Time Period: 1859-1886
Liberalism and national identity
An examination of the role played by Liberalism in the Victorian construction of a national identity.
Liberals in Ulster
Review of Gerald R. Hall, Ulster Liberalism 1778-1876 (Four Courts Press, 2011).
Viscount Palmerston (Henry John Temple), 1784-1865
If we date the modern Liberal Party from the 1859 meeting in Willis’ Tea Rooms, we must accord Palmerston the honour of being the first Liberal Prime Minister, though he would have thought himself the Queen’s minister and the nation’s leader rather than a party’s. In truth, he was more the last of the old…
Earl of Kimberley (John Wodehouse), 1826-1902
When Lord Kimberley died on 8 April 1902, he was commonly remembered as Gladstone’s loyal lieutenant: competent, hard-working, and high-minded. By praising these very civilian virtues in the context of war-charged, turn-of-the-century high politics, his twentieth-century eulogists were politely wondering exactly why Kimberley had mattered. After all, as one journalist wrote, he was as far…
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…