In 1835, Cowper was elected Liberal
Member of Parliament for
Hertford, a seat he held for the next thirty-three years, and became private secretary to his uncle Prime Minister Lord Melbourne. He was appointed a
Groom in Waiting in 1837, and in 1841 served for three months as a
Lord of the Treasury under Melbourne, only resuming office five years later as a
Lord of the Admiralty when the
Whigs returned to power under
Lord John Russell. He again held this post under
Lord Aberdeen from 1852 to 1855, and in the latter year was made
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department by his stepfather Lord Palmerston when he became prime minister. In August that same year he was appointed
President of the Board of Health, and sworn of the
Privy Council. Four years later he became
Vice-President of the Board of Trade and
Paymaster General, only serving for a year before Palmerston appointed him
First Commissioner of Works. In 1866, on the fall of
Lord Russell's government, Cowper left office for good. Two years later he was returned to
Parliament for
Hampshire South, and held this seat until 1880. Cowper-Temple was involved in the
Elementary Education Act 1870 which set up Board Schools (state primary schools, run by elected local school boards) throughout England. He was responsible for the
Cowper-Temple clause, an amendment which became section 14 of the act. In order to overcome the concerns of Nonconformists that their children might be taught Anglican doctrine, the clause proposed that religious teaching in the new state schools be non-denominational, which in practice meant learning the Bible and a few hymns. Section 7 of the act also gave parents the right to withdraw their children from any religious instruction provided in board schools, and to withdraw their children at that or other times to attend any other religious instruction of their choice. When his mother died in 1869, he inherited a number of estates under his stepfather's will, and so took that year under Royal licence the additional surname of Temple. The properties included a 10,000-acre estate on
Sligo's Mullaghmore peninsula with its unfinished
Classiebawn Castle, commissioned by his stepfather, which he completed by 1874. In 1880 he was raised to the peerage as
Baron Mount Temple, of Mount Temple in the
County of
Sligo. This was a revival of the junior title held by the
Viscounts Palmerston, which had become extinct along with the viscountcy on his stepfather's death in 1865. Apart from his political career Lord Mount Temple organized ecumenical conferences at Broadlands. One of the regular speakers there was
George MacDonald. ==Personal life==