Editing Liberal Unionist Party (section)

===Formation===
[[File:Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire by Sir Hubert von Herkomer.jpg|thumb|200px|The Liberal Unionists' leader, the Duke of Devonshire (1897, [[National Portrait Gallery, London|NPG]]).]]
The Liberal Unionists owe their origins to the conversion of [[William Ewart Gladstone]] to the cause of Irish Home Rule (i.e. limited self-government for Ireland). The [[1885 United Kingdom general election|1885 general election]] had left [[Charles Stewart Parnell]]'s Irish [[Nationalist Party (Ireland)|Nationalists]] holding the balance of power, and had convinced Gladstone that the Irish wanted and deserved instatement of [[Irish Home Rule movement|Home Rule for Ireland]] and so reform the [[Acts of Union 1800|85 years of union]]. Some Liberals believed that Gladstone's [[Irish Government Bill 1886|Home Rule bill]] would lead to independence for Ireland and the dissolution of the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]], which they could not countenance. Seeing themselves as defenders of the Union, they called themselves "Liberal Unionists", although at this stage most of them did not think the split from their former colleagues would be permanent. Gladstone  preferred to call them "dissentient Liberals" as if he believed they would eventually come back like the "[[Adullamites]]", Liberals who had opposed the extension of the franchise in 1866 but had mostly come back to the main party after the Conservatives had passed their own electoral reform bill in 1867. In the end it did not matter what the Liberal Unionists were called, the schism in the Liberal Party grew wider and deeper within a few years.<ref name="Cawood"/>

The majority of Liberal Unionists, including Hartington, [[Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne|Lord Lansdowne]], and [[George Joachim Goschen, 1st Viscount Goschen|George Goschen]], were drawn from the [[British Whig Party|Whig]] faction of the party and had been expected to split from the Liberal Party anyway, for reasons connected with economic and social policy. Some of the Unionists held extensive landed estates in Ireland and  feared these would be broken up or confiscated if Ireland had its own government, while Hartington had suffered a personal loss at the hands of Irish Nationalists in 1882 when [[Lord Frederick Cavendish|his brother]] was killed during the [[Phoenix Park Murders]].

The anti-Home Rule Liberals formed a Committee for the Preservation of the Union in early 1886, and were soon joined by a smaller radical faction led by [[Joseph Chamberlain]] and [[John Bright]]. Chamberlain had briefly taken office in the Gladstone government which had been formed in 1886 but resigned when he saw the details of Gladstone's Home Rule plans. As Chamberlain had previously been a standard bearer of radical liberalism against the Whigs, his adherence to the alliance against the Gladstonian Liberals came as a surprise. When the dissident Liberals eventually formed the Liberal Unionist Council, which was to become the Liberal Unionist party, Chamberlain organised the separate National Radical Union in Birmingham. This allowed Chamberlain and his immediate allies to distance themselves from the main body of Liberal Unionism (and their Conservative allies) and left open the possibility that they could work with the Liberal Party in the future.<ref name="Cawood"/>

In 1889 the National Radical Union changed its name to the National Liberal Union and remained a separate organisation from the main Liberal Unionist Council.

Historian [[Robert Ensor]] reports that after 1886, Gladstone's main Liberal Party was deserted by practically the entire Whig peerage and the great majority of the upper-class and upper-middle-class Liberals. [[Gentlemen's club]]s that had a Liberal base were deeply split. Ensor notes that "London society, following the known views of the Queen, practically ostracized home rulers".<ref>R.C.K. Ensor, ''England 1870–1914'' (1936) p 207.</ref>

Chamberlain used anti-Catholicism to build a base for the new party among "Orange" Nonconformist Protestant elements in Britain and Ireland.<ref>{{cite book|author=D. W. Bebbington|title=The Nonconformist Conscience|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KUNpAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA93|year=2014|publisher=Routledge|page=93|isbn=9781317796558|access-date=2017-10-25|archive-date=2021-02-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201102538/https://books.google.com/books?id=KUNpAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA93|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Travis L. Crosby|title=Joseph Chamberlain: A Most Radical Imperialist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HAKPcVqFqQsC&pg=PA74|year=2011|publisher=I.B.Tauris|pages=74–76|isbn=9781848857537|access-date=2017-10-25|archive-date=2021-02-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201101544/https://books.google.com/books?id=HAKPcVqFqQsC&pg=PA74|url-status=live}}</ref>  [[John Bright]] popularised the catchy slogan, "[[Rome Rule|Home rule means Rome rule]]."<ref>{{cite book|author=Hugh Cunningham|title=The Challenge of Democracy: Britain 1832–1918|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KyIiBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA134|year=2014|pages=134–|publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317883289|access-date=2017-10-25|archive-date=2021-02-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201101525/https://books.google.com/books?id=KyIiBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA134|url-status=live}}</ref>