31 January – 17 February 1874 (1874-01-31 – 1874-02-17)
1880 →
← outgoing members
elected members →
All 652 seats in the House of Commons 327 seats needed for a majority
First party
Second party
Third party
Leader
Benjamin Disraeli
William Gladstone
Isaac Butt
Party
Conservative
Liberal
Home Rule
Leader since
27 February 1868
3 December 1868
November 1873
Leader's seat
Buckinghamshire
Greenwich
Limerick City
Last election
271 seats, 38.7%
387 seats, 61.2%
Did not contest
Seats won
350
242
60
Seat change
79
145
60
Popular vote
1,091,708
1,281,159
90,234
Percentage
44.3%
52.0%
3.7%
Swing
5.6%
9.2%
New party
Colours denote the winning party
Prime Minister before election
William Gladstone
Liberal
Prime Minister after election
Benjamin Disraeli
Conservative
The 1874 United Kingdom general election saw the incumbent Liberals, led by William Gladstone, lose decisively, even though their party won a majority of the votes cast.[1] Benjamin Disraeli's Conservatives won the majority of seats in the House of Commons, largely because they won a number of uncontested seats. It was the first Conservative victory in a general election since 1841. Gladstone's decision to call an election surprised his colleagues, for they were aware of large sectors of discontent in their coalition. For example, the nonconformists were upset with education policies; many working-class people disliked the new trade union laws and the restrictions on drinking. The Conservatives were making gains in the middle-class, Gladstone wanted to abolish the income tax, but failed to carry his own cabinet. The result was a disaster for the Liberals, who went from 387 MPs to only 242. Conservatives jumped from 271 to 350. Gladstone himself noted: "We have been swept away in a torrent of gin and beer".[2]
The election saw the Irish of the Home Rule League become a significant third party in Parliament, with 60 of 101 of the seats for Ireland. This had been the first general election that used a secret ballot following the 1872 Secret Ballot Act. The Irish Nationalist gains could well be attributed to the effects of the Secret Ballot Act, as tenants faced less of a threat of eviction if they voted against the wishes of their landlords. Also in this election, the first two working-class MPs were elected: Alexander MacDonald and Thomas Burt, both members of the Miners' Union, were elected as Liberal-Labour (Lib–Lab) MPs in Stafford and Morpeth, respectively.[3] The 1867 Reform Act eroded the legislative power of the rural gentry. The 1874 election, especially in Ireland, saw great landowners losing their county seats to tenant farmers.[4]
This is the only time since the introduction of the secret ballot that a party has been defeated despite receiving an absolute majority of the popular vote. This was primarily because over 100 Conservative candidates were elected unopposed. This meant no votes were cast in those 100 places where the Conservative candidates were anticipated to be popular; in the seats where Liberal candidates did stand, they polled a high proportion of the vote on average.
The election saw 652 MPs elected, six fewer than at the previous election. Following allegations of corruption, the Conservative-held constituencies of Beverley and Sligo Borough, and the Liberal-held constituencies of Bridgwater and Cashel, had been abolished.
1865 election
MPs
1868 election
MPs
1874 election
MPs
1880 election
MPs
1885 election
MPs
^William Henry Maehl, "Gladstone, the Liberals, and the Election of 1874", Historical Research (1963), 36#93: 53–69.
^(Roberts 2001, p. 332).
^Whitfield, Bob (2001). The Extension of the Franchise, 1832-1931. Heinemann. p. 240. ISBN 9780435327170.
^David F. Krein, "The Great Landowners in the House of Commons, 1833–85." Parliamentary History 32.3 (2013): 460-476.
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