Thomas Sinclair and the Political Representation of Presbyteria 1892–1912

Abstract

AbstractThomas Sinclair was a Belfast merchant who exercised a crucial influence on the formation of Ulster Unionism in the period 1886–1912. He had been a leading Presbyterian Liberal; but on Gladstone's conversion to Irish home rule became president of the Liberal Unionists, and worked over the next decades to secure the alliance of Presbyterian Liberals and Conservatives to resist home rule. This article will consider the extent to which a Presbyterian Liberal element remained within this unionist alliance by examining a series of elections, in which former Liberals challenged the policy of Thomas Sinclair and the unionist candidates he backed. It will focus on two pressure groups, the Presbyterian Unionist Voters Association (PUVA) and the Russellites, on the links between them, and on the role of one‐time Liberal Unionist MP, T.W. Russell.