It was important for the leadership to be well organised, particularly in marginal constituencies where parties focus their energy. However, the Conservatives were not at all organised; there were no national organisation strategies and their campaigns were often rather lacklustre. In contrast, the Liberal party, formed at the Willis Rooms meeting of 1859 out of the Whigs, the Peelites and the radicals, were enthusiastic and well organised, which helped them to gain the support of many wealthy industrialists.
It is certainly possible to argue that the weak leadership of the Conservatives during this period was as a result of the split of the party in 1846. When the Corn Law Repeal Bill was rejected in Parliament, about 100 MPs (supporters of Robert Peel – Peelites), left the Conservatives in protest and joined the Whig party. This was not a formal coalition, just support. The Peelite migration left the Conservatives with a lack of talent (it was this which caused the weak leadership), but also a lack of numbers. They lost almost 100 MPs, giving the Whigs (who previously did not have an overall majority) a majority of sorts. This shortage of numbers led to the Conservatives persistently inviting the Peelites to rejoin the party.
The refusal of the Peelites to rejoin the party was also a causal factor in the Conservatives’ time in the political wilderness. The Peelites had a number of reasons not to return to the Conservatives, the first of which was a sense of loyalty to Peel himself, who died in 1850. There was also a great deal of personal antipathy between the two groups. Disraeli wanted power over Gladstone (a leading Peelite, later to become Prime Minister on four separate occasions) because Gladstone had destroyed Disraeli’s 1852 Budget (where the figures did not add up – a great embarrassment for the Conservatives), and in return, the Peelites hated Disraeli because he led attacks on Peel at the time of the Repeal Bill, particularly at the third reading of the bill – ‘Disraeli’s…personal attacks on Peel in 1846 had not been forgotten by his followers.’
The Peelites also preferred to stick with the Whigs because they had experience of being in government together at the start of the 1850s. As the Whigs and the Peelites grew closer together, the chances of a Conservative/Peelite reunion lessened. Further, the Peelites were a modernist party, especially in the areas of free trade and religion and wanted to broaden their appeal. This was in direct contrast to the Conservative protectionists like Disraeli, who opposed change and defended their own interests. According to Terry Jenkins in his book ‘Disraeli and Victorian Conservativism,’ ‘protectionism…remained the major obstacle to a Conservative-Peelite rapprochement in the early 1850s.’ The clashes between the Peelites and the protectionists over foreign policy issues in the 1850s is proof that the tensions which caused the split of the Conservatives still existed.
This refusal to return to the Conservatives gave their opponents a position of strength, and this strength of opposition is another factor which caused the Conservatives to be weak from 1846-66. The Whigs were strong in this period for three main reasons: the Peelites joining them, the strength of their leadership, and because in 1859, they (along with the Whigs and radicals) formed the moderate Liberal party.
In the election of 1847, the Conservatives won 325 seats to the Whigs’ 292 seats, but when one subtracts the Peelites’ 91 seats from the Conservative figure and add it to the Whig total, the Whigs ended up with a 149-seat majority. Thus it can be see n that the Peelites sustained the Whigs in office; they did not win a majority but through the Peelites’ informal support (for it was not a coalition government) the Whigs were sustained in office. As Eric Evans said, ‘they found co-habitation not entirely distasteful.’
Henry John Temple, or Lord Palmeston, began his political career as a Conservative, but crossed over to the Whig party after Canning’s death. According to A.J.P Taylor, ‘he served a more prolonged apprenticeship in administration than any other Prime Minister has ever done,’ as he was an MP from 1807, a date from which almost 50 years can be counted until his appointment as Prime Minister in February 1855. He had an ‘inexhaustible capacity for hard work’ and as Stephen Lee writes, he was an ‘effective parliamentarian,’ as well as having a ‘powerful presence’ and knowing how to ‘cultivate popularity and build up political appeal; more than any other 19th century statesman, he developed an immense appeal, and to the man in the street personified British patriotism.’ The sum of all these attributes meant a strong Whig leader, which kept the Conservatives out of power.
The emergence of the Liberal party through the combining of the Whigs, the Peelites and the radicals at the Willis Rooms meeting in 1859, meant a strong new opposing party for the Conservatives to deal with. The Liberals were a moderate, modern party, who embraced free trade policies which led to economic prosperity. Their addressing of the non-conformist grievances which the Conservatives refused to tackle also gave them popular support, and made them strong opposition to the Conservatives.
A final factor which made the Conservatives weak from 1846-66 was the fact that they had limited electoral appeal. The party itself was ridden with a number of structural problems in this period: it had a lack of unity, a poor reputation, it did not offer a proper alternative to the Whigs and faced a big problem in how to broaden its appeal without losing its tradition support. Its defence of the Anglican Church gave it little electoral appeal because the social and economic transformation of the country since the Industrial Revolution, resulting in a huge growth in the urban middle classes, meant that a large number of the electorate were non-conformists, and so found the Conservative party’s policies unappealing.
Protectionism within the party also meant they had little electoral appeal. The leaders of the party wanted to protect their own interests, the interests of the landed classes, and this held little sway with the urban classes, who wanted policies which favoured them, not the party in charge. Therefore, the defence of the existing Constitution was not a popular policy, as the middle classes wanted changes which would benefit them. The Conservatives appealed to people in rural area, and this is backed up by the electoral figures in the period, but they needed to change their focus to urban areas, which had become major population centres.
In conclusion, it is clear that all the factors described had a part to play in the Conservative weakness from 1846-66. The weakness of the leadership as a result of the 1846 split meant the party was weakened, and the split meant that the Peelites were not going to return to the Conservatives. This in turn led to the strength of the Conservatives’ opposition (the Whigs and later, the Liberals), and the lack of electoral appeal meant that the party just could not win the votes it needed to get into power. However, one factor underpins each of the other factors: the split of the party in 1846. The split caused the weakness in the party leadership (as all the talent in the party left), the refusal of the Peelites to return (as they did not want to be part of the Conservatives after the Corn Law disagreement in 1846), the strength of the opposition (as all the talent left in 1846 and went to the opposition), and the lack of electoral appeal (caused by a number of factors including the split). All the factors can be traced back to the split, so it is a very important point when considering why the Conservatives were weak in this period.
Terry Jenkins – ‘Disraeli and Victorian Conservativism’
Stephen J. Lee – British Political History 1815-1914
