Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, was a British statesman, Conservative politician, and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Born Benjamin D’Israeli on 21 December 1804 in Bloomsbury, London, he became one of the most striking political figures of nineteenth-century Britain. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and widening its appeal. He is also remembered for his long rivalry with Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone, his “one-nation conservatism” or “Tory democracy,” and his identification of the Conservatives with the British Empire and military action to expand it.

Disraeli’s background set him apart in British public life. He was the second child and eldest son of Isaac D’Israeli, a literary critic and historian, and Maria Basevi. His family was of Sephardic Jewish mercantile background, with some Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. After a dispute at the Bevis Marks Synagogue, his father renounced Judaism, and Benjamin was baptized into the Church of England at the age of 12. That conversion later mattered in practical political terms, since Members of Parliament were then required to take the oath of allegiance “on the true faith of a Christian.” Disraeli remains the only British prime minister to have been born Jewish.

His education and family life helped shape both his ambition and his self-presentation. He attended schools in Islington, Blackheath, and Higham Hill, receiving what he later called a severely classical education. He regretted that he had not been sent to Winchester College, one of the public schools that supplied many recruits to the political elite. He also later romanticised his family origins, claiming grand Spanish and Venetian descent, though historians have noted that the facts were more middle-class and less dramatic than he suggested. This desire to rise, to style himself, and to command attention ran alongside a genuine literary life. He wrote novels throughout his career, beginning in 1826, and published his last completed novel, Endymion, shortly before his death.

After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. His rise within Conservative politics accelerated after 1846, when Prime Minister Robert Peel split the party over the repeal of the Corn Laws, which ended the tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the Commons and became a major figure in the party. When Lord Derby formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s, Disraeli served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. On Derby’s retirement in 1868, Disraeli became prime minister briefly, then lost that year’s general election and returned to opposition.

Disraeli came back to power after leading the Conservatives to a majority in the 1874 general election. He maintained a close friendship with Queen Victoria, who elevated him to the peerage as Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876. His second premiership was dominated by the Eastern question, including the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the ambitions of Russia and other European powers. He arranged for Britain to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company in Egypt, and in 1878 he worked at the Congress of Berlin to secure peace in the Balkans on terms favourable to Britain and unfavourable to Russia. Later, wars in Afghanistan and South Africa, poor harvests, and cheap imported grain damaged Conservative support, and Gladstone’s Liberals defeated him in 1880. Disraeli died on 19 April 1881, aged 76. His words still carry weight because they came from a life lived between literature and power, outsider status and high office, party combat and world affairs.