Trevelyan was the head of the UK treasury and dragged his heels in spite of pressure even from the prime Minister Peel to introduce famine relief ("indian corn", i.e. maize) because he thought it was dangerous to disrupt the operation of the free market. I think he also subscribed to the view that the famine was God's way of solving the "overpopulation" problem in Ireland.

The resulting folk memory explains why even to this day people in Ireland are not to enthusiastic about Thatcherism