WI: Save the Liberal Party in the 1890s

Before I decided to ask this, I wasn't quite sure what my specific question would be, so I'm afraid I've had to cast a wide net. In short, can the Liberal Party avoid their troubles from 1895 to 1905, and if so, how? I'm mostly having to work off Wikipedia, so any background info would be very much welcome.
 
Bump. Shoutout to @pipisme - I know I already asked you about this earlier, care to weigh in here?

In Rosebery's ministry, it seems one of his biggest problems was William Harcourt, but just having him die in 1894 probably wouldn't solve how fractured the Liberal Party was after Gladstone's retirement.
 
If Rosebery had not resigned after the government's defeat on the vote on supply of cordite to the army in June 1895, the July/August 1895 general election with its heavy Liberal defeat would have been avoided. There was no constitutional obligation for the government to resign. So the Liberals could stay in power until 1898. The Conservatives and Liberal Unionists would win an 1898 general election, but if the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists split over tariff reform, as they did in OTL, the Liberals would be back in power in 1904 or 1905.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
If Rosebery had not resigned after the government's defeat on the vote on supply of cordite to the army in June 1895, the July/August 1895 general election with its heavy Liberal defeat would have been avoided. There was no constitutional obligation for the government to resign. So the Liberals could stay in power until 1898. The Conservatives and Liberal Unionists would win an 1898 general election, but if the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists split over tariff reform, as they did in OTL, the Liberals would be back in power in 1904 or 1905.
Well, the Rosebery government was a mess and it would not be better if Rosebery did not resign.
 
I guess it was too early for Asquith or Campbell-Bannerman to become Liberal leader and prime minister when Gladstone retired in March 1894. Besides Rosebery and Harcourt, plausible leaders were Henry Hartley Fowler [President of the Local Government Board]; John Morley [Chief Secretary for Ireland]; and Anthony John Mundella [President of the Board of Trade].
 
I guess it was too early for Asquith or Campbell-Bannerman to become Liberal leader and prime minister when Gladstone retired in March 1894. Besides Rosebery and Harcourt, plausible leaders were Henry Hartley Fowler [President of the Local Government Board]; John Morley [Chief Secretary for Ireland]; and Anthony John Mundella [President of the Board of Trade].
I know Rosebery is usually as being a poor premier, but I can't really find details on what exactly he did that made him so disliked. Could he have had potential to be a good PM given the right circumstances (the Liberal party being willing to play ball)?
 
As Liberal leader Lord Rosebery lived under Gladstone's shadow. The following quotation is taken from Liberal Politics in the Age of Gladstone and Rosebery: A Study in Leadership and Policy by D. A. Hamer, Oxford University Press, 1972.
One of Rosebery's principal sources of embarrassment after he had became leader was Gladstone's continuing interest in politics....From time to time the 'retired' leader would insist on taking some line of his own, for example on Welsh disestablishment: and naturally his views continued to be accorded much respect and attention, not least from Unionists who were only too ready to make political capital out of appearances of divergence between Gladstone and Rosebery.

When Rosebery became Prime Minister in March 1894, he wanted to concentrate on the issue of the House of Lord's veto and its obstruction of Liberal legislation. But he was opposed by some of his cabinet colleagues. William Harcourt, who was leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, 'refused to take part any part in Rosebery's anti-Lords campaign, chiefly because it was Rosebery who was sponsoring it.' [1]

[1] Quotation taken from Liberal Politics in the Age of Gladstone and Rosebery
 
Top