Title: Aristocratic government in the Age of Reform : Whigs and Liberals, 1830-1852 /
Authors: Mandler, Peter.
Publisher: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press,
Year: 1990
Subjects: Great Britain. Reform.; Whig Party (Great Britain) History.; Liberal Party (Great Britain) History.; Great Britain. Reform History; Whig Party (Great Britain) History; Liberal Party (Great Britain) History; Nobility Great Britain History; Crimean War, 1853-1856.; Great Britain Politics and government; Great Britain Politics and government
Abstract: This book challenges the view that there was a smooth and inevitable progression towards liberalism in early nineteenth-century England. It examines the argument of the high whigs that the landed aristocracy still had a positive contribution to make to the welfare of the people. This argument gained significance as the laissez-faire state met with serious reverses in the 1830s and 1840s, when the bulk of the people proved unwilling to accept the "compromise" forged between the middle classes and other sections of the landed elite, and mass movements for political and social reform proliferated. Drawing on a rich variety of original sources, Mandler provides a vivid image of the high aristocracy at the peak of its wealth and power, and offers a provocative and unique analysis of how their rejection of middle-class manners helped them to govern Britain in two troubled decades of social unrest.