United Kingdom general election, 1880

31 March–27 April 1880^[1]

All 652 seats to the House of Commons 327 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Lord Hartington	Lord Beaconsfield	William Shaw
Party	Liberal	Conservative	Home Rule
Leader since	January 1875	27 February 1868	May 1879
Leader's seat	North East Lancashire	Earl of Beaconsfield	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	1,426,351	95,535
Percentage	54.7%	42.5%	2.8%
Swing	2.7%	1.8%	0.9%

PM before election

Lord Beaconsfield
Conservative

Subsequent PM

William Ewart Gladstone
Liberal

1868 election • MPs
1874 election • MPs
1880 election • MPs
1885 election • MPs
1886 election • MPs

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

Intense rhetoric of the election was provided by the Midlothian campaign of the Liberals, led by the fierce oratory of Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone.^[2] Gladstone vehemently attacked the foreign policy of the government of Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) as utterly immoral.

The Liberals secured one of their largest ever majorities in the election, leaving the Conservatives a distant second. As a result of the campaign, the Liberal leaders, Lord Hartington and Lord Granville, withdrew in favour of Gladstone, who thus became Prime Minister a second time.

Issues

The Conservative government was doomed with by the poor condition condition of the British economy, And the vulnerability of its foreign policy to moralistic attacks by the Liberals. Gladstone, appealing to moralistic evangelicals, led the attack on the foreign policy of Disraeli (now known as Lord Beaconsfield) as immoral.^[3] 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.^[4]

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."^[5]

Disraeli himself was now the Earl of Beaconsfield in the House of Lords, and custom did not allow peers to campaign. His party was unable to deal effectively with the rhetorical onslaught. Although he had improved the organization 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 issues of foreign policy, even more important thing 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 cause much hardship among the industrial working class. The free trade system supported by both parties made Britain defenseless 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, of course, got the blame, and Liberals repeatedly emphasized 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 jump from 250 to 353. Disraeli resigned on 21 April 1880.^[6]^[7]

Results

United Kingdom General Election 1880
		Candidates						Votes
Party		Standing	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	№	Net %
	Liberal	499	352			+ 110	54	54.7	1,836,423	+ 2.7
	Conservative	521	237			- 113	36.3	42.5	1,426,351	- 1.8
	Home Rule	81	63			+ 3	9.7	2.8	95,535	- 0.9
	Independent	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	1,107	0.0

Total votes cast: 3,359,416.

Voting summary

Crowds wait outside Leeds Town Hall to hear the result.

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

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% Change
	Liberal	337	105	1,780,171	57.3	1.9
	Conservative	214	105	1,326,744	42.7	1.9
	Others	0		1,107	0.04	0.04
Total		551		3,108,022	100

England

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% Change
	Liberal	254	83	1,519,576	56.2	2.4
	Conservative	197	83	1,205,990	43.7	2.5
	Others	0		1,107	0.1	0.1
Total		451		2,726,673	100

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: United Kingdom general election, 1880 (Ireland)

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% Change
	Home Rule	63	3	95,535	37.5	2.1%
	Irish Conservative	24	8	99,607	39.8	1.0%
	Liberal	15	5	56,252	22.7	4.3%
Total		101		251,394	100

Universities

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

References

F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987
British Electoral Facts 1832-1999, compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2000)
Spartacus: Political Parties and Election Results

Footnotes

↑
↑ M.A. Fitzsimons, "Midlothian: the Triumph and Frustration of the British Liberal Party," Review of Politics (1960) 22#2 pp 187–201. in JSTOR
↑ H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone: 1809-1898 (1997) . pp 293-312.
↑ Paul Smith (1996). Disraeli: A Brief Life. Cambridge UP. pp. 198–99.
↑ Smith p 199
↑ Smith, pp 202-3
↑ Robert Blake, Disraeli (1967) pp 707-13, 717

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