30/Spring 2001
Peelites Tony Little examines the part played by the renegade Conservatives – the Peelites – in the creation of the Liberal Party. ‘‘HisHis FriendsFriends SatSat onon thethe BenchesBenches Opposite’Opposite’ In the Journal’s special issue on defectors (Journal of Although Lord Palmerston had been a part of the Liberal Democrat History , winter –), one Aberdeen coalition, his semi-detached position and group significant to the development of the modern pugnacious character made him the inevitable war Liberal Party was omitted – the Peelites. Here, by leader and he was the prime beneficiary of the pe- way of a review of Professor Angus Hawkins’ book, tering out of the war shortly after he had acceded to Parliament, Party and the Art of Politics in Britain, – the premiership. However, Palmerston had only (Macmillan, ), I aim to show the part played been able to form his government by treading on by these renegade Conservatives in the creation of the toes of oversensitive Peelites such as Gladstone, the modern Liberal Party. and without resolving a long-running quarrel with The formation of the Liberal Party is often dated Lord John Russell. to the meeting in Willis’s Rooms on June . It is at this point that Hawkins takes up the story. This meeting brought together Whigs, Liberals, The problem he poses is that, while, in Kitson’s Radicals and Peelites to defeat Lord Derby. It ush- words, it is not ‘very easy to say what specific opin- ered in a Liberal government under Lord ions were uniquely organised in the middle of the Palmerston which served until Palmerston’s death in century by the Conservative Party’, the forces that and paved the way for Gladstone’s great re- came together to oppose Derby suffered from a su- forming government of –.
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