The Anti-Corn Law Association was set up in London in 1836 but had little success there; it was re-formed in 1838 in Manchester and in 1839 was re-named the Anti-Corn Law League (ACLL). The members of this movement were mainly middle-class manufacturers, merchants, bankers and traders. They wanted the Corn Laws to be repealed do that they could sell more goods both in Britain and overseas. The keystone of the protectionist system was thought to be the Corn Laws; once they repealed, the ACLL thought that free trade would follow. The ACLL headed a nationwide campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws which ended in success in 1846 when the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel repealed the legislation.
After 1835, the new Conservative Party sought an alliance of land and industry in a planned programme of socio-economic reform, as opposed to constitutional Whiggery. Peel was from a cotton background and in his Tamworth Manifesto of 1834 he said, “Our object will be… the just and impartial consideration of what is due to all interest - agriculture, manufacturing and commercial”. This was a fundamental break with high Toryism and served to encourage middle-class agitation.
Perhaps the most important challenge to the Anglican-landowning establishment was the social changes brought by the industrial revolution. The growth in size and economic importance of the industrial middle class meant that wealth was no longer centred on the land. The most remarkable examples of this challenge to the landowning class came in 1830 to 1832 and in 1840. In 1830-32 middle-class agitation was an important factor in the extension of the franchise, which broke the landowning monopoly on political power. In 1846, partly as a result of agitation of the Anti-Corn Law League, the economic basis of landowning power was threatened with the repeal of the Corn Laws. Although landowners did not financial ruin immediately after the repeal of the Corn Law in 1846, this event marked a turning point in the decline of landowner power in Britain.
In 1846 the Conservative Party split over the repeal of the Corn Laws. Industrial middle-class wing became known as Peelites, and subsequently joined the Liberal Party in 1859.
There are a number of reasons why the Conservatives were able to secure a majority of 76 seats in the 1841 election. It amounted to a combination of Peel’s reorganisation of the party and the weakness of his Whig opponents. Peel was elected on a pledge to retain the Corn Laws, despite his own serious misgivings on the issue. Historians such as Eric Evans and Ian Newbould have questioned the view that Peel was solely responsible for the revival in his party’s fortunes. They argue that election victory reveals that Peel was elected on traditional Tory rather than ‘Conservative’ values, and the party mad little headway in the areas, especially in the North, which were supposed to provide the basis for Conservative support.
Social reform, the reorganisation of the nation’s finances and an attempt to soothe the tensions in Ireland all played a crucial role in the development of his policy. Yet it was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 that finally led to the collapse of the party and a period of political exile that would last for over 20 years.
The day after the repeal of the Corn Laws was passed by the House of Lords, Peel’s government was defeated on a routine bill concerning the maintaining of law and order in Ireland. Protectionist Conservatives were bitter about what they regarded as Peel’s betrayal. Never before had Conservatives voted against an Irish Coercion Act. In doing so they ensured the political defeat of Peel and a spell of government for the Whigs and their Liberal allies. Peel and his loyal colleagues, being the Peelites, and prominent among them was Gladstone, went for the time being into the political wilderness, refusing to attach themselves to either the Tory/Conservatives led by the Lord Derby or the Whig/Liberals led by Lord John Russell.
Up to 1852, the party remained a protectionist one and in theory would, if returned to power, reimpose the Corn Laws.
The impression given by many historians was that the Conservative split over repeal had a devastating impact on the British political system.
The Conservative Party was simply unprepared for repeal and the bitterness which it generated. Peel had offended many of his MPs. He had damaged their income (or so they thought) and their status. Many Conservative MPs and their voters still felt that parties stood for interests, as opposed to policies and principles, and that those interests should not be sacrificed to expediency, however great the emergency. Peel’s pragmatism, however necessary it may have been over Repeal, was not popular with many of those who had put him in power.
The rest of the Conservative Party, the rank and file, was in a very difficult situation. Protection as an economic issue was in fact dead, but of course many were reluctant to accept that. There was no obvious leader after Bentinck, and he was unsuited to leadership as soon as a divisive issue such as religious toleration appeared. Disraeli was not seen as an alternative as there were real doubts about his sincerity and background. The Peelites detested him for his bitter attacks on Peel in 1846, and naturally he was seen as an obstacle to reunification of the Party. There were a growing number of Conservative backbenchers in the protectionist wing of the party who were beginning to feel by 1848 that Disraeli had used them as a stepping-stone to further his ambitions.
There seemed to be no alternative to Disraeli. Those who had served under Peel, but had declined the Peelite label, were too old. Edward Stanley offered Disraeli unofficial leadership of the Commons in 1848, simply not daring to offer him it properly. Disraeli declined until Stanley did it properly in 1849. The party was also divided over religious toleration, be it for Jews or Catholics, the former being an area where Disraeli naturally preferred to remain silent given the deep-seated prejudices of many of the MPs whose support he really needed.
By 1850, there was a gradual acceptance of the leadership of Derby and Disraeli. But within the party there was still considerable suspicion about the latter, particularly as many protectionist Conservative MPs rightly suspected that Disraeli was looking for a way to abandon protection.
In simple terms the repeal of the Corn Laws widened a pre-existing within the Conservative Party, which was partly personal, partly ideological and partly due to differing attitudes towards the evolving party system. It also played an important, but not to be exaggerated, part in the Conservative Party out of a majority situation until 1874.
Once the Second Reform Bill was through in August 1867, Parliament went into recess and did not reconvene until early 1868. Derby resigned through ill health in February 1868 and Benjamin Disraeli replaced him as Prime Minister. As he put it, he had reached the ‘top of the greasy pole’ at last.
The impact of the repeal of the Corn Laws on agriculture was not much. The concern about the damaging impact that it might have had may well have acted to make many farmers look at their methods and management for improvement to compensate for possible damage.
There was a gradual decline in the power of the landed interests, but it was very small in this period. The Protectionists’ case vanished easily, and Disraeli was aware that his backbenchers had not been reduced to poverty when the Conservatives abandoned Protection in 1852. The anticipated destruction of British farming simply did not happen, the propaganda of those against repeal of the Corn Laws was proved to be inaccurate.
Disraeli rose to political prominence during the Corn Law debates of 1845-46 as a major defender of agricultural protection. However, following the defeat of his 1852 budget Disraeli, like the rest of the Conservative Party, abandoned protection and adopted free trade. Yet, during the agricultural depression in 1877, Disraeli did toy with the idea of reimposing import taxes on grain.
