The End of the Tories www.educationforum.co.uk

The Tories Disintegrate Following the death of Lord Liverpool, ‘Prosperity’ Robinson (who by now had become Lord Goderich) became PM. Goderich could neither cope with an increasingly difficult King or a Tory Party which was increasingly divided into ‘Liberals’ and ‘ultras’, and he resigned within a year. The Duke of Wellington then became PM

Wellington Wellington was an excellent soldier but lacked the tact to be a successful politician. He was dictatorial and seemed to expect the same blind loyalty from his colleagues as he used to get from soldiers in battle Quickly Huskisson resigned over an argument with Wellington leaving only Peel from the original liberal Tories

Religious Toleration Just about the final acts of the Tory years was to introduce a measure of religious tolerance to England. The Test and Corporations Act was repealed in 1828 – this piece of law dated back to Charles II and banned anyone who did not take communion in the Church of England from holding office in either central or local government The following year came the Catholic Relief Act granting similar rights to Roman Catholics

Catholic Relief Act This was brought to a head by Daniel O’Donnell, who won a by election in County Clare in 1828, but as a catholic was not allowed to attend Parliament. This triggered a tremendous wave of support for catholic emancipation throughout Ireland. Wellington feared that to refuse O’Connell his seat would cause an open revolt in Ireland and therefore introduced Catholic Emancipation mainly to avoid this. This was to prove especially difficult as in losing most of the liberal Tories earlier from his government he was left with a party that stood strongly against rights for Catholics.

Catholic Relief Act 1829 Wellington therefore had to rely on the support of the Whigs in Parliament to pass the Act thus losing support from most of the rest of the Tories The Tories very quickly took their revenge. When in 1830 a proposed Reform Bill was introduced by Whigs to Parliament Wellington opposed it claiming the existing system was perfect.

Revenge on Wellington Wellington had now offended everyone – the liberal Tories had gone, the ultra Tories (because of Catholic Emancipation), and now the Whigs because of his opposition to reform. In 1830 the Whigs and the ultras combined to vote Wellington out of office resulting in the first Whig government for nearly 50 years head by Earl Grey – many now expected reform – especially parliamentary reform of the outdated voting system Rather conveniently in July 1830 George IV ‘bewigged, gouty, ornate and enormous’ died removing another barrier to social and political reform.