Radicals (UK)

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The Radicals were a loose parliamentary political grouping in

The 1832 parliament elected on the new franchise – which raised the percentage of the adult population eligible to vote from some 3% to 6%[7] – contained some fifty or sixty Radicals. This number shortly doubled in the 1835 election, leading many to envisage a House of Commons eventually divided between Radicals on the one side and Conservatives (Tories and Whigs) on the other.^[8]

In fact, the Radicals failed either to take over an existing party, or to create a new, third force and there were three main reasons. The first was the continuing strength of Whig electoral power in the half-century following the 1832 Act. The latter had expressly been designed to preserve Whig landlord influence in the counties and the remaining small borough^[9] – one reason a radical like Henry Hetherington condemned the bill as "an invitation to the shopocrats of the enfranchised towns to join the Whiggocrats of the country".^[10] Whigs were also able to profit in two-member constituencies from electoral pacts made with a more reforming candidate.^[11]

Secondly, there was the widening body of reforming opinion inside (and outside) Parliament concerned with other, unrelated causes, including international liberalism, anti-slavery, educational and pro-temperance reforms, admissibility of non-Anglicans ("nonconformists") to positions of power.^[12] The latter expanded later to disestablishmentarianism which replaced the old local government units of the simple parish unit vestry by the mid-nineteenth century, devising instead civil (non-religious) parishes for almost all areas.

Thirdly, the Radicals were always more a body of opinion than a structured force.^[13] They lacked any party organisation, formal leadership, or unified ideology. Instead, humanitarian Radicals opposed philosophic Radicals over the Factory Acts; political Radicals seeking a slimmed-down executive opposed Benthamite interventionists; universal suffrage men competed for time and resources with free traders – the Manchester men.^[14]

By 1859, the Radicals had come together with the Whigs and the anti-protectionist Tory Peelites to form the Liberal Party, though with the New Radicalism of figures like Joseph Chamberlain they continued to have a distinctive political influence into the closing years of the nineteenth century.^[15]

Continuing agitation and reform

Following the First Reform Act, popular demand for wider suffrage was taken up by the mainly

Further Radical pressure led to the Ballot Act 1872 and the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883, followed by the Representation of the People Act 1884.^[18] Progressive liberals like John Morley and Joseph Chamberlain continued to value radicalism as a unifying bridge between the classes, and a common goal.^[19] However, in 1886 Chamberlain helped form the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party that mostly supported Conservative governments. The long career of David Lloyd George saw him moving from radical views in the 1890s to becoming Prime Minister in coalition with the Conservatives in 1918. From 1900 and the rise of the Labour Party and the gradual achievement of the majority of the original Radical goals, Parliamentary Radicalism ceased to function as a political force in the early twentieth century.^[20]

Disappearance as a political party

Radicals were absorbed by the Liberal Party by 1859, but did show their presence as a faction of the Liberal Party.^[21]

Literary echoes

• Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), a social novel written by George Eliot, offered a positive view of an idealistic and well-educated committed Radical.^[22]
• Beauchamp's Career (1875), a satirical novel written by George Meredith. It portrays life and love in upper-class Radical circles and satirises the Conservative establishment.
• Anthony Trollope offered a more shaded view in his outline for The Way We Live Now (1875), describing his anti-hero as "A scapegrace. Has glimmerings of Radical policy for the good of the people".^[23] Economically liberal and laissez-faire, Trollope finds non-radicalism bucolic, extolling the rural county of Suffolk: "The people are hearty, and radicalism is not quite so rampant as it is elsewhere. The poor people touch their hats, and the rich people think of the poor."^[24]
• Sybil, or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli
  , which includes a fictional Industrial Radical Party.

See also

References