Difference between revisions of "British Liberal Party"
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===Gladstone=== | ===Gladstone=== | ||
The great leader of the party was [[William Gladstone]] (1809-98), an intensely religious and intellectual politician, who dueled for decades with Conservative leader [[Benjamin Disraeli]] (1804-1881) over who would be prime minister. | The great leader of the party was [[William Gladstone]] (1809-98), an intensely religious and intellectual politician, who dueled for decades with Conservative leader [[Benjamin Disraeli]] (1804-1881) over who would be prime minister. | ||
| − | After the defeat of the Conservatives in the 1868 election, Gladstone became prime minister and proved he was not as ready to compromise as the much as the Whigs had done. | + | After the defeat of the Conservatives in the 1868 election, Gladstone became prime minister and proved he was not as ready to compromise as the much as the Whigs had done. |
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| + | Between 1870 and 1874 religious disputes played a major part in ripping apart the broad Liberal Party coalition. Disputes over education, Irish disestablishment, and the Irish universities showed the divergence between, on the one hand, Whigs, who wanted state control of education and the propagation of a nondenominational, morally uplifting Christianity, and on the other hand Gladstone and his supporters, who sought to guard religion's independence from a modernizing civil power. This division struck a lasting blow to prospects of agreement on future policy over education and Ireland.<ref> J. P. Parry, "Religion and the Collapse of Gladstone's First Government, 1870-1874." ''Historical Journal'' 1982 25(1): 71-101. Issn: 0018-246x Fulltext: [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638807 in Jstor] </ref> | ||
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===The Irish Question=== | ===The Irish Question=== | ||
Gladstone united his party, which had several factions based on personalities. He got the Liberals to agree on the [[Irish question]], which dominated British politics from the 1870s to 1914. One achievement was to disestablish the Church of Ireland -- a branch of the Church of England that Irish Catholics did not want to support. In 1870, Gladstone tried to resolve the agrarian problem, long a major cause of Irish unrest, in which Protestants and absentee English owners controlled most of the good farmlands in Ireland. He extended to to predominantly Catholic southern Ireland the "Ulster Tenant Right", which had protected Protestants in northern Ireland. The new act provided that tenants who were arbitrarily evicted by landowners had to be compensated by them, and paid for improvements they had made to the farm. The act did not reduce the high rents nor give tenants any security. These problems were resolved when Gladstone passed a second Irish land act in 1881, which provided for The Three F's, (fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure), and established a land court to which landlords and tenants might appeal voluntarily. The land court reduced average rents by 25%, and helped resolve the agrarian problem. But the Irish kept demanding more power (although not yet agitating for independence). Following the reforms there was an alarming increase of violent outrages and lawlessness in rural Ireland directed against protestant landlords. In 1886 Gladstone, after a brief Conservative interlude, became prime minister for the third time. He now realized that '''Home Rule'' was the only answer to the Irish question, but this solution split the Liberal party. A faction of radical imperialists led by [[Joseph Chamberlain]] broke off from the party and became known as the "Liberal Unionists". The Liberal Unionists voted with Conservatives to defeat Gladstone's Home Rule bill. The Liberals again came into office in 1892, after a campaign during which both parties stressed the Irish issue. In 1893 the House of Commons passed Gladstone's second Home Rule bill, but it was thrown out by the House of Lords. The Liberals stayed in office for more than a year after Gladstone's resignation in March 1894; but Home Rule went off the Liberal Party agenda until 1910. | Gladstone united his party, which had several factions based on personalities. He got the Liberals to agree on the [[Irish question]], which dominated British politics from the 1870s to 1914. One achievement was to disestablish the Church of Ireland -- a branch of the Church of England that Irish Catholics did not want to support. In 1870, Gladstone tried to resolve the agrarian problem, long a major cause of Irish unrest, in which Protestants and absentee English owners controlled most of the good farmlands in Ireland. He extended to to predominantly Catholic southern Ireland the "Ulster Tenant Right", which had protected Protestants in northern Ireland. The new act provided that tenants who were arbitrarily evicted by landowners had to be compensated by them, and paid for improvements they had made to the farm. The act did not reduce the high rents nor give tenants any security. These problems were resolved when Gladstone passed a second Irish land act in 1881, which provided for The Three F's, (fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure), and established a land court to which landlords and tenants might appeal voluntarily. The land court reduced average rents by 25%, and helped resolve the agrarian problem. But the Irish kept demanding more power (although not yet agitating for independence). Following the reforms there was an alarming increase of violent outrages and lawlessness in rural Ireland directed against protestant landlords. In 1886 Gladstone, after a brief Conservative interlude, became prime minister for the third time. He now realized that '''Home Rule'' was the only answer to the Irish question, but this solution split the Liberal party. A faction of radical imperialists led by [[Joseph Chamberlain]] broke off from the party and became known as the "Liberal Unionists". The Liberal Unionists voted with Conservatives to defeat Gladstone's Home Rule bill. The Liberals again came into office in 1892, after a campaign during which both parties stressed the Irish issue. In 1893 the House of Commons passed Gladstone's second Home Rule bill, but it was thrown out by the House of Lords. The Liberals stayed in office for more than a year after Gladstone's resignation in March 1894; but Home Rule went off the Liberal Party agenda until 1910. | ||
Revision as of 10:37, March 15, 2009
the British Liberal Party was one of two main political parties in Britain from the mid-19th century to the 1920s. Since then it has become an also-ran with few seats in parliament despite a moderately large vote. In 1968 it merged with a breakaway faction of the Labour Party to form the Liberal Democratic Party.
Contents
Origins
The Liberal Party emerged from the Whig Party in the decades after passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 gave the vote to the British middle class. It brought together Whigs, Peelite liberal Tories, and radical politicians.[1] politicians. In terms of voters the party appealed to businessmen, Scots, and non-conformists (Protestants who did not belong to the Anglican Church, including Methodists and others).
In the 1830s there was a small but clear distinction between the "radical" (reformist) faction of the Whig Party and the reactionaries of the Tory ("Conservative") Party. The Tories accepted the reforms; the Whigs were still dominated by great aristocratic families. Politicians switched easily between parties. This era ended with Viscount Palmerston's death in 1865 and the emergence of a new leader who drew sharp party lines..
Gladstone
The great leader of the party was William Gladstone (1809-98), an intensely religious and intellectual politician, who dueled for decades with Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) over who would be prime minister. After the defeat of the Conservatives in the 1868 election, Gladstone became prime minister and proved he was not as ready to compromise as the much as the Whigs had done.
Between 1870 and 1874 religious disputes played a major part in ripping apart the broad Liberal Party coalition. Disputes over education, Irish disestablishment, and the Irish universities showed the divergence between, on the one hand, Whigs, who wanted state control of education and the propagation of a nondenominational, morally uplifting Christianity, and on the other hand Gladstone and his supporters, who sought to guard religion's independence from a modernizing civil power. This division struck a lasting blow to prospects of agreement on future policy over education and Ireland.[2]
The Irish Question
Gladstone united his party, which had several factions based on personalities. He got the Liberals to agree on the Irish question, which dominated British politics from the 1870s to 1914. One achievement was to disestablish the Church of Ireland -- a branch of the Church of England that Irish Catholics did not want to support. In 1870, Gladstone tried to resolve the agrarian problem, long a major cause of Irish unrest, in which Protestants and absentee English owners controlled most of the good farmlands in Ireland. He extended to to predominantly Catholic southern Ireland the "Ulster Tenant Right", which had protected Protestants in northern Ireland. The new act provided that tenants who were arbitrarily evicted by landowners had to be compensated by them, and paid for improvements they had made to the farm. The act did not reduce the high rents nor give tenants any security. These problems were resolved when Gladstone passed a second Irish land act in 1881, which provided for The Three F's, (fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure), and established a land court to which landlords and tenants might appeal voluntarily. The land court reduced average rents by 25%, and helped resolve the agrarian problem. But the Irish kept demanding more power (although not yet agitating for independence). Following the reforms there was an alarming increase of violent outrages and lawlessness in rural Ireland directed against protestant landlords. In 1886 Gladstone, after a brief Conservative interlude, became prime minister for the third time. He now realized that 'Home Rule was the only answer to the Irish question, but this solution split the Liberal party. A faction of radical imperialists led by Joseph Chamberlain broke off from the party and became known as the "Liberal Unionists". The Liberal Unionists voted with Conservatives to defeat Gladstone's Home Rule bill. The Liberals again came into office in 1892, after a campaign during which both parties stressed the Irish issue. In 1893 the House of Commons passed Gladstone's second Home Rule bill, but it was thrown out by the House of Lords. The Liberals stayed in office for more than a year after Gladstone's resignation in March 1894; but Home Rule went off the Liberal Party agenda until 1910.
Reform legislation
Liberals prided themselves on being reformers. The "Education Act of 1870" greatly enlarged the schooling opportunities of the working class. Previously only voluntary schools provided opportunity for the education of the poor, and of 4,300,000 children of school age in England, about half were not in school. The act of 1870 divided England and Wales into school districts with board schools in every district in which there was not an approved voluntary school. At first, elementary schooling was neither free nor compulsory, but it soon became both. Within a generation illiteracy decreased from 19.4% to 1.4%. The "Universities Test Act" of 1871 dropped the requirement of supporting Anglican doctrines and made it possible for non-Anglicans to receive degrees and teach there. The "Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871", upgraded the legal standing of labour unions by declaring them to be neither criminal conspiracies nor unlawful combinations. The "Judicature Act, 1873," reorganized court system. The "Franchise Act of 1884" gave the vote to every man who was the head of a household, virtually established manhood suffrage. Along with it was a law that made one-member constituencies the norm. None of the reforms was reversed when the Conservatives came to power, and they became part of Britain's unwritten constitution.
1900-1920
1906
The Liberals made a remarkable comeback in 1906. In the 1900 election they had dobe poorly, as the Conservatives and Unionists had won 402 seats on the strength of success in the Boer War. The Liberals had only 184 seats; there were also 82 Irish Nationalists and two Labour Party members. The Liberals were split on such major issues as Leading the Boer war, imperialism, Ireland and women's suffrage. Their elderly leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836-1908) was not inspiring. In 1905 the Conservatives split over tariff issues, and Campbell-Bannerman formed a government with Edward Grey as foreign secretary, Herbert Asquith at the Exchequer, Lord Haldane at the war office, and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. An election was called early in 1906 as the Liberals campaigned on free trade and cheap food, as well as Nonconformist resentment over the Education Act of 1902 for favouring Church of England schools. It was a surprise landslide. Liberals with 49% of the vote took 400 seats; Conservatives and Unionists with 44% dropped to 157 seats; Irish Nationalists had 83 seatsand Labour 30 . Campbell-Bannerman was Prime Minister 1905-8, Aand succeeded in keeping his very able ministers in harmony.
Recent
The current Liberal Democrats have been described as a party with a preponderance of left-of-centre policies supported preponderantly by centre and right-of-centre voters.[3]
Further reading
- Adelman, Paul. The Decline of the Liberal Party 1910-1931, (1995) excerpt and text search
- Aldous, Richard. The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli (2007)
- Biagini, Eugenio F. Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860-1880. (1992). 476 pp.
- Cannon, John. The Oxford Companion to British History (1997), online at academic libraries
- Cook, Chris. A Short History of the Liberal Party 1900-2001 (6th ed. 2002) excerpt and text search
- Dangerfield, George. The Strange Death of Liberal England (1935), collpase of Liberals 1910-20
- DeGroot, Gerard J. Liberal Crusader: The Life of Sir Archibald Sinclair. (1993), mid 20th century
- Dutton, David. A History of the Liberal Party in the Twentieth Century, (2004). 360 pp.
- Ensor, Robert. England 1870-1914 (Oxford History of England Series) (1936), 652pp good survey of politicsexcerpt and text search; online edition
- Grigg, John. Lloyd George: The People's Champion, 1902-1911. (1979). 391 pp.
- Jalland, Patricia. The Liberals and Ireland: The Ulster Question in British Politics to 1914. (1980). 303 pp.
- Jenkins, T. A. The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830-1886. (1994). 252 pp.
- Jenkins, T. A. Gladstone, Whiggery, and the Liberal Party, 1874-1886. (1988). 328 pp.
- Matthew, H. C. G. "Gladstone, William Ewart (1809–1898)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition May 2006
- Morgan, Kenneth O. Age of Lloyd George: The Liberal Party and British Politics, 1880-1929 (1971)
- Morgan, Kenneth O. "George, David Lloyd, first Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (1863–1945)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; online
- Murray, Bruce K. The People's Budget 1909/10: Lloyd George and Liberal Politics. (1980). 352 pp.
- Parry, J. P. Democracy and religion: Gladstone and the Liberal party, 1867–1875 (1986), 504 pp. excerpt and text search
- Perry, Jonathan. The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain. (1994). 383 pp.
- Searle, G. R. The Liberal Party: Triumph and Disintegration, 1886-1929. (1992). 234 pp.
- Vincent, John. The formation of the Liberal party, 1857–1868 (1966), suggests the party lacked deep values and that workers were misled into supporting it
