1859-1886
Gladstone as Chancellor
The Exchequer brought fame to Gladstone but in return Gladstone raised the office to the forefront of politics.
Charles Bradlaugh, 1833-1891
Charles Bradlaugh was born on 26 September 1833 in Hoxton, London, the eldest of the seven children of a poor solicitor’s clerk, and he received only an elementary education. Though brought up in the Church of England, he came to doubt the doctrines of Christianity. Pressure to conform drove him from home in 1850 and…
Joseph Chamberlain and Municipal Liberalism
The reforms in municipal services that Joseph Chamberlain introduced during his three-year mayoralty of Birmingham in the mid-1870s marked a turning point for British Liberalism as well as in the governance of industrial cities.
Gladstone and the Conservative collapse
Analysis of the article on The Conservative Collapse in the Fortnightly Review of 1 May 1880, published anonymously but written by Gladstone.
The farm workers champion
Biography of one of the first working men to be elected to Parliament, Joseph Arch (1826-1919).
Value for money
The story of novelist Anthony Trollope’s campaign for Beverley in Yorkshire in 1868.
Origins of the party
Review of John Vincent, The Formation of the British Liberal Party 1857-68 (Constable, 1966).
The Liberal Party and womens suffrage, 1866-1918
Analysis of the relationship between the Liberal Party and the campaigns for womens suffrage.
Promoting progress everywhere
Review of Jonathan Parry, The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe 1830-1886 (Cambridge University Press, 2006).