Liberal Party (UK)

The great reformist party of nineteenth century Britain, dominant under Gladstone, merged away in 1988.

Overview

The Liberals formed in 1859 from Whigs, Radicals, and Peelites, and governed through the age of reform: Gladstone education and Ireland, the secret ballot, and Irish Home Rule battles. The twentieth century brought Liberal welfare reforms under Asquith and Lloyd George, pensions and insurance, before the rise of Labour and the split over Asquith versus Lloyd George destroyed the party as a governing force by the 1920s. It survived on the Celtic fringe and in by-elections, revived under Jo Grimond and Jeremy Thorpe, and under David Steel and the Alliance before merging into the Liberal Democrats in 1988. Its ideas, free trade, civil liberty, and internationalism, outlived the organization.