The Ministry of All the Talents was a national unity government in the United Kingdom formed by William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, on his appointment as Prime Minister on 11 February 1806, following the death of William Pitt the Younger. [1] [2]
With the country remaining at war, Grenville aimed to form the strongest possible government and so included most leading politicians from almost all groupings, although some followers of the younger Pitt, led by George Canning, refused to join.
The inclusion of Charles James Fox surprised some as King George III had previously been very hostile to Fox, but the King's willingness to put aside past enmities for the sake of national unity encouraged many others to join or support the government as well. The ministry boasted a fairly progressive agenda, much of it inherited from Pitt.
The Ministry of All the Talents had comparatively little success, failing to bring the sought-after peace with France. In fact, the war continued for nearly another decade. It did, however, abolish the slave trade in Britain in 1807 before breaking up in 1807 over the question of Catholic emancipation.
It was succeeded by the Second Portland ministry, headed by William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland.
Members of the Cabinet are in bold face.
The term has since been used in politics to describe an administration with members from more than one party or even a non-coalition government that enjoys cross-party support due to gifted and/or non-partisan members. Examples include the coalition government which led Great Britain through the Second World War and the Canadian government that won the 1896 election. [3] In Ireland, the Government of the 20th Dáil (a Fine Gael–Labour coalition that was in office between 1973 and 1977) was widely called the "cabinet of all the talents." [4] [5] [6]
George III was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with George as its king. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was a monarch of the House of Hanover, who, unlike his two predecessors, was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.
The Whigs were a political party in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs merged into the Liberal Party with the Peelites and Radicals in the 1850s. Many Whigs left the Liberal Party in 1886 to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Conservative Party in 1912.
William Pitt the Younger was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain from 1783 until the Acts of Union 1800 and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom from January 1801. He left office in March 1801, but served as prime minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806. He was also Chancellor of the Exchequer for all of his time as prime minister. He is known as "Pitt the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who had previously served as prime minister and is referred to as "William Pitt the Elder".
Charles James Fox, styled The Honourable from 1762, was a British Whig politician and statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-rival of the Tory politician William Pitt the Younger; his father Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, a leading Whig of his day, had similarly been the great rival of Pitt's famous father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham.
George Canning was a British Tory statesman. He held various senior cabinet positions under numerous prime ministers, including two important terms as Foreign Secretary, finally becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for the last 119 days of his life, from April to August 1827.
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was a British Whig politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. He was a descendant of the House of Grey and the namesake of Earl Grey tea. Grey was a long-time leader of multiple reform movements. During his time as prime minister, his government brought about two notable reforms. The Reform Act 1832 enacted parliamentary reform, greatly increasing the electorate of the House of Commons.
William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of the Napoleonic Wars. As prime minister, his most significant achievement was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. However, his government failed to either make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation and it was dismissed in the same year.
William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, was a British Whig and then a Tory politician during the late Georgian era. He served as chancellor of the University of Oxford (1792–1809) and as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1783) and then of the United Kingdom (1807–1809). The gap of 26 years between his two terms as prime minister is the longest of any British prime minister. He was also the fourth great-grandfather of King Charles III through his great-granddaughter Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne.
Spencer Perceval was a British statesman and barrister who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809 until his assassination in May 1812. He is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated, and the only solicitor-general or attorney-general to have become prime minister.
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory. The Napoleonic era begins roughly with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état, overthrowing the Directory, establishing the French Consulate, and ends during the Hundred Days and his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna soon set out to restore Europe to pre-French Revolution days. Napoleon brought political stability to a land torn by revolution and war. He made peace with the Roman Catholic Church and reversed the most radical religious policies of the Convention. In 1804 Napoleon promulgated the Civil Code, a revised body of civil law, which also helped stabilize French society. The Civil Code affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult men and established a merit-based society in which individuals advanced in education and employment because of talent rather than birth or social standing. The Civil Code confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary policies of the National Assembly but retracted measures passed by the more radical Convention. The code restored patriarchal authority in the family, for example, by making women and children subservient to male heads of households.
A national unity government, government of national unity (GNU), or national union government is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties in the legislature, usually formed during a time of war or other national emergency. A unity government according to the principles of consensus democracy lacks opposition, or opposition parties are too small and negligible.
Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst, was a High Tory, High Church Pittite. He was an MP for thirty years before ennoblement. A personal friend of William Pitt the Younger, he became a broker of deals across cabinet factions during the Napoleonic era. After the Napoleonic Wars, Bathurst was on the conservative wing of the Tory party.
William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, PC, styled Viscount Milton until 1756, was a British Whig statesman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1782 he inherited the estates of his uncle Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, making him one of the richest people in Britain. He played a leading part in Whig politics until the 1820s.
George Tierney PC was an Irish Whig politician. For much of his career he was in opposition to the governments of William Pitt and Lord Liverpool. From 1818 to 1821 he was Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.
The 1806 United Kingdom general election was the election of members to the 3rd Parliament of the United Kingdom. This was the second general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The 1807 United Kingdom general election was the third general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Grenville Whigs were a name given to several British political factions of the 18th and the early 19th centuries, all of which were associated with the important Grenville family of Buckinghamshire.
Buckinghamshire is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885.
Foxite was a late 18th-century British political label for Whig followers of Charles James Fox.
