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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 12h

#OTD 1934: Death of Sidney Buxton, 1st Earl Buxton, Liberal cabinet minister 1905-14. Buxton first came to prominence with the publication of his Handbook to the Political Questions of the Day, a popular work which went through 11 editions.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 13h

#OTD 1951: Britain's first party political broadcast on television is delivered for the Liberals by 81-year-old Lord Herbert Samuel, Liberal leader in the House of Lords. It was not considered a success as Samuel read from a prepared script and did not look at the camera.

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 14h

#OTD 1964: Polling day in the 1964 general election. In a cliffhanger, the Labour Party emerged victorious with an overall majority of 4, ending 13 years of Conservative rule. The Liberal Party, fielding 150 more candidates than in 1959, garnered over 3m votes and 9 MPs.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 18h

Lloyd George attended the NLF meeting and received a rapturous reception. By the time he recovered in September, Asquith realised his position was impossible. He announced his resignation in a short letter to the leaders of the English and Scottish Liberal Federations 🧵 3/3

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 18h

Matters were due to come to a head at the annual meeting of the National Liberal Federation in Weston-Super-Mare. However, a few days before the meeting, Asquith was incapacitated by a stroke, which kept him out of action for three months. 🧵 2/3

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 18h

#OTD 1926: H.H. Asquith announces his retirement from politics. The events leading to his resignation were painful and protracted. The General Strike in May resulted in a public falling out between Asquith and Lloyd George. 🧵 1/3

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 1d

#OTD 1712: Birth of George Grenville, PM 1763-65. He prosecuted John Wilkes for seditious libel and introduced the Sugar and Stamp Acts, causing great resentment in the American Colonies. He fell out with King George III over who should rule if the King's become mentally unfit.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 1d

#OTD 1768: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham resigns as PM and is succeeded by the Duke of Grafton. Pitt had been ill for some time and unable to attend cabinet and lead the government.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 1d

#OTD 1827: Birth of William Vernon Harcourt. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he introduced death duties on real and personal property in his 1894 budget. In 1896, Harcourt succeeded Lord Rosebery as leader of the Parliamentary Party, and he resigned in 1898.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 2d

#OTD 1847: Birth of Arthur Dyke Acland, Liberal MP for Rotherham 1885-99. As Vice-President of the Board of Education (1892-95) he made education compulsory to the age of 11, laid the foundations of adult education and improved the standard of school buildings.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 4d

#OTD 1911: Death of Henry Broadhurst, Liberal-Labour MP. He became the first working-class person to hold a ministerial office in 1886, when he was appointed Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office. He also served twice as Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the TUC.

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 5d

#OTD 1974: During the 2nd general election of the year, Jeremy Thorpe had toured Western England in a hovercraft, campaigning in a series of Liberal target constituencies and gaining a lot of publicity. However, the result was a disappointment as the vote went down by 1%.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 6d

#OTD 1926: Death of Arthur Dyke Acland, Liberal MP for Rotherham 1885-99. He served as Vice-President of the Board of Education from 1892 to 1895, where he made education compulsory to the age of 11, laid the foundations of adult education and improved the standard of school buildings.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 6d

#OTD 1879: Birth of Ernest Darwin Simon, 1st Baron Simon of Wythenshawe, Liberal MP for Manchester Withington 1923-24 and 1929-31. He first rose to prominence as a Manchester City councillor (1912-25), where he initiated a major slum clearance programme and new housing projects.

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 7d

#OTD 1959: Polling day in the 1959 general election. The Liberal Party, led by its new leader Jo Grimond, increased its share of the vote by 3.2% and polled over 1.6m votes. The number of Liberal MPs remained at 6.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 7d

Unable to back down, Liberal MPs had to support their amendment (with the exception of 12 MPs), which was passed 364 votes to 198, precipitating an election which was a disaster for the Liberals. 🧵 4/4

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 7d

The result was the opposite of what the party had hoped to achieve. The Tories switched to support the Liberal amendment, and the government announced that it would treat it as a matter of confidence. 🧵 3/4

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 7d

The government initially supported the prosecution but rapidly backtracked. The Tories put down a motion of no confidence. The Liberal Party, which had opposed the prosecution from the start, sought to defuse matters (and avoid an election) by calling for an inquiry. 🧵 2/4

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 7d

#OTD 1924: A Liberal motion brings down the first Labour Government. It called for a select committee of inquiry into the 'Campbell case' - named after the editor of the Communist paper Worker's Weekly, who was arrested on a charge of incitement to mutiny. 🧵 1/4

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LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 8d

#OTD 1896: Lord Rosebery resigns as leader of the Liberal Party. In his resignation letter to Liberal Chief Whip Tom Ellis, Rosebery cited the recent speech by William Gladstone on Armenia as the primary reason for his standing down.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 9d

#OTD 1968: Death of Maurice Arnold de Forest, racing driver, aviator and Liberal MP for West Ham North 1911-18, which he won on a by-election platform which included land nationalisation, female suffrage and Irish Home Rule. He was made a baron by Emperor Franz Joseph.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 10d

#OTD 1931: A meeting of 22 members of the Liberal parliamentary party agrees to set up a new body to support the National Government. Following the meeting, Sir John Simon penned a note to PM Ramsay MacDonald, 'We shall,' Simon wrote, 'call ourselves Liberal Nationals.'

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 11d

#OTD 1809: The Duke of Portland resigns as PM. Whilst professing to be a Whig, his second spell as PM was as a figurehead to an administration comprised of supporters of William Pitt. Old and infirm, he provided little direction to the government and rarely attended cabinet.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 12d

#OTD 1960: Death of Ernest Darwin Simon, 1st Baron Simon of Wythenshawe, Liberal MP for Manchester Withington 1923-24 & 1929-31. He was a director of the Liberal Summer School and Vice Chairman of the Liberal Industrial Inquiry, which resulted in the Yellow Book of 1928.

LiberalHistoryToday @libhistorytoday.bsky.social · 13d

land reform, reform of the House of Lords, 3-year parliaments, abolition of plural voting and Scottish and Welsh church disestablishment. The Liberal Governments of 1892-5 implemented some aspects of it, including employers' liability, parish councils, and graduated death duties. 🧵 2/2

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