An Enlightened Utilitarian: Thomas Drummond (1797-1840)

Dublin Castle was the site of colonial government when the Act of Union in 1801 closed the Dublin Parliament and integrated it with the body at Westminster.At the time, little attention was paid to the implications of the act for the governance of Ireland. The question was visited frequently in the ensuing decades; topics addressed were, for example, the advisability of abolishing the office of Lord Lieutenant, an annual visit to Ireland for the monarch, and the choice of a royal residence. Reluctance to decide such matters meant that Ireland's governance, although beholden to Whitehall, would still operate from the Castle. In 1830, Robert Peel argued for the persistence in Ireland of ". . . some official organ of government residing upon the spot."¹ The British presence was effective outside government: for example, the Anglican archbishopric, when held by Richard Whately (1787-1863), was an important and positive influence on Irish education. ²

The Victorian era connected the modern world to a simpler age. Technology in the form of steam was familiar to the Princess Victoria, and factories organized the work of individuals into unskilled functions operated under industrial discipline. In contrast, government was slower to change; it remained the prerogative of privileged males whose personal qualities were evident in the expression of public policy. Imperial government was broad in its purview and geographic scope, and the Royal Navy maintained the Pax Britannica across much of the globe. Yet, at its core, British government operated in the manner of previous centuries. That is, complex and widespread operations relied on correspondence, consultations, legislative debates, and hearings. The pace was slow in the manner of preindustrial society.

In the case of young Queen Victoria's Ireland, governance was carried out by a small and intimate elite. ³ From 1835 to 1839, the lord lieutenant representing the crown was Lord Mulgrave, the choice of Lord Melbourne, the prime minister. In Ireland, there was a leisurely stream of directives and inquiries, requests and decisions, from Dublin Castle affecting life in the largely rural thirty-two counties. At the same time, there was a flow of consultation between the castle and London where such offices as those in Downing Street and at the Treasury set forth their views on matters of policy. Much of Ireland's governance was at the county level where landowners occupied positions of power, and were matched by the clergy in day-to-day influence on the population. Occasionally, the leisurely pace of affairs was overtaken by crises and the activities of officials at all levels were accelerated. An example is the observation by travellers in late summer, 1845, that there were instances of total failure in fields where potatoes were growing. In that instance, communication went swiftly and effectively from Dublin Castle to Prime Minister Robert Peel in London, who dispatched two scientists, Lyon Playfair and John Lindley, to survey the situation.

Earlier, in 1829, the British Isles were aroused by passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act which was intended to remove the civil disabilities imposed on Roman Catholics, as for example, the relief granted to Catholics who had been denied admission to Oxford and Cambridge universities. It should be noted that this liberality was not universally welcomed, nor were Catholic ecclesiastics keen to see the flock exposed to heretical notions at Dublin's Trinity College. More unhappy was the Orange Order, which initiated protests within particular counties and which organized cells within the army. The overtures into liberalism and tolerance were an expression of Melbourne's intention to conciliate Ireland's population at all levels; he had served as chief secretary in Dublin in 1827-28. A few Catholics fared well in patronage offices below the Castle; one of Daniel O'Connell's protegés, Thomas L. Synnott, served on major committees and became a prison superintendent. ⁴ In 1835, Michael O'Loghlin became solicitor general under Chief Secretary Lord Morpeth. In that year, the post...