Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He also held many other important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. He was also a member of the House of Lords and served as leader.

After becoming Prime Minister in 1812, Liverpool intensified efforts against Napoleon by providing subsidies to the allies until the coalition victory at Leipzig 1813. Despite these achievements, the country financially struggled with constant requests for Treasury bill roll overs from the Bank of England for Treasury bill rollovers and heavy taxation. However, in June 1815, Napoleon was defeated for the final time at Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington, ending the Napoleonic Wars. Liverpool outlined a peace settlement after the war at the Congress of Vienna which imposed no reparations and left France with most of her colonies, and secured no additional gains for Britain.

As prime minister, Jenkinson called for repressive measures at domestic level to maintain order after the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. He dealt smoothly with the Prince Regent when King George III was incapacitated. He also steered the country through the period of radicalism and unrest that followed the Napoleonic Wars. He favoured commercial and manufacturing interests as well as the landed interest. He sought a compromise of the heated issue of Catholic emancipation. The revival of the economy strengthened his political position. By the 1820s, he was the leader of a reform faction of "Liberal Tories" who lowered the tariff, abolished the death penalty for many offences, and reformed the criminal law. By the time of his death, however, the Tory party, which had dominated the House of Commons for over 40 years, was ripping itself apart.

Important events during his tenure as prime minister included the War of 1812 with the United States, the Sixth and Seventh Coalitions against the French Empire, the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars at the Congress of Vienna, the Corn Laws, the Peterloo Massacre against pro-democracy protestors, the Trinitarian Act 1812 and the emerging issue of Catholic emancipation. Despite being called "the Arch-mediocrity" by a later Conservative prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, scholars rank him highly among all British prime ministers.

Early life
Jenkinson was baptised on 29 June 1770 at St. Margaret's, Westminster, the son of George III's close adviser Charles Jenkinson, later the first Earl of Liverpool, and his first wife, Amelia Watts. Jenkinson's 19-year-old mother, who was the daughter of a senior East India Company official, William Watts, and of his wife Begum Johnson, died from the effects of childbirth one month after his birth.

The Jenkinsons were members of the landed gentry and were descendants of the explorer and merchant Anthony Jenkinson who led four diplomatic missions to Russia between 1558 and 1571. The family were committed supporters of conservative politics and high-church Anglicanism adhered to the maintenance of tradition. Despite occasional departures from Tory party values, Jenkinsons’ deference to the monarch and support for the Church of England consistently aligned them with the Tories. His mother’s family had a prominent colonial presence in India. Through his mother's grandmother, Isabella Beizor, Jenkinson was descended from Portuguese settlers in India; he may also have been one-sixteenth Indian in ancestry.

Jenkinson was educated at Charterhouse School of which the education was considered broader than that of Eton College. He was later matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1787. While at Oxford, Liverpool engaged in the traditional “Grand Tour,” which took him to Paris in July 1789 where he witnessed the storming of the Bastille. Liverpool described the event where the mob beheaded the garrison’s governor and triumphantly paraded with his severed head as “one of the most extraordinary revolutions that ever has happened.”  In the summer of 1789, Jenkinson spent four months in Paris to perfect his French and enlarge his social experience. He returned to Oxford for three months to complete his terms of residence, and in May 1790 was created Master of Arts.



Member of Parliament
He won election to the House of Commons in 1790 for Rye, a seat he would hold until 1803; at the time, however, he was below the age of assent to Parliament, so he refrained from taking his seat and spent the following winter and early spring in an extended tour of Continental Europe. This tour took in the Netherlands and Italy; at its conclusion he was old enough to take his seat in Parliament. It is not clear exactly when he entered the Commons, but as his twenty-first birthday was not reached until almost the end of the 1791 session, it is possible that he waited until the following year. In his maiden speech, he supported Prime Minister William Pitt's attempt to persuade Parliament to support a vigorous response to Russian encroachments in the Black Sea during the Ochakov crisis.

House of Commons
With the help of his father's influence, and his political talent, he rose relatively quickly in the Tory government. In February 1792 he gave the reply to Samuel Whitbread's critical motion on the government's Russian policy. He delivered several other speeches during the session and was a strong opponent of abolitionism and William Wilberforce. He served as a member of the Board of Control for India from 1793 to 1796.

In the defence movement that followed the outbreak of hostilities with France, Jenkinson was one of the first of the ministers of the government to enlist in the militia. He became a colonel in the Cinque Ports Fencibles in 1794, his military duties leading to frequent absences from the Commons. His regiment was sent to Scotland in 1796 and he was quartered for a time in Dumfries.

In 1797 the then Lord Hawkesbury was the cavalry commander of the Cinque Ports Light Dragoons who ran amok following a protest against the Militia Act at Tranent in East Lothian, twelve civilians being killed. Author James Miller wrote in 1844 that "His lordship was blamed for remaining at Haddington, as his presence might have prevented the outrages of the soldiery."

His parliamentary attendance also suffered from his reaction when his father angrily opposed his projected marriage with Lady Louisa Hervey, daughter of the Earl of Bristol. After Pitt and the King had intervened on his behalf the wedding finally took place at Wimbledon on 25 March 1795. In May 1796, when his father was created Earl of Liverpool, he took the courtesy title of Lord Hawkesbury and remained in the Commons. He became Baron Hawkesbury in his own right and was elevated to the House of Lords in November 1803 in recognition for his work as Foreign Secretary. He also served as Master of the Mint (1799–1801).

Foreign Secretary (1801–1804)
In Henry Addington's government, he entered the cabinet in 1801 as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in which capacity he negotiated the Treaty of Amiens with France. Most of his time as Foreign Secretary was spent dealing with the nations of France and the United States.

Early negotiations were primarily handled by James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury and later Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis. However, it was Hawkesbury who took responsibility for formulating the requirements and gaining Cabinet approval for them, acknowledging that the military situation did not favour Britain’s war objectives set at the outset of the conflict. In early February, Napoleon made peace with Austria at Lunéville, which solidified French dominance on the continent, and by the time negotiations began, Britain only aimed to ensure France's evacuation of Egypt. News of General Abercrombie's victory at Alexandria further weakened French influence in the region. However, negotiations were complicated by Napoleon's annexation of territories in Italy and his pressure on Britain regarding Malta.

By March, the preliminary Treaty of Amiens was signed in London, marking a temporary cessation of hostilities. Under the peace terms, Britain was to agree to give up its colonial gains made during the war, retaining only the Cape of Good Hope (later exchanged for Trinidad), Ceylon, and Cochin. Despite the less than favorable terms, the treaty was defended by Lord Hawkesbury in the House of Commons amidst growing pressure for a more favourable peace in Britain. The public celebrated the peace, though it was described by some, like Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as a peace "everyone was glad of but no one was proud of."

The cause for celebrations were short-lived as reports of Napoleon's activities surfaced in the British press, leading to diplomatic tensions. French demands to banish émigrés from England and stalled negotiations to normalise trade relations further strained the fragile peace. Napoleon's subsequent annexations in Italy and his actions in Holland and Switzerland heightened British concerns. Attempts to secure stability through diplomatic channels, including offers by Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth to recognise French gains in Italy in exchange for British occupation of Malta, failed to resolve tensions.

In May 1803, Lord Whitworth left Paris, and Britain resumed hostilities, marking the end of the fourteen-month interlude of peace. The resumption of war was met with criticism in Parliament, where the government was faulted for its handling of negotiations and accused of premature disarmament. Despite initial support for Addington's government, dissent quickly grew and a year later Pitt was reappointed as Prime Minister.

Home Secretary (1804-1809)
He continued to serve in the cabinet as Home Secretary in Pitt the Younger's second government. While Pitt was seriously ill, Liverpool was in charge of the cabinet and drew up the King's Speech for the official opening of Parliament. When William Pitt died in 1806, the King asked Liverpool to accept the post of Prime Minister, but he refused, as he believed he lacked a governing majority. He was then made leader of the Opposition during Lord Grenville's ministry (the only time that Liverpool did not hold government office between 1793 and after his retirement). In 1807, he resumed office as Home Secretary in the Duke of Portland's ministry.

War Secretary (1809–1812)
Lord Liverpool (as he had now become by the death of his father in December 1808) accepted the position of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in Spencer Perceval's government in 1809. Liverpool's first step on taking up his new post was to elicit from General Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) a strong enough statement of his ability to resist a French attack to persuade the cabinet to commit themselves to the maintenance of his small force in Portugal. In 1810 Liverpool was made a colonel of militia.

Appointment
After the Assassination of Spencer Perceval in May 1812, George, the Prince Regent, successively tried to appoint four men to succeed Perceval, but failed. Jenkinson, the Prince Regent's fifth choice for the post, reluctantly accepted office on 8 June 1812. Jenkinson was proposed as successor by the cabinet office and Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh who acted as leader in the House of Commons. The Prince Regent, however, found it impossible to form a different coalition to advance an alternative candidate and confirmed Jenkinson as prime minister on 8 June. Although initially reluctant to take office, he accepted position out of duty as an experienced government minister and administrator. Only a few expected his premiership to last long as his government seemed to appear insecure. Fortunately major opposition from the Whigs was minimal since it was weakened and divided. He was able to rely on the military talents of the Duke of Wellington and the political support of Lord Sidmouth and Castlereagh.

The Liverpool government
Liverpool's government included some of the future leaders of Britain, such as Lord Castlereagh, George Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel, and William Huskisson. Liverpool was considered an experienced and skilled politician, and held together the liberal and reactionary wings of the Tory party, which his successors, Canning, Goderich and Wellington, had great difficulty with.

Liverpool's ministers were highly talented, with six of the next ten prime ministers having served under him. His most notable colleagues, such as Castlereagh, Canning, and Peel, are often credited with the government's successes. Liverpool was skilled primarily in calming ministerial tensions. A late nineteenth-century biographical dictionary described him as ‘not an able or eloquent man’, but ‘under his mild supremacy politicians of opposite views were content to live on decent terms’.

War
Liverpool's ministry was a long and eventful one. At the beginning of his premiership, Liverpool was faced directly with conflict, the War of 1812 with the United States and the final campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars were fought during Liverpool's governance. It was during his ministry that the Peninsular Campaigns were fought, where the British army led by the Duke of Wellington drove the French out of Spain and Portugal that lasted six years.

Liverpool was personally convinced of the significance of the campaign. When Wellington complained about the campaign's management and lack of funds, he assured him that there was strong agreement with particular focus on Portugal with the government prioritising the Iberian Peninsula over other theatres like Sicily and the Italian peninsula, except when necessary. Only after 1813, as Napoleonic power waned, did the Cabinet turn its attention to Italy, capturing Genoa in April 1814. Liverpool's administration aimed to unite the continent’s combined military force against France with heavy financial and military support were provided to the allies which costed £13 million from March to November 1813.

France was utterly defeated in the Napoleonic Wars, and Liverpool was appointed to the Order of the Garter that same year. At the peace negotiations that followed, Liverpool's main concern was to obtain a European settlement that would ensure the independence of the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, and confine France inside its pre-war frontiers without damaging its national integrity. To achieve this, he was ready to return all British colonial conquests. Earlier, Liverpool objected to handing over British colonial conquests acquired during the war due to fears of public criticism. In response, Castlereagh famously said ‘it is not our business to collect trophies, but to try [to] bring back the world to peaceful habits.’ Within this broad framework, he gave Castlereagh a discretion at the Congress of Vienna, the next most important event of his ministry. At the congress, he gave prompt approval for Castlereagh's bold initiative in making the defensive alliance with Austria and France in January 1815. In the aftermath of the defeat of Napoleon – who had briefly been exiled to the island Elba, but had escaped exile and returned to rule France. The allies immediately began mobilising their armies to fight the escaped emperor and a combined Anglo-Allied army was sent under the command of Wellington to assist Britain's allies. Within a few months, Napoleon was decisively defeated at Waterloo in June that year, after many years of war, peace followed through the now exhausted continent.

The Corn Laws
Inevitably taxes rose to compensate for borrowing and to pay off the national debt, which led to widespread disturbance between 1812 and 1822. Around this time, the group known as Luddites began industrial action, by smashing industrial machines developed for use in the textile industries of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. Throughout the period 1811–1816, there was a series of incidents of machine-breaking and many of those convicted faced execution.

Agriculture remained a problem because good harvests between 1819 and 1822 had brought down prices and evoked a cry for greater protection. When the powerful agricultural lobby in Parliament demanded protection in the aftermath, Liverpool gave in to political necessity. Under governmental supervision the notorious Corn Laws of 1815 were passed prohibiting the import of foreign wheat until the domestic price reached a minimum accepted level. Liverpool, however, was in principle a free-trader, but had to accept the bill as a temporary measure to ease the transition to peacetime conditions. His chief economic problem during his time as Prime Minister was that of the nation's finances. Later historian Robert Blake called the Corn Laws “one of the most naked pieces of class legislation in British history.”

The interest on the national debt, massively swollen by the enormous expenditure of the final war years, together with the war pensions, absorbed the greater part of normal government revenue. The refusal of the House of Commons in 1816 to continue the wartime income tax left ministers with no immediate alternative but to go on with the ruinous system of borrowing to meet necessary annual expenditure. Liverpool eventually facilitated a return to the gold standard in 1819.

Liverpool argued for the abolition of the wider slave trade at the Congress of Vienna, and at home he supported the repeal of the Combination Laws banning workers from combining into trade unions in 1824. In the latter year the newly formed Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later the RNLI, obtained Liverpool as its first president.

Dissent and repression
Liverpool and his government faced significant public disturbances with the Spa Fields Riots in 1816, the Derbyshire Rising and March of the Blanketeers in 1817 and the infamous Peterloo Massacre in 1819. A primary cause of the events being unrest unemployment, exacerbated by the end of wartime industry contracts and the demobilisation of soldiers with the end of the war that rendered many workers, particularly hand-loom weavers, redundant. Additionally, living and working conditions in new industrial towns were deplorable.

In the countryside, conditions were even worse. Enclosure and population pressure drove many rural workers to move to towns, while those who stayed faced poor wages and harsh living conditions. In southern England, wages were so low that workers relied on the Poor Law under the Speenhamland System to supplement their income. This economic hardship contributed significantly to the widespread discontent during this period.

Government policies further fueled discontent with passing of the Corn Laws in 1815, keeping bread prices high, making it difficult for the poor to afford basic sustenance. The abolition of income tax in 1816 led to a rise in indirect taxes, which disproportionately affected the poorer population. These policies added to the financial strain on the already struggling working class.

In response to growing discontent, Liverpool and his ministers, fearing a revolutionary outbreak similar to the French Revolution of 1789, implemented repressive measures to maintain order. Habeas corpus was suspended, and the Seditious Meetings Act was passed in 1817 to curb public gatherings. Spies were sent to monitor industrial areas with high levels of discontent, and troops were deployed to disperse crowds, notably at the Peterloo Massacre. This later led to criticism and he was despised as the most repressive leader the country ever had to that point.

The government also enacted the Six Acts in 1819, which increased magistrates' powers to search, arrest, and try political cases without a jury. Additionally, the stamp duty on journals was increased to make publications like Cobbett’s Political Register too expensive for working men. Despite these measures, the powers granted by the Six Acts were not widely used, but the overall approach underscored the government's commitment to suppressing dissent through repression.

By 1824, the Vagrancy Act was also passed by Liverpool’s government with individuals being broadly categorised as “idle and disorderly Persons, and rogues and vagabonds,” with fortune tellers, common prostitutes, and destitute former soldiers and sailors struggling to survive, were subject to imprisonment and hard labor for unlawful conduct.

Assassination attempt
The reports of the secret committees he obtained in 1817 pointed to the existence of an organised network of disaffected political societies, especially in the manufacturing areas. Liverpool told Peel that the disaffection in the country seemed even worse than in 1794. Because of a largely perceived threat to the government, temporary legislation was introduced. He suspended habeas corpus in both Great Britain (1817) and Ireland (1822). Following the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, his government imposed the repressive Six Acts legislation which limited, among other things, free speech and the right to gather for peaceful demonstration. In 1820, as a result of these measures, Liverpool and other cabinet ministers were targeted for assassination. They escaped harm when the Cato Street conspiracy was foiled.

Liberal reforms
As a part of the Liverpool government’s new liberal agenda, it regulating child labor with passing the Cotton Mills Act in 1819, which prohibited the employment of children under 9 in cotton factories and limited their workday to 12 hours until the age of 16.

After 1822, Lord Liverpool's government began a significant shift toward liberal policies as a result of the influence exerted by the “enlightened” faction of the Tory Party. The shift is evident in the repealing of harsher punishments in the Penal Code, which initially listed 200 crimes punishable by death. Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, was instrumental in introducing moderate reform with legislation that addressed 75% of all criminal offences, significantly reduced the number of crimes punishable by capital punishment, and abolished the Six Acts. Additionally, Peel introduced the Gaols Act 1823, which mandated regular visits by prison chaplains and ensured that gaolers received payment, moving them away from dependency on inmates for their income.

By 1824, the government also effectively nullified the Combination Acts. Francis Place and Joseph Hume successfully established a Select Committee of Inquiry chaired by William Huskisson, which found the Combination Acts fostered mutual distrust and violent behaviour. Place observed that the bills passed with little opposition, as Hume wisely chose not to debate them publicly.

Following the repeal, public unrest intensified with a surge in trade union activity which caused strikes and violence leading to Place criticising the government's decision to reevaluate trade union laws, especially condemning Huskisson for his alarmist stance and absence from debates. In 1825, the government responded by reinforcing the Conspiracy Laws and amending the repeal legislation to restrict the purposes of labor movements.

Economic policy
Liverpool’s tenure after 1815 coincided with the country facing a severe financial strain due to long-term wartime spending, leading to high and unpopular taxation and the circulation of ‘cheap’ paper money since 1797. Income tax, which accounted for about a fifth of government revenue, and indirect taxes, which raised food prices and affected the working class unfairly, were critical components of the financial system. The government’s expenditure in 1814-1815 exceeded its tax income by 45%, and the national debt had surged to £902 million by 1816, with 80% of expenditure needed to pay loan interest.

To address the financial instability, Liverpool began reducing public spending and paying off debts, known as retrenchment. Transitioning to lower peacetime taxation required an indefinite time, and income tax was central to achieving financial stability. Despite its unpopularity, income tax was abolished in 1816 after a successful campaign by the Whigs, which led Liverpool to cut government spending, borrow funds, and increase indirect taxes to compensate for the lost income.

Abolishing income tax, forced Liverpool to implement austerity measures, including reducing military spending and cutting official salaries. Despite these cuts, by 1818, most government revenue was consumed by debt interest and pensions for veterans. Liverpool then established a Select Committee on Currency, which recommended a return to the Gold Standard by 1823. This transition, completed ahead of schedule in 1821, helped stabilise the economy, though it faced mixed reactions from various economic sectors.

However by 1818, Liverpool achieved a balanced budget, but the need to borrow money to service existing debts persisted, leading to rising interest rates and a growing National Debt. Criticism from the radical press, landowners, and industrialists highlighted the need for financial reform. A second committee’s review of government finance led to his Chancellor, Nicholas Vansittart, introducing the 1819 budget, which introduced new taxes and used government reserves to balance the budget which established fiscal principles aimed at maintaining a surplus of tax income over government spending and restoring public confidence in the government’s finances.

Liverpool was an advocate of free trade and laissez-faire capitalism, in which pretence he supported measures to move the country towards close economic relations with Europe and the United States. Before 1823, British trade was governed by restrictive protectionist laws with imported goods being subject to varying duties. That year, under the oversight of the President of the Board of Trade, Huskisson introduced a significant change by implementing a uniform 30% tariff and eased the Navigation Acts, allowing British colonies to engage in direct trade with other nations using their own ships, while still paying taxes to Britain. In 1824, the government further lowered tariffs on rum, wool, and raw silk, followed by reductions on coffee, cotton, copper ore, iron ore, glass, and paper in 1825.

Catholic emancipation
During the 19th century, and, in particular, during Liverpool's time in office, Catholic emancipation was a source of great conflict. In 1805, in his first important statement of his views on the subject, Liverpool had argued that the special relationship of the monarch with the Church of England, and the refusal of Roman Catholics to take the oath of supremacy, justified their exclusion from political power. Throughout his career, he remained opposed to the idea of Catholic emancipation, though he did see marginal concessions as important to the stability of the nation.

The decision of 1812 to remove the issue from collective cabinet policy, followed in 1813 by the defeat of Grattan's Roman Catholic Relief Bill, brought a period of calm. Liverpool supported marginal concessions such as the admittance of English Roman Catholics to the higher ranks of the armed forces, the magistracy, and the parliamentary franchise; but he remained opposed to their participation in parliament itself. In the 1820s, pressure from the liberal wing of the Commons and the rise of the Catholic Association in Ireland revived the controversy.

By the date of Sir Francis Burdett's Catholic Relief Bill in 1825, emancipation looked a likely success. Indeed, the success of the bill in the Commons in April, followed by Robert Peel's tender of resignation, finally persuaded Liverpool that he should retire. When Canning made a formal proposal that the cabinet should back the bill, Liverpool was convinced that his administration had come to its end. George Canning then succeeded him as prime minister. Catholic emancipation however was not fully implemented until the major changes of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 under the leadership of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, and with the work of the Catholic Association established in 1823.

Resignation
After suffering a stroke on 27 February 1827, Liverpool was left incapacitated and incapable of effectively running the government. The King's appointment of Canning as Prime Minister led to the mass resignations of prominent conservative politicians and five members of the current government, which forced him to a form a government of moderate Tories and Whigs that lasted 119 days until his death.

Retirement and death
Jenkinson's first wife, Louisa, died at 54. He married again on 24 September 1822 to Mary Jenkinson, Countess of Liverpool. Jenkinson finally retired on 9 April 1827 after suffering a severe cerebral hemorrhage at his Fife House residence in Whitehall two months earlier, and asked the King to seek a successor. He suffered another minor stroke in July, after which he lingered on at Coombe, Kingston upon Thames until a third attack on 4 December 1828 from which he died. Having died childless, he was succeeded as Earl of Liverpool by his younger half-brother Charles Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool. Jenkinson was buried in Church of St Mary, Hawkesbury beside his father and his first wife.

Legacy
Robert William Seton-Watson sums up Jenkinson's strengths and weaknesses: "No one would claim Liverpool as a man of genius, but he had qualities of tact, firmness and endurance to which historians have rarely done full justice: and thus it came about that he held the office of Premier over a period more than twice as long as any other successor of Pitt, long after peace had been restored to Europe. One reason for his ascendancy was that he had an unrivalled insight into the whole machinery of government, having filled successively every Secretaryship of State, and tested the efficiency and mutual relations of politicians and officials alike.... He had a much wider acquaintance with foreign affairs than many who have held his high office."

John W. Derry says Jenkinson was: "[A] capable and intelligent statesman, whose skill in building up his party, leading the country to victory in the war against Napoleon, and laying the foundations for prosperity outweighed his unpopularity in the immediate post-Waterloo years."

According to Norman Gash, Liverpool possessed two distinct traits: his staunch conservatism and his role as a capable administrator, both that contribute to his relatively minor position in historical accounts. As a conservative, Liverpool adhered rigidly to his principles for three decades, resisting pressures for reform and reaction alike. He maintained a firm stance on issues such as Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, economic and foreign policies, support for trade outdone by pragmatism. This likely led to his historical neglect and unfavourable reputation, particularly as his death marked the end of Tory dominance and ushered a period of rapid change and liberal leadership that overshadowed his legacy. The prevailing historical narrative, often written by reformist and liberal-minded individuals led to Liverpool's disdainful assessment.

Although he resisted major reform and his pragmatic innovations may seem insignificant, his advocacy for free-market principles and reluctance to embrace protectionism may have indirectly influenced the 19th-century economic boom. Additionally, his aversion to adopting true party politics in Parliament might have had its merits. Despite his firm control over power, Liverpool's tenure as Prime Minister is viewed as one of mediocrity due to his lack of assertiveness in shaping events in contrast to figures like Wellington who were more reactionary. Ironically, the later Conservative (i.e Tory) Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli criticised Liverpool harshly, labelling him as "the arch mediocrity" which stemmed from Liverpool's failure to impose significant changes, despite achievements in foreign and economic policy.

Jenkinson was the first British prime minister to regularly wear long trousers instead of breeches. He was also the first prime minister to cut his hair short instead of wearing a wig or wearing long hair in a queue. He entered office at the age of 42 years and one day, making him younger than all of his successors. Liverpool served as prime minister for a total of 14 years and 305 days, making him the longest-serving prime minister of the 19th century. As of 2023, none of Liverpool's successors has served longer. He is third only to William Pitt the Younger and Robert Walpole who each served longer tenures.

In London, Liverpool Street and Liverpool Road, Islington, are named after Lord Liverpool. The Canadian town of Hawkesbury, Ontario, the Hawkesbury River and the Liverpool Plains, New South Wales, Australia, Liverpool, New South Wales, and the Liverpool River in the Northern Territory of Australia were also named after Lord Liverpool.

Lord Liverpool, as Prime Minister to whose government Nathan Mayer Rothschild was a lender, was portrayed by American actor Gilbert Emery in the 1934 film The House of Rothschild. Liverpool was also portrayed by André van Gyseghem in 1979 mini-series the Prince Regent  and by Robert Wilfort in the 2018 film Peterloo .

Lord Liverpool's ministry (1812–1827)

 * Lord Liverpool – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
 * Lord Eldon – Lord Chancellor
 * Lord Harrowby – Lord President of the Council
 * Lord Westmorland – Lord Privy Seal
 * Lord Sidmouth – Secretary of State for the Home Department
 * Lord Castlereagh (Lord Londonderry after 1821) – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Commons
 * Lord Bathurst – Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
 * Lord Melville – First Lord of the Admiralty
 * Nicholas Vansittart – Chancellor of the Exchequer
 * Lord Mulgrave – Master-General of the Ordnance
 * Lord Buckinghamshire – President of the Board of Control
 * Charles Bathurst – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
 * Lord Camden – minister without portfolio

Changes

 * Late 1812 – Lord Camden leaves the Cabinet
 * September 1814 – William Wellesley-Pole (Lord Maryborough from 1821), the Master of the Mint, enters the Cabinet
 * February 1816 – George Canning succeeds Lord Buckinghamshire at the Board of Control
 * January 1818 – F. J. Robinson, the President of the Board of Trade, enters the Cabinet
 * January 1819 – The Duke of Wellington succeeds Lord Mulgrave as Master-General of the Ordnance. Lord Mulgrave becomes minister without portfolio
 * 1820 – Lord Mulgrave leaves the cabinet
 * January 1821 – Charles Bathurst succeeds Canning as President of the Board of Control, remaining also at the Duchy of Lancaster
 * January 1822 – Robert Peel succeeds Lord Sidmouth as Home Secretary
 * February 1822 – Charles Williams-Wynn succeeds Charles Bathurst at the Board of Control. Bathurst remains at the Duchy of Lancaster and in the Cabinet
 * September 1822 – Following the suicide of Lord Londonderry, George Canning becomes Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons
 * January 1823 – Vansittart, elevated to the peerage as Lord Bexley, succeeds Charles Bathurst as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. F. J. Robinson succeeds Vansittart as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is succeeded at the Board of Trade by William Huskisson
 * 1823 – Lord Maryborough, the Master of the Mint, leaves the Cabinet. His successor in the office is not a Cabinet member