Prime Ministers · 19th century

Viscount Goderich

1782–1859 · British

Tory

In office: 1827–1828

Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich (later 1st Earl of Ripon), was a Chancellor of the Exchequer nicknamed "Prosperity Robinson" who succeeded Canning in August 1827. Lacking royal support, in poor health and unable to hold his quarrelling coalition together, he resigned in January 1828 without ever facing Parliament as Prime Minister. He later returned to high office under Grey and Peel.

How to spot them

▸Resigned after about five months without ever meeting Parliament as PM
▸'Prosperity Robinson' as Chancellor; Cobbett's 'Goody Goderich'
▸Later Earl of Ripon; father of the Viceroy of India, the 1st Marquess of Ripon
▸Introduced the 1815 Corn Law in the Commons

In office

A premiership that never once faced Parliament (1827–1828)

Resigned in January 1828 and was succeeded by Wellington

The 'Prosperity Robinson' budgets (1823–1827)

Tax cuts as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the 1820s boom

Brought the 1815 Corn Law into the Commons (1815)

Rioters attacked his London house in protest

Battle of Navarino fought during his brief premiership (1827)

Allied fleet destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet, embarrassing his divided government

Quick-fire facts

•Created Earl of Ripon in 1833
•His son George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon, was Viceroy of India
•William Cobbett nicknamed him 'Goody Goderich'
•Goderich in Ontario, Canada, is named after him
•Later sat in the cabinets of Grey and Peel

Drill it — 5 cards

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Sources

GOV.UK History of Government — Frederick Robinson, Viscount Goderich
Oxford University Press — Oxford Dictionary of National Biography