Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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| Periods in Office: | February, 1868 – December, 1868 February, 1874 – April, 1880 |
| PM Predecessors: | The Earl of Derby William Ewart Gladstone |
| PM Successor: | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Date of Birth: | 21 December 1804 |
| Date of Death: | 19 April 1881 |
| Place of Birth: | London |
| Place of Death: | London |
| Political Party: | Conservative |
The Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and literary figure. He served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister – the first and thus far only person of Jewish descent to do so, although Disraeli was baptized in the Anglican Church at an early age. Disraeli's most lasting achievement was the creation of the modern Conservative Party after the Corn Laws schism of 1846.
His time in parliament from 1852 onwards was marked by his often intense rivalry with William Ewart Gladstone, who eventually rose to become leader (if not founder) of the Liberal Party. In this duel Disraeli was aided by his warm friendship with Queen Victoria, who came to detest Gladstone during the latter's first premiership in the 1870s. In 1876 Disraeli was raised to the peerage as the Earl of Beaconsfield, capping nearly four decades in the House of Commons. He died in 1881.
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Before and during his political career Disraeli was well-known as a literary and social figure, although his novels are not generally regarded as belonging to the first rank of Victorian literature. He mainly wrote romances, of which Sibyl and Vivian Grey are perhaps best-known, although Lothair was probably the most popular at the time.
Early life
Disraeli descended from Italian Sephardic Jews from both his maternal and paternal sides. His father was the literary critic and historian Isaac D'Israeli who, though Jewish, had Benjamin baptised and raised in the Church of England. The elder D'Israeli (Benjamin apparently changed the spelling in the 1820s) himself was content to remain outside organized religion. Beginning in 1817 Benjamin attended Higham Hall, in Epping Forest. His younger brothers, in contrast, attended the superior Winchester College, a fact which apparently grated on Disraeli and may explain his dislike of his mother, Maria D'Israeli.
Father of Benjamin Disraeli
His father destined him for the law, and he was articled to a solicitor in 1821. The law was, however, uncongenial, and by 1825 he gave it up. Disraeli was apparently determined to obtain independent means, and speculated on the stock exchange as early as 1824 on various South American mining companies. The recognition of the new South American republics on the recommendation of George Canning had led to a considerable boom, encouraged by various promoters and aggrandizers. In this connexion Disraeli became involved with the financier J. D. Powles, one such booster. In the course of 1825 Disraeli wrote three pamphlets (anonymously) for Powles, promoting the companies.
Novelist and politician
That same year Disraeli's financial activities brought him into contact with the publisher John Murray. Murray, like Powles and Disraeli, was involved in the South American mines. Accordingly, they attempted to bring out a newspaper, The Representative, to promote the cause of the mines and those politicians who supported the mines, specifically Canning. The paper was a failure, in part because the mining "bubble" burst in late 1825, ruining Powles and Disraeli. Also, according to Disraeli's biographer, Lord Blake, the paper was "atrociously edited", and probably would have failed anyway. The debts which Disraeli incurred through this affair would dog him the rest of his life.
Disraeli now turned towards literature, and brought out his first novel, Vivian Grey, in 1827. Disraeli's biographers agree that Vivian Grey was a thinly-veiled re-telling of the affair of the Representative, and it proved very popular on its release, although it also caused much offence within the Tory literary world when Disrael's authorship was discovered. The book, which was initially published anonymously, was purportedly written by a "man of fashion" – someone who moved in society. Disraeli, then just twenty-three, did not move in society, and the numerous solecisms present in Vivian Grey made this painfully obvious. Reviewers were sharply critical on these grounds of both the author and the book. Furthermore, Murray believed that Disraeli had caricatured him and abused his confidence–an accusation denied at the time, although subsequent biographers (notably Blake) have sided with Murray.
After producing a Vindication of the British Constitution, and some political pamphlets, Disraeli followed up Vivian Grey by a series of novels, The Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy (1833), Venetia and Henrietta Temple (1837). During the same period he had also written The Revolutionary Epick and three burlesques, Ixion, The Infernal Marriage, and Popanilla. Of these only Henrietta Temple (based on his affair with Henrietta Sykes) was a true success.
Political career
Prime Minister 1834-35, 1841-46
Disraeli had been considering a political career as early as 1830, before he departed England for the Mediterranean. His first real efforts, however, did not come until 1832, during the great crisis over the Reform Bill, when he contributed to an anti-Whig pamphlet edited by Croker and published by Murray entitled England and France: or a cure for Ministerial Gallomania. The choice of a Tory publication was regarded as odd if not offensive by Disraeli's friends and relatives, who thought him more of a Radical. Indeed, Disraeli had objected to Murray about Croker inserting "high Tory" sentiment, writing that "it is quite impossible that anything adverse to the general measure of Reform can issue from my pen." Further, at the time Gallomania was published, Disraeli was in fact electioneering in High Wycombe in the Radical interest. Disraeli's politics at the time were influenced both by his rebellious streak and by his desire to make his mark. In the early 1830s the Tories and the interests they represented appeared to be a lost cause. The other great party, the Whigs, was apparently anathema to Disraeli: "Toryism is worn out & I cannot condescend to be a Whig."
Though he initially stood for election, unsuccessfully, as a Radical, Disraeli was a progressive Tory by the time he won a seat in the House of Commons in 1837 representing the constituency of Maidstone. Disraeli was sympathetic to some of the demands of the Chartists and argued for an alliance between the landed aristocracy and the working class against the increasing power of the middle class helping found the Young England group in 1842 to promote the view that the rich should use their power to protect the poor from exploitation by the middle class. Throughout his career Disraeli would seek alliances between the Conservatives and Radicals, to little avail.
Friend and future duke
Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel passed over Disraeli when putting together his Cabinet in 1841 and Disraeli gradually became a sharp critic of Peel's government. In Parliament, Disraeli became known for his defense of the protectionist Corn Laws, in opposition to fellow Conservative Peel's advocacy of free trade, which Disraeli denounced as "laissez-faire capitalism". The end of 1845 and the first months of 1846 were dominated by the battle in parliament between the free traders and the protectionists. Disraeli lost the fight, but the repeal of the Corn Laws came at great political cost as the Conservative Party split in half. Peel and his followers, known as Peelites, moved towards the Whigs, while the new Conservative Party formed around the protectionists, led by Disraeli, Lord George Bentinck, and Lord Stanley (later Lord Derby).
In Office
Prime Minister 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68
In 1852 Lord Derby appointed Disraeli Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons in the (in)famous Who? Who? Ministry. Due to a combination of bad timing and a lack of experience, Disraeli's first Budget was a failure. His duel, nonetheless, with William Ewart Gladstone over the Budget marked the beginning of thirty years of parliamentary hostility. Derby's government fell after a few months and Disraeli left government; Gladstone succeeded him as Chancellor (and was far more successful in that position). In 1858, Derby returned to the office of the Prime Minister and again appointed Disraeli his Chancellor of the Exchequer and government leader of the House of Commons (as the Prime Minister sat in the House of Lords) with responsibilities to introduce reforms to parliament but his reforms would have disenfranchised some voters in the towns and were opposed by the Liberals and defeated. The ministry fell in 1859 and Disraeli returned to the opposition bench until 1866 when he again became Chancellor of the Exchequer and government leader in the House of Commons.
Four-time Prime Minister
After engineering the defeat of a Liberal Reform Bill introduced by Gladstone in 1866, Disraeli and Derby introduced their own measure in 1867. This was primarily a political strategy designed to give Conservatives control of the reform process and thereby long term benefits in the Commons, similar to those derived by the Whigs after the 1832 Reform Act. The Reform Act of 1867 extended the franchise by 1,500,000 by giving the vote to male householders and male lodgers paying at least 10 pounds for rooms and eliminating rotten boroughs with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and granting constituencies to fifteen unrepresented towns and extra representation in parliament to larger towns such as Liverpool and Manchester, which had previously been underrepresented in Parliament. This act was unpopular with the right-wing of the Conservative Party, most notably Lord Cranborne (later the Marquess of Salisbury), who resigned from the government and spoke against the bill. Cranborne, however, was unable to lead a rebellion similar to that which Disraeli had led against Peel twenty years earlier.
Prime Minister
Disraeli's successor
Derby's health had been declining for some time and he finally resigned as Prime Minister in late February of 1868; he would live on for another twenty months. Disraeli's efforts over the past two years had dispelled, for the time being, any doubts about him succeeding Derby as leader of the Conservative Party and therefore Prime Minister. As Disraeli remarked, "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole." However, the Conservatives were still a minority in the House of Commons, and the enaction of the Reform Bill required the calling of new election. Disraeli's term as Prime Minister would therefore be fairly short, unless the Conservatives won the general election. He made only two changes in the cabinet: he replaced Lord Chelmsford as Lord Chancellor with Lord Cairns, and brought in George Ward Hunt as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Disraeli and Chelmsford had never gotten along particularly well, and Cairns, in Disraeli's view, was a far stronger minister.
Two-time Lord Chancellor
However, in the election that followed, William Gladstone and the Liberals were returned to power with a majority of 170. After six years in opposition, Disraeli and the Conservative Party won the election giving the party its first absolute majority in the House of Commons since the 1840s. Disraeli's government introduced various reforms such as the Artisans Dwellings Act (1875), the Public Health Act (1875), the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1875), the Climbing Boys Act (1875), the Education Act (1876). His government also introduced a new Factory Act meant to protect workers, the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act (1875) to allow peaceful picketing and the Employers and Workmen Act (1878) to enable workers to sue employers in the civil courts if they broke legal contracts.
Disraeli was a staunch British imperialist and helped strengthen the British Empire with his support for the construction of the Suez Canal. He also achieved a diplomatic success at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 in limiting the growing influence of Russia in the Balkans and breaking up the League of the Three Emperors. However, difficulties in South Africa and Afghanistan weakened his government and likely led to his party's defeat in the 1880 election.
He was elevated to the House of Lords in 1876 when Queen Victoria made him Earl of Beaconsfield. He remained Prime Minister until 1880 when the Conservatives were defeated by William Gladstone's Liberals in that year's general election. Disraeli became ill soon after and died in April 1881. His literary executor and for all intents and purposes his heir was his private secretary, Lord Rowton.
Disraeli's governments
- First Disraeli Ministry (February–December 1868)
- Second Disraeli Ministry (February 1874–April 1880)
Works by Disraeli
Fiction
- Vivian Grey (1826; Free eBook of Vivian Grey at Project Gutenberg)
- Popanilla (1828; Free eBook of Popanilla at Project Gutenberg)
- The Young Duke (1831)
- Contarini Fleming (1832)
- Alroy (1833)
- The Infernal Marriage (1834)
- Ixion in Heaven (1834)
- The Revolutionary Epick (1834)
- The Rise of Iskander (1834; Free eBook of The Rise of Iskander at Project Gutenberg)
- Henrietta Temple (1837)
- Venetia (1837; Free eBook of Venetia at Project Gutenberg)
- The Tragedy of Count Alarcos (1839); Free eBook of The Tragedy of Count Alarcos at Project Gutenberg)
- Coningsby, or the Younger Generation (1844; Free eBook of Coningsby at Project Gutenberg)
- Sybil or, The Two Nations (1845; Free eBook of Sybil or, The Two Nations at Project Gutenberg)
- Tancred, or the New Crusade (1847)
- Lothair (1870; Free eBook of Lothair at Project Gutenberg)
- Endymion (1880; Free eBook of Endymion at Project Gutenberg)
- Falconet (book) (unfinished 1881)
Non-fiction
- An Inquiry into the Plans, Progress, and Policy of the American Mining Companies (1825)
- Lawyers and Legislators: or, Notes, on the American Mining Companies (1825)
- The present state of Mexico (1825)
- England and France, or a Cure for the Ministerial Gallomania (1832)
- What Is He? (1833)
- The Letters of Runnymede (1836)
- Lord George Bentinck (1852)
Biographies of Beaconsfield
- Robert Blake, Disraeli (1966)
- Sarah Bradford, Disraeli (1982)
- Christopher Hibbert, Disraeli and His World (1978)
- Christopher Hibbert, Disraeli, a Personal History (2004)
- André Maurois, Disraeli (1927)
- Hesketh Pearson, Dizzy (1951)
- Jane Ridley, Young Disraeli, 1804-1846 (1995)
- Stanley Weintraub, Disraeli (1993)
Films about Beaconsfield
- Disraeli (1929) George Arliss (Best Actor Oscar), Joan Bennett
- The Mudlark (1950) Alec Guinness
- Disraeli (1978) Ian McShane, Mary Peach (Masterpiece Theatre four-part series)
- Mrs Brown (1997)Sir Antony Sher
References
- Blake, Robert. Disraeli. 1966.
- Jerman, B. R. The Young Disraeli. 1960.
External links
- Project Gutenberg e-texts of works by Benjamin Disraeli
- Disraeli as the inventor of modern conservatism at The Weekly Standard
See Also:
Categories: 1804 births | 1881 deaths | British Prime Ministers | Lords Privy Seal | Chancellors of the Exchequer | Leaders of the British Conservative Party | British MPs | Earls in the Peerage of the United Kingdom | Knights of the Garter | Jewish history | Jewish English history | People of Buckinghamshire | Londoners
