biography
| name: |
Walpole, Sir Robert, 1st Earl of Orford
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1676–1745)
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| biography:
| English statesman, and leading minister (1721–42) of George I and George II, born in Houghton, Norfolk, E England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, became a Whig MP in 1701, and was made secretary for war (1708) and treasurer of the Navy (1710). Sent to the Tower for alleged corruption during the Tory government (1712), he was recalled by George I, and made a privy councillor and (1715) Chancellor of the Exchequer. After the collapse of the South Sea Scheme, he again became chancellor (1721), and was widely recognized as ‘prime minister’, a title (unknown to the Constitution) which he hotly repudiated. A shrewd manipulator of men, he took trouble to consult backbench MPs, and followed policies of low taxation designed to win their favour. He was regarded as indispensible by both George I and George II. His popularity began to wane in the 1730s over the Excise Scheme and also over his determination to avoid foreign wars. He did not fully recover from the outbreak of a war he had opposed in 1739, and resigned in 1742. His period in office is widely held to have increased the influence of the House of Commons in the Constitution. He was knighted in 1725, and created an earl in 1742. |
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