ABSTRACT
Ancient historians has the fall of Rome, early modernists the end of the ancien regime and modern British historians the collapse of the Liberal Party. Modern historians are generally sceptical about linking these multi-causal events and regarding them as part of a broader phenomenon. The sudden demise of the Liberal Party encouraged generations of historians to investigate this rare political phenomenon – the death of an apparently indestructible political force. The party's origins can be traced back to the parliamentary and municipal reform movements of the 1830s. In the latter half of the nineteenth century Leicester had a claim to be the most prosperous town in the Midlands, and arguably one of the most prosperous in England. Liberalism's doctrines of free trade, religious equality and political meritocracy were widely regarded as being the values of the new urban industrial middle class, expressing their desire for greater political power to reflect their growing economic status.
