Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827.

Liverpool's fifteen years as Prime Minister saw the end of the Napoleonic Wars followed by a period of unrest and radicalism at home.

Important events during Liverpool's premiership included the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna, the 1812–1814 war with America, the Peterloo massacre, the Cato Street Conspiracy and the Queen Caroline affair.

Jenkinson's 19-year-old mother, who was the daughter of senior East India Company official William Watts and his wife Frances Croke, died one month after his birth.

Together with a few other students, including Lord Henry Spencer, they set up a debating society in which Jenkinson would present the Tory and Canning the Whig point of view.

Several speeches followed, including one opposing William Wilberforce's motion to abolish Britain's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and one in opposition to an inquiry into the Priestley Riots.

[1] There was a rare conflict between Jenkinson and his father when he fell in love with Lady Louisa Hervey, daughter of the Earl of Bristol and his wife Elizabeth.

[2]: 51-54  The Cinque Ports Light Dragoons were posted to Scotland, where they provided a guard for the funeral of Robert Burns in 1796 and perpetrated the massacre of Tranent in 1797.

[3] Hawkesbury, as he now was, obtained his first Cabinet position in 1801 when he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Henry Addington's administration and was responsible for negotiating the Treaty of Amiens with France.

After Pitt's death in January 1806, the King asked Hawkesbury to form a government but he refused and instead was awarded the lucrative sinecure of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

Following the resignation of Grenville in March 1807, Hawkesbury advised the King to ask the Duke of Portland to form a ministry and returned to his role as Home Secretary.

[5]: 91ff  The real figures of importance were a foursome of Pittites, consisting of Viscount Castlereagh, George Canning, Spencer Perceval and Lord Hawkesbury.

[3] Following the assassination of Spencer Perceval on 11 May 1812, the Cabinet proposed Liverpool as his successor, but James Stuart-Wortley moved a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons.

[2]: 145  Liverpool's first actions as Prime Minister were to cancel the Orders in Council in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the outbreak of war with the United States, and to assure the Prince Regent of the Cabinet's neutrality on the question of Catholic emancipation.

[2]: 152 The early years of Liverpool's tenure as Prime Minister saw the War of 1812 with the United States, which ended when The Treaty of Ghent was signed on 24 December 1814.

[1] In February 1815, Napoleon escaped from the Isle of Elba, where he had been exiled, and renewed his leadership of France until defeated at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, nine days after the final act at the Congress of Vienna had been signed.

[6]: 227  In November and December 1816, followers of Thomas Spence organised two meetings at Spa Fields in London at which the radical Henry Hunt was invited to speak.

[2]: 184-86 On 16 August 1819, between 20,000 and 60,000 people gathered at St Peter's Fields, Manchester, to hear Henry Hunt and other speakers demand parliamentary reform in the form of universal suffrage and annual parliaments.

[2]: 184-86  Later that year, after the Whigs had tried to make political capital out of the Peterloo Massacre, parliament passed the Six Acts, which were designed to curtail disturbances of the peace while preserving traditional liberties.

He immediately demanded a divorce from his estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick; the Cabinet preferred the option of giving her an allowance on condition she remained abroad.

When Caroline returned to London in June 1820 to public acclaim, Liverpool reluctantly issued a bill of pains and penalties to deprive her of her titles and dissolve her marriage.

One reason for his ascendancy was that he had an unrivalled insight into the whole machinery of government, having filled successively every Secretaryship of State, and tested the efficiency and mutual relations of politicians and officials alike....

[9]John W. Derry says Jenkinson was: [A] capable and intelligent statesman, whose skill in building up his party, leading the country to victory in the war against Napoleon, and laying the foundations for prosperity outweighed his unpopularity in the immediate post-Waterloo years.