British History Essays
,Following the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, the Liberal Party saw a
significant shift over the next twenty years, becoming a party which branched
out from simply the landowning interests of the Whigs and into one
encompassing a broad spectrum of industrialists, Radical MPs and former
Peelites, all with differing visions on political reform. Nonetheless, these
disparate threads were united under the principles of Gladstonian Liberalism,
which advocated for a benign but largely laissez-faire government; in terms of
political reform, this translated to a belief that there should not necessarily be
watershed change but instead reforms which could gradually guide the people
into following law and tradition. As such, whilst it could be argued that the
removal of corrupt political practices from 1865-1885 was driven by liberal
ideology, it would be more credible to argue that the extension of the franchise
and redistribution of seats were driven by political expediency, both of the
Liberals and also the Conservatives.
In terms of the removal of political corruption, Liberal ideology can certainly be
seen as the driving force of the period. Corruption was antithetical to many
Liberal beliefs, particularly those of Gladstone, who was driven by his deeply
moralistic, Anglican ideals and pursued the application of these morals to such
an extent that Queen Victoria dismissed him as a “half-mad firebrand”. Many of
the steps to remove corruption were taken by the Liberals during this period –
most notably, the 1872 Ballot Act made voting secret for the first time, rather
than the previous system of publicly noting voters’ names down in a poll book,
which meant that landlords could no longer force tenants to vote for their
selected MP and threaten them with eviction if they did not comply. The other
landmark removal of corruption in this period was during Gladstone’s Second
Ministry: the 1883 Corrupt Policies Act. This criminalised attempts to bribe
, voters and capped campaign spending at £710 for the first 2,000 voters, with
the additional leverage that any candidates found guilty of corruption could not
stand for election for the next 7 years, alongside demands for strict record
keeping to prove that expenses were not being exceeded. However, even these
policies faced opposition within the Liberal Party itself, mainly from more right-
leaning Whigs like Lord Hartigan, who heavily criticised the 1872 Ballot Act,
who argued that voters should confidently declare whom they had made a
substantiated judgement on their candidates. Therefore, whilst it is evident that
the Liberals’ moral ideology – shepherded by Gladstone - was vital in reducing
the levels of corruption present within the political system, it is also clear that
Liberal ideology was not a unified force and that there were dissenters on
multiple sides, in this case being the landowning Whigs who were more closely
bound to their private interests than pursuing moralistic reform.
The extension of the franchise can be seen less as the product of the Liberals’
ideological drive and more so as acts of political expediency by both the Liberals
and the Conservatives. The Conservatives’ final rendition of the 1867 Act was,
by Disraeli’s own admission, a leap in the dark designed to “dish the Liberals”
by winning popular Conservative support amongst the enfranchised working
classes; it was by no means ideologically driven, but instead was likely a response
to the mounting pressure for reform after the Hyde Park riots, and its staggering
broadening of the electorate to 1 in 3 men was characteristic of Disraeli’s style
of politics – shocking and extravagant yet carefully calculated.
In terms of the Liberals, Jonathan Parry argues that the 1867 Reform Act was
an accident, disputing “romantic explanations [that the Liberals] came to
appreciate the good moral sense of respectable artisans” and instead suggesting
that that even more radical figures like John Stuart Mill advocated for reform in
the 1860s out of the belief that a somewhat broadened electorate would force
MPs to consider the concerns of their constituents more carefully, rather than
out of a desire for full democracy. Gladstone himself did not want to disrupt the
carefully established balance of society, as he said that it was the “natural
condition of a healthy society” for the “leisured class” to rule. Whilst some
measure of ideology can be seen in the fact that John Bright argued that
democracy should be for everyone as “the nation in every country dwells in the
cottage”, this was not entirely reflected in the Liberals’ proposed 1866 Bill,
which was quite limited in comparison to the final Act under the Conservatives,
adding 400,000 people to the electorate rather than over 1 million. The proposal
of the Bill in March 1866 once again highlighted that the Liberals were not fully
,Following the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, the Liberal Party saw a
significant shift over the next twenty years, becoming a party which branched
out from simply the landowning interests of the Whigs and into one
encompassing a broad spectrum of industrialists, Radical MPs and former
Peelites, all with differing visions on political reform. Nonetheless, these
disparate threads were united under the principles of Gladstonian Liberalism,
which advocated for a benign but largely laissez-faire government; in terms of
political reform, this translated to a belief that there should not necessarily be
watershed change but instead reforms which could gradually guide the people
into following law and tradition. As such, whilst it could be argued that the
removal of corrupt political practices from 1865-1885 was driven by liberal
ideology, it would be more credible to argue that the extension of the franchise
and redistribution of seats were driven by political expediency, both of the
Liberals and also the Conservatives.
In terms of the removal of political corruption, Liberal ideology can certainly be
seen as the driving force of the period. Corruption was antithetical to many
Liberal beliefs, particularly those of Gladstone, who was driven by his deeply
moralistic, Anglican ideals and pursued the application of these morals to such
an extent that Queen Victoria dismissed him as a “half-mad firebrand”. Many of
the steps to remove corruption were taken by the Liberals during this period –
most notably, the 1872 Ballot Act made voting secret for the first time, rather
than the previous system of publicly noting voters’ names down in a poll book,
which meant that landlords could no longer force tenants to vote for their
selected MP and threaten them with eviction if they did not comply. The other
landmark removal of corruption in this period was during Gladstone’s Second
Ministry: the 1883 Corrupt Policies Act. This criminalised attempts to bribe
, voters and capped campaign spending at £710 for the first 2,000 voters, with
the additional leverage that any candidates found guilty of corruption could not
stand for election for the next 7 years, alongside demands for strict record
keeping to prove that expenses were not being exceeded. However, even these
policies faced opposition within the Liberal Party itself, mainly from more right-
leaning Whigs like Lord Hartigan, who heavily criticised the 1872 Ballot Act,
who argued that voters should confidently declare whom they had made a
substantiated judgement on their candidates. Therefore, whilst it is evident that
the Liberals’ moral ideology – shepherded by Gladstone - was vital in reducing
the levels of corruption present within the political system, it is also clear that
Liberal ideology was not a unified force and that there were dissenters on
multiple sides, in this case being the landowning Whigs who were more closely
bound to their private interests than pursuing moralistic reform.
The extension of the franchise can be seen less as the product of the Liberals’
ideological drive and more so as acts of political expediency by both the Liberals
and the Conservatives. The Conservatives’ final rendition of the 1867 Act was,
by Disraeli’s own admission, a leap in the dark designed to “dish the Liberals”
by winning popular Conservative support amongst the enfranchised working
classes; it was by no means ideologically driven, but instead was likely a response
to the mounting pressure for reform after the Hyde Park riots, and its staggering
broadening of the electorate to 1 in 3 men was characteristic of Disraeli’s style
of politics – shocking and extravagant yet carefully calculated.
In terms of the Liberals, Jonathan Parry argues that the 1867 Reform Act was
an accident, disputing “romantic explanations [that the Liberals] came to
appreciate the good moral sense of respectable artisans” and instead suggesting
that that even more radical figures like John Stuart Mill advocated for reform in
the 1860s out of the belief that a somewhat broadened electorate would force
MPs to consider the concerns of their constituents more carefully, rather than
out of a desire for full democracy. Gladstone himself did not want to disrupt the
carefully established balance of society, as he said that it was the “natural
condition of a healthy society” for the “leisured class” to rule. Whilst some
measure of ideology can be seen in the fact that John Bright argued that
democracy should be for everyone as “the nation in every country dwells in the
cottage”, this was not entirely reflected in the Liberals’ proposed 1866 Bill,
which was quite limited in comparison to the final Act under the Conservatives,
adding 400,000 people to the electorate rather than over 1 million. The proposal
of the Bill in March 1866 once again highlighted that the Liberals were not fully
