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History Notes British Liberalism, 1815 - 1918 Notes

British Liberalism Notes

Updated British Liberalism Notes

British Liberalism, 1815 - 1918 Notes

British Liberalism, 1815 - 1918

Approximately 111 pages

Bullet point notes on Whiggery and Liberalism from Grey to Lloyd George. Charting the electoral fortunes, philosophy, and government policies of the party, including differences across England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Everything from personalities, views on imperialism to religion to reform, liberal pressure groups and different liberal movements are included. Illustrated with images, quotes, and timelines....

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The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our British Liberalism, 1815 - 1918 Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Liberalism

Contents

  • Past questions

  • Quotes

    • Whiggery

    • Liberalism

    • Gladstonian Liberalism

    • Radicalism and Liberal Unionism

  • Chronology

    • Governments

    • Whiggery

    • Liberalism

  • Whiggery

    • Origins

    • Historiography

    • Reform

    • Society

    • Religion

    • Economics

    • Foreign policy

    • Lobbies

    • Decline

  • Liberalism

    • Origins

    • Consistency

    • Reform

    • Society

    • Economics

    • Foreign policy

    • Lobbies

  • Gladstonian Liberalism

    • Origins

    • Historiography

    • Organisation

    • Consistency

    • Reform

    • Society

    • Religion

    • Economics

    • National policy

    • Foreign policy

    • Lobbies

    • Decline

  • Liberal Unionism

    • Origins

    • Foreign policy

  • Principles

    • The Empire

    • The Whigs and Ireland

    • The Liberals and Ireland

    • Home Rule

    • Wales

    • Scotland

  • Events

    • Opposition

    • Grey’s ministry

    • The Great Reform Act

    • Melbourne’s first ministry

    • Melbourne’s second ministry

    • Russell’s first ministry

    • The Great Famine

    • The Crimean War

    • Palmerston’s first ministry

    • Palmerston’s second ministry

    • Russell’s second ministry

    • The Second Reform Act

    • Gladstone’s first ministry

    • Opposition

    • Gladstone’s second ministry

    • The Third Reform Act

    • Gladstone’s third ministry

    • Gladstone’s fourth ministry

    • Rosebery’s ministry

    • Campbell-Bannerman’s ministry

    • Asquith’s ministry

    • The Great War

    • Lloyd George’s ministry

Quotes

Whiggery

  • Parliament should embody ‘the respectability, the wealth and the intelligence’.

    • Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey.

  • With 1832 ‘it was impossible to exaggerate the enthusiasm of Scotland… it is like liberty given to slaves’.

    • Henry Cockburn, 1832, the Edinburgh Review.

  • Benthamites are “all fools”.

    • William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.

  • “Johnny had upset the coach”.

    • Lord Stanley on Lord John Russell’s defiance of his party on Irish issues.

  • “[T]o hold our own Whig course”.

    • Lord John Russell, 1835.

  • “The Whigs and Radicals can, I believe, at any time defeat a Tory government”

    • Lord John Russell to Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey.

  • That “within a day’s communication of the capital of the greatest and richest empire in the world, thousands of our fellow creatures are each day dying of starvation.”

    • Isaac Butt on the Great Hunger.

  • “We are reaping the fruit of English legislation.”

    • The Belfast Vindicator on the Great Famine.

Liberalism

  • A government was needed “fairly representing the industrial mind and conservative progress of the country”.

    • George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon.

  • “Afghanistan must be ours or Russia’s”.

    • Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

  • “[S]o much the better; there are several of her colonies which would suit us remarkably well”.

    • Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston on the prospect of war with Portugal in 1839.

  • Palmerston was “the true English mastiff” and “English to the backbone”.

    • The newspapers on Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

  • That “a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England, will protect him against injustice and wrong.”

    • Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

  • ‘One thing is certain – the French must go out of Belgium, or we have a general war, and war in a given number of days.’

    • Palmerston letter to Ambassador Granville, intercepted by the French.

  • ‘Diplomats and protocols are very good things, but there are no better peace-keepers than well-appointed three-deckers’.

    • Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

  • ‘The interest of England was the maintenance of general peace throughout Europe’.

    • Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

  • The ‘notion that I am more indifferent than I ought to be as to the risk of war’.

    • Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.

  • Palmerston provided “dull government”.

    • Walter Bagehot.

  • And “it really brings together persons of all opinions” in the search for social improvement.

    • John Stuart Mill on the Social Science Association.

  • The situation will be resolved through the ‘mutual concert between the Great Powers’.

    • Lord John Russell on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

  • Palmerston ‘wasted the strength derived by England from the great war by his brag’.

    • Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville.

  • On his death, Gladstone wrote: “Death had indeed laid low the most towering antlers in all the forest.”

    • WE Gladstone on the death of Palmerston in October 1865.

Gladstonian Liberalism

  • That “man’s sinfulness was “the great fact in the world”.

    • WE Gladstone.

  • “The country would not tolerate any direct influence in a quarrel with which we had no concern.’

    • George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon to the Queen.

  • Establishment was an “essential and fundamental part of the Union”.

    • The Act of Union, 1st August 1800.

  • “Legislators, ministers, peers, bishops and archbishops were drawn with irresistible force into the whirlpool of social science.”

    • The Spectator.

  • A ‘half-mad fire-brand who would soon ruin everything, and be a Dictator’.

    • Queen Victoria on WE Gladstone.

  • To “embrace broad principles and to hold them fast”.

    • The first duty of the statesman, according to Gladstone.

  • “I dislike, I may almost say I detest, gratuitous change.”

    • WE Gladstone.

  • “You cannot fight the future. Time is on our side.”

    • WE Gladstone.

  • I am an “out-and-out inequalitarian”.

    • WE Gladstone.

  • That: “the Fenian conspiracy has been an important influence with regard to Irish policy”.

    • William Ewart Gladstone, 1869.

  • It is “the most absurd” institution of the civilised world.

    • Thomas Babington Macaulay on the Church of Ireland.

  • The Liberals had “never been a party, except ad hoc, for some special purpose”.

    • Viscount Cardwell, 1874.

  • The “criminal lunacy” of Gladstone’s approach.

    • Sir William Harcourt, Leader of the House of Commons, 1886.

  • Gladstone “regards the rest of us as children”.

    • Sir William Harcourt, Leader of the House of Commons.

  • The ‘nation of nonconformists’.

    • Henry Richard.

  • ‘It is quite evident that the Welch consider me to be their representative’.

    • Richard Cobden.

  • That ‘if a broomstick was put up in the Gladstone interest I believe [the Welsh] would vote for it’.

    ...

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