Journal of Liberal History

England Objects to the Treaty of Versailles, June 1, 1919

Journal of Liberal History

For the discussion and research of Liberal, Liberal Democrat and SDP history

1886-1895

  • Earl Granville (Granville George Leveson Gower), 1815-1891

    For more than thirty years, at the height of its strength in the country, Lord Granville led the Victorian Liberal Party in the House of Lords, where it was in a perpetual minority. His diplomatic skills contributed significantly to its legislative achievements and to preserving the unity of a party always threatening to splinter. Granville…

  • Earl of Rosebery (Archibald Philip Primrose), 1847-1929

    Rosebery is perhaps the least well-known of the Liberal Prime Ministers, having the misfortune to serve in the office for only a short period, immediately after the extended career of the charismatic Gladstone. He had a difficult relationship with the radicals of his parliamentary party, not because of his social policy attitudes (he was a…

  • Marquess of Hartington (Duke of Devonshire), 1833-1908

    The birth of the modern Liberal Party in 1859 brought together three disparate elements, Whigs, Peelites and Radicals. Hartington, as he was known for most of his political life, epitomised the Whig contribution to government – rich, aristocratic but driven by noblesse oblige to take public office. When he broke with Gladstone in the 1880s it…

  • Herbert Henry Asquith (Earl of Oxford and Asquith), 1852-1928

    H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister from April 1908 to December 1916, bore the chief part in some of the greatest Liberal achievements of the twentieth century. Herbert Henry Asquith was born at Morley, West Yorkshire, on 12 September 1852. His father died when he was eight, and in 1863, sent to London to live with…

  • The Liberal Party, Unionism and political culture in late 19th and early 20th century Britain

    A one-day seminar organised by Newman University College and the Journal of Liberal History. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw great changes in British political culture. The gradual emergence of a mass electorate informed by a popular press, debates about the role of the state in social policy, Imperial upheavals and wars all…

  • I blame Sir Edward Grey

    Review of John Charmley, Splendid Isolation? Britain and the Balance of Power 1874-1914 (Hodder & Stoughton, 1999).

  • Out from under the umbrella

    The defection of the Liberal Unionists in 1886 was the greatest blow the Liberal Party suffered in the nineteenth century. This article explains what happened and suggests that there are still some unanswered questions.

  • ‘There are things stronger than parliamentary majorities

    Review of Alan O’Day, Irish Home Rule 1867-1921 (Manchester University Press, 1998).

  • The evolution of devolution

    Analysis of the lessons from the first Home Rule Bill of 1886.

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