Lord Liverpool - by William Anthony Hay (Hardcover)

About the Book

Shaped by eighteenth-century assumptions, Liverpool nonetheless laid the foundations for the nineteenth-century Britain that emerged from the Reform era.

Book Synopsis

Shaped by eighteenth-century assumptions, Liverpool nonetheless laid the foundations for the nineteenth-century Britain that emerged from the Reform era.

Robert Banks Jenkinson (1770-1828), 2nd Earl of Liverpool, was Britain's longest serving prime minister since William Pitt the Younger. Liverpool's tenure in office oversaw a series of seismic events including the War of 1812 withthe United States, the endgame of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Corn Laws, the Peterloo Massacre, and escalating contention over the issue of Catholic Emancipation. However, Liverpool's overall standing within British political history has been overshadowed by contemporaries such as Castlereagh and Canning, and his reputation and achievements were downplayed by the Reform period that followed.
This new political biography explores Liverpool's career and puts his efforts at resisting change into context, bringing this period of transformation into sharp focus. It shows Liverpool as a defender of the eighteenth-century British constitution, documentinghis efforts at adapting institutions to the challenges of war and then the very different post-1815 world. Shaped by eighteenth-century assumptions, Liverpool nonetheless laid the foundations for the nineteenth-century Britain that emerged from the Reform era. This book uses his career and outlook as a way of exploring the crucial transition from the Georgian to the Victorian era.

WILLIAM ANTHONY HAY is Associate Professor of history at Mississippi State University and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Review Quotes

[A] splendid new biography . . . Hay brings to the story a more biographical approach, which allows him to focus closely on Liverpool's personality, which is brilliantly evoked in a series of anecdotes and quotations from contemporary observers . . . Wonderful.-- "NEW STATESMAN"

[A] work of impeccable scholarship.-- "LONDON MAGAZINE"

A brilliant new biography.--ANDREW ROBERTS "iNEWS"

A lively, full and engaging narrative.-- "LITERARY REVIEW"

A very valuable study of early-19th-century British politics, with Liverpool squarely at its heart.-- "PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY"

A well-written and thoroughly researched piece of scholarship which would be especially useful for those seeking an account of the major issues of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century politics.-- "CERCLES"

By way of a patient reexamination of all the available evidence, Hay's new biography has forged a fresh and convincing account that restores Liverpool to his proper role as a pivotal figure in the politics of early 19th century Britain.-- "LAW & LIBERTY"

Hay offers a brilliant guide to his subject and his period. He shows how careful scholarship can be made accessible to non-specialist readers of history. The clear, well-written narrative presents arguments effectively, along with the personalities and events behind them. Lord Liverpool captures the immediacy of decision-making and political action as they unfolded.-- "THE NEW CRITERION"

If there must be one criticism of this work, it is that it is too short. . . . Hay's book is an impressive addition to the scholarship and a welcome look at an unjustly neglected figure in the history of conservative thought and governance.-- "NATIONAL REVIEW"

In this tightly compressed political biography, Hay . . . [builds] a well-supported case that Liverpool pragmatically shepherded Britain through foreign and domestic trials, employed judicious timely reforms, and held together governments of competing egos while deftly handling pressuring monarchs and opposition Whigs.-- "CHOICE"

Restores Liverpool to his proper place in British political history . . . Mr. Hay, a professor of history at Mississippi State University, guides the reader engagingly through the political maze.-- "WALL STREET JOURNAL"