Merger With Conservatives
Though they made electoral gains in the 1835 General Election, Peel's government remained a minority in the House of Commons. For the Derby Dilly - the election saw them briefly attempt to forward their own candidates for election but apparently there were no recruits to their diminishing band. However surprisingly Stanley thought he still had at least 86 supporters in January 1835 and described his band to a supporter as a 'corps de reserve' which the King William IV could call upon 'in case of accidents' (i.e., if the monarch had enough of the either the Tory-Conservatives and Whig-Radical blocks). Though Stanley may have had in mind King George III's example of appointing William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister in 1783, in the end it was his 'reserve' that crumbled away, and those that were left by March 1835 (between 30-40) were still unable to agree to even vote the same way on a given debate.
By this time Lord Stanley was clearly leaning towards the Conservative Party. Any remote possibility of returning to the Whigs was scuttled by the Lichfield House Compact by which the Irish Repealers, Whigs and Radicals agreed to vote out Peel's government. This wasn't long in coming, and left the 'Derby Dilly' nowhere else to go but to support Peel. When Peel resigned as Prime Minister in April 1835, the King invited not Stanley, but Melbourne and the Whigs, to form a new government, and Stanley received no invitation to rejoin the Whig fold.
For a brief period - and a measure of the looseness of political labels at this time - there was talk of a 'Liberal and Conservative party' combining Stanley, Graham, Peel and even Lord Grey but it came to nothing. Instead there was a steady drift of MPs from the old pro Reform coalition to the Conservatives - some who had originally joined Stanley's group and others who went over independently. One estimate puts that number at least 50 MPs switching political allegiance between 1835-1841.
For Stanley (now Lord Stanley ) and the remaining 'Derby Dilly' supporters (about 20 MPs in by 1837) there was now a staged progression across to the Conservatives. This is best illustrated by Stanley's own movement across the political spectrum. In 1836 he resigned from the Whig supporting 'Brooks's Club' - officially because his old political enemy Daniel O'Connell had become a member - and by the next elections of 1837 the remaining Stanleyites were reliant on Conservative support to get back to parliament. In November 1837 Stanley and Graham joined other Conservative M.P.s at a meeting prior to the opening of the new Parliament and in December they had officially joined them and sat with Peel on the Opposition Front Bench. Lord Stanley finally sealed his new Conservative identity by becoming a member of the Tory 'Holy of Holies' - the Conservative supporting Carlton Club.
The remaining 'Derby Dilly' MPs were soon absorbed into the main Conservative Party. They included Lord George Bentinck who would be later better known for his alliance with Benjamin Disraeli in the 1840s against Sir Robert Peel on the issue of repealing the Corn Laws. Considering their Whig origins - it is ironic that Stanley, Bentinck - and the former Radical Disraeli - would go on to break with Peel and take two thirds of his former party with them to recreate a new Conservative Party.
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