All 654 seats in the House of Commons 328 seats needed for a majority
First party
Second party
Leader
Viscount Palmerston
Earl of Derby
Party
Liberal
Conservative
Leader since
6 February 1855
July 1846
Leader's seat
Tiverton
House of Lords
Last election
377 seats, 64.8%
264 seats, 33.5%
Seats won
356
298
Seat change
21
34
Popular vote
372,117
193,232
Percentage
65.8%
34.2%
Swing
1.0%
0.7%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Prime Minister before election
Earl of Derby
Conservative
Prime Minister after election
Viscount Palmerston
Whig
The 1859 United Kingdom general election returned Liberal Party to a majority of seats (356 out of 654) in the House of Commons. The Earl of Derby's Conservatives formed a minority government. but despite having made small overall gains in the election, Derby's government was defeated in a confidence vote by an alliance of Palmerston's Whigs together with Peelites, Radicals, and the Irish Brigade. Palmerston subsequently formed a new government from this alliance which is now considered to be the first Liberal Party administration.
There is no separate tally of votes or seats for the Peelites. They did not contest elections as an organised party but more as independent Free trade Conservatives with varying degrees of distance from the two main parties.
It was also the last general election entered by the Chartists, before their organisation was dissolved. As of 2024, this is the last election in which the Conservatives won the most seats in Wales,[1] as well as being the last election to date in which the Conservative Party took less than a third of the vote in England.
The election was the quietest and least competitive between 1832 and 1885, with most county elections being uncontested. The election also saw the lowest number of candidates between 1832 and 1885, with Tory gains potentially being the result of a lack of opposition as much as a change in public opinion.[2]
According to A.J.P. Taylor:
the government which Palmerston organized in June 1859 was a coalition of a different kind: not a coalition of groups which looked back to the past, but a coalition which anticipated the future. Had it not been for Palmerston himself—too individual, too full of personality to be fitted into a party-pattern—it would have been the first Liberal government in our history. Everything that was important in it was Liberal—finance, administrative reform, its very composition: the first government with unmistakable middle-class Free Traders as members.[3]
1852 election
MPs
1857 election
MPs
1859 election
MPs
1865 election
MPs
1868 election
MPs
^Scully, Roger (4 May 2017). "Why Wales decided to forgive the Tories". The Spectator. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
^Hawkins, A. (18 June 1987), Parliament, Party and the Art of Politics in Britain, 1855–59, p. 377, ISBN 9781349089253
^A. J. P. Taylor "Lord Palmerston", History Today (1951) 1#7 pp 35-41 at p. 39
and 28 Related for: 1859 United Kingdom general election information
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