The Institution of Prime Minister
by Dr. Andrew Blick and Professor George Jones
“How the power of Prime Ministry grew up into its present form it is difficult to trace precisely.”
In 1841 a former Prime Minister, Viscount Melbourne, explained the above to Queen Victoria. Details of the lives of individual Prime Ministers have been recounted in numerous biographical studies, but less is known about the history of the premiership as an institution. This article provides an historical overview of how the British Prime Minister’s Office came into being, its subsequent development and the staff attached to it.
Sir Robert Walpole and the origins of the premiership
The so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 helped produce a new power-balance within the English constitution. Monarchs became more dependent upon Parliament to obtain tax revenues and pursue their favoured policies, while the House of Commons was establishing its dominance over the House of Lords. This changed constitutional structure created a potential opening for a politician who could deliver control of Parliament for the monarch. One man in particular, operating from the position of a Member of the Commons, not the Lords, managed to exploit this opportunity: Sir Robert Walpole.
The title ‘prime minister’ was originally a term of abuse rather than a description of an official role. It implied that an individual subject had risen improperly above others within the royal circle, and had echoes of a political institution imported from France, England’s great enemy. When Robert Harley, a favourite of Queen Anne (1702-1714), was impeached in 1715, one of the charges against him was that he was a prime minister. The prevailing view at this time was that monarchs should be their own prime ministers.
The historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote that Walpole was ‘as much the first modern Prime Minister we should recognize as Adam was the first man’. Walpole had a long tenure as First Lord of the Treasury (1721-1742) and became the dominant figure within government from around 1730. His ability to carry crown business through Parliament ensured the support of first George I and, from 1727, George II. Their backing enabled Walpole to influence official appointments and gave him access to money, both of which could be traded for support in Parliament. He exerted further influence over public business by avoiding the use of the large, full Cabinet of around a dozen senior figures for serious business, preferring to operate with an inner circle of five or fewer key supporters. Moreover, through his control of the Treasury Walpole was able to extend his power throughout the country and help ensure that parliamentary elections – in which only a tiny proportion of men (and no women) could then vote – produced the desired outcome.
However, the idea of an official office of Prime Minister remained taboo. In 1741, when the nature of his government was under attack, Walpole told the Commons
“I unequivocally deny that I am sole and prime minister.”
A controversial public figure, he was targeted by a literary grouping whose members – including John Gay, Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift – labelled themselves the ‘Scriblerus Club’. In Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels Walpole was parodied as ‘Flimnap, the Treasurer’; while in Gay’s musical play the Beggar’s Opera, a highwayman character, Robin of Bagshot, had aliases including ‘Bob Booty’ – a nickname which became attached to Walpole, playing on his reputation for corruption. There was an attempt to impeach Walpole after his fall from power in 1742, but the parliamentary ‘Committee of Secrecy’ set up to investigate his financial activities could not construct a case against him. As later became the norm for Prime Ministers, the ultimate sanction deployed against him was not legal, but political: removal from office.