Yorkshire Liberalism during the First World War

Abstract

During the crisis that followed Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia on 24 July 1914, Yorkshire Liberals were unanimous in their belief that Britain 3 See Henry Pelling, Social geography of British elections, 1885-igw (London, 1967), chs. 11, '3-4 The evidence on Yorkshire liberalism is derived from eight Yorkshire Liberal newspapers. Apart from Middlesborough and York, they represent the principal Yorkshire parliamentary boroughs under the third Reform Act. Six of these papers are from woollen district cities -Bradford (2), Leeds, Dewsbury, Halifax, and Huddersfield -and among them they cover the political activities of the entire district. This region was the centre of greatest Liberal strength in the county. The other two represent opinion in Sheffield and Hull, the two largest Yorkshire parliamentary boroughs outside the woollen district. Most of the information on Liberal views comes from the editorial columns of these newspapers. Since Liberal political activity stopped for the duration of the war, there were few meetings and speeches. Furthermore, the Bradford Daily Telegraph ceased to publish leaders soon after the formation of the coalition in 1915; the Yorkshire Evening Mews (Leeds) stopped publishing them from September 1914 to March 1917; and the Eastern Morning Mews (Hull) tended to limit its comments to the progress of the war itself-though it commented often enough on political issues to make clear its political leanings. Thus, from the spring of 1915 to the spring of 1917, only five or six (depending on what the Eastern Morning Mews did) of the eight would editorialize on an issue raised by the war; from September 1914 to the spring of 1915, and from March 1917 to November 1918, six or seven out of the eight did so.

The Reform Act of 1918 – the Advent of Democracy

“…93 There has been no comparable national analysis of the fortunes during the war and the immediate post-war period of the Labour Party since Duncan Tanner's major study published in 1990, 94 or of the Liberals for much longer, although there have been valuable regional and local case studies. 95 The consequence is that the 1918 Reform Act is almost always in the background, and the spotlight of historical enquiry rarely shines directly upon it. Even more than in its origins and passage, this is the case with its provisions and impact, and for that reason this centennial collection has concentrated upon the latter.…”

The Liberal Party and the Impact of the 1918 Reform Act

“…This led to the prime importance of the 1918 general election in the historiography of the fortunes of the Liberal Party, as it has been argued that this election 'was the crucial event in destroying the political viability of the Liberal Party'. 17 Liberal division was manifest to the electorate in the 1918 general election. In one response, the Liberal candidate for Coventry appealed for the voters to preserve the unity of the Liberal Party: 'The Tories have sacrificed their principles to gain Liberal seats and to break up as far as they can the Liberal Party.…”