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The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Beaconsfield

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Chancellor of {{{country-de}}}
Periods in office:	February – December, 1868 February, 1874 – April, 1880
Predecessor(s):	The Earl of Derby William Ewart Gladstone
Successor(s):	William Ewart Gladstone
Date of birth:	21 December 1804
Date of death:	19 April 1881
Place of birth:	London
Place of death:	London
Political party:	Conservative

Benjamin Disraeli, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was an English statesman and literary figure. He served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister – the first and thus far only person of Jewish descent to do so.
The first mention of "Prime Minister" ( or sole Prime Minisiter ) in an official government document occurred during the premiership of Benjamin Disraeli. The title was used since then in documents, letters and conversation . In 1905 the title "Prime Minister" was noted in a royal warrant that placed the Prime Minister, mentioned as such, in the order of precedence in Britain immediately after the Archbishop of York. By this time legal recognition of the title seems to have occurred and it was later mentioned in the Chequers Estate Act 1917, and the Ministers of the Crown Act 1937.

There are numerous categorical testimonies deep into the 19th century decrying the notion of a First or Prime Minister, credibly declaring the concept alien to the Constitution, and the term actually emerges as a creature of historians, not lawyers or Parliament — indeed the contrary is best documented

In 1741, it was declared in the Commons that "According to our Constitution we can have no sole and prime minister... every... officer has his own proper department; and no officer ought to meddle in the affairs belonging to the department of another." In the same year the Lords agreed that "We are persuaded that a sole, or even a first minister, is an officer unknown to the law of Britain, inconsistent with the Constitution of the country and destructive of liberty in any Government whatsoever." These were very much partisan assessments of the day, however.

On the other hand, in an interview by Lord Melville with William Pitt in 1803, the latter argued that "this person generally called the first minister" was an absolute necessity for a government to function, and expressed his belief that this person should be the minister in charge of the finances.( Treasury )

Disraeli descended from Italian Sephardic Jews from both his maternal and paternal sides. His father was the literary critic and historian Isaac D'Israeli who, though Jewish, in 1817 had Benjamin baptised in the Church of England, following a dispute with their synagogue. The elder D'Israeli (Benjamin apparently changed the spelling in the 1820s) himself was content to remain outside organized religion. Benjamin at first attended a small school in Blackheath called Eliot Place (later to evolve into St Piran's School). Beginning in 1817 Benjamin attended Higham Hall, in Walthamstow. His younger brothers, in contrast, attended the superior Winchester College,

. Disraeli's most lasting achievement was the creation of the modern Conservative Party after the Corn Laws schism of 1846.