Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) was a British statesman who dominated foreign affairs from 1830 until his death in 1865, serving twice as Prime Minister. Educated at Harrow, Edinburgh, and St John's College, Cambridge, Palmerston held political office almost continuously for nearly sixty years, starting as Secretary at War during the Napoleonic Wars.

As Foreign Secretary, Palmerston pursued a vigorous, nationalistic policy that defended British commercial and strategic interests globally through 'gunboat diplomacy'. In his celebrated 1850 Don Pacifico parliamentary speech, he declared that any British subject anywhere in the world should be protected by the British Empire just as Roman citizens were under the ancient banner Civis Romanus sum. He supported Italian national unification, directed the Crimean War to a victorious close, and abolished the slave trade patrols with the Royal Navy.