Everything about The Fox-north Coalition totally explained
The
Fox-North Coalition was a government in
Great Britain that held office during
1783. As the name suggests, the ministry was a coalition of the groups supporting
Charles James Fox and
Lord North. The official head was
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland who took office on
April 2 1783.
Fox was a
Whig by background and North came from the nominal
Tory Party, however both had fallen out with the government of
Lord Shelburne. They combined their forces in the
House of Commons to throw out the Shelburne ministry and then formed a government of their own.
King George III despised the government and Fox in particular but found that no other ministry could be formed at this stage despite several offers to
William Pitt the Younger. As a result the King declined to provide the government with the normal tools of
patronage and they were forced to look elsewhere.
The government also came under strain when from the opposition Pitt introduced a proposal for electoral reform to tackle bribery and
rotten boroughs. The proposal didn't pass but caused tensions within the coalition which contained both proponents and opponents of political reform.
The
British East India Company was in trouble and Fox proposed nationalising it, thus providing the government with a new source of appointments so they could reward and maintain support. The
East India Bill was introduced and passed in the Commons but the King remained deeply opposed. He informed the
House of Lords that he'd regard any peer who voted for the bill as his enemy. The bill was defeated on
December 17 1783 and the King immediately dismissed the coalition. It was succeeded by
a government formed by William Pitt the Younger.
After being dismissed, Fox and North tried to force Pitt from power through defeat in the House of Commons, but he refused to resign. The response of opinion in the country, evidenced by petitions, resolutions of borough corporations and the actions of the London mobs, showed strong opposition to the coalition and support for Pitt. In March
1784 a general election was called in which Pitt's government made massive gains, especially in constituencies decided by popular votes.
Members of the Cabinet, April - December 1783
Bibliography
Black, Jeremy. George III: America’s Last King. Yale University Press, 2006 (ISBN 0300117329).
Richard Pares; King George III and the Politicians (1953) online edition
George Otto Trevelyan, George the Third and Charles Fox: The Concluding Part of the American Revolution. (1912) 2 vol online edition vol 1, online edition v2
J. Steven Watson; The Reign of George III, 1760-1815, 1960, the standard scholarly history online edition
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