Whig beginnings

Back in London, Graham immersed himself in political affairs. Although his father was a staunch Tory he made his headquarters in Brooks's Club where he made many Whig contacts. On 10 June 1818 he announced that he would contest the mercantile borough of Hull. Known at the time as the Yorkshire Dandy on account of his fine appearance and flowery speech, he stood on the Whig doctrine of Parliamentary reform, the abolition of unnecessary positions and pensions, peace, retrenchment, the abolition of the slave trade, and religious and civil liberties. After three days of open voting and official scrutiny, Graham entered parliament as the junior member by a mere four votes. However, he had gained the seat at great personal expense and notwithstanding other donations accrued a debt of £6,000. In January 1820, George IV succeeded thus forcing a dissolution of parliament. As a result of his past support for radical measures he failed to gain the necessary support to retain the Yorkshire seat and in consequence he stood and won the Cornish seat of St Ives, heading the poll with 205 votes. At Westminster, Graham maintained his campaign for economy, generally opposing the Government's proposed increase in the Royal Family's Civil List. However his parliamentary career, although undistinguished, now became brief: when charged with bribing the electorate he resigned rather than contest an expensive suit.^[8]

Agricultural improver

Netherby Hall

Graham returned to Cumberland and began a programme of improving the family estate at Netherby, with the intention that such improvements would benefit both the landowner and the tenant. He began with a one-off gesture, wiping out the arrears of his tenants debts. He reduced the number of small uneconomic farms on the estate; he rebuilt the cottages and farm-buildings, introduced tile drains whereby much marshy land was reclaimed, and improved the breed of stock on the estate, spending in excess of £100,000 over a twenty-year period. He eventually studied the Corn Laws and their effects upon the community, publishing his conclusions in a pamphlet of 114 pages entitled "Corn and Currency", which brought him into prominence as a man of advanced Liberal opinions. He argued that liberal economics rather than protection would best serve the interests of the landowners. High duties on foreign corn had failed to help British agriculture and should be cut to a level where they simply balanced the landowner's taxes and rates. Whereas high prices increased rents to the benefit of the landowners they conferred no advantage to the labourer and were an injury to the productive and a tax on the unproductive classes of the community. His general conclusions were in favour of free trade and free banking.^[9] He was also a founder member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (later RSPCA).^[10]

On 8 July 1819, Graham married Frances ("Fanny") Callander, of Craigforth and Ardkinglas, a famous society beauty. In 1824 he succeeded to the baronetcy.

Representative for Cumberland

Sir James Graham

At the general election of 1826, Graham, who stood upon principles identical to those advocated when contesting Hull, became the senior member for the city of Carlisle. It was a remarkable contest. When Sir Philip Musgrave, 8th Baronet (1794–1827), the Tory candidate, ventured into one of the poorest districts of the city, he was confronted by a group of non-electors seeking his opinions relating to the Corn Laws. When his views failed to meet with their approval he received a storm of abuse followed by a shower of stones, and a general disturbance ensued. Members of the corporation and the constabulary were man-handled and thrown into the Milldam. In the course of the afternoon a detachment of the 55th regiment of Foot appeared to quell the disturbance. The mob received the troops with a volley of stones, the troops reacted with a hail of ball cartridges and when the smoke cleared two young women lay dead and numerous others lay wounded.^[11] In 1828, the death of John Christian Curwen caused a vacancy in the representation of the county of Cumberland. As a result, Graham resigned his seat and entered parliament in an uncontested election on their behalf.^[12] In 1830 the celebrated "Dalston Dinner" took place, a public dinner given to Graham by a number of the freeholders of the county in testimony of their approbation of his conduct in parliament. During the proceedings Graham declared himself a "party man" under the Blue flag of freedom; declaring.

I became a Blue, Blue I am, Blue I have always been, and Blue I trust I shall ever continue to be; I am not ashamed to own it, and God forbid the Blues shall ever have cause to be ashamed of me ... The Tories are a "Court Party" aiming at the advancement of kingly power, while the Whigs, the "Country Party", fought to uphold popular rights, defend popular feelings, and forward the happiness of the people.^[13]

At the end of July, following the dissolution of parliament, Graham and Sir John Lowther both returned for Cumberland. In 1830 he first made a name in the House of Commons by a motion for the reduction of official salaries, and he increased his reputation by an attack on the salaries received by privy councillors. This gave him a position as one of the more advanced reformers, and in November Earl Grey offered him the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. He was also sworn of the Privy Council.^[14] Although this precipitated the need for a new election he was returned unopposed. Graham later became a member of the committee, along with Lord Durham, Lord Duncannon and Lord John Russell charged with the task of compiling and introducing the Great Reform Act of 1832.^[15] From 1832 to 1837 he sat for the eastern division of the county of Cumberland.^[2]

Break with Whiggism

Sir James Graham as a child

By the summer of 1834, Graham had become a successful minister, the navy was reformed, apart from impressments, and seamen's conditions had improved. The Reform Act was assured, and European peace secured. All was well except in Ireland where the unfair system of raising tithes for the church and the problems relating to land tenure prevailed. The discontent of the Irish Catholic majority was strong enough to prevent the collection of tithes to support an antagonistic and as they believed heretical church. Parliament proposed that all compositions for tithes should cease, and that an annual land tax should be paid, out of which provision should be made for the clergy and other tithe owners. As such in 1833, the British Government introduced the Irish Church Temporalities Bill which proposed the administrative and financial restructuring of the Church. The bill sought to reduce the number of both bishoprics and archbishoprics from 22 to 12, to change the structure of the leases of Church lands and to apply the revenues saved by these changes for the use of parishes.^[11] Since Graham believed that the union of the two countries principally rested on the church and that any meddling with the establishment would inevitably lead to its downfall he resigned from the government. He did not act alone, Lord Stanley, Lord Ripon and the Duke of Richmond also tendered their resignations.^[16] He now became a member of the Derby Dilly. In January 1835, notwithstanding criticism from significant parts of the Cumbrian electorate, Graham reassured his supporters that he still favoured peace, retrenchment and reform and in consequence he was returned unopposed at the general election.^[17] On 30 June that year Graham crossed the floor of the House and henceforth sat on the Tory side. Graham now joined the Cumberland Conservative Association, and forsook the Carlisle Journal in favour of the Carlisle Patriot.

Entry to government

In 1838, Sir John Owen, 1st Baronet ordered his son Hugh Owen, MP for Pembroke in Wales, to resign and make way for Graham. Graham won the resulting by-election unopposed and so re-entered Parliament. In 1838 he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow, an award quickly followed with the Freedom of the same city.^[18]

However, Graham's tenure in Pembroke was short-lived. In the 1841 general election, Sir John Owen chose to reclaim Pembroke; Graham felt honour-bound to comply and did not stand. Instead, Robert Williams, MP for Dorchester, stood down in favor of Graham, who was elected unopposed there. Sir Robert Peel became Prime Minister and appointed Graham Home Secretary in his cabinet.

In 1842 Graham tried to improve state education in the industrial districts by replacing the existing Factories Act of 1833. The 1833 Act limited children under 13 to an eight-hour day and provided for two hours of daily compulsory education. Graham's new Factories Bill limited children aged between 8 and 13 to a 6.5 hour workday, with 3.5 hours of education, and women and young persons to a maximum of 12 hours work each day. However, a disagreement between the Anglicans and the Dissenters forced a withdrawal of the measure. Graham re-introduced the bill on 7 March 1843,^[19] Northern reformers expressed a hatred for Graham; after a fierce parliamentary battle, the bill finally received royal assent after both Peel and Graham threatened to resign.

As Home Secretary he incurred considerable odium in Scotland, by his unconciliating policy on the church question prior to the Disruption of 1843.

Mazzini letters

In June 1844, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe brought Parliament's attention to an event where certain letters addressed to a foreign refugee had been opened and copied in the course of transmission through the London Post Office under the warrant of Graham at the Home Office.^[20] The letters from Emilio and Attilo Bandiera (residing at the time in Corfu) to Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian freedom fighter, disclosed their intention to take part in an armed insurrection upon the coast at Calabria. Duncombe suggested that the Foreign Office had then passed the information to the Neapolitan court through a link with the Austrian authorities. When the group landed at the pre-arranged place, they were instantly killed. Although a secret committee convened at Parliament's request exonerated the government, the discussion was renewed in the following session, after Richard Lalor Sheil censured the government for its actions. Graham vigorously defended his actions, stating that the Secretary of State had been invested by Parliament with the power, in certain cases, of issuing warrants directing letters to be opened. The division took place in a very thin house and the government survived by a mere 16 votes. The events haunted Graham for the rest of his life; as he told his nephew, "he knew, when he was gone, none of his reforms would be recollected, but that he would only be remembered as the man who opened the letters of the Italians."^[21]

Free trade

Notwithstanding his apparent support for a degree of relaxation in the Corn Law legislation as stated 'Corn and Currency', Graham remained hostile to major reform. In 1839, he argued that repeal would ruin British agriculture; he supported protection and defended a fixed duty. He supported William Huskisson's policy in 1828, he drew up the 1833 report, supported the continuation of the Corn Laws in 1834, and opposed Lord John Russell's fixed duty plan in 1836. However, by 1842 his hard line approach had begun to soften. Henceforth he played a leading role in planning a policy which began by including the introduction of a sliding scale for a levy on the price of corn, the reintroduction of income tax, and a massive change in overall tariffs. Old prohibitions were removed and duties on raw, partly manufactured and fully made imports were limited to a maximum of 5, 12 and 20 per cent. It was argued that the loss occasioned by reducing duties on 769 of some 1200 durable articles would be covered by increased trade and production.^[22] In 1843, Graham admitted to the Commons that 'free Trade' principles were the principles of common sense. In 1845, with Graham's support, 430 of the remaining 813 dutiable articles were freed, and other duties lowered, all export taxes abolished, payments on raw cotton and glass ended and timber and sugar preferences modified. In early 1846, Peel proposed, in a three-hour speech, that the Corn Laws would be abolished on 1 February 1849, after three years of gradual reductions of the tariff, leaving only a 1 shilling duty per quarter.^[23] Benjamin Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck emerged as the most forceful opponents of repeal in Parliamentary debates, arguing that repeal would weaken landowners socially and politically and therefore destroy the 'territorial constitution' of Britain by empowering commercial interests.^[24] On the third reading of Peel's Bill of Repeal (Importation Act 1846) on 15 May, MPs voted 327 votes to 229 (a majority of 98) to repeal the Corn Laws.^[25] On 25 June the Duke of Wellington persuaded the House of Lords to pass it. On that same night Graham's Preservation of Life Bill (Irish Coercion) was defeated in the Commons by 292 to 219 by 'a combination of Whigs, Radicals, and Tory protectionists'.^[26] On 29 June Peel resigned as Prime Minister. As a result, the Conservative Party divided and the Whigs formed a government with Russell as Prime Minister. Those Conservatives who were loyal to Peel became known as the Peelites, they included Graham, the Earl of Aberdeen and William Ewart Gladstone.