GBR·1846 – 1849·Conservative (Peelite faction) — Sir Robert Peel's second ministry. Corn Laws repeal split the party between Peelites (free-trade Conservatives, who later merged into the Liberal Party) and the protectionist majority that became the modern Conservative Party.
Leaders: Sir Robert Peel (Prime Minister 1841-1846) · William Ewart Gladstone (President of the Board of Trade 1843-1845, then Colonial Secretary; later Liberal PM) · Sir James Graham (Home Secretary 1841-1846) · Henry Goulburn (Chancellor of the Exchequer 1841-1846)
Sir Robert Peel's Conservative ministry, joined by the Whig opposition under Lord John Russell and free-trade campaigners Richard Cobden and John Bright of the Anti-Corn Law League, carrying the Importation Act 1846 to repeal the Corn Laws against the bulk of Peel's own party. Provisions: phased reduction of duties on imported wheat over three years to a nominal 1 shilling per quarter from February 1849, alongside companion reductions in tariffs on a wide schedule of agricultural and manufactured goods. Stated case: relieve the Irish Famine and British urban living costs by removing the protective grain tariff that had been in place since 1815, align fiscal and trade policy with classical political economy as articulated by Smith and Ricardo, and entrench free trade as the orienting principle of British commercial policy at the cost of splitting the Conservative party between Peelites and Protectionists.
Policy-content fingerprint — how the framework codes this movement on its axes