The Probert Encyclopaedia of People

ROBERT WALPOLE

Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford was a Brit, statesman. he was born in 1676 at Houghton, Norfolk and died in 1745. The son of a Whig country gentleman of Houghton, Norfolk he became member of Parliament for Castle Rising in 1701 and sat for King's Lynn from 1702 until 1742. In 1712 the Tories seized a pretext for imprisoning him. In 1713 Townsend married his sister Dorothy and Walpole became first lord of the Treasury and chancellor of Exchequer in 1715 and in 1720 following the South Sea Bubble crisis he became prime minister.

One of the greatest British, statesmen Robert Walpole sought to bring the court and the House of Commons into a working alliance to unite the nation under the new dynasty by keeping as free as possible from foreign alliances, and to make the nation prosperous, and he may be said to have succeeded in these aims. At the same time he was described as a crass and unrefined man and allegations of corruption for his own political benefit were made against him.
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