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The Education Bill of 1906 and the Decline of Political Nonconformity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Noel J. Richards
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Extract

The early years of the twentieth century prior to the outbreak of World War I have been described as a period in which the Liberal Party was in a state of decline. One significant aspect of this decline was the deterioration of what in the late nineteenth century has been labelled as political nonconformity. Gladstone's statement that Nonconformists supplied the backbone of British Liberalism perhaps best symbolises the political significance of this group for the vitality of the Liberal Party.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

page 49 note 1 A debate continues to exist regarding the time of the decline of the Liberal Party. One side stresses the pre-war period; the other, the war years. This debate is one of the topics covered in Thompson, J. A. (ed.), The Collapse of the British Liberal Party, Lexington Mass., 1969Google Scholar.

page 49 note 2 Glaser, John F. discusses this concept in his article ‘English Nonconformity and the Decline of Liberalism’, American Historical Review, lxiii (1958)Google Scholar. As the author of this article points out, the terms ‘Dissenters’, ‘Nonconformists’ and ‘Free Churchmen’ can be used interchangeably to refer to Protestants outside the Church of England.

page 49 note 3 Gladstone, W. E., “The County Franchise and Mr. Lowe Thereon”, The Nineteenth Century, ii (1877), 552Google Scholar.

page 50 note 1 Lidgett, John Scott, My Guided Life, London 1936, 184Google Scholar. Lidgett was President of the National Free Church Council in 1906.

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page 50 note 3 SirMarchant, James, Dr. John Clifford, Life, Letters and Reminiscences, London 1924, 126Google Scholar. Clifford was a Baptist who was one of the leaders of the Passive Resistance Movement.

page 50 note 4 Birrell, Augustine, Things Past Redress, London 1937, 184Google Scholar. Birrell was the author of the Education Bill of 1906.

page 51 note 1 House of Commons. Rowland, Peter, The Last Liberal Governments, London 1968, 31Google Scholar states 157; whereas Halevy, Elie, The Rule of Democracy 1905–14, New York 1952, i. 64 states 180Google Scholar.

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page 56 note 1 Spender, The Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, ii. 274.

page 56 note 2 Sir Almeric Fitzroy, Memoirs, London, n.d., i. 287.

page 56 note 3 Henry Campbell-Bannerman to Lord Ripon, 7 April 1906 in Rowland, The Last Liberal Governments, 348.

page 56 note 4 Fitzroy, Memoirs, i. 291.

page 56 note 5 Quoted in Bell, Randall Davidson, i. 5:6.

page 56 note 6 Spender, The Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, ii. 276.

page 56 note 7 The Times, 1 May 1906.

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page 57 note 2 Bell, Randall Davidson, i. 520.

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page 59 note 1 Fitzroy, Memoirs, i. 292.

page 59 note 2 Bell, Randall Davidson, i. 513–14.

page 59 note 3 Herbert Gladstone to Augustine Birrell, 8 December 1906: Rowland, The Last Liberal Governments, 350.

page 60 note 1 Fitzroy, Memoirs, i. 309.

page 60 note 2 The Times, 24 November 1906; ibid., 28 November 1906.

page 60 note 3 Ibid., 28 November 1906.

page 60 note 4 Ibid., 24 November 1906.

page 60 note 5 Ibid., 28 November 1906; Halevy in his analysis of the defeat of the 1906 Education Bill states that not only the Nonconformists but the entire electorate was apathetic over the issue. He wrote: ‘The great mass of the electorate took no interest in the struggle, and the Anglican Church and the supporters of the status quo could take advantage of their indifference’: The Rule of Democracy 1905–1914, 68.

page 60 note 6 Fitzroy, Memoirs, i. 310.

page 60 note 7 Ibid.

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page 63 note 1 Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, 128.