The Age of Salisbury, 1881-1902: Unionism and Empire (A History of the Conservative Party)

Richard Shannon's study of The Age of Disraeli, 1868-1881: The Rise of Tory Democracy (the second volume chronologically in Longman's authoritative History of the Conservative Party) was published to great acclaim in 1992. Here now is its successor, covering the fortunes of the Conservative Party in the period after the death of Disraeli, under the leadership of Lord Salisbury, whose premierships (1885-86, 1886-92 and 1895-1902) provide the main substance of the book.
Richard Shannon explores the changes in party thinking and organization under the pressures of the newly expanded electorate. In doing so, he traces the growing ascendancy of Salisbury, who, after sharing the dual leadership of the Party from the Lords with Sir Stafford Northcote in the Commons, became sole leader on forming his first cabinet in 1885. Aristocrat, High Church Anglican, and astute diplomat, Salisbury held the unruly party together by his personal authority; and, by offering moderate social reform along with opposition to Irish Home Rule, he was able to forge the alliance between the Conservatives and the Unionists that would dominate British politics for the rest of the century and beyond. But Richard Shannon argues that one of the unforeseen effects of the Unionist alliance was to stifle the emergence of new social elements in the Party at large.
Fittingly, it is Salisbury himself who provides Professor Shannon with the key text for interpreting the period when he noted in 1882: 'Let us hope the chapter of accidents may help us: we shall hardly do much to help ourselves.' For, as this book amply discloses, the Party's success in the later nineteenth century was not at all a matter of purposeful design or conscious plan. Rather, it was a process of adaptation to unforeseen circumstances. The extent of the transformation was astonishing given the relatively short period covered by the book - but it was imposed on the Party from outside by the forces of social change and the accidents (mostly, at least in the earlier part of the period, fortunate ones) of political life.
In these crowded years, Salisbury and his colleagues had much to contend with: a turbulent party and changing electorate at home, the demands of empire and growing rivalry with Germany, France and the United States abroad, and, above all, the problems of Irish Home Rule and the Unionist alliance somewhere in between. Shannon does full justice to the impact of these matters on the Conservative Party - and vice versa - in his massive study.