Broad-bottom Administration

Broad-bottom Administration, a name derisively applied to the ministry formed by Henry Pelham in 1744, because it professed to include all parties of weight and influence in the state in a grand coalition, and comprised no less than nine dukes. Thus for a time the Whig party were reunited, and even Tory support secured. The ministry was dissolved in 1754, by the death of Pelham, though several of its original members had seceded long before.