A brief Prime Minister, who died very young (he was only
forty-four). He sent troops to America and increased the war budget, but was
almost entirely a figurehead so that William Pitt (the Elder) could govern.
Curious how someone who did nothing of note can still be better than so many
actively bad Prime Ministers.
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"I must plough my furrow alone. That is my fate."
Speech to the City Liberal Club, 19 July 1901
"Without you the new government would be ridiculous, with you it is only impossible."
Sir William Harcourt, August 1892
Another brief Prime Minister defeated in all of his efforts,
and who resigned in a huff. Harold Wilson cited him as a prime example of the wrong man at the wrong time putting his party out of power for a decade.
"He failed to separate the awkward incidents of the hour from the long swing of events, which he so clearly understood. Toughness when nothing was happening was not the form of fortitude in which he excelled. He was unduly attracted by the dramatic, and by the pleasure of making a fine gesture."
Winston Churchill, in Great Contemporaries
"Even thy genius, Canning, may permit
Who bred a statesman, still was born a wit
And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame
To unleaven'd prose thine own poetic flame
Our last, our best, our only orator."
Lord Byron, The Age of Bronze
(You know someone was liked when even Byronic satire has an edge of begrudging praise to it - compared to many others!)
Was seen as the most deserving man of his generation to
become Prime Minister, but then spent his entire run in office in a state of
grave illness, only to die after 5 months. As his party was splitting over
Catholic emancipation, it is doubtful he would have had a great time if well. He
was. in spirit, pro-emancipation by 1827, but with the Tory issues on the matter,
I think you needed an Iron Duke to push that successfully. (The Duke of Wellington claimed it was Canning's temper that killed him!)
"There is a name never to be mentioned in the House of Commons without emotion. We all admire his genius, most of us deplore his untimely end, and we all sympathize with him in his fierce struggle with supreme prejudice and candid friends."
Benjamin Disraeli, House of Commons, 28 February 1845
Disraeli's comments come from a speech on the post office, and were seconded by Robert Peel! When two Prime Ministers mourn you publicly two decades after your death...
The other thing to know about Canning is that he was considered one of the wittiest men in Britain when alive.
I operated what I called the Canning line. George Canning
did nothing notable while Prime Minister due to health issues. He’s the definition of a 0 score Prime Minister. Nothing good, nothing
bad. Just there. At the absolutely minimum achievement, you would want to be
ranked higher than George Canning. As you can see, the main thing which puts
you below that is a failure on civil liberties. That accounts for most of the
bottom fifteen. Or you could be just utterly useless like Viscount Goderich. Thatcher was the
most difficult to place, her environmental instinct was a genuinely great
achievement, and your views on her economic policy depend on how much you
gained from it. (And please note, economic matters are only brought up as a pro
or negative if they are unavoidable.) However, her promotion of Section 28 and
her support for mass murdering dictators torpedoed the positive climate actions
boost to her standing.
Now, speaking of someone who just made it across the Canning
Line..
"One of the things that people hate most about modern politics is the almost mindless partisanship that passes for debate. Ya-boo, Punch and Judy, call it what you will, the public is sick of it."
Theresa May, summing up her tenure a decade earlier, Conference speech 2002.
An authoritarian with an old school ecumenical streak,
Theresa May was handed one of the more historically unfortunate poker hands on entering
Office, and dealt with it badly. Her stubborn bloody mindedness, to
quote Ken Clarke, was responsible for the Brexit deal gridlock which led to the
Boris Johnson No Deal bonanza. Her early rhetoric attacking remain voters and
MPs meant that, in the twilight of her tenure, with her backbenchers enthralled
to the European Research Group, she was unable to find even cross party
consensus for her Brexit deal. Nor was she willing to put her weight behind
single market access, or any of the softer Brexit deals suggested. By calling
an early election and losing her majority, she found herself more in debt to
the nutters in her party. Brexit wasn’t so much an underlining statement of her
reign as the atomic mushroom cloud imprinted on the history books.
And yet, that stubborn bloody mindedness also, off the
radar, produced a number of decent achievements. Better than David Cameron, at
least. It was May’s government who introduced protections under law for
whistle-blowers (people who bring attention to misconduct). She brought in
secured tenancies for people fleeing domestic abuse, signed the UK up to the
ban on the ivory trade, and brought in the energy bill cap that we hear about
in the news so much. May’s government also brought in further restrictions on
firearm ownership in the UK, at the same time as the crackdown on acid attacks
and legislation to protect police dogs. She also announced the contaminated
blood scandal inquiry, which victims had been campaigning about for decades. She brought in the Fitness for Habitation legislation, by which renting
tenants have the legal right to live in safe homes, and that the cost of fixing
them went to the landlord or Housing Association officially. It also included
carbon monoxide detectors among the requirements.
There was also online data protection, the anti-money
laundering act (as seen in use against Russian billionaires this year), and the
Digital Economy Act. Which is a thing.
Despite that, it’s clear where her reputation lies. And it’s
not in elephants.
Only Prime Minister for seventeen months before becoming the
first to die in office, not helped by his workaholic attitude to life. He was
fond of dictating Cabinet decisions to the rest, and while Prime Minister, was
also in charge of the Foundling Hospital, the first hospital in Britain to
officially look after orphaned children, which he himself had created in 1739. The
little we know of him, he seems to be ahead of his time on the home front.
"I hate liberality. Nine times out of ten it is cowardice, and the tenth, it is lack of principle."
Henry Addington, as quoted in John Mitford's Sayings of Lord Sidmouth
I am not judging Henry Addington by the actions he took as
Home Secretary, while serving under Lord Liverpool. In that role, as Lord
Sidmouth, we already know he was responsible for some gross attacks on civil
liberties. But at the point he was Prime Minister, that was all in the future. Addington
had a three year, not very good, run in the top job. His most successful
venture was signing the Treaty of Amiens, which he immediately broke.
Another in a long line of Prime Ministers with grand ideas
undone by the political reality of the times they lived in. Portland had two
reigns as Prime Minister, nearly a quarter of a century apart. In his first, he
attempted to reform the East India Company, only for the King to call him and
other reformers enemies of the monarchy! When Pitt the Younger snuffed it, the
Cabinet called the Duke of Portland back to deal with the Peninsular War, and
to try and keep calm over a Cabinet seething with hatred towards each other.
This culminated in the duel between Lord Castlereagh and George Canning, which
is said to have had a terrible effect on Portland’s health, which was already
weakened. (He suffered badly from gallstones, and died, soon after retiring
from the job, after an operation.) Have you ever felt someone was given a
poisoned chalice? Despite all this, Portland’s place in history was secured as
he signed the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the American War of
Independence.
"Palmerston wanted to see Britain as the top nation, and to keep her there. Not all Prime Ministers enjoy the job, few enjoyed it more than Palmerston."
Harold Wilson, A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers (p84)
"Die, my dear doctor? That's the last thing I shall do!"
(sadly apocryphal) famous last words
Another Prime Minister difficult to judge. This is a man who, as Prime Minister, suggested the UK enter the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, because, despite being anti-slavery, he hated America! He was a man who legalised divorce, making it a legal right and not a church one, and then leaked to the press that he himself was cited in a divorce case as an adulterer. This was done as he was nearly eighty and he thought it would boost his popularity. It did!
He was the epitome of a flag wrapped patriot who would
be quick to denounce opponents as being anti-English. He also won the Crimean
War by forcefully taking Sevastopol from the Russians, and we all know that has
never been an issue in world politics ever since…
But then he was very forceful on foreign affairs, and a
dominating figure in Victorian politics, as a member of government for 47
years. Even Ken Clarke didn’t get close to that!
Despite (or due to) this personality, Palmerston completely changed the
face of Britain, and made legal changes that we still refer to today. Large
sections of the Companies Act 1862 still determine the rights and laws of
company ownership in the UK in 2022. The Offences Against the Person Act of
1861, which set harsher prison terms from all threats to people from rape to
poisoning, is still in effect today. It brought in protections for children, against
abandonment, ill treatment, and yes, abortion (which was illegal until the
1960s as a direct result). It also outright abolished the death penalty for homosexual acts
(although historians will note that was rarely carried out – be wary of falling
into Naomi Wolf traps – but it’s the principle of the matter).
He stands just outside the top 30, a victim of his own quirks, but his changes to society shifted the country closer to the
Gladstone reforms. And if you want one lasting example of Palmerston’s tenure,
it was he who signed the UK up to the Geneva Convention!
"I do not understand what people mean when they talk of the burden of responsibility. It is a burden of decision. I feel it trying to make up my mind whether or not to take a raincoat with me. I feel it in exactly the same way and no more when I am writing a dispatch upon which peace or war may depend."
Lord Salisbury, quoted in Lord David Cecil's The Cecils of Hatfield House
The dominating conservative figure of the later end of the
Victorian era, Salisbury is best known for his interest in the splendid
isolation period, which is now seen as the starting point for the First World
War. Despite this, his tenure was occupied with the Boer Wars, and one of his
biggest achievements was the Naval Defence Act, which vastly increased spending
on new battleships. (Ten were built in the 1890s, as well as over fifty torpedo
ships, cruisers and gunboats as we aimed to keep up with the French.) And it
was that which started off Kaiser Wilhelm
on his naval spending, and we all know where that little contretemps led.
Salisbury also set up the London County Council, then
immediately regretted it, as he viewed it as being full of socialists! His
greatest achievement, however, was in mass building. Salisbury’s government put
millions into housing for the working classes, with tenements springing up all
over the country. Which includes this very house I live in!
“Bob’s your uncle”, said everyone, and he was, for Uncle
Marquess of Salisbury retired and handed his top job to nephew Arthur. He’s
known for losing power and then his seat to the Liberals. This was because he
tried to push for an election, assuming it would be good news for him. He
failed to see the future potential consequences of his own decisions. He was
also a conservative man in action, hence supporting the Aliens Act, despite
being a prominent supporter of the European Jews/Palestine proposal.
Beyond this, he was one of the few Prime Ministers who
actually made a success out of their issues with Ireland. Balfour bought out
the Anglo-Irish landowners, a problem over a century old, and introduced
tenants rights, to the point of them being more liberal than those given to
English farmers. The Wyndham Act, named after the Chief Secretary of Ireland at
the time, was a major achievement by Balfour, and his intent had been that it
would be so progressive it would kill the desire for home rule. His Education
Act, widely seen as an election loser at the time, also vastly increased the
number of secondary schools in the UK, and the number giving higher education
to girls, and shaped British education until the Second World War.
In short, despite being a shrewd and cautious man, and one
whose great achievements had unintentional consequences, he still managed to
deal with one of the big problems that had skewered countless governments
before his. And if he managed it because, as with most of his life, he failed
to see the consequences of his actions, then that does not detract from the
achievement itself, even if accidental.
"The first Englishman of his time."
T.B. Macauley, Essays: The Earl of Chatham
Pitt the Elder was the great power behind the throne for
much of his time in high office, the Francis Urquhart of the 1750s. At least
one prior Prime Minister was considered his puppet. In this role, he was in
charge of most of the decisions during the Seven Years War, and took the credit
for the successes under it. He is also the Prime Minister was imposed tea
duties on the American colonies (although he was a major advocate in favour of
the rights of the colonies). As a war leader in the 1750s, and in winning the
most consequential war for 160 years, he shaped British power for the next two
centuries. He was a major figure behind imperial expansionism. He is here
because his actions outright changed the entire world and we still live in the
aftereffects of the decisions Pitt the Elder made. He who does great things may
set the scene for terrible things.
The Great Commoner, Pitt was very popular in his day, having
rejected honours countless times, though he suffered accusations of hypocrisy
after taking a spot in the House of Lords late in life.
"I speak not as the man the street but as the man in a field-path, a much simpler person steeped in tradition and impervious to new ideas."
Stanley Baldwin, on himself, quoted in the Dictionary of National Biography
Mid-table for a mid-man? We have already seen that Baldwin’s
ultra-cautious streak made him the worst man to send to debate the Inter-Allied
War Debts. That very man was seen as the obvious successor to Bonar Law. Where
was Austen Chamberlain, you might ask? Well, Neville’s brother had been
Conservative leader in 1921, but he was seen by Baldwin’s allies as being too
interested in bipartisanship government, and so they held a coup. When their
new man took ill, Baldwin and his friends had no interest in the guy they just
got rid of taking the top job, so they put Stanley in place instead.
Like his father, Austen Chamberlain never got to be Prime
Minister. He had to make do with the Nobel Peace Prize for his later efforts in
getting the Locarno Treaty signed! But you aren’t all here for discussion on
why Gustav Stresseman was that bulwark against Nazism the world was looking
for, and how his early death (from a stroke, caused by overworking) changed the
world horrifically. The older Chamberlain brother has his honoured place in
history, is what I’m saying.
Back to Stanley. A man whose reputation depends on your view
of appeasement. I don’t mean the idea that has been forever anchored to Neville
Chamberlain. I mean Baldwin’s direct opposition to rearmament, which left the
UK’s defences gravely depleted as Adolf Hitler started his conquering and
persecuting. Somehow, as he retired just before everything broke, Baldwin
doesn’t have this hanging over his reputation as much as poor Neville. In the
same way that Calvin Coolidge continues to get a pass for his own economic
policy having a direct influence in the Wall Street Crash that happened months
after he left office. If you think British policy was too cautious, too scared
and too respectful of Hitler in the mid-1930s, Baldwin is your man to look at.
But caution was built through his nature. If he was a stick
of Blackpool Rock, protectionism ran through the middle. He lost his first
majority in a fight over tariffs. When The General Strike was called, he
deployed the military to keep services going. He disliked change.
"Baldwin knew industrial workers better than any Prime Minister before him. He was anxious to avoid an industrial confrontation and had a real sympathy for the miners case. He upset the orthodox by providing a temporary subsidy to maintain employment for a period long enough for a newly appointed Royal Commission consisting of three "independents" to report. They recommended the end of the subsidy, drastic reorganisation of the industry, nationalisation, amalgamation of smaller undertakings and a reduction in wages!"
Harold Wilson, A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers (p177)
It is perhaps ironic then that this man of routines and
service so heavily pushed to force Edward VIII to abdicate. Of course, one
thing leads to another. Baldwin’s conservatism meant that he was unable to
comprehend having an American divorcee in the role of Queen, and so, faced with
two threats to his routine, the King’s exit was the easiest fix! Baldwin spent
five months working on the King, till he achieved that rarest of feats – a
commoner forcing the resignation of the Monarch. And as Edward was more
sympathetic towards Hitler than is comfortable, this was inarguably a bullet
dodged by the country.
Baldwin also brought in the welfare net for widows, and the
Central Electricity Board. He was a cautious man, notoriously so, but he
changed Britain. And arguably, with his push towards supporting the reform and
expansion of the welfare state, he moved the Conservative party towards
embracing the 20th Century, instead of its old view that progress
should be the reserve of Great Men of Charity.
"A man of great stature, capable of inspiring massive affection and massive attack—a man who created and led a great party and who has become a legend in that party equally for the manner of his leaving it as for the years he gave its creation."
Harold Wilson, Speech at a luncheon in the House of Commons to commemorate the centenary of Ramsay MacDonald's birth (12 October 1966), quoted in The Times (13 October 1966), p. 12. Prime Minister
The first Labour Prime Minister, and the man who split the left, MacDonald’s reputation hasn’t been the best since he formed a National Government and led Labour to its worst election result in 1931. An appeasement idealist, he was also a large part of the status quo in 30s Britain which led to the late rush to rearm. As a character alone, he was a notorious bully, and given my family were friends of Jimmy Maxton (one of Ramsay’s bete noires)...
MacDonald’s tenure is split into pre and post Great
Depression. (By this I mean 1931 when the effects were widespread.) The
post-Depression period brought in National Government, drastic spending cuts
under Snowden, a refusal to stimulate the economy and riots in Glasgow. This
weighs down his Premiership.
Before the Depression, he attempted to be a great reformer,
even as he faced criticism from his own side that he wasn’t left wing enough in
his actions. Labour started as they mean to go on! His pre-Depression periods
in office were short. His first term in office lasted 10 months, undone by the
faked Zinoviev Letter (though historians would note that the Labour vote went
up in 1924, just in the wrong places for first past the post). In 1929, he held
office for 5 months before the Wall Street Crash! A man who could pick his
moments!
His first tenure was mostly taken up in convincing the King
that he did not have plans for the Monarchy akin to those the Bolsheviks had
for the Tsar! And we’ve seen how the economy overtook his second tenure.
In between all of this, MacDonald extended the unemployment benefit, brought in extensive house programmes to build houses for low paid workers, reformed the coal industry and cleared slums. Internationally, the Ruhr was evacuated, and MacDonald tried to push European wide disarmament, unsuccessfully.
"Here, I say very little of the Prime Minister's oratorical style. We are familiar with it here. We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought. We have heard him on so many topics, from India to unemployment and many other matters, providing us, apparently, with an inexhaustible flow of vague, well-sounding exhortation, the precise purpose of which is largely wrapped in mystery."
Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 23 March 1933
A prime example of how a short-term Prime Minister can fare
well against others if they had no massive failures in their tenure. Although
it was under Douglas-Home that the home growing of cannabis was officially
criminalised. His tenure lasted a year. During it, he stood as the public face
of a tired Conservative government, and had a reputation as a fundamentally
decent, but unexciting man. Exactly the sort you needed to have international
statesmanship when the US President is murdered, you might think. Under
Douglas-Home, decolonisation carried on at pace, with North Rhodesia, Malta,
Zambia, Kenya and Malawi being declared independent countries. His other
achievements in office were the Resales Prices Index (the baby of Ted Heath,
more on him later) and, closer to my heart, the river purification boards. This
pushed the conservation of rivers and river areas, and while proposed by
MacMillan’s government, it was implemented under his successor.
Alec Douglas-Home also foiled his own kidnapping plot, by
offering the assailants a cup of tea. Not sure that can count as a success or
failure of his Premiership but it is a great story!
"Asquith worries too much about small points. If you were buying a mansion, he would come to you and say "Have you thought that there is no accommodation for the cat?"
David Lloyd George, letter, 1915
"My colleagues tell military secrets to their wives, except [Asquith], who tells them to other people's wives."
Lord Kitchener, quoted in Philip Magnus, Kitchener
Asquith being in the top twenty-five, just, is, by itself a
mark of failure. For some, to be ranked this high up would be a considerable
success. Asquith, on other hand, should have easily been a top ten level Prime
Minister but flaws in his own management, and an unwillingness to push the
advantage, prevent it. He was a block on women's suffrage throughout his time in
power, which brought the rise of the suffragette. He brought in conscription.
The heavy handed reaction to the Easter Rising was under his watch – more
galling by the fact that Asquith was yet another in a long line of Prime
Ministers who were in support of Irish Home Rule, only to be scuppered by the
House of Lords.
The House of Lords defined Asquith’s time in office. It
started with the Liberal reforms. The People’s Budget of Lloyd George in 1909
proposed to heavily tax the rich landowners so to make provisions for the poor
and the sick. The landowners weren’t keen on this and so the Lords vetoed the
budget, causing a huge political crisis. Asquith called an election (which
didn’t have the landslide he’d hoped), then convinced the King to stuff the
Lords with sympathetic men as a threat to the Lords dominance. (The Lords suggested laws somewhat similar to
the Corn Laws instead. Of course they did.) That threat passed the budget and the
Parliament Act, which changed the relationship between Commons and Lords, by,
among other things, removing the veto on money bills. (It also gave us the five
year parliament term.)
The Liberal reforms had started quickly under Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, but Asquith was more of a steady slow hand at continuing
them. (He was busy with the powers that be, as we can see.) However, that is not to say there weren’t
significant achievements under Asquith. He rebuilt the roads with tar, and made
it a legal requirement for mines to have first aid available and fire
precautions. He organised the infirmaries to provide more doctors in areas with
older and sicker population. He brought in National Insurance, and the right to
sick pay, and maternity benefits. He also created the Public Works Loans, and
introduced grants to provide child welfare services at local government level. School
meals, specialist schools, and reduced the prison population by increasing the
time people had to pay court fines!
It wasn’t that Asquith was a bad Prime Minister. He was a
success several times over, and in taking on the Lords and winning, the most
important Prime Minister in a generation. But his willingness to change things
had a ceiling on it, a lower one than
his dead predecessor, and his stance on some of the inevitable changes to come
left as many problems as those he had fixed.
Although, if you want evidence that politics never changes
over the centuries:
“[Ramsay] MacDonald had told the Labour party conference at
Glasgow in January 1910 that there was nothing to choose between Tories and
Liberals. Moreover, seven of the seats lost by Liberals to Unionists between
1910 and 1914 were lost in three-cornered contests in which Liberal and Labour
candidates together outpolled the winning Unionist, illustrating the breakdown
of the Liberal-Labour alliance at the constituency level.”
Barry McGill, Asquith’s Predicament 1914-1918, The Journal of Modern History,
Vol 39, no 3 (Sep 1967) pp 283-303
"His ambition was subservient to his desire of making a great fortune. He had more of the Mazarin than of the Richelieu. He would do mean things for profit, and never thought of doing great ones for glory."
Lord Chesterfield, Letters and Characters, vol 2.
The first, of many! A man who rose from being imprisoned in
the Tower of London (on corruption charges) to becoming the first man
historically recognised as Prime Minister. He cemented the role of Prime Minister,
despite hating the use of the phrase which came to name the office. (It was
originally intended as an insult.) Walpole was an astute man, who sold his
South Sea Company shares shortly before their bubble burst. He turned the
economy around, lowered taxes, and wanted to replace land tax with the 18th
Century equivalent of VAT. He also suffered extensive riots (Portues, and on
gin tax, to name two), and had a view on humanity which was cynical in the
extreme. “Corruption is the universal human condition.” He regulated theatres,
and subsidised writers who were enthusiastic about his own government. He
co-founded the Anglo-Austrian Alliance, but was undone by defeats in the War of
Jenkins Ear. (A war with Spain started by Spanish sailors allegedly cutting the
ear off a British captain, Robert Jenkins.)
Despite his authoritarian streak, and his censorship, he
ranks this highly because, in increasing the powers of the office of Prime
Minister and decreasing the power of the Monarch in society, Robert Walpole, among
all Prime Ministers, can most justly say they changed the country forever. A
country where less uncontrolled power is focused at the top is fundamentally a
better country. And Walpole shows that a man with flaws and failings can make
Britain great, just as much as a saint could.
You have to, at the very least, respect a man who, in a time
where high office was the route to self-enrichment (see Walpole's “corruption is
natural” line), refused to do so. Henry Pelham went into parliament poor, aimed
to be a public servant, and died poor. In-between, he ran a surprisingly
peaceful parliament for that period in time, and brought in a minimum age of
consent for marriage. He also reduced taxes by cutting naval spending, which
was grimly amusing as, being opposed to the War of Austrian Succession, he kept
it going for five years!
Henry Pelham changed the calendar to the Gregorian one we
use today. He banned the sale of gin to unlicenced merchants to crack down on
crime. He also passed the Jew Bill (1753), which was designed to allow Jews to
naturalise. This caused issues later on with Jews needing to renounce their
faith to stand in parliament, but at the time, it was almost unheard of to have
any positive laws in their favour. In fact, alas, so violently did the public
react anti-Semitically to the law, that it was repealed in 1754, shortly after
Henry Pelham died.
Without The Earl of Derby, you do not get Benjamin Disraeli.
Derby mentored Disraeli, Derby and Disraeli founded their modern conservatism
in direct response to the liberal ideals of Gladstone. Derby was thrice Prime
Minister and pushed newcomers to the Cabinet. Famously, this led to the call of
“Who? Who?” from the elderly Duke of Wellington as the names of the Cabinet
were called out in the Lords. To this day, Derby remains the longest serving
Conservative leader in history, with a twenty-two year tenure in charge of the
party. He ended the East India Company.
His greatest achievement was the 1867 Reform Act. It doubled
the number of men who could vote. Disraeli pushed it heavily, believing it
would steal the Gladstonian thunder, and produce an electoral sympathetic to
the Conservative Party. It did not. But if we were to judge great achievements
based solely on selfless reasoning for them, we would have a small list of
achievements in history!
Russell was the father of the Liberal Party in the Victorian
era, and while his government brought in a number of changes, he was foiled in a
sequence of others. Yet he pathed the way for the Gladstonian revolution that
followed. His attempts to expand the franchise and reform the poor law failed. His
Irish policy messed up the Irish Famine Relief in its caution, and his poor
relations with the Pope only made his reputation in Ireland worse. He was,
overall, a medium mover of change, who set the precedent for future, more
progressive, leaders. One of his great successes was a success only after he
left office. He pushed for the Jewish Relief Act since 1847, by which Jewish
MPs would be allowed to sit in Parliament without renouncing their faith. This
passed the Commons twice, but was blocked by the House of Lords. Russell kept
pushing for it, working under Palmerston (they had an antagonistic
relationship) and it finally passed into law in 1858.
Russell brought in pensions for teachers and restricted the
legal working hours of children. It was,
after heavy petitioning by Edwin Chadwick, sanitation in which he had his
greatest achievements, however. The Public Health Act of 1848 is the one you
got told about in schools, that was brought in to clean up drinking water after
the cholera outbreaks in the 1840s. Drinking water, sewage and drainage were
all separated out, the modern sewers were built, under the Metropolitan
Commission of Sewers, and private sewers were bought out. Local boards to
supply water, the regular sweeping of streets, and cleanliness standards in
slaughterhouses were other basic standards brought in by the Act.
He also introduced public baths and washhouses for the
working classes.
He was against slavery at the turn of the 19th Century. He campaigned against the Corn Laws. He was a heavy backer of parliamentary reform. Gladstone put it that Russell became more progressive and determined to act, the smaller his parliamentary majority got. He had A Tale of Two Cities dedicated to him, and wrote a children's SF novel about traveling to the moon.
"There is no man in England whom I respect more in his public capacity, whom I love more in his private capacity."
Dickens, Charles (1906). The Speeches of Charles Dickens, 1841–1870. Chatto & Windus.
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