There really is an impudence in the press of this age that does the country more disservice in disorganising the people than all the democratic leaders can do, I think; and I’m afraid it is sowing the seeds of a commotion that our children or grandchildren will feel the dire effects of.”
Charles Dibdin, the proprietor of Sadler’s Wells Theatre, was in no doubt about a cultural crisis in Britain in 1813. That same year, the conservative Nottingham Gazette was launched to try to stem “the torrent” overwhelming people’s minds. There is much that is topical about the 1810s: a great state exhausted by war, a nation in the throes of economic and social transformation, and a political system assailed by the demands of radicals for fundamental change.
In such a context, how can stability be maintained? How can conservative leaders succeed? What are the key strengths in policy and personality that are appropriate? In answering these questions, there is much to be gained from reading William Anthony Hay’s cogent, well-written, thoroughly researched, and most interesting political life of Robert Jenkinson, Second Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828).
Liverpool is not a household name in the United States, but he should be, not least as the leader of the ministry that fought America in the War of 1812. An eyewitness to the early stages of the French Revolution in 1789, Liverpool entered Parliament in 1790, and, benefiting from the characteristic willingness of the political system to reward
