Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, known as Lord Palmerston, was a British Anglo-Irish politician who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1858 and from 1859 to his death in 1865. A member of the Tory, Whig and Liberal parties, Palmerston was also the first Liberal prime minister. An ideologue of free trade and a major sponsor of the Opium Wars against the Chinese Empire and the war against Egypt, he dominated British foreign policy from 1830 to 1865 when Britain stood at the height of its imperial power.