Foundation of the

UK Liberal party

Todays political spectrum can sometimes seem to be two-sided. We often

judge a political party by how progressive/socialist or conservative their
ideas are. This distinction was not always present, and perhaps one of the
first times it appeared was with the foundation of the Liberal Party in England
around 1850-1860. Where did this need for a new political party come from?
Historian John Vincent sees the Liberal Party as the answer to the question
What group should, or rather can, rule when the landowners have ceased to
be able to do so by themselves, as an Aristocracy. 1 He says the Liberal
Party provided the solution to this problem in four parts. First, they admitted
that aristocracy could not go on, but neither should it be overthrown.
Instead, it should be transformed into something else. Second, they ensured
that the old aristocrats would be part of the new group and brought in
outside help to assist them in ruling. Third, this group would be able to work
together with other groups they might be very dissimilar to, and go into
conflict with those they were very similar to. Fourth, this new group would
win over the hearts and minds of the poor by making the rich do things
they would rather not, and make reforms almost solely constructed to
convey a sense of the will to do justice. In the end they made sure, just as
with their economic view that the power laid in the market forces of the
political system, and that it was not ruled by a party that only creates
policies to keep itself in power.
In line with the first point, the Liberal party sprung from multiple, previously
existing, political groups. The aristocratic Whigs where the one who carried
the Reform bill. They gradually merged with the formerly radical industrialists
and with a few Liberal Tories to form the liberal party. The Whigs originated
as a political faction, then later formed a true political party. Their origin lay
in constitutional monarchism and the opposition to absolute rule. They also
found their origins in the fight to prevent the Duke of York (later to become
King James II) to get the throne as he was a catholic, and the Whigs feared
he would endanger their protestant religion, liberty and Property. 2 As such
they created an exclusion bill which set out to disinherit the Duke of York as
heir to the throne. However, a group of people opposed this bill, which were
known as the Tories. In a more general sense this amounted to the Tories
representing the more conservative royalist supporters, and the Whigs the
supporters of a constitutional monarchy, where the king was in essence a
Parliamentary appointee. Or to put in in the most basic of terms,
1 Vincent, J.R. 1976. The formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857-1868. p. XXVI
Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press.
2 Jones, J.R. 196). The first Whigs. The politics of the exclusion crisis. 1678-1683, P.4, Oxford
University Press.

Parliamentarians vs. Royalists (Whigs vs. Tories). The Radical party was a
much younger political group. It drew on the ideas of Radicalism and
supported parliamentary reform with some additional aims which included
Catholic Emancipation and free trade. This might in part explain that while
most Radicals chose to go liberal, there were a few that instead chose
Conservative, as this meant joining with the predominately Catholic Tories,
rather than the Protestant Whigs. However, most Radicals found either party
to be failing to meet radical demands, particularly so for Universal male
suffrage.
Now we come to the meaning the Liberal Movement had for the individual. In
the nineteenth century, being fully human, would constitute being a man
who could provide for his family, who had his own religion and view on
politics and is no-ones servant. In that time, if one wanted to become such a
full human traditional restraints that were present would need to be broken.
Many men were servants, or could not choose their own religion, or provide
for their families, because the economic, political or religious environment
would not allow it. This is where Liberal politics became appealing to them.
Not because of their programme or their ideas, but because in the end,
voting Liberal often meant a growing ability for new classes to lead
independent lives.
National elections were seen as frivolous and primitive, contrary to local
politics which were seen as serious and rational. Politics for most people at
the time, meant the politics of their local town, not of the nation. The most
important issue about elections was not the Parliamentary representation of
their borough but of the positions of the electors in town. It had more to do
with the social relations between people than with the individual opinions on
the matters of the day with which the candidates concerned themselves.
Elections where then what Sports and Drama have been in later and earlier
times. They brought the entire population together and demanded that they
determine their relationship to each other. As such, outside viewers might
find that these national elections seem irregular, primitive and corrupt, and
above all as not really political at all. 3
This might paint a picture of a very superficial and maybe even corrupt form
of politics, not lead by a collective effort, but by largely social relations.
There is, however, a huge moral effort behind the Liberal movement. For the
first time it was rationally considered that society as a whole might be
improved. This might be the first emergence of mass politics, with large
populations of the country being drawn, although for varying reasons, to a
3 Vincent, J.R. 1976. The formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857-1868. P.XXVIII-XXIX
Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press.

common political ideology. One of the leading factors in this call for collective
improvement of society is the Industrial Revolution. With the advent of the
steam engine and other such machines, the nature of labour went from
mostly handcrafting, to mostly operating machinery. The added productivity
that each worker got by these machines cause a major economic boom.
Mass production became a viable option for many things, such as fabrics and
textiles. Cities grew bigger as factories attracted more and more workers to
come live near the factory they worked at. A new middle class of wealthy
factory- and land-owners emerged, not belonging to the current aristocracy,
but just as wealthy as, or even wealthier than many aristocrats. Moreover,
the lower class, now comprised mostly of factory workers, began to form
groups that would attempt to influence the political field to their advantage,
asking ,for instance, for more voting rights.4
The middle-class wealthy men got a chance to vote thanks in large part to
the 1832 Reform act. In the act, the electorate went up from 500,000 to
813,000 and it caused the poorer rotten boroughs with smaller populations
to lose their votes. The people living in these smaller boroughs would get to
vote only as residents of their respective counties. Around 143 seats were
made available, and as such they were filled with votes from the new
industrial towns that had appeared in big numbers thanks to the industrial
revolution. These towns were the towns of the middle-class who could now
vote, if they had enough wealth to vote, a limitation which was also set in
the reform act. They were the Factory owners Ive mentioned before, but also
businessmen and their wealthy employees, doctors, lawyers and those with
connections to the well off. Old parliamentary parties were different from
each other in many ways, but the one thing they always had in common was
being aristocratic. They were always formed from persons whose family or
political friends where the primary characteristic. Only few were chosen for
their eminent ability and popularity and only when connected in some way to
one of the two aristocratic characteristics. The reform act allowed for people
outside of the aristocracy to influence parliament. 5
Now it can be argued that perhaps the first Liberal party was formed around
1946, with the administration formed under Lord John Russell. Russell was a
Liberal Whig and his government was formed in the aftermath of the repeal
of the Corn Laws. These Corn Laws were trade laws that protected the cereal
4 Palmer, R.R., Colton J., Kramer L. 2007. A history of the modern world since 1815. P.435443 McGraw-Hill

5 Palmer, R.R., Colton J., Kramer L. 2007. A history of the modern world since 1815. P.472474 McGraw-Hill

producers in the UK and Ireland against the competition of cheaper foreign

imports. They were the subject of a political debate as the aforementioned
factory owners wanted to maximise their profits by lowering wages, but they
could not do so without lowering them to the point where a factory worker
could no longer feed his family. As such high grain prices also meant high
factory wages. The aristocratic landowners however, wanted to keep the
grain price high so as to maximise their agricultural profits. The Corn Laws
enhanced the profits and political power associated with land ownership;
their abolition was a significant increase of free trade, one of the
cornerstones for liberalism. 1845 had poor harvest and a great famine in
Ireland, which caused the conservative Prime Minister Robert Peel to argue
for repeal of the Corn Laws. His conservative colleagues resisted against the
repeal and when eventually the Corn Laws were set to be repealed, the
conservative party began to divide and Peel decided to resign as he did not
believe he could implement his policy. The Queen then sent Russell to form a
government, but he failed. Thus Peel remained Prime Minister and he
eventually got his bill of repeal through. This caused an even greater divide
in the conservative party between those who supported Peel, known later as
Peelites, and those who opposed him. Peel then resigned again, and the
Peelites (but not Peel himself, as he died soon after) defected to the liberal
side, allowing for a Whig government with Russell as a Prime Minister, and
eventually allowing a combination of multiple parties to create a Liberal
government. 6
However, this is not yet the true Liberal party that was mentioned before as
being partly Whig, Radical and Liberal Tories (Peelites). The first party that
conformed to that description is that of Lord Henry Palmerston. On June 6
1859, Whigs, Liberals and Radicals decided to form an alliance to oust the
conservative government out of the cabinet. They did so under the guidance
of Palmerston, who worked together with Russell. Palmeston remained
minister until his death in 1865, when Russell succeeded him. However,
Historian John Vincent focusses more on another particular leader; William
Gladstone. Gladstone can be regarded as (one of) the most important
figure(s) in the Liberal party. He served as prime minister four times (186874, 1880-85, 1886 and 1892-94). Vincent finds that his predecessors built up
the goodwill that Gladstone could use. They built up bodies of people who
responded well to the great liberal tenets of improving individual liberty and
loosening political and economic restraints. This gave a credible
parliamentary purpose that Gladstone could show the public. Gladstone and
his predecessors did not really differ that much in their convictions, but
rather in the amount of political energy they put into carrying them out, and
6 Palmer, R.R., Colton J., Kramer L. 2007. A history of the modern world since 1815.
P.474-476 McGraw-Hill

how much effect they had on the population. Gladstone used his standing
with the electorate to guide the Parliamentary party from the inside, but it
must be said he did so quite leisurely. Gladstone himself took more time than
his predecessors to rise to popularity, but he could eventually focus more on
pushing through actual reforms. Gladstone more than anyone before him,
could focus more on getting things done than getting support for his
government. 7
In conclusion, we find that the Liberal party was founded because Liberalism
became much more appealing with the rise of industry in England. The
aristocracy found its power waning as the power of the Middle-class rose,
with factory owners and wealthy businessmen pushing towards more political
power. The working-class and radicals wanted reforms that the liberal party
could provide (and had already provide in a way with the Reform Act). This
was the main reason for these people to vote Liberal, as voting liberal often
meant voting for a growing independence for the newly formed classes that
came to be due to the industrial revolution, another example of which can be
found in the repeal of the Corn Laws. This support of the constituency
allowed many different (but liberal) MPs to form the liberal party which came
to power either as early as 1846 under John Russell, or depending on your
definition of what constitutes a true Liberal party, maybe even as late as
1868 under William Gladstone.

References
Jones, J.R. 1961. The first whigs. The politics of the exclusion crisis. 16781683. Oxford University Press.
Palmer, R.R, J. Colton, and L. Kramer. 2007. A history of the modern world
since 1815. McGraw-Hill.
Vincent, J.R. 1976. The formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857-1868.
Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press.

7 Vincent, J.R. 1976. The formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857-1868.P.141-144
Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press.