Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/137

 137). Very shortly after the formation of this coalition administration, Lansdowne entered the cabinet without office; but in July 1827 Sturges Bourne, probably by previous arrangement, gave place to him in the home department. On the death of Canning, the news of which Lansdowne was deputed to announce to the king at Windsor, another ministerial crisis ensued, but was overcome by Lansdowne and his friends assisting Lord Goderich to form a ministry (, Memoirs of the Court of George IV, ii. 349). Possibly this was the one occasion in his life when he would not have been unwilling to become prime minister; certainly his friends thought at the moment that his pretensions were not sufficiently asserted. Lord John Russell expressed the opinion, 16 Aug. 1827, that, ‘whilst honest as the purest virgin, Lansdowne was too yielding, too mild, and most unfit to deal with men in important political transactions’ (Life of Lord John Russell, i. 137). The appointment of Herries as chancellor of the exchequer caused him to threaten, if not actually to tender, his resignation (Times, 3 Sept. 1827; Memoir of Herries, i. 218), and he appears to have remained in office only at the express wish of the king (, Memoirs, v. 198). But the new administration broke up on 8 Jan. 1828, when the whigs retired from the cabinet. The split in the whig party thus came to an end.

When Sir F. Burdett's resolution on the Roman catholic question was passed in the commons, Lansdowne, now freed from the constraint of office, brought the resolution before the House of Lords (9 July 1828), but was defeated by a majority of forty-four. In 1829 he severely censured the government for their policy in Portugal in supporting Dom Miguel, and, 18 March 1830, he strongly supported the Duke of Richmond's motion for an inquiry into the internal state of the country. He was appointed lord lieutenant of Wiltshire 16 Nov. 1829.

On the formation of the whig administration, 21 Nov. 1830, Lord Grey is said to have proposed Lansdowne as first lord of the treasury (, iii. 244), and subsequently offered him the foreign office (Life of Lord John Russell, i. 120); he preferred the office of president of the council (Diary of Lord Ellenborough, ii. 302). He was completely at one with the rest of the ministry on the question of reform, and resigned, with the other members of the cabinet, on the king refusing to empower the prime minister to create a sufficient number of peers to secure a majority. On the royal assent being given to the Reform Bill by commission, Lansdowne was one of the five commissioners. He retained his place as president of the council after Lord Grey's resignation in 1834 and the appointment of Lord Melbourne as prime minister (cf. Lord John Russell to Lansdowne, 6 Feb. 1835, Lansdowne Papers). In Melbourne's second administration of 1835 he resumed his old office. His interest in the question of national education made the presidency of the council an especially congenial office. From the date of the first grant in 1833 he was an advocate of state assistance for the purposes of education, provided that the bestowal of grants was accompanied by the right of inspection. On 5 July 1839 he made, in answer to the archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps the most important speech which had up to that time been delivered in parliament on the subject. He pointed out that, in the matter of education, England was behind the chief nations in Europe; he reminded the house that at that moment 80,000 children in four of the great manufacturing towns of the north were growing up in hopeless ignorance. ‘In them,’ he said, ‘you may see the rising Chartists of the next age.’ This speech was published, and was widely read. Lansdowne resigned with Lord Melbourne's government on 30 Aug. 1841. He had been made K.G. on 5 Feb. 1836.

Although Lansdowne had declared himself a free-trader in 1820, he was not at first in favour of the absolute repeal of the corn laws, and did not support Lord Brougham's motion on the subject, February 1839. He declared himself a friend of free trade, and of change in the corn laws, 24 Aug. 1841, but appears to have been a believer in the advantage of a fixed duty, and he abandoned that view (26 Jan. 1846) only after the public declaration of Sir Robert Peel. He spoke in support of the second reading of Peel's corn bill, pointing out the failure of protective legislation in past history.

In Lord John Russell's ministry of July 1846, Lansdowne again became president of the council (, ii. 405). He brought forward the subject of Irish distress in the lords, 25 Jan. 1847, and when he introduced the relief bill for destitute Irish, 15 Feb. 1847, expressed his opinion that the tendency of legislation should be to diminish the number of small tenants. He introduced, 17 Feb. 1848, a bill for legalising the carrying on of diplomatic relations with the court of Rome, a measure which met with considerable opposition, and gave him a good opportunity of exhibiting his tact and skill in managing the lords. In May 1848 he acted with Lord John Russell in putting pressure on Palmerston, and in insisting on