ABSTRACT
Sixteen years after the fall of Derby’s first ministry in December 1852, a liberal government took office, and at its head stood William Gladstone. But these sixteen years were marked by upheavals in the politics of the country, as well as in Gladstone’s own career. Politics in these years were in something like a state of flux: it is difficult to label the various parties convincingly. The ‘Peelites’, those who had stayed loyal to Sir Robert Peel, declined into one of the many disparate groups that eventually formed the Liberal Party. That party also comprised right-wing moderate Whigs and more left-wing radical elements, and, of course, the unclassifiable Palmerston. Gladstone’s battles in 1866 and 1867 placed him firmly in line to take over the Liberal Party, which he duly did on Russell’s retirement, and he then managed to assert himself as an effective leader of it.
