ABSTRACT
As in Ireland, Robert Peel's flair for executive government asserted itself, and he quickly made a mark second only to that of Canning. Meanwhile, thanks in particular to F.R Bonham, the Conservative party was organized into an efficient electoral unit. Even supposing that he had tried to do this, the 1841 election would not have been a triumph, since it was overwhelmingly won in the counties and small country boroughs, not in the industrial towns. In 1842, having been elected, he reduced the Corn Laws significantly, and probably planned a series of further reductions over the following decade, a painless extinction or 'euthanasia', as the Home Secretary Sir James Graham called it. If it is impossible to understand Peel's reputation in establishment circles during the early 1820s without realizing that he was seen as a surrogate Pitt, then it is impossible to understand Gladstone's popular reputation in the early 1860s without realizing that in turn he was a surrogate Peel.
