With Liz Truss on the brink of becoming the next prime minister, former MP KEITH SIMPSON looks back at the very colourful life of the only other Norfolk MP to have filled the top job
Robert Walpole remains Britain’s longest serving prime minister, serving for over 20 years from 1721 to 1742.
A Norfolk man, born and bred at Houghton, he succeeded his father as MP for Castle Rising and then King's Lynn.
Unlike many MPs, then and now, Walpole lived near his constituency, rather than mainly in London with a local pied-a-terre.
His father was local Norfolk gentry and Robert was one of 19 children, which was a little excessive even even by 18th century standards.
After Eton and Cambridge, Robert inherited the Walpole estate in 1700.
He developed considerable business expertise and made a fortune buying low and selling high in the South Sea Company.
Walpole was a Whig and lived and operated in a more loose and less structured political landscape than today.
There were no political parties or personal or political programmes as in a modern sense but personal factors were very important, loyalty to family and local connections, religion, commercial advantage and personal ambition and advancement.
For most of the period Walpole was in politics, the Whigs dominated government and the Tories were marginalised.
Soon after he was elected as an MP, Walpole was given ministerial office as secretary at war and treasurer of the navy.
Walpole succeeded because he was able to retain the confidence of the monarch, Anne, then George I and II, and to maintain a majority in the House of Commons.
Walpole had a rollercoaster early ministerial career as during one of the few periods of Tory government he was accused of venality, impeached by parliament, expelled and imprisoned for six weeks in the Tower of London.
However he was regarded as a martyr, released and re-elected as the MP for King's Lynn.
He survived the collapse of the South Sea Bubble and emerged from the chaos of ministerial resignations and deaths to be appointed in 1721 first lord of the Treasury, chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Walpole was de facto the prime minister but he rejected this title.
What was Walpole, the man, like and what made him such a dominant politician for more than 20 years?
He was a short, fat, coarse but jovial man. He had the wit to look like a normal country squire and one of his affectations was to munch little red Norfolk apples during Commons debates and to let it be known that he opened letters from his gamekeeper before any to do with government business.
A married man with several children; nevertheless he took a mistress 25 years his junior, Maria Skerrett, who was a fashionable socialite of wit and beauty, with an independent fortune.
They lived together openly and after the death of his wife in 1737 they married.
To sum up his character and lifestyle, Walpole was good-natured, cheerful, social, elegant in his manners and loose in his morals. None of these attributes made him unique in 18th century society, or for that matter, in today's.
In 1732, the King offered Walpole 10, Downing St as a personal gift but he accepted it only as the official residence of the first lord of the Treasury and thus it has remained so until today.
Walpole was a very wealthy man, having inherited monies and land and profited from speculation and the profits of office.
He was a keen huntsman and built for himself the Great Lodge in Richmond Park.
However, his greatest building venture was Houghton Hall in Norfolk, built in the 1720s and 1730s.
Walpole lived there when parliament was in recess. One of England’s finest Palladian houses, a collaboration between two outstanding architects Colin Campbell and James Gibbs, Houghton was built to reflect the wealth, taste and power of Walpole, who filled it with an outstanding collection of pictures.
Walpole’s political beliefs were founded on a policy that was opposed to war and a desire to maintain peace and stability.
He believed efficient taxation, improved administration and a common sense policy were the foundations for success.
Walpole’s success as effectively prime minister for over 20 years was to maintain the confidence of the King, which depended upon personal relationships and the success of his policies, while developing the image of a simple Norfolk country gentleman.
Walpole displayed a formidable work ethic and a ruthless ability to use power and influence to achieve his policies.
His control over parliament was a continuous use of flattery and patronage.
Coherence of government was maintained by an elaborate system of patronage, every office of church or state to which the crown had the power to appoint, were used for political ends.
Walpole was effectively a workaholic and, as a minister at the treasury, was at his desk before eight in the morning.
Also, when it was sitting, he was almost continuously in the Commons, talking and listening to MPs and open to being lobbied for their advancement.
Walpole’s cabinet was small and peopled by men of limited ability but unlimited loyalty to him.
It was Walpole’s mastery of detail and attention to the small offices available under patronage which explains his power and influence.
He did not hesitate to endow his extensive Norfolk cousinage with the best places in the very centre of government.
Walpole had many opponents in what became known as the Country Party and was satirised by Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Henry Fielding, but had his own subsidised writers and journalists who defended him.
Over time, criticism and opposition to Walpole increased and his ability to dominate parliament was reduced over a question of foreign policy and the use of military force.
In 1742 he effectively lost a vote of confidence and resigned from office.
The king elevated him to the Lords as the Earl of Orford and despite his resignation he retained his influence with the monarch and was dubbed ‘the minister behind the curtain’. Walpole died from a bladder stone, aged 68, in 1745.
Walpole was no saintly politician, but an ambitious and ruthless man.
He dominated politics for more than 20 years, having secured the support of the then limited electorate, by avoiding war and thus lowering taxes and reduced the national debt.
He helped secure the Hanoverian succession and marginalised the Jacobites.
A real Norfolk man, his local legacy is the magnificent Houghton Hall, which dominates the landscape of West Norfolk.
Keith Simpson is a historian and was Conservative MP for Broadland from 2010 until 2019, and Mid Norfolk from 1997 to 2010
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