Benjamin Disraeli





Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (1804 - 1881), the son of Isaac
D'Israeli, was a British politician and author who entered Parliament in
1837 as Tory MP for Maidstone, after four unsuccessful campaigns for a seat
in the House of Commons, the first time as a Radical. In 1842 Disraeli was
amongst the founders of the Young England group.

He was Britain's first, and thus far only, Jewish Prime Minister. He was
born to a Jewish family and baptized a Christian, but nevertheless continued
to think of himself a Jew. A political opponent once attacked him for being
Jewish (anti-Semitism was rife in Britain at the time) and Disraeli replied:

     "Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honourable
     gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests
     in the temple of Solomon."

Having been lionized as a writer of romantic fiction long before he entered
politics, Disraeli continued for a time to dress as extravagantly in the
House of Commons as he had before. In Parliament, Disraeli became known for
his defense of the Corn Laws, in opposition to fellow Tory Sir Robert Peel's
advocacy to repeal the laws, which Disraeli denounced as "laissez-faire
capitalism".

Disraeli would lose the fight -- the repeal of the Corn Laws, came at great
political cost to the split Tory party. But Peel's betrayal of conservative
ideology would cost him the ministry, and Disraeli would rise to fill the
leadership void Peel's fall left in the Tory party.

In 1852 Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby appointed Disraeli
Chancellor of the Exchequer in the (in)famous Who? Who? Ministry. Disraeli's
duel with William Gladstone over the Budget marked the beginning of thirty
years of parliamentary hostility. Disraeli served as Chancellor of the
Exchequer in the 1858 and 1867-68 Tory governments. He supported the Reform
Act of 1867, which enfranchised every adult male householder; before this
legislation, a tiny proportion of the population was entitled to vote. In
1868 he became Prime Minister, but only briefly; he became Prime Minister
again in 1874. In 1876 he was made Earl of Beaconsfield by Queen Victoria.

Although he had had several notorious affairs, in his youth, he was
ostentatiously faithful and attentive to his wife: Disraeli married, in
1839, the widow of his political colleague. Mary Anne Lewis was some twelve
years older than he and a self-proclaimed flibbertigibbet.

Known to his friends as Dizzy, Disraeli himself had a fine, if wry, sense of
humor and enjoyed the ambiguities of the English language. When an aspiring
writer would send Disraeli an uninteresting manuscript to review, he liked
to reply, "Dear Sir: I thank you for sending me a copy of your book, which I
shall waste no time in reading."

Mark Twain claimed that Disraeli came up with the phrase, "Lies, damned
lies, and statistics", but it is unclear if this is actually one of that
author's inventions (it was first popularized in Twain's autobiography,
though attributed to Disraeli there); most who try to pin it down do award
it to the prime minister.

Benjamin Disraeli's First Government, February - December 1868

   * Benjamin Disraeli - First Lord of the Treasury
   * Lord Cairns - Lord Chancellor
   * Duke of Marlborough - Lord President of the Council
   * Earl of Malmesbury - Lord Privy Seal
   * Gathorne Hardy - Secretary of State for the Home Department
   * Lord Stanley - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
   * Duke of Buckingham - Secretary of State for the Colonies
   * Sir John Pakington - Secretary of State for War
   * Sir Stafford Northcote - Secretary of State for India
   * H.J. Lowry-Corry - First Lord of the Admiralty
   * G. Ward Hunt - Chancellor of the Exchequer
   * Duke of Richmond - President of the Board of Trade
   * Lord John Manners - First Commissioner of Public Works
   * Earl of Mayo - Chief Secretary for Ireland
   * Spencer H. Walpole - Minister without Portfolio

Changes

   * September, 1868 - The Earl of Mayo resigns as Irish Secretary. His
     successor is not in the Cabinet.

Benjamin Disraeli's (Earl of Beaconsfield's) Second Government, February
1874 - April 1880

   * Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield from 1876) - First Lord of the
     Treasury
   * Lord Cairns - Lord Chancellor
   * Duke of Richmond - Lord President of the Council
   * Earl of Malmesbury - Lord Privy Seal
   * Richard Assheton Cross - Secretary of State for the Home Department
   * Earl of Derby - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
   * Earl of Carnarvon - Secretary of State for the Colonies
   * Gathorne Hardy - Secretary of State for War
   * Marquess of Salisbury - Secretary of State for India
   * G. Ward Hunt - First Lord of the Admiralty
   * Sir Stafford Northcote - Chancellor of the Exchequer
   * Lord John Manners - Postmaster-General

Changes

   * August, 1876 - Lord Beaconsfield succeeds Malmesbury as Lord Privy
     Seal, while remaining First Lord of the Treasury
   * August, 1877 - William Henry Smith succeeds Hunt at the Admiralty. Sir
     Michael Hicks Beach, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, enters the
     Cabinet.
   * February, 1878 - Sir Michael Hicks Beach succeeds Lord Carnarvon as
     Colonial Secretary. Hicks Beach's successor as Irish Secretary is not
     in the Cabinet.
   * April, 1878 - Lord Salisbury succeeds Lord Derby as Foreign Secretary.
     Lord Cranbrook (previously Gathorne Hardy) succeeds Salisbury as
     Secretary for India. Sir Frederick Stanley succeeds Cranbrook as
     Secretary for War. Viscount Sandon, the President of the Board of
     Trade, enters the Cabinet.

Fiction

   * Vivian Grey (1826)
   * Popanilla (1827)
   * The Young Duke (1831)
   * Contarini Fleming (1832)
   * Alroy (1833)
   * The Infernal Marriage (1834)
   * Ixion in Heaven (1834)
   * The Rise of Iskander (1834)
   * Henrietta Temple (1837)
   * Venetia (1837)
   * Coningsby, or the Younger Generation (1844)
   * Sybil or, The Two Nations (1845)
   * Tancred, or the New Crusade (1847)
   * Lothair (1870)
   * Endymion (1880)
   * Falconet (unfinished 1881)

Biographies of Disraeli

   * Robert Blake, Disraeli [1966]
   * Sarah Bradford, Disraeli [1982]
   * Christopher Hibbert, Disraeli and his World [1978]
   * AndrŽ Maurois, Disraeli [1927]
   * Hesketh Pearson, Dizzy[1951]
   * Stanley Weintraub, Disraeli [1993]

Films about Disraeli

   * Disraeli (1929) George Arliss (Best Actor Oscar), Joan Bennett
   * Disraeli (1978) Ian McShane, Mary Peach -- Masterpiece Theatre 4-part series