The 1895 United Kingdom general election was held from 13 July to 7 August 1895. The result was a Conservative parliamentary majority of 153.
William Gladstone had retired as prime minister the previous year, and
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
, disregarding Gladstone's advice to name
Lord Spencer as his successor, appointed the
Earl of Rosebery
Earl of Rosebery is a title in the Peerage of Scotland created in 1703 for Archibald Primrose, 1st Viscount of Rosebery, with remainder to his issue male and female successively. Its name comes from Roseberry Topping, a hill near Archibald's w ...
as the new prime minister. Rosebery's government found itself largely in a state of paralysis due to a power struggle between him and
William Harcourt, the Liberal leader in the Commons. The situation came to a head on 21 June, when Parliament voted to dismiss
Secretary of State for War
The secretary of state for war, commonly called the war secretary, was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, which existed from 1794 to 1801 and from 1854 to 1964. The secretary of state for war headed the War Offic ...
Henry Campbell-Bannerman; Rosebery, realising that the government would likely not survive a
motion of no confidence
A motion or vote of no confidence (or the inverse, a motion or vote of confidence) is a motion and corresponding vote thereon in a deliberative assembly (usually a legislative body) as to whether an officer (typically an executive) is deemed fi ...
were one to be brought, promptly resigned as prime minister.
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
leader
Lord Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903), known as Lord Salisbury, was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United ...
was subsequently re-appointed for a third spell as prime minister, and promptly called a new election.
The election was won by the Conservatives, who continued their alliance with the
Liberal Unionist Party
The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political ...
and won a large majority. The Liberals, in contrast, went down to what at the time was their worst result since the party's foundation, winning just 177 seats. The
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nati ...
was split at this time; most of its MPs (the
"Anti-Parnellites") followed
John Dillon, while a rump (the
"Parnellites") followed
John Redmond. The
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...
, having only previously existed as a loose grouping of left-wing politicians, formally organized into a party led by
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, and was its first Leader of the Labour Party (UK), parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908. ...
in 1893 and contested their first election. They earned relatively little attention at this election, winning slightly less than one per cent of the popular vote and no seats, but would enjoy greater success five years later, when they ran under the banner of the
Labour Representation Committee.
This was the last United Kingdom general election where neither the incumbent prime minister nor leader of the main opposition party sat in the House of Commons, with Rosebery and Salisbury both sitting in the House of Lords, and
William Harcourt and
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (; 25 July 184819 March 1930) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As Foreign Secretary ...
respectively acting as the Commons leaders for the Liberals and Conservatives.
Results
Voting summary
Seats summary
See also
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Parliamentary franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918
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1895 United Kingdom general election in Ireland
Events January
* January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island (off French Guiana) on what is much later admitted to be a false charge of ...
Notes
References
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External links
Spartacus: Political Parties and Election Results
{{British elections
1895 elections in the United Kingdom
1895
General election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...
July 1895
August 1895
1895 elections in Ireland
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery