X-Nico

unusual facts about British Cabinet



1786 in Great Britain

August - British Cabinet approves the establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay to serve as "a remedy for the evils likely to result from the late alarming and numerous increase of felons in this country and more particularly in the metropolis" (London).


see also

1811 in Canada

President James Madison, in his message to Congress, says: "We have seen the British Cabinet not only persist, in refusing satisfaction demanded for the wrongs we have already suffered, but it is extending to our own waters that blockade, which is become a virtual war against us, through a stoppage of our legitimate commerce."

Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement

The British Cabinet discussed the proposed agreement at 10 Downing Street on 28 May 1920.

Appeal of 18 June

Three days later, de Gaulle obtained special permission from Winston Churchill to broadcast a speech via BBC Radio from Broadcasting House over France, despite the British Cabinet's objections that such a broadcast could provoke the Pétain government into a closer allegiance with Germany.

Cato Conspiracy

Cato Street Conspiracy, an 1820 assassination attempt on all British cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool

Colonial Secretary

Secretary of State for the Colonies, the British Cabinet minister who headed the Colonial Office, commonly referred to as Colonial Secretary

Israel lobby in the United Kingdom

British Journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes that perhaps the “first lobbyist on behalf of the land of Israel” was Theodor Herzl who, after publishing his book The Jewish State in 1896, and organizing the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897, met in person British Cabinet ministers and other European officials.

John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare

FitzGibbon opposed the Irish Catholic Relief Act of 1793 personally, but apparently recommended its acceptance (Although he opposed the act personally he recommended its acceptance in the House of Lords) of 1793, being forced out of necessity when that Act had been recommended to the Irish Executive by the British Cabinet led by William Pitt the Younger.

José Cortés de Madariaga

He fled to Gibraltar in February 1814, and was delivered up by the acting governor, Sir George Don, to the Spanish authorities, but released in the following year on the reclamation of the British cabinet, which disavowed the conduct of the governor.

Kwaku Sakyi-Addo

International figures who have been interviewed by him include: Kofi Annan, past Secretary-General Boutros Ghali, Jimmy Carter, one-time Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir, former British Cabinet Minister Lord Carrington, Bono, and his American soulmate Larry King of Larry King Live.

Ruth Hayman

She also defended the anti-apartheid activists Walter and Adelaine Hain, parents of the British Cabinet Minister Peter Hain.

Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney

Alan Atkinson wrote in The Europeans in Australia (Oxford University Press, 1997): "Townshend was an anomaly in the British Cabinet, and his ideas were in some ways old-fashioned... He had long been interested in the way in which the empire might be a medium for British liberties, traditionally understood."