born Aug. 26, 1676, Houghton Hall, Norfolk, England
died March 18, 1745, London

also called (1725–42) Sir Robert Walpole

British statesman (in power 1721–42), generally regarded as the first British prime minister. He deliberately cultivated a frank, hearty manner, but his political subtlety has scarcely been equalled.

Education and early career.

Walpole was the third son of Col. Robert Walpole by his wife, Mary Burwell. He was educated at Great Dunham, Norfolk, and afterward became a scholar of Eton (1690–96) and subsequently of King's College, Cambridge (1696–98). The death of his elder surviving brother, Edward, cut short his academic career, and, instead of entering the church, he returned to Norfolk to help administer his father's estates. He married Catherine Shorter of Bybrook, Kent, on July 30, 1700. After his father's death in the same year, he inherited a heavily encumbered estate and also the family parliamentary seat at Castle Rising, for which he was immediately elected. In 1702 he transferred to King's Lynn, which he represented, with one short intermission, for the next 40 years.

Walpole rapidly made his mark in the House of Commons, earning the reputation of being a clear, forceful speaker, a firm but not fanatical Whig, and an active parliamentarian. He was made a member in 1705 of Prince George of Denmark's Council, which controlled the affairs of the navy during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). His ability as an administrator brought him to the attention of both the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin. On Feb. 25, 1708, he was promoted to secretary at war and in 1710 to treasurer of the navy, a post from which he was dismissed on Jan. 2, 1711, with the advent of the Tory Party to power after the general election of 1710. During these years Walpole established himself as one of the foremost of the younger Whig leaders; in society as well as in politics he made his mark. He became a leading member of the Kit-Cat Club, a meeting place of many Whig men of letters. He had many friends, but his expenses were so high that he fell heavily in debt. He had relied on his political offices to keep himself afloat; nevertheless, he refused to compromise his principles for the sake of his salary and perquisites.

His assiduity in attending the Commons and his ability in debate made him the effective leader of the opposition, and the Tories determined to ruin him along with Marlborough. In January 1712 Walpole was impeached for corruption as secretary at war, found guilty, expelled from the Commons, and sent to the Tower of London. He was immediately acclaimed as a martyr by the Whigs, and he himself developed a hatred for the Tory leaders Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, and Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, who brought about his fall. He enjoyed his revenge in 1714 at the accession of George I when, as well as being made paymaster general of the forces, he became chairman of the secret committee that led to the impeachment for treason of both Bolingbroke and Oxford. Walpole's mastery of the Commons, allied to his formidable industry, brought him rapid promotion. He became first lord of the Treasury and chancellor of the Exchequer on Oct. 11, 1715. His abilities also aroused jealousy, which was exacerbated by a conflict over foreign policy that saw Walpole and his brother-in-law, Charles, Viscount Townshend, on one side and two of the King's closest advisers, James Stanhope and Charles Spencer, earl of Sunderland, on the other. Walpole and Townshend maintained that British interests were being sacrificed to the King's Hanoverian interests in order to curry favour. The break came in 1717, and Walpole and Townshend left the ministry; shortly afterward a violent quarrel between the King and the Prince of Wales split the royal family, and the opposition acquired its own court at the Prince's residence, Leicester House.

During the next three years Walpole fought the government on every issue, achieving considerable success in bringing about the rejection of the Peerage Bill (1719), which would have limited the royal prerogative in the creation of peers. During this time, too, he became friendly with Caroline of Ansbach, the princess of Wales, who was to help maintain him in power when her husband succeeded to the throne in 1727 as George II. Walpole used his influence with the Prince to bring about a reconciliation with the King in April 1720 and his own subsequent return to the ministry as paymaster general of the forces.

No sooner was Walpole back in office than the country was caught up in the speculative frenzy associated with the South Sea Company, a joint-stock company with monopoly rights to trade with Spanish America. A scheme was set up in 1720 whereby the company would take charge of a large part of the national debt. Although Walpole had favoured letting the Bank of England take over the debt, he was no more prudent than many others and invested heavily in South Sea stock. He was saved from financial disaster by the foresight of his banker, Robert Jacomb. Nevertheless, Walpole had not been a promoter of the scheme, and he was free from the stigma of corruption that marked many other ministers as well as the King's German favourites. He used his great political skill and persuasive powers of argument in the Commons to save the Whig leaders and the court from the consequences of their folly. Some members had to be sacrificed to appease public opinion, among them John Aislabie, chancellor of the Exchequer; others died under the strain, the most notable being Stanhope and James Craggs and his son James. Walpole restored confidence, maintained the Whigs in office, and greatly improved his own and Townshend's standing at court. He became first lord of the Treasury and chancellor of the Exchequer in April 1721, offices that he was to hold until 1742. Townshend became once more secretary of state and took over the control of foreign affairs. For some time, Walpole and Townshend were forced to share power with John Carteret (later Earl Granville), who had succeeded to Sunderland's influence after Sunderland's sudden death in April 1722. By 1724, however, Walpole and Townshend obtained the dismissal of Carteret from his secretaryship of state and had him sent to Ireland as lord lieutenant. For the rest of George I's reign Walpole and Townshend remained at the head of the ministry. Their position steadily grew stronger. The hopes of the Jacobites, supporters of a return to the throne of the Stuarts, which the South Sea Bubble had fanned, were quashed in 1723 by the exposure of the insurrection planned by Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester. The outlook for the Tory Party was equally gloomy in spite of the pardon given to Bolingbroke in 1725.

The long ascendancy.

The supremacy in the Commons was maintained by Walpole until 1742. In 1727, at the accession of George II, he suffered a minor crisis when for a few days it seemed that he might be dismissed, but Queen Caroline prevailed on her husband to keep Walpole in office. In 1730 he quarrelled with Townshend over the conduct of foreign affairs and forced Townshend's resignation, but his retirement had no effect on Walpole's position. These were the years of Walpole's greatness. His power was based on the loyal support given to him by George I and George II. This enabled him to use all royal patronage for political ends, and Walpole's appointments to offices in the royal household, the church, the navy, the army, and the civil service were, whenever possible, made with an eye to his voting strength in the House of Commons. By these means he built up the court and treasury party that was to be the core of Whig strength for many generations. These methods, however, never gave him control of the House of Commons. His majorities at Westminster came about because his policy of peace abroad and low taxation at home appealed strongly to the independent country gentlemen who sat in Parliament. Also, Walpole possessed remarkable powers in debate: his knowledge of the detail of government, particularly of finance, was unmatched, and his expression was clear, forceful, and always cogent. He never underestimated the powers of the Commons, and no minister, before or since, has shown such skill in its management.

Walpole needed all his art, for his rule was never free from crisis. Foreign affairs gave him constant trouble. Although Townshend had secured the prospect of a settlement by the Treaty of Hanover in 1725, which helped to strengthen the alliance between England and France, the difficulties that had arisen with Spain over Gibraltar and British trading rights in the West Indies proved intractable, and England hovered on the brink of war until Walpole intervened. By showing willingness to negotiate he secured the Treaty of Seville in 1729. This was followed by a general settlement in 1731 at the Treaty of Vienna. When war broke out on the Continent in 1733 over the question of the succession to the Polish throne, Walpole had to use all his influence with the King in order to maintain England's neutrality.

Many politicians, particularly those whom Walpole had driven into opposition, regarded his foreign policy as a betrayal of England's interests. They thought that he had become the dupe of France to the neglect of England's former allies (the Austrians and the Dutch), and that his desire to maintain friendship with France led to weakness toward Spain. They also disapproved of his use of patronage, which they stigmatized as corruption. They condemned his financial schemes as a sham, particularly the sinking fund to abolish the national debt. The prime movers in this opposition were William Pulteney, an able Whig whom Walpole had rejected in 1724 in favour of the Duke of Newcastle as secretary of state, and Bolingbroke. They drew together a miscellaneous collection of members in opposition: Jacobites, Hanoverian Tories, dissident Whigs, and urban radicals. They attempted to give coherence to the party so formed, but with little success. The liveliest part of their campaign was the violent press agitation against Walpole. For this purpose they founded The Craftsman, which denigrated Walpole's ministry week after week. Walpole was lampooned in pamphlets, ballads, and plays, as well as in the newspapers; and this constant stream of abuse, which was not without a certain element of truth, did much to bring both Parliament and politics into contempt.

The great opportunity for the opposition came in 1733 when Walpole decided to check smuggling and customs frauds by imposing an excise tax on wine and tobacco. This was extremely unpopular, particularly with the London merchants, and the opposition did all in its power to influence opinion. Walpole saved himself from defeat by withdrawing this measure, but those politicians who had been indiscreet enough to show opposition to Walpole's bill lost their offices. These dismissals, however, weakened Walpole's position; he lost considerable debating skill as well as votes in the House of Lords, which at that time still played an important part in government. After 1733 the list of able but dismissed Whig politicians grew large enough to supply an alternative Whig ministry to Walpole's own, and, after the excise crisis, the opposition Whigs had far less need to rely on Tory and Jacobite elements in their battle against Walpole. Bolingbroke himself realized this; he withdrew from politics and retired to France in 1735, admitting defeat in his lifelong struggle with Walpole.

Growing unpopularity.

Walpole won the general election of 1734, which had given rise to many violent contests and a resurgence of the old bitterness about excise, but his growing unpopularity was underlined by the loss of many seats in the large seaports and heavily populated counties. Nevertheless, his majority, although diminished, remained comfortable. Without much difficulty he surmounted troubles that arose in Edinburgh (the Porteous riots) over the royal pardon of a captain of the guard who had fired on a crowd demonstrating at Edinburgh prison; he easily persuaded the Commons to reject Sir John Barnard's scheme to reduce the interest on the national debt and showed his contempt for the literary opposition (among whose members were Swift, Pope, and Fielding) by imposing regulations on London theatres (1737). Yet from 1737 his position began to weaken. The death of Queen Caroline had less effect than many have assumed, for by then George II had developed great loyalty to his minister. More important was Walpole's increasing age, which led young politicians, such as William Pitt (afterward earl of Chatham), to look elsewhere for their future advancement. The emergence as a leader of the opposition of Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, who had quarrelled violently with his parents, provided a focus and a court for the “patriot boys,? as these young Whigs came to be called. The growing difficulties with Spain over trading matters in the West Indies were used by this opposition to embarrass Walpole. He did his utmost to settle these difficulties by negotiation, but in 1739 he was forced to declare war against Spain—the so-called War of Jenkins' Ear. He disapproved of the war and made his views clear to his Cabinet colleagues. These years, too, were darkened by private grief as well as public anxiety. His wife, with whom he had been on indifferent terms, died in 1737, and he was married by March 3, 1738, to his mistress of long-standing, Maria Skerritt, a woman of great charm and wit. Three months later she died in childbirth.

The war with Spain did not prosper, and opposition continued to mount against Walpole. He succeeded in winning the general election of 1741, but many Whig politicians, and a number of independents, did not consider him capable of directing the war vigorously enough or of surviving another seven years' Parliament. His resignation was forced on Feb. 2, 1742, on a minor issue. The king created him Earl of Orford (he had been knighted in 1725) and gave him an annual pension of £4,000, but the Commons set up a committee to investigate his ministry with a view to impeachment. They failed to secure sufficient evidence and the rancour against Orford petered out. For the rest of his life he continued to play an active and valuable part in politics. He did his utmost to secure the dismissal of Carteret, who had become secretary of state on the fall of his ministry, and to secure the promotion of Henry Pelham, his protégé and leader of the Walpole Whigs, to the position of chief minister. Orford's influence with George II remained powerful up to his death.

Assessment.

Although Walpole rejected the title of prime minister, which he regarded as a term of abuse, his control of the treasury, his management of the Commons, and the confidence that he enjoyed of the two sovereigns whom he served demonstrated the kind of leadership that was required to give stability and order to 18th-century politics. He used his power to maintain the supremacy of the Whig Party, as he understood it, and his prime concern was to forestall the machinations of the Jacobites, which he took very seriously, by securing the Hanoverian succession. He thought that this could best be achieved by prosperity and low taxation, which in turn depended on peace and on freedom from foreign entanglements. In order to achieve strong support for this policy he created as many obligations as possible among the politically powerful groups in the country. The Jacobite rebellion in 1745 demonstrated both the reality of his fears and the success of his policy.

The influence of Walpole's long ministry on the structure of 18th-century politics was profound. The Tory Party, split as it was between Hanoverians and Jacobites, faded into insignificance, and to be a Whig became a necessity for the politically ambitious. The struggle for power ceased to be a conflict between two parties and became a battle fought between divergent groups, personalities, and policies within the Whig Party itself, in order to gain the support of the court on the one hand and the independent country gentlemen in Parliament on the other. The frank realism that Walpole had used in all appointments to office, as well as the violent, prejudiced, and often exaggerated criticism to which this gave rise, did much to bring the institutions of government into disrepute and to strengthen the early growth of urban radicalism, particularly in the City of London. On the other hand, Walpole's ministry had little influence on constitutional development: many generations were to pass before any minister wielded power comparable to his. Like his master, George II, he disliked cabinet government and used it as sparingly as possible. He showed what could be done within the accepted conventions of the constitution; he never attempted to change them.

One side of Walpole's life is too little noted. He possessed remarkable delight in and judgment of works of art. His house, Houghton Hall, Norfolk, built and furnished under his close supervision, is a masterpiece of Palladian architecture. To the distress of his son Horace, the famous man of letters, Walpole's collection of pictures was sold to the empress of Russia by Walpole's grandson George in 1779. Now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, it was one of the most remarkable collections in Europe. He delighted in ostentation and lived in great magnificence, spending freely the huge fortune that he made out of judicious speculation and public office.

Additional reading

The most thorough life of Walpole is J.H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, 2 vol. (1956–61); it is complemented by Brian W. Hill, Sir Robert Walpole (1989). The methods by which Walpole was able to create political stability in England are described in J.H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England: 1675–1725 (also published as The Origins of Political Stability, 1967). Romney Sedgwick, The House of Commons 1715–1754, 2 vol. (1970), is indispensable for understanding Walpole's control of Parliament. See also H.T. Dickinson, Walpole and the Whig Supremacy (1973); and Jeremy Black, Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics in Early Eighteenth-century Britain (1990).

Sir John Plumb

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Sources

• Encylopedia Britannica 2002, Expanded Edition DVD

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