1895-1910
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The Liberal Party and the New Liberalism
Examination of the relationship between the New Liberalism and the Liberal Party in the period around the Liberal victory of 1906.
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The 1910 general elections
Turning points in British politics?
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The strange case of Edward Hemmerde
David Dutton traces the story of the three-times MP, playwright and judge Edward Hemmerde (1871-1948).
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The Lloyd George land taxes
A look at the history of the land taxes introduced by Lloyd George in the 1909 People’s Budget.
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Secular intellectuals
Review of William C. Lubenow, Liberal Intellectuals and Public Culture in Modern Britain, 1815-1914: Making Words Flesh (Boydell Press, 2010).
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Blissful Dawn? The 1906 Election
On 7 February 1906, the counting of votes was completed in the 1906 general election, and the Liberal Party had obtained a majority of 132 over all other parties. In addition, for the first time, 29 Labour MPs were elected and shortly afterwards the Parliamentary Labour Party was founded. To mark this anniversary, the Corporation…
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“Methods of Barbarism” – Liberalism and the Boer War
“When is a war not a war?” asked the Liberal leader Campbell-Bannerman. “When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa.” One hundred years after the Boer War began, Professor Denis Judd (University of North London), author of The Boer War and Empire, reviewed the response of Liberalism to the War. Dr…
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Founding the welfare state
A hundred years ago, in 1908, H. H. Asquith’s government introduced the Old Age Pensions Bill. This was just the beginning of a comprehensive Liberal programme of social reform, including national insurance, minimum wages, labour exchanges and compulsory school meals, among much else. Did this programme really represent a decisive break with nineteenth-century notions of…