Derby Dilly - Formation

Formation

The uneasy coalition of Whigs, Canningites, Radicals, Irish Repealers and Tory mavericks that had been in office since 1830 and had passed the Reform Act 1832 had been showing signs of growing fracture. Their electoral victory of 1832 against a demoralised Tory party quickly led to a growing struggle between politicians like Lord John Russell who wanted to extend the cause of reforms to other areas of governance and Edward Smith-Stanley and others who feared the growth of radicalism - and the influence of the Irish repealers in particular. In May 1834 this pressure became too great and Stanley with the ex-Canningite The Earl of Ripon, Conservative Whig Sir James Graham and The Duke of Richmond (who had previously been one of the Ultra-Tories) resigned from the cabinet on the issue of proposed changes to the structure and finances of the Anglican Church of Ireland .

Preferring to call themselves 'Moderate Whigs' or just 'Moderates', Stanley and his immediate cohorts including Graham and Francis Burdett at first remained on the Government benches in the House of Commons. They were at first known unofficially as the 'Stanleyites' as they seemed more of an old style parliamentary faction familiar in British politics from the 18th and early 19th centuries. However the group soon received a new name from their political opponents to which they are now best remembered - 'The Derby Dilly'.

This was an allusion to a type of stagecoach called the 'Derby Dilly' (short for 'Dilligence') and referred to Stanley's hereditary family title 'Earl of Derby'. Remembering Stanley's remark that when he had left the cabinet that this had led to an 'upsetting of the ministerial coach', the Irish nationalist leader Daniel O'Connell labelled them the 'Derby Dilly' with a clever reference to the lines of a poem by George Canning and others entitled 'The Loves of the Triangles'. This had been a work of parody actually attacking the works of Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) and had the lines "Still down thy steep, romantic Ashbourne, glides The Derby dilly carrying six insides."