Highlights

Lord John Russell became Prime Minister in June 1846 following Sir Robert Peel's resignation over the repeal of the Corn Laws.
Russell led a Whig ministry committed to liberal reform, free trade principles, and social improvement.
The ministry faced the devastating Great Famine in Ireland, drawing widespread criticism for its inadequate relief measures.
Key domestic reforms included the Public Health Act of 1848 and efforts to expand educational provision in Britain.
The ministry collapsed in February 1852 following a defeat on a militia bill, ending six years of Whig government.

Lord John Russell's First Ministry (1846–1852) came to power in the turbulent aftermath of the Corn Laws crisis, which had split the Conservative Party and forced Sir Robert Peel from office. Russell, a veteran Whig statesman and longtime advocate of parliamentary reform, assembled a government committed to liberal principles and the continuation of free trade policy. His administration inherited a period of profound social and economic upheaval, most critically the ongoing catastrophe of the Irish Famine, which had begun in 1845 and would claim over one million lives through starvation and disease.

The ministry's response to the Irish Famine, shaped largely by laissez-faire economic thinking and Treasury resistance to large-scale relief expenditure, was widely condemned as insufficient. At home, Russell's government achieved notable legislative milestones, including the landmark Public Health Act of 1848, which established a General Board of Health. Foreign policy under Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary was often assertive and independently minded, creating tension within the Cabinet. Ultimately, internal divisions, parliamentary instability, and Palmerston's unauthorized endorsement of Louis-Napoleon's coup in France weakened the government, leading to its fall in early 1852.