Abstract
When the new parliament assembled at Westminster on 19 August 1841, Lord Melbourne and the Whigs were still in office despite their recent general election defeat. In the eyes of the British Constitution, the Prime Minister was not appointed directly by the electorate, but was chosen by the monarch. Of course, it was necessary in practice for the monarch to give his or her confidence to someone capable of commanding majority support in the House of Commons, and the development of more highly organised political parties during the 1830s had effectively restricted the monarch’s freedom of choice. Nevertheless, the result of the 1841 general election was unique in the way that it had converted a Commons’ majority (on paper at least) for the governing party into a majority for the opposition party. This had never happened before, and it would not happen again until 1874. In these unprecedented circumstances, therefore, the Conservatives were obliged to carry an amendment to the Address, expressing a want of confidence in ministers, before the Whigs could properly tender their resignations. Melbourne advised the dismayed Queen Victoria that he and his colleagues were no longer able to conduct the government of the country with efficiency, and on 30 August Peel was duly invited to form a new administration.
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Notes
See, for example, John Brooke and Mary Sorensen (eds), The Prime Minister’s Papers: W E. Gladstone (Historical Manuscripts Commission, 197182), vol. 2, pp. 41–3, for Gladstone’s memorandum of a conversation with Peel, dated 26 January 1835; Lord Stanmore, Sidney Herbert, Lord Herbert of Lea: A Memoir (London, 1906), vol. 1, p. 20, for Peel’s letter to ‘My Dear Sidney’, 1 January 1835; John Martineau, The Life of Henry Pelham, Fifth Duke of Newcastle (London, 1908), pp. 52–3, 63, including a remarkably boyish letter from Peel to Lincoln written in 1846.
Gladstone’s memorandum, 26 February 1842, Prime Minister’s Papers, vol. 2, p. 172.
Peel to Graham, 20 October 1842, in C. S. Parker (ed.), Sir Robert Peel: From his Private Correspondence (London, 1891–9), vol. 3, p. 39.
For this paragraph, see Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel: The Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (London, 1972), pp. 482–525.
Peel to Croker, 3 August 1842, in Louis J. Jennings (ed.), The Correspondence and Diaries ofjohn Wilson Croker (London, 1884), vol. 3, pp. 10–11.
Peel to Arbuthnot, 14 August 1845, in Arthur Aspinall (ed.), The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot (Royal Historical Society, Camden 3rd Series, LXV, 1941), p. 237.
Peel to Graham, 3 July 1846, in Peel Correspondence vol. 3, pp. 456–7 and note; Gladstone’s memorandum, July 1846, in Prime Minister’s Papers vol. 3, p. 30.
Sir Theodore Martin, The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort (London, 1875–80), vol. 1, pp. 119–25, 166–7.
Gladstone’s memorandum, 20 May 1844, Prime Minister’s Papers, vol. 2, p. 260.
Henry Reeve (ed.), The Greville Memoirs (London, 1899 edn), vol. 5, pp. 24–5, 35–7 (10 August and 1 September 1841).
See Norman McCord, The Anti-Corn Law League (London, 1958).
Aberdeen to Princess Lieven, 25 March 1842, in Lady Frances Balfour, The Life of George Fourth Earl of Aberdeen (London, 1923), vol. 2, p. 140.
Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785–1865 (Oxford, 1988), pp. 222–5.
D. R. Fisher, ‘Peel and the Conservative Party: The Sugar Crisis of 1844 Reconsidered’, Historical Journal, XVIII (1975), pp. 285–8.
See T. A. Jenkins, Parliament, Party and Politics in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1996 ), pp. 28–50.
Graham to Peel, 21 October 1841, in C. S. Parker, Life and Letters of Sir James Graham (London, 1907 ), vol. 1, pp. 350–1.
On this subject generally, see Donal A. Kerr, Peel, Priests and Politics: Sir Robert Peel’s Administration and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 18411846 (Oxford, 1982 ).
Peel to Heytesbury, 15 October 1845, Peel to Goulburn, 18 October 1845, in Peel Correspondence, vol. 3, pp. 224, 225–6.
The apparent link between lower duties and prosperous trading conditions was later emphasised by Peel in a conversation recorded in Prince Albert’s memorandum, 25 December 1845, in E. E Benson and Lord Esher (eds), The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1st Series (London, 1907 ), vol. 2, pp. 65–7.
See John Prest, Politics in the Age of Cobden (London, 1977), pp. 95–102. Of course, the fact that the League was disbanded in 1846 makes it impossible to assess with any certainty the possible electoral impact of the freehold campaign.
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Jenkins, T.A. (1999). Prime Minister, 1841–6. In: Sir Robert Peel. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27008-8_5
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