George Rose, 1744-1818.

British bureaucrat and Tory statesman of the turn of the 19th Century, and one of the chief architects of William Pitt's proto-liberal economic policy.

George Rose originated from County Angus, Scotland, the son of a a prominent Scottish Tory.  His father was implicated in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, disgraced and imprisoned - which seemed to ruin the future prospects of young George Rose.  But young George was adopted and raised by an uncle in Hempstead, England, his only relative, who enabled Rose to attend Westminster School for a spell.  George Rose entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman at an early age in 1758, and served until near the end of the Seven Years' War in 1762.  After a period in strained financial circumstances, Rose secured a government job in 1767, as a clerk in charge of printing of parliamentary records and journals, advancing to Keeper of the Records at Westminster in 1772.  In this capacity, he gained to acquaintance and confidence of several contemporary politicians, who were impressed by Rose's abilities to handle and organize large bodies information, and they eventually helped his advancement. 

In 1777, Rose secured the post of Secretary to the Tax Office, acquiring an expertise in tax policy and was frequently consulted during the Tory administration of Lord North.  Indispensable, Rose was retained during the Whig administration of  the Earl of Shelburne, who gave Rose the powerful office of Secretary to the Treasury in 1782.  It was at this time that he first met Shelburne's chancellor of the exchequer, the young William Pitt, and a friendship and partnership would soon develop between the two men.  Rose followed Pitt when he resigned in early 1783 and returned with Pitt into government at the end of the year.

George Rose served as Secretary to the Treasury during the entire first Pitt administration (1783-1801),. He was widely-regarded as William Pitt's principal advisor on economic policy, fiscal and financial matters, both greatly inspired by Adam Smith in their ideas.  It was Rose who originally devised the customs reform scheme, lowering tariffs and duties to combat smuggling, which Pitt put into effect early in his administration.  His 1785 tract defended Pitt's proposal for free trade between Ireland and Britain.

Primarily inclined as a bureaucrat, Rose had at first resisted entering politics, but was eventually persuaded by Pitt.  Rose allowed himself to be elected to parliament in 1784 as the MP of a rotten borough (he eventually moved to a competitive seat, as MP for Christchurch from 1790).  Although never a great orator, Rose was nonetheless highly influential in the House of Commons (commonly referred to as "Old George Rose" by friends and foes alike).  His respected expertise made him a natural leader on economic matters. Rose's expertise in fiscal and financial matters were essential in steering Pitt's budgets and economic policies during the difficult years of the French wars of the 1790s.  Rose's deep knowledge of economic facts helped sustain Pitt during these dark days.  In 1799, in the depth of a pessimistic period when famine was ravaging the country, and everyone believed the country was on the verge of collapse, Rose issued a vitally optimistic report with evidence proving Pittite policies were working, British industry was recovering and wealth expanding.  Believing  in the absolute importance of correct facts, Rose was the principle force behind the introduction of the first British census in 1801.

Rose resigned together with Pitt in 1801, and then returned as vice-president of the Board of Trade and Paymaster of the Forces during Pitt's second administration (1804-06).  After Pitt's death, Rose resigned, and sat with the opposition during Grenville-Fox's "all-talents" administration.  But Rose recovered his old government positions during the Pittite administrations of the Duke of Portland (1807-09) and Spencer Perceval (1809-12).  Perceval reportedly offered him the chancellorship of the exchequer, but Rose declined, believing himself too old and unfit for a cabinet post.  He remained an MP for Christchurch and held the highly lucrative posts of Treasurer of the Navy and Clerk of Parliament (despite multiple efforts by rivals to divest him) until his death in 1818. 

George Rose was been most associated with the Pittite reforms in favor of the poor.  Rose had been the prime advocate of Friendly Societies - mutual  insurance schemes among working class families, providing fellowship and assistance in case of disability, health, old age and death - as an effective private alternative to the decrepit tax-financed Poor Laws.  His 1793 act to secure the formal incorporation of Friendly Societies was widely known as the "the George Rose Act".   The Societies were a relative success and multiplied rapidly (partly because, as the Friendly Societies were exempted from the Combination Acts, they soon become a forum for worker grievances, and served as something akin to proto-labor unions).  In the same act, Rose also secured a vital exemption from the old 1662  Act of Settlement and Removal, which had allowed parish officials to eject the newly-arrived poor from their parish on a whim - a measure long derided by Adam Smith.  Rose's 1793 act allowed Societies-enrolled poor to be exempt from deportation.  In 1795, Pitt and Rose extended this exemption to everyone, so that nobody could be deported, unless they actually applied for parish poor relief (and even so, with ample exceptions for sickness, etc.), thereby allowing the unemployed poor to move around the country in search for work, rather than being stuck in their home parish.  Pitt and Rose expanded the Poor Laws further with a 1796 act that greatly expanded benefits, legalized outdoor relief and eliminated the hated "workhouse test" of 1722.  As a result, workhouses were transformed from places of forced work for the unemployed into poorhouse hospices for the aged and infirm.  The generosity of the Piit-Rose Poor Laws were attacked by many critics, most famously by Rev. Robert Malthus in his Essay on Population, who called for their abolition.  As usual, Rose replied to critics with facts.  Rose organized the 1803 Poor Returns, collecting data on the parish expenses and numbers of the poor.  On the basis of these returns, Rose's wrote his influential 1805 Observations, chock full of statistics, defending the humanitarian Pittite reforms and replying to Malthus's criticisms in detail. Rose continued actively interested in the fate of the poor, spearheading studies and reforms in their favor - although Rose remained throughout more moderate than activists like Whitbread. Rose was a member of the 1817 Poor Law commission.

Rose's 1810 Observations dismissing concerns about the growth of government spending during the Pittite administrations since 1780 provoked critical replies by liberals like Brougham and Bentham.  Rose supported Pitt on the Bank Restriction Act of 1797, suspending the convertibility of Bank of England notes.  Rose opposed Horner's proposal resume to cash payment during the Bullionist controversy in 1811, and was instrumental in killing it.  He also defended the British wartime trade embargoes ("Orders in Council") against Brougham in 1812.  Rose was even more vital in fending off the Corn Laws.  His led the opposition to them on the floor of the House of Commons, and it was Rose's dogged needling of Parnell's report that killed off the first two attempts to introduce them (in 1813 and again in 1814). Nonetheless, for unclear reasons (and much to the alarm of his confederates), George Rose backed off when the Corn Bill was introduced for a third time in 1815.  Rose remained relatively quiet as it sailed through Commons.  Rose supported Pitt's 1799 income tax, and tried to preserve after 1815. One of Rose's late legislative achievements was his push for the erection of Savings Bank for the poor, a primitive form of unemployment insurance, in 1816, and introduced the bill which passed into legislation in 1817-18.  At the same time Rose opposed more active government schemes to address the economic distress of 1817. 

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