Politics and fiscal policy 1837-1846: Peel's problems

Peel had now to grapple with the problem of the recession that had faced his predecessors and which, after three years remained intense and especially the persistent budgetary deficit. He calculated that total expenditure stood at around £50 million. Around £30 million was spent servicing the national debt and a further £15 million paid for the armed forces. He estimated that the aggregated budgetary deficit for the six year period 1837-43 was likely to exceed £10 million, or roughly a fifth of total spending. Peel did not introduce emergency measures in the autumn of 1841. He and his cabinet spent the autumn and winter of 1841-1842 taking stock and then brought forward proposals designed to resolve the problem of the budgetary deficit.

The deficits were symptomatic of the depressed state of the British economy in the late 1830s and early 1840s. With over 80 per cent of government revenue coming from customs and excise duties, the sharp decline in commercial activity inevitably affected the tax receipts to the Exchequer. Though it is difficult to estimate the level of unemployment, conditions in manufacturing towns were certainly at their worst since the post-war depression in the 1810s and 1842 may well have been the worst year in the century for industrial workers. The downturn in the industrial economy was not helped by a series of poor harvests that kept bread prices high. For Peel, the problem was not simply fiscal because of the social and political unrest it stimulated. This was the ‘condition of England’ question that he faced, together with the working and middle class radicalism that rode upon them: Chartism and the agitation to repeal the Corn Laws. Popular discontent clearly influenced Peel’s financial planning.

Chartist activity reached its peak in the summer of 1842 during the ‘Plug Plot’. Peel and Graham forcefully suppressed these disturbances and were generally less hesitant than their Whig predecessors in using the full rigour of the law to stifle popular agitation. But perhaps the greater threat to the government came from the Anti-Corn Law League that articulated a middle class sense of grievance against a political establishment committed to protecting the sectional interests of the aristocratic, landed elite. The ability of the League and its supporters to wield influence through the electoral system represented a long-term challenge to the political establishment that could not easily be ignored. While the Chartists failed to get anyone elected in 1841, Anti-Corn Law League candidates won seats in Manchester, Stockport and Walsall and there was an obvious potential for further gains in the future. Peel recognised that tariff reform was one way of reducing this threat.

Peel’s economic liberalism had its origins in the 1820s. At its heart were the notions of ‘sound money’, low taxes and a freeing of trade. Without monetary control and stability there would be inflation and this, Peel maintained, would inhibit economy growth. It was necessary to restrict the Bank of England’s power to issue money ‘to inspire just confidence in the medium of exchange’. The Gold Standard became the dominant financial orthodoxy linking sound money to cheap government and low rates of direct and indirect taxation. If businessmen and industrialists were given freedom to exploit the market, Peel suggested this would increase profitability, improve employment and result in economic growth for everyone’s benefit.

Peel’s budgetary policy 1842

By the end of 1841, Peel had a fairly clear idea how he was going to tackle the growing budgetary deficit and the economic problems that had brought it about. Raising further the level of indirect taxation, as the Whigs had done in 1840, was simply not an option. Unless the trade depression ended, this would not result in an increase in government revenue and there was little indication in 1841 that this would occur in the short-term. A better approach, the one tentatively adopted by the Whigs in 1841, was to reduce the level of indirect taxation[1] and so cut the costs of raw materials for industry and foodstuffs and other items for the consumer.

Peel concluded that freeing up trade was the only real alternative open to him. This did not represent a particularly radical departure since he was reverting to ideas he and Huskisson had advocated while in government in the 1820s. What was new, however, was the introduction of income tax[2] in peacetime. This remained politically controversial and was something that the Whigs had not proposed. The strongest argument for adopting income tax was that it would signal to the masses that the propertied not only abstained from exploiting their political power for the maintenance of economic privileges but that the elite was willing to shift the tax burden from the masses to itself and to lower food prices in the process. Fiscal responsibility not certainly an ethical good but it was also a practical means of upholding the social hierarchy, both because it facilitated public credit and because it redressed one of the principal grievances of the under-privileged.

In 1842, then, Peel was addressing himself through the fiscal system to the health of the economy and to the morale of the nation as a whole. He resolved to redistribute the tax burden by reducing duties upon articles of mass consumption and reintroducing the income tax which had been abolished after a back-bench revolt in 1815. Reducing duties would help to get the nation back to work and take the momentum out of the Chartist movement. Peel did not recognise the political aspirations of the Chartists, and (unlike his father) he would never himself propose statutory restrictions upon the hours of labour. But he understood hunger and he wanted thoughts of ‘sedition’ to be forgotten ‘in consequence of greater command over the necessaries and minor luxuries of life’[3]. Imposing a peacetime income tax would demonstrate that the British state was an equitable one, in which burdens were placed (despite the warnings of political economists who identified income as the source of savings and the route to capital formation) upon those best able to bear them.

These measures had to be sold to a party which was still solidly protectionist. Accordingly, in 1842, grain was singled out for separate treatment and dealt with first, and on 9^th February Peel announced a thorough revision of the Corn Law sliding scale of 1828 to make it more defensible. The sliding scale had failed in its object of providing greater price stability and by the autumn of 1841 Peel was convinced that the sliding scale provided excessive protection for farming. The result was a new sliding scale where duty would be 16s when the domestic price of wheat stood at 56s per quarter. Peel erred on the side of generosity since 11s would have sufficed to protect British farmers from being undercut by foreign imports. Even so, the adjustment to the sliding scale did represent a significant reduction in the amount of protection afforded home producers. Changes were made to the scale of duties on corn reducing the level of tax paid. These proposals were controversial and reportedly greeted with cold indifference by many Conservative back-benchers and Buckingham resigned from the Cabinet as a result. They were, however, generally well regarded and certainly politically astute.

Land, as Peel’s supporters reminded him, was the historic basis of the constitution. It was a ‘permanent’ interest which appreciated in value with cultivation. Commercial capital, by contrast, put down no roots and might be taken to another country, while manufacturing capital depreciated with use. But commerce and manufactures had borne Britain to its pre-eminence in the world. Writing to J. W. Croker on 27^th July 1842, Peel agreed that one might, if one ‘had to constitute new Societies’, ‘prefer Corn fields to Cotton factories’, but ‘our lot’ was cast. The decision had already been taken in Peel’s father’s or in his grandfather’s day, and there could be no turning back now. What was wrong with the economy was not that population had outrun capital, but that the power of production had overtaken the capacity to consume. The way to ‘remove the burden which presses upon the springs of manufactures and commerce’ was to make Britain a cheap country to live in[4].

Then, on 11^th March, when he introduced the budget, which he did himself (the complaisant Goulburn stepping aside), he began by making much of the deficit. Having worked up a sense of urgency he explored and rejected alternative remedies (lower expenditure, increased duties, and the ‘wretched expedient’ of borrowing). Finally he came to his own plan.[5]. Income tax was reintroduced at 7d in the pound on incomes of more than £150. This, sensibly, excluded most of the working classes. It was designed to last three years and raise £3.7 million.  With that surplus Peel proposed to undertake ‘a complete review, on general principles, of all the articles of the tariff’. No duty should ever again be prohibitive. Customs duties were reduced on about 750 of about 1,200 durable items at a loss of £270,000 in revenue.  Maximum duties on imported raw materials, partly manufactured and manufactured items were set at 5 per cent, 12 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.  In addition, duty on coffee was reduced at a loss of £171,000 to the Exchequer and, most importantly, £600,000 was sacrificed by cutting the duty on timber.

Peel was convinced that the package of free trade reform was necessary for the sake of social stability. Throughout the 1840s, Peel’s policies were informed by the belief that the survival of the ruling elite depended on his ability to cultivate public confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the nation’s system of government. In that respect, the 1842 budget can be seen as ‘anti-revolutionary’, a means of deflecting attacks by radicals that government was extravagant and that the elite that controlled it was corrupt and parasitical. ‘Cheap government’ and ‘fair government’ commended itself to all sections of society.

Peel’s budget paid off in political as well as financial terms. Parliament passed it by large majorities. The Chartist press hailed in as a measure of enlightened government. The Northern Star on 26^th March 1842 saw the replacement of a broad range of indirect taxes with a direct tax on property as a heavy blow against Old Corruption on behalf of social justice. There was hardly a murmur of protest from the middle classes who would now have to pay more to the Treasury. Te broad acquiescence and support for an income tax represented an important shift in public attitudes towards direct taxation that was fiscally progressive and socially fair[6]. Only the Anti-Corn Law League opposed the tax and then only because it was dissatisfied by Peel’s minor Corn Law revision of February 1842.

It was Peel’s finest hour; the crisis of the century was met by his fiscal reform although he recalled that ‘these changes…were not effected without great murmuring and some open opposition to the Government on the part of many of its supporters’. But in fact it was a wonderfully ambiguous measure. He had rationalised tariffs but had also taken a step towards free trade. He could still move in either direction.

---

[1] In many respects, Peel was ‘stealing the Whigs’ clothes’ and he was clearly influenced by the outcome of Joseph Hume’s 1840 commission of inquiry into tariffs which concluded that freer trade would stimulate consumption and production and lead to a recovery of government revenues even if, in the short-term cuts in tariffs would cause the budget deficit to broaden even further.

[2] William Pitt had introduced income tax in 1799 in part to fund the French Wars as a ‘temporary expedient’. However, when Lord Liverpool attempted to make income tax more permanent in 1816 he was defeated in the Commons.

[3] Hansard 3^rd series, volume 87, column 1048

[4] Hansard 3^rd series, volume 61, column 460

[5] Hansard 3^rd series, volume 61, columns 422–76

[6] In 1816, the propertied classes damned direct taxation as an invasion of privacy and a catalyst of big government.

Politics and fiscal policy 1837-1846: Peel's problems

Peel had now to grapple with the problem of the recession that had faced his predecessors and which, after three years remained intense and especially the persistent budgetary deficit. He calculated that total expenditure stood at around £50 million. Around £30 million was spent servicing the national debt and a further £15 million paid for the armed forces. He estimated that the aggregated budgetary deficit for the six year period 1837-43 was likely to exceed £10 million, or roughly a fifth of total spending. Peel did not introduce emergency measures in the autumn of 1841. He and his cabinet spent the autumn and winter of 1841-1842 taking stock and then brought forward proposals designed to resolve the problem of the budgetary deficit.

The deficits were symptomatic of the depressed state of the British economy in the late 1830s and early 1840s. With over 80 per cent of government revenue coming from customs and excise duties, the sharp decline in commercial activity inevitably affected the tax receipts to the Exchequer. Though it is difficult to estimate the level of unemployment, conditions in manufacturing towns were certainly at their worst since the post-war depression in the 1810s and 1842 may well have been the worst year in the century for industrial workers. The downturn in the industrial economy was not helped by a series of poor harvests that kept bread prices high. For Peel, the problem was not simply fiscal because of the social and political unrest it stimulated. This was the ‘condition of England’ question that he faced, together with the working and middle class radicalism that rode upon them: Chartism and the agitation to repeal the Corn Laws. Popular discontent clearly influenced Peel’s financial planning.

Chartist activity reached its peak in the summer of 1842 during the ‘Plug Plot’. Peel and Graham forcefully suppressed these disturbances and were generally less hesitant than their Whig predecessors in using the full rigour of the law to stifle popular agitation. But perhaps the greater threat to the government came from the Anti-Corn Law League that articulated a middle class sense of grievance against a political establishment committed to protecting the sectional interests of the aristocratic, landed elite. The ability of the League and its supporters to wield influence through the electoral system represented a long-term challenge to the political establishment that could not easily be ignored. While the Chartists failed to get anyone elected in 1841, Anti-Corn Law League candidates won seats in Manchester, Stockport and Walsall and there was an obvious potential for further gains in the future. Peel recognised that tariff reform was one way of reducing this threat.

Peel’s economic liberalism had its origins in the 1820s. At its heart were the notions of ‘sound money’, low taxes and a freeing of trade. Without monetary control and stability there would be inflation and this, Peel maintained, would inhibit economy growth. It was necessary to restrict the Bank of England’s power to issue money ‘to inspire just confidence in the medium of exchange’. The Gold Standard became the dominant financial orthodoxy linking sound money to cheap government and low rates of direct and indirect taxation. If businessmen and industrialists were given freedom to exploit the market, Peel suggested this would increase profitability, improve employment and result in economic growth for everyone’s benefit.

Peel’s budgetary policy 1842

By the end of 1841, Peel had a fairly clear idea how he was going to tackle the growing budgetary deficit and the economic problems that had brought it about. Raising further the level of indirect taxation, as the Whigs had done in 1840, was simply not an option. Unless the trade depression ended, this would not result in an increase in government revenue and there was little indication in 1841 that this would occur in the short-term. A better approach, the one tentatively adopted by the Whigs in 1841, was to reduce the level of indirect taxation[1] and so cut the costs of raw materials for industry and foodstuffs and other items for the consumer.

Peel concluded that freeing up trade was the only real alternative open to him. This did not represent a particularly radical departure since he was reverting to ideas he and Huskisson had advocated while in government in the 1820s. What was new, however, was the introduction of income tax[2] in peacetime. This remained politically controversial and was something that the Whigs had not proposed. The strongest argument for adopting income tax was that it would signal to the masses that the propertied not only abstained from exploiting their political power for the maintenance of economic privileges but that the elite was willing to shift the tax burden from the masses to itself and to lower food prices in the process. Fiscal responsibility not certainly an ethical good but it was also a practical means of upholding the social hierarchy, both because it facilitated public credit and because it redressed one of the principal grievances of the under-privileged.

In 1842, then, Peel was addressing himself through the fiscal system to the health of the economy and to the morale of the nation as a whole. He resolved to redistribute the tax burden by reducing duties upon articles of mass consumption and reintroducing the income tax which had been abolished after a back-bench revolt in 1815. Reducing duties would help to get the nation back to work and take the momentum out of the Chartist movement. Peel did not recognise the political aspirations of the Chartists, and (unlike his father) he would never himself propose statutory restrictions upon the hours of labour. But he understood hunger and he wanted thoughts of ‘sedition’ to be forgotten ‘in consequence of greater command over the necessaries and minor luxuries of life’[3]. Imposing a peacetime income tax would demonstrate that the British state was an equitable one, in which burdens were placed (despite the warnings of political economists who identified income as the source of savings and the route to capital formation) upon those best able to bear them.

These measures had to be sold to a party which was still solidly protectionist. Accordingly, in 1842, grain was singled out for separate treatment and dealt with first, and on 9^th February Peel announced a thorough revision of the Corn Law sliding scale of 1828 to make it more defensible. The sliding scale had failed in its object of providing greater price stability and by the autumn of 1841 Peel was convinced that the sliding scale provided excessive protection for farming. The result was a new sliding scale where duty would be 16s when the domestic price of wheat stood at 56s per quarter. Peel erred on the side of generosity since 11s would have sufficed to protect British farmers from being undercut by foreign imports. Even so, the adjustment to the sliding scale did represent a significant reduction in the amount of protection afforded home producers. Changes were made to the scale of duties on corn reducing the level of tax paid. These proposals were controversial and reportedly greeted with cold indifference by many Conservative back-benchers and Buckingham resigned from the Cabinet as a result. They were, however, generally well regarded and certainly politically astute.

Land, as Peel’s supporters reminded him, was the historic basis of the constitution. It was a ‘permanent’ interest which appreciated in value with cultivation. Commercial capital, by contrast, put down no roots and might be taken to another country, while manufacturing capital depreciated with use. But commerce and manufactures had borne Britain to its pre-eminence in the world. Writing to J. W. Croker on 27^th July 1842, Peel agreed that one might, if one ‘had to constitute new Societies’, ‘prefer Corn fields to Cotton factories’, but ‘our lot’ was cast. The decision had already been taken in Peel’s father’s or in his grandfather’s day, and there could be no turning back now. What was wrong with the economy was not that population had outrun capital, but that the power of production had overtaken the capacity to consume. The way to ‘remove the burden which presses upon the springs of manufactures and commerce’ was to make Britain a cheap country to live in[4].

Then, on 11^th March, when he introduced the budget, which he did himself (the complaisant Goulburn stepping aside), he began by making much of the deficit. Having worked up a sense of urgency he explored and rejected alternative remedies (lower expenditure, increased duties, and the ‘wretched expedient’ of borrowing). Finally he came to his own plan.[5]. Income tax was reintroduced at 7d in the pound on incomes of more than £150. This, sensibly, excluded most of the working classes. It was designed to last three years and raise £3.7 million. With that surplus Peel proposed to undertake ‘a complete review, on general principles, of all the articles of the tariff’. No duty should ever again be prohibitive. Customs duties were reduced on about 750 of about 1,200 durable items at a loss of £270,000 in revenue. Maximum duties on imported raw materials, partly manufactured and manufactured items were set at 5 per cent, 12 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. In addition, duty on coffee was reduced at a loss of £171,000 to the Exchequer and, most importantly, £600,000 was sacrificed by cutting the duty on timber.

Peel was convinced that the package of free trade reform was necessary for the sake of social stability. Throughout the 1840s, Peel’s policies were informed by the belief that the survival of the ruling elite depended on his ability to cultivate public confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the nation’s system of government. In that respect, the 1842 budget can be seen as ‘anti-revolutionary’, a means of deflecting attacks by radicals that government was extravagant and that the elite that controlled it was corrupt and parasitical. ‘Cheap government’ and ‘fair government’ commended itself to all sections of society.

Peel’s budget paid off in political as well as financial terms. Parliament passed it by large majorities. The Chartist press hailed in as a measure of enlightened government. The Northern Star on 26^th March 1842 saw the replacement of a broad range of indirect taxes with a direct tax on property as a heavy blow against Old Corruption on behalf of social justice. There was hardly a murmur of protest from the middle classes who would now have to pay more to the Treasury. The broad acquiescence and support for an income tax represented an important shift in public attitudes towards direct taxation that was fiscally progressive and socially fair[6]. Only the Anti-Corn Law League opposed the tax and then only because it was dissatisfied by Peel’s minor Corn Law revision of February 1842.

It was Peel’s finest hour; the crisis of the century was met by his fiscal reform although he recalled that ‘these changes…were not effected without great murmuring and some open opposition to the Government on the part of many of its supporters’. But in fact it was a wonderfully ambiguous measure. He had rationalised tariffs but had also taken a step towards free trade. He could still move in either direction.

---

[1] In many respects, Peel was ‘stealing the Whigs’ clothes’ and he was clearly influenced by the outcome of Joseph Hume’s 1840 commission of inquiry into tariffs which concluded that freer trade would stimulate consumption and production and lead to a recovery of government revenues even if, in the short-term cuts in tariffs would cause the budget deficit to broaden even further.

[2] William Pitt had introduced income tax in 1799 in part to fund the French Wars as a ‘temporary expedient’. However, when Lord Liverpool attempted to make income tax more permanent in 1816 he was defeated in the Commons.

[3] Hansard 3^rd series, volume 87, column 1048

[4] Hansard 3^rd series, volume 61, column 460

[5] Hansard 3^rd series, volume 61, columns 422–76

[6] In 1816, the propertied classes damned direct taxation as an invasion of privacy and a catalyst of big government.

Politics and fiscal policy 1837-1846

Between 1836 and 1838, about 63 banks crashed in England. Little money was available for investment leading to increasing levels of unemployment at a time of high food prices. Much bullion had been invested in America where good returns could be made. Federal governments borrowed and Britain invested, then in 1837, President Jackson refused to re-charter the Bank of the United States, and caused a financial panic in America. In addition, the 1838 harvest was poor so bullion was exported to buy food. Industry suffered; there was massive unemployment and higher food prices. By the later 1830s, home demand, together with available export markets, was insufficient to absorb Britain’s manufactured output. By 1837 there was depression, not serious at first, but conditions worsened[1].

A depressed economy

Poor harvests resulted in heavy grain imports, especially in 1838 and 1839. This did little to reduce the high price of food and depressed home demand. Disillusion with foreign borrowers in the United States and elsewhere discouraged investment abroad reducing British exports. Prices had begun to fall in the cotton industry as early as 1833 when signs that over-production first became obvious. Mill owners, committed to costly plant and equipment, could not afford to limit output to keep prices up and capacity actually increased. By 1841-2, mill owners in Belgium, Saxony and Prussia, heavy buyers of British yarn, reduced their consumption. British producers pumped more and more goods into foreign markets in an effort to restore earnings with catastrophic effects on cotton prices. Similar trends were evident in other industries. By 1842, wool was in deep depression.

The coal and iron industries faced similar problems. Increased demand for coal in the early 1830s and rising coal prices stimulated capital investment. This too led to over-production. Between 1836 and 1843, coal output rose by between sixty and seventy per cent while demand increased by only thirty per cent. Attempts by colliery owners to control output using quotas failed and the industry slumped. The iron industry followed the same pattern. Output grew in South Wales and Staffordshire but most dramatically in Scotland. By 1840 the industry was increasingly unprofitable. The speculative boom in railways and shipbuilding, a major source of employment after 1836, was largely exhausted by 1840.

The problem faced by the manufacturing economy in the late 1830s was largely one of over-production that home that export markets were unable to absorb. The interconnected nature of the economy reinforced this depressed state. Coal depended on iron; iron on demand for industrial expansion at home and abroad; demand depended on an ability and willingness to invest and upon earnings. Depression in one area impacted on others. Britain’s trading policy did not help this situation. By 1840, tariffs on imports made up nearly half of total revenue. As the price of Britain’s exports fell faster than those of imports so the relative cost of imported raw materials and food increased. Between 1836 and 1840, imports stood at over £5 million a year more than exports. Far from protecting the British economy against foreign competition tariff policy depressed the workers’ capacity to consume, their incentive to work and this was reflected in the cost of the production of exports.

The Whigs and the depression

The weakness of the Whig government was obvious by the beginning of 1841. By then, the Whigs had alienated various sections of the electorate. Radical support evaporated with the cooling of Whig reforming spirit. Among the propertied classes, there was concern about the Whigs’ inability to prevent the riots and disorder of the late 1830s. The worsening economic crisis led to serious social unrest with the emergence of Chartism and in late 1839 led to confrontation with government at Newport. There was also among the electorate at large, and especially the newly enfranchised middle classes, growing doubts about the fiscal and administrative capacities of the Whigs. As the economic crisis deepened, the Whig budget deficit mounted. There were deficits in 1839 and 1840 and by 1841 it had risen to £6 with no solution in sight. The electoral alliance since 1835 with O’Connell and the Irish party was doubly unpopular for the Whigs and, in the eyes of some they were damned for consorting with both Irishmen and Catholics.

By 1840, constitutional reform may have been exhausted but changing fiscal policy was a fertile area to give the Whigs fresh impetus and rouse flagging enthusiasm. Charles Poulett Thompson, a long-term supporter of tariff reform wrote from Canada to Francis Baring, the Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer in May 1841 that fiscal policy ‘…does not meddle with religious prejudice; it does not relate to Ireland; it does not touch on any of the theoretical questions of government on which parties have so long been involved. It is a new flag to fight under.’

The Whigs relied heavily on indirect taxation that was vulnerable to economic slump. In 1840, Baring, faced with a projected deficit of £2 million reversed the trend towards ‘cheap government’ and increased Customs and Excise duties by 5 per cent and 10 per cent on Assessed Taxes[2]. However, this did not relieve the slide in the budgetary deficit. Faced with a bankrupt fiscal policy, the Whigs suddenly became coverts to free trade and tariff reform. Francis Baring had contemplated the resumption of the Peel-Huskisson economic reforms of the late 1820s almost as soon as he became Chancellor in 1839. There were three main reasons why this appeared to be a shrewd political move.  First, it was recognised that one way to stimulate commercial growth was to reduce the level of indirect taxation. Secondly, tariff reform was bound to please a wide range of manufacturing interests and Corn Law reform had been an issue in middle class (ands not only radical) circle for some years. Finally, radical activity had shifted away from constitutional issues after the threats to public order posed by Chartism and was now fixed on the issue of tariff reform. The appointment of Joseph Hume’s Select Committee on Import Duties in May 1840 was the vehicle to do this. Whigs support for tariff reform might lead to a revival of Radical support for the government.

Baring was able to persuade the leading Whigs to swallow a low fixed duty on corn, for reasons of political pragmatism if not principle. Some doubters may have been won over by Edward Ellice’s prediction that ‘Sir R. Peel will move on it, if we do not’.  The result was that Baring’ free trade budget was the major measure of the 1841 session. It embraced both a general tariff reform and a further reduction in the Corn Laws. He suggested raising the duty on imported colonial timber from 10s to 20s per load (50 cubic feet), but lowering it on foreign timber by 5s to 50s per load. This would equalise somewhat the Baltic and the hitherto more favoured Canadian timber imports. Secondly, he proposed retaining the duty on colonial sugar imports at 24s per hundredweight while reducing it dramatically on foreign sugar imports from 63s to 36s per hundredweight. Again the effect would be to equalise imports. Brazil would be able to compete more readily with the traditional colonial suppliers in the West Indies. Even with the revision of the sugar and timber duties, there would still be a deficit of some $400,000. Baring aimed to remove this by abolishing the sliding scale (as established by the Corn Law of 1828) and replacing it with a moderate fixed duty on corn, proposed at 4s per quarter.

The budget offered the Conservatives a number of targets for the proposed budget hit simultaneously at the shipping, West Indian colonial timber and agricultural interests. They decided to focus on the issue of the sugar duties that the Manchester Guardian noted on 12^th May 1841 as a ‘crafty move’ since it allowed the Conservatives to bring a moral tone to their opposition. They could argue that the reduction in foreign sugar import duties might encourage, not merely the continuance but the expansion of slavery in countries such as Brazil and Cuba. This enabled to Conservatives to gain the support of powerful anti-slavery groups outside parliament and gain the moral high ground. The debate began on the Commons on 7^th May and lasted eight evenings. In addition to their criticisms of the sugar duties, the Conservatives poured scorn on the perilous state of the Whigs’ fiscal position. The result was a Whig defeat by thirty-six votes, followed by defeat on a vote of no confidence in June that precipitated the general election.

It would be unfair to suggest that Baring’s attempt to fiscal reform was the cause of the Whigs’ electoral defeat in 1841 but for many people it characterised the bankruptcy of the administration. Many manufacturers were not convinced by the sincerity of the Whig conversion to tariff reform. As middle class interests swung from political to commercial reform, Peel seemed a more responsible and credible leader than members of the Whig aristocracy.

---

[1] R.C.O. Matthews A Study in Trade-Cycle History: Economic Fluctuations in Great Britain 1833-1842, Cambridge, Mass., 1967 remains a valuable study of the depression in the late 1830s and early 1840s.

[2] Assessed Taxes aimed to tap the income of the rich by taxing signs of conspicuous spending and display such as male servants, windows, carriages and pleasure horses.

Politics and fiscal policy 1837-1846

Between 1836 and 1838, about 63 banks crashed in England. Little money was available for investment leading to increasing levels of unemployment at a time of high food prices. Much bullion had been invested in America where good returns could be made. Federal governments borrowed and Britain invested, then in 1837, President Jackson refused to re-charter the Bank of the United States, and caused a financial panic in America. In addition, the 1838 harvest was poor so bullion was exported to buy food. Industry suffered; there was massive unemployment and higher food prices. By the later 1830s, home demand, together with available export markets, was insufficient to absorb Britain’s manufactured output. By 1837 there was depression, not serious at first, but conditions worsened[1].

A depressed economy

Poor harvests resulted in heavy grain imports, especially in 1838 and 1839. This did little to reduce the high price of food and depressed home demand. Disillusion with foreign borrowers in the United States and elsewhere discouraged investment abroad reducing British exports. Prices had begun to fall in the cotton industry as early as 1833 when signs that over-production first became obvious. Mill owners, committed to costly plant and equipment, could not afford to limit output to keep prices up and capacity actually increased. By 1841-2, mill owners in Belgium, Saxony and Prussia, heavy buyers of British yarn, reduced their consumption. British producers pumped more and more goods into foreign markets in an effort to restore earnings with catastrophic effects on cotton prices. Similar trends were evident in other industries. By 1842, wool was in deep depression.

The coal and iron industries faced similar problems. Increased demand for coal in the early 1830s and rising coal prices stimulated capital investment. This too led to over-production. Between 1836 and 1843, coal output rose by between sixty and seventy per cent while demand increased by only thirty per cent. Attempts by colliery owners to control output using quotas failed and the industry slumped. The iron industry followed the same pattern. Output grew in South Wales and Staffordshire but most dramatically in Scotland. By 1840 the industry was increasingly unprofitable. The speculative boom in railways and shipbuilding, a major source of employment after 1836, was largely exhausted by 1840.

The problem faced by the manufacturing economy in the late 1830s was largely one of over-production that home that export markets were unable to absorb. The interconnected nature of the economy reinforced this depressed state. Coal depended on iron; iron on demand for industrial expansion at home and abroad; demand depended on an ability and willingness to invest and upon earnings. Depression in one area impacted on others. Britain’s trading policy did not help this situation. By 1840, tariffs on imports made up nearly half of total revenue. As the price of Britain’s exports fell faster than those of imports so the relative cost of imported raw materials and food increased. Between 1836 and 1840, imports stood at over £5 million a year more than exports. Far from protecting the British economy against foreign competition tariff policy depressed the workers’ capacity to consume, their incentive to work and this was reflected in the cost of the production of exports.

The Whigs and the depression

The weakness of the Whig government was obvious by the beginning of 1841. By then, the Whigs had alienated various sections of the electorate. Radical support evaporated with the cooling of Whig reforming spirit. Among the propertied classes, there was concern about the Whigs’ inability to prevent the riots and disorder of the late 1830s. The worsening economic crisis led to serious social unrest with the emergence of Chartism and in late 1839 led to confrontation with government at Newport. There was also among the electorate at large, and especially the newly enfranchised middle classes, growing doubts about the fiscal and administrative capacities of the Whigs. As the economic crisis deepened, the Whig budget deficit mounted. There were deficits in 1839 and 1840 and by 1841 it had risen to £6 with no solution in sight. The electoral alliance since 1835 with O’Connell and the Irish party was doubly unpopular for the Whigs and, in the eyes of some they were damned for consorting with both Irishmen and Catholics.

By 1840, constitutional reform may have been exhausted but changing fiscal policy was a fertile area to give the Whigs fresh impetus and rouse flagging enthusiasm. Charles Poulett Thompson, a long-term supporter of tariff reform wrote from Canada to Francis Baring, the Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer in May 1841 that fiscal policy ‘…does not meddle with religious prejudice; it does not relate to Ireland; it does not touch on any of the theoretical questions of government on which parties have so long been involved. It is a new flag to fight under.’

The Whigs relied heavily on indirect taxation that was vulnerable to economic slump. In 1840, Baring, faced with a projected deficit of £2 million reversed the trend towards ‘cheap government’ and increased Customs and Excise duties by 5 per cent and 10 per cent on Assessed Taxes[2]. However, this did not relieve the slide in the budgetary deficit. Faced with a bankrupt fiscal policy, the Whigs suddenly became coverts to free trade and tariff reform. Francis Baring had contemplated the resumption of the Peel-Huskisson economic reforms of the late 1820s almost as soon as he became Chancellor in 1839. There were three main reasons why this appeared to be a shrewd political move. First, it was recognised that one way to stimulate commercial growth was to reduce the level of indirect taxation. Secondly, tariff reform was bound to please a wide range of manufacturing interests and Corn Law reform had been an issue in middle class (ands not only radical) circle for some years. Finally, radical activity had shifted away from constitutional issues after the threats to public order posed by Chartism and was now fixed on the issue of tariff reform. The appointment of Joseph Hume’s Select Committee on Import Duties in May 1840 was the vehicle to do this. Whigs support for tariff reform might lead to a revival of Radical support for the government.

Baring was able to persuade the leading Whigs to swallow a low fixed duty on corn, for reasons of political pragmatism if not principle. Some doubters may have been won over by Edward Ellice’s prediction that ‘Sir R. Peel will move on it, if we do not’. The result was that Baring’ free trade budget was the major measure of the 1841 session. It embraced both a general tariff reform and a further reduction in the Corn Laws. He suggested raising the duty on imported colonial timber from 10s to 20s per load (50 cubic feet), but lowering it on foreign timber by 5s to 50s per load. This would equalise somewhat the Baltic and the hitherto more favoured Canadian timber imports. Secondly, he proposed retaining the duty on colonial sugar imports at 24s per hundredweight while reducing it dramatically on foreign sugar imports from 63s to 36s per hundredweight. Again the effect would be to equalise imports. Brazil would be able to compete more readily with the traditional colonial suppliers in the West Indies. Even with the revision of the sugar and timber duties, there would still be a deficit of some $400,000. Baring aimed to remove this by abolishing the sliding scale (as established by the Corn Law of 1828) and replacing it with a moderate fixed duty on corn, proposed at 4s per quarter.

The budget offered the Conservatives a number of targets for the proposed budget hit simultaneously at the shipping, West Indian colonial timber and agricultural interests. They decided to focus on the issue of the sugar duties that the Manchester Guardian noted on 12^th May 1841 as a ‘crafty move’ since it allowed the Conservatives to bring a moral tone to their opposition. They could argue that the reduction in foreign sugar import duties might encourage, not merely the continuance but the expansion of slavery in countries such as Brazil and Cuba. This enabled to Conservatives to gain the support of powerful anti-slavery groups outside parliament and gain the moral high ground. The debate began on the Commons on 7^th May and lasted eight evenings. In addition to their criticisms of the sugar duties, the Conservatives poured scorn on the perilous state of the Whigs’ fiscal position. The result was a Whig defeat by thirty-six votes, followed by defeat on a vote of no confidence in June that precipitated the general election.

It would be unfair to suggest that Baring’s attempt to fiscal reform was the cause of the Whigs’ electoral defeat in 1841 but for many people it characterised the bankruptcy of the administration. Many manufacturers were not convinced by the sincerity of the Whig conversion to tariff reform. As middle class interests swung from political to commercial reform, Peel seemed a more responsible and credible leader than members of the Whig aristocracy.

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[1] R.C.O. Matthews A Study in Trade-Cycle History: Economic Fluctuations in Great Britain 1833-1842, Cambridge, Mass., 1967 remains a valuable study of the depression in the late 1830s and early 1840s.

[2] Assessed Taxes aimed to tap the income of the rich by taxing signs of conspicuous spending and display such as male servants, windows, carriages and pleasure horses.

Establishing the government

There is little evidence of Peel’s attempts in the 1830s to broaden the base of the MPs elected since they were largely from the ‘Tory’ wing of the party. They wanted to defend their Protestant religion and their ways of life, had no interest in change and little sympathy for reform. Above all many were ardent Protectionists. Tory votes had been cast in favour of a party most likely to protect landowners and defend the Established Church. Theirs was a far narrower perspective than Peel’s. He had used the revived Conservative Party as a means to achieve power but increasingly adopted policies out of sympathy with the majority of his MPs. He saw himself increasingly as an executive Prime Minister rather than a party leader. Public duty on behalf of the monarch and in the interests of the nation was his first imperative; party came a poor second. The 1841 election was a triumph for Protectionist Toryism[1] not Peelite Conservatism. The party did best in the English and Welsh counties and in those boroughs that had been changed least by the 1832 Reform Act. This proved a problem particularly as the election had been fought largely on the Protection question. The route from the electoral triumph of 1841 to the political disaster of 1846 was, in retrospect, a logical one.

The new parliament met on 19^th August. Lord Melbourne and the Whigs were still in office, despite the recent electoral defeat.  In the British Constitution, the prime minister is not chosen by the electorate but appointed by the monarch. In practice, this means that the monarch needs to take account of whether or not a particular party commands majority support in the House of Commons. The development of a more defined party political system in the 1830s restricted the monarch’s choice. However, the 1841 election was unique in the way it converted a Commons majority for the governing party into a majority for the opposition. This had not occurred before and was not to happen again until 1874.

In this unprecedented situation, the Conservatives were obliged to carry an amendment to the Royal Address, expressing lack of confidence in the ministers, before the Whigs could actually resign. Melbourne advised the queen that he and his ministers could no longer conduct and business of government. The queen, who was now guided by Prince Albert, made no difficulty about the bedchamber, and on 30^th August Peel at last became prime minister upon his own terms. Or so it seemed at the time. But in fact, for all his attempts to modernise the party and to broaden its appeal to the industrious middle classes, he was more dependent than ever upon the country squires. Analysis of the borough seats shows that Peel’s success was concentrated in the small English boroughs, with fewer than 1000 electors, and that in the large English boroughs, with more than 2000 electors, he had actually won two fewer seats (15 to his opponents’ 43) than in 1837. The triumph and the tragedy of the ministry of 1841-6 were written into the results.

Peel’s ministers

Peel established a government based on administrative effectiveness. Sir James Graham[2] and Viscount Stanley[3], who had defected from the Whigs in 1834, became respectively Home Secretary and Secretary for War and the Colonies. Henry Goulburn[4] became Chancellor of the Exchequer and the earl of Ripon[5], a close colleague from the 1820s, President of the Board of Trade (with William Gladstone[6] as Ripon’s deputy succeeding him in 1843). The Earl of Aberdeen[7] returned to the Foreign Office, a post he had held in Wellington’s government in the late 1820s. Wellington himself was Minister without Portfolio and his immense personal prestige made him indispensable to the government.

Graham acted as his lieutenant, Peel himself took responsibility for explaining Aberdeen’s conciliatory conduct of foreign affairs to the House of Commons, and Goulburn and Ripon, survivors of the governments of the 1820s, both turned, by long habit, to Peel for advice. Stanley, who took the colonies, was more independent but went to the House of Lords in 1844. Ellenborough[8] became president of the Board of Control, and then, a month later, governor-general of India. The forward policy that he adopted towards Afghanistan and China, the annexation of Sind and the conquest of Gwalior were not much to Peel’s taste. Among the less-effectives, Lord Lyndhurst and Sir Edward Knatchbull (paymaster-general) represented the Ultras, as they had in 1835. The Duke of Buckingham, the leading Protectionist, was made Lord Privy Seal, Peel’s only concession to party feeling and calculated to appeal to the agricultural interest. The striking feature of Peel’s Cabinet was that it was overwhelmingly aristocratic: of the 14 Cabinet ministers, eight were peers, Stanley was the heir to an earldom and four were baronets. Henry Goulbourn was the only untitled member of the Cabinet and he had aristocratic connections through his mother and his wife.

Peel introduced talented members of the Conservative party into the lower levels of government. The most important proved to be Lord Lincoln, Sidney Herbert and William Gladstone, all of whom had been given their first brief taste of office in 1834-5. In addition to them, newcomers such as Lord Dalhousie, Lord Canning and Lord Eliot were given junior office. Gladstone was the first to make the Cabinet in 1843 but Dalhousie, Herbert and Lincoln achieved this distinction in 1845. Peel’s relationship with these protégés was far warmer than his relation to his party which was rather cold and remote. Like William Pitt in the 1790s, Peel found it easier to relax with those he sought to train for future high office and they repaid him by being devoted to their political mentor.

Peel’s as ‘control freak’

The most important characteristic of Peel’s leadership was his desire to control what was being done in every department of state. Peel found it difficult to delegate responsibility to others and this placed him under considerable personal pressure. He was what is today called a ‘workaholic’. This was particularly the case with the Exchequer and, although Goulbourn was nominally Chancellor in reality it was Peel who devised the budgets and presented them to parliament. Irish affairs also occupied a good deal of Peel’s time and he worked closely with Sir James Graham, the relevant ministers on this area. Peel exercised close supervision over foreign policy often amending drafts of dispatches before they were sent to British ambassadors abroad. Aberdeen was a somewhat pacific and conciliatory Foreign Secretary and Peel sometimes found it necessary to counter this position. He was highly suspicious of French intentions and acted decisively when there were calls for increased spending on the navy and coastal defences in the summer of 1845. Peel’s burdens as Leader of the House of Commons were far heavier than they might have been because many senior ministers sat in the Lords and he sometimes spent eight hours a day in the Commons when Parliament was sitting.

This excessive workload took its toll. As the end of the 1842 session, Peel found himself under considerable physical pressure. By the time he left office in 1846, he confided to Graham and Gladstone that he was physically exhausted and would have found it difficult to continue much longer anyway. Since Peel made this statement after he had left government, it may well not reflect his intentions when he was in power. However, there is little doubt that his physical resources were being exhausted by the feelings of frustration at the hostility displayed towards him by his own party. This may help to explain why, after 1846, Peel decided never to take office again.

Peel and the Queen

Victoria’s attachment to the Whigs and especially to Lord Melbourne could have been a major problem for Peel. However, the influence of Prince Albert, who had married Victoria in 1840, soon enabled Peel to establish a far more cordial relationship with the Crown that could have been anticipated in the aftermath of the Bedchamber crisis. Peel and the much younger Prince Albert shared the same high ideals about the conduct of government and about the need for an impartial constitutional monarchy.

In the event, there was no second bedchamber crisis and when Peel’s government was formed, three of the most senior Whig ladies retired voluntarily. Under Albert’s influence, Melbourne’s influence soon diminished as he took on the role of his wife’s adviser and in effect private secretary. The Queen was pleased with Peel’s suggestion that her husband should chair the Royal Commission on fine arts, an opportunity for him to get acquainted with many of the leading figures in British public life and there is ample evidence of the growing personal attachment between the Prime Minister and the royal couple. It was Peel, for example who recommended Osborne House on the Isle of Wight as a suitable royal retreat not too distant from London.

Peel recognised that a constitutional monarchy, popular and respected by both the people and politicians of all parties, still had an important role to play in the British system of government. The monarch, once he or she had reigned for several years had a permanence and experience that ministers did not have. For Peel, the presence of an experienced constitutional monarch was essential for the true interests of the country because she provided ‘so much ballast keeping the vessel of the State steady on her course, counteracting the levity of popular ministers, of orators forced by oratory into public councils, the blast of Democratic passions, the groundswell of discontent’.

His view of constitutional monarchy reinforced Peel’s ‘executive’ approach to government. He saw himself as the servant of the Crown, devoted to furthering the interests of the whole nation rather than as the agent of a partisan majority in the Commons. This gave him a sense of statesmanlike disdain, a determination to pursue an independent course for the sake of the country even if it made him unpopular with his own party. This was to pose a real problem for Peel and his reluctance to allow his policies in government to be shaped by the interests and prejudices of the Conservative party despite owing his position to their support in the Commons was to have disastrous consequences in 1845-6. Peel as a professional administrator found himself increasingly impatient with what he saw as the amateurish and ignorant nature of the back-bench Conservatives on whose votes he relied. What is surprising is not that Peel and many in his party parted company in 1846, but that it took so long for this to occur.

Peel’s objectives

Peel’s first objective was to restore the authority of government. Throughout the 1830s, the Whigs (as he saw it) had allowed their policies to be suggested to them and their measures to be amended, by their Radical and Irish supporters. This was dangerous. Ministers should be seen to be in charge. It was imperative to put the political pyramid back the right way up again. Legislation should be prepared by ministers, with deliberation. Considered measures should then be respected as the work of professionals and they should be seen to pass without amendment. Peel would exercise power upon his own ‘conception of public duty’ and he took pride in never having proposed anything which he had not carried. Peel recognised that the major problem facing the nation was economic and his priority was the need to make the country debt-free and affluent. The focus of his administration before the Corn Law crisis was on fiscal and economic reform. A prosperous country, he believed, was one where social distress and disorder would be reduced.

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[1] Protectionist Tories argued for continuing the Corn Laws to protect British farming.

[2] J. T. Ward Sir James Graham, 1967 and A. B. Erickson The public career of Sir James Graham, 1952 provide complementary biographical studies. A. P. Donajgrodzki ‘Sir James Graham at the home office’, Historical Journal, volume 20 (1977), pages 97-120 is a useful article.

[3] W. D. Jones Lord Derby and Victorian conservatism, 1956 is a useful study but Angus Hawkins The Unknown Prime Minister, two volumes, Oxford University Press, 2007, 2008 is now the definitive work on Derby

[4] Brian Jenkins Henry Goulburn 1784-1856: A Political Biography, Liverpool University Press, 1996, pages 264-336 covers 1841-46. This is an important biography that shows just how important Goulburn was, as Peel’s lifelong friend in the revival of the Conservative in the 1830s and as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1841-1846.

[5] W.D. Jones Prosperity Robinson: The Life of Viscount Goderich 1782-1859, Macmillan, 1967 is the only modern biography of an individual who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and briefly Prime Minister in 1827-1828, Viscount Goderich and then Earl of Ripon, but who is now largely forgotten. When he died, The Times asked ‘Who was Lord Ripon? What did he do?’

[6] There are many books on Gladstone: Richard Shannon Gladstone: volume one 1809-1865, Hamish Hamilton, 1983, pages 112-184 and H.C.G. Matthews Gladstone 1809-1874, Oxford University Press, 1986, pages 59-103 are the best place to start for Gladstone and Peel.

[7] Muriel E. Chamberlain Lord Aberdeen: A Political Biography, Longman, 1983, pages 297-379 covers his role as Foreign Secretary in Peel’s government.

[8] Albert H. Imlah Lord Ellenborough: A Biography of Edward Law, Earl of Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, Cambridge, 1939 is the only available biography.

Two more Chartist biographies

David Shaw: John James Bezer, Chartists and John Arnott, National Charter Association, (Lulu), 2008, 165pp, £7.84, paper, ISBN 978-1-4092-2526-3

It really has been a bumper year for biographies of leading Chartists with Paul Pickering's study of Feargus O'Connor, Stephen Robert's on Thomas Cooper and Arthur O'Neill and we now have David Shaw utilising the material on his website www.gerald-massey.org.uk to produce biographies of two less well-known figures, John James Bezer and John Arnott.  The book utilises and revises material from the website and the result is a book that, for the first time, allows us to look at Chartism through the lives of less prominent figures and provides a model that other historians could use.

The book divides into two uneven parts: Bezer is accorded over 130 pages while Arnott is allocated twenty-four, a result of the greater amount of material available on Bezer.  Much of the material on Bezer is made up of his autobiography, originally published in 1851 in the Christian Socialist, but not readily available to historians.  Unlike other 'Chartist autobiographies', it was not written after a passage of decades but merely years and this gives it a radical edge perhaps lacking in both Cooper and Lovett.  What is especially interesting about Bezer is that he ended up in Australia and this, often forgotten, episode in his life is examined in detail.  John Arnott, by contrast, is less well documented and David Shaw has done well to collect together virtually everything that is extant in his life especially his poetry, such an important element in Chartist rhetoric. 

Although much of this material is already available on the website, it is extremely useful to have it available in book form and at such a reasonable price.  It is to be hoped that David Shaw will publish other gems like this.

The 1841 election

The 1841 election was a major triumph for Peel. It produced a victory for the Conservatives by more than seventy seats (a majority of 76) and was also the first time in British electoral history that a party with a theoretical parliamentary majority had been replaced by another with a majority. The critical issues were what kind of Conservative party had the electorate chosen and what was the significance of the victory for the role of ‘party’?

The general election of 1841

	England	Wales	Scotland	Ireland	Total
Conservatives	281	21	22	43	367
Whig/Liberals	190	8	31	62	291
Total	471	29	53	105	658

 

Percentage of seats won by Conservatives in each country

	%	Number
England	59.7	471
Wales	72.4	29
Scotland	41.5	53
Ireland	41.0	105

 

The analysis of the election by type of seat appears to support the conclusion that Peel broadened the Tory base. The Conservatives won almost as many seats in the English and Welsh boroughs as the Whigs and this was a notable achievement for a party grounded in the land. However, a closer look at the types of boroughs is important. Only 44 of the seats won in English and Welsh boroughs were in paces with electorates over 1000. In the 58 largest boroughs, the Whigs won almost three times as many seats as the Conservatives and Peel’s party suffered a net loss of two seats compared to its performance in 1837. These larger boroughs were concentrated in the industrial midlands and north where Peel was seeking to broaden the party’s electoral base. But it was here that the Conservatives did least well. The larger towns where the Conservatives did have some success were older ports and commercial centres like the City of London, Bristol and Hull rather than industrial centres like Manchester and Leeds.

In general, the Conservatives did best in those boroughs that were little changed by the 1832 Reform Act. Several of these were still old-style ‘rotten boroughs’ where the patronage of a substantial landowner, rather than electoral popularity, was the decisive factor. Many had little to do with industry but were market towns whose economy was dominated by farming. In addition, there were only contests in 47 per cent of the country’s constituencies, considerably less than in the elections in 1832, 1835 and 1837 which the Whigs had won, albeit with reduced majorities.  The Conservative majority was based on small boroughs and especially the counties of England. The Whigs were all but wiped out in the English counties winning only 20 (14 per cent) of the 144 available seats. By contrast, Ireland and Scotland returned Whig or Whig-allied majorities of roughly three to two. The Conservatives hardly made any showing in the Scottish boroughs.  The Conservatives won in 1841 because they had majority support where the seats were thickest on the ground in southern England and not where the electorates were more numerous or changed by recent industrial and commercial developments. The Conservatives were the party of rural England, were not strong in the United Kingdom as a whole and the Conservative party remained dominated by old-style Tory opinion. Not surprisingly, a large number of Conservative MPs elected in 1841 were fervent Protectionists.

Peel did not advertise his unease about Protection to either the voters or his own supporters. He relied on his growing reputation as an expert in financial and commercial issues to give him votes in the towns while encouraging rural Tories to act in defence of the Corn Laws. Tory votes appear to have been cast overwhelmingly for the party most likely to protect landowners and the Protestant Church. Peel had a broader vision, though he did little to inform potential Tory voters of his real intentions in economic policy, but his party’s creed was far narrower. The 1841 election was a victory for Protectionist Toryism not Peelite Conservatism. Yet much of Peel’s policies as prime minister from 1841 to 1846 ignored this fundamental distinction. It was not long until differences within the Conservative party began to appear.

Why did the Conservatives win in 1841?

The strength of Conservative Party organisation and Peel’s leadership were important in explaining why the Conservatives won in the 1841 elections but the Whigs made important tactical errors. The Select Committee on Import Duties that reported in 1840 argued that tariffs on certain good should be reduced to stimulate consumption and, ultimately revenue. In their 1841 budget the Whigs reduced duties on corn, sugar and timber. The attack on this policy by Peel resulted in a defeat in the Commons for the government and the calling of another general election.

Peel is credited with the Conservative victory in 1841. Without his leadership many contemporaries and later historians believed that the Tories could have been assigned to permanent opposition[1]. He skilfully exploited middle class reaction against the Whigs and in his hundred-day ministry of 1834-5 gained support and respect for his administrative ability and statesmanship. He managed to distance himself from the ultra-Toryism of the early 1830s and in the Tamworth Manifesto offered a new ‘conservative’ vision of politics that accepted the constitutional settlement of 1832 and promised to support reform of proven abuses. His political philosophy of constitutional stability was explained further in speeches in Glasgow in 1836 and London in 1838 (Merchant Taylor’s Hall speech) and proved popular. Peel’s parliamentary performance during the 1830s was an important element in this revival. His grasp of economics let him capitalise on the growing economic problems the Whigs faced after 1838.

There were, however, three other pressures at work over which Peel had little or no control.  First, the Whigs were far from being dominant after the 1832 General election. Forty MPs who has supported the Reform Act moved to the Conservative benches between 1832 and 1837. The Irish appropriation issue led to the resignation of four Cabinet ministers in June 1834 two of whom, Edward Stanley (later Earl of Derby) and Sir James Graham, became Conservative supporters by the late 1830s and ministers in the 1840s. The relationship between the Whigs and the Radicals was fragile and it was Conservative votes that permitted Melbourne to resist radical pressures. Even so Tory propaganda, especially in the late 1830s, stressed the Whigs’ inability to control the radicals’ wilder excesses.

Secondly, the unexpected frequency of general elections during the 1830s also aided the Conservative cause. Peel used William IV’s invitation to form a government in late 1834 to request the dissolution of Parliament giving the Tories an opportunity to regroup. A further election was called on the death of William IV in 1837. A new monarch must have a new parliament[2]. These gave those voters, concerned that the Whigs wished to push reform further and threaten their position as property-holders, the opportunity of voting Tory.  Finally, the electorate was disillusioned by the Whig government. This was not the result of the Whig failure to reform but because they were increasingly seen as reflecting all the worst aspects of the unreformed system especially their lethargy, incompetence and, after 1839, their reliance on royal patronage to survive. Worst of all for a propertied class raised on the principle of sound finances, the Whigs failed to manage the country’s finances effectively running up a deficit of £7 million by 1841.

The emergence of Conservative Party organisation also played an important part in reviving Tory fortunes. The Reform Act required voters to register and this provided opportunities for local supporters to organise and consolidate their party’s voting strength. Peel recognised the need for party organisation but was, at least initially, ambivalent in his attitude. He was suspicious of extra-parliamentary pressure and this meant that his relations with many local Tory organisations were not particularly close. By 1837 Peel was urging his supporters to ‘Register, register, register’ but others laid the foundations particularly the party agent Francis Bonham. The Conservatives won in 1841 because they were a much better organised national party than the Whigs.

Most historians have followed Norman Gash in accepting that Peel enjoyed a reputation as an outstanding statesman and able administrator. However, Peel’s qualities as a party leader have been questioned. In 1983, Ian Newbould argued that Peel won the 1841 election not with the ideas of the Tamworth Manifesto but with the protectionism of Old Toryism. There is some truth in this since it is misleading to suggest that the electoral victory in 1841 was a victory for Peel’s new Conservatism. In many respects, the election was a triumph for the Old Toryism of the landed classes who rallied in defence of the Established Church and, above all, the Corn Laws.

Many landowners were alarmed by the reform of the Church of England in the 1830s such as the Marriage Act 1836 and feared further concessions after the Litchfield House Pact of 1835. More importantly, the landed classes closed ranks in defence of the Corn Laws that they considered essential to maintaining the prosperity of arable farmers, especially in southern England. Most conservative MPs were forced to give pledges to defend the Corn Laws during the election campaign and the party won 157 country seats compared to only 22 seats secured by the Whigs. The Conservatives also did well in the smaller boroughs in which landed influence was significant but poorly in industrial areas and in urban constituencies with an electorate over 2,000. It is clear that, despite Peel’s energies and the new Conservatism, among many social groups the party remained pre-Tamworth in outlook and spirit.

Peel’s achievement in the 1830s was to turn the Conservatives into a viable party of government. He established a sense of direction and leadership and a belief that the Conservatives could be successful. He was, however, quite happy to leave the complex administrative work to others. There was also an element of luck, particularly the frequency of elections. He did not, however, fashion the party in his own image. It may be unfair to say that the Conservatives papered over the cracks of disunity during the 1830s but there were important divisions of principle between Peel and the Protectionist right-wing of the Conservative party that were to re-emerge, with disastrous consequences, after 1841.

What did the Conservatives win in 1841?

The outcome of the 1841 election reflected the resilience of the landowning elite that had quickly reasserted its influence in many constituencies where it had temporarily lost the electoral advantage after 1832. Parliamentary representation after 1832 was still heavily weighted towards the counties and small boroughs: half of the total English borough electorate lived in the sixteen largest borough constituencies but only returned 33 MPs. It proved beyond even Peel to alter significantly the character of the Conservative party. Even the ex-Whig MPs who had crossed the floor of the House largely represented the same sort of constituencies as their newly found Conservative friends.

The issues on which Conservative candidates campaigned in the three general elections between 1835 and 1842 were largely in defence of traditional interests and institutions. In the 1835 and 1837 elections, the issue of ‘the Church in danger’ was a potent weapon among Conservatives, enabling them to attract moderate opinion alarmed by the allegedly extreme position of the Whigs and their Radical and Irish allies. They claimed that the Whigs were vulnerable to pressure from their allies to introduce measures hostile to the Established Churches of England and Ireland such as the abolition of Church Rates (a bill was introduced in 1837 but did not pass) and repeated attempts to assert the principle of law appropriation of Irish Church revenues. There was a strong anti-Catholic thrust to Conservative attacks on the government for its connections with O’Connell and the Irish Repealers. Peel himself had confirmed that the raison d’être of the Conservative party was to uphold the institutions of the country in his rare public speeches in Glasgow and London in January 1837 and May 1838 respectively.

The growing confidence of the Church of England especially its successful campaign in 1839-40 that compelled ministers to drop their plan to reform the system of education grants[3] meant that the Church no longer seemed in any imminent danger by 1841. Whig proposals to introduce a lower duty on wheat provided Conservative candidates with an issue on which to campaign. Agricultural protection was an issue that united landowners and tenant farmers and it was these individuals who dominated the county electorate. However, the maintenance of the Corn Laws was also an important issue in many smaller and medium-sized boroughs. In the 1841 election, all the county and borough seats in Essex were won by protectionists, including one ex-Whig. In certain northern industrial towns such as Blackburn, the Conservatives argued that the ruin of agriculture that would arise from the loss of protective tariffs, would lead to urban labour markets being flooded by unemployed agricultural labourers, whose competition would force down urban wage-rates. The Protectionist message was put strongly and often successfully by candidates throughout the campaign. The Conservative victory in 1841 represented a triumph for the Protectionist position and the successfully elected MPs often held attitudes and prejudices at variance with the ‘Conservative principles’ advocated by Peel.

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[1] In fact, Peel’s government between 1841 and 1846 was the only majority Conservative government until Disraeli’s second ministry between 1874 and 1880.

[2] This was the last occasion when there was a general election after the death of the monarch. The practice was ended in 1867.

[3] Had this reform been implemented, it would have directed State money away from Anglican schools and towards nonconformist schools.

Source: Peel on ‘Conservative principles’, 1838

Peel had identified what he called ‘Conservative principles’ in a letter to Henry Goulburn in 1833. In 1834, he had published the Tamworth Manifesto in which he stated his political views. In this extract, Peel again defines what he means by Conservative principles.

‘Sir Robert Peel ... We feel deeply and intimately that in the union of the conservative party in the country is one of the best guarantees for internal tranquillity and the maintenance of our ancient institutions... By that union we shall best be enabled to maintain the mild predominance of the Protestant faith in this country and in every part of the United Kingdom. By that union we shall be enabled and by that alone to promote what we call conservative principles. If you ask me what I mean by conservative principles... I will, in conclusion, briefly state what I mean...

By conservative principles I mean, and I believe you mean, the maintenance of the Peerage and the Monarchy the continuance of the just powers and attributes of King, Lords, and Commons in this country. By conservative principles I mean, a determination to resist every encroachment that can curtail the just rights and settled privileges of one or other of those three branches of the state. By conservative principles I mean, that co-existent with equality of civil rights and privileges, there shall be an established religion and imperishable faith, and that that established religion shall maintain the doctrines of the Protestant Church. By conservative principles I mean, a steady resistance to every project which would divert church property from strictly spiritual uses

By conservative principles I mean, a maintenance of the settled institutions of church and state, and I mean also the maintenance, defence, and continuation of those laws, those institutions, that society, and those habits and manners which have contributed to mould and form the character of Englishmen, and enabled this country, in her contests and the fearful rivalry of war, to extort the admiration of the world, and in the useful emulation of peaceful industry, commercial enterprise, and social improvement, have endeared the name of England and Englishmen in every country in the world to those who seek the establishment of liberty without oppression, and the enjoyment of a national and pure form of religion, which is at once the consolation of the virtuous man, and is also the best guarantee which human institutions can afford for civil and religious liberty. (The right honourable baronet then sat down, and the cheering, which had been frequent throughout his speech, was renewed with increased energy and enthusiasm.)

Lord Stanley rose and said... my right hon. friend has truly told you that our union is founded upon higher and more enduring motives. It is founded upon the strongest motives that can actuate private feeling, or influence public conduct. It is founded upon a sense of common danger, and a conviction of common interest; not the sordid, base, personal interest or profit of the individual, but a common conviction impressed upon our minds that danger is threatened to the interests of the country, and that union is the only means by which the danger can be warded off, and our institutions preserved.

The Peel Banquet at Merchant Taylor’s Hall, May 12^th 1838.

Why did the Conservatives become more electable?

Between 1835 and 1841 several things helped the Conservative Party to become more electable.

Improvements in electoral management

Improvements had certainly been made to the Conservatives’ organisational machine though it is difficult to asses its precise impact on the revival of the party’s electoral fortunes. Party organisation probably played an invaluable but subsidiary role enabling the Conservatives to capitalise on the shift of public opinion away from the Whigs after 1832. Peel’s direct involvement was minimal and the initiative in the 1830s came from men with a previous track-record in party management. Joseph Planta, William Holmes and Charles Arbuthnot formed the nucleus of the so-called ‘Charles Street Gang’, named after the address of the office they had established at the end of 1830, from which whips’ notes were sent out to MPs and attempts made to influence the press. The Charles Street Gang was instrumental in founding the Carlton Club in 1832, which soon became the party’s headquarters.

Shortly after the 1835 election, Francis Bonham persuaded Peel that a committee was needed on a permanent basis and became, in practice, the party’s first full-time election agent. Peel continued to improve the organisation of the party and refine its policies. The permanent committee was chaired by Granville Somerset with the aim of co-ordinating the party’s electoral affairs. The functions of the committee were confined, in practice, mainly to gathering information from the various localities, for the guidance of national leaders, suggesting suitable candidates for constituencies and providing modest subsidies to deserving candidates from a small, secret election fund. There were limits to what Bonham could do since interference in constituency affairs would be deeply resented by local landowners and activists accustomed to financing and controlling their own local affairs.

Peel recognised that party politics would dominate Parliament and frequently met with Bonham and his whips to work out clear political strategies though he rarely communicated this to his supporters in the Commons. He appointed able chief whips such as Sir George Clark in 1835 and Sir Thomas Freemantle in 1837. The result of this work could be seen in the general election following William IV’s death in 1837. The Conservatives gained thirteen seats and reduced the Whig’s majority to just over 30

The development of registration

Developments in party organisation at local level counted for much more than the tentative efforts of the central election committee. The impetus for change came from the requirement of the 1832 Act that a register of electors must be compiled in each constituency and updated annually. In many of the boroughs and also in a few counties, local Conservatives formed Registration Associations employing a local solicitor to ensure that the names of Conservative supporters were placed on the electoral register while challenging the eligibility of known opponents. Peel recognised the value of registration work at local level and of its long-term implications for the conduct of politics and government at the centre. Peel’s attitude to registration is revealed in a letter to Charles Arbuthnot in November 1839[1]

‘The registration will govern the disposal of offices and determine the policy of party attacks; and the power of this new element will go on increasing, as its secret strength becomes better known, and is more fully developed. We shall soon have, I have no doubts, a regular systematic organisation of it…’

‘Crossing the floor’

Peel’s political skills meant that moderate Whigs such as Sir James Graham and Stanley and their supporters, who had left the Whig government in 1834-5, could be drawn into political alliance. During the period 1835-40, nearly 60 Whigs ‘crossed the floor’ and joined the Conservatives. This significantly strengthened Peel’s front bench with Stanley, Gladstone and Graham as a strong debating team undermining the credibility of the Whig government.

Peel’s reputation

Peel’s reputation as a responsible opposition leader was a valuable political asset for his party, providing reassurance to moderate public opinion that the Conservatives could be safely trusted with the governance of the country. Yet the party that Peel built up in opposition was scarcely a new entity, despite the widespread use of the term ‘Conservative, as a resurrection of the ‘Tory party’ of professional administrators and country gentlemen that had been evolving under Lord Liverpool in the early and mid-1820s. It is also important not to exaggerate Peel’s role in encouraging the growth of party organisation during the 1830s. In fact, he was distinctly uncomfortable with the implications for the ways politics was conducted, of relying on electoral machinery to assist him into office.

Electoral growth

In the 1835 and 1837 general elections the Conservatives improved their position considerably. They increased their MPs by about a hundred in 1835 and added forty more two years later. By-election successes between 1837 and 1841 further improved their position. Between 1837 and 1841 they were only thirty votes short of the Whigs and their normal voting allies. After the 1837 election the Whigs were increasingly dependent on the support of Irish MPs (many of whom were Catholics) to remain in power. This worked to the advantage of the Conservative Party that could present itself as the party of Protestantism. In the 1841 election, the party won a total of 376 seats, giving them a comfortable overall majority of seventy.

In 1839, Melbourne was defeated by five votes over the Jamaican crisis[2] when the Whigs planned to suspend the Jamaican Assembly. The Whig government resigned and Queen Victoria reluctantly asked Peel to form the next government. Peel accepted the Queen’s invitation but only on condition that she sack those in her immediate circle of courtiers who were related to or associated with Whig politicians. She refused to sack some of her Whig ladies-in-waiting leading to the ‘Bedchamber crisis’[3] and she then asked Melbourne to form his third government in May 1839. In retrospect, Peel’s decision not to take power was a blessing in disguise. The Conservatives still did not command a majority in the House of Commons and the worsening economic crisis led to serious social unrest.

A disunited party?

The electoral tide may have been running in their favour but the Conservatives were not united either on principles or strategies.

For Peel, the major threat to his executive view of government during the 1830s came not from the Whigs but from the Radicals. They believed in extra-parliamentary pressure to achieve their aims and this was unacceptable to Peel. Defeating the Radicals often meant supporting the Whigs. On many issues, such as the poor law in 1834 and municipal reform the following year, Peel either actively supported the government or did not meddle. He sought to defeat the Whigs but was not prepared to do so at any cost: opposition remained constructive’. In particular he was not willing to ally with Radicals to bring the government down.

Many Tories believed that Peel should defeat the Whigs as soon as possible, if necessary with Radical votes. Peel’s approach during the ‘Bedchamber crisis’, when he refused in 1839 to take office because the young Victoria would not dismiss some of her ladies in waiting, seemed to some Tories to be arrogant. The House of Lords took a different line to Peel on some issues, especially on Ireland. Electoral victory had to wait until 1841.

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[1] In the published edition of Peel’s correspondence, this is misdated to the year 1838. Its true date is significant since it was written after the ‘Bedchamber crisis’ and suggests that Peel had reluctantly come to the conclusion pressed on him by Sir James Graham and others that the hostility shown by the Queen to the opposition and her support for the Whigs meant that the only way the Conservatives could now obtain office was by removing the government by winning a general election and compelling the Queen to take them as ministers.

[2] The emancipation of slaves in 1833 had led to a worsening of the economic conditions for planters in Jamaica. The result was increased brutality against the former slaves to such an extent that the Jamaica constitution was suspended for five years.

[3] The Bedchamber issue was resolved in 1841 by the intervention of Queen Victoria’s new husband, Prince Albert.

Peel in Opposition 1835-1841

After the failure of his unintended months in government, Peel was inclined to bide his time and avoid any action that might lead to an immediate return to power. He was anxious that William IV should not attempt another coup against the Whigs since he believed that this would inevitably lead to defeat for the King and further damage to the constitutional authority of the Crown.

More ‘constructive opposition’ 1835-1837

In 1835 and 1836, Peel was especially concerned about the conduct of Tories in the House of Lords. There was a real danger that the attitude of the Ultras might put the Lords on a collision course with the Commons and this did not fit with Peel’s notion of opposition. This can be seen in the opposition of Ultras in the Lords to the Municipal Corporations Bill in 1835. Peel supported the measure recognising that it sought to establish an efficient and honest system of local government but he was unable to control the Conservative peers. Peel’s fear was that the actions of the peers might tempt the Whigs to resign and force a constitutional crisis. Fortunately, the Whigs proved willing to make some compromises and this proved sufficient for a settlement to be reached.

Peel, shortly before the crisis, had indicated his willingness to support reasonable measures of reform and his determination to avoid Conservative alignment with the Radicals and Repealers simply to embarrass the government. This represented a continuation of the ‘constructive opposition’ pursued in 1833-4 enabling acceptable reforms to be carried through while helping the Whigs resist unwelcome pressure from their own allies. The Whig party manager, Edward Ellice noted in 1836 that Peel ‘was as anxious as the most selfish adherent of the Treasury to keep the Gov’t in office’. In early 1837, the government was under pressure from radical motions on the secret ballot, the abolition of property qualifications for MPs, repeal of the Septennial Act and the removal of bishops from the House of Lords and on each occasion the Whigs depended on Conservative support to defeat the Radicals.

The sessions of 1836 and early 1837 were encouraging ones for Peel and his friends. Conservative feeling in the country was gaining in strength, helped undoubtedly by the positive state of trade and agriculture. The relationship between the Whigs and their allies was often fraught and the cohesion of the opposition improving with the recruitment of Stanley and his associates brining Conservative numbers in the Commons almost up to 300. Peel and especially Wellington appear to have persuaded the more fanatical Conservative peers from launching a suicidal attack on the government. Even some Whigs recognised that Peel was holding back and waiting for Whig support to drain away before delivering the killer blow.  Modern research had vindicated Peel’s cautious strategy and shows just how successful he was in enticing moderate Whig MPs into Conservative ranks. Between 1833 and 1837, at least 31 MPs who had supported the Reform Act joined the Conservatives and only about a dozen of these were associated with Lord Stanley. Another seventeen MPs crossed the floor during the parliament of 1837-1841. Peel would have been entitled to feel that this movement of MPs from Whig to Conservative justified the effectiveness of his policy of refraining from violent opposition to the government.

Ending support for the Whigs 1837-1841

The death of William IV in June 1837 transformed the political situation. The ensuing general election brought further Conservative gains so that the opposition amounted to around 371 MPs (out of 658). However, the Whigs’ increasingly precarious parliamentary situation was compensated by the unswerving support of the new monarch. Unlike her uncle, who detested his ministers, Victorian held strong pro-Whiggish views and until 1841 she displayed a strong personal attachment to Lord Melbourne that the Whigs were able to exploit. This made Peel’s position as leader of the opposition extremely awkward. It was now difficult to square Conservative principles with opposition methods now that it was clear that the queen had no desire to be rescued from her Whig ministers. At the beginning of the 1838 session of parliament, the Conservatives seem further than ever from removing the government.

It was the Canadian rebellion in late 1837 and questions about the government’s handling of the affair that posed a real problem for Peel. Peel and Wellington were instinctively disposed to support the emergency measures including the suspension of the Canadian constitution. However, there were warnings from Conservative party managers that unless some hostile action was taken by the opposition front-bench, many back-benchers were likely to support a radical motion of censure. Peel still maintained that direct opposition attacks on the government were counter-productive but recognised that something had to be done to preserve opposition unity. His solution was to support an amendment to the radical censure motion while pledging support for measures necessary to suppress the rebellion. This was tactically sound since it enabled him to attack the Whigs for allowing the rebellion to occur in the first place much to the satisfaction of his own supporters while ensuring that the government was sure to survive. The Whigs consequently won by twenty-nine votes.

Peel now found himself in an uncomfortable position. Before 1839, he refused to countenance another outright attack on the Whigs. He also rejected the advice of his chief whip that he should meet his MPs at the beginning of each session to explain the current situation to them. The problem of Peel’s uncommunicative attitudes with his MPs became apparent in March 1839 when 65 Conservative back-benchers, working in conjunction with Ultra peers, staged a rebellion over the government’s Irish Municipal Corporations Bill. They were already angry because Peel backed the Whigs’ Irish Tithes and Irish Poor Law Bills in the previous session. This appears to have stung Peel into adopting more aggressive action. In April, he defended the House of Lords after it had passed a motion of censure over Whig Irish policy and in May he condemned the Whigs’ handling of the crisis in Jamaica where the constitution had been suspended, despite his approval of an almost identical action by the Whigs over Canada. Peel’s inconsistency can only be explained by his need to appease his own supporters. However, his expectation was that the government would not be defeated and it did survive by five votes. In the event, the narrowness of the Whig victory provided the Whigs with an excuse for submitting their resignations.

The ‘Bedchamber crisis’ May 1839

On 8^th May, Victoria, having been advised by Wellington that the new Prime Minister should be in the House of Commons summoned Peel. At his audience at Buckingham Palace, Victoria immediately made it clear that she regretted the loss of her Whig ministers, expressed her reluctance to grant Peel the dissolution of parliament and made it clear that she must not be asked to end all communication with Lord Melbourne. Though Peel replied that he was willing to do everything in its power to meet the Queen’s wishes, he went on to indicate that it was essential for him to have some mark of the Queen’s confidence in the form of some changes to the Royal Household. Many of the most senior positions were held by female relatives of the outgoing Whig ministers.

Whether this stipulation was intended by Peel as a test of the Queen’s commitment, the following day when he returned to her with his list of proposed ministerial appointments, he learned of the Queen’s refusal to make any changes to the personnel of her Household. Under these circumstances, Peel had little choice but to decline the commission. To the Queen’s delight, Melbourne agreed to resume his premiership. There are several different views of why Peel refused to take office.

A cynical view could argue that Peel did not consider that this was the right time to take over from the Whigs and deliberately raised the issues of the Household in the expectation that it would lead to a breakdown in negotiations. He had never intended the Whigs to resign on the Jamaica issue.  It is important to recognise that the Crown was still a potentially negative and obstructive force in British politics. This made it a legitimate concern for Peel that the Queen should not be surrounded at Court by Whig ladies. If Peel had formed a government in 1839, it would have been a minority one with no guarantee of a dissolution of parliament to bolster his support through a general election. In addition, he risked being undermined by the hostile influence of the Ladies of the Bedchamber, reinforcing the Queen’s prejudice against the Conservatives. The end result might well have been humiliation for Peel and the speedy return of the Whigs.  A third view suggests that since Peel only asked for some changes to her Household, it seems unlikely that he expected his requests to be rejected in such an uncompromising way. In this scenario, Peel may well have made a genuine effort to form a government and that the conditions he laid down were perfectly reasonable given the Queen’s obvious Whig sympathies. Though Peel may have been relieved when events enabled him to abandon his project, but he must have been concerned that relations between the Crown and the Conservatives were so frosty.

From Bedchamber to Downing Street 1839-1841

The Conservative party demonstrated their capacity for highly disciplined parliamentary action from late 1838. Conservative MPs were increasingly frustrated by Peel’s unwillingness to take office and his opposition to any systematic warfare against the Whigs. His reaction to these complaints betrayed his somewhat contemptuous view of the extent of most Conservative MPs’ political commitment and can be seen in his response to an article in the Quarterly Review:  ‘People very much mistake the constitution of the Conservative party who suppose that it will be held together under such a system of worrying and vexatious tactics…such a system does not very well consort with Conservative principles…After you had deducted the idle, the shuffling, the diners-out, the country gentlemen with country occupations, and above all the moderate and quiet men disliking the principle of a factious Opposition, we should find the Conservative ranks pretty well thinned…’

Whatever Peel’s views, he had little choice but to offer a more active and belligerent leadership unless he wanted to see the Conservative party becoming fatally demoralised. In this instance, it was a political rather than a principled response that was essential. The result was a motion of no confidence in the government with an uncharacteristically feeble performance by Peel who seemed to be more concerned with defending himself than attacking the Whigs. The government survived by a fairly comfortable margin of twenty-one votes. The matter did not end there and for the remainder of the 1840 session of parliament, there were continuing tensions within the Conservative opposition. There was renewed strain between Peel and Wellington who never had much in common. While Peel was inclined to offer support over the Irish Municipal Corporations and Canada Bills, Wellington, along with many other peers, wished to reject both. Although Peel made some concessions to Wellington over the Canada Bill, no concession was forthcoming on the Municipal Corporations Bill and Peel was powerless to prevent the Lords emasculating the legislation with amendments. It took considerable diplomatic work, especially by Sir James Graham in the 1840 autumn recess to restore relations between Peel and Wellington.

It was the Whig government in 1841 that allowed the Conservatives to unite with their proposals to deal with the growing budgetary deficit caused by declining revenue from indirect taxes at a time of acute economic depression. The Whigs proposed to cut import duties on timber and on foreign, but not colonial sugar thinking that lower tariffs might stimulate the volume of trade and so increase the tax yield to the Exchequer. They also announced a separate measure, the introduction of a fixed duty of 8s per quarter on wheat in place of the 1828 sliding scale.

The opposition seized on the sugar duties as offering the best target for attack. Many Whig back-benchers were hostile to a plan to benefit foreign sugar producers, many of whom used slave labour, at the expense of colonial growers who since 1838 had not. In addition, some Whig agriculturalists were alarmed by the Corn Law scheme and would be tempted to use the sugar issue to join forces with the opposition. On 18^th May 1841, the Whig government suffered a devastating defeat by 371 to 281: 15 Whigs voted with the Conservatives and another eighteen abstained. This was followed up by a vote of no confidence and on 2^nd June this was carried by 302 to 301 votes. The Whigs then announced that parliament would be dissolved.

It is difficult to see the defeat of the Whigs followed by the Conservative victory in the 1841 election as the outcome of an increasingly well-orchestrated Conservative opposition to the government since 1835. The Conservatives were beset by internal difficulties up to and including the 1840 session of parliament and Peel had serious problems with the very concept of Conservative opposition to ministers of the Crown who had the monarch’s confidence and support.

In May and June 1841, Peel found that his leadership was unavoidably identified with the issues that were fundamental to his more unreconstructed back-benchers. It was the determination to uphold the Corn Law that underpinned the Conservative attack on the Whig government, even though it was not the direct issue at stake in the crucial divisions in May and June. It was Protectionism not Peel’s notion of ‘constructive opposition’ that provided the unifying cause for Conservatives. However, in the excitement and enthusiasm of 1841, the fundamental differences of opinion between Peel and the majority of his party were concealed, at least temporarily. It does not follow that the Conservative victory at the polls should be interpreted as an overwhelming personal endorsement of Peel and the principles he had laid down at Tamworth.