1830-1859
Plus ca change
The politics of faction in the 1850s; an introduction to a speech by John Bright. To access this content, you must purchase Annual subscription (digital) – unwaged rate or Annual subscription (digital) – standard rate.
William Ewart Gladstone, 1809-1898
As Roy Jenkins concluded in his masterly biography, ‘Mr Gladstone was almost as much the epitome of the Victorian age as the great Queen herself’. He was the political giant of his lifetime and even at the end of the twentieth century the principles and aspirations he brought to public life are still inherent in the…
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. To access this content, you must purchase Annual subscription (digital) – unwaged rate or Annual subscription (digital) – standard rate.
Out of Chartism, into Liberalism?
Popular radicals and the Liberal Party in mid-Victorian Britain. To access this content, you must purchase Annual subscription (digital) – unwaged rate or Annual subscription (digital) – standard rate.
Gladstone 1809-1874
Review of H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone 1809-1874 (Oxford University Press, 1988).
Vacillating statesman
Review of Arthur Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party (Originally published 1927; reprinted Nonsuch, 2005).
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. To access this content, you must purchase Annual subscription (digital) – unwaged rate or Annual subscription (digital) – standard rate.
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.
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…