Benjamin Disraeli

A carte-de-visite portrait of the Conservative politician and novelist Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), created Lord Beaconsfield in 1876.

Elected to Parliament in 1837, Disraeli was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Derby in 1852, from 1858-59, and again from 1866-68. He served as Prime Minister in 1868 and again from 1874-1880. It was his personal initiative that purchased from the Khedive of Egypt a controlling interest in the Suez Canal and that in 1876 conferred on Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India. The following year he was granted an earldom. Punch magazine quipped that ‘one good turn deserves another’.

Photographed by William and Daniel Downey of London and Newcastle.