Editing Liberal Unionist Party (section)

===Legacy===
The political impact of the Liberal Unionist breakaway marked the end of the long nineteenth century domination by the Liberal Party of the British political scene. From 1830 to 1886 the Liberals (the name the Whigs, [[Radicals (UK)|Radicals]] and [[Peelites]] accepted as their political label after 1859) had been managed to become almost the party of permanent government with just a couple of Conservative interludes.<ref>The Conservatives had a majority of seats in the House of Commons in 1841–1846 and 1874–1880 as a united party.</ref> After 1886, it was the Conservatives who enjoyed this position and they received a huge boost with their electoral and political alliance with a party of disaffected Liberals.

Though not numerous, the Liberal Unionists boasted having the vast bulk of the old Whig aristocracy within their ranks, as represented by the stolid "old money" Duke of Devonshire. Another example is [[Frederick Leveson-Gower (Sutherland MP)|Frederick Leveson-Gower]]. The Duke of Devonshire's political partner, the Radical Joseph Chamberlain, was from a very different "new money" background, a businessman and a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]]. Though he had joined the Liberal Unionists late on, he was more determined to maintain their separate status in the alliance with the Conservatives, perhaps hoping and wishing that he would be able to refashion the combination under his own leadership at a later date. Chamberlain's stroke in 1906 robbed him of this chance, though he remained involved in political life until 1914.

Though the Liberal Unionist party disappeared as a separate organisation in 1912,<ref>In Birmingham separate Liberal Unionist and Conservative associations persisted until 1919 when they were merged to form the Birmingham Unionist Association. The prime mover behind this was [[Neville Chamberlain]]</ref> the Chamberlain legacy helped keep the industrial powerhouse of Birmingham from returning to the Liberal Party and would only be changed in 1945 in the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] electoral landslide of that year. It also remained a profound influence on Chamberlain's sons [[Austen Chamberlain|Austen]] and [[Neville Chamberlain]], who, when he was elected leader of the Conservative Party and thus became Prime Minister in 1937, told an audience how proud he was of his Liberal Unionist roots. This isn't surprising. Neither Neville or Austen actually stood for Parliament as  'Conservative' candidates. Their local political association in Birmingham  preferred to call themselves Unionist rather than Conservative during this time and campaigned as such. The Unionist label privately suited Neville Chamberlain as well. He  confided to his own family how he always regarded the Conservative party label as 'odious' and thought of it a barrier to people joining what he thought could be a non-socialist but a reforming party during the 1930s which Chamberlain hoped would be called National to include the parties of the [[UK National Government|National Government]] coalition in the 1930s.