United Kingdom general election, 1859

28 April–18 May 1859

All 654 seats in the House of Commons 328 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party

Leader	The Viscount Palmerston	The Earl of Derby
Party	Whig	Conservative
Leader since	6 February 1855	July 1846
Leader's seat	Tiverton	Earl of Derby
Last election	377 seats, 65.9%	264 seats, 34.0%
Seats won	356	298
Seat change	21	34
Popular vote	372,117	193,232
Percentage	65.7%	34.3%
Swing	0.2%	0.3%

PM before election

Lord Derby
Conservative

Subsequent PM

Lord Palmerston
Whig

1852 election • MPs
1857 election • MPs
1859 election • MPs
1865 election • MPs
1868 election • MPs

In the 1859 United Kingdom general election, the Whigs, led by Lord Palmerston, held their majority in the House of Commons over the Earl of Derby's Conservatives. This election is also considered to be the first to be contested by the Liberal Party - a name unofficially adopted to cover the alliance of Whigs, Peelites, Radicals and Irish Brigade who had previously voted against the Derby administration in the House of Commons that had led to the election. It was also the last general election entered by the Chartists, before their organisation was dissolved.

Results

UK General Election 1859
		Candidates						Votes
Party		Standing	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Whig	298	356			- 21	54.4	65.7	372,117	- 0.2
	Conservative	394	298			+ 34	45.6	34.3	193,232	+ 0.3
	Chartist	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	151	- 0.1

Total votes cast: 565,500

References

F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987
British Electoral Facts 1832-1999, compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2000)
Spartacus: Political Parties and Election Results

Elections and referendums in the United Kingdom

General elections	1801 co-option 1802 1806 1807 1812 1818 1820 1826 1830 1831 1832 1835 1837 1841 1847 1852 1857 1859 1865 1868 1874 1880 1885 1886 1892 1895 1900 1906 1910 (Jan) 1910 (Dec) 1918 1922 1923 1924 1929 1931 1935 1945 1950 1951 1955 1959 1964 1966 1970 1974 (Feb) 1974 (Oct) 1979 1983 1987 1992 1997 2001 2005 2010 2015

Local elections	1949 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

European elections	1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014

Referendums	1975 2011

Elections and referendums in

Categories

This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.

Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.

United Kingdom general election, 1859