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Portrait of Robert Walpole

Prime Ministers · 18th century

Robert Walpole

1676–1745 · English

Whig

In office: 1721–1742

Sir Robert Walpole, later 1st Earl of Orford, is generally regarded as Britain's first Prime Minister. As First Lord of the Treasury from 1721 to 1742 under George I and George II, he restored public credit after the South Sea Bubble, kept Britain out of European wars for most of two decades, and became the first head of government to live at 10 Downing Street.

How to spot them

  • ▸First Prime Minister; over 20 years in office, the longest premiership
  • ▸South Sea Bubble recovery, the Excise Crisis of 1733, the War of Jenkins' Ear
  • ▸First occupant of 10 Downing Street (1735); built Houghton Hall in Norfolk
  • ▸'Robinocracy'; 'Screen-Master General'; father of Horace Walpole

In office

Restoring public credit after the South Sea Bubble (1720–1721)

Rose to dominance by managing the aftermath of the South Sea Company crash

The Excise Crisis (1733)

Plan to replace customs duties on wine and tobacco with excise taxes caused uproar and was withdrawn

First First Lord of the Treasury to live at 10 Downing Street (1735)

George II offered him the house; he accepted it only as the official residence of the office

Licensing Act (stage censorship by the Lord Chamberlain) (1737)

Passed after satirical plays attacked his government; theatre censorship lasted until 1968

War of Jenkins' Ear declared against Spain (1739)

A war he opposed but was pushed into; it helped bring about his fall

Resignation after the Chippenham election petition (1742)

Lost a Commons vote on a disputed election and resigned after more than 20 years in power

Key ideas

  • Built the role of a chief minister who governed through control of the Commons and royal favour, the template for the office of Prime Minister
  • Policy of peace, low land tax and trade: his motto was 'quieta non movere' (let sleeping dogs lie)
  • Managed Parliament through extensive patronage, which opponents called corruption

Quick-fire facts

  • •Imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1712 on a charge of corruption as Secretary at War
  • •Made a Knight of the Garter in 1726, earning the nickname 'Sir Blue-String'
  • •Created Earl of Orford on his resignation in 1742
  • •Widely thought to be satirised in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728)
  • •His grandson sold his great picture collection from Houghton Hall to Catherine the Great in 1779; it is now in the Hermitage
  • •His youngest son Horace Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto and built Strawberry Hill
  • •Credited with the cynical remark that 'all those men have their price', often misquoted as 'every man has his price'

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources