- 'The supposed Visit of St. Paul to England, a Lecture delivered in the University of Oxford,' 1837.
Cardwell subsequently turned his attention more especially to the annals of the English church, and formed the plan of a synodical history grounded upon Wilkins's 'Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ.' He carried out the project in part in the publication of several of the following works:
- 'Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England; being a Collection of Injunctions, Declarations, Orders, Articles of Inquiry, &c., from 1546 to 1716, with notes,' Oxford, 1839, 2 vols. 8vo.
- 'A Relation of the Conference between William Laud and Fisher the Jesuit,' 1839, 8vo, with preface.
- 'The Two Books of Common Prayer set forth in the Reign of Edward the Sixth compared with each other,' 1839, 8vo.
- 'A History of the Conferences and other Proceedings connected with the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer from 1668 to 1690,' 1840, 8vo.
- 'Synodalia: a Collection of Articles of Religion, Canons, and Proceedings of Convocation in the Province of Canterbury from 1547 to 1717, with notes, &c.,' 1842, 8vo, 2 vols.
- 'Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, or the Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Laws for the Church of England as attempted in the reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, and Queen Elizabeth,' 1850, 8vo.
- An edition of Bishop Gibson's 'Synodus Anglicana,' which he brought out in 1864.
Cardwell died at the principal's lodge, St. Alban Hall, Oxford, on 23 May 1861. He married in May 1829 Cecilia, youngest daughter of Henry Feilden of Witton Park, Blackburn, and left several children. He was uncle to Edward, lord Cardwell [q. v.]
[Gent. Mag. August 1861, p. 208; Foster's Lancashire Pedigrees; Cat. of Oxford Graduates (1851); Oxford Honours Register (1883); information given by Mr. E. H. Cardwell.]
CARDWELL, EDWARD, Viscount (1813–1886), statesman, born 24 July 1813, was the son of John Cardwell, a Liverpool merchant. He was educated at Winchester and at Balliol College, Oxford, of which he became scholar and fellow. At Oxford he took a first class, both in classics and mathematics, in 1835, and was made an honorary D.C.L. in 1863. Among his contemporaries, or those who were nearly his contemporaries, at the university were several members of the special group of statesmen to which he afterwards belonged—Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Robert Lowe, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Roundell Palmer, and the Duke of Newcastle. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1838; but he soon turned from the law to public life, and entered the House of Commons as member for Clitheroe in 1842, He attached himself, personally as well as politically, to Sir Robert Peel, whom he somewhat resembled in character as well as inconscientious industry, in devotion to the public service, and in the mastery which he acquired of commercial and financial questions. By Peel he was treated with marked esteem and confidence. He was one of the trustees to whom Peel afterwards left his papers. In 1845 he was made secretary to the treasury. In the next year came the repeal of the corn laws and the rupture between Peel and the protectionists. Cardwell remained true to his chief, and thenceforth formed one of the small party, or rather group, of Peelites, still conservative in general politics, but liberal with regard to commercial questions. Of free trade he became a staunch and prominent champion; but with most of his political friends he voted against the ballot in 1853. In 1847 he was elected for Liverpool, but lost his seat in 1852, in consequence of his having voted for the repeal of the navigation laws, and was afterwards elected for the city of Oxford. The Peelites having gradually gravitated towards the whigs, in 1852 the coalition government of Lord Aberdeen was formed, and Cardwell became president of the board of trade. If he did not become a member of the cabinet, it was only because the whig leaders objected to an undue proportion of Peelites. The chief fruit of his presidency of the board of trade was the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, which, collecting all the laws relating to shipping, with important amendments and additions, has from that time formed, in essential respects, the code of the British mercantile marine. The act, consisting of 548 sections, passed through committee at a single sitting. 'What great public interest have you been abandoning, Cardwell, that your bill passed so easily?' was Lord John Russell's sarcastic question. No interest had been abandoned, and those of the common seaman and the ballast-heaver had been as well provided for as those of the shipowner; but the bill had been prepared with the carefulness characteristic of its framer's work. Further improvements were made by Cardwell in the laws relating to the shipping interest, which owes to him, among other things, its relief from the impost of town dues. By his hand form was given to the department of the board of trade which deals with the mercantile marine, the foundation was laid of a meteorological department, and much was
