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This article provides a list of United Kingdom Whig and allied party leaders from 1801 to 1859. During the 19th century, the Whigs, Radicals and Peelites gradually evolved into the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party was formally established in 1859 and continued to exist until it merged with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to create the Liberal Democrats.
When the United Kingdom came into existence, on 1 January 1801, the era of disciplined mass parties had not yet begun. Although individuals and families regarded themselves as belonging to a Whig or Tory tradition, actual political allegiance tended to be to family connections and to factions grouped behind a prominent political leader. Most of these loose associations of politicians, after the disappearance of almost any party bonds by about 1760 and the accession of George III, contained members from both Whig and Tory traditions.
In the first decade of the 19th century most politicians realigned themselves into fairly cohesive Whig and Tory parties. Thereafter individuals and groups might move between the two parties, but they both maintained a continuous existence (through a number of mergers and name changes). These two groups were the direct ancestors of the 21st-century Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties.
There were several stages in the consolidation of the parties:
There was only a leader of the Whig Party as a whole, when a party member (or the leader of an allied group like the Peelites) was Prime Minister or (from 1830) was the most recent Prime Minister from the party and was still in active politics. At other times the leaders in the House of Lords and House of Commons were of equal status and in theory jointly led the party.
When a new leader was required, with the party in government, the monarch selected him by appointing someone as First Lord of the Treasury.
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. Before 1807 faction leaders were not necessarily followed by all opposition Whigs. However, by 1807 the party in the House of Commons, as opposed to a faction or factions within it, had acquired recognised leaders.
| No. | Name | Constituency / Title | Took office | Left office |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | No recognised leader | N/A | 1801 | 1806 |
| 1 | William Grenville | 1st Baron Grenville | 11 February 1806 | 31 March 1807 |
| N/A | No recognised leader | N/A | 1807 | 1830 |
| 2 | Charles Grey | 2nd Earl Grey | 22 November 1830 | 16 July 1834 |
| 3 | William Lamb | 2nd Viscount Melbourne | 16 July 1834 | October 1842 |
| N/A | No recognised leader | N/A | 1842 | 1846 |
| 4 | Lord John Russell | City of London | 30 June 1846 | 19 December 1852 |
| 5 | George Hamilton-Gordon [lower-alpha 1] | 4th Earl of Aberdeen | 19 December 1852 | 6 February 1855 |
| 6 | The Viscount Palmerston [lower-alpha 2] | Tiverton | 6 February 1855 | 12 June 1859 |
Charles James Fox and Viscount Howick, as unofficial leaders of the party in the House of Commons from 1801 to 1807, led the largest of the anti-Pittite Whig groups. They were the successive government leaders of the House of Commons during the Ministry of All the Talents. Howick continued as a faction leader in opposition during 1807, until he inherited his peerage. From the appointment of George Ponsonby in 1808 the leaders were official.
| No. | Name | Constituency | Took office | Left office |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Charles James Fox [lower-alpha 3] | Westminster | 1801 | 1806 |
| 2 | Viscount Howick [lower-alpha 4] |
| 1806 | 1807 |
| 3 | George Ponsonby |
| 1808 | 1817 |
| 4 | George Tierney |
| 1818 | 1821 |
| N/A | No recognised leader | N/A | 1821 | 1830 |
| 5 | Viscount Althorp [lower-alpha 5] | Northamptonshire | 1830 | 1834 |
| 6 | Lord John Russell |
| 1834 | 1855 |
| 7 | The Viscount Palmerston [lower-alpha 2] | Tiverton | 1855 | 1859 |
No attempt is made to include a leader in the House of Lords in the table below before 1830, except during the Ministry of All the Talents. Earl Grey was probably the leading Whig in the House from 1807, particularly once Lord Grenville retired in 1817.
| No. | Name | Title | Took office | Left office |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | No recognised leader | N/A | 1801 | 1806 |
| 1 | William Grenville | 1st Baron Grenville | 11 February 1806 | 31 March 1807 |
| N/A | No recognised leader | N/A | 1807 | 1830 |
| 2 | Charles Grey | 2nd Earl Grey | 22 November 1830 | 16 July 1834 |
| 3 | William Lamb | 2nd Viscount Melbourne | 16 July 1834 | October 1842 |
| 4 | Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice | 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne | October 1842 | 19 December 1852 |
| 5 | George Hamilton-Gordon [lower-alpha 1] | 4th Earl of Aberdeen | 19 December 1852 | 6 February 1855 |
| 6 | Granville Leveson-Gower | 2nd Earl Granville | 1855 | 1859 |
The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs merged into the new Liberal Party in the 1850s, and other Whigs left the Liberal Party in 1886 to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Liberals' rival, the modern day Conservative Party, in 1912.
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey,, known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. He was a descendant of the noble House of Grey and a member of the Whig Party.
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804.
William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville,, styled as Lord Grenville from 1790, was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of the Napoleonic Wars. As prime minister, his most significant achievement was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. However, his government failed to either make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation and it was dismissed in the same year.
The Ministry of All the Talents was a national unity government in the United Kingdom formed by William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, on his appointment as Prime Minister on 11 February 1806, following the death of William Pitt the Younger.
The Peelites were a breakaway dissident political faction of the British Conservative Party from 1846 to 1859. Initially led by Robert Peel, the former Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader in 1846, the Peelites supported free trade whilst the bulk of the Conservative Party remained protectionist. The Peelites later merged with the Whigs and Radicals to form the Liberal Party in 1859.
Thomas Hamilton, 9th Earl of Haddington, KT, PC, FRS, FRSE, known as Lord Binning from 1794 to 1828, was a Scottish Conservative statesman.
The Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, more commonly referred to as the Leader of the Opposition, is the person who leads the Official Opposition in the United Kingdom.
William Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby , PC (Ire) was a leading Irish Whig politician, being a member of the Irish House of Commons, and, after 1800, of the United Kingdom parliament. Ponsonby was the son of the Hon. John Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the 3rd Duke of Devonshire. He was invested as a Privy Counsellor of Ireland in 1784. He served as Joint Postmaster-General of Ireland (1784–1789).
George Tierney PC was an Irish Whig politician. For much of his career he was in opposition to the governments of William Pitt and Lord Liverpool. From 1818 to 1821 he was Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.
The 1802 United Kingdom general election was the election to the House of Commons of the second Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was the first to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. The first Parliament had been composed of members of the former Parliaments of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland.
The 1806 United Kingdom general election was the election of members to the 3rd Parliament of the United Kingdom. This was the second general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The 1807 United Kingdom general election was the third general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The 1812 United Kingdom general election was the fourth general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
Cambridge University was a university constituency electing two members to the British House of Commons, from 1603 to 1950.
The Grenville Whigs were a name given to several British political factions of the 18th and the early 19th centuries, all of which were associated with the important Grenville family of Buckinghamshire.
Buckinghamshire is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885.
In the first Parliament to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801, the first House of Commons of the United Kingdom was composed of all 558 members of the former Parliament of Great Britain and 100 of the members of the House of Commons of Ireland.
Foxite was a late 18th-century British political label for Whig followers of Charles James Fox.
The Cobhamite faction were an 18th-century British political faction built around Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham and his supporters. Among its members, the group included the future Prime Ministers William Pitt and George Grenville. They had a general Whig philosophy and were at first supporters of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole but later became opponents of his administration.
