Page 50 - History 2020

contemporary.” This speech was applauded by MPs and helped him defeat an

Opposition vote of censure.

It is also about as clear a statement as you could find of Victorian denial and lack of
engagement with the problems of rapid industrialisation. However, Cannadine notes
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that the later 19 century witnessed a new uncertainty in Victorian attitudes, which
we will explore later. He concludes. “Palmerston died at just about the right moment,
outliving his own time, both domestically and internationally, but not by all that
much.”

Finally, William Gladstone, the towering voice of Victorian Nonconformity (spoken in
his Liverpool accent) and the high-minded guardian of its liberal, Christian
conscience. A critic said he always had God on his side but kept an ace up his sleeve
just in case. His sincere reforming zeal was limited somewhat by his attachment to
keeping public spending as low as possible. As Prime Minister he set himself a great
personal mission, to pacify Ireland, which eventually led him to favour some form of

Home Rule. But this proved intensely controversial, and ended in failure. The House
of Lords threw out his last Home Rule Bill in 1894, and he resigned soon after, aged
84, when his Cabinet vetoed his proposal to embark on a “peers versus people”
struggle with the Lords. (That was postponed until a decade after his death). Not
settling the Irish Question was the Victorians’ great failure, condemning both sides to
a further century of violence. Queen Victoria never liked Gladstone. She called him “a
half-mad firebrand”.

These Prime Ministers were all able, charismatic leaders. Walpole had invented the
role in the 1720’s and 30’s and the Victorians adapted it to the modest increases in
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the size of the 19 electorate. But although they controlled the levers of the state,
the state itself was not permitted to take the kind of action needed to solve the
fundamental problems of an emerging industrial society. Laisser-faire was the
conventional wisdom. It wasn’t seen as the job of the state to take effective,

concerted action to clean up the slums or stamp out slave-like working conditions. To
do so would push up taxes to absurd and intolerable levels, and destroy the freedom
they British so dearly prized. As historian Tristram Hunt says, “the classic Victorian
way of doing things” was not action by the state but “voluntarism and muddling
through”. Hunt describes the “festering impatience” with this of more progressive,
reform-minded Victorians, who saw beyond the conventional wisdom.
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Thus, as David Cannadine says, Victorian Prime Ministers, as in the 18 century, were
mostly preoccupied with simply building a Parliamentary majority and preventing it
from falling apart. Palmerston was the most successful at this, yet as we’ve seen he

had the least idea of any of the realities of life for the majority of Victorians. These