From Pitt to Peel: Conservative Politics in the Age of Reform

The age of Tory reform, especially the period following the Napoleonic wars, is pivotal in British political history. Following the savage repression of radical and popular protest culminating in the ‘Peterloo massacre’ of 1819, the Tory party turned decisively towards modern ‘one-nation’ conservatism later set out by Sir Robert Peel in his ‘Tamworth Manifesto’. A radical swing from blind defence of the existing order to moderate, practical reform affected most areas of policy and proceeded apace throughout the 1820s. In step with industrial and commercial progress, railway and canal expansion, came a flowering of economics, supported by banking reform. There was also ground-breaking reform of the law and legal system, persistent struggles over the reform of the Corn Laws and, in religion, the established church’s eventual acceptance of Catholic Emancipation. In foreign policy, Castlereagh’s Congress System was replaced by the masterful Canning’s policy of supporting liberal regimes in Latin America - an early exercise in British ‘informal empire’.The Conservative government left office before the great Reform Act of 1832 but conservative modernisation continued under Peel’s shadow, culminating in Corn Law repeal in 1846. This is an essential textbook for all students of nineteenth-century British political history, the Conservative Party and modern Conservatism, and includes themes of striking contemporary relevance.