The Gladstone-Disraeli Rivalry
During the 16 years after Palmerston’s death in 1865, the rivalry of William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli dominated British politics. Both had begun as Tories, but in 1846 Gladstone had become a Peelite and had thereafter gradually moved toward liberalism. As Palmerston’s chancellor of the******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** ultimately came up with the Reform Bill of 1867, which Disraeli successfully piloted through the House of Commons. The measure enfranchised most urban workers. It almost doubled the English and Welsh electorates and more than doubled the Scottish. It also launched the era of mass political organization and of increasingly polarized and disciplined parliamentary parties.
Disraeli succeeded Derby as prime minister early in 1868, but a Liberal election victory in December of that year gave the post to Gladstone. Gladstone’s first cabinet was responsible for numerous reforms: the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland; the creation of a national system of elementary education; the full admission of religious dissenters to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; a merit-based civil service; the secret ballot; and judicial and army reform. During the Disraeli ministry that followed, the Conservatives passed legislation advancing “Tory democracy”—trade union legalization, slum clearance, and public health—but Disraeli became more concerned with upholding the British Empire in Africa and Asia and scoring a diplomatic triumph at the Congress of Berlin (1878).
A whistle-stop campaign by Gladstone in 1879 and 1880 restored him to the prime ministership. His second cabinet curbed electoral corruption and, with the Reform Act of 1884, extended the vote to almost all males who owned or rented housing. The measure made the single-member parliamentary district the general rule. Gladstone became increasingly concerned with bringing peace and land reform to Ireland, which was represented in Parliament by the Irish Nationalist Party of Charles Stewart Parnell. When Gladstone became a convert to the cause of home rule—the creation of a semi-independent Irish legislature and cabinet—he divided the Liberal Party and led his brief third ministry to defeat in 1886. A second effort to enact home rule during Gladstone’s fourth ministry, which lasted from 1892 to 1894, was blocked by the House of Lords.
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Late Victorian Economic and Social Change
The same agricultural depression that led to unrest among Irish tenant farmers in the second half of the 19th century also undermined British agriculture and the prosperity of country squires. The mid-Victorian boom gave way to an era of deflation, falling profit margins, and occasional large-scale unemployment. Both the United States and Germany overtook Britain in the production of steel and other manufactured goods. At the same time, Britain remained the world’s prime shipbuilder, shipper, and banker, and a majority of British workers gained in purchasing power. The number of trade unionists grew, and significant attempts were made to organize the semiskilled; the London Dock Strike of 1889 was the result of one such effort. Social investigators and professed socialists discovered large pockets of poverty in the slums of London and other cities, and the national government as well as voluntary agencies were called on to remedy social evils. Despite a high level of emigration to British colonies and the United States—more than 200,000 per year during the 1880s—the population of England and Wales doubled between 1851 and 1911 (to more than 36 million) and that of Scotland grew by more than 60 percent (to almost 5 million). Both death rates and birth rates declined somewhat, and a series of changes in the law made it possible for a minority of women to enter universities, vote in local elections, and keep control of their property while married.
The Late Victorian Empire
A relative lack of interest in empire during the mid-Victorian years gave way to increased concern during the 1880s and 1890s. The raising of tariff barriers by the United States, Germany, and France made colonies more valuable again, ushering in an era of rivalry with Russia in the Middle East and along the Indian frontier and a “scramble for Africa” that involved the carving out of large claims by Britain, France, and Germany. Hong Kong and Singapore served as centers of British trade and influence in China and the South Pacific. The completion of the Suez Canal in 1869 led indirectly to a British protectorate over Egypt in 1882. Queen Victoria became empress of India in 1876, and both Victoria’s golden jubilee (1887) and her diamond jubilee (1897) celebrated imperial unity. The Conservative ministries of Lord Salisbury were preoccupied with imperial concerns as well. The policies of Salisbury’s colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, contributed to the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899. Britain suffered initial reverses in that war but then captured Johannesburg and Pretoria in 1900. Only after protracted guerrilla warfare, however, was the conflict brought to an end in 1902. By then Queen Victoria was dead.
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