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EDWARD GEOFFREY SMITH STANLEY
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See also:EDWARD See also:GEOFFREY See also: The See also:change of seats had this See also:advantage, that it See also:left him See also:free to speak against the See also:system of rotten boroughs, which he did with See also:great force during the Reform Bill debates, without laying himself open to the See also:charge of See also:personal inconsistency as the representative of a place where, according to See also:Gay, cobblers used to " feast three years upon one See also:vote." In 1827 he and several other distinguished Whigs made a See also:coalition with See also:Canning on the defection of the more unyielding Tories, and he commenced his See also:official See also:life as under-secretary for the colonies, but the coalition was broken up by Canning's See also:death in See also:August. Lord Goderich succeeded to the premiership, but he never was really in See also:power, and he resigned his place after the See also:lapse of a few months. During the succeeding See also:administration of the See also:duke of See also:Wellington (1828-183o), Stanley and those with whom he acted were in opposition. His robust and assertive Liberalism about this See also:period seemed curious after-wards to a younger See also:generation who knew him only as the very embodiment of Conservatism. By the See also:advent of Lord See also:Grey to power in See also:November 183o, Stanley obtained his first opportunity of showing his capacity for a responsible See also:office. He was appointed to the See also:chief secretary-See also:ship of See also:Ireland, a position in which he found ample See also:scope for both administrative and debating skill. On accepting office he had to vacate his seat for Preston and seek re-election; and he had the See also:mortification of being defeated by the See also:Radical " orator " See also:Hunt. The contest was a peculiarly keen one, and turned upon the question of the See also:ballot, which Stanley refused to support. He re-entered the House as one of the members for See also:Windsor, See also:Sir Hussey See also:Vivian having;esigned in his favour. In 1832 he again changed his seat, being returned for See also:North Lancashire. Stanley was one of the most ardent supporters of Lord Grey's Reform Bill. Of this no other See also:proof is needed than his frequent See also:parliamentary utterances, which were fully in sympathy with the popular cry " The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill." Reference may be made especially to the speech he delivered on the 4th of March 1831 on the adjourned debate on the second 'See also:reading of the bill, which was marked by all the higher qualities of his See also:oratory. Apart from his connexion with the general policy of the See also:government, Stanley had more than enough to have employed all his energies in the management of his own See also:department. The secretary of Ireland has seldom an easy task; Stanley found it one of See also:peculiar difficulty. The See also:country was in a very unsettled See also:state. The just concession that had been somewhat tardily yielded a See also:short time before in See also:Catholic emancipation had excited the See also:people to make all sorts of demands, reasonable and unreasonable. Undaunted by the fierce denunciations of O'Connell, who styled him See also:Scorpion Stanley, he discharged with determination the ungrateful task of carrying a See also:coercion bill through the House. It was generally See also:felt that O'Connell, powerful though he was, had fairly met his match in Stanley, who, with invective scarcely inferior to his own, evaded no See also:challenge, ignored no See also:argument, and left no taunt unanswered, The See also:title " Rupert of Debate " is peculiarly applicable to him in connexion with the fearless if also often reckless method of attack he showed in his parliamentary See also:war with O'Connell. It was first applied to him, however, thirteen years later by Sir Edward Bulwer See also:Lytton in The New See also:Timon " One after one the lords of time advance; Here Stanley meets—here Stanley scorns the glance! The brilliant chief, irregularly great, See also:Frank, haughty, rash,—the Rupert of debate." The best See also:answer, however, which he made to the attacks of the great agitator was not the retorts of debate, effective though these were, but the beneficial legislation he was instrumental in passing. He introduced and carried the first See also:national See also:education See also:act for Ireland, one result of which was the remarkable and to many almost incredible phenomenon of a See also:board composed of Catholics, Episcopalians and Presbyterians harmoniously administering an efficient education See also:scheme. He was also chiefly responsible for the Irish Church Temporalities Act, though the bill was not introduced into See also:parliament until after he had quitted the Irish secretaryship for another office. By this measure two archbishoprics and eight bishoprics were abolished, and a remedy was provided for various abuses connected with the revenues of the church. As originally introduced, the bill contained-a clause authorizing the See also:appropriation of surplus revenues to non-ecclesiastical purposes. This had, however, been strongly opposed from the first by Stanley and several other members of the See also:cabinet, and it was withdrawn by the government before the measure reached the Lords.
In 1833, just before the introduction of the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, Stanley had been promoted to be secretary for the colonies with a seat in the cabinet. In this position it See also:fell to his See also:lot to carry the emancipation of the slaves to a successful See also:practical issue. The speech which he delivered on introducing the bill for freeing the slaves in the See also:West Indies, on the 14th of May 1833, was one of the finest specimens of his eloquence.
The Irish Church question determined more than one turning-point in his See also:political career. The most important occasion on which it did so was in 1834, when the proposal of the government to appropriate the surplus revenues of the church to educational purposes led to his See also:secession from the cabinet, and, as it proved, his See also:complete and final separation from the Whig party. In the former of these steps he had as his companions Sir See also: When, therefore, the injury to See also:health arising from the late See also:hours in the See also:Commons led him in 1844 to seek See also:elevation to the Upper House in the right of his father's See also:barony, Sir Robert Peel, in acceding to his See also:request, had the See also:satisfaction of at once freeing himself from the possible effects of his " candid friendship " in the House, and at the same time greatly strengthening the debating power on the Conservative See also:side in the other. If the premier in taking this step had any presentiment of an approaching difference on a vital question, it was not long in being realized. When Sir Robert Peel accepted the policy of free See also:trade in 1846, the See also:breach between him and Lord Stanley was, as might have been anticipated from the antecedents of the latter, instant and irreparable. Lord Stanley at once asserted himself as the uncompromising opponent of that policy, and he became the recognized See also:leader of the Protectionist party,having Lord See also:George See also:Bentinck and Disraeli for his lieutenants in the Commons. They did all that could be done in a See also:case in which the See also:logic of events was against them, though See also:Protection was never to become more than their watchword. It is one of the peculiarities of See also:English politics, however, that a party may come into power because it is the only available one at the time, though it may have no See also:chance of carrying the very principle to which it owes its organized existence. Such was the case when Lord Derby, who had succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father in See also:June 1851, was called upon to form his first administration in See also:February 1852. He was in a minority, but the circumstances were such that no other than a minority government was possible, and he resolved to take the only available means of strengthening his position by dissolving parliament and appealing to the country at the earliest opportunity. The See also:appeal was made in autumn, but its result did not materially alter the position of parties. Parliament met in November, and by the See also:middle of the following See also:month the ministry had resigned in consequence of their defeat on Disraeli's See also:budget. For the six following years, during Lord See also:Aberdeen's " ministry of all the talents " and Lord See also:Palmerston's premiership, Lord Derby remained at the See also:head of the opposition, whose policy gradually became more generally Conservative and less distinctively Protectionist as the hopelessness of See also:reversing the See also:measures adopted in 1846 made itself apparent. In 1855 he was asked to form an administration after the resignation of Lord Aberdeen, but failing to obtain sufficient support, he declined the task. It was in somewhat more hopeful circumstances that, after the defeat of Lord Palmerston on the. See also:Conspiracy Bill in February 1858, he assumed for the second time the reins of government. Though he still could not See also:count upon a working See also:majority, there was a possibility of carrying on affairs without sustaining defeat, which was realized for a full session, owing chiefly to the dexterous management of Mr Disraeli in the Commons. The one See also:rock ahead was the question of reform, on which the wishes of the country were being emphatically expressed, but it was not so pressing as to require to be immediately dealt with. During the session of 1858 the government contrived to pass two measures of very considerable importance, one a bill to remove Jewish disabilities, and the other a bill to See also:transfer the government of See also:India from the See also:East India Company to the See also:crown. Next year the question of parliamentary reform had to be faced, and, recognizing the See also:necessity, the government introduced a bill at the opening of the session, which, in spite of, or rather in consequence of, its "See also:fancy franchises," was rejected by the House, and, on a See also:dissolution, rejected also by the country. A vote of no confidence having been passed in the new parliament on the loth of June, Lord Derby at once resigned.
After resuming the leadership of the Opposition Lord Derby devoted much of the leisure the position afforded him to the classical studies that had always been congenial to him. It was his reputation for scholarship as well as his social position that had led in 1852 to his See also:appointment to the chancellorship of the university of Oxford, in See also:succession to the duke of Wellington ; and perhaps a See also:desire to justify the See also:possession of the See also:honour on the former ground had something to do with his essays in the See also: The reception of this volume was such as to encourage him to proceed with the task he had chosen as his magnum See also:opus, the translation of the whole of the Iliad, which accordingly appeared in 1864. During .the seven years that elapsed between Lord Derby's second and third administrations an See also:industrial crisis occurred in his native See also:county, which brought out very conspicuously his public spirit and his philanthropy. The destitution in Lancashire caused by the stoppage of the See also:cotton-See also:supply in consequence of the See also:American See also:Civil War, was so great as to threaten to overtax the benevolence of the country. That it did not do so was probably due to Lord Derby more than to any other single See also:man. From the first he was the very life and soul of the See also:movement for See also:relief. His personal subscription, munificent though it was, represented the least See also:part of his service. His See also:noble speech at the See also:meeting in Manchester in See also:December 1862, where the movement was initiated, and his See also:advice at the subsequent meetings of the See also:committee, which he attended very regularly, were of the very highest value in stimulating and directing public sympathy. His relations with Lancashire had always been of the most cordial description, notwithstanding his early rejection by Preston; but it is not surprising that after the cotton See also:famine period the cordiality passed into a warmer and deeper feeling, and that the name of Lord Derby was long cherished in most grateful remembrance by the factory operatives. On the rejection of Earl See also:Russell's Reform Bill in 1866, Lord Derby was for the third time entrusted with the formation of a cabinet. Like those he had previously formed it was destined to be short-lived, but it lived long enough to See also:settle on a permanent basis the question that had proved fatal to its predecessor. The " education " of the party that had so long opposed all reform to the point of granting See also:household See also:suffrage was the See also:work of another; but Lord Derby fully concurred in, if he was not the first to suggest, the statesmanlike policy by which the question was disposed of in such a way as to take it once for all out of the region of controversy and agitation. The passing of the Reform Bill was the See also:main business of the session 1867. The chief debates were, of course, in the Commons, and Lord Derby's failing See also:powers pre-vented him from taking any large See also:share in those which took place in the Lords. His description of the measure as a " leap in the dark " was eagerly caught up, because it exactly represented the See also:common See also:opinion at the time,—the most experienced statesmen, while they admitted the granting of household suffrage to be a political necessity, being utterly unable to foresee what its effect might be on the constitution and government of the country. Finding himself unable, from declining health, to encounter the fatigues of another session, Lord Derby resigned office early in 1868. The step he had taken was announced in both Houses on the evening of the 25th of February, and warm tributes of admiration and esteem were paid by the leaders of the two great parties. He yielded the entire leadership of the party as well as the premiership to Disraeli. His subsequent appearances in public were few and unimportant. It was noted as a consistent See also:close to his political life that his last speech in the House of Lords should have been a denunciation of See also:Gladstone's Irish Church Bill marked by much of his early See also:fire and vehemence. A few months later, on the 23rd of October 1869, he died at Knowsley. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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