ABSTRACT
At first sight, Croker and the other would-be Burkes of the post-Reform period were fighting for a lost cause, the traditional tory view of the historic consequences of human nature seeming out of place in the world of progressive improvement of the Whig party of 1832. In the eighteen months after the passing of the First Parliamentary Reform Act, the Whigs enacted legislation that demonstrated that they were a party with clear political goals. The abolition of slavery in British territories, the first Factory Act restricting the employment of children, and the first state education grant all declared that the Whigs were prepared to make matters which had previously been seen as those of individual conscience a national responsibility.
