LiberalHistoryToday

#OTD 1923: Polling day in the 1923 general election. The Liberal Party, fighting on a familiar free trade platform, saw a recovery in its vote and the election of 158 MPs elected. Ominously for the party, it failed to overtake the Labour Party.

#OTD 1916: H.H. Asquith resigns as PM. The crisis that led to his resignation had been building for over a month. Concern at the military weakness in the British army at the Battle of the Somme led Lloyd George to call for a restructuring of the War Council with himself as Chair.

#OTD 1811: Birth of Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrook. In 1856 he was responsible for the joint Stock Companies Act, the first national codification of company law in the world. He opposed parliamentary reform and fell out with Russell and Gladstone over their 1866 Reform Bill.

Gladstone undertook to remind all ministers that they should consider the Queen's feelings. The conversation eventually got round to the role of the Irish Church but only when 'the time for the train was fast approaching'.

Victoria had taken exception to Lord Clarendon, Gladstone's choice for Foreign Secretary, who had taken to referring to the Queen as 'the Missus' which had not gone down well with Her Majesty.

#OTD 1868: W.E. Gladstone has his first audience with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. He found the Queen 'kind, cheerful, even playful'. Much of the conversation was taken up with who might be in the government. 🧵

From 1999 - 2006 he held a number of posts on the Liberal Democrat front bench including Shadow Rural Affairs and Food Secretary and Shadow Secretary of State for international Development.

In 1992 George contested St Ives cutting the Tory majority to less than 2,000. In 1997 George won the seat and has held it ever since. In 2005 he became the first MP to swear the oath of allegiance in Cornish.

Born in Mullion, Cornwall, George was educated locally then at the University of Sussex and University College Oxford. George worked as a charity worker becoming Deputy Director of the Cornwall Rural Community Council in 1987.

#OTD 1958: Happy birthday to Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives 1997-2015 and since 2024.🧵

She demanded that Palmerston be dismissed. Russell wrote to Palmerston to tell him that he had no choice but to 'ask Her Majesty to appoint a successor to you at the Foreign Office'.

a 'day before yesterday tomfoolery which the scatterbrain heads of Marrast and Toqueville invented for the torment and perplexity of the French nation'. Queen Victoria heard of this despatch which had been sent without having been seen by either herself, or the PM Lord Russell.

#OTD 1851: Louis Napoleon, President of France carries out a coup d'etat and proclaims himself Napoleon III. Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston privately congratulated Napoleon noting that the French constitution of 1850 was...🧵

After a few more blows, he rested on his axe and said, 'My mission is to pacify Ireland' and said nothing else until the tree was down.

Evelyn Ashley, son of Lord Shaftesbury, was staying with the Gladstones at the time and was present when the telegram arrived. Gladstone opened it and passed it to Ashley saying only 'very significant'.

#OTD 1868: Following the Liberal victory in the general election, Gladstone is invited by Queen Victoria to form his first government. When the telegram arrived, Gladstone was felling trees on his Hawarden estate. 🧵

They said they would pass the budget if the Liberals got an electoral mandate, so paving the way for the general election of January 1910 on the issue of popular democracy versus irresponsible privilege.

...question of who ruled the country - the elected Commons or the unelected Lords. The Unionist peers regarded the budget as a socialist measure threatening the security of private property.

#OTD 1909: The House of Lords finally veto Lloyd George's 'People's' Budget. The budget had been introduced to raise taxes for the Liberal government's radical social welfare programmes but Unionist opposition meant the Liberals increasingly saw it as a constitutional issue...🧵

#OTD 1812: Birth of Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne. In 1873, he was responsible for the Judicature Act, which reorganised the court system and established the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

Bright said that Mrs Maxwell: 'is a hardworking, honest person, who pays her rates as you do, and therefore if any person should possess a vote, it is precisely such as she.' (The Times, 3 Dec 1867). Parliament declared women's suffrage illegal the following year.

#OTD 1867: Lily Maxwell becomes the first woman to vote in a parliamentary election. She voted for Jacob Bright (a Liberal) in a by-election for the Manchester constituency. She had been put on the registers by mistake, thereby contributing to Bright's c.2,000 majority.🧵

#OTD 1981: Shirley Williams overturns a Conservative majority of 19,272 to win the Crosby by-election for the Liberal/SDP Alliance, securing 49% of the vote.

#OTD 1959: Birth of Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats 1999 - 2006. As leader, Kennedy carved out a distinctive position for the party, in particular opposing the Iraq War, which saw the party record its best result since 1923, winning 62 seats.

#OTD 1885: Start of the 1885 General Election. The Liberals won the election, though not with an overall majority as Irish nationalists or Home Rulers won 85 of the 103 Irish seats, securing the balance of power in the HoC. Home rule would divide the Liberal Party.

#OTD 1960: Happy birthday to Christine Jardine, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West since 2017. She is currently the Lib Dem Spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, Women & Equalities and Scotland.

He delivered speeches at Carlisle, Hawick and Galashiels. Night had fallen when the train pulled into Edinburgh station where Rosebery was waiting to drive him to Dalmeny. Bonfires blazed in the hills and fireworks lit up the sky.🧵 2/2

#OTD 1897: Gladstone travels up to Dalmeny, the home of Lord Rosebery, to deliver a series of speeches that will become known as the Midlothian Campaign. At numerous stations between Liverpool and Edinburgh large crowds gathered to cheer Gladstone as he passed.🧵 1/2

#OTD 1912: Thomas Taylor, a Bolton corn merchant and JP, holds the Bolton seat for the Liberals at a by-election with a 90% turnout. Taylor put his election down to 'the unalterable determination of the working people of Lancashire to have nothing to do with Tariff Reform'.

The Daily Chronicle continued to be a progressive Liberal paper. In 1930 it merged with the Daily News to become the News Chronicle and was the last major daily paper to support the Liberal Party until its demise in 1960.