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Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS (21 December, 1804 – 19 April, 1881) was an English statesman and literary figure. He served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – the first and thus far only person of Jewish parentage to do so, although Disraeli was baptised in the Anglican Church at an early age. Disraeli's most lasting achievement was the creation of the modern Conservative Party after the Corn Laws schism of 1846.

Although a major figure in the protectionist wing of the Conservative Party after 1846, Disraeli's relations with the other leading figures in the party, particularly Lord Derby, the overall leader, were often strained. Not until the 1860s would Derby and Disraeli be on easy terms, and the latter's succession of the former assured. From 1852 onwards, Disraeli's career would also be marked by his often intense rivalry with William Ewart Gladstone, who eventually rose to become leader of the Liberal Party. In this duel, Disraeli was aided by his warm friendship with Queen Victoria, who came to detest Gladstone during the latter's first premiership in the 1870s. In 1876 Disraeli was raised to the peerage as the Earl of Beaconsfield, capping nearly four decades in the House of Commons. He died in 1881.

Before and during his political career, Disraeli was well-known as a literary and social figure, although his novels are not generally regarded as belonging to the first rank of Victorian literature. He mainly wrote romances, of which Sybil and Vivian Grey are perhaps the best-known today. He was and is unusual among British Prime Ministers for having gained equal social and political renown.

Early life

Disraeli descended from Italian Sephardic Jews from both his maternal and paternal sides, although he claimed Spanish ancestry during his own lifetime, he may have just been referring to the fact that all Sephardim ultimately originate in Spain. His father was the literary critic and historian Isaac D'Israeli who, though Jewish, in 1817 had Benjamin baptised in the Church of England, following a dispute with their synagogue. The elder D'Israeli (Benjamin changed the spelling in the 1820s by dropping the foreign-looking apostrophe) himself was content to remain outside organized religion. Benjamin at first attended a small school in Blackheath called Eliot Place (later to evolve into St Piran's School). Beginning in 1817, Benjamin attended Higham Hall, in Walthamstow. His younger brothers, in contrast, attended the superior Winchester College, a fact which apparently grated on Disraeli and may explain his dislike of his mother, Maria D'Israeli.

His father destined him for the law, and he was articled to a solicitor in 1821. The law was, however, uncongenial, and by 1825, he gave it up. Disraeli was apparently determined to obtain independent means, and speculated on the stock exchange as early as 1824 on various South American mining companies. The recognition of the new South American republics on the recommendation of George Canning had led to a considerable boom, encouraged by various promoters and aggrandizers. In this connection, Disraeli became involved with the financier J. D. Powles, one such booster. In the course of 1825, Disraeli wrote three anonymous pamphlets for Powles, promoting the companies.

That same year Disraeli's financial activities brought him into contact with the publisher John Murray. Murray, like Powles and Disraeli, was involved in the South American mines. Accordingly, they attempted to bring out a newspaper, The Representative, to promote the cause of the mines and those politicians who supported the mines, specifically Canning. The paper was a failure, in part because the mining "bubble" burst in late 1825, ruining Powles and Disraeli. Also, according to Disraeli's biographer, Lord Blake, the paper was "atrociously edited", and would have failed anyway. The debts which Disraeli incurred through this affair would dog him the rest of his life.

Literary career

Disraeli now turned towards literature, and brought out his first novel, Vivian Grey, in 1827. Disraeli's biographers agree that Vivian Grey was a thinly-veiled re-telling of the affair of the Representative, and it proved very popular on its release, although it also caused much offence within the Tory literary world when Disraeli's authorship was discovered. The book, which was initially published anonymously, was purportedly written by a "man of fashion" – someone who moved in high society. Disraeli, then just twenty-three, did not move in high society, and the numerous solecisms present in Vivian Grey made this painfully obvious. Reviewers were sharply critical on these grounds of both the author and the book. Furthermore, Murray believed that Disraeli had caricatured him and abused his confidence–an accusation denied at the time, and by the official biography, although subsequent biographers (notably Blake) have sided with Murray.

After producing a Vindication of the British Constitution, and some political pamphlets, Disraeli followed up Vivian Grey by a series of novels, The Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy (1833), Venetia and Henrietta Temple (1837). During the same period he had also written The Revolutionary Epick and three burlesques, Ixion, The Infernal Marriage, and Popanilla. Of these only Henrietta Temple (based on his affair with Henrietta Sykes) was a true success.

Parliament

Disraeli had been considering a political career as early as 1830, before he departed England for the Mediterranean. His first real efforts, however, did not come until 1832, during the great crisis over the Reform Bill, when he contributed to an anti-Whig pamphlet edited by Croker and published by Murray entitled England and France: or a cure for Ministerial Gallomania. The choice of a Tory publication was regarded as odd if not offensive by Disraeli's friends and relatives, who thought him more of a Radical.

Indeed, Disraeli had objected to Murray about Croker inserting "high Tory" sentiment, writing that "it is quite impossible that anything adverse to the general measure of Reform can issue from my pen." Further, at the time Gallomania was published, Disraeli was in fact electioneering in High Wycombe in the Radical interest. Disraeli's politics at the time were influenced both by his rebellious streak and by his desire to make his mark. In the early 1830s the Tories and the interests they represented appeared to be a lost cause. The other great party, the Whigs, was apparently anathema to Disraeli: "Toryism is worn out & I cannot condescend to be a Whig."

Though he initially stood for election, unsuccessfully, as a Radical, Disraeli was a progressive Tory by the time he won a seat in the House of Commons in 1837 representing the constituency of Maidstone. The next year he settled his private life by marrying Mary Anne Lewis, the widow of Wyndham Lewis, Disraeli's erstwhile colleague at Maidstone.

Although nominally a Conservative, Disraeli was sympathetic to some of the demands of the Chartists and argued for an alliance between the landed aristocracy and the working class against the increasing power of the middle class, helping to found the Young England group in 1842 to promote the view that the rich should use their power to protect the poor from exploitation by the middle class. During the twenty years which separated the Corn Laws and the Second Reform Bill Disraeli would seek Tory-Radical alliances, to little avail.

Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel passed over Disraeli when putting together his government in 1841 and Disraeli, hurt, gradually became a sharp critic of Peel's government, often deliberately adopting positions contrary to those of his nominal chief. The best known of these cases was the Maynooth grant in 1845 and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The end of 1845 and the first months of 1846 were dominated by the battle in parliament between the free traders and the protectionists over the repeal of the Corn Laws, with the latter rallying around Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck. An alliance of pro-Peel Conservatives, Radicals, and Whigs carried repeal, but the Conservative Party split in half. Peel and his followers, known as Peelites, moved towards the Whigs, while a new Conservative Party formed around the protectionists, led by Disraeli, Bentinck, and Lord Stanley (later Lord Derby).

Office

The first Derby government

The first opportunity for Disraeli, Stanley, and the protectionist Tories to take office had come in 1851, when Lord John Russell's government had been defeated in the House of Commons over the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851. Disraeli was to have been Home Secretary, with Stanley (who became the Earl of Derby later that year) as Prime Minister. The Peelites, however, refused to serve under Stanley or with Disraeli, and attempts to create a purely protectionist government failed.

Russell resumed office, but resigned again in early 1852 when a combination of the protectionists and Lord Palmerston defeated him on a Militia Bill. This time Lord Derby (as he had become) took office, and appointed Disraeli Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. Disraeli's first and primary responsibility was to produce a Budget for the coming fiscal year. He proposed to reduce taxes on malt and tea (indirect taxation); additional revenue would come from an increase in the House tax. More controversially, Disraeli also proposed to alter the workings of the Income Tax (direct taxation) by "differentiating"–i.e., different rates would be levied on different types of income. The establishment of the income tax on a permanent basis had been the subject of much inter-party discussion since the fall of Peel's ministry, but no conclusions had been reached, and Disraeli was criticised for mixing up details over the different "schedules" of income. He was also hampered by an unexpected increase in defence expenditure, which was forced on him by Derby and Sir John Pakington (leading to his celebrated remark to John Bright about the "damned defences"). This, combined with bad timing and perceived inexperience led to the failure of the Budget and consequently the fall of the government in December of that year.

After engineering the defeat of a Liberal Reform Bill introduced by Gladstone in 1866, Disraeli and Derby introduced their own measure in 1867.

This was primarily a political strategy designed to give Conservatives control of the reform process and thereby long term benefits in the Commons, similar to those derived by the Whigs after the 1832 Reform Act. The Reform Act of 1867 extended the franchise by 938,427 (an increase of 88%) by giving the vote to male householders and male lodgers paying at least 10 pounds for rooms and eliminating rotten boroughs with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and granting constituencies to fifteen unrepresented towns and extra representation in parliament to larger towns such as Liverpool and Manchester, which had previously been underrepresented in Parliament.. This act was unpopular with the right wing of the Conservative Party, most notably Lord Cranborne (later the Marquess of Salisbury), who resigned from the government and spoke against the bill, accusing Disraeli of "a political betrayal which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals." Cranborne, however, was unable to lead a rebellion similar to that which Disraeli had led against Peel twenty years earlier.

Derby's health had been declining for some time and he finally resigned as Prime Minister in late February of 1868; he would live for another twenty months. Disraeli's efforts over the past two years had dispelled, for the time being, any doubts about him succeeding Derby as leader of the Conservative Party and therefore Prime Minister. As Disraeli remarked, "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole."

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