Chronology: Edmund Burke’s Life and Works

1730Born in Dublin 12 January.

1735–c.1740Spends these years with his mother’s Catholic relations in the Blackwater Valley, County Cork.

1741–44Attends the school of the Quaker, Abraham Shackleton, at Baltimore, County Kildare.

1744–48Studies law at Trinity College, Dublin.

1750Comes to London to pursue his legal studies, which he soon abandons, seeking a literary career instead.

1756Publishes in May A Vindication of Natural Society a satire on Bolingbroke’s Deism.

1757In March marries Jane Nugent, a Catholic and daughter of a physician, probably a relative of Thomas Nugent, translator of Montesquieu’s Esprit de Lois. In April Burke publishes A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful.

1758Begins An Essay towards an Abridgement of English History; it is never completed; a fragment was published in 1812. He co-authors with William Burke (no direct relation), An Account of the European Settlements in America. Becomes editor of a new journal, the Annual Register at a salary of £100 per annum. Richard Burke born.

1759Becomes private secretary to William Gerard Hamilton MP.

1761When Hamilton becomes Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Burke goes to Ireland with him as his private secretary. He begins his Tracts Relative to the Laws Against Popery in Ireland; those which he completed were eventually published in 1812.

1763Burke is granted a pension on the Irish establishment at £300 per annum.

1765Separates from Hamilton after a violent quarrel. He becomes private secretary to the Marquess of Rockingham, a leading Whig politician and one of the wealthiest men in England. In July Rockingham becomes Prime Minister and in December Burke is elected to parliament for Lord Verney’s pocket borough of Wendover.

1766In July Rockingham falls from power, and Burke, somewhat reluctantly, follows him into opposition.

1768Buys a house and a 300-acre estate at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.

1770At a time when the relationship between Britain and the colonies is beginning to dominate politics, Burke writes his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, published in April. In December he is appointed London agent for the New York Assembly.

1773January to March, visits France with his son Richard. Sees Marie Antoinette at Versailles.

1774April, Speech on American Taxation published in January 1775; November is elected MP for Bristol. Speech to the Electors of Bristol on being Elected.

1775March, Speech on Conciliation with America, published May.

1776American Declaration of Independence.

1777A Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol.

178011 February Burke introduces his Economical Reform Bill. His speech is subsequently published. His aim is to reduce government (court) influence in the House of Commons, to reduce the expenditure of the royal household, to reform the public accounts and to abolish a number of placemen’s seats at Westminster. Eventually the bill has to be withdrawn. In the general election following the dissolution of Parliament in September, Burke withdraws his candidature for Bristol, having alienated the electorate. Subsequently Rockingham arranges for him to become MP for Malton, a pocket borough in Yorkshire which he owned.

1782March, Burke appointed Paymaster General in the Second Rockingham Administration at £4,000 per annum; his son, deputy paymaster at £400 per annum, his brother Richard Secretary to the Treasury at £3,000 per annum and his ‘cousin’ William, obtains a place in the Pay Office in India. On 1 July Rockingham dies and Burke’s hopes of attaining security for his family are dashed. The resignation of the leading Rockinghamite in the House of Commons, Charles James Fox, leads Burke to follow suit, though he tries to procure the receivership of The Crown Land Revenues for Essex for his son.

178322 February resignation of the ministry of the Earl of Shelburne and the formation of the Fox–North Coalition. Burke is once again Paymaster General.

Burke sees as his first priority procuring the reform of the East India Company. His aim is to prevent the misgovernment of India by the East India Company, and the corruption of Westminster politics by the ‘nabobs’ who had made fortunes in India by exploiting the power of the Company. Two East India Bills are put forward, the one for bringing the Company under the control of Parliamentary Commissioners, the other for creating a code of conduct for the servants of the Company. The first bill is viewed as a partisan attack on the chartered rights of the Company and George III, working behind the scenes, ensures its overthrow in the House of Lords (in December) and with it that of the ministry.

1785February Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts and publishes it in August.

1786Burke, convinced of the corruption of the East India Company and of the Governor General, Warren Hastings, persuades the government of Pitt the Younger to allow the impeachment of Hastings to go ahead. He is sure that the Company had abused its trust and therefore had forfeited its right to govern.

1788Trial of Hastings begins in February, Burke’s opening speech takes four days. The trial lasts until 1795, when Hastings is acquitted. Its length is largely due to Burke’s persistence.

October, George III lapses into insanity. The crisis over a Regency lasts until the following February when the king unexpectedly recovers.

1789Richard Price preaches his Discourse on the Love of our Country on 4 November.

1790Burke opposes the motion for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 2 March.

1790Burke responds to Price with the publication in November of Reflections on the Revolution in France. 32,000 copies were sold in a year.

1791A letter to a Member of the National Assembly published in April in French, May in English. Burke leaves the Whig party after a public breach with Charles James Fox in the House of Commons on 5 May; August publishes the Appeal from the New Whigs to the Old. December, writes Thoughts on French Affairs in December, published posthumously in 1797.

1792Opposes toleration for Unitarians in a speech in the House of Commons, 11 May; his view prevails.

1794May‒June, Burke sums up the case against Hastings. 25 June Burke retires from Parliament.

1794–97Burke attacks the French Revolution in vitriolic terms, in his Letters on the Regicide Peace; he argues for the use of military force to stamp out its evil, and against any peace making with such a vicious state.

1795Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, in which he supports laissez faire economic views; not published until 1800.

1796In his A Letter to a Noble Lord, he attacks irresponsible aristocrats, and defends his royal pension against the Duke of Bedford.

1797Dies on 9 July and is buried at his home at Beaconsfield.