Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known popularly as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century. Popularly nicknamed "The Mongoose", he was in government office almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865, beginning his parliamentary career as a Tory and concluding it as a Liberal.
He is best remembered for his direction of British foreign policy through a period when Britain was at the height of its power, serving terms as both Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. Some of his aggressive actions, now sometimes termed liberal interventionist, were greatly controversial at the time, and remain so today. He was the most recent British Prime Minister to die in office.
Read more about Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston: Early Life: 1784–1806, Early Political Career: 1806–1809, Secretary At War: 1809–1828, Opposition: 1828–1830, Foreign Secretary: 1830–1841, Marriage, Opposition: 1841–46, Home Secretary: 1852–1855, Prime Minister: 1855–1858, Opposition: 1858–1859, Prime Minister: 1859–1865, Death, Legacy, Cultural References, Lord Palmerston's First Cabinet, February 1855 - February 1858, Lord Palmerston's Second Cabinet, June 1859 - October 1865
Famous quotes containing the words viscount palmerston, henry, john and/or viscount:
“Die, my dear doctor! That’s the last thing I shall do!”
—Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865)
“Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self- respect, are the qualities which make a real gentleman, or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Dead of a dark thing, John Holmes, you’ve been lost
in the college chapel, mourned as father and teacher,
mourned with piety and grace under the University Cross.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess, nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)