In January 1729 Edmund Burke was born in Dublin, where his
father had a successful practice as an attorney. After a younger
childhood of indifferent health where he often occupied himself
through reading widely Burke was educated (from 1741) at a small
private school in County Kildare and subsequently (from 1743) at
Trinity College, Dublin.
After his studies in Dublin, where he does not seem to have
given any evidence of being a distinguished student, Burke
studied law briefly (from 1750) in London before moreso embarking
on a literary career. During these years Burke lived in
considerable obscurity without the benefit of any advantageous
connections. The switch away from the law towards literary
pursuits seems to have led to a withdrawal of a paternal
allowance that had previous helped to support his studies.
In these times Burke was irregularly involved in several of
London's numerous and informally organised debating societies and
also earned a modest living writing for booksellers. His first
important work was A Vindication of Natural Society
(1756), which was represented as being a posthumous work flowing
from the pen of the British statesman Henry Bolingbroke.
Published anonymously, just a few years after Rousseau had
famously lamented the many flaws of artificial society, it
attracted considerable attention and was often taken as a serious
statement of its authors beliefs rather than the satire it
actually was. Soon afterward Burke published an essay, the
Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the
Sublime and Beautiful (1756).
From 1759 he began a 30-year association with The Annual
Register, a British yearbook of which he was editorial sponsor.
In these times Burke had contacts with some of the more important
literary figures in London and began to have ambitions towards
embarking upon a political career and was helped in this by an
introduction (in 1759) from one of his friends, Lord Charlemont,
to a member of parliament named William Gerard Hamilton.
After 1761, when he became private secretary to Hamilton after
Hamilton's appointment as the British chief secretary for
Ireland, Burke demonstrated his aptitude for political service.
In this posting in the country of his birth Burke, as a person
who was personally committed to order and justice, had plenty of
opportunities to be reminded of certain civil disabilities to
which Roman Catholics were subject and also of limitations that
were placed by law on trades and industries in Ireland.
In 1688 (in the case of William and Mary) and in 1714 (in the
case of the "Hanoverian" George I) the British thrones had been
settled on persons whose were chosen primarily because the
alternative would be a catholic monarch who, rightly or wrongly,
was seen as a potential suppressor of both political liberties
From 1688 these "monarchs of choice" had found it necessary to
act in consultation with the British "Political Nation" in
pursuit of broadly agreed policies. From 1760 and the accession
of George III however, a new Royal outlook became evident in that
this monarch, deeming that external threats to his throne were
effectively a thing of the past, decided to largely abandon any
consultational approach in favour of a system based on attempts
at appointing ministers who would follow policies approved by
himself as King.
There was a court sponsored ministry headed by the Earl of
Bute (1760-3), that was replaced by a "whig" ministry led by
George Grenville which offered to be somewhat responsive to the
King's wishes. This ministry became unpopular at home, through
such things as limitations on the press, and in the American
colonies, through such things as the impositions of taxations,
and was itself replaced by a more independent "whig" ministry in
Burke became private secretary to the incoming (July 10th
1765) prime minister Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd marquis of
Rockingham, and in January 1766 Burke was elected as a Whig to
Parliament as a representative for the "pocket borough" (pocket
boroughs being constituencies effectively in the gift of powerful
persons - in this case a Lord Verney) of Wendover. Almost
immediately Burke began to gain a reputation as a rising champion
of a more principled approach to governance at home and abroad.
From soon after his election Burke, in elevated and almost
philosophical terms, sought the repeal of the Stamp Act that was
so resented in the American colonies. Although this "Rockingham"
administration only remained in office for about a year one
measure they did secure was a repeal of the Stamp Act.
Although Burke was to spend most of his twenty five or so
years in parliamentary circles in opposition to policies as
sponsored by George III (including those of the ministry of Lord
North 1770-1782) he was nonetheless highly influential as a
parliamentarian and political commentator. Later notable
interjections by Burke into American colonial issues being a
pamphlet, "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present
Discontents" (1770), and two speeches, "On American
Taxation" (1774) and "Conciliation with America"
(1775), in which he urged a policy of justice and
Burke was elected as a member of parliament for Bristol (then
the second city in England) in 1774 but lost this seat within a
few years after championing such locally unpopular causes as the
rights of catholics and a liberalisation of Irish trade. From
1782, and the fall of Lord North, Lord Rockingham briefly headed
a ministry and Burke was appointed to a moderately well paid
office of state.
For the rest of his political life (to 1794) Burke sat in
parliament for Malton a pocket borough that was initially under
Lord Rockingham's, and then Lord Fitzwilliam's, control.
Burke took a deep interest in India and advocated a reversal
of the British policy that allowed the East India Company to
exploit the population of that country. From 1781 parliament was
made aware of most serious allegations against an Indian colonial
official named Warren Hastings. After April 1783 much of Burke's
time and effort went into the framing of an India Bill that was
intended to provide for the government of India but his efforts
were frustrated by the intruigues of the court party in the House
of Lords in December 1783. In February, 1788, Burke began a
four-day-long opening speech in Westminster Hall in impeachment
proceedings against Warren Hastings for high crimes and
misdemeanors committed in India.
Although Hastings was acquitted in 1795 after a trial that
lasted seven years, Burke had made the English aware of the
oppression in India and helped to lay the foundations for a moral
and responsible public opinion in Britain in relation to
The revolution in France was initially greeted with enthusiasm
by many persons across Europe. Most of the leaders of the Whig
interest were amongst those who showed some enthusiasm for events
that they believed could well pave the way for advances by the
kingdom of France and its people. Charles James Fox a prominent
Whig, and sometime ally of Burke, said "How much the greatest
event it is that ever happened in the world, and how much the
Burke, who had in earlier times seemed to champion human
rights in relation to the American colonies, Ireland and India
soon appeared as a critic of the developments in France. A young
frenchman wrote to Burke towards the late summer of 1789, the
year of the first appearance of revolution in France, inquiring
of Burke for his lack of enthusism. Burke wrote in reply setting
out some of his reasoning and offered his correspondent his own
interpretation of liberty.
... Permit me ... to tell You what the
freedom is that I love and that to which I think all men
intitled. It is not solitary, unconnected, individual, selfish
liberty. As if every man was to regulate the whole of his Conduct
by his own will. the Liberty I mean is social; freedom. It is
that state of things in which Liberty is secured by the equality
of Restraint; A constitution of things in which the liberty of no
one Man and no Number of men can find Means to trespass on the
liberty of any Person or any description of Persons in the
Society. This kind of Liberty is indeed but another name for
Justice, ascertained by wise Laws, and secured by well
constructed institutions. ...
Burke continued his opposition with the publication of
Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the
proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that
event (November 1790). This hugely influential text, which
was read in numerous editions throughout Europe, encouraged
European rulers in their hostility to the French Revolution.
Burke's opposition to the way the Revolution seemed to be tending
was based on his perception that various assaults on the
pre-existing feudal order, be they as they may in line with
reason, were nonetheless fatally destructive of the practically
necessary and inherently valuable stability of civil
Burke retired from Parliament at its close of session in
1794, his son Richard, who despite his father's high ambitions
was unfortunately lacking in abilities, succeeded in representing
the constituency of Malton.
Arrangements were made to raise Burke senior to the hereditary
peerage as Lord Beaconsfield with an associated income that would
be applicable across three generations. The untimely death of
Richard Burke was a most grievious personal blow to his father
and also rendered this bestowal of a peerage impractical. Burke
was however awarded a substantial pension (£2,500) for the
remainder of his days.
Edmund Burke died on July 8th, 1797, and although there were
proposals that his remains should be interred in Westminster
Abbey Burke's will left explicit instructions that interrment
should take place after a private funeral at Beaconsfield.