Burke, Edmund 1729-97
Irish statesman and philosopher

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin and educated at a Quaker boarding-school and at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1750 he entered the Middle Temple, London, but soon abandoned law for literary work. His early works include Vindication of Natural Society (1756) and Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). He was appointed Secretary for Ireland, and in 1765 entered parliament for the pocket borough of Wendover.

Burke's eloquence soon earned him a high position in the Whig Party. The best of his writings and speeches belong to the turbulent and corrupt period of Lord North's long administration (1770-82), and may be described as a defence of sound constitutional statesmanship against prevailing abuse and misgovernment. Observations on the Present State of the Nation (1769) was a reply to George Grenville; On the Causes of the Present Discontents (1770) deals with the Wilkes controversy. Perhaps the finest of his many efforts are the speech on American Taxation (1774), the speech On Conciliation with America (1775) and the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777) - all advocating wise and liberal measures, which might have averted the troubles that ensued. Burke never systematized his political philosophy, which emerges with inconsistencies out of these writings and speeches. Opposed to the doctrine of 'natural rights', he takes over the concept of 'social contract', and attaches to it a divine sanction.

After the fall of the Whig ministry in 1783 Burke was never again in office and, misled by party feeling, he opposed William Pitt's measure for free trade with Ireland and the Commercial Treaty with France. In 1788 he opened the trial of Warren Hastings with the speech that will always rank among the masterpieces of English eloquence. His Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) was read all over Europe.

Burke ranks as one of the foremost political thinkers of the British Isles. He had a vast knowledge of affairs, a glowing imagination, passionate sympathies, and an inexhaustible wealth of powerful and cultured expression; however, during his whole political life he had financial difficulties, despite two pensions granted him in 1794. He was buried in the little church at Beaconsfield, where in 1768 he had purchased the estate of Gregories.

Bibliography: S Ayling, Edmund Burke: His Life and Opinions (1988); G Fasel, Edmund Burke (1983); A P Miller, Edmund Burke and His World (1979).