Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke
Portrait by Joshua Reynolds c. 1769
Rector of the University of Glasgow
In office
1783–1785
Preceded byHenry Dundas
Succeeded byRobert Bontine
Paymaster of the Forces
In office
16 April 1783 – 8 January 1784
Prime Minister
Preceded byIsaac Barré
Succeeded byWilliam Grenville
In office
10 April 1782 – 1 August 1782
Prime MinisterThe Marquess of Rockingham
Preceded byRichard Rigby
Succeeded byIsaac Barré
Member of Parliament
for Malton
In office
18 October 1780 – 20 June 1794
Serving with
Preceded bySavile Finch
Succeeded byRichard Burke Jr.
Member of Parliament
for Bristol
In office
4 November 1774 – 6 September 1780
Serving with Henry Cruger
Preceded byMatthew Brickdale
Succeeded byHenry Lippincott
Member of Parliament
for Wendover
In office
December 1765 – 5 October 1774
Serving with
  • Richard Chandler-Cavendish
  • Robert Darling
  • Joseph Bullock
Preceded byVerney Lovett
Succeeded byJohn Adams
Personal details
Born(1729-01-12)12 January 1729
Dublin, Ireland[1]
Died9 July 1797(1797-07-09) (aged 68)
Beaconsfield, England
Political partyWhig (Rockinghamite)
Spouse
Jane Mary Nugent
(m. 1757)
ChildrenRichard Burke Jr.
EducationTrinity College Dublin
Middle Temple
OccupationWriter, politician, journalist, philosopher

Philosophy career
Notable work
EraAge of Enlightenment
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolConservatism
Liberalism
Counter-Enlightenment
Romanticism
InstitutionsLiterary Club (co-founder)
Main interests
Notable ideas
Signature

Edmund Burke (/ˈbɜːrk/; 12 January [NS] 1729[2] – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher who spent most of his career in Great Britain. Born in Dublin, Burke served as a member of Parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party.

Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state.[3] These views were expressed in his A Vindication of Natural Society (1756). He criticised the actions of the British government towards the American colonies, including its taxation policies. Burke also supported the rights of the colonists to resist metropolitan authority, although he opposed the attempt to achieve independence. He is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and his staunch opposition to the French Revolution.

In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke asserted that the revolution was destroying the fabric of "good" society and traditional institutions of state and society, and he condemned the persecution of the Catholic Church that resulted from it. This led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig Party which he dubbed the Old Whigs as opposed to the pro–French Revolution New Whigs led by Charles James Fox.[4]

In the 19th century, Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals.[5] Subsequently, in the 20th century, he became widely regarded, especially in the United States, as the philosophical founder of conservatism.[6][7]

  1. ^ "Edmund Burke". Library Ireland. Archived from the original on 20 October 2017.
  2. ^ The exact year of his birth is the subject of a great deal of controversy; 1728, 1729, and 1730 have been proposed. The month and day of his birth also are subject to question, a problem compounded by the JulianGregorian changeover in 1752, during his lifetime. For a fuller treatment of the question, see F. P. Lock, Edmund Burke. Volume I: 1730–1784 (Clarendon Press, 1999), pp. 16–17. Conor Cruise O'Brien (2008; p. 14) questions Burke's birthplace as having been in Dublin, arguing in favour of Shanballymore, Co. Cork (in the house of his uncle, James Nagle).
  3. ^ Richard Bourke, Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 220–221, passim.
  4. ^ Burke lived before the terms "conservative" and "liberal" were used to describe political ideologies, cf. J. C. D. Clark, English Society, 1660–1832 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 5, 301.
  5. ^ Dennis O'Keeffe; John Meadowcroft (2009). Edmund Burke. Continuum. p. 93. ISBN 978-0826429780.
  6. ^ Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Third Edition. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 74.
  7. ^ F. P. Lock, Edmund Burke. Volume II: 1784–1797 (Clarendon Press, 2006), p. 585.