The Peterloo Massacre and the Six Acts (1819)
Cavalry charged a reform meeting at St Peter's Field, Manchester; repressive legislation followed
Prime Ministers · 19th century
Lord Liverpool
1770–1828 · British
Tory
In office: 1812–1827
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, became Prime Minister after Perceval's assassination in 1812 and held office for almost fifteen years, the longest premiership of the 19th century. His government saw Britain through the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, then met post-war unrest with repression: the Corn Law of 1815, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the Six Acts after the Peterloo Massacre. In the 1820s, with Canning, Peel and Huskisson in office, his ministry turned more liberal, until a stroke ended his career in 1827.
How to spot them
- ▸Longest-serving 19th-century PM, 1812–1827
- ▸Peterloo Massacre and the Six Acts (1819); Cato Street Conspiracy (1820)
- ▸Corn Law of 1815; Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna
- ▸Disraeli called him the 'Arch-Mediocrity' (in Coningsby)
In office
The Cato Street Conspiracy to murder the whole Cabinet (1820)
Arthur Thistlewood's plot; the conspirators were executed or transported
The Corn Law (Importation Act) of 1815 (1815)
Barred imports of foreign wheat until the domestic price reached 80 shillings a quarter
Victory at Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna (1815)
The Napoleonic Wars ended during his premiership
The Queen Caroline affair and the Bill of Pains and Penalties (1820)
Failed attempt to dissolve George IV's marriage
Return to the gold standard and repeal of the Combination Acts (1819; 1824)
Resumption of cash payments, and the legalisation of trade unions
Quick-fire facts
- •Said to have witnessed the storming of the Bastille in 1789 as a young man
- •Became Prime Minister at 42 and served for nearly 15 years
- •Liverpool in New South Wales was named after him (then Colonial Secretary) in 1810
- •The Anglo-American War of 1812 was fought and ended (Treaty of Ghent) under his ministry
- •Income tax was abolished in 1816, against his government's wishes
- •A stroke in February 1827 ended his premiership; he died in 1828
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Sources
- GOV.UK History of Government — Robert Banks Jenkinson Earl of Liverpool
- Oxford University Press — Oxford Dictionary of National Biography