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Edward Stanley was born at Knowsley, Lancashire, England on March 29, 1799 and was known by the title Lord Stanley until 1851, when he succeeded as the 14th earl of Derby. Stanley was born to Lord Stanley and his wife, Charlotte Margaret née Hornby.
Stanley was educated at Eton, and Christ Church, Oxford.
In 1820 entered the House of Commons for the pocket borough of Stockbridge as a Whig. Noted for his oratory--he was later called the "Rupert of Debate" after the dashing Prince Rupert of the English Civil War--he became a lord of the treasury in the Canning ministry of 1827. When Lord Goderich succeeded as prime minister he was promoted to undersecretary for the colonies. In 1828, with the fall of Goderich, Lord Stanley, as a Whig, was part of the Opposition. When Lord Grey formed his Whig-Canningite coalition in 1830 Stanley became chief secretary for Ireland. Though decidedly unpopular there, Stanley sponsored the Irish Reform Act (1832), the Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act (1833), and improved considerably the system of Irish education. In 1833 he was promoted to colonial secretary and, as such, sponsored the emancipation of the slaves in the British Empire. But the following year he broke with Lord Grey over the question of appropriating surplus revenues of the Anglican Church of Ireland for secular purposes. Thereafter Stanley led a small faction of moderate reformers sometimes called the "Derby Dilly, " who sought to form a third party between the Whigs and the Tories. But the idea did not prosper, and in 1837 Stanley joined the Conservative (Tory) Party under Sir Robert Peel's leadership. A Conservative majority in the House of Commons in 1841 brought Stanley again to the colonial office. Except for his measure to give preferential tariff rates to Canadian corn, his administration there was not particularly distinguished. It was marked by a continuous dispute with the New Zealand Company over native rights and British rule in those islands. An anti-imperialist, Stanley was less than enthusiastic about the growth of the British Empire. The major turning point in Stanley's career came in 1846 when he refused to support the repeal of the Corn Laws brought about that year by the Conservative prime minister, Sir Robert Peel. Thereafter he succeeded Peel as leader of the Conservatives, uniting those who had supported protection. As such, he formed a minority government in 1852. The split with Peel had lost the Conservative Party most of its known leaders, and Derby, as he had by then become, was forced to form a ministry of unknowns, except for Benjamin Disraeli, his chancellor of the exchequer. Perhaps the major accomplishment of this government was the revival of the policy of friendship with France. In 1855, during the Crimean War, Derby refused to form a minority government, a step for which he has sometimes been criticized, and his party was out of power until 1858. The major fruits of Derby's second minority administration, in which Disraeli was again chancellor of the exchequer, were the India Act (1858) and the admission of Jews into the Commons (1858). After his defeat in the elections of 1859, Derby chose to cooperate informally with the Whig prime minister, Lord Palmerston, until 1865. He returned to office with his third minority government in 1866. Derby's third ministry passed the Reform Act of 1867, which extended the franchise to all borough householders. Early the next year he retired because of ill health and was succeeded as prime minister by Disraeli. Derby's last major parliamentary battle was an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the disestablishment and disendowment of the Anglican Church of Ireland in 1869. Except for the period 1846-1852, when revolutionary movements frightened him, Derby exercised his largeinfluence in favor of moderate reform, and his readiness to compromise aided the relatively peaceful transition of British political institutions from oligarchy to democracy. Derby also translated Homer's Iliad (1864), a fruit of his lifelong interest in the classics.
Derby was a controversial figure. His love of horse racing, his aristocratic temperament, and his dislike of the popular press made him a ready target for the gibes of his opponents.
Stanley married Emma Caroline in May 1825. He left three children: Edward Henry Stanley, Frederick Arthur Stanley and Emma Charlotte Stanley.
