Prime Ministers · 19th century

Earl of Aberdeen

1784–1860 · Scottish (British)

Peelite (Conservative)

In office: 1852–1855

George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, was a Scottish peer and diplomat who served as Foreign Secretary under Wellington and Peel. In 1852 he formed a coalition of Peelites, Whigs and Radicals, with Gladstone as Chancellor, Russell as Foreign Secretary and Palmerston as Home Secretary. His government drifted into the Crimean War, and he resigned in 1855 when the Commons voted for an inquiry into its mismanagement.

How to spot them

▸Peelite–Whig coalition, 1852–1855
▸Drifted into the Crimean War; fell after Roebuck's motion for an inquiry, 1855
▸Byron's 'Athenian Aberdeen'
▸As Foreign Secretary: Webster–Ashburton Treaty (1842) and Oregon Treaty (1846)

In office

Britain drifts into the Crimean War (1854)

War against Russia alongside France and the Ottoman Empire

Coalition of Peelites, Whigs and Radicals (1852)

Cabinet included Gladstone, Russell and Palmerston

Resignation after Roebuck's motion for an inquiry into the conduct of the war (1855)

Commons voted heavily for an inquiry into the army's sufferings in the Crimea

Webster–Ashburton Treaty settling the Maine–New Brunswick border (1842)

Concluded while he was Peel's Foreign Secretary

Quick-fire facts

•Orphaned as a boy; Pitt the Younger and Henry Dundas became his guardians
•A cousin of Lord Byron, who called him 'Athenian Aberdeen' in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
•A keen classicist who travelled in Greece as a young man
•The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava (1854) took place during his premiership
•His family seat was Haddo House in Aberdeenshire

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Sources

GOV.UK History of Government — George Hamilton Gordon Earl of Aberdeen
Oxford University Press — Oxford Dictionary of National Biography