1880 United Kingdom general election

1880 United Kingdom general election

31 March – 27 April 1880 (1880-03-31 – 1880-04-27)
All 652 seats in the House of Commons 327 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   HRL Leader Spencer Cavendish Benjamin Disraeli William Shaw Party Liberal Conservative Home Rule Leader since January 1875 27 February 1868 May 1879 Leader's seat North East Lancashire House of Lords County Cork Last election 242 seats, 52.0% 350 seats, 44.3% 60 seats, 3.7% Seats won 352 237 63 Seat change 110 113 3 Popular vote 1,836,423 1,426,349 95,528 Percentage 54.7% 42.5% 2.8% Swing 2.7 pp 1.8 pp 0.9 pp
Colours denote the winning party
Composition of the House of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Earl of Beaconsfield Conservative Prime Minister after the election William Gladstone Liberal

The 1880 United Kingdom general election was a general election in the United Kingdom held from 31 March to 27 April 1880.

Its intense rhetoric was led by the Midlothian campaign of the Liberals, particularly the fierce oratory of Liberal leader William Gladstone. He vehemently attacked the foreign policy of the government of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, as utterly immoral. The endeavours of the Disraeli government in Africa, India, Afghanistan and Europe, which were only partially successful and often accompanied by early, humiliating defeats, gave a good deal of fodder to Gladstone for his attacks. Further, Disraeli's favoured dealing with the Turks, who were responsible for horrendous atrocities against Balkan Christians also laid him open to religious attacks, especially in Gladstone's pamphlet “The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East” (1876). Gladstone's campaign was a synthesis of the two approaches in a populist manner adapted towards liberalism.

Liberals secured one of their largest-ever majorities, leaving the Conservatives a distant second. As a result of the campaign, the Liberal Commons leader, Lord Hartington and that in the Lords, Lord Granville, stood back in favour of Gladstone, who thus became Prime Minister a second time. It was the last general election in which any party other than the Conservatives won a majority of the total votes (rather than a mere plurality), as well the only time (except for 1906) until 1945 in which any party other than the Conservatives won a majority.

Issues

A painting by Alfred George Palmer of election night outside Exeter Guildhall in the collection of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (333/1997).

The Conservative government was doomed by the poor condition of the British economy and the vulnerability of its foreign policy to moralistic attacks by the Liberals. William Gladstone, appealing to moralistic evangelicals, led the attack on the foreign policy of Benjamin Disraeli (now known as Lord Beaconsfield) as immoral. Historian Paul Smith paraphrases the rhetorical tone which focused on attacking "Beaconsfieldism" (in Smith's words) as a:

Sinister system of policy, which not merely involved the country in immoral, vainglorious and expensive external adventures, inimical to peace and to the rights of small peoples, but aimed at nothing less than the subversion of parliamentary government in favour of some simulacrum of the oriental despotism its creator was alleged to admire.

Smith notes that there was indeed some substance to the allegations, but: "Most of this was partisan extravaganza, worthy of its target's own excursions against the Whigs."

Crowds wait outside Leeds Town Hall to hear the result

Disraeli himself was now the Earl of Beaconsfield in the House of Lords, and custom did not allow peers to campaign; this denuded the Conservatives of other important figures such as the Marquess of Salisbury and Lord Cranbrook, and the party was unable to deal effectively with the rhetorical onslaught. Although he had improved the organisation of the Conservative Party, Disraeli was firmly based in the rural gentry, and had little contact with or understanding of the urban middle class that was increasingly dominating his party.

Besides their trouble with foreign policy issues, it was even more important that the Conservatives were unable to effectively defend their economic record on the home front. The 1870s coincided with a long-term global depression caused by the collapse of the worldwide railway boom of the 1870s which previously had been so profitable to Britain. The stress was growing by the late 1870s; prices fell, profits fell, employment fell, and there was downward pressure on wage rates that caused much hardship among the industrial working class. The free trade system supported by both parties made Britain defenceless against the flood of cheap wheat from North America, which was exacerbated by the worst harvest of the century in Britain in 1879. The party in power got the blame, and Liberals repeatedly emphasised the growing budget deficit as a measure of bad stewardship. In the election itself, Disraeli's party lost heavily up and down the line, especially in Scotland and Ireland, and in the urban boroughs. His Conservative strength fell from 351 to 238, while the Liberals jumped from 250 to 353. Disraeli resigned on 21 April 1880.

Results

UK General Election 1880
Party		Candidates						Votes
		Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Liberal	499	352	+132	-22	+110	53.99	54.66	1,836,423	+2.7
	Conservative	521	237	+20	-133	−113	36.35	42.46	1,426,351	−1.8
	Home Rule	81	63	+6	-3	+3	9.66	2.84	95,535	−0.9
	Independent	2	0	0	0	0	0	0.03	1,107	0

Total votes cast: 3,359,416.

Voting summary

Popular vote Liberal   54.66% Conservative   42.46% Home Rule   2.84% Others   0.03%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats Liberal   53.99% Conservative   36.35% Home Rule   9.66%

Regional results

Great Britain

Largest party in each constituent country

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% change
	Liberal	334	104	1,780,171	57.3	1.9
	Lib-Lab	3	1
	Conservative	214	105	1,326,744	42.7	1.9
	Other	0		1,107	0.04	0.04
Total		551		3,108,022	100

England

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% change
	Liberal	251	82	1,519,576	56.2	2.4
	Lib-Lab	3	1
	Conservative	197	83	1,205,990	43.7	2.5
	Other	0		1,107	0.1	0.1
Total		451		2,726,673	100

Scotland

Main article: 1880 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% change
	Liberal	52	12	195,517	70.1	1.7
	Conservative	6	12	74,145	29.9	1.7
Total		58		269,662	100

Wales

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% change
	Liberal	29	10	50,403	58.8	2.1
	Conservative	4	10	41,106	41.2	2.1
Total		33		100,509	100

Ireland

Main article: 1880 United Kingdom general election in Ireland

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% change
	Home Rule	63	3	95,535	37.5	2.1%
	Irish Conservative	23	8	99,607	39.8	1.0%
	Liberal	15	5	56,252	22.7	4.3%
Total		101		251,394	100

Universities

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% change
	Conservative	7		5,503	49.2
	Liberal	2		5,675	50.8
Total		9		11,178	100

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1880 United Kingdom general election
• 1880 United Kingdom general election in Ireland
• 1880 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

Sources and further reading

• Blake, Robert (1967), Disraeli, EA London, ISBN 978-1-84413-312-3
• Chilston, Viscount. "The 1880 Election: A Historical Landmark." Parliamentary Affairs 14 (June 1961): 477-492.
• Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
• Fitzsimons, M. A. (1960), "Midlothian: the Triumph and Frustration of the British Liberal Party", Review of Politics, 22 (2): 187–201, doi:10.1017/S0034670500008202, JSTOR 1405317, S2CID 144807807
• Lloyd, T.O. The General Election of 1880 (Oxford UP, 1967)
• Matthew, H. C. G. (1997), Gladstone: 1809–1898, Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-19-820696-8
• Rallings, Colin; Thrasher, Michael, eds. (2000), British Electoral Facts 1832–1999, Ashgate Publishing Ltd
• Roberts, Matthew. "Election Cartoons and Political Communication In Victorian England.' Cultural & Social History (2013) 10#3 pp 369–395, covers 1860 to 1890.
• Smith, Paul (1996), Disraeli: A Brief Life, Cambridge UP, ISBN 9780521381505

External links

• Spartacus: Political Parties and Election Results