The Greatest US President/ UK PM That Never Was Prior to 1900.

I am so post 1900 in my outlook that I posted 2 threads one on the greatest PM the UK never had and the other on who was the greatest President the USA never had, both in the post 1900 section. So for balance I am now posing the same questions with one post for the pre 1900 section. Actually when I first started posting on this site I was in my naievety surprised to find that the pre 1900 is as big as the post 1900 section! Again a reflection of me being so focussed post 1900.
I really have no names to offer on either, but I want to learn.
I guess the chap who Gordon Brown mentioned in his budget speech as having delivered as chancellor 10 budgets in a row but who never actually became PM might deserve an honourable mention, if anyone remembers his name! How about Churchill's father?
 
Randolph Churchill should be a contender, as you say, as should be Joseph Chamberlain. Aside from that, Charles Dilke would've been interesting had Donald Crawford not intervened.

Peel of course was Prime Minister twice, but he died reasonably young, and a third Peel Administration of the 1850s or 60s might have been an interesting Premiership that never was...
 
Not sure if it counts, but William "the Great Commoner" Pitt, when he was still in his prime and before he became the Earl of Chatham.
 

Thande

Donor
Not sure if it counts, but William "the Great Commoner" Pitt, when he was still in his prime and before he became the Earl of Chatham.

Wouldn't have made any difference though, he was PM in all but name during the Seven Years' War in OTL (to the point where even history textbooks sometimes mistakenly state he was). But things are complicated in the 18th century because (a) it was relatively common to have figurehead ministries with the real powers working behind the scenes--often the case if you had two powerful politicians who weren't willing to tolerate either being PM, but would become Secretaries of State and agree on a neutral nonentity as PM--and (b) Prime Minister didn't actually exist as an official position anyway.
 
I'm curious, can yo just take any political figure of the 19th century and say "that guy should have been made President/Prime Minister"? If so, then I nominate John Stuart Mill, Liberal MP for Westminster from 1865 to 1868, for Prime Minister.
 
Wouldn't have made any difference though, he was PM in all but name during the Seven Years' War in OTL (to the point where even history textbooks sometimes mistakenly state he was). But things are complicated in the 18th century because (a) it was relatively common to have figurehead ministries with the real powers working behind the scenes--often the case if you had two powerful politicians who weren't willing to tolerate either being PM, but would become Secretaries of State and agree on a neutral nonentity as PM--and (b) Prime Minister didn't actually exist as an official position anyway.

Ah, but by rights he should have utterly dominated the period as his son did later. Strong on military matters, tough in diplomacy, pro-electoral reform and accomodatory to America and Ireland - he could have been really great!


I'm curious, can yo just take any political figure of the 19th century and say "that guy should have been made President/Prime Minister"? If so, then I nominate John Stuart Mill, Liberal MP for Westminster from 1865 to 1868, for Prime Minister.

JS Mill was a philosophical genius, but his loner, neurotic personality probably wouldn't make him great to be PM.
 
That sounds curiously reminiscent of a certain recent PM in OTL ;)

I assume you are referring to Harold Wilson? One of the best qualified men in educational terms when it came to leading the United Kingdom, one of the youngest Oxford dons, etc. Yet something of a loner who had many people within the Labour party who distrusted him, plus he was borderline paranoid regarding his colleagues plotting against him.

Otherwise there's Edward Heath, who certainly was a loner, and quite possible neurotic. Philosophical genius, on the other hand, I definitely wouldn't say...
 
Thaddeus Stevens was the President most likely to have tried to undo the damage of slavery and to destroy the class that created it, treason and the Civil War
 
Alexander Hamilton, for his farsighted emphasis of a comparatively strong central government, including a state bank. His lack of charisma notwithstanding, I wonder if a Hamilton administration could have preserved the Federalist party?
#I know he was not born in c.1783 US territory but think that was grandfathered in
 
President James G. Blaine was a tremendously competent administrator and legislator ushering America into the imperial age and holding down the horrible forces of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.

Charles Stewart Parnell was certainly the most unlikely of the UK PMs of the nineteen century, able to lead a coalition with liberals and independents long enough to pass a home rule bill and go on to be first Prime Minister of the Irish Dominion.
 
For US Presidents, Alexander Hamilton. No War of 1812 and the United States declares war on France with the US Navy assisting the blockade and American troops siezing Louisiana.

For Britain Joseph Chamberlain with the proviso that it came fairly early on before he became the arch imperialist
 
Ian wrote a TL where Hamilton restores power militarily after Washington and Jefferson are killed and basically gets to dictate the terms of the constitution (though he's never president). The result is pretty frightening.
 

Thande

Donor
Ian wrote a TL where Hamilton restores power militarily after Washington and Jefferson are killed and basically gets to dictate the terms of the constitution (though he's never president). The result is pretty frightening.

That Atomic League timeline always reminded me quite a lot of Decades of Darkness, although I don't know which came first.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Suppose in 1860 that the Southern fire-eaters had compromised with the Northern moderate Democrats and the party had rallied around John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky while putting forth a platform less strident on the slavery question than the Southern fire-eaters wanted. Breckinridge would probably have been able to defeat Lincoln in such a scenario and the nation might have been held together at least for a few more years.
 
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