Peel and the Conservative Party 1830-1850


Book Description

Sir Robert Peel dominated political life for more than two decades and has been described as the 'founder of modern conservatism.' This book analyzes the career of Sir Robert Peel in relation to the development of the Conservative Party in the early 19th century. It discusses Peel's conception of Conservatism, and his work as Prime Minister.







The Conservative Party


Book Description

The Conservatives are back - but what took them so long? Why did the world's most successful political party dump Margaret Thatcher only to commit electoral suicide under John Major? Just as importantly, what stopped the Tories getting their act together until David Cameron came along? The answers are as intriguing as the questions.




The Conservatives - A History


Book Description

The history of the Conservative party has, extraordinarily, rarely been written in a single volume for the general reader. There are academic multi-volume accounts and a multitude of smaller books with limited historical scope. But now, Robin Harris, Margaret Thatcher's speechwriter and party insider, has produced this authoritative but lively history book which tells the whole story and fills a gaping hole in Britain's historiographical record. Taking as his starting point the larger than life personalities of the Conservative Party's leaders and prime ministers since its inception, Robin Harris's book also analyses the interconnected themes and issues which have dominated Conservative politics over the years. The careers of Peel, Disraeli, Salisbury, Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague and Cameron together amount to an alternative history of Britain since the early nineteenth century. This landmark book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in history or politics, or anyone who has ever wondered how Britain came to be the nation it is today.




The Conservative Party from Peel to Major


Book Description

There was no more appropriate person to write this book. Robert Blake was the doyen of Tory historians being most famous for his unsurpassed biography of Disraeli (to be reissued in Faber Finds). His history of the Conservative Party was first published in 1970. It then went as far as Churchill. A subsequent edition took it up to Thatcher and the final edition, the one being reissued by Faber Finds, to Major. For the span it covers, it remains the definitive one-volume history. 'His consummate insight into the whole of the political scene, and his power to communicate the enjoyment of it, makes this exciting reading for anyone remotely interested in British political and social history, or even in the English character.' Sunday Times 'This book is full of insights and enriched throughout by sparkling commentary' Evening Standard 'An up-to-date history of the Party was wanted. Mr Blake supplies it with lucidity, scholarship and serene worldliness' Guardian




From the Corn Laws to Free Trade


Book Description

The repeal of Britain's Corn Laws in 1846, one of the most important economic policy decisions of the 19th century, has long intrigued and puzzled political scientists, historians, and economists. This book examines the interacting forces that brought about the abrupt beginning of Britain's free-trade empire.




Sir Robert Peel


Book Description

Sir Robert Peel - paragon or pariah? Peel was the greatest statesman and political leader of mid-Victorian Britain, a titan of Conservative politics, whose legacy has inspired generations in his party and in British political life. In a career spanning forty years he held the greatest offices of state including Chief Secretary to Ireland, Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and was twice Prime Minister. He was the first acknowledged leader of the Conservative Party and the Founder of Modern Conservatism. Yet Peel's seemingly peerless reputation has never been secure. The Repeal of the Corn Laws split his party, his 'Peelite' supporters joined the Liberals and the Conservatives remained in opposition for thirty years. Richard Gaunt, drawing on a huge archive of state papers, contemporary writings including Peel's own Memoirs and the latest historiography, paints a convincing picture of Peel as an exponent of effective government in the modern industrial state and a calculating practitioner, supremely self-confident, who dominated both his Party and the House of Commons. Gaunt's revisionist life of Peel will be essential reading and the standard work for students and general readers interested in Conservative and mid-Victorian political history and historical biography.




The Reactionary Mind


Book Description

Now updated to include Trump's election and the rise of global populism, Corey Robin's 'The Reactionary Mind' traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution.




Robert Peel


Book Description

The life of one of the greatest British Prime Ministers - by an author who knows the scene from his years as a senior Minister in Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet. Robert Peel (1788-1850), as much as any man in the nineteenth century, transformed Great Britain into a modern nation. He invented our police force, which became a model for the world. He steered through the Bill which allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament. He reorganised the criminal justice system. Above all he tackled poverty by repealing the Corn Laws. Thanks to Peel the most powerful trading nation chose free trade and opened the door for our globalised world of today. Peel was not all politics. He built two great houses, filled them with famous pictures and was devoted to a beautiful wife. Many followers never forgave him for splitting his Party. But when in 1850 he was carried home after a fall from his horse crowds gathered outside, mainly of working people, to read the medical bulletins. When he died a few days later, factories closed, flags flew at half-mast and thousands contributed small sums to memorials in his honour. He was the man who provided cheap bread and sacrificed his career for the welfare of ordinary people.




Mr Secretary Peel


Book Description

Norman Gash's magnificent two-volume life of Sir Robert Peel - Mr Secretary Peel (1961) and Sir Robert Peel (1972) - is the standard work on the great statesman, and is widely considered one of the great biographies of 19th-century prime ministers. Faber Finds is delighted to return both to print, beginning with Mr Secretary Peel. As Gash puts it memorably, 'Peel, born in 1788 in the world of Gibbon and Joshua Reynolds, of stage-coaches, highwaymen and the judicial burning of women, died in 1850 in the age of Faraday and Darwin, of Punch, railway excursions, trade unions and income tax...' Over the course of Peel's life Britain was remodeled, and it may be argued that Peel himself did more than any other political figure in reconciling the new forces in society with its older institutions. But as a politician Peel could be a controversial figure, his pragmatism pressing him into unpopular decisions. The son of an industrial millionaire, his instincts were for the cause of good government over narrow party interest. Norman Gash interpreted Peel as the intellectual founder of the modern Conservative Party - an aristocratic administrator and natural consensus politician who believed in courting the urban middle class as well as landowners and farmers. Mr Secretary Peel carries its subject's story from birth through his entry into politics in Ireland, his early positions in Tory governments, his tenure as Home Secretary from 1822 (which included his establishing of the Metropolitan Police Force) and up to the struggles over the issue of Catholic Emancipation. 'A rich and perceptive portrait of a statesman in the making,' Philip Ziegler, Telegraph.