reviews and interpretations

• A game of 2 halves:

  • historians like Brock believed that there was a change in the character of Liverpool’s government from 1820
  • 1812-1820 => reactionary and repressive
  • 1820s => liberal and reformist
• Evidence for Liberal Toryism:

  • old restrictions were lifted
  • new freedoms granted
  • freer trade
  • less taxation
  • greater cooperation with the Whigs and their ideas
  • more civil and optical rights
• Evidence against Liberal Toryism:

  • still inequalities
  • still corrupt
  • there were restrictions to reforms that favoured the elite
  • Church of England remained the state church
  • repression in 1825-26
  • measures were practical necessities -> Catholic emancipation
  • context that changed
• Liberals were open to reform and individual freedom and free trade