thumb|Garter-encircled arms of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC, FRS, DL

Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury ( ); known as Lord Salisbury; (3 February 1830 – 22 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen years. He was also Foreign Secretary before and during most of his tenure. He avoided international alignments or alliances, maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation".

Lord Robert Cecil, later known as Lord Salisbury, was first elected to the House of Commons in 1854 and served as Secretary of State for India in Lord Derby's Conservative government 1866–1867. In 1874, under Disraeli, Salisbury returned as Secretary of State for India, and, in 1878, was appointed foreign secretary, and played a leading part in the Congress of Berlin. After Disraeli's death in 1881, Salisbury emerged as the Conservative leader in the House of Lords, with Sir Stafford Northcote leading the party in the Commons. He succeeded William Ewart Gladstone as prime minister in June 1885, and held the office until January 1886.

When Gladstone came out in favour of Home Rule for Ireland later that year, Salisbury opposed him and formed an alliance with the breakaway Liberal Unionists, winning the subsequent 1886 general election. His biggest achievement in this term was obtaining the majority of the new territory in Africa during the Scramble for Africa, avoiding a war or serious confrontation with the other powers. He remained as prime minister until Gladstone's Liberals formed a government with the support of the Irish nationalists at the 1892 general election. The Liberals, however, lost the 1895 general election, and Salisbury for the third and last time became prime minister. He led Britain to victory in a bitter, controversial war against the Boers, and led the Unionists to another electoral victory in 1900. He relinquished the premiership to his nephew Arthur Balfour in 1902 and died in 1903. He was the last prime minister to serve from the House of Lords throughout the entirety of their premiership.

Historians agree that Salisbury was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs, with a wide grasp of the issues. Paul Smith characterises his personality as "deeply neurotic, depressive, agitated, introverted, fearful of change and loss of control, and self-effacing but capable of extraordinary competitiveness." A representative of the landed aristocracy, he held the reactionary credo, "Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible." Searle says that instead of seeing his party's victory in 1886 as a harbinger of a new and more popular Conservatism, Salisbury longed to return to the stability of the past, when his party's main function was to restrain what he saw as demagogic liberalism and democratic excess. He is generally ranked in the upper tier of British prime ministers.

Early life: 1830–1852

Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil was born on 3 February 1830 at Hatfield House, the third son of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury and Frances Mary, née Gascoyne. He was a patrilineal descendant of Lord Burghley and the 1st Earl of Salisbury, chief ministers of Elizabeth I. The family-owned vast rural estates in Hertfordshire and Dorset. This wealth increased sharply in 1821, when his father married his mother, Frances Mary Gascoyne, heiress of a wealthy merchant and Member of Parliament who had bought large estates in Essex and Lancashire.

Robert had a miserable childhood, with few friends, and filled his time with reading. He was bullied unmercifully at the schools he attended. His unhappy schooling shaped his pessimistic outlook on life and his negative views on democracy. He decided that most people were cowardly and cruel, and that the mob would run roughshod over sensitive individuals.

On 2 August when the Commons debated the Orissa famine in India, Cranborne spoke out against experts, political economy, and the government of Bengal. Utilising the Blue Books, Cranborne criticised officials for "walking in a dream... in superb unconsciousness, believing that what had been must be, and that as long as they did nothing absolutely wrong, and they did not displease their immediate superiors, they had fulfilled all the duties of their station". These officials worshipped political economy "as a sort of 'fetish'... [they] seemed to have forgotten utterly that human life was short, and that man did not subsist without food beyond a few days". Three-quarters of a million people had died because officials had chosen "to run the risk of losing the lives than to run the risk of wasting the money". Cranborne's speech was received with "an enthusiastic, hearty cheer from both sides of the House" and Mill crossed the floor of the Commons to congratulate him on it. The famine left Cranborne with a lifelong suspicion of experts and in the photograph albums at his home covering the years 1866–67 there are two images of skeletal Indian children amongst the family pictures. In 1869 he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Secretary of State for India: 1874–1878

Salisbury returned to government in 1874, serving once again as Secretary of State for India in the government of Benjamin Disraeli, and Britain's Ambassador Plenipotentiary at the 1876 Constantinople Conference. Salisbury gradually developed a good relationship with Disraeli, whom he had previously disliked and mistrusted.

During a Cabinet meeting on 7 March 1878, a discussion arose over whether to occupy Mytilene. Lord Derby recorded in his diary that "[o]f all present Salisbury by far the most eager for action: he talked of our sliding into a position of contempt: of our being humiliated etc." At the Cabinet meeting the next day, Derby recorded that Lord John Manners objected to occupying the city "on the ground of right. Salisbury treated scruples of this kind with marked contempt, saying, truly enough, that if our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made. He was more vehement than any one for going on. In the end the project was dropped..."

Foreign Secretary: 1878–1880

In 1878, Salisbury became foreign secretary in time to help lead Britain to "peace with honour" at the Congress of Berlin. For this, he was rewarded with the Order of the Garter along with Disraeli.

Leader of the Opposition: 1881–1885

Following Disraeli's death in 1881, the Conservatives entered a period of turmoil. The party's previous leaders had all been appointed as prime minister by the reigning monarch on advice from their retiring predecessor, and no process was in place to deal with leadership succession in case either the leadership became vacant while the party was in opposition, or the outgoing leader died without designating a successor, situations which both arose from the death of Disraeli (a formal leadership election system would not be adopted by the party until 1964, shortly after the government of Alec Douglas-Home fell). Salisbury became the leader of the Conservative members of the House of Lords, though the overall leadership of the party was not formally allocated. So he struggled with the Commons leader Sir Stafford Northcote, a struggle in which Salisbury eventually emerged as the leading figure. Historian Richard Shannon argues that while Salisbury presided over one of the longest periods of Tory dominance, he misinterpreted and mishandled his election successes. Salisbury's blindness to the middle class and reliance on the aristocracy prevented the Conservatives from becoming a majority party.

thumb|right|Lord Salisbury, 1886

Reform Act 1884

In 1884 Gladstone introduced a Reform Bill which would extend the suffrage to two million rural workers. Salisbury and Northcote agreed that any Reform Bill would be supported only if a parallel redistributionary measure was introduced as well. In a speech in the Lords, Salisbury claimed: "Now that the people have in no real sense been consulted, when they had, at the last General Election, no notion of what was coming upon them, I feel that we are bound, as guardians of their interests, to call upon the government to appeal to the people, and by the result of that appeal we will abide". The Lords rejected the Bill and Parliament was prorogued for ten weeks.

On 21 July, a large meeting for reform was held at Hyde Park. Salisbury said in The Times that "the employment of mobs as an instrument of public policy is likely to prove a sinister precedent". On 23 July at Sheffield, Salisbury said that the government "imagine that thirty thousand Radicals going to amuse themselves in London on a given day expresses the public opinion of the day...they appeal to the streets, they attempt legislation by picnic". Salisbury further claimed that Gladstone adopted reform as a "cry" to deflect attention from his foreign and economic policies at the next election. He claimed that the House of Lords was protecting the British constitution: "I do not care whether it is an hereditary chamber or any other – to see that the representative chamber does not alter the tenure of its own power so as to give a perpetual lease of that power to the party in predominance at the moment".

On 25 July at a reform meeting in Leicester consisting of 40,000 people, Salisbury was burnt in effigy and a banner quoted Shakespeare's Henry VI: "Old Salisbury – shame to thy silver hair, Thou mad misleader". On 9 August in Manchester, over 100,000 came to hear Salisbury speak. On 30 September at Glasgow, he said: "We wish that the franchise should pass but that before you make new voters you should determine the constitution in which they are to vote".

Foreign policy

Salisbury once again kept the foreign office (from January 1887), and his diplomacy continued to display a high level of skill, avoiding the extremes of Gladstone on the left and Disraeli on the right. His policy rejected entangling alliances–which at the time and ever since has been called "splendid isolation". He was successful in negotiating differences over colonial claims with France and others. The major problems were in the Mediterranean, where British interests had been involved for a century. It was now especially important to protect the Suez Canal and the sea lanes to India and Asia. He ended Britain's isolation through the Mediterranean Agreements (March and December 1887) with Italy and Austria-Hungary. He saw the need for maintaining control of the seas and passed the Naval Defence Act 1889, which facilitated the spending of an extra £20 million on the Royal Navy over the following four years. This was the biggest ever expansion of the navy in peacetime: ten new battleships, thirty-eight new cruisers, eighteen new torpedo boats and four new fast gunboats. Traditionally (since the Battle of Trafalgar) Britain had possessed a navy one-third larger than their nearest naval rival but now the Royal Navy was set to the two-power standard; that it would be maintained "to a standard of strength equivalent to that of the combined forces of the next two biggest navies in the world".

Domestic policy

In 1889 Salisbury set up the London County Council and then in 1890 allowed it to build houses. However, he came to regret this, saying in November 1894 that the LCC, "is the place where collectivist and socialistic experiments are tried. It is the place where a new revolutionary spirit finds its instruments and collects its arms".

Documents in the Foreign Office archives revealed that Salisbury was made aware of a rape in 1891 and other atrocities carried out against women and children in the Niger Delta by Consul George Annesley and his soldiers but took no action against Annesley, who was "quietly pensioned off."

Leader of the Opposition: 1892–1895

thumb|Salisbury photographed in 1893

In the aftermath of the general election of 1892, Balfour and Chamberlain wished to pursue a programme of social reform, which Salisbury believed would alienate "a good many people who have always been with us" and that "these social questions are destined to break up our party". presenting a notable inaugural address on 4 August of that year. The general election of 1895 returned a large Unionist majority.

Foreign policy

In foreign affairs, Salisbury was challenged worldwide. The long-standing policy of "Splendid isolation" had left Britain with no allies and few friends. In Europe, Germany was worrisome regarding its growing industrial and naval power, Kaiser Wilhelm's erratic foreign policy, and the instability caused by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. France was threatening British control of Sudan. In the Americas, for domestic political reasons, U.S. President Grover Cleveland manufactured a quarrel over Venezuela's border with British Guiana. In South Africa conflict was threatening with the two Boer republics. In the Great Game in Central Asia, the line that separated Russia and British India in 1800 was narrowing. In China the British economic dominance was threatened by other powers that wanted to control slices of China.

thumb|upright=1.4|President Cleveland twists the tail of the British Lion regarding Venezuela—a policy hailed by Irish Catholics in the United States; cartoon in Puck by J.S. Pughe, 1895

The tension with Germany had subsided in 1890 after a deal exchanged German holdings in East Africa for an island off the German coast. However, with peace-minded Bismarck retired by an aggressive new Kaiser, tensions rose and negotiations faltered. France retreated in Africa after the British dominated in the Fashoda Incident. The Venezuela crisis was settled amicably and London and Washington became friendly after Salisbury gave Washington what it wanted in the Alaska boundary dispute. The Open Door Policy and a 1902 treaty with Japan resolved the China crisis. However, in South Africa a nasty Boer war broke out in 1899 and for a few months it seemed the Boers were winning.

Venezuela crisis with the United States

In 1895 the Venezuelan crisis with the United States erupted. A border dispute between the colony of British Guiana and Venezuela caused a major Anglo-American crisis when the United States intervened to take Venezuela's side. Propaganda sponsored by Venezuela convinced American public opinion that the British were infringing on Venezuelan territory. The United States demanded an explanation and Salisbury refused. The crisis escalated when President Cleveland, citing the Monroe Doctrine, issued an ultimatum in late 1895. Salisbury's cabinet convinced him he had to go to arbitration. Both sides calmed down and the issue was quickly resolved through arbitration which largely upheld the British position on the legal boundary line. Salisbury remained angry but a consensus was reached in London, led by Lord Landsdowne, to seek much friendlier relations with the United States. By standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of the British, the US improved relations with the Latin Americans, and the cordial manner of the procedure improved American diplomatic relations with Britain. Despite the popularity of the Boers in American public opinion, official Washington supported London in the Second Boer War.

Africa

An Anglo-German agreement (1890) resolved conflicting claims in East Africa; Great Britain received large territories in Zanzibar and Uganda in exchange for the small island of Helgoland in the North Sea. Negotiations with Germany on broader issues failed. In January 1896 German Kaiser Wilhelm II escalated tensions in South Africa with his Kruger telegram congratulating Boer President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal for beating off the British Jameson Raid. German officials in Berlin had managed to stop the Kaiser from proposing a German protectorate over the Transvaal. The telegram backfired, as the British began to see Germany as a major threat. The British moved their forces from Egypt south into Sudan in 1898, securing complete control of that troublesome region. However, a strong British force unexpectedly confronted a small French military expedition at Fashoda. Salisbury quickly resolved the tensions, and systematically moved toward friendlier relations with France.

Second Boer War

After gold was discovered in the South African Republic (called Transvaal) in the 1880s, thousands of British men flocked to the gold mines. Transvaal and its sister republic the Orange Free State were small, rural, independent nations founded by Afrikaners, who descended from Dutch immigrants to the area before 1800. The newly arrived miners were needed for their labour and business operations but were distrusted by the Afrikaners, who called them "uitlanders". The uitlanders heavily outnumbered the Boers in cities and mining districts; they had to pay heavy taxes, and had limited civil rights and no right to vote. The British, jealous of the gold and diamond mines and highly protective of its people, demanded reforms, which were rejected. A small-scale private British effort to overthrow Transvaal's President Paul Kruger, the Jameson Raid of 1895, was a fiasco and presaged full-scale conflict as all diplomatic efforts failed.

War started on 11 October 1899 and ended on 31 May 1902 as Great Britain faced the two small far-away Boer nations. The Prime Minister let his extremely energetic colonial minister Joseph Chamberlain take charge of the war. British efforts were based from its Cape Colony and the Colony of Natal. There were some native African allies, but generally, both sides avoided using black soldiers. The British war effort was further supported by volunteers from across the Empire. All other nations were neutral, but public opinion in them was largely hostile to Britain. Inside Britain and its Empire there also was a significant opposition to the Second Boer War because of the atrocities and military failures.

The British were overconfident and underprepared. Chamberlain and other top London officials ignored the repeated warnings of military advisors that the Boers were well prepared, well armed, and fighting for their homes in a very difficult terrain. The Boers with about 33,000 soldiers, against 13,000 front-line British troops, struck first, besieging Ladysmith, Kimberly, and Mafeking, and winning important battles at Colenso, Magersfontein and Stormberg in late 1899. Staggered, the British fought back, relieved its besieged cities, and prepared to invade first the Orange Free State, and then Transvaal in late 1900. The Boers refused to surrender or negotiate and reverted to guerrilla warfare. After two years of hard fighting, Britain, using over 400,000 soldiers systematically destroyed the resistance, raising worldwide complaints about brutality. The Boers were fighting for their homes and families, who provided them with food and hiding places. The British solution was to forcefully relocate all the Boer civilians into heavily guarded concentration camps, where 28,000 died of disease. Then it systematically blocked off and tracked down the highly mobile Boer combat units. The battles were small operations; most of the 22,000 British dead were victims of disease. The war cost £217 million and demonstrated the Army urgently needed reforms but it ended in victory for the British and the Conservatives won the Khaki election of 1900. The Boers were given generous terms, and both former republics were incorporated into the Union of South Africa in 1910.

The war had many vehement critics, predominantly in the Liberal Party. However, on the whole, the war was well received by the British public, which staged numerous public demonstrations and parades of support. Soon there were memorials built across Britain. Strong public demand for news coverage meant that the war was well covered by journalists – including young Winston Churchill – and photographers, as well as letter-writers and poets. General Sir Redvers Buller imposed strict censorship and had no friends in the media, who wrote him up as a blundering buffoon. In dramatic contrast, Field Marshal Frederick Roberts pampered the press, which responded by making him a national hero.

German naval issues

In 1897 Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz became German Naval Secretary of State and began the transformation of the Imperial German Navy from a small, coastal defence force to a fleet meant to challenge British naval power. Tirpitz called for a Risikoflotte or "risk fleet" that would make it too risky for Britain to take on Germany as part of a wider bid to alter the international balance of power decisively in Germany's favour. At the same time German foreign minister Bernhard von Bülow called for Weltpolitik (world politics). It was the new policy of Germany to assert its claim to be a global power. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's policy of Realpolitik (realistic politics) was abandoned as Germany was intent on challenging and upsetting international order. The long-run result was the inability of Britain and Germany to be friends or to form an alliance.

Britain reacted to Germany's accelerated naval arms race with major innovations, especially those developed by Admiral Fisher. The most important development was unveiled – after Salisbury's death – the entry of into service in 1906, which rendered all the world's battleships obsolete and set back German plans.

Historians agree that Salisbury was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs. He had a superb grasp of the issues, and was never a "splendid isolationist" but rather, says Nancy W. Ellenberger, was:

Domestic policy

At home he sought to "kill Home Rule with kindness" by launching a land reform programme which helped hundreds of thousands of Irish peasants gain land ownership and largely ended complaints against English landlords. The Elementary School Teachers (Superannuation) Act 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 57) enabled teachers to secure an annuity via the payment of voluntary contributions. The Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act 1899 (62 & 63 Vict. c. 32) permitted school boards to provide for the education of mentally and physically defective and epileptic children.

Honours and retirement

In 1895 and 1900 he was honoured with appointments as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and High Steward of the City and Liberty of Westminster, which he held for life.

On 11 July 1902, in failing health and broken-hearted over the death of his wife, Salisbury resigned. He was succeeded by his nephew, Arthur Balfour. King Edward VII conferred upon him the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO), with the order star set in brilliants, during his resignation audience.

Last year: 1902–1903

Due to breathing difficulties caused by his great weight, Salisbury took to sleeping in a chair at Hatfield House. He also experienced a heart condition and later blood poisoning caused by an ulcerated leg. His death in August 1903 followed a fall from that chair. (equivalent to £ in ).

Legacy

thumb|Monument commemorating Salisbury's burial at St Etheldreda Church, [[Hatfield, Hertfordshire]]

thumb|left|[[Statue of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil|Statue of Salisbury in front of the park gates of Hatfield House]]

Many historians portray Salisbury as a principled statesman of traditional, aristocratic conservatism: a prime minister who promoted cautious imperialism and resisted sweeping parliamentary and franchise reforms. Robert Blake considers Salisbury "a great foreign minister, [but] essentially negative, indeed reactionary in home affairs". Professor P.T. Marsh's estimate is more favourable than Blake's; he portrays Salisbury as a leader who "held back the popular tide for twenty years." Professor Paul Smith argues that, "into the 'progressive' strain of modern Conservatism he simply will not fit." H.C.G. Matthew points to "the narrow cynicism of Salisbury." One admirer, conservative historian Maurice Cowling, largely agrees with the critics and says Salisbury found the democracy born of the 1867 and 1884 Reform Acts as "perhaps less objectionable than he had expected—succeeding, through his public persona, in mitigating some part of its nastiness." Historian Peter T. Marsh states: "In the field of foreign affairs, where he was happiest and most successful, he kept his own counsel and eschewed broad principles of conduct, preferring close-eyed realism and reliability of conduct."

Considerable attention has been devoted to his writings and ideas. The Conservative historian Robert Blake considered Salisbury "the most formidable intellectual figure that the Conservative party has ever produced". In 1977 the Salisbury Group was founded, chaired by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 6th Marquess of Salisbury and named after the 3rd Marquess. It published pamphlets advocating conservative policies. The academic quarterly The Salisbury Review was named in his honour (by Michael Oakeshott) upon its founding in 1982. Cowling claimed that "The giant of conservative doctrine is Salisbury". It was on Cowling's suggestion that Paul Smith edited a collection of Salisbury's articles from the Quarterly Review. Andrew Jones and Michael Bentley wrote in 1978 that "historical inattention" to Salisbury "involves wilful dismissal of a Conservative tradition which recognizes that threat to humanity when ruling authorities engage in democratic flattery and the threat to liberty in a competitive rush of legislation".

In 1967, Clement Attlee (Labour Party prime minister, 1945–1951) was asked who he thought was the best prime minister of his lifetime. Attlee immediately replied: "Salisbury".

The British phrase 'Bob's your uncle' is thought to have derived from Robert Cecil's appointment of his nephew, Arthur Balfour, as Chief Secretary for Ireland.

Fort Salisbury (now Harare) was named in honour of him when it was founded in September 1890. Subsequently, simply known as Salisbury, the city became the capital of Southern Rhodesia, from 1890, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1953 to 1963, Rhodesia from 1963 to 1979, Zimbabwe Rhodesia, in 1979, and finally Zimbabwe, from 1980. The name was changed to Harare by the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in April 1982, on the second anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence. Cecil Square, near to Parliament, was also named after him and not, as is erroneously but popularly thought, after Cecil Rhodes. Other Rhodesian/Zimbabwean connections include the suburbs of Hatfield, Cranborne and New Sarum.

To date he is the only British prime minister to sport a full beard. At tall, he was also the tallest prime minister.

Family and personal life

Lord Salisbury's father, James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury, a minor Conservative politician, wanted him to marry a rich heiress to protect the family's lands. In 1857, he defied his father and instead married Georgina Alderson, the daughter of Sir Edward Alderson, a moderately notable judge of lower social standing than the Cecils, outside the aristocracy or landed gentry. The marriage proved a happy one. Robert and Georgina had eight children, all but one of whom survived infancy. He was an indulgent father and made sure his children had a much better childhood than the one through which he suffered. Cut off from his family money, Robert supported his family through journalism and was later reconciled with his father.24 April 1867)

  • Lord Edward Herbert Cecil (12 July 186713 December 1918); he married Violet Maxse on 18 June 1894. They had two children.
  • Lord Hugh Richard Heathcote Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood (14 October 186910 December 1956)

Salisbury had prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder which makes it difficult to recognise familiar faces.

Cabinets of Lord Salisbury

1885–1886

1886–1892

1895–1902

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  • Salisbury features, with other prominent politicians of the day, in two parody novels based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, namely Caroline Lewis' Clara in Blunderland (1902) and Lost in Blunderland (1903).
  • "Lord Salisbury" is a song by Al Stewart on his 2008 album Sparks of Ancient Light.
  • Lord Salisbury was played by John Gielgud in the 1979 film Murder by Decree.
  • In the 2016 film The Legend of Tarzan, an unnamed prime minister, played by Jim Broadbent, appears briefly. As the film is set in 1890, this should logically be Salisbury; however, the character's appearance greatly resembles Gladstone. -->

See also

  • Victorian era
  • Historiography of the British Empire
  • International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)
  • Splendid isolation
  • Timeline of British diplomatic history

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Adonis, A. Making Aristocracy Work: The Peerage and the Political System in Britain, 1884–1914 (1993).
  • Benians, E.A. et al. eds. The Cambridge History of the British Empire Vol. iii: The Empire – Commonwealth 1870–1919' (1959) p.&nbsp;915 and passim; coverage of Salisbury's foreign and imperial policies; online
  • Bentley, Michael. Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001).
  • Lord Blake and H. Cecil (eds.), Salisbury: The Man and His Policies (1987).
  • Bright, J. Franck. A History of England: Period V. Imperial Reaction Victoria 1880–1901 (vol 5, 1904); detailed political narrative; 295pp; online; also another copy
  • Brumpton, Paul R. Security and Progress: Lord Salisbury at the India Office (Greenwood Press, 2002)
  • Cecil, Algernon. British Foreign Secretaries 1807–1916 (1927) pp 277–314. online
  • Cecil, C. Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (4 volumes, 1921–32). online
  • This is a long biography, written in the context of 1911, with a Conservative point of view.
  • Cooke, A.B. and J. Vincent, The Governing Passion: Cabinet Government and Party Politics in Britain, 1885–86 (1974).
  • Grenville, J. A. S., Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close of the Nineteenth Century (1964). online
  • Jones, A.The Politics of Reform, 1884 (1972).
  • Kennedy, A. L. Salisbury 1830–1903: Portrait of a Statesman (1953).
  • Gibb, Paul. "Unmasterly Inactivity? Sir Julian Pauncefote, Lord Salisbury, and the Venezuela Boundary Dispute." Diplomacy and Statecraft 16#1 (2005): 23–55.
  • Gillard, D.R."Salisbury's African Policy and the Heligoland Offer of 1890," The English Historical Review, Vol. LXXV, 1960.
  • Thomas P. Hughes, "Lord Salisbury's Afghan Policy," The Arena, Vol. VI, 1892.
  • Jones, Andrew, and Michael Bentley, 'Salisbury and Baldwin', in Maurice Cowling. ed., Conservative Essays (Cassell, 1978), pp.&nbsp;25–40.
  • Langer, William L. The Diplomacy of Imperialism: 1890–1902 (2nd ed. 1950), a standard diplomatic history of Europe
  • Lowe, C. J.Salisbury and the Mediterranean, 1886–1896 (1965).
  • Marsh, P. The Discipline of Popular Government: Lord Salisbury's Domestic Statecraft, 1881–1902 (1978).
  • Millman, R. Britain and the Eastern question, 1875–1878 (1979).
  • Otte, T. G. "A question of leadership: Lord Salisbury, the unionist cabinet and foreign policy making, 1895–1900." Contemporary British History 14#4 (2000): 1–26.
  • Otte, T. G. "'Floating Downstream'? Lord Salisbury and British Foreign Policy, 1878–1902", in Otte (ed.), The Makers of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt to Thatcher (Palgrave, 2002), pp.&nbsp;98–127.
  • Paul, Herbert. A History of Modern England (vol 5, 1906), covers 1885–1895. online
  • Penson, Lillian M. "The Principles and Methods of Lord Salisbury's Foreign Policy." Cambridge Historical Journal 5#1 (1935): 87–106. online.
  • Roberts, Andrew. Salisbury: Victorian Titan (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999), a standard scholarly biography; 940pp online
  • Ryan, A. P. "The Marquis of Salisbury' History Today (April 1951) 1#4 pp 30–36; online.
  • Shannon, Richard The Age of Disraeli, 1868–1881: The Rise of Tory Democracy (1992).
  • Shannon, Richard The Age of Salisbury, 1881–1902: Unionism and Empire (1996). 569pp.
  • Seton-Watson, R. W. Britain in Europe, 1789–1914. (1938); comprehensive history online
  • Smith, Paul. 'Cecil, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-, third marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, October 2009, accessed 8 May 2010.
  • Steele, David. Lord Salisbury: A Political biography (1999).
  • Steele, David. "Three British Prime Ministers and the Survival of the Ottoman Empire, 1855–1902." Middle Eastern Studies 50.1 (2014): 43–60.
  • Wang, Shih-tsung. Lord Salisbury and Nationality in the East: Viewing Imperialism in Its Proper Perspective (Routledge, 2019).
  • Warren, Allen. "Lord Salisbury and Ireland, 1859–87: Principles, Ambitions and Strategies." Parliamentary history 26.2 (2007): 203–224.
  • Weston, C. C. The House of Lords and Ideological Politics: Lord Salisbury's Referendal Theory and the Conservative Party, 1846–1922 (1995).

Historiography

  • Ellenberger, Nancy W. "Salisbury" in David Loades, ed. Reader's Guide to British History (2003) 2:1153–55
  • Goodlad, Graham, "Salisbury as Premier: Graham Goodlad Asks Whether Lord Salisbury Deserves His Reputation as One of the Great Victorian Prime Ministers," History Review #49. 2004. pp 3+.
  • Lowry, Donal. The South African War Reappraised (Manchester UP, 2000).
  • Roberts, Andrew. "Salisbury," History Today, (Oct 1999), Vol. 49 Issue 10, p45-51

Primary sources

  • Paul Smith (ed.), Lord Salisbury on Politics. A Selection from His Articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–83 (Cambridge University Press, 1972).
  • John Vincent (ed.), A Selection from the Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (1826–93) between September 1869 and March 1878 (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1994).
  • R. H. Williams (ed.), Salisbury–Balfour Correspondence: Letters Exchanged between the Third Marquess of Salisbury and his nephew Arthur James Balfour, 1869–1892 (1988).
  • Harold Temperley, and Lillian M. Penson, eds; Foundations of British Foreign Policy from Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902); Or, Documents, Old and New (1938)
  • Robert Cecil Salisbury. Essays by the Late Marquess of Salisbury (1905) online
  • Temperley, Harold and L.M. Penson, eds. Foundations of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902) (1938), primary sources pp 365 ff online
  • Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury on the Downing Street website.
  • Salisbury, The Empire Builder Who Never Was – article by Andrew Roberts; historytoday.com
  • Ancestors of Lord Salisbury