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The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word corn in British English denoted all cereal grains, including wheat , oats and barley . [ 1 ]
A meeting of the Anti–Corn Law League in Exeter Hall in 1846. The Anti–Corn Law League was a successful political movement in Great Britain aimed at the abolition of the unpopular Corn Laws, which protected landowners’ interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread at a time when factory-owners were trying to cut wages.
With the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, a large number of corn exchanges were built in England, particularly in the corn-growing areas of Eastern England. However, with the fall in price of English corn as a result of cheap imports, corn exchanges mostly ceased to be built after the 1870s.
He had been all over England and Scotland addressing vast meetings and, as a rule, carrying them with him; he had taken a leading part in a conference held by the Anti-Corn Law League in London had led deputations to the Duke of Sussex, to Sir James Graham, then home secretary, and to Lord Ripon and Gladstone, the secretary and undersecretary ...
In Britain, "corn" refers to wheat, rye and/or other grains. Wheat, or corn, was used in the baking of bread and was the "staff of life". Thus the price of wheat was a very substantial part of the cost of living. The Corn Laws enforced a very high "protective" tariff against the importation of wheat into England. These high tariffs raised the ...
The corn laws imposed steep import duties, reducing the quantity of grain imported from other countries, even when food supplies were short. The laws were supported by Conservative landowners and opposed by Whig industrialists and workers. The Anti-Corn Law League was responsible for turning public and ruling-class opinion against the laws. It ...
He believed the Corn Laws were leading to the stagnation of the British economy. [42] In 1846, his nephew John Lewis Ricardo, MP for Stoke-upon-Trent, advocated free trade and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Modern empirical analysis of the Corn Laws yields mixed results. [43] Parliament repealed the Corn Laws in 1846.
The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 won him immense prestige in the country, and his death in 1850 caused a national demonstration of sorrow unprecedented since the death of William Pitt in 1806. [102] Peel was the first British Prime Minister to have been photographed while in office. [103]