Editing Two-party system (section)

===British emergence===
The old Whig leadership dissolved in the 1760s into a decade of factional chaos with distinct "[[Grenvillite]]", "[[Bedfordite]]", "[[Rockingham Whigs|Rockinghamite]]", and "[[William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham|Chathamite]]" factions successively in power, and all referring to themselves as "Whigs". Out of this chaos, the first distinctive parties emerged. The first such party was the [[Rockingham Whigs]]<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UH0HNqRBsmMC|title=The Transatlantic Persuasion: The Liberal-Democratic Mind in the Age of Gladstone|author=Robert Lloyd Kelley|year=1990|publisher=Transaction Publishers|page=83|isbn=978-1412840293|access-date=2020-08-29|archive-date=2020-08-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819235807/https://books.google.com/books?id=UH0HNqRBsmMC|url-status=live}}</ref> under the leadership of [[Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham|Charles Watson-Wentworth]] and the intellectual guidance of the [[political philosophy|political philosopher]] [[Edmund Burke]]. Burke laid out a philosophy that described the basic framework of the political party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed". As opposed to the instability of the earlier factions, which were often tied to a particular leader and could disintegrate if removed from power, the two party system was centred on a set of core principles held by both sides and that allowed the party out of power to remain as the [[Loyal Opposition]] to the governing party.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jessenorman.com/2013/09/conhome-op-ed-the-usa-radical-conservatism-and-edmund-burke.html|title=ConHome op-ed: the USA, Radical Conservatism and Edmund Burke|access-date=2013-10-19|archive-date=2013-10-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020123727/http://www.jessenorman.com/2013/09/conhome-op-ed-the-usa-radical-conservatism-and-edmund-burke.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:A-Block-for-the-Wigs-Gillray.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.35|In ''A Block for the Wigs'' (1783), [[James Gillray]] caricatured [[Charles James Fox|Fox]]'s return to power in a [[Fox–North coalition|coalition]] with [[Frederick North, Lord North|North]]. George III is the blockhead in the center.]]
A genuine two-party system began to emerge,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0841958270|title=The Emergence of the British Two-Party System, 1760–1832|author=Frank O'Gorman|year=1982|publisher=Holmes & Meier Publishers, Incorporated}}</ref> with the accession to power of [[William Pitt the Younger]] in 1783 leading the new Tories, against a reconstituted "Whig" party led by the [[radicalism (politics)|radical politician]] [[Charles James Fox]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0809/minho/gangster1.html|title=The History of Political Parties in England (1678–1914)|access-date=2013-10-19|archive-date=2013-10-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020144152/http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0809/minho/gangster1.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Parliamentary History, xxiv, 213, 222, cited in Foord, ''His Majesty's Opposition'', 1714–1830, p. 441</ref><ref>Ellen Wilson and Peter Reill, ''Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment'' (2004) p. 298</ref>

The two-party system matured in the early 19th century [[Reform Act 1832|era of political reform]], when the franchise was widened and politics entered into the basic divide between conservatism and liberalism that has fundamentally endured up to the present. The modern [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] was created out of the [[British Tory Party#Pittites|"Pittite" Tories]] by [[Robert Peel]], who issued the [[Tamworth Manifesto]] in 1834 which set out the basic principles of [[Conservatism]] – the necessity in specific cases of reform in order to survive, but an opposition to unnecessary change, that could lead to "a perpetual vortex of agitation". Meanwhile, the Whigs, along with [[free trade]] Tory followers of [[Robert Peel]], and independent [[Radicals (UK)|Radicals]], formed the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] under [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Lord Palmerston]] in 1859, and transformed into a party of the growing urban middle-class, under the long leadership of [[William Ewart Gladstone]]. The two party system had come of age at the time of Gladstone and his Conservative rival [[Benjamin Disraeli]] after the [[Reform Act 1867]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UiNAZmRaYrcC|title=Gladstone and Disraeli|author=Stephen J. Lee|year=2005|publisher=Routledge|page=146|isbn=978-1134349272|access-date=2020-08-29|archive-date=2020-10-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201002181318/https://books.google.com/books?id=UiNAZmRaYrcC|url-status=live}}</ref>