Cecil was at Eton from 1840 to 1845, and at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1847 to 1849. At Oxford he obtained the honorary distinction of a fourth class in mathematics. During Michaelmas term 1848 he was secretary and during Easter term 1849 treasurer of the Oxford Union. Subsequently in 1853 he was elected to a fellowship at All Souls College. Private memoranda show that he experienced the impact of the Oxford movement (e.g. 'Every virtue is a narrow mountain ridge with a valley of sin on each side '), though in these
notes on religious and ethical subjects (written c. 1853-4) he maintains throughout a critical and sometimes hostile independence of judgment. After leaving the university he went between July 1851 and May 1853 to Australia at the time considerably agitated by the recent gold discoveries and visited the mines near Melbourne. On his return in 1853 he was elected in the conservative interest M.P. for Stamford, which he continued to represent until his succession to the peerage. His election address exhibits the readiness to abide by the fait accompli (in this case the abolition of the corn laws) which was one of his most salient characteristics. He made his maiden speech in Parliament on 7 April 1854, opposing the second reading of the Oxford University Bill (which embodied the recommendations of the recent commission) on the ground that endowments ought either to continue to be applied to those purposes for which they had been bestowed or else to revert to the donor's heirs. This speech in defence of property was followed within the year by speeches on religious education and foreign affairs. It was along these three lines of political thought that his mind was principally to travel.
The ability which he had shown led to his being selected on 17 July 1855 on behalf of the opposition to second the previous question after John Arthur Roebuck [q. v.] had moved his famous vote of censure upon the late ministry of Lord Aberdeen, which had been responsible for the conduct of the Crimean war. The previous question was carried. On this occasion Cecil gave indirect support to Palmerston's government. Three years later he was amongst those who combined to defeat the same administration upon its Chinese policy. Palmerston was however returned at the ensuing general election of 1857. In the new parliament Cecil introduced a bill to substitute the use of voting-papers for personal attendance at the polling booths, urging that such a measure would prevent both disorder and intimidation, but the proposal had no success. He also entered upon a vigorous resistance to the abolition of compulsory church rates, which was prolonged until 1868, when, seeing that further opposition was hopeless, he supported the measure in a moderate form (speech, 19 Feb. 1868).
On 11 July 1857 he married Georgina Caroline, the eldest daughter of Sir Edward Hall Alderson [q. v.], baron of the exchequer, and a woman of great ability. Owing to his father's disapproval of the union, his married life was started on a very limited income, and he was at this time partly dependent upon his pen. He wrote for 'Bentley's Quarterly Review' (1859) and for the 'Saturday Review' (the property of his brother-in-law, Alexander Beresford-Hope) between 1857 and 1865, and in 1860 he began the long series of articles in the 'Quarterly Review' thirty-three in all which are perhaps the best mirror of his mind. In 1858 he contributed an article called 'Theories of Parliamentary Reform' to the volume of 'Oxford Essays' for that year. It is remarkable (i.) for its frank recognition of the utilitarian as the only genuine standpoint in modern politics ; (ii.) for its definite abandonment of the feudal basis of the older toryism; and (iii.) for the selection of persons of substance as the class whose position and privileges it was the particular business of the conservative party, in the interest of equity, to defend. His distrust of democracy was in fact laid not in any distrust of the poorer classes as such he regarded them as neither better nor worse than other men (speech in the House of Commons, 27 April 1866) but in the belief that the law ought not to expose them to predatory temptations, which poverty encouraged and wisdom was not present to resist, nor to strip their more fortunate neighbours of that influence which was the 'single bulwark' of wealth against the weight of numbers. The conclusion therefore was, that 'we must either change enormously or not at all.' Since symmetrical constitutions like that of Sieyes were opposed to human nature, since an educational franchise could not be constructed so as to embody any logical principle, since a wide or 'geographical' franchise imperilled property, the writer expressed himself in favour of leaving things where they were. Reform, however, was in the air, and as soon as Derby took office on the fall of the Palmerston administration in 1858 a reform bill was adumbrated, which Disraeli introduced in the
