ABSTRACT
Lord George Bentinck (1802–1848) emerged as the leader of the Protectionist opponents of Sir Robert Peel during the debates over the Repeal of the Corn Laws. He was recognised as the leader of the Protectionists in the House of Commons after 1846. On 21 September 1848, he died as the result of a heart attack whilst walking near his home in Nottinghamshire.
Blackwood’s regretted the death of a man who had stood out for his nobility and patriotism ‘in an age of degenerate and vacillating statesmanship’. It drew a sharp contrast with Peel, whom it left ‘to the judgement of that posterity which he is so peculiarly prone to invoke’.
Given the renewed necessity of defending the institutions of Church and State, the magazine implored Conservatives ‘to unite without loss of time’. It was cheered that ‘much progress has been made towards a thorough fusion of the two sections of the Conservative party, upon clear and common grounds’, but decried any attempt to rally under Peel’s leadership. The party could never be led by one who had ‘cut the cords asunder’.
The magazine was sure that in order to render the Conservative union enduring, ‘it will be absolutely necessary to reconstruct the party upon clear, avowed, solid, and proclaimed principles, so that no doubt whatever may be left as the course which in future is to be pursued.’ In its view, this meant an appeal to the Protestant, Protectionist principles of the nation. This was especially true in Ireland, where nothing had been gained ‘whatever by tampering with Roman Catholicism … on the contrary, each successive step towards conciliation has been met by augmented turbulence’.
Whilst admitting that Bentinck had differed from his followers over the issue of Jewish Emancipation, which he had supported, the magazine concluded that his measures for the relief of the Irish famine were worthy of the highest praise.
