Political Career
Herries worked his way up in the Treasury and eventually became Secretary to the First Lord of the Treasury, Commissary-General to the Army, Paymaster of the Civil List, Secretary to the Treasury (1823–1827), Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Goderich's government (1827–1828), Master of the Mint under the Duke of Wellington (1828–1830), briefly President of the Board of Trade (1830), Secretary at War under Sir Robert Peel (1834–1835), and finally President of the Board of Control in Lord Derby's first government (1852). During his tenure as Commissary-General, he used the help of Nathan Mayer Rothschild to transfer money to British and allied army troops on the continent, which was not an easy task during the Continental Blockade. Rothschild's successful conclusion of these transfers was one of the foundations of the house's English banking empire.
Herries was one of few men of ministerial experience to side with the protectionist Tories after the repeal of the Corn Laws. Following the death of Lord George Bentinck in 1848, Herries was suggested by Lord Stanley as an alternative to Benjamin Disraeli as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. In the end Herries declined, and Disraeli gradually came into his own as leader. Staunchly protectionist, Herries was in repeated conflict with Disraeli who, despite championing protectionism barely six years previously, was hurriedly disassociating both himself and the party from that doctrine. The two never got along, and Herries' refusal to assist in the framing of the 1852 Budget (which he regarded as "wild work"), cannot have helped matters. By the time of Derby's second government in 1858, Herries had died. His son, Charles Herries, was appointed Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue by Disraeli during the latter's second premiership in 1877.
Read more about this topic: John Charles Herries
Famous quotes containing the words political career, political and/or career:
“No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life’s course by a mere accident.”
—James Bryce (1838–1922)
“No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)