Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount

b. 1784, Broadlands, Romsey, Hants; d. 1865

Palmerston was born at Broadlands, near Romsey, Hampshire; educated at Harrow and St John's College, Cambridge. He succeeded in 1802 to the Irish peerage, and five years later entered the House of Commons. Within 12 months he became lord of the Admiralty under the Duke of Portland, and in 1809 accepted the secretaryship of war, which, under various prime ministers, he held until 1828. He became foreign minister under Grey in 1830, and remained in that office (except during Peel's brief administration) until 1841. In this position he maintained and even increased the prestige of Britain, which was never higher in the 19th century than when he was at the Foreign Office.

In Opposition until 1846, in that year he became foreign secretary under Russell, and in 1850 made his famous civis Romanus speech, in which he established his reputation as an orator and won the hearts of his countrymen. When in 1851 he expressed his approval of Napoleon III's coup d'état, without having consulted the Queen or his colleagues, he was, at the demand of Her Majesty, dismissed from office by Lord John Russell.

Palmerston became home secretary under Aberdeen in 1852, and strongly advocated a firm attitude against Russia. The Crimean War broke out in 1854, mismanagement was rampant, and Aberdeen resigned in the following year. By general consent Palmerston became prime minister, and his vigorous action soon brought about a more satisfactory condition of affairs. He was defeated in 1857 on the China War question, whereupon he dissolved Parliament and appealed to the nation, and was promptly returned to power. He was defeated again the following year on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill. In the meantime, however, he had suppressed the Indian Mutiny, 1857-58. In 1859 he again formed a government, and so strongly was he supported that it was said that he was 'Prime Minister for life', his following being almost entirely personal. Gladstone was chancellor of the Exchequer in this administration, though he and Palmerston were men of widely differing temperaments and ideals. In this, his second administration, Palmerston furthered the cause of free trade.

He died in office and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Palmerston was to many of his contemporaries the ideal British minister; firm, tactful, humorous, and blessed with great common sense that enabled him to extricate the country and himself from awkward situations. Palmerston was, after 1832, uninterested in further parliamentary reform, and his autocratic character meant that his party shelved its proposed measures on this subject until after his death. Home affairs, in fact, never really interested him, and for the last 30 years of his life his views on most domestic subjects were far more conservative than those of the majority of his party. In character and policy he expressed the self-confidence of the ruling classes of his era; his high-handed support for weaker nations (he was largely responsible for the creation of an independent Belgium, and his actions did much to further Italian unity - though throughout he was, of course, motivated by British interests, and not by philanthropy) gained him a reputation far beyond his own country. But it is open to doubt whether Palmerston's methods of blustering bellicosity would have been so successful had a Bismarck arisen to challenge him 30 years earlier.

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