The Right Honorable
Benjamin Disraeli

Like many a politician, Benjamin was born into a rich family and like most rich people he wanted even more. And if he could get rich without actually working, כי הוא אפילו טוב יותר.

So Benjamin invested his pappy's money in South American mining companies and lost his shirt. He was in debt for £20,000 - a huge sum for the time and by one computation over 10,000,000 US smackers - and wasn't able to become solvent for decades.

So what to do?

Benjamin got a job was as a clerk - pronounced "clark" in the British patois - in a solicitor's office. Being a clerk was on-the-job training and Benjamin himself became a solicitor - a type of lawyer mainly handling the paperwork and out-of-court brouhaha.

You can also try to write novels. Amazingly, Benjamin's first effort, Virginia Grey, sold fairly well. But alas, in the early 1800's virtually no one made a full time living at being a writer - not Longfellow, not Irving, not even Edgar Allen Poe. You had to make your real income by being a something like a professor (Longfellow), a diplomat (Irving), or an editor (Poe). So it was for Benjamin and his debts remained.

There was one potentially lucrative and long term job. Be a politician.

But there was a more pressing reason for Benjamin to enter public office. If you were a member of Parliament you were immune from arrest - and that included being sent to debtors prison. So Benjamin decided to become Benjamin Disraeli, MP.

Normally, though, there would have been a problem. Benjamin had been born into a prominent Jewish family and by law only Christians were allowed to sit in Parliament. Or rather, the oath of office ended in their swearing "as a True Christian."

But Benjamin's dad, Isaac D'Israeli (as the name was spelled) had a dispute with his synagogue. Mostly the elders insisted on too literal a Biblical interpretation to suit Isaac's rather liberal leanings. So he and his family joined the Anglican church which was (and is) open to alternative intepretations. Benjamin was twelve at the time. But even the Anglicans weren't liberal enough for the Issac, and Benjamin was sent a Unitarian school.

Benjamin first "stood" for Parliament in 1832. He had been running on the liberal tickets of various parties. However, then as now you usually had to be a member of one of the mainstream parties or you got nowhere. So Benjamin switched to the Conservatives - even then called Tories. But he still lost, not once but twice.

Then in July 1837, Benjamin made it. He was elected MP for Maidstone. But the political scene had been complicated since the month before, King William IV had died. But King Billy's only daughter had died young and by the rather convoluted path of inheritance (and if you ignore the king's illegitimate children), a young lady named Alexandrina Welf von Wettin became queen. Since Alexandrina - "Drina" to her friends - wasn't regal enough for an English Queen, everyone called her Victoria.

Later Benjamin and Queen Victoria got along quite well. In fact, some historians claim he was her favorite prime minister although the records indicate it was really William Lamb, Lord Melbourne. But at the time Benjamin was just one of the many MP's starting out. She probably didn't even know who he was.

There was also a new member of Parliament just coming up. That was William Gladstone. He had first run for Parliament in 1832, the same year as Benjamin. But William got elected his first try.

Actually the two men had first met at a dinner party in 1835. Dinner parties were very popular before television and it wasn't unusual for the rich and famous to "entertain" at home five nights a week. The other nights you could go to someone else's house.

Neither of the young men were particularly impressed by the other. Benjamin found William - long obsessed with religion and who had expected to become an Anglican priest - "dull". William's didn't even think Benjamin worth mentioning in his diary.

Benjamin's first speech as a fledgling MP was not an auspicious start. Determined to make a impression, he began a speech against Daniel O'Connor, an Irish nationalist who would later argue against the continued union of Ireland and England. First speeches were supposed to be restrained, but Benjamin went into a spittle flinging diatribe against Daniel. Naturally the other Irish MP's weren't going to sit still and say nothing and soon began catcalling. Benjamin ended up getting shouted down and gave up.

Not long afterwards William Gladstone also gave a speech that was opposing his own party - the Liberals - about their stand on issues involving Canada. But with his measured and careful words, William finished his speech in fine style. Benjamin had learned his first lesson in politics. You can be an individual, yes, but you have to do it right.

In 1839 Benjamin married Mary Anne Evans Lewis, a rich widow twelve years his senior. There's no doubt that Benjamin had succumbed to Mary's charms (and intelligence), but as his debts were still a well publicized issue, there were murmurings that he had simply married someone who could pay off his creditors. If anything the stories amused the couple, and Benjamin used to tease Mary how he married her for money.

Although Conservative by party, Benjamin adopted some liberal or at least what we'd call progressive stances on some issues. In the late 1830's working class activists called the Chartists began agitating for more democracy in the country. Among other things they demanded the vote for all men over 21 years of age regardless of property ownership. There were violent confrontations between the Chartists and the authorities, and Chartist leaders had been arrested. Benjamin was one of the only five MP's who protested their treatment but it became a moot point after the movement eventually faded.

But Benjamin was no bleeding heart Conservative. In 1841 Sir Robert Peel, a Tory, was PM for the second time. On the table was action for repealing the tariffs on imported grain. These Corn Laws were ostensibly to protect the British farmers, but they also kept the price of grain high.

Then in the mid-1840's the potato famine hit Ireland and a lot of residents of England - including Karl Marx - thought the laws should be repealed to make grain more available. Sir Robert was for repealing - or at least altering the Corn Laws. But among those arguing against the repeal was Benjamin. But certainly the sentiment of the country was to repeal the laws and this was done.

The problem was the famine was not only devastating life in Ireland - millions left of the country for America - but also resulted in unrest and violence. To avoid looking like a softie, Sir Robert also introduced an "Irish Coercion Bill" that would permit force to quell disturbances if it seemed necessary. But this law failed to pass, and Sir Robert resigned.

So the Liberals moved in under the leadership of Lord John Russell. Big John stayed in power for six years but then he got booted out by a PM with the gum cracking name Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley. For it's worth John was the grandfather of mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell who remembered his granddad as a kindly old gentleman in a wheelchair.

But Benjamin had not been idle. He had been pushing for something more than a lousy MP job. He wanted to have an appointed office and Edward George obliged by giving Benjamin the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was the C of the E that was often the penultimate job before land the top spot.

One of the jobs of the C of the E was to prepare the budget. Of course, the opposition felt duty bound to oppose it but other Tories didn't like Benjamin's budget either. William Gladstone - at that time representing the Liberal Party - not only didn't like the budget but now absolutely despised Benjamin himself. In fact, the Tories had become split into two factions, one led by Edward George and the other by Robert Peel. There was enough of a split that in 1852, Edward George resigned as PM and George Hamilton-Gordon, a "Peelite", took over.

The 1850's and 1860's was the era of Musical PM's. The office got swapped around amongst a few of the established leaders until 1866 when Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley one more assumed the office. Then in 1868 he turned the helm over to none other than Benjamin Disraeli.

Alas, Benjamin's tenure was short - less than a year - and he was replaced by the despised - at least to Benjamin - William Gladstone. By then the Peelites had completely split off from the Tories and joined other discontented MP's to form the Liberal Party.

We have to be honest here. William was a more successful PM than Benjamin. William served a whopping 12 years over four terms. Not the longest tenure by any means, but pretty good. Benjamin served six years total - including the not-quite-one-year term of 1868. He had to wait until 1874 to get in for any stretch.

And so what did Benjamin do?

Benjamin was no doctrinaire Tory and he would oppose his own party leadership if he felt he should. Unlike some American politicians of the 21st century who advocate repealing child labor laws, Benjamin implemented such laws. One practice he ended was having children employed as chimney sweeps - literally. Before then a small kid would be sent up the chimneys to clean them out. Naturally this played havoc with their health, both when they were kids and as adults. Also Benjamin passed legislation for removing slum housing.

He had his troubles of course. By the 1870's the famine in Ireland was long past and the farmers wanted to reinstall the tariffs. Benjamin, although he had opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, now opposed their reinstatement. This sent the farmers over to the Liberals. He also had Queen Victoria proclaimed as "Empress of India", something he knew the girl wanted - and in fact insisted on.

Benjamin kept writing novels all his life. Little read today, they were popular enough at the time. All in all he completed 15 novels. Unlike today, where a celebrity's books are often ghost written and one person who you can bet hasn't read them is the author, Benjamin (probably) did his own writing. Actually, Victorian novels were often anonymous or carried a pseudonym. After all, writing books was for people who didn't have inherited wealth.

And of course Benjamin is also famous for being the only Jewish prime minister ever in English history. However, if you look on Judaism as one religion out of many (King Ludwig II of Bavaria once admonished Richard Wagner that Christians and Jews were simply separated by "denominational" differences) and considering that Benjamin had joined the Anglican church, you can argue Benjamin was no longer Jewish.

But Judaism also refers to the culture and heritage of the people. Benjamin was proud of his background and had visited Palestine (now the state of Israel). Then when when Daniel O'Connor had made some rather sneering remarks about Benjamin's heritage, Benjamin took the bulls by the horns and 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.

Benjamin's time as PM was actually pretty rough particularly toward the end. You'll remember from your Sherlock Holmes novels that Dr. Watson was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand. This was a real battle during the war in Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880. It was not a popular war and although nominally ending in a British victory, it was more of a draw. The Afghans were named a British "protectorate" and permitted to maintain their internal government free of the British rule as long as the British controlled the foreign policy.

Benjamin, whose health had been declining, lived only a year after he left office in 1880. And when he died, the prime minster was none other than - you guessed it - William Gladstone. But back then everyone lived by the rule de mortuis nihil nisi bonum. So William had to send out accolades that would have sent him gagging except his problem was at the other end. A long sufferer of what the vulgar call "the runs", William at least had plenty of time to sit and think about how to word his press releases.

 

References

Disraeli: Or the Two Lives, Edward Young and Douglas Hurd, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2013

Disraeli, Robert Blake, St. Martin's Press, 1967.

Disraeli, Sarah Bradford, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1996

Disraeli's Grand Tour: Benjamin Disraeli and the Holy Land, 1830-31, Robert Blake, Oxford University Press, 1982.

The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli, Richard Aldous, W. W. Norton, 2006.

"Benjamin Disraeli", Encyclopedia Britannica.