Party And Constituency In Victorian Britain

Victorian Britain is often described as an age of dawning democracy and as an exemplar of the modern Liberal state; yet a hereditary monarchy, a hereditary House of Lords, and an established Anglican Church survived as influential aspects of national public life with traditional elites assuming redefined roles. After 1832, constitutional notions of 'mixed government' gradually gave way to the orthodoxy of 'parliamentary government', shaping the function and nature of political parties in Westminster and the constituencies, as well as the relations between them. Following the 1867-8 Reform Acts, national political parties began to replace the premises of 'parliamentary government'. The subsequent emergence of a mass male electorate in the 1880s and 1890s prompted politicians to adopt new language and methods by which to appeal to voters, while enduring public values associated with morality, community and evocations of the past continued to shape Britain's distinctive political culture. This gave a particularly conservative trajectory to the nation's entry into the twentieth century. This study of British political culture from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century examines the public values that informed perceptions of the constitution, electoral activity, party partisanship, and political organization. Its exploration of Victorian views of status, power, and authority as revealed in political language, speeches, and writing, as well as theology, literature, and science, shows how the development of moral communities rooted in readings of the past enabled politicians to manage far-reaching change. This presents a new over-arching perspective on the constitutional and political transformations of the Victorian age.

Volume III deals with the 'long twentieth century'. Its main themes are: * the contraction of British industrial power and the shift to a service-based economy * the decline of Victorianism and the rise of Modernism * the climax of class society between the wars and the blurring of class lines after the 1960s * the impact of two world wars * the decline of British power and the empire * the partition of Ireland * the devolution of power to Wales and Scotland.

Explores the many issues surrounding by-elections in the period which saw the extension of the franchise, the introduction of the ballot, and the demise of most dual member constituencies. Between the 1832 Great Reform Act and the outbreak of World War One in 1914, over 2,600 by-elections took place in Britain. They were triggered by the death, retirement or resignation of sitting MPs or by the appointment of cabinet ministers and were a regular feature of Victorian and Edwardian politics. They furnished political parties and their leaders with a crucial tool for gauging and mobilising public opinion. Yet despite the prominence of by-election contests in the historical records of this period, scholars have paid relatively little attention to them. As this book shows, these elections deserve to be taken as seriously today as people took them at the time. They providedimportant linkages between local and national politics, between the four parts of the United Kingdom and Westminster, and between foreign and domestic affairs. They are vital to understanding the evolving electioneering machineries, the varying language of electoral contests, the traction that particular issues had with a growing and frequently volatile electorate, and the fluctuating fortunes of the political parties. This book, consisting of original work by leading political historians, provides the first synoptic study of this important subject. It will be required reading for historians and students of modern British political history, as well as specialists in electoralhistory and politics. T. G. Otte is Professor of Diplomatic History at the University of East Anglia. He is the author and/or editor of some thirteen books. Among the most recent is The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865-1914; Paul Readman is Senior Lecturer in Modern British History at King's College London. He is the author of Land and Nation in England: Patriotism, National Identity and the Politics of Land 1880-1914. Contributors: Luke Blaxill, Angus Hawkins, Geoffrey Hicks, Phillips Payson O'Brien, T.G. Otte, Ian Packer, Gordon Pentland, Paul Readman, Kathryn Rix, Matthew Roberts, Philip Salmon, Anthony Taylor

By the end of the nineteenth century, reform and development of the British electoral system had inaugurated a new style of mass politics which fundamentally transformed the face of the British party system. This book traces the evolution of recognisably modern parties from their roots in the 1880s through half a century of dramatic change in organisational structure, electoral competition and constitutional thought. In the House of Commons the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the radical answer to the Conservative Party. In the country at large the complex web of Victorian social, regional and religious allegiances gave way to a cruder but more dynamic model of modern political loyalties. The transformation at Westminster and in the constituencies is surveyed in relation to changes to the franchise (including the vote for women), class consciousness, political organisation and doctrine. The comprehensive account explains the varying fortunes of the parties in the face of mass democracy, collectivism, the First World War and economic uncertainty. It also provides a critical insight into the debates and conflicts of interpretation which surround this pivotal period in British political history.

This accessible new study provides a much-needed guide to the pivotal period of British history between 1910 and 1935, against the background of upheavals such as the First World War and the transition to full democracy as a consequence of the Reform Acts of 1918 and 1928. Combining an up-to-date synthesis of previous work with a reappraisal of the main personalities, themes and events of the period, David Powell brings clarity to this crucial yet complex period. Examining British politics on the eve of war, David Powell assesses the impact of war on the parties and the political system and the process of realignment that followed in the interwar period. In particular he analyzes to what extent these events as a whole constituted a crisis of the party system. From the structure of the Edwardian political system and the party politics of pre-war Britain, through to the economic and political crisis of 1931 and the subsequent rebuilding of the party system, this comprehensive analysis offers an indispensable survey to all students of British history or politics.