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 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written pennission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence pennitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WlP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Fust published 1994 by 'IHE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world 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