18th century Although William's successor
Anne had considerable Tory sympathies and excluded the Junto Whigs from power, after a brief and unsuccessful experiment with an exclusively Tory government she generally continued William's policy of balancing the parties, supported by her moderate Tory ministers, the
Duke of Marlborough and
Lord Godolphin. However, as the
War of the Spanish Succession went on and became less and less popular with the Tories, Marlborough and Godolphin were forced to rely more and more on the Junto Whigs, so that by 1708 they headed an administration of the
Parliament of Great Britain dominated by the Junto. Anne herself grew increasingly uncomfortable with this dependence on the Whigs, especially as her personal relationship with the
Duchess of Marlborough deteriorated. This situation also became increasingly uncomfortable to many of the non-Junto Whigs, led by the
Duke of Somerset and the
Duke of Shrewsbury, who began to intrigue with
Robert Harley's Tories. In the spring of 1710, Anne dismissed Godolphin and the Junto ministers, replacing them with Tories.
Liberal ideals The Whigs primarily advocated the supremacy of Parliament, while calling for toleration for Protestant dissenters. They adamantly opposed a Catholic as king. They opposed the Catholic Church because they saw it as a threat to liberty, or as
Pitt the Elder stated: "The errors of Rome are rank idolatry, a subversion of all civil as well as religious liberty, and the utter disgrace of reason and of human nature". Ashcraft and Goldsmith (1983) have traced in detail, in the period 1689 to 1710, the major influence of the liberal political ideas of
John Locke on Whig political values, as expressed in widely cited manifestos such as "Political Aphorisms: or, the True Maxims of Government Displayed", an anonymous pamphlet that appeared in 1690 and was widely cited by Whigs. The 18th-century Whigs borrowed the concepts and language of universal rights employed by political theorists Locke and
Algernon Sidney (1622–1682). By the 1770s the ideas of
Adam Smith, a founder of
classical liberalism became important. As Wilson and Reill (2004) note: "Adam Smith's theory melded nicely with the liberal political stance of the Whig Party and its middle-class constituents".
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), a leading London intellectual, repeatedly denigrated the "vile" Whigs and praised the Tories, even during times of Whig political supremacy. In his great
Dictionary (1755), Johnson defined a Tory as "one who adheres to the ancient Constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England, opposed to a Whig". He linked 18th-century
Whiggism with 17th-century revolutionary Puritanism, arguing that the Whigs of his day were similarly inimical to the established order of church and state. Johnson recommended that strict uniformity in religious externals was the best antidote to the objectionable religious traits that he linked to Whiggism.
Protectionism At their inception, the Whigs were
protectionist in economic policy, with
free trade policies being advocated by Tories. The Whigs were opposed to the pro-French policies of the Stuart kings Charles II and James II as they believed that such an alliance with the Catholic
absolute monarchy of France endangered liberty and Protestantism. The Whigs claimed that trade with France was bad for England and developed an economic theory of overbalance, that is a deficit of trade with France was bad because it would enrich France at England's expense. Ashley claimed that "[t]he traditional policy of the Whig party from before the Revolution [of 1688] down to the time of Fox was an extreme form of Protectionism". The Whigs' protectionism of this period is today increasingly cited with approval by heterodox economists such as
Ha-Joon Chang, who wish to challenge contemporary prevailing free trade orthodoxies via precedents from the past. Later on, several members from the Whig party came to oppose the protectionism of the
Corn Laws, but trade restrictions were not repealed even after the Whigs returned to power in the 1830s.
Whig Supremacy by
Godfrey Kneller. With the succession of
Elector George Louis of
Hanover as king in 1714, the Whigs returned to government with the support of some
Hanoverian Tories. The
Jacobite rising of 1715 discredited much of the
Tory party as treasonous
Jacobites, and the
Septennial Act ensured that the Whigs became the dominant party, establishing the Whig oligarchy. Between 1717 and 1720 the
Whig Split led to a division in the party. Government Whigs led by the former soldier
James Stanhope were opposed by
Robert Walpole and his allies. While Stanhope was backed by George I, Walpole and his supporters were closer to the
Prince of Wales. Following his success in defeating the government over the
Peerage Bill in 1719, Walpole was invited back into government the following year. He was able to defend the government in the Commons when the
South Sea Bubble collapsed. When Stanhope died unexpectedly in 1721, Walpole replaced him as leader of the government and became known as the first
Prime Minister. In the
1722 general election the Whigs swept to a decisive victory. Between 1714 and 1760, the Tories struggled as an active political force, but always retained a considerable presence in the
House of Commons. The governments of Walpole,
Henry Pelham and his older brother the
Duke of Newcastle dominated between 1721 and 1757 (with a brief break during the also-Whig
Carteret ministry). The leading entities in these governments consistently referred to themselves as "Whigs".
George III's accession This arrangement changed during the reign of
George III, who hoped to restore his own power by freeing himself from the great Whig magnates. Thus George promoted his old tutor
Lord Bute to power and broke with the old Whig leadership surrounding the Duke of Newcastle. After a decade of factional chaos, with distinct
Bedfordite,
Chathamite,
Grenvillite and
Rockinghamite factions successively in power and all referring to themselves as "Whigs", a new system emerged with two separate opposition groups. The
Rockingham Whigs claimed the mantle of Old Whigs as the purported successors of the party of the Pelhams and the great Whig families. With such noted intellectuals as
Edmund Burke behind them, the Rockingham Whigs laid out a philosophy which for the first time extolled the virtues of faction, or at least their faction. The other group were the followers of
Lord Chatham, who as the great political hero of the
Seven Years' War generally took a stance of opposition to party and faction. Many Whigs came to oppose the government of
Lord North, criticizing its handling of foreign policy and accusing it of being a Tory administration. While it largely consisted of individuals previously associated with the Whigs, many old Pelhamites as well as the Bedfordite Whig faction formerly led by the
Duke of Bedford and elements of that which had been led by
George Grenville, it also contained elements of the Kings' Men, the group formerly associated with Lord Bute and which was generally seen as Tory-leaning.
American impact The association of Toryism with Lord North's government was also influential in the American colonies and writings of British political commentators known as the
Radical Whigs did much to stimulate colonial
republican sentiment. Early activists in the
colonies called themselves Whigs, seeing themselves as in alliance with the political opposition in Britain, until they turned to independence and started emphasising the label
Patriots. In contrast, the American
Loyalists, who supported the monarchy, were consistently also referred to as Tories. Later, the
United States Whig Party was founded in 1833 on the basis of opposition to a strong
presidency, initially the presidency of
Andrew Jackson, analogous to the British Whig opposition to a strong monarchy. The
True Whig Party, which for a century dominated
Liberia, was named after the American party rather than directly after the British one.
Two-party system caricatured
Charles James Fox's return to power in a coalition with
Frederick North, Lord North (
George III is the blockhead in the centre) Dickinson reports the following: The North administration left power in March 1782 following the
American War of Independence and a coalition of the Rockingham Whigs and the former Chathamites, now led by the
Earl of Shelburne, took its place. After Rockingham's unexpected death in July 1782, this uneasy coalition fell apart, with
Charles James Fox, Rockingham's successor as faction leader, quarrelling with Shelburne and withdrawing his supporters from the government. The following Shelburne administration was short-lived and Fox returned to power in April 1783, this time in an unexpected coalition with his old enemy Lord North. Although this pairing seemed unnatural to many at the time, it was to last beyond the demise of the coalition in December 1783. The coalition's untimely fall was brought about by George III in league with the House of Lords and the King now brought in Chatham's son
William Pitt the Younger as his prime minister. It was only now that a genuine two-party system can be seen to emerge, with Pitt and the government on the one side, and the ousted Fox-North coalition on the other. On 17 December 1783, Fox stated in the House of Commons that "[i]f [...] a change must take place, and a new ministry is to be formed and supported, not by the confidence of this House or the public, but the sole authority of the Crown, I, for one, shall not envy that hon. gentleman his situation. From that moment I put in my claim for a monopoly of Whig principles". Although Pitt is often referred to as a Tory and Fox as a Whig, Pitt always considered himself to be an independent Whig and generally opposed the development of a strict partisan political system. Fox's supporters saw themselves as legitimate heirs of the Whig tradition and they strongly opposed Pitt in his early years in office, notably during the regency crisis revolving around the King's temporary insanity in 1788–1789, when Fox and his allies supported full powers as regent for their ally, the
Prince of Wales. The opposition Whigs were split by the onset of the
French Revolution. While Fox and some younger members of the party such as
Charles Grey and
Richard Brinsley Sheridan were sympathetic to the French revolutionaries, others led by
Edmund Burke were strongly opposed. Although Burke himself was largely alone in defecting to Pitt in 1791, much of the rest of the party, including the influential House of Lords leader the
Duke of Portland, Rockingham's nephew
Lord Fitzwilliam and
William Windham, were increasingly uncomfortable with the flirtations of Fox and his allies with radicalism and the French Revolution. They split in early 1793 with Fox over the question of support for the war with France and by the end of the year they had openly broken with Fox. By the summer of the next year, large portions of the opposition had defected and joined Pitt's government.
19th century '' by
Thomas Phillips, 1820. Grey led the Whigs for many years in opposition. Many of the Whigs who had joined with Pitt would eventually return to the fold, joining again with Fox in the
Ministry of All the Talents following Pitt's death in 1806. The followers of Pitt—led until 1809 by Fox's old colleague the Duke of Portland—rejected the label of Tories and preferred to call themselves
The Friends of Mr. Pitt. After the fall of the Talents ministry in 1807, the Foxite Whigs remained out of power for the better part of 25 years. The accession of Fox's old ally, the Prince of Wales, to the regency in 1811 did not change the situation, as the Prince had broken entirely with his old Foxite Whig companions. The members of the government of
Lord Liverpool from 1812 to 1827 called themselves Whigs.
Structure and appeal By 1815, the Whigs were still far from being a "party" in the modern sense. They had no definite programme or policy and were by no means even united. Generally, they stood for reducing crown patronage, sympathy towards
nonconformists, support for the interests of merchants and bankers and a leaning towards the idea of a limited reform of the voting system. Most Whig leaders, such as
Lord Grey,
Lord Grenville,
Lord Althorp, William Lamb (later
Lord Melbourne) and
Lord John Russell, were still rich landowners. The most prominent exception was
Henry Brougham, the talented lawyer, who had a relatively modest background. Hay argues that Whig leaders welcomed the increasing political participation of the English middle classes in the two decades after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. The fresh support strengthened their position in Parliament. Whigs rejected the Tory appeals to governmental authority and social discipline and extended political discussion beyond Parliament. Whigs used a national network of newspapers and magazines as well as local clubs to deliver their message. The press organised petitions and debates and reported to the public on government policy, while leaders such as
Henry Brougham (1778–1868) built alliances with men who lacked direct representation. This new approach to the grass roots helped to define Whiggism and opened the way for later success. Whigs thereby forced the government to recognise the role of public opinion in parliamentary debate and influenced views of representation and reform throughout the 19th century.
Return to power '' by
John Partridge. Melbourne was twice Prime Minister during the 1830s. Whigs restored their unity by supporting moral reforms, especially the abolition of slavery. They triumphed in 1830 as champions of Parliamentary reform. They made Lord Grey prime minister 1830–1834 and the
Reform Act 1832 championed by Grey became their signature measure. It broadened the franchise and ended the system of "
rotten and pocket boroughs" (where elections were controlled by powerful families) and instead redistributed power on the basis of population. It added 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000 in England and Wales. Only the upper and middle classes voted, so this shifted power away from the landed aristocracy to the urban middle classes. In 1832, the party abolished enslavement in the British Empire with the
Slavery Abolition Act 1833. It purchased and freed the slaves, especially those in the Caribbean sugar islands. After parliamentary investigations demonstrated the horrors of child labour, limited reforms were passed in 1833. The Whigs also passed the
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 that reformed the administration of relief to the poor and the
Marriage Act 1836 that allowed civil marriages. It was around this time that the great Whig historian
Thomas Babington Macaulay began to promulgate what would later be coined the
Whig view of history, in which all of English history was seen as leading up to the culminating moment of the passage of Lord Grey's reform bill. This view led to serious distortions in later portrayals of 17th-century and 18th-century history, as Macaulay and his followers attempted to fit the complex and changing factional politics of the
Restoration into the neat categories of 19th-century political divisions. In 1836, a private gentleman's Club was constructed in
Pall Mall,
Piccadilly as a consequence of the successful
Reform Act 1832. The
Reform Club was founded by
Edward Ellice Sr.,
MP for Coventry and Whig
Whip, whose riches came from the
Hudson's Bay Company but whose zeal was chiefly devoted to securing the passage of the
Reform Act 1832. This new club, for members of both Houses of
Parliament, was intended to be a forum for the
radical ideas which the First Reform Bill represented: a bastion of liberal and progressive thought that became closely associated with the
Liberal Party, who largely succeeded the
Whigs in the second half of the 19th century. Until the decline of the Liberal Party in the early 20th century, it was
de rigueur for Liberal MPs and peers to be members of the Reform Club, being regarded as an unofficial party headquarters. However, in 1882 the
National Liberal Club was established under
William Ewart Gladstone's chairmanship, designed to be more "inclusive" towards Liberal
grandees and activists throughout the United Kingdom.
Transition to the Liberal Party The
Liberal Party (the term was first used officially in 1868, but had been used colloquially for decades beforehand) arose from a coalition of Whigs,
free trade Tory followers of
Robert Peel and free trade
Radicals, first created, tenuously under the
Peelite Earl of Aberdeen in 1852 and put together more permanently under the former
Canningite Tory
Lord Palmerston in 1859. Although the Whigs at first formed the most important part of the coalition, the Whiggish elements of the new party progressively lost influence during the long leadership of former Peelite William Ewart Gladstone. Subsequently, the majority of the old Whig aristocracy broke from the party over the issue of
Irish home rule in 1886 to help form the
Liberal Unionist Party, which in turn would merge with the
Conservative Party by 1912. However, the Unionist support for trade protection in the early twentieth century under
Joseph Chamberlain (probably the least Whiggish character in the Liberal Unionist party) further alienated the more orthodox Whigs. By the early twentieth century "Whiggery" was largely irrelevant and without a natural political home. One of the last active politicians to celebrate his Whiggish roots was the Liberal Unionist statesman
Henry James. == In popular culture ==