# Midlothian campaign

The Midlothian campaign of 1878–80 was a series of foreign policy speeches given by William Gladstone, former leader of Britain's Liberal Party. Organised by the Earl of Rosebery as a media event, it is often cited as the first modern political campaign. It also set the stage for Gladstone's comeback as a politician. It takes its name from the Midlothian constituency in Scotland where Gladstone (who was of Scottish ancestry) successfully stood in the 1880 election.
Gladstone charged the Conservative government of his longstanding political enemy Benjamin Disraeli with financial incompetence, neglect of domestic legislation, and mismanagement of foreign affairs. He was able to enhance his reputation as a popular and down-to-earth politician ("The People's William") and cemented his pre-eminence as the most important politician within the Liberal Party.
The Midlothian campaign made it impossible to ignore Gladstone's leadership claim both within the Liberal Party and for Queen Victoria. Furthermore, it created a momentum that carried the Liberals to power in the 1880 election.

## Gladstone's personal situation in the Mid-1870s

After six years of government, the Liberal government led by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone came to an end when the Liberals suffered a heavy defeat in the general election of 1874. After a short transition period, Gladstone relinquished the leadership of the Liberal Party and subsequently became a mere backbencher in the British House of Commons. Subsequently, he had to suffer a painful defeat when the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait, to limit what he perceived as the growing ritualism of Anglo-Catholicism and the Oxford Movement within the Church of England. The bill was supported by Queen Victoria and Gladstone's longstanding political nemesis, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who saw the bill purely in political terms. Gladstone, a high church Anglican whose sympathies were for separation of church and state, felt disgusted that the liturgy was made, as he saw it, "a parliamentary football" and introduced six resolutions when the bill came to the House of Commons. But on this he found himself out of step with his own party and had to back down when Disraeli put the weight of the government behind the bill. When the bill was passed, he retreated to his country mansion Hawarden Castle. In January 1875 he made good of his promise given years earlier and withdrew himself altogether from politics. Instead he spent his time at Hawarden with his studies of Homer. After his self-imposed exile, leadership of the Liberal party was shared by Lord Hartington, who led the Liberals in the House of Commons and Lord Granville, who was Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords.

## The Bulgarian Uprising of 1876

In 1875 the Eastern question came to the fore for the first time since the Crimean War. In July 1875 an insurgency against Ottoman rule broke out in Herzegovina, soon spreading over to Bosnia. Then at the end of April 1876 an insurgency had broken out in Bulgaria against Turkish rule. Military of the Ottoman Empire and irregular troops soon crushed the Bulgarian revolt, thereby committing brutal massacres and killing some 12,000 people.
To block Russia from filling the vacuum, Britain had strong ties with the crumbling Ottoman Empire, long branded as Sick man of Europe. For London, it was essential to support Ottoman Empire against further Russian expansion. With the return of the conservatives to power in 1874, Benjamin Disraeli became prime minister. This forms a landmark in British foreign policy, as it ended a period of isolation and non-intervention. Since 1865 the policy of both parties had been to abstain from Continental affairs. From the beginning, Disraeli put his special attention to foreign policy and introduced a Imperial conception of affairs.

## Extraparliamentary protest movements

News of a series of atrocities by the Ottomans during their suppression of the Bulgarian April Uprising reached the British press, despite the strong censorship of the Turkish authorities. In June the newspaper Daily News published an account of atrocities committed by irregular troops and claimed that some twentythousand men, women and children had been slaughtered. British public reaction was generally one of dismay, fuelled by various other public prints. Sir Henry Elliot, british Ambassador at Constantinople since 1867, was strongly pro-Turk throughout his years in Constantinople. Additionally he suffered from poor health and was unable to pursue the allegations made of correspondents. All of this inclined Elliot to believe Turkish assurances. Although he was aware that the reports contained at least some truth, he toned down his reports to London. The government of Benjamin Disraeli ignored the outrage at first and continued its policy of support for the Ottoman Empire, an ally in the Crimean War and a bulwark against possible Russian expansion in the area. Disraeli, who was pro-Turk himself, was instinctively sceptical about the horrifying stories published, a stance he already took during the Indian mutiny back in 1857/1858. All of this combined to cause him to shrug aside the matter when he was questioned in the House of Commons about the issue. He dismissed the reports as little more than "coffee house babble".
Gladstone took up the issue slowly, at first appearing uninterested. By 1878 he was publishing articles in favour of ending British economic support for the Ottoman government in response.

## The constituency of Midlothian

By this point, Gladstone was already planning his return to full-time politics. At Hawarden Castle, he was analysing Liberal wins at several by-elections. As Gladstone had never warmed to his current constituency in south-east London, he was now in search for a new constituency. There were two offers before him; first up Leeds, a constituency with more than 50.000 voters and a Liberal stronghold.
The other offer was the constituency of Edinburghshire, popularly known as Midlothian, in Scotland. Created in 1708, Midlothian was, compared to Leeds, just a tiny constituency with only 3620 voters. Nevertheless, Midlothian offered a sophisticated, metropolitan environment which were steeped in the tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment. Furthermore, it was a battleground for influence between two of the most powerful Scottish aristocratic families: The Duke of Buccleuch and the Earl of Rosebery were fighting for supremacy here since the 1860s. In 1868 the long Conservative supremacy had come to an end when the Liberals sponsored by the Earl of Rosebery had won in Midlothian; in 1874 Lord Dalkeith heir to the Duke of Buccleuch, had been able to win the seat back with a narrow majority for the Conservatives. Nevertheless, Rosebery convinced Gladstone that Midlothian was an ideal place to start his campaign. In the past, Scotland had become a stronghold for Liberalism.
Rosebery who was one of the richest landowners and married to Hannah de Rothschild, promised Gladstone that he would pay up for all arising costs. Rosebery became Gladstone's campaign manager.

## The campaign

By 1880, Gladstone's dogged focus on the issue had dragged it to the forefront of public attention, and in the general election of 1880, Gladstone toured a series of cities giving speeches of up to five hours on the subject. The nature of his orations has often been compared to that of sermons, and his fiery, emotive, but logically structured speeches are credited with swaying a large number of undecided voters to the Liberals in the 1880s, and ousting Disraeli's last Conservative government.
Equally important to the large scale of attendance at these meetings (several thousand came to each, and given the relatively narrow scale of the franchise, this meant Gladstone could address a large proportion of electors in each district) was the widespread reporting of Gladstone's speeches and the public reaction to them. Paul Brighton argues that it was a highly successful media event:
    What was new about Midlothian was not that Gladstone spoke from the platform. This was already common-place for many front-rank politicians. It was the fact that the campaign was effectively designed as a media event, with specific attention to the deadlines and operational requirements of the journalists covering it and crafted for maximum impact in the morning and evening papers.

## Content

Gladstone's speeches covered the entire range of national policy, he gave his large audiences an advanced course in the principles of government that was both magisterial and exciting. The major speeches constitute a statement of the Liberal philosophy of government, reinforced by the fervour of his own deeply-held Anglican faith. Scotland, at this time, was a nation fixated on the promotion of this sort of religious and moral rectitude and probity. His focus was usually on foreign affairs. Gladstone presented his commitment to a world community, governed by law, protecting the weak. His vision of the ideal world order combined universalism and inclusiveness; he appealed to group feeling, the sense of concern for others, rising eventually to the larger picture of the unity of mankind.