Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke
Painting of Edmund Burke MP c. 1767, studio of Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
Born	12 January 1729 Dublin, Kingdom of Ireland
Died	9 July 1797(1797-07-09) (aged 68) Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, Kingdom of Great Britain
Alma mater	Trinity College, Dublin
Era	Eighteenth century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Conservative liberalism, Conservatism
Main interests	Social and political philosophy
Influences Plato Aristotle Socrates David Hume Voltaire Jean-Jacques Rousseau Adam Smith Cicero John Locke Saint Augustine Saint Thomas Aquinas Saint Thomas More Jeremy Bentham Richard Hooker Edward Coke Thomas Hobbes Rene Descartes Montesquieu Joshua Reynolds William Blackstone Niccolo Machiavelli Issac Newton Blaise Pascal Dante Alighieri Samuel Johnson
Influenced Robert Peel John Stuart Mill Immanuel Kant J.R.R. Tolkien William Godwin Lord Acton G.K. Chesterton William Ewart Gladstone Lord Salisbury Russell Kirk Karl Popper C.S. Lewis John Henry Newman John Maynard Keynes Friedrich Hayek Roger Scruton George Orwell William Wordsworth Joseph de Maistre Hannah Arendt Winston Churchill Ray Bradbury Ronald Reagan William F. Buckley Matthew Arnold Margaret Thatcher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Thomas Sowell Peter Hitchens Louis Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald Aldous Huxley Søren Kierkegaard William Butler Yeats

Edmund Burke (/bɜːrk/; 12 January [NS] 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Irishstatesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after moving to London, served as a member of parliament (MP) for many years in the House of Commons with the Whig Party.

Burke is remembered mainly for his support of the cause of the American Revolutionaries, Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and for his later opposition to the French Revolution, the latter leading to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig Party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", as opposed to the pro–French Revolution "New Whigs", led by Charles James Fox.

In the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals. Subsequently, in the twentieth century, he became widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism.

Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland. His mother Mary née Nagle (c. 1702 – 1770) was a Roman Catholic who hailed from a County Cork family (and a cousin of Nano Nagle), whereas his father, a successful solicitor, Richard (died 1761), was a member of the Church of Ireland; it remains unclear whether this is the same Richard Burke who converted from Catholicism. The Burke dynasty descends from an Anglo-Norman knight surnamed de Burgh (latinised as de Burgo) who arrived in Ireland in 1185 following Henry II of England's 1171 invasion of Ireland and is among the chief "Gall" families that assimilated into Gaelic society, becoming More Irish than the Irish themselves.