Constituency : Horsham 1806-7 ,Newport Isle of Wight 1807-11, Cambridge University 1811-30 (Tory), 1829-31, Bletchingley 1831-2, Hampshire South 1832-5 , Tiverton 1835-65
We come now to the Prime Minister who formed the first Liberal administration. Partisan historians of the party have always seemed faintly embarrassed about acknowledging the former Tory who invented "gunboat diplomacy" and resisted the march of democracy as a true representative of their creed.
Henry was the son and heir of the Irish peer Viscount Palmerston. He succeeded to the title before he entered Parliament so was always known as "Palmerston" and that is how I'll refer to him from this point onwards. He was educated at Harrow and Edinburgh University where he studied political economy and by his own account learned "whatever useful knowledge and habits of mind I possess" .
Palmerston was first elected for Horsham as a Tory at the age of 22 in 1806 but soon unseated on petition. He got in for the pocket borough of Newport and through patronage obtained his first government office as a junior lord of the admiralty under the Duke of Portland. In 1808 he attracted attention with a good speech defending the attack on the Danish navy and so the incoming Prime Minister Spencer Perceval offered him the then non-Cabinet post of Chancellor of the Exchequer . He declined it and then accepted the unobtrusive post of Secretary at War, a post he held for more than twenty years.
In view of Palmerston's later achievements it seems strange that he burrowed away in relative obscurity as a hardworking and competent minister for so long only attracting attention for a prolonged turf war with the commander-in-chief, the Duke of York. Part of the reason was the distraction of his social success as a handsome young man with impeccable manners and genial disposition. He earned the nickname "Lord Cupid" for his amorous triumphs and the jealousy of the ageing roué George IV who ignored any suggestions from Lord Liverpool for his promotion.
It was Liverpool's retirement in 1827 that set the tectonic plates of politics and Palmerston's own career moving. Though he had not previously shown signs of any liberal tendencies he hitched his star to that of the new PM George Canning and his associates and was rewarded with a seat in the Cabinet alongside the selected Whigs that Canning brought in to shore up his ministry. He retained his place through Goderich's short ministry but resigned from Wellington's government alongside the Canningites' leader Huskisson. He made waves with an effective attack on the Foreign Secretary Aberdeen's policies towards Portugal. After Huskisson's death Wellington invited him back to office but declined unless his Whig friends Lansdowne and Grey came too making his change of allegiance clear.
Grey duly rewarded him with the Foreign Office when he came to power and set the stage for Palmerston's lasting reputation. He was the ultimate patriot, convinced of Britain's superiority as a liberal constitutional monarchy, a model that could be exported to the rest of the world. He was there to further Britain's interests at all times, preserving the balance of power to allow British trade to expand and preserve her commercial superiority. His often brusque manner in despatches earned him the nickname "Lord Pumice-Stone" and alarmed the queen in particular.
Palmerston's first triumph was a peaceful settlement of the Belgian War of Independence. He then started impressing radicals at home with support for the liberals in Spain and Portugal against their reactionary enemies. He also began the longstanding British policy of upholding the integrity of the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against Russia and France curbing the latter's enthusiasm for the Sultan's rebellious vassal Mehemet Ali.
In 1839 Palmerston married his long time mistress Emily Cowper the sister of the prime minister Lord Melbourne. Her skills as a political hostess brought him great benefits particularly when he was fighting Russell for leadership of the Whigs and she often came to the Commons to cheer him on from the Strangers Gallery like a football fan.
At the same time Palmerston began to arouse opposition to his methods when he launched Britain into the First Opium War, the first example of so-called "gunboat diplomacy" bullying smaller nations into submission to British interests by a resort to force. Palmerston had no personal interest in opium; his intention was to force China into opening her ports to Western commerce but to the likes of Gladstone and Cobden he was a dangerous warmonger.
In 1841 Melbourne's government fell and Peel's Tories won the election beginning Palmerston's only significant spell in opposition. Five years later the Tory schism over the Corn Laws let in Russell to form a minority Whig government. Victoria was extremely reluctant to see Palmerston back at the Foreign Office but both men realised that he could not be resisted and he resumed his work as if he'd never been away . He also began to cultivate the press making a friend of Delane the editor of The Times to raise his popularity in the country. Although Russell feared him as a dangerous rival he had some personal esteem for Palmerston and realised that he was indispensable to his not very strong government. Thus he stoutly defended his foreign secretary against royal criticism.
In 1850 Palmerston sent in the gunboats again this time to bombard the Greeks into paying a very dubious claim for damages by a Portugese Jew Don Pacifico after his house had been attacked by a Greek mob. France and Russia as joint guarantors of Greek independence protested at this ludicrously over-the-top response giving Palmerston's critics their chance to censure him. After sitting through a wave of attacks led by the formidable triumvirate of Cobden, Gladstone and Peel ( in his last political intervention ) Palmerston, often a hesitant speaker , got up and delivered a five hour tour de force, defending his policies and comparing the privileged position of British subjects abroad to that of citizens of ancient Rome. Palmerston 's peroration turned the mood of the House right round and he routed his critics.
There was a price to be paid though. Russell was now terrified of him and became the queen's ally in trying to bring him down. They soon found a cause in Palmerston's premature congratulations to Louis Napoleon's coup in France which had not been cleared with the queen. Russell sacked him and brought diplomatic despatches to the House to justify himself. Palmerston put up little defence causing Disraeli's premature obituary "There was a Palmerston". Palmerston soon retaliated by raising an opposition to Russell's militia bill and bringing his government down- his "tit for tat with Johnny Russell."
After the brief interlude of Derby's first government it fell to the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to form a government constructed broadly around support for Free Trade. Both Russell and Palmerston had to be included and the latter accepted the post of Home Secretary. It was now that Palmerston seriously undermined Russell's position firstly by being a good colleague in Cabinet in contrast to his fellow Whig who was seething with resentment at his subordinate position and secondly by proving himself a true liberal with some much needed reforms to prisons, factories, employment and public health. When the government hit the rocks over the Crimean War in 1855 Palmerston's hands remained clean while Russell appalled all sides by deserting the government at the moment of crisis. After Aberdeen resigned Palmerston earned himself more kudos by agreeing to serve under Russell secure in the knowledge that no one else would and Derby under a condition that he knew could not be met. The queen bowed to the inevitable and invited him to form his first government at the age of 71, still the oldest man ever to begin his first premiership.
It began as a continuation of the Aberdeen coalition under a new head but most of the Peelites resigned after three months after the scope of the inquiry into their conduct became clear. Thus Palmerston was left with a purely Whig government soon bereft of Russell too after he botched his special mission to the Crimean peace negotiations in Vienna and had to resign. The Treaty of Paris in 1856 was heralded as another triumph for Palmerston though he did not get what he wanted and trouble was just around the corner. The Chinese seized a British ship sparking another conflict and Palmerston's fiercest critic Cobden launched a motion of censure upon him supported by the disgruntled Russell. Disraeli cynically joined them to inflict a defeat on the PM. It backfired in spectacular fashion when Palmerston went to the country and an army of moderate liberals appeared to challenge his critics in their constituencies. Many Tory candidates had to express their support for him ( many rather liked him anyway ) to make sure of getting back in. Apart from Russell all his main critics were defeated and Palmerston had a strong majority.
Palmerston's government passed the Matrimonial Causes Act making divorce a civil matter defeating a filibuster led by Gladstone in the process and the Government of India Act transferring the East India Company's authority to the Crown. Then the government abruptly fell in 1858 when an Italian terrorist tried to assassinate Louis Napoleon. As the bomb was made in England the French protested and Palmerston obligingly introduced the Conspiracy To Murder Bill making it an offence to plot terrorism aimed at foreign countries on British soil. This was felt to be unpatriotic by many government supporters and when Disraeli saw the extent of opposition the Tories withdrew their support to defeat Palmerston. As he could not go to the country on this issue another Derby minority government took the reins. A year later Derby went to the country after his partisan Reform Bill was defeated.
The Tories remained a minority after the 1859 election but made enough ground to worry their various opponents. The remaining Peelites had spent much of the past year effecting a reconciliation between Palmerston and Russell to unite the free traders in Parliament. Palmerston had options; a Derby-Palmerston government of moderates was mooted. Palmerston's personal relations with Derby were excellent ; they often exchanged notes comparing their parliamentary tussles to horse races. However Palmerston declined to turn to the right and instead went with Russell to the Willis's Tea Room meeting which produced a tentatively united Liberal party. The delicate question of who would be prime minister was left to the queen. She tried for a third way by sending for Lord Granville a senior Whig ; this was not realistic but Palmerston dealt with the situation more adroitly than his temperamental rival Russell and got the call.
Palmerston's second ministry was delicately balanced. Russell accepted Foreign Secretary. From the Radical side Villiers and Milner Gibson accepted Cabinet posts, Cobden declined but agreed to support the government and Bright was left out in the cold. Some Whigs had to be disappointed. Most significantly Palmerston persuaded Gladstone ( who had voted to keep Derby in ) to resume as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Gladstone was a longstanding critic of Palmerston's foreign policy and was appalled by the jaunty way Palmerston conducted politics but he accepted, conscious of his complete isolation and the premier's advanced years. Agreement with Palmerston's Italian policy was the public reason for his acceptance.
This first Liberal ministry lasted six years and was rarely in trouble, a tribute to the masterly political skills of the man at its head. Palmerston's genius lay in his reading of the mood of the House and his man-management. Containing the titanic egos of Russell and Gladstone was no mean feat. Russell was placated by being allowed to produce another Reform Bill in 1860; the time was not right and Russell himself accepted this and thereafter gave no trouble. The MP William Gregory has left us an insight into how Gladstone was managed in Cabinet " Mr Gladstone used to come in charged to the muzzle with all sorts of schemes of all sorts of forms which were absolutely necessary in his opinion to be immediately undertaken. Palmerston used to look fixedly at the paper before him saying nothing until there was a lull in Gladstone's outpouring. He then rapped the table and said cheerfully "Now then my Lords and gentlemen, let us go to business" ". Gladstone frequently threatened resignation but Palmerston correctly judged that he would not follow through on them. The Tories were little problem. Derby thought the conservative cause was safe enough with Palmerston in charge and had little desire to supplant him; Disraeli's manoeuvres were continually thwarted by defections from his own side whenever a vote looked tight.
The domestic achievements of the government were light; Palmerston told the incoming George Goschen in 1864 that Parliament could not go on legislating forever and he did not wish to take parliamentary reform any further after 1860. Instead he wished to unite the social classes behind the existing system and went on public speaking tours to address the populace directly, an example not lost on Gladstone.
The American Civil War posed a few dilemmas for the government. Palmerston always loathed the USA and his sympathies lay with the South despite a longstanding hatred of slavery. On the other hand he was aware of the dangers of becoming involved in the war directly and kept Britain on a neutral-ish course.
The government sailed serenely on but after 1863 the shadows started to lengthen. Palmerston's close allies Lewis and Herbert died. In 1864 he suffered the only serious foreign policy reverse of his career when Bismarck's Prussia ignored his ill-judged threats of British intervention and appropriated the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein. Palmerston survived a vote of censure but his defeat was starkly apparent.
So too was the decline in his health. He needed to walk with the aid of his stepson William Cowper and the whole chamber watched as age caught up with this Regency relic. Palmerston remained cheerful and enjoyed scaring his colleagues with thoughts of Gladstone's succession "Gladstone will soon have it all his own way and whenever he gets my place we shall have strange doings".
Palmerston survived long enough to call another election in 1865. The Tories privately grumbled that it was cynical to campaign on Palmerston's popularity when he was unlikely to make it to the next session but there was little they could do. Despite Schleswig-Holstein Palmerston's government increased its majority, a rare feat.
The Tories' predictions were proved correct. In October Palmerston caught a chill and , not nursing it sufficiently, died of pneumonia aged 80 six days later. He was given a state funeral. Palmerston's caution on parliamentary reform was vindicated when his majority fell apart on the issue less than a year later .
Palmerston's legacy is not ideological ; he was a pragmatist who moved with the times and exemplified the political rewards to be had from pursuing a moderate course. Although he was perceived as an anachronism before he even got into number 10 he was actually strikingly modern in using the press to mould his public image and court public opinion. Tony Blair was a Palmerstonian. His contemporary and bitter foe Cobden said he had no views "beyond the wish to hold office by following the popular passions of the time". This view of Palmerston was refuted by his friend Florence Nightingale "Tho' he made a joke when asked to do the right thing he always did it.... He was so much more in earnest than he appeared. He did not do himself justice."
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