Constituency : Kidderminster 1852-9, Calne 1859-68, London University 1868-80
Robert was one of the most interesting and important figures in the development of the Liberal party. He was the son of a Nottinghamshire rector. He was educated modestly but showed such academic potential that he went to Oxford. He gained a first class in Classics and was a leading participant in Union debates. He went on to be a successful tutor at Oxford for a few years and in 1836 got married to a woman who was thought not to be a social asset.
Robert moved on to London in 1840 with the intention of becoming a barrister but his eyesight was giving him problems as he was an albino. On medical advice he emigrated to Australia and by 1843 he was an MP for Sydney where he made a big impact both as a clever orator and a newspaper columnist. In 1850 he moved back to England to enter the political arena.
Robert immediately joined The Times as one of its best leader-writers and he was soon in Parliament for Kidderminster in 1852. He was the most prominent exponent of Benthamite Utilitarian rationalism in Parliament, the ideologue of "respectability" and despite a cold , unsociable manner was immediately appointed to Joint Secretary of the Board of Control. In 1855 Palmerston switched him to Paymaster General and Vice-President of the Board of Control. In 1856 he piloted the Joint Stock Companies Act which consolidated and codified company law for the first time. A 2003 work described him as "the father of modern company law". In 1857 he narrowly escaped injury in an election riot at Kidderminster which reinforced his dim view of the nature of the working classes.
In 1859 Robert had to switch to Lord Lansdowne's pocket borough of Calne. Palmerston appointed him to Education where he insisted on "payment by results" i.e examination in "the three R's". He also promoted physical science at the expense of the classics. In 1864 his opponents led by Robert Cecil's church party forced his resignation after winning a vote over the way inspectors' results were edited. Posterity has not been kind to Robert's tenure; he has been accused of depreciating teachers' status as a profession and viewing education as a means of pursuing economic rather than humane ends. His views were clearly put , "the lower classes ought to be educated to discharge the duties cast upon them. They should also be educated that they may appreciate and defer to cultivation when they meet it".
Robert had little sense of what was politically expedient and in 1865 greeted the prospect of a second Russell ministry with a stinging editorial in The Times . Unsurprisingly he was not restored to office and this was supposed to have led him into the "Adullamite cave" of Liberals opposed to the Russell/Gladstone Reform Bill. In Robert's case this was unfair. He had a deep-seated intellectual opposition to democracy shaped by his observation of trade unionism in action ,telling his pro-Reform colleagues in 1867 "the elite of the working classes you are so fond of , are members of trades unions... founded on principles of the most grinding tyranny not so much against masters as against each other ...It was only necessary that you should give them the franchise , to make those trades unions the most dangerous political agencies that could be conceived ; because they were in the hands, not of individual members , but of designing men , able to launch them in solid mass against the institutions of the country." The electorate had to maintain "a just balance of the classes".
He was the brains behind the Adullamite movement and made a series of brilliant parliamentary speeches defending Utilitarian meritocracy to defeat the Russell-Gladstone Reform bill and bring down Russell's government. His speech against the Second Reading was hailed by the Pall Mall Gazette as "one of the most magnificent intellectual efforts ever witnessed within the walls of Parliament" and Gladstone himself later recalled "such a command of the House as has never in my recollection been surpassed". For his troubles he was hissed at in the streets and his London home was stoned.
However Robert did not see himself as a rebel; his actions were necessary to bring the Liberal party back to its senses. He the doctrinaire intellectual and Disraeli the dandy pragmatist detested each other and Robert had no time for his colleagues' fanciful talk of a realignment of the centre. He settled into opposing Disraeli's reform plans but the latter's command of Tory votes and willingness to placate Radical Liberals defeated him. His response was to switch his attention back to education and civilising "our future masters".
Robert switched seats again to London University in 1868 and was perhaps surprisingly offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer by his erstwhile foe Gladstone. Gladstone however had been impressed by his debating skills and strength of purpose under fire and saw him as the ideal man to resist demands for higher public expenditure. Robert was proud of the amounts he shaved off public expenditure but generally his performance was thought to be disappointing. In 1871 he introduced ( characteristically with a clever Latin pun ) a tax on boxes of matches which had to be embarrassingly withdrawn. In 1873 he was moved to the Home Office on the pretext of financial irregularities under his watch.
Robert again showed his penchant for political suicide by offending the queen during debate on the Royal Titles Bill in 1876. When Victoria had to reluctantly send for Gladstone in 1880 she made it a stipulation that his ministry did not include Robert. Gladstone persuaded her with difficulty that they must offer him a peerage which he accepted with bad grace and went to the Lords as Viscount Sherbrooke.
It is doubtful whether Robert could still have been an effective minister as his health was failing and he gradually withdrew from public life. In 1886 he joined the Liberal Unionists but never played a prominent part in their affairs. He died in 1892 aged 80.
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