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A life in the political centre: the 14th Earl of Derby: R. E. Foster examines the reputation and political stature of a three-times prime minister.

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The 14th Earl of Derby is the longest-serving leader of a British political party since 1815, and the first of only four people to have held the office of Prime Minister on at least three separate occasions. But who today would rank him alongside such 19th-century political giants as Peel, Palmerston, Gladstone and Disraeli? Even Derby's modern biographer has dubbed him the 'Forgotten Prime Minister'. Neither does Derby figure much in the pantheon of the Conservative Party. Whilst there are those who make a case for either Peel or Disraeli as its modern founder, few, if any, would makes the case for Derby. Yet Derby played a part in the unmaking of Peel and a fundamental one in the making of Disraeli. Has the 14th Earl been underestimated?

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A Forgotten Reputation 1799-1830

Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley was born in March 1799 at his family's impressive ancestral seat, Knowsley Hall, in Lancashire. The salient influences on the young Stanley were his larger-than-life grandfather, the 12th Earl, from whom he inherited his passion for gambling and the turf; and his mother, the devoutly evangelical Charlotte Hornby. An education at Eton and Christ Church reinforced tendencies already apparent in the young aristocrat as a self-confident young man blessed with a formidable intellect. The Times was later to describe him as the only 'brilliant eldest son produced by the British peerage for a hundred years'.

Stanley entered parliament for the pocket borough of Stockbridge in 1822. As his family had been Whig supporters for several generations, he took his seat in opposition to Lord Liverpool's Tory administration. When that ended in 1827, however, he followed his political mentor, Lord Lansdowne (a moderate Whig who was briefly Home Secretary in 1827-8), in moving closer to the brand of liberal-Toryism espoused by Liverpool's successor, George Canning. Though declining office from Canning, Stanley accepted it from his successor, Viscount Goderich, Prime Minister from August 1827. He duly resigned with the hapless Goderich in January 1828 to become an opponent of Wellington's more traditional Tory ministry.

By the latter date, Stanley was attracting notice in his own right. This was partly through his espousal of a clutch of known liberal causes such as revision of the Corn Laws, repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Roman Catholic emancipation and limited parliamentary Reform. But it owed more to the vehemence and eloquence with which he articulated his contempt for the Tories. 'The old stubborn spirit of Toryism was at last yielding to the increased liberality of the age,' he declared early in 1828. Such aphorisms impressed observers across the political spectrum. The Reformer Henry Brougham, for example, said that 'when Stanley came out in public life, and at the age of thirty, he was by far the cleverest young man of the day,' whilst the Canningite Tory, William Huskisson, went so far as to call him 'the Hope of the Nation'. An Ultra-Tory, Sir Richard Vivian, meanwhile, identified Stanley as a significant potential recruit in his improbable scheme to construct an anti-Wellington coalition in 1829. Even Wellington made abortive attempts to recruit Stanley only hours before his government collapsed in November 1830. Stanley thereupon threw in his lot with Lansdowne in accepting office in Lord Grey's Reform ministry.

From Whig Heir-Apparent to Conservative Leader 1830-46...

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