Lord Robert Cecil was the second son of the
2nd Marquess of Salisbury. After an unhappy childhood, in which he was sent to
Eton College, he went up to
Christ Church, Oxford, and on taking his degree was elected a Fellow of
All Souls College. He entered the
House of Commons as a
Conservative in 1853, as
MP for
Stamford in
Lincolnshire. He retained this seat until entering the peerage.
In 1866 Lord Robert, now
Viscount Cranborne after the death of his older brother, entered the third government of
Lord Derby as
Secretary of State for India. He resigned the next year over the
Reform Bill, which he opposed.
In 1868, on the death of his father, he inherited the
Marquessate of Salisbury, thereby becoming a member of the
House of Lords. From 1868 and 1871, he was chairman of the
Great Eastern Railway, which was then experiencing losses. During his tenure, the company was taken out of
chancery, and paid out a small dividend on its ordinary shares.
He returned to government in 1874, serving once again as India Secretary in the government of
Benjamin Disraeli. Salisbury gradually developed a good relationship with Disraeli, whom he had previously disliked and distrusted. In 1878, Salisbury succeeded
Lord Derby (son of the former Prime Minister) as 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.
Following Disraeli's death in 1881, the Conservatives entered a period of turmoil. 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. He became
Prime Minister of a minority administration from 1885 to 1886. Although unable to accomplish much due to his lack of a parliamentary majority, the split of the
Liberals over
Irish Home Rule in 1886 enabled him to return to power with a majority, and, with a short break (1892–1895) to serve as Prime Minister from 1886 to 1902.
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".
Also in 1889 Salisbury's Government 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". This was aimed at France and Russia.
Salisbury's expertise was in foreign affairs. For most of his time as Prime Minister he served not as
First Lord of the Treasury, the traditional position held by the Prime Minister, but as
Foreign Secretary. In that capacity, he skilfully managed Britain's foreign affairs, famously pursuing a policy of "
Splendid Isolation". Among the important events of his premierships was the
Partition of Africa, culminating in the
Fashoda Crisis and the
Second Boer War. At home he sought to "fight Home Rule with kindness" by launching a land reform programme which helped hundreds of thousands of Irish peasants gain land ownership.
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 James Balfour. Salisbury was offered a dukedom by
Queen Victoria in 1886 and 1892, but declined both offers, citing the prohibitive cost of the lifestyle dukes were expected to maintain.
When Salisbury died his estate was probated at 310,336 pounds sterling. In 1900 Salisbury was worth
£6.56 million, about £374 million in 2005.
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