The Liberal Unionists were a British political party that split away from the Liberals in 1886. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain the party formed a political alliance with the Conservatives in opposition to Irish Home Rule . The two parties formed a coalition government in 1895 but kept separate political funds and their own party organisations until a complete merger was agreed in May 1912.
The Liberal...
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The Liberal Unionists were a British political party that split away from the Liberals in 1886. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain the party formed a political alliance with the Conservatives in opposition to Irish Home Rule . The two parties formed a coalition government in 1895 but kept separate political funds and their own party organisations until a complete merger was agreed in May 1912.
The Liberal Unionists owe their origins to the the conversion of William Ewart Gladstone to the cause of Irish Home Rule (i.e. self government for Ireland). The 1885 General Election had left Charles Stewart Parnell's Irish Nationalists holding the balance of power, and had convinced Gladstone that the Irish wanted and deserved Home Rule. Some Liberals believed that Gladstone's Home Rule bill would lead to de facto independence for Ireland, and the dissolution of the United Kingdom, which they could not countenance. Seeing themselves as defenders of the...
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