Gladstone and the Greenwich Seat: The Dissolution of January 26th, 1874
Robert Rhodes James analyses the controversy over Parliamentary procedure that helped to precipitate the General Election in which Gladstone went down to defeat.
By the summer of 1873 it was evident that the sands of life of the first Gladstone Administration were running out. Since it had taken office in 1868 it had applied itself zealously to the task of Reform, and the Statute Book bore eloquent testimony to the accomplishments of this crusade.
The Irish Church had been disestablished in 1869, in 1870 the law of Irish land tenure was rendered more equitable; the Civil Service had been thrown open to competitive examination; the Education Act of 1870, for all its faults, marked the beginning of the process whereby the State has shouldered the responsibility of educating its children.
In 1871 the religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge were abolished; the Ballot Act of 1872 and Lord Selborne’s Judicature Act of the following year had completely altered the political and judicial structure of the country, while the first tentative steps had been taken in the direction of legalizing the growing Trade Union movement.
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