On This Day

23 January 1860

The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty is signed

Named after the main British and French originators, Richard Cobden Liberal MP for Rochdale and Michel Chevalier, the treaty stimulated a trade revolution between the two countries with the value of British exports to France more than doubling in the 1860s, while the importation of French wine into Britain also doubled. The treaty led to the waiving of passports for Britons visiting France and cheaper postal rates between the two countries. It also played a part in lessening tensions between the two nations with frequent war scares gripping the country since the Napoleonic Wars; the last one as recently as 1859.