Lord Ripon, 1827-1909: A political biography - Hardcover

Denholm, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0709908059 ISBN 13: 9780709908050

Publisher: C. Helm, 1982

Synopsis

Lord Ripon is remembered, if, indeed, he is remembered at all nowadays, as the Liberal Viceroy of India in the early 1880s who applied Gladstonian principles of self determination and sowed the seeds of independence for the Raj. In fact, as Anthony Denholm's new biography shows, the vice-royalty was only one comparatively brief episode in a long and worthy public career dedicated to numerous good and improving causes. Ripon, the son of 'Prosperity Robinson' Prime Minister from 1827 to 1828, had an impressively long period of governmental service which began under Palmerston in 1859 and ended under Campbell Sannerman in 1908. In its obituary The Times described him as 'a second rank man of high ideals'. After reading this account of his life, it is difficult to quibble with that verdict. Ripon was essentially a loyal lieutenant, most notably to Gladstone. He was a faithful supporter of Home Rule and served on the joint Anglo-American Commission which settled the Alabama claims. He does not emerge from these pages as an innovator, a leader or a man of striking originality. He was an early Christian Socialist, associating with Thomas Hughes and others in what Mr Denholm almost suggests was a party within a party. In 1873 he converted to Catholicism after undergoing a characteristically agonized mid-Victorian spiritual crisis about which we are told tantalizingly little in this book.

Edition details

• Publisher: C. Helm
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0709908059
• ISBN 13: 9780709908050
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 287