The Liberal Party was formally established in 1859 and existed until merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to create the Liberal Democrats.
Before the adoption of the 1969 constitution of the party, the party was led by the prime minister or the most recent politically active prime minister from the party. In the absence of one of these, the leaders in the House of Lords and House of Commons were of equal status and jointly led the party.
When a new leader was required, with the party in government, the monarch selected him by appointing someone as Prime Minister. However, in 1916 David Lloyd George, with the support of a minority of the Liberal MPs, formed a coalition government. H. H. Asquith, the former Prime Minister, remained as Liberal Party leader. Asquith retained the leadership until his health failed in 1926, including periods when he was not in the Commons or was a peer. He was the last leader of the whole party under the original arrangements for leadership.
When no overall party leader was a member of a House and a new leader was required in opposition, a leader emerged and was approved by party members in that House. From 1919 onward, the Chairman of the Liberal Parliamentary Party, elected by MPs, functioned as the leader in the House of Commons. This required all the leaders after Asquith to retain their seat in order to continue as leader. After 1926 the leader in the House of Commons was clearly pre-eminent over the leader in the House of Lords.
In 1931 Lloyd George was leader in the House of Commons, but he was ill when negotiations led to the formation of the National Government. Sir Herbert Samuel, who had been the deputy leader, was effectively the leader of the mainstream party from the time when he entered the government. This was made formal after the 1931 general election.
Under the original provisions of the 1969 party constitution, the MPs elected one of their number to be Leader of the Liberal Party. This was the same system as that used for the last MP only contested leadership election in 1967, when Jeremy Thorpe became leader after a vote split between three candidates of 6-3-3.
As the number of Liberal MPs was very small (between 6 and 14 during the period the MPs retained the sole power of election) party members argued for a wider franchise. Prior to the leadership election of 1976, all members were given a vote in an electoral college based on allocating electoral votes to constituency associations (which were then divided proportionately to the votes of the members of the association). The candidates were required to be members of the House of Commons, nominated by a quarter of the MPs. The electoral college system was only used once, when David Steel was elected leader.
Name | Portrait | Constituency/Title | Took office | Left office | Prime Minister | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston [1] | Tiverton | 12 June 1859 | 18 October 1865 | himself | ||
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell | 1st Earl Russell | 29 October 1865 | 3 December 1868 | himself 1865–66 | ||
Earl of Derby 1866–68 | ||||||
Benjamin Disraeli 1868 | ||||||
William Ewart Gladstone | Greenwich | 3 December 1868 | 3 February 1875 | himself 1868–74 | ||
Benjamin Disraeli 1874–80 | ||||||
Vacant [2] Leader of Lords 2nd Earl Granville Leader of Commons Marquess of Hartington | 3 February 1875 | 23 April 1880 | ||||
William Ewart Gladstone | Midlothian | 23 April 1880 | 2 March 1894 | himself 1880–85 | ||
Marquess of Salisbury 1885–86 | ||||||
himself 1886 | ||||||
Marquess of Salisbury 1886–92 | ||||||
himself 1892–94 | ||||||
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery | 5th Earl of Rosebery | 5 March 1894 | 6 October 1896 | himself 1894–95 | ||
Marquess of Salisbury 1895–1902 | ||||||
Vacant [3] Leader of Lords 1st Earl of Kimberley 1897–1902; 5th Earl Spencer 1902–05 Leader of Commons William Vernon Harcourt 1896–98; Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 1898–1905 | 6 October 1896 | 3 December 1905 | ||||
Arthur Balfour 1902–05 | ||||||
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman | Stirling Burghs | 5 December 1905 | 3 April 1908 | himself | ||
H. H. Asquith | East Fife | 5 April 1908 | 25 November 1918 | himself 1908–16 | ||
David Lloyd George 1916–22 | ||||||
Sir Donald Maclean [4] (interim leader) | Peebles and South Midlothian | 3 February 1919 | 12 February 1920 | |||
H. H. Asquith | Paisley (1920–1924); 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1925–1926) | 12 February 1920 | 15 October 1926 | |||
Bonar Law 1922–23 | ||||||
Stanley Baldwin 1923–24 | ||||||
Ramsay MacDonald 1924 | ||||||
Stanley Baldwin 1924–29 | ||||||
Leaders of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons [5] | ||||||
David Lloyd George [6] | Caernarvon Boroughs | 2 December 1924 | 7 October 1931 | |||
Ramsay MacDonald 1929–35 | ||||||
Sir Herbert Samuel [7] | Darwen | 4 November 1931 | 25 October 1935 | |||
Sir Archibald Sinclair, Bt [8] | Caithness and Sutherland | 26 November 1935 | 26 July 1945 | Stanley Baldwin 1935–37 | ||
Neville Chamberlain 1937–40 | ||||||
Winston Churchill 1940–45 | ||||||
Clement Davies | Montgomeryshire | 2 August 1945 | 5 November 1956 | Clement Attlee 1945–51 | ||
Winston Churchill 1951–55 | ||||||
Anthony Eden 1955–57 | ||||||
Jo Grimond | Orkney and Shetland | 5 November 1956 | 17 January 1967 | |||
Harold Macmillan 1957–63 | ||||||
Alec Douglas-Home 1963–64 | ||||||
Harold Wilson 1964–70 | ||||||
Jeremy Thorpe | North Devon | 18 January 1967 | 1969 | |||
Leaders of the Liberal Party elected under the 1969 Constitution [9] | ||||||
Jeremy Thorpe | North Devon | 1969 | 10 May 1976 | |||
Edward Heath 1970–74 | ||||||
Harold Wilson 1974–76 | ||||||
Jo Grimond [10] (interim leader) | Orkney and Shetland | 12 May 1976 | 7 July 1976 | James Callaghan 1976–79 | ||
David Steel [11] | Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (1967–1983); Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (1983–1988) | 7 July 1976 | 3 March 1988 | |||
Margaret Thatcher 1979–90 | ||||||
Name | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|
The Earl Granville | 1859 | 1865 |
The Earl Russell | 1865 | 1868 |
The Earl Granville | 1868 | 1891 |
The Earl of Kimberley | 1891 | 1894 |
The Earl of Rosebery | 1894 | 1896 |
The Earl of Kimberley | 1897 | 1902 |
The Earl Spencer | 1902 | 1905 |
The Marquess of Ripon | 1905 | 1908 |
The Earl of Crewe (The Marquess of Crewe from 1911) | 1908 | 1923 |
The Viscount Grey of Fallodon | 1923 | 1924 |
The Earl Beauchamp | 1924 | 1931 |
The Marquess of Reading | 1931 | 1935 |
The Marquess of Crewe | 1936 | 1944 |
The Viscount Samuel | 1944 | 1955 |
The Lord Rea | 1955 | 1967 |
The Lord Byers | 1967 | 1984 |
The Baroness Seear | 1984 | 1988 |
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites, and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election.
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith,, generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister to command a majority government, and the most recent Liberal to have served as Leader of the Opposition. He played a major role in the design and passage of major liberal legislation and a reduction of the power of the House of Lords. In August 1914, Asquith took Great Britain and the British Empire into the First World War. During 1915, his government was vigorously attacked for a shortage of munitions and the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. He formed a coalition government with other parties but failed to satisfy critics, was forced to resign in December 1916 and never regained power.
The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political alliance with the Conservative Party in opposition to Irish Home Rule. The two parties formed the ten-year-long coalition Unionist Government 1895–1905 but kept separate political funds and their own party organisations until a complete merger between the Liberal Unionist and the Conservative parties was agreed to in May 1912.
The 1935 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 14 November, and resulted in a large, albeit reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party. The greatest number of members, as before, were Conservatives, while the National Liberal vote held steady. The much smaller National Labour vote also held steady but the resurgence in the main Labour vote caused over a third of their MPs, including National Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald, to lose their seats. It was the last election in which a party or alliance won a majority of the votes cast.
The 1931 United Kingdom general election was held on Tuesday 27 October 1931 and saw a landslide election victory for the National Government which had been formed two months previously after the collapse of the second Labour government. Collectively, the parties forming the National Government won 67% of the votes and 554 seats out of 615. Although the bulk of the National Government's support came from the Conservative Party and the Conservatives won 470 seats, National Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald remained as Prime Minister. The Labour Party suffered its greatest defeat, losing four out of every five seats compared with the previous election, including the seat of its leader Arthur Henderson. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas said the results "were the most astonishing in the history of the British party system". It is the most recent election in which one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast, and the last UK general election not to take place on a Thursday. It would be the last election until 1997 in which a party won over 400 seats in the House of Commons.
The 1924 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 29 October 1924, as a result of the defeat of the Labour minority government, led by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence. It was the third general election to be held in less than two years. Parliament was dissolved on 9 October.
The 1922 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 15 November 1922. It was won by the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law, which gained an overall majority over the Labour Party, led by J. R. Clynes, and a divided Liberal Party.
The 1918 United Kingdom general election was called immediately after the Armistice with Germany which ended the First World War, and was held on Saturday, 14 December 1918. The governing coalition, under Prime Minister David Lloyd George, sent letters of endorsement to candidates who supported the coalition government. These were nicknamed "Coalition Coupons", and led to the election being known as the "coupon election". The result was a massive landslide in favour of the coalition, comprising primarily the Conservatives and Coalition Liberals, with massive losses for Liberals who were not endorsed. Nearly all the Liberal MPs without coupons were defeated, including party leader H. H. Asquith.
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At the 1931 general election, a small group of official Liberal candidates led by former Liberal Party leader, David Lloyd George, and mostly related to him, stood on a platform of opposition to the National Government and were sometimes referred to as Independent Liberals.
Sir Percy Alfred Harris, 1st Baronet, PC was a British Liberal Party politician. He was Liberal Chief Whip and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Parliamentary Party.
In parliamentary politics, balance of power is a situation in which one or more members of a parliamentary or similar chamber can by their uncommitted vote enable a party to attain and remain in minority government. The term may also be applied to the members who hold that position. The members holding the balance of power may guarantee their support for a government by either joining it in a coalition government or by an assurance that they will vote against any motion of no confidence in the government or will abstain in such a vote. In return for such a commitment, such members may demand legislative or policy commitments from the party they are to support. A person or party may also hold a balance of power in a chamber without any commitment to government, in which case both the government and opposition groupings may on occasion need to negotiate for that person's or party's support.
The leader of the Labour Party is the highest position within the United Kingdom's Labour Party. The current holder of the position is Keir Starmer, who was elected to the position on 4 April 2020, following his victory in the party's leadership election.
The 1920 Paisley by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 12 February 1920 for the House of Commons constituency of Paisley in Scotland. It was caused by the death of the constituency's sitting Liberal Member of Parliament Sir John Mills McCallum. Former Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, who was still leader of the Liberal Party but who had lost his seat at the 1918 general election, returned to the Commons.
Henry Vivian Phillipps was a British teacher, lawyer and Liberal politician.
The Coalition Coupon was a letter sent to parliamentary candidates at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, endorsing them as official representatives of the Coalition Government. The 1918 election took place in the heady atmosphere of victory in the First World War and the desire for revenge on Germany and its allies. Receiving the coupon was interpreted by the electorate as a sign of patriotism that helped candidates gain election, while those who did not receive it had a more difficult time as they were sometimes seen as anti-war or pacifist. The letters were all dated 20 November 1918 and were signed by Prime Minister David Lloyd George for the Coalition Liberals and Bonar Law, the leader of the Conservative Party. As a result, the 1918 general election has become known as "the coupon election".
The Carlton Club meeting, on 19 October 1922, was a formal meeting of Members of Parliament who belonged to the Conservative Party, called to discuss whether the party should remain in government in coalition with a section of the Liberal Party under the leadership of Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The party leadership favoured continuing, but the party rebels led by Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin argued that participation was damaging the party. The meeting voted decisively against the Coalition, which resulted in its collapse, the resignation of Austen Chamberlain as party leader, and the invitation of Law to form a Government. The Conservatives subsequently won the general election with an overall majority.
The National Liberal Party was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1922 to 1923. It was created as a formal party organisation for those Liberals, led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who supported the Coalition Government (1918–22) and subsequently a revival of the Coalition, after it ceased holding office. It was officially a breakaway from the Liberal Party. The National Liberals ceased to exist in 1923 when Lloyd George agreed to a merger with the Liberal Party.