'The Grand Inquest of the Nation': Parliamentary Committees and Social Policy in Mid-Eighteenth-Century England

It is generally accepted that Henry Pelham's administration, 1743-1754, represented a continuation of the policies of Robert Walpole. While there is truth in this case, the argument seriously underestimates the continual efforts, both high political and legislative in nature, by which the Pelham ministry sought to maintain a semblance of political stability. Conciliatory government in the late 1740s and early 1750s created a parliamentary atmosphere in which much more time and energy could be spent examining social problems. Pelham's conciliatory mode of government was not necessarily complacent, and the pervasive sense of ability and political calm owes as much to what was accomplished as to what was avoided by the ministry.