Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, born December 21, 1804, in London, and died April 19, 1881, served as Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on two occasions, briefly in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880. A novelist as well as a statesman, he expanded British imperial reach, notably arranging the government's purchase of a controlling share in the Suez Canal Company in 1875 and having Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India in 1876. His government also passed domestic reform legislation, including the Public Health Act 1875. He was the great parliamentary rival of the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone.