The Mid-Victorians and the Two-Party System

Abstract

Twentieth-century historians of the development of British political institutions have been persuaded by the late Sir Lewis Namier that the eighteenth century cannot fruitfully be analyzed in terms of party politics. “In 1761,” Sir Lewis observed, “not one parliamentary election was determined by party, and in 1951 not one constituency returned a non-party member.” J. H. Plumb has admittedly discerned a temporary “rage of party” during the reign of Queen Anne, and Donald Ginter has noted significant anticipations of modern party rivalry during the 1780s and 1790s while the late Richard Pares found “a tendency to a two party system” present during the immediate post-Napoleonic War years. Yet the modern political party system is generally seen as a direct if unwitting consequence of the Reform Act of 1832. In J.B. Conacher's words: First of all a political party should exist with the purpose of becoming the basis of government; secondly it should be composed of members sharing common principles and traditions; thirdly it should possess some definite form of organization inside and outside Parliament. For lack of one or more of these essential requirements the modern political party could not come into existence until after the Reform act of 1832.