The Newcastle Programme was a statement of policies passed by the representatives of the English and Welsh Liberal Associations meeting at the annual conference of the

National Liberal Federation The National Liberal Federation (1877–1936) was the union of all English and Welsh (but not Scottish) Liberal Associations. It held an annual conference which was regarded as being representative of the opinion of the party's rank and file and ...

(NLF) in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

in 1891. The centrepiece of the Newcastle Programme was the primacy of

Irish Home Rule The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for Devolution, self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1 ...

, but associated with it were a raft of other reforms, in particular: taxation of land values; abolition of entail; extension of smallholdings; reform of the Lords; shorter parliaments; district and parish councils; registration reform and abolition of plural voting; local veto on drink sales; employers' liability for workers' accidents and

disestablishment The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular stat ...

of the Church of England in Wales and Scotland. In the short run it proved a political liability. Liberals won the

1892 United Kingdom general election The 1892 United Kingdom general election was held from 4 to 26 July 1892. It saw the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury again win the greatest number of seats, but no longer a majority as William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals won 80 more seats ...

but failed to enact the Newcastle Programme. They were on the losing side in the

1895 United Kingdom general election The 1895 United Kingdom general election was held from 13 July to 7 August 1895. William Gladstone had retired as Prime Minister the previous year, and Queen Victoria, disregarding Gladstone's advice to name Lord Spencer as his successor, ap ...

and remained out of power until their landslide win in the

1906 United Kingdom general election Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Mus ...

. The Newcastle Programme was important for two reasons; first, it gave the Liberal party a

Radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...

agenda on which to fight the next general election and second, the detailed 'shopping list' of policies it adopted was innovatory in British politics, setting a precedent for modern political parties. Today ordinary members of all major political parties participate in policy development and the parties present the electorate with a programme or manifesto for government, agreed or endorsed in some way by their members.

Liberal campaigning

The Liberal Party's leading pioneer of organised campaigning had been Joseph Chamberlain. In 1885, he put forward the Radical Programme, unauthorised by the party leadership, as an election manifesto for using the constructive power of the state but Liberal leader

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...

subverted Chamberlain's efforts, co-opting the NLF for mainstream Liberalism. By adopting Home Rule for Ireland as his banner, Gladstone trumped the Radical Programme, driving Chamberlain out of the party to form the

Liberal Unionists The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political ...

. In the great schism of 1886 over Home Rule, the NLF deserted Chamberlain to remain loyal to Gladstone.

Home Rule

Between 1886 and 1891, Home Rule dominated Liberal policy debates but two events damaged their Irish allies. In 1887, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' published letters, implicating Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Home Rule party leader, in the

Phoenix Park murders The Phoenix Park Murders were the fatal stabbings of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke (civil servant), Thomas Henry Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, British rule in Ireland, Ireland, on 6 May 1882. Cavendish was the newly appoint ...

of a government minister and a civil servant, although a high-profile government inquiry later discovered the letters to be forgeries. In 1890, the divorce of

Katharine O'Shea Katharine Parnell (née Wood; 30 January 1846 – 5 February 1921), known before her second marriage as Katharine O'Shea, and usually called Katie O'Shea by friends and Kitty O'Shea by enemies, was an English woman of aristocratic background ...

, which identified Parnell as Mrs O'Shea's lover, split the Irish party and scandalised

nonconformist Nonconformity or nonconformism may refer to: Culture and society * Insubordination, the act of willfully disobeying an order of one's superior *Dissent, a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or entity ** ...

Liberals. The split in the Irish Home Rule party in 1890 weakened the likelihood of a successful Home Rule Bill. At the 1891 meeting of the NLF in

Gladstone reaffirmed the primacy of Home Rule, but associated it with reforms on the mainland by adopting various proposals of the NLF Council, in particular: land reform; reform of the Lords; shorter parliaments; district and parish councils; registration reform and abolition of plural voting; local veto on drink sales; employers' liability for workers' accidents; Scottish and Welsh

. The Newcastle programme was to be the solution to these dilemmas, a manifesto for British government.

National Liberal Federation

Each year the National Liberal Federation met for debate in what may be seen as the forerunner of today's political party conferences. The NLF developed a process by which it passed an omnibus resolution incorporating all the policies that had been agreed in debate. In the autumn of 1891, the Federation met in Newcastle upon Tyne. In addition to Home Rule, the policies, which were crowded onto the omnibus, may be divided into three main areas: rural, religious and electoral reform. On 2 October 1891, Gladstone spoke to the NLF and for the first time, a Liberal Party leader had lent support to a programme proposed by the party's grass roots. However, one historian has argued that the Radicals inside the Liberal Party lacked the leadership to ensure their programme was truly implemented. Michael Bentley suggests that while Gladstone and the Liberal leadership was obliged to listen to the opinion of such a significant section of the party, they were able to slide along without making firm commitments and to pick and choose from the 'rag-bag' of policies that made up the Newcastle Programme, prioritising those they wanted and forgetting those they disliked. One of Gladstone's biographers also supports this assessment.

Roy Jenkins Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, (11 November 1920 – 5 January 2003) was a British politician who served as President of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981. At various times a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lab ...

asserts that Gladstone's only real interest now lay in Irish Home Rule, but he allowed John Morley and William Vernon Harcourt to cobble together the Newcastle Programme which he describes as 'a capacious ragbag... weak on theme'. According to Jenkins, Gladstone had neither the time nor energy to oppose the NLF programme and decided to swallow it whole just to ensure the party remained wedded to Home Rule as its principal policy. Gladstone's endorsement of the Newcastle Programme had one important outcome. A few weeks later, on 25 November,

Lord Hartington Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire, (23 July 183324 March 1908), styled Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1834 and 1858 and Marquess of Hartington between 1858 and 1891, was a British statesman. He has the distinction of having ...

, the leader of the

Liberal Unionist Party The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political ...

, announced that there was no longer any hope of re-union with the Gladstonian Liberals.

Failure to implement the Newcastle Programme

The Liberal Party won the 1892 election, but its majority relied on Irish Nationalist support, and the results were far from the sort of endorsement from the electorate that Gladstone hoped. The new government was unable to enact much of the Newcastle Programme, even those parts that Gladstone approved, because of implacable opposition from the Conservative-dominated House of Lords. According to one historian of the Liberal Party, the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury justified their rejection of the Liberal measures including, crucially, Home Rule, on the basis that the Liberal victory in 1892 had rested on the votes of 150 electors in eight constituencies collected by offering many different policy bribes. Of the Newcastle Programme, the government's principal achievements were employers' liability, parish councils and William Vernon Harcourt's 1894 budget, which introduced graduated

death duties An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an es ...

. Gladstone resigned as prime minister in 1894 and was replaced with Lord Rosebery who poured scorn on the Newcastle Programme as the 'flyblown phylacteries of obsolete policies'.Douglas 2005, p. 106. When the government's efforts to bring in temperance reform and Welsh disestablishment also failed, Rosebery's disunited cabinet were almost anxious for an excuse to resign. The Conservatives won the 1895 general election ushering in ten years of Tory government. The Radical policy inheritance of the Newcastle Programme would have to wait for the reforming governments of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom f ...

before being cashed in.

Liberal campaigning

Home Rule

National Liberal Federation

Failure to implement the Newcastle Programme

See also

References

Further reading