Aristocratic government in the Age of Reform
Subtitle: Whigs and Liberals, 1830-1852
By: Peter Mandler.
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1990
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 307
Subjects: Great Britain. Parliament -- Reform -- History -- 19th century.; Whig Party (Great Britain) -- History -- 19th century.; Liberal Party (Great Britain) -- History -- 19th century.; Nobility -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901.; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1830-1837.
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-295) and index.