[...]... membership of the Common Market 256 Reform Act 257 Reform Act, the Second 257 Reform Act, the Third 258 Reform Act, the Fourth (the Representation of the People Act) 259 Reform League 260 Reform Union 260 Relugas Compact 260 Repeal of the Combination Laws 261 Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts 261 Repeal of the Corn Laws 262 Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts 263 Representation of the People... sections of the press, confirmed the widely held view that his judgement was questionable and that he should not therefore return to government A recording of Edward’s halting abdication speech, penned by Churchill, helped actor Charles Laughton to get into character as the Emperor Claudius The Routledge dictionary of modern British history 2 Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, fourth Earl of (28 January... King’s Moreover, as Jenkins states, Baldwin’s handling of the crisis enabled him to step down as prime minister (just sixteen days after George VI’s coronation) in ‘a glow of achievement’ The Abdication Bill (with the consent of the Dominions under the Statute of Westminster) was passed on 11 December 1936 The only real casualty of the whole affair, other than Edward himself, was Winston Churchill, whose... year as part of the reshuffle occasioned by the departure of the Canningites As a philhellene he took joy in the creation of an independent Greece but was unable to prevent Russia from exploiting Ottoman weakness in the aftermath of Navarino After serving as secretary for war and the colonies in 1834–35 under Peel, he returned to the Foreign Office under Peel in 1841 His actions in ending the war with... December 1860) George, the future fourth Earl, was the eldest son of Lord Haddo, the heir to the third Earl of Aberdeen His father died in 1791 and Dundas (Lord Melville) and Pitt in due course became his guardians Despite the wishes of the third Earl that he be partly educated in Scotland, his grandson was educated at Harrow and at St John’s College, Cambridge Unlike many members of the aristocracy he... legalized terminations of pregnancies of up to 28 weeks on four possible grounds, namely, where, in the opinion of two doctors, continued pregnancy could harm the mother’s physical or mental health; where the baby might be deformed; where the mother had been raped; and where the baby would be born into undesirable conditions A million legal abortions had been performed by 1980 The 1990 Human Fertilization... commoner, although these were considered significant disabilities at the time, but rather because she was a divorcee Although the Church of England came into existence largely in order to facilitate Henry VIII’s desire to divorce his first wife so that he could marry his mistress, the fact that the sovereign has henceforth been Supreme Governor of the Church of England has meant that they cannot, in conscience,... Michael 77 Death duties 77 Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) 78 Derby (Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley), 14th Earl of 78 ‘Derby Dilly’ 79 Derbyshire rising 80 Devaluation of the pound, 1949 80 Devaluation of the pound, 1967 81 Devolution 81 Devonshire (Spencer Compton Cavendish), Marquis of Hartington and eighth Duke of 82 Direct rule 85 Disraeli, Benjamin, first Earl of Beaconsfield 85 Dissenters’... WhigPeelite radical coalition Had Palmerston been his foreign secretary then Britain might not have drifted into the Crimean War in 1854 However, it was the government’s manifest mismanagement of the war that fatally discredited it Thus when Roebuck moved for a select committee to inquire into the condition of the Army in the Crimea, the government was defeated by 305 votes to 148 and Aberdeen was forced... Office under Peel in 1841 His actions in ending the war with China (by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking), and restoring friendly relations with the United States (through the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842) and France, were in marked contrast with those of Palmerston: a point emphasized by his criticism of the Don Pacifico affair Indeed, the two foreign secretaries are customarily depicted as pursuing rival . h0" alt="" The Routledge Dictionary of Modern British History The Routledge Dictionary of Modern British History is an essential guide to the last two. and the love of my life Contents Acknowledgments ix List of entries x Dictionary of Modern British History 1 Acknowledgments The