charles Bathurst - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Lord Camden - minister without portfolio

Changes

Late 1812 - Lord Camden leaves the Cabinet

September 1814 - William Wellesley-Pole (Lord Maryborough from 1821), the Master of the Mint, enters the Cabinet

February 1816 - George Canning succeeds Lord Buckinghamshire at the Board of Control

January 1818 - Frederick John Robinson, the President of the Board of Trade, enters the Cabinet

January 1819 - The Duke of Wellington succeeds Lord Mulgrave as Master-General of the Ordnance. Lord Mulgrave becomes minister without portfolio

1820 - Lord Mulgrave leaves the cabinet

January 1821 - Charles Bathurst succeeds Canning as President of the Board of Control, remaining also at the Duchy of Lancaster

January 1822 - Robert Peel succeeds Lord Sidmouth as Home Secretary

February 1822 - Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn succeeds Charles Bathurst at the Board of Control. Bathurst remains at the Duchy of Lancaster and in the Cabinet

September 1822 - Following the suicide of Lord Londonderry, George Canning becomes Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons

January 1823 - Vansittart, elevated to the peerage as Lord Bexley, succeeds Charles Bathurst as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. F.J. Robinson succeeds Vansittart as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is succeeded at the Board of Trade by William Huskisson

1823 - Lord Maryborough, the Master of the Mint, leaves the Cabinet. His successor in the office is not a Cabinet member

Titles

1770-1786: Robert Jenkinson, Esq.

1786-1790: The Hon. Robert Jenkinson

1790-1796: The Hon. Robert Jenkinson MP

1796-1799: Lord Hawkesbury MP

1799-1803: The Rt. Hon. Lord Hawkesbury MP

1803-1808: The Rt. Hon. The Lord Hawkesbury PC

1808-1814: The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Liverpool PC

1814-1828: The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Liverpool KG PC

References

External links

Earl of Liverpool Prime Minister's Office

Robert Banks "2nd Earl of Liverpool" Jenkinson Find-A-Grave

Lord Liverpool SchoolHistory.co.uk, 13 August 2005

Bibliography

Gash, N. Lord Liverpool: The Life and Political Career of Robert Banks Jenkinson, Second Earl of Liverpool 1770-1828, London 1984

Petrie, C. Lord Liverpool and His Times, London, 1954

Category:1770 births Category:1828 deaths Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Category:British MPs 1790–1796 Category:British MPs 1796–1800 Category:British Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs Category:Earls in the Peerage of Great Britain Category:Knights of the Garter Category:Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports Category:Masters of the Mint Jenkinson, Robert Banks Category:Members of the Privy Council of Great Britain Jenkinson, Robert Banks Category:Old Carthusians Category:People from London Category:Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom Category:Secretaries of State for the Home Department Category:Secretaries of State for War and the Colonies (UK) Jenkinson, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Robert Banks Category:19th-century heads of government Category:Fellows of the Royal Society