109-544: The Newcastle Commission set up in 1859 inquired "into the state of public education in England and to consider and report what measures, if any, are required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary instruction to all classes of the people". It produced the 1861 Newcastle Report and this led to the Elementary Education Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75). In the 1850s, much of the schooling of
218-591: A Liberal (1904–1924) authored Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909). The Liberal Party grew out of the Whigs , who had their origins in an aristocratic faction in the reign of Charles II and the early 19th century Radicals . The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of the Crown and increasing the power of Parliament . Although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves,
327-489: A Liberal base were deeply split. Ensor notes that, "London society, following the known views of the Queen, practically ostracized home rulers." The new Liberal leader was the ineffectual Lord Rosebery . He led the party to a heavy defeat in the 1895 general election . The Liberal Party lacked a unified ideological base in 1906. It contained numerous contradictory and hostile factions, such as imperialists and supporters of
436-523: A county responsibility. State control increased the number of school inspectors after 1872. Medical and dental inspections were introduced after 1908, though reaching remote schools proved difficult. The leaving age was raised to 14 in 1883. The new system was co-ordinated nationally by the Scotch Education Department with the curriculum emphasising the teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic (the three ‘Rs’). The churches made
545-557: A crucial contribution to the new system by handing over their schools without charge to the School Boards. At this time, the Free Church supported 548 schools across Scotland together with 584 teachers. The early 2000s rock band The Cooper Temple Clause was named after the provision familiar to generations of history students. Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in
654-584: A dangerous rival, and rejoiced at the chance to destroy her. They meant to fight a hard-headed war by ruthless methods; they condemned Liberal 'softness' before the war and now. The Liberals insisted on remaining high-minded. Many of them had come to support the war only when the Germans invaded Belgium. [...] Entering the war for idealistic motives, the Liberals wished to fight it by noble means and found it harder to abandon their principles than to endure defeat in
763-404: A direct response to this Education Act, the founding father of British popular journalism, George Newnes , began his career in publishing in 1881 when he founded Tit-Bits . This was a weekly magazine which took the form of a mini-encyclopedia of information to appeal to the new generations of young readers. Tit-Bits reached a circulation of 700,000 by the end of the 19th century and paved
872-596: A dominion beyond. Gladstone finally retired in 1894. Gladstone's support for Home Rule deeply divided the party, and it lost its upper and upper-middle-class base, while keeping support among Protestant nonconformists and the Celtic fringe. Historian R. C. K. Ensor reports that after 1886, the main Liberal Party was deserted by practically the entire whig peerage and the great majority of the upper-class and upper-middle-class members. High prestige London clubs that had
981-511: A few hymns. The Cabinet accepted that amendment on 14 June 1870, and Gladstone proposed it to the House of Commons two days later. It became the famous Cowper-Temple clause (Section 14 of the Act). HCG Matthew , the editor of Gladstone's diaries, believes that compromise to have hurt Gladstone more deeply than any other that he had to make. However, on 30 June 1870, a stronger amendment by Jacob Bright ,
1090-592: A government. Historian Robert Blake explains the dilemma: [T]he Liberals were traditionally the party of freedom of speech, conscience and trade. They were against jingoism, heavy armaments and compulsion. [...] Liberals were neither wholehearted nor unanimous about conscription, censorship, the Defence of the Realm Act , severity toward aliens and pacifists, direction of labour and industry. The Conservatives [...] had no such misgivings. Blake further notes that it
1199-601: A landslide victory in the 1906 general election . Under prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed reforms that created a basic welfare state . Although Asquith was the party leader , its dominant figure was David Lloyd George . Asquith was overwhelmed by his wartime role as prime minister and Lloyd George led a coalition that replaced him in late 1916. However, Asquith remained as Liberal Party leader. The split between Lloyd George's breakaway faction and Asquith's official Liberal faction badly weakened
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#17327799601871308-542: A legal obligation to ensure that their children were educated. Following continued campaigning by the National Education League, the Elementary Education Act 1880 ( 43 & 44 Vict. c. 23) ("the Mundella Act") required attendance to the age of 10 everywhere in England and Wales, with various exemptions. In 1891, elementary schooling became free in both board and voluntary (church) schools. As
1417-681: A lesser role in party affairs after 1900. The party, furthermore, also included Irish Catholics, and secularists from the labour movement. Many Conservatives (including Winston Churchill ) had recently protested against high tariff moves by the Conservatives by switching to the anti-tariff Liberal camp, but it was unclear how many old Conservative traits they brought along, especially on military and naval issues. The middle-class business, professional and intellectual communities were generally strongholds, although some old aristocratic families played important roles as well. The working-class element
1526-713: A massive victory: Labour increased their position slightly, but the Asquithian Liberals were decimated. Those remaining Liberal MPs who were opposed to the Coalition Government went into opposition under the parliamentary leadership of Sir Donald MacLean who also became Leader of the Opposition . Asquith, who had appointed MacLean, remained as overall Leader of the Liberal Party even though he lost his seat in 1918. Asquith returned to Parliament in 1920 and resumed leadership. Between 1919 and 1923,
1635-448: A new system of protectionist tariffs. Campbell-Bannerman was able to rally the party around the traditional liberal platform of free trade and land reform and led them to the greatest election victory in their history. This would prove the last time the Liberals won a majority in their own right. Although he presided over a large majority, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was overshadowed by his ministers, most notably H. H. Asquith at
1744-518: A precept (a requisition) added to either the local poor rate or the municipal rate . They were also eligible to apply for capital funding in the form of a government loan. The boards could make grants to existing church schools, as had occurred since the 1830s, and erect their own board schools or elementary schools . Section 74 of the Act empowered boards to create a by-law and to table it before Parliament to make attendance compulsory unless there
1853-523: A provisional government and armed resistance in Ulster . The Ulster Protestants had the full support of the Conservatives, whose leader, Bonar Law , was of Ulster-Scots descent. Government plans to deploy troops into Ulster had to be cancelled after the threat of mass resignation of their commissions by army officers in March 1914 ( see Curragh Incident ). Ireland seemed to be on the brink of civil war when
1962-413: A rather desperate manner to hold on to power. The result was a catastrophic split in the Liberal Party, and heavy defeat in the 1886 election at the hands of Lord Salisbury , who was supported by the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party . There was a final weak Gladstone ministry in 1892, but it also was dependent on Irish support and failed to get Irish Home Rule through the House of Lords. Historically,
2071-591: A reasonable building led by a qualified head teacher. 62 temporary prefabricated buildings were constructed in London. Newly certified teachers like Elizabeth Burgwin became the head of a temporary school in 1874 until she and the staff moved to the newly constructed Orange Street Girls' School in Southwark that same year. Rural boards, run by parishes, had only one or two schools to manage, but industrial town and city boards had many. Rural boards favoured economy and
2180-475: A strong appeal to the nonconformist middle-class Liberal element, which felt liberated by the departure of the aristocracy. A major long-term consequence of the Third Reform Act was the rise of Lib-Lab candidates. The Act split all county constituencies (which were represented by multiple MPs) into single-member constituencies , roughly corresponding to population patterns. With the foundation of
2289-564: A strong, welfare-oriented, and interventionist state. After the historic 1906 victory, the Liberal Party introduced multiple reforms on a range of issues, including health insurance , unemployment insurance , and pensions for elderly workers, thereby laying the groundwork for the future British welfare state . Some proposals failed, such as licensing fewer pubs, or rolling back Conservative educational policies. The People's Budget of 1909, championed by David Lloyd George and fellow Liberal Winston Churchill , introduced unprecedented taxes on
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#17327799601872398-586: A younger brother of John Bright , insisting that religious teaching not be for or against any denomination, was defeated by 251 votes to 130. The supporters of the amendment were all Liberals, and the government won only with Conservative support. Section 7 also gave parents the right to withdraw their children from any religious instruction provided in board schools and to withdraw their children at any time to attend any other religious instruction of their choice. Secondly, parents still had to pay fees for their children to attend school. Section 25 gave school boards
2507-623: Is that the British people were so deeply divided over numerous issues, but on all sides, there was growing distrust of the Asquith government. There was no agreement whatsoever on wartime issues. The leaders of the two parties realized that embittered debates in Parliament would further undermine popular morale and so the House of Commons did not once discuss the war before May 1915. Taylor argues: The Unionists, by and large, regarded Germany as
2616-623: The 1918 general election , Lloyd George, hailed as "the Man Who Won the War", led his coalition into a khaki election . Lloyd George and the Conservative leader Bonar Law wrote a joint letter of support to candidates to indicate they were considered the official Coalition candidates—this " coupon ", as it became known, was issued against many sitting Liberal MPs, often to devastating effect, though not against Asquith himself. The coalition won
2725-1102: The Education Act 1633 , a similar act to the English Elementary Education Act was passed in 1872 for Scotland, the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 . It required compulsory attendance from the start. It allowed post-elementary schools, but not public funding of them. There were around 1,000 school boards in Scotland at the time they were eventually abolished. The 1872 Education Act brought in compulsory education for all children between 5 and 13, although fees still had to be paid until 1890. Teacher shortages continued and problems arose in areas where teachers who spoke no Gaelic attempted to teach children who had no English. Pupil-teachers could later qualify after attending Teacher Training College. Local school boards made sure sufficient schools were built and that children attended them. After 1918, this became
2834-683: The First World War broke out in August 1914. Asquith had offered the Six Counties (later to become Northern Ireland ) an opt out from Home Rule for six years (i.e., until after two more general elections were likely to have taken place) but the Nationalists refused to agree to permanent Partition of Ireland . Historian George Dangerfield has argued that the multiplicity of crises in 1910 to 1914, political and industrial, so weakened
2943-661: The Irish Nationalists . Although the Lords now passed the budget, the government wished to curtail their power to block legislation. Asquith was required by King George V to fight a second general election in December 1910 (whose result was little changed from that in January) before he agreed, if necessary, to create hundreds of Liberals peers. Faced with that threat, the Lords voted to give up their veto power and allowed
3052-468: The Labour Party not to come till 1906, many trade unions allied themselves with the Liberals. In areas with working class majorities, in particular coal-mining areas, Lib-Lab candidates were popular, and they received sponsorship and endorsement from trade unions . In the first election after the Act was passed (1885), thirteen were elected, up from two in 1874. The Third Reform Act also facilitated
3161-620: The Liberal Unionists in 1886 (they eventually joined the Conservative Party); the faction of labour union members that joined the new Labour Party ; the split between factions led by Asquith and that led by Lloyd George in 1918–1922 ; and a three-way split in 1931. Many prominent intellectuals were active in the party, including philosopher John Stuart Mill , economist John Maynard Keynes , and social planner William Beveridge . Winston Churchill during his years as
3270-717: The Second Reform Act was passed by agreement between the parties), Gladstone won a huge victory at the 1868 election and formed the first Liberal government. The establishment of the party as a national membership organisation came with the foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877. The philosopher John Stuart Mill was also a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1868. For the next 30 years, Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. William Gladstone served as prime minister four times (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, and 1892–94). His financial policies, based on
3379-557: The 1850s and 1860s. A leading Peelite was William Gladstone, who was a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal Party is traditionally traced to 1859 when the remaining Peelites, Radicals and Whigs agreed to vote down the incumbent Conservative government. This meeting was held at the Willis' rooms in London on 6 June 1859. This led to Palmerston's second government. However,
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3488-402: The 1870 session although Gladstone was at least as concerned about the abolition of University Tests at the same time. Local authorities were required to make returns of the number of children in their area and existing educational provision. That was done by comparing the results of a census of existing school places with the number of children of school age recorded in the census . If there
3597-459: The 1890s "became Conservative in all but name." The government could force the unwilling king to create new Liberal peers, and that threat did prove decisive in the battle for dominance of Commons over Lords in 1911. The late nineteenth century saw the emergence of New Liberalism within the Liberal Party, which advocated state intervention as a means of guaranteeing freedom and removing obstacles to it such as poverty and unemployment. The policies of
3706-709: The 650 seats it contested. At the 1987 general election , its share of the vote fell below 23% and the Liberals and the SDP merged in 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD), who the following year were renamed the Liberal Democrats . A splinter group reconstituted the Liberal Party in 1989. The Liberals were a coalition with diverse positions on major issues and no unified national policy. This made them repeatedly liable to deep splits, such as that of
3815-456: The Act became, for religious reasons, matters of contention within the governing Liberal Party. Firstly, nonconformists objected to their children being taught Anglican doctrine. As a compromise, William Cowper-Temple (pronounced "Cooper-Temple"), a Liberal MP, proposed for religious teaching in the new state schools to be non-denominational and so restricted in practice to learning the Bible and
3924-556: The Boers; near-socialists and laissez-faire classical liberals ; suffragettes and opponents of women's suffrage ; antiwar elements and supporters of the military alliance with France . Nonconformists – Protestants outside the Anglican fold – were a powerful element, dedicated to opposing the established church in terms of education and taxation. However, the non-conformists were losing support amid society at large and played
4033-523: The Conservatives' main rival. By the 1950s, the party had won as few as six seats at general elections. Apart from a few notable by-election victories, its fortunes did not improve significantly until it formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. At the 1983 general election , the Alliance won over a quarter of the vote, but won only 23 of
4142-523: The Conservatives. The 1906 general election also represented a shift to the left by the Liberal Party. According to Rosemary Rees, almost half of the Liberal MPs elected in 1906 were supportive of the 'New Liberalism' (which advocated government action to improve people's lives), ) while claims were made that "five-sixths of the Liberal party are left wing." Other historians, however, have questioned
4251-697: The Council ) and William Forster (Vice-President of the Council) were responsible for education in the Gladstone government of 1868–1874 and were keen to introduce a bill, as was Henry Bruce ( Home Secretary ). Although Gladstone was sympathetic to the argument that better education had helped the Prussians to their unexpected victory in the Austro-Prussian War (as he remarked, "Undoubtedly,
4360-589: The Exchequer, Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Richard Burdon Haldane at the War Office and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. Campbell-Bannerman retired in 1908 and died soon after. He was succeeded by Asquith, who stepped up the government's radicalism. Lloyd George succeeded Asquith at the Exchequer and was in turn succeeded at the Board of Trade by Winston Churchill , a recent defector from
4469-522: The Government has not dared to challenge the nation to rise above itself, is one among many signs. [...] The war is, in fact, not being taken seriously. [...] How can any slacker be blamed when the Government itself is slack. Asquith's Liberal government was brought down in May 1915 , due in particular to a crisis in inadequate artillery shell production and the protest resignation of Admiral Fisher over
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4578-406: The Liberal Party. In foreign policy, Gladstone was in general against foreign entanglements, but he did not resist the realities of imperialism. For example, he ordered the occupation of Egypt by British forces in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War . His goal was to create a European order based on co-operation rather than conflict and on mutual trust instead of rivalry and suspicion; the rule of law
4687-647: The Liberal coalition before the war broke out that it marked the Strange Death of Liberal England . However, most historians date the collapse to the crisis of the First World War. The Liberal Party might have survived a short war, but the totality of the Great War called for measures that the Party had long rejected. The result was the permanent destruction of the ability of the Liberal Party to lead
4796-697: The Liberals lost office to the Conservatives under Sir Robert Peel , but their period in opposition was short because the Conservatives split over the repeal of the Corn Laws , a free trade issue; and a faction known as the Peelites (but not Peel himself, who died soon after) aligned to the Liberal side on the issue of free trade. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of
4905-569: The New Liberalism are now known as social liberalism . The New Liberals included intellectuals like L. T. Hobhouse , and John A. Hobson . They saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favourable social and economic circumstances. In their view, the poverty, squalor, and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed that these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by
5014-608: The Party and into a third party called Liberal Unionism on the Irish issue. It collaborated with and eventually merged into the Conservative party. The Gladstonian liberals in 1891 adopted The Newcastle Programme that included home rule for Ireland, disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales , tighter controls on the sale of liquor , major extension of factory regulation and various democratic political reforms. The Programme had
5123-537: 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
5232-473: The Whig-Radical amalgam could not become a true modern political party while it was dominated by aristocrats and it was not until the departure of the "Two Terrible Old Men", Russell and Palmerston, that Gladstone could become the first leader of the modern Liberal Party. This was brought about by Palmerston's death in 1865 and Russell's retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative government (during which
5341-530: The Whigs' demise. The admission of the middle classes to the franchise and to the House of Commons led eventually to the development of a systematic middle-class liberalism and the end of Whiggery, although for many years reforming aristocrats held senior positions in the party. In the years after Grey's retirement, the party was led first by Lord Melbourne , a fairly traditional Whig, and then by Lord John Russell ,
5450-402: The anti-Lloyd George Liberals were called Asquithian Liberals, Wee Free Liberals or Independent Liberals . Lloyd George was increasingly under the influence of the rejuvenated Conservative party who numerically dominated the coalition. In 1922, the Conservative backbenchers rebelled against the continuation of the coalition, citing, in particular, Lloyd George's plan for war with Turkey in
5559-445: The aristocracy was divided between Conservatives and Liberals. However, when Gladstone committed to home rule for Ireland, Britain's upper classes largely abandoned the Liberal party, giving the Conservatives a large permanent majority in the House of Lords. Following the Queen, High Society in London largely ostracized home rulers and Liberal clubs were badly split. Joseph Chamberlain took a major element of upper-class supporters out of
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#17327799601875668-416: The bill also. Among the Liberal rank and file, several Gladstonian candidates disowned the bill, reflecting fears at the constituency level that the interests of the working people were being sacrificed to finance a costly rescue operation for the landed élite. Further, Home Rule had not been promised in the Liberals' election manifesto, and so the impression was given that Gladstone was buying Irish support in
5777-518: The building of board schools or divert the school rate funds into church schools. Many factory owners feared the removal of children as a source of cheap labour. However, with the simple mathematics and English that they were acquiring, factory owners now had workers who could read and make measurements. It is sometimes incorrectly claimed that the 1870 act forbid the use of the Welsh language at schools in Wales. The act does not mention Welsh and English
5886-470: The capitalist market, this legislation nevertheless, marked a significant shift in Liberal approaches to the state and social reform, approaches that later governments would slowly expand and that would grow into the welfare state after the Second World War. What was new in these reforms was the underlying assumption that the state could be a positive force, that the measure of individual freedom...
5995-458: The church. By 1850 education had stagnated, and in the view of the Conservative (Anglican) politicians it was costing too much. The Newcastle Commission set up in 1859 was chaired by the Duke of Newcastle . Its aim was to ascertain whether public money was being well spent when given at grants to existing schools. It concluded that the system was working though not as efficiently as it could. It
6104-479: The citizenship of their native land. The new Liberalism, while pursuing this great political ideal with unflinching energy, devotes a part of its endeavour also to the removing of the immediate causes of discontent. It is true that man cannot live by bread alone. It is equally true that a man cannot live without bread. The Liberals languished in opposition for a decade while the coalition of Salisbury and Chamberlain held power. The 1890s were marred by infighting between
6213-530: The conduct of the campaign, on the German side, has given a marked triumph to the cause of systematic popular education"), he was a devout Anglican and did not want to see the existing Church of England schools absorbed into any kind of National Education system. Education was not a legislative priority after Irish Disestablishment and the First Irish Land Act . A bill was eventually introduced in
6322-573: The consequences of the Third Reform Act (1884) was the giving of the vote to many Irish Catholics . In the 1885 general election the Irish Parliamentary Party held the balance of power in the House of Commons and demanded Irish Home Rule as the price of support for a continued Gladstone ministry. Gladstone personally supported Home Rule, but a strong Liberal Unionist faction led by Joseph Chamberlain , along with
6431-468: The demise of the Whig old guard; in two-member constituencies, it was common to pair a Whig and a radical under the Liberal banner. After the Third Reform Act, fewer former Whigs were selected as candidates. A broad range of interventionist reforms were introduced by the 1892–1895 Liberal government. Amongst other measures, standards of accommodation and of teaching in schools were improved, factory inspection
6540-443: The disastrous Gallipoli Campaign against Turkey. Reluctant to face doom in an election, Asquith formed a new coalition government on 25 May, with the majority of the new cabinet coming from his own Liberal party and the Unionist (Conservative) party , along with a token Labour representation. The new government lasted a year and a half and was the last time Liberals controlled the government. The analysis of historian A. J. P. Taylor
6649-431: The extent to which the Liberal Party experienced a leftward shift; according to Robert C. Self however, only between 50 and 60 Liberal MPs out of the 400 in the parliamentary party after 1906 were Social Radicals, with a core of 20 to 30. Nevertheless, important junior offices were held in the cabinet by what Duncan Tanner has termed "genuine New Liberals, Centrist reformers, and Fabian collectivists," and much legislation
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#17327799601876758-493: The field. The 1915 coalition fell apart at the end of 1916, when the Conservatives withdrew their support from Asquith and gave it instead to Lloyd George, who became prime minister at the head of a new coalition largely made up of Conservatives. Asquith and his followers moved to the opposition benches in Parliament and the Liberal Party was deeply split once again. Lloyd George remained a Liberal all his life, but he abandoned many standard Liberal principles in his crusade to win
6867-441: The first time. In areas served by school boards that had implemented by-laws requiring attendance, compulsory attendance until 13 was exempted if a child over 10 had been certified by the inspector as satisfying the required standard for that board. The standards required varied between 4th Standard (such as in Birmingham) and 6th Standard (such as in Bolton) . Although universal primary education had been established in Scotland by
6976-442: The first year. Since the Liberals ran the war without consulting the Conservatives, there were heavy partisan attacks. However, even Liberal commentators were dismayed by the lack of energy at the top. At the time, public opinion was intensely hostile, both in the media and in the street, against any young man in civilian garb and labeled as a slacker. The leading Liberal newspaper, the Manchester Guardian complained: The fact that
7085-548: The framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in England and Wales. It established local education authorities with defined powers, authorized public money to improve existing schools, and tried to frame conditions attached to this aid so as to earn the goodwill of managers. It has long been seen as a milestone in educational development, but recent commentators have stressed that it brought neither free nor compulsory education, and its importance has thus tended to be diminished rather than increased. The law
7194-518: The future of the party, says historian Trevor Wilson, was its repudiation by ideological Liberals, who decided sadly that it no longer represented their principles. Finally, the presence of the vigorous new Labour Party on the left gave a new home to voters disenchanted with the Liberal performance. The last majority Liberal Government in Britain was elected in 1906. The years preceding the First World War were marked by worker strikes and civil unrest and saw many violent confrontations between civilians and
7303-402: The head of a moderate Liberal rump, but in 1901 he delivered a speech on the government's "methods of barbarism" in South Africa that pulled him further to the left and nearly tore the party in two. The party was saved after Salisbury's retirement in 1902 when his successor, Arthur Balfour , pushed a series of unpopular initiatives such as the Education Act 1902 and Joseph Chamberlain called for
7412-408: The highest number of votes were chosen for the existing number of seats available. A voter could cast all their votes for one person. Known as 'plumping', that ensured that religious and later political minorities could ensure some representation on the board. The franchise was different from national elections since female householders could vote and stand for office. The boards financed themselves by
7521-534: The lack of an effective education system. There were objections to the concept of universal education . One was that many people remained hostile to the idea of mass education . They claimed it would make labouring classes 'think' and thus attain class consciousness , possibly encouraging them to revolt. Others feared that handing children to a central authority could lead to indoctrination . Some poor people feared that mass education would equip people to defraud or mislead those without an education. Another reason
7630-403: The last of the Whigs, Hartington, opposed it. The Irish Home Rule bill proposed to offer all owners of Irish land a chance to sell to the state at a price equal to 20 years' purchase of the rents and allowing tenants to purchase the land. Irish nationalist reaction was mixed, Unionist opinion was hostile, and the election addresses during the 1886 election revealed English radicals to be against
7739-413: The manufacturing towns which had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England (many Liberals were Nonconformists ), avoidance of war and foreign alliances (which were bad for business) and above all free trade . For a century, free trade remained the one cause which could unite all Liberals. In 1841,
7848-477: The more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reformist Whiggery were Charles James Fox (died 1806) and his disciple and successor Earl Grey . After decades in opposition, the Whigs returned to power under Grey in 1830 and carried the First Reform Act in 1832. The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggism, but it also brought about
7957-613: The notion of balanced budgets , low taxes and laissez-faire , were suited to a developing capitalist society, but they could not respond effectively as economic and social conditions changed. Called the "Grand Old Man" later in life, Gladstone was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to the working class and to the lower middle class. Deeply religious, Gladstone brought a new moral tone to politics, with his evangelical sensibility and his opposition to aristocracy. His moralism often angered his upper-class opponents (including Queen Victoria ), and his heavy-handed control split
8066-545: The party formed a Pro-Boer faction that denounced the conflict and called for an immediate end to hostilities. Quickly rising to prominence among the Pro-Boers was David Lloyd George, a relatively new MP and a master of rhetoric, who took advantage of having a national stage to speak out on a controversial issue to make his name in the party. Harcourt and Morley also sided with this group, though with slightly different aims. Campbell-Bannerman tried to keep these forces together at
8175-489: The party. The coalition government of Lloyd George was increasingly dominated by the Conservative Party, which finally ousted him as prime minister in 1922. The subsequent Liberal collapse was quick and catastrophic. With 400 MPs elected in the 1906 election; they had only 40 in 1924. Their share of the popular vote plunged from 49% to 18%. The Labour Party absorbed most of the ex-Liberal voters and then became
8284-469: The passage of the Parliament Act 1911 . As the price of Irish support, Asquith was now forced to introduce a third Home Rule bill in 1912. Since the House of Lords no longer had the power to block the bill, but only to delay it for two years, it was due to become law in 1914. The Unionist Ulster Volunteers , led by Sir Edward Carson , launched a campaign of opposition that included the threat of
8393-691: The police and armed forces. Other issues of the period included women's suffrage and the Irish Home Rule movement. After the carnage of 1914–1918, the democratic reforms of the Representation of the People Act 1918 instantly tripled the number of people entitled to vote in Britain from seven to twenty-one million. The Labour Party benefited most from this huge change in the electorate, forming its first minority government in 1924 . In
8502-538: The poorer classes were in elementary day schools. But of this number: "Much, therefore, still remains to be done to bring up the state of elementary education in England and Wales to the degree of usefulness which we all regard as attainable and desirable" In general, it considered that the system of state aid had worked well, but that the objectives had been set too high for the majority of children who attended these schools. Results should be tested to ensure that schools were providing value for money. A recommendation
8611-404: The power to pay the fees of poor children, including those attending voluntary (church) schools. Although few school boards actually did so, the provision caused great anger among nonconformists, who saw it as a new source of local ratepayers' money being spent on Church of England schools. A large conference was held at Manchester in 1872 to lead resistance to the section, and one of the campaigners
8720-482: The release of children for agricultural labour. Town boards tended to be more rigorous in their provisions, and by 1890, some had special facilities for gymnastics, art and crafts and domestic science. There were ongoing political clashes between the vested interests of Church, private schools and the National Education League followers. In some districts, the creation of boards was delayed by local vote. In others, church leaders managed to be voted onto boards and restrict
8829-653: The reorganization of the judiciary in the Judicature Act . Regarding Ireland, the major Liberal achievements were land reform, where he ended centuries of landlord oppression , and the disestablishment of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland through the Irish Church Act 1869 . In the 1874 general election , Gladstone was defeated by the Conservatives under Benjamin Disraeli during a sharp economic recession. He formally resigned as Liberal leader and
8938-471: The son of a Duke but a crusading radical, and by Lord Palmerston , a renegade Irish Tory and essentially a conservative , although capable of radical gestures. As early as 1839, Russell had adopted the name of "Liberals", but in reality, his party was a loose coalition of Whigs in the House of Lords and Radicals in the Commons. The leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden , who represented
9047-404: The third quarter of the century drew to a close, the essential bastions of Victorianism still held firm: respectability; a government of aristocrats and gentlemen now influenced not only by middle-class merchants and manufacturers but also by industrious working people; a prosperity that seemed to rest largely on the tenets of laissez-faire economics ; and a Britannia that ruled the waves and many
9156-465: The three principal successors to Gladstone, party leader William Harcourt , former prime minister Lord Rosebery , and Gladstone's personal secretary, John Morley . This intrigue finally led Harcourt and Morley to resign their positions in 1898 as they continued to be at loggerheads with Rosebery over Irish home rule and issues relating to imperialism. Replacing Harcourt as party leader was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman . Harcourt's resignation briefly muted
9265-536: The turmoil in the party, but the beginning of the Second Boer War soon nearly broke the party apart, with Rosebery and a circle of supporters including important future Liberal figures H. H. Asquith , Edward Grey and Richard Burdon Haldane forming a clique dubbed the Liberal Imperialists that supported the government in the prosecution of the war. On the other side, more radical members of
9374-603: The war at all costs. He insisted on strong government controls over business as opposed to the laissez-faire attitudes of traditional Liberals. in 1915–16 he had insisted on conscription of young men into the Army, a position that deeply troubled his old colleagues. That brought him and a few like-minded Liberals into the new coalition on the ground long occupied by Conservatives. There was no more planning for world peace or liberal treatment of Germany, nor discomfit with aggressive and authoritarian measures of state power. More deadly to
9483-798: The way for popular journalism. Most significantly, the Daily Mail was founded by Alfred Harmsworth , a contributor to Tit-Bits , and the Daily Express was launched by Arthur Pearson , who worked at Tit-Bits for five years after winning a competition to get a job on the magazine. The school boards were abolished by the Balfour Education Act 1902 , which replaced them with around 300 local education authorities (LEAs), by which time there were 5,700 board schools (2.6 million pupils) and 14,000 voluntary schools (3 million pupils). The LEAs remit included secondary education for
9592-474: The wealthy in Britain and radical social welfare programmes to the country's policies. In the Liberal camp, as noted by one study, "the Budget was on the whole enthusiastically received." It was the first budget with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the public. It imposed increased taxes on luxuries, liquor, tobacco, high incomes, and land – taxation that fell heavily on the rich . The new money
9701-610: The working-classes was still informal or semi-formal. On the whole there was little geographical consistency. Some schooling was provided privately, though most was organised through the workhouse schools , the Anglican National Schools and the non-conformist British Schools . The factory school envisaged by the Factory Act 1833 which had made it compulsory for mill-owners to provide prove apprentices were receiving an education, never materialised. Instead this
9810-412: Was a shortfall, a school board for the district would be created. The boards were to provide elementary education for children aged 5–12 (inclusive). Board members were elected by the ratepayers under a system of cumulative voting . The number of members was determined by the size of the population of the district. Each voter could choose three or more members from a list of candidates, and those with
9919-455: Was an excuse, such as sickness, living more than three miles from a school or having been certified as reaching a certain standard of education. In 1873, 40% of the population lived in compulsory attendance districts. All schools would be inspected by making use of the existing regime. The individual schools continued to be eligible for an annual government grant calculated on the basis of the inspection ('payment by results'). Two provisions of
10028-637: Was assumed to be the language of instruction; as had been the case in Welsh day schools since early in the 19th century. A trend towards more use of Welsh at schools in Welsh-speaking areas had begun prior to the act and continued after it. The Act established the foundations of English elementary education although it was not taken up in all areas and would be more firmly enforced through later reforms. The state's Gladstonian liberalism became increasingly involved. Lord Sandon 's Elementary Education Act 1876 ( 39 & 40 Vict. c. 70) gave parents
10137-456: Was disparaging on the operation of factory schools. It reported: "The number of children whose names ought (in summer 1858 in England and Wales) to have been on the school books, in order that all might receive some education, was 2,655,767. The number we found to be actually on the books was 2,535,462, thus leaving 120,305 children without any school instruction whatever." They looked at the previous years data and found that 2,213,694 children of
10246-522: Was done by producing a certificate of attendance at schools elsewhere. Formal teaching was done using the Lancaster-Bell monitorial method where one qualified teacher would drill a class of up to 120 children, with the assistance of several senior boys or pupil teachers, who he would train up in class. Public provision for elementary education began with a grant of £20,000 in 1833 in aid of school buildings, but had risen to £724,000 by 1860. There
10355-560: Was drafted by William Forster , a Liberal MP , and it was introduced on 17 February 1870 after campaigning by the National Education League , although not entirely to their requirements. In Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain , not yet a Member of Parliament, was a prominent campaigner on the issue. However, like many grassroots Liberals, he opposed the bill because it was open to the possibility of subsidising Church of England schools with local ratepayers ' money. It
10464-603: Was made more stringent, and ministers used their powers to increase the wages and reduce the working hours of large numbers of male workers employed by the state. Historian Walter L. Arnstein concludes: Notable as the Gladstonian reforms had been, they had almost all remained within the nineteenth-century Liberal tradition of gradually removing the religious, economic, and political barriers that prevented men of varied creeds and classes from exercising their individual talents in order to improve themselves and their society. As
10573-567: Was made that school funding should continue but be made up of two parts, a small per capita sum and a larger sum based on whether the child passed an annual test. This enabled Robert Lowe , the minister who spoke for the education department in the House of Commons, to establish the Revised Code in 1862 linking annual grants to pupil results. Elementary Education Act 1870 The Elementary Education Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75), commonly known as Forster's Education Act , set
10682-403: Was moving rapidly toward the newly emerging Labour Party. One uniting element was widespread agreement on the use of politics and Parliament as a device to upgrade and improve society and to reform politics. All Liberals were outraged when Conservatives used their majority in the House of Lords to block reform legislation. In the House of Lords, the Liberals had lost most of their members, who in
10791-443: Was not how much the state left people alone, but whether it gave them the capacity to fill themselves as individuals. Contrasting Old Liberalism with New Liberalism, David Lloyd George noted in a 1908 speech the following: [Old Liberals] used the natural discontent of the people with the poverty and precariousness of the means of subsistence as a motive power to win for them a better, more influential, and more honourable status in
10900-551: Was one of the Elementary Education Acts 1870 to 1893 . The Act was passed partly in response to political factors, such as the need to educate the citizens who were recently enfranchised by the Reform Act 1867 to vote "wisely". It also came about due to demands for reform from industrialists, who feared that Britain's competitive status in world trade, manufacture and improvement was being threatened by
11009-511: Was pushed through by the Liberals in government. This included the regulation of working hours, National Insurance and welfare. A political battle erupted over the People's Budget , which was rejected by the House of Lords and for which the government obtained an electoral mandate at the January 1910 election . The election resulted in a hung parliament , with the government left dependent on
11118-482: Was sectarian divide that even blocked the appointment of state school inspectors. In 1839 the government succeeded in establishing a Committee of the Privy Council on Education which appointed James Kay-Shuttleworth as secretary. He had attempted to reform teacher training through providing four teacher training colleges – though, as the pay for teachers remained at £90 a year, many had left teaching to study for
11227-525: Was succeeded by the Marquess of Hartington , but he soon changed his mind and returned to active politics. He strongly disagreed with Disraeli's pro- Ottoman foreign policy and in 1880 he conducted the first outdoor mass-election campaign in Britain, known as the Midlothian campaign . The Liberals won a large majority in the 1880 election . Hartington ceded his place and Gladstone resumed office. Among
11336-461: Was the Elementary Education Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75), which provided England with an adequate system of elementary schools for the first time. He also secured the abolition of the purchase of commissions in the British Army and of religious tests for admission to Oxford and Cambridge ; the introduction of the secret ballot in elections; the legalization of trade unions ; and
11445-485: Was the Birmingham politician Joseph Chamberlain , who emerged as a national figure for the first time. The resulting splits (some education campaigners, including Chamberlain, stood for Parliament as independent candidates) helped to cost the Liberals the 1874 election . Between 1870 and 1880, 3,000 to 4,000 schools were started or taken over by school boards. The act required that every child should be taught in
11554-429: Was the Liberals, not the Conservatives who needed the moral outrage of Belgium to justify going to war, while the Conservatives called for intervention from the start of the crisis on the grounds of realpolitik and the balance of power. However, Lloyd George and Churchill were zealous supporters of the war, and gradually forced the old peace-orientated Liberals out. Asquith was blamed for the poor British performance in
11663-643: Was the vested interests of the Church and other social groups. The churches were funded by the state with public money to provide education for the poor and did not want to lose that influence on youth. It had been deduced from the United Kingdom Census 1861 that out of 4.3 million children of primary school age in England & Wales, 1 million were in purely voluntary (church) schools and 1.3 million were in state aided voluntary schools but 2 million had no schooling. Lord Ripon ( Lord President of
11772-405: Was to be made available for new welfare programmes as well as new battleships. In 1911 Lloyd George succeeded in putting through Parliament his National Insurance Act , making provision for sickness and invalidism, and this was followed by his Unemployment Insurance Act . Historian Peter Weiler argues: Although still partially informed by older Liberal concerns for character, self-reliance, and
11881-440: Was to supplant the reign of force and self-interest. This Gladstonian concept of a harmonious Concert of Europe was opposed to and ultimately defeated by a Bismarckian system of manipulated alliances and antagonisms. As prime minister from 1868 to 1874, Gladstone headed a Liberal Party which was a coalition of Peelites like himself, Whigs and Radicals. He was now a spokesman for "peace, economy and reform". One major achievement
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