Whiggery and the Dilemma of Reform: Liberals, Radicals and the Melbourne Administration, 1835–9 (original) (raw)

1980, Historical Research

historians of the age of reform, but, as one historian wrote recently, 'by comparison with all the research that Peel and his party have attracted, the Whigs and Russell have been seriously neglected'.' This development is not, perhaps, to be unexpected. In order to destroy the myths and shibboleths of the Macaulays and Trevelyans, the works of Professors Kitson Clark and Gash. among others, have been devoted to a restoration of Peel and conservatism in the first decade of Victorian England. New orthodoxies have subsequently developed. One can look, for example, at theview that the whigs, as a party, were inevitably doomed to destruction after 1835. Divided and tottering, they clung to office thanks to Irish-radical support, and later, to the patronage of' the queen. Electoral losses i n 1835 and 1837 made their defeat in 1841 inevitable. With little programme and philowphy, they not only did little, they wished to d o even less. This view ofwhig ineptitude has been put forward by a number of historians.' Most recently, Norman Gash, in his Reaction and Reconslructzon in English Politics 1832-5 2, examined the development o f the liberal party in the eighteen-thirties, and concluded that its 'policy, especially after 1837. showed an absence ot' principle and ob.jective'.q Professor Gash stressed the view that two distinct political parties emerged during this period, pointing to the 'Lichfield House compact' of' February 1835 as significant in the party's development. This meeting of whigs, radicals and O'Connellites unified the opposition to Sir Robert Peel's ministry that had been handed office by the king, William IV, three months earlier. 'Politically', wrote Gash, 'it established the first solid foundation lor the construction of'a real Liberal party'. His view assumes a unity ofpurpose among the disparate groups who opposed Peel, then supported Melbourne's government once the conservative ministry was overturned in April I 83.5. such unity, i t being further argued, predicated o n an increasingly radical philosophy. Although the union won the radicals and O'Connell's tail for the whigs, 'there is also a sense in which it gained the Whigs for Radicalism'. Despite Russell's initial reservations about an alliance with radicals, he 'had no doubts at all about the need f o r a more radical policy; and the alliancr solidified a party behind that policy'. Appropriation and ballot, 'the two basic issues of the Church and the parliamentary constitution o n which the two great political parties were clearly divided', held the union together. In contrast to Peel's 'skilful creation of' I I would like 10 thank Prolessors R. W. Davis and R. H. Cameron lor coinmenriiig oil a i l earlier di-alt o t this article. Rcscarch was carried out with the aid of grants from the Canada Counril and t l i~ Ilniversih of Lethbridgc Research Fund. D. Beaks, 'Peel, Russell and reform', HutoricalJour., xvii l l q 7 4). 881. For esatriplcs. scc the lollowing: N. Gash. Reaction and Reronstrurtion In Englirh Pohlirs. 1 8 3 2-~2 iOulord. iq65), pp. 147, 177 ihereatter cited ab Gash); N. Gash.