The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830–1886

264 Pages·1994·26.373 MB·English

by  T. A. Jenkins (auth.)

The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830-1886
British Studies Series
General Editor: JEREMY BlACK
Published
T. A.Jenkins The Liberal Ascentfanq, 183o-1886
ForthcoiDing
C. J. Bartlett High Politics and Grand Str~: Britain and the
World since 1945
Glenn Burgess British Political 17wught from 14formation to Revolu
tion
John Charmley British Conservatism in the Twentieth Century
W. H. Fraser The JOse and Fall of British Trade Unionism
Brian Hill British Parties since 1688
J.P. Kenyon Britain, 1689-1714
David Loades Power in Sixteenth-Century Britain
Diarmaid MacCulloch The Rgormation in Britmn, 148o-1680
Allan Macinnes The British Revolution
Alexander Murdoch British History, 166o-1832
W. Rubinstein History of Britain in the Twentieth Century
Andrew Thorpe A History of the lAhour P~
The Liberal Ascendancy,
1830-1886
T. A. Jenkins
M
MACMILLAN
© T. A. Jenkins 1994
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A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-333-59248-9 ISBN 978-1-349-23483-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23483-7
Contents
list of Ta hks V1l
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction ix
I. The Spirit of Refonn
Introduction 1
Whigs 2
Radicals 9
Nonconformists 14
Irish Repealers 20
The Crises of 1834-5 22
The Second Melbourne Administration, 1835-41 25
A Liberal Party? 34
2. The Slow Birth of Liberal England
Introduction 44
The Genesis of Victorian Liberalism 45
LordJohn Russell's Leadership 50
Liberal Diversity in the 1840s 58
Cobden and Radicalism 63
The Decline of Russell's Ministry 67
The Future of Whiggery? 71
3. Lord Palrnerston and Mid-Victorian Liberalism
Introduction 76
The Domestic Uses of Palmerstonian Foreign Policy 78
The Formation of the Liberal Party? 84
The Second Palmerston Administration, 1859-65 90
Conclusion 98
4. The Rise and Fall of Gladstonian Liberalism.
Gladstone and Liberalism 110
Gladstone and the Liberal Mind 116
The Second Reform Crisis 120
vi Contents
The Liberal Party in 1868 124
Liberal Reforms, 1868-74 128
The Political Costs of Liberal Reform 132
Parliamentary Decline 138
The General Election of 1874 142
Gladstone's First Retirement 14 7
5. Whigs, Radicals and Gladstonians
The Whig Duumvirate 151
The Liberal Party and the Eastern Question 143
The Whig Leaders and the Liberal Party 15 7
The Liberal Revival, 1879-80 162
Gladstone's Second Ministry and the Empire 169
Gladstone's Second Ministry and Ireland 172
Gladstone and Liberal Unity 177
Joseph Chamberlain and the 'Radical Programme' 183
The 'Radical Programme' and the General Election of
1885 188
The Outcome 192
6. The Crisis of Late-Victorian LiberaliSIIl
Introduction 197
Changing Social and Electoral Patterns 197
Intellectual Challenges 201
Gladstone and Irish Home Rule 203
The Liberal Schism of 1886 210
Consequences of the Liberal Schism 217
Gladstone's Legacy 219
The Liberal Predicament 222
Conclusion 229
Bibliography 234
Index 244
List of Tables
1 Distribution of Liberal Seats, 1865 103
2 Social Background of Liberal MPs, 1859 105
3 The Liberal Victory in 1868 124
4 Social Background of Liberal MPs, 1869 127
5 The 1874 General Election in the British Boroughs 145
6 Social Background of Liberal MPs, 1874 146
7 Social Background of Liberal MPs, 1886 198
8 Election Results in the English Counties, 1880-85 200
9 Social Background of Liberal Unionist MPs, 1886 212
10 British General Election Results, 1885 and 1895 223
V1l
Acknowledgements
The Universities of Exeter and East Anglia have provided me with
pleasant, temporary berths, which have gready facilitated the writing of
this book, and both have been generous with financial assistance to
cover research expenses.
I would especially like to thank Bruce Coleman, whose support
helped to get this project off the ground, Geoffrey Searle, who has
bravely read the whole book in draft, and Brian Hill, who provided
helpful comments on the early chapters. Colin Davis, though not a
nineteenth-century scholar, has done more than a litde to aid the com
pletion of this book by kindly lending me his word-processor.
I am also grateful to my students, at Cambridge, Exeter and East
Anglia, for giving me numerous opportunities to try out and refine my
ideas: if this book proves to be of use to other students, it will be in
large part thanks to them.
The author and publishers wish to thank the following for permission
to use copyright material:
The British Library for material sourced to their collections; Lord Clar
endon for the extracts from the Clarendon MSS deposited in the Bod
leian Library; the Earl of Derby for the extract from the Derby MSS
deposited in the Liverpool Record Office; Devon Record Office, on
behalf of Lady Margaret Fortescue, for the extract from the Fortescue
MSS; the Clerk of the Records, House of Lords, for the extracts from
the Brand Papers; Maurice A. T. Rogers for the extracts from the
Rogers MSS deposited in the Bodleian Library; the Royal Historical
Society for the extracts from 7he Parlimnentary Diaries of Sir John Trelawny,
1858-65, ed. T. A. Jenkins; the University of Birmingham Library for
the extracts from the Chamberlain MSS; the University of South
ampton Library, on behalf of the Trustees of the Broadlands Archives,
for the extracts from the Broadlands MSS.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright-holders but if
any have been inadvertendy overlooked the publishers will be pleased
to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.
Vlll
Introduction
Little explanation is required for attempting to provide an up-to-date
account of the history of the 'Liberal Party' in its heyday between 1830
and 1886. During this time, 'Liberal' governments were in power for a
total of thirty-nine years, more than two-thirds of the whole period, and
such was the electoral dominance of the Liberals that there were only
two occasions - in 1841 and 1874 - when their Conservative oppo
nents succeeded in gaining an overall parliamentary majority. The Lib
erals, of course, were tk party of the left-centre, and it was not until the
early decades of the twentieth century that their position came to be
challenged by the newly created Labour Party. This latter subject,
however, has been the one to which the most attention has been
devoted by historians since the 1960s: the question of whether the
decline of the Liberals and the rise of Labour was inevitable, or else
whether it was the result of accidental circumstances, has provoked a
strongly contested debate made all the livelier by its obvious implica
tions for our perception of political developments during the 1970s and
1980s. By contrast, the period in which the Liberals enjoyed a more or
less unchallenged position as one of the two main parties of State has
been comparatively neglected, perhaps because of its lack of modem
resonance. In the last decade or so, however, the situation has begun to
be remedied with the appearance of a number of important mono
graphs, many of them obviously highly specialised. If it remains surpris
ing that no general survey of the Liberal ascendancy has previously
been written, it can at least be said that the project now seems feasible
in a way that would not have been true even a few years ago.
Another reason why the Liberal party in the nineteenth century has
always been such a forbidding subject for undergraduates is that what
was known about the Liberals showed them to be patendy a diverse,
and often highly fissile, coalition of interests. An air of confusion and
uncertainty all too easily enveloped the subject, in consequence. For
example, there is still no agreement amongst historians as to precisely
when the 'Liberal Party', as such, actually came into existence, and
dates as widely separated as 1835, 1846, 1859 and 1868 all have their
ix