1895 United Kingdom general election
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All670 seatsin theHouse of Commons 336 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Turnout | 78.4% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Colours denote the winning party | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Diagram showing the composition of the House of Commons following the election | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The1895 United Kingdom general electionwas held from 13 July to 7 August 1895. The result was a Conservative parliamentary majority of 153.
William Gladstonehad retired as Prime Minister the previous year, andQueen Victoria,disregarding Gladstone's advice to nameLord Spenceras his successor, appointed theEarl of Roseberyas the new Prime Minister. Rosebery's government found itself largely in a state of paralysis due to a power struggle between him andWilliam Harcourt,the Liberal leader in the Commons. The situation came to a head on 21 June, when Parliament voted to dismissSecretary of State for WarHenry Campbell-Bannerman;Rosebery, realising that the government would likely not survive amotion of no confidencewere one to be brought, promptly resigned as Prime Minister.ConservativeleaderLord Salisburywas subsequently re-appointed for a third spell as Prime Minister, and promptly called a new election.
The election was won by the Conservatives, who continued their alliance with theLiberal Unionist Partyand won a large majority. The Liberals, in contrast, went down to what at the time was their worst result since the party's foundation, winning just 177 seats. TheIrish Parliamentary Partywas split at this time; most of its MPs (the"Anti-Parnellites") followedJohn Dillon,while a rump (the"Parnellites") followedJohn Redmond.TheIndependent Labour Party,having only previously existed as a loose grouping of left-wing politicians, formally organized into a party led byKeir Hardiein 1893 and contested their first election. They earned relatively little attention at this election, winning slightly less than one per cent of the popular vote and no seats, but would enjoy greater success five years later, when they ran under the banner of theLabour Representation Committee.
This was the last United Kingdom general election where neither the incumbent Prime Minister nor leader of the main opposition party sat in the House of Commons, with Rosebery and Salisbury both sitting in the House of Lords, andWilliam HarcourtandArthur Balfourrespectively acting as the Commons leaders for the Liberals and Conservatives.
Results[edit]
Candidates | Votes | ||||||||||
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Party | Leader | Stood | Elected | Gained | Unseated | Net | % of total | % | No. | Net % | |
Conservative and Liberal Unionist | Lord Salisbury | 588 | 411 | 114 | 17 | +97 | 61.34 | 49.25 | 1,759,484 | +2.2 | |
Liberal | Lord Rosebery | 447 | 177 | 18 | 112 | −94 | 26.42 | 45.58 | 1,628,405 | +0.2 | |
Irish National Federation | John Dillon | 77 | 70 | −2 | 10.45 | 2.59 | 92,556 | −2.6 | |||
Irish National League | John Redmond | 26 | 12 | +3 | 1.79 | 1.34 | 47,698 | −0.2 | |||
Ind. Labour Party | Keir Hardie | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.96 | 34,433 | N/A | |||
Independent Liberal | N/A | 3 | 0 | −1 | 0 | 0.10 | 3,733 | ||||
Social Democratic Federation | H. M. Hyndman | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.09 | 3,122 | +0.1 | |||
Independent Lib-Lab | N/A | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.07 | 2,348 | ||||
Independent Labour | N/A | 1 | 0 | −3 | 0 | 0.02 | 608 | ||||
Independent | N/A | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 52 |
Voting summary[edit]
Seats summary[edit]
See also[edit]
- List of MPs elected in the 1895 United Kingdom general election
- Parliamentary franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918
- 1895 United Kingdom general election in Ireland
Notes[edit]
- ^All parties shown.
- ^"General Election Results 1885-1979".Archived fromthe originalon 30 January 2012.Retrieved21 June2022.
References[edit]
- Craig, F. W. S.(1989),British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987,Dartmouth: Gower,ISBN0900178302
- Craig, F. W. S. (1974),British Parliamentary Election Results 1885–1918,Macmillan
- Readman, Paul A.(1999), "The 1895 general election and political change in late Victorian Britain",Historical Journal,42(2): 467–493,doi:10.1017/S0018246X98008322,JSTOR3020996,S2CID154822555
- Roberts, Andrew(1999),Salisbury: Victorian Titan,pp. 596–604[publisher missing]
External links[edit]
- 1895 United Kingdom general election
- 1895 elections in the United Kingdom
- General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
- 1895 in the United Kingdom
- July 1895 events
- August 1895 events
- 1895 elections in Ireland
- Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
- Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery