1830-1859
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William IV’s dismissal of the Whig administration in 1834
William IV's dismissal of Lord Melbourne's Whig government in November 1834 was the last time a British monarch tried to assert political authority by bringing down a government that had majority support in the House of Commons.
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William Ewart Gladstone, 1809-1898
Amongst the number of outstanding statesmen in Victorian Britain, Gladstone was unquestionably the greatest. He brought to his public life an exceptional physical, mental and spiritual vitality. He was a man of independent but by no means unchanging mind. His combination of moral zeal and the willingness to think on and on, no doubt explains…
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The Liberal electoral agent in the post-Reform-Act era
An analysis of the activities of the Liberal electoral agents in the period after the Great Reform Act.
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Out of Chartism, into Liberalism?
Popular radicals and the Liberal Party in mid-Victorian Britain.
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Gladstone 1809-1874
Review of H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone 1809-1874 (Oxford University Press, 1988).
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Vacillating statesman
Review of Arthur Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party (Originally published 1927; reprinted Nonsuch, 2005).
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Exploding the delusion of protection
A speech made by Richard Cobden in March 1845, near the climax of the campaign to abolish the Corn Laws.
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William Edward Forster, 1818-1886
W. E. Forster was a typical nineteenth century Radical: a successful self-made businessman of nonconformist origins who was driven by his conscience to work for the less well-off in the community. His great achievement was the successful creation of the framework for a state education system which is still recognisable today. His ill fortune was…
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Joseph Hume, 1777-1855
Joseph Hume was a Scottish radical who devoted his political career to championing the principles of retrenchment. He was born near Montrose, Forfarshire in January 1777, the first son of James Hume. Hume’s father, master of a small fishing ship, died when he was nine and the family was forced to fall back on the…