ABSTRACT
Despite Chamberlain’s bold attempts of January 1885 to capture the national attention for the “Radical Programme,” events in the Sudan were destined to rob him of complete success. Early in February 1885 the news reached England that General Gordon had perished when Khartoum fell into the hands of the Mandi on January 26th. In the great provincial towns, too, as well as in London the Conservative leaders had insisted on single-member divisions. This was done, it would seem, partly in the hope of disorganising the “caucus” machinery, based hitherto on undivided Parliamentary boroughs, and partly in the hope of winning for Conservatism a fair number of the “respect-able residential” divisions which they had pledged the Government to separate from the industrial and working-class portions of the great towns. But though the strategy of the Tory leaders was to be justified by the results of the next two General Elections, that was hardly obvious at once.
