1886-1895
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Herbert Gladstone (Viscount Gladstone), 1854-1930
Herbert John, Viscount Gladstone, was the fourth and youngest son of William Ewart Gladstone and his wife Catherine. He was born on 7 January 1854 at 12, Downing Street (now No. 11), which his father then occupied as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was thus born at the heart of politics, and remained there for most…
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Sir Edward Grey (Viscount Grey of Fallodon), 1862-1933
Sir Edward Grey, third Baronet and first Viscount Grey of Fallodon, was the longest serving Foreign Secretary of the twentieth century, guiding Britain’s foreign policy in 1905-16. In the 1920s, he was a prominent voice on foreign affairs, and a strong supporter of Asquithian Liberalism. Grey’s importance to British politics as Foreign Secretary lay in…
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Gladstonian Liberalism
Few statesmen left a deeper and more permanent mark on British Liberalism than William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898). What secured a unique place for him in the history of Liberalism was not simply the fact that he was Prime Minister four times (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886 and 1892-94), having previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for…
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Gladstone’s Parliamentary Record 1868-1900
William Gladstone led the Liberal Party in four governments over a quarter of a century (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94) bringing to fruition a wide range of reforms and almost coming to define Liberalism.
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The Home Rule crisis
Shortly after Gladstone’s second government had seen the third reform act safely onto the statute book in 1885, it suffered a defeat on the budget and resigned. Lord Salisbury formed a minority Conservative government that called an election when the new enlarged electoral register was ready.
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The Newcastle Programme
The general election of 1885 was the first fought on the enlarged franchise of the third reform act and the first in which the parties competed for the votes of large numbers of agricultural workers. This stimulated both a new political debate and the development of campaigning techniques which would inform the next election.
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Gladstone’s 1886 Manifesto
As appeared in The Times on Monday June 14th 1886.
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Liberal Unionists
Gladstone’s decision to pursue a policy of Home Rule for Ireland in 1886 divided the Liberal Party to the core and prompted the departure of the Liberal Unionists, who subsequently formed a separate political party, under the leadership of the Marquess of Hartington.
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Rainbow Circle
The Rainbow Circle was a dining club which comprised a group of progressive politicians who met between 1894-1920.