Tory (British Political Party) - Overview

Overview

The first Tories emerged in 1678 in England, when they opposed the Whig-supported Exclusion Bill which set out to disinherit the heir presumptive and future king to be James, Duke of York (who eventually became James II and VII). This party ceased to exist as an organised political entity in the early 1760s, although it was used as a term of self-description by some political writers. A few decades later, a new Tory party would rise to establish a hold on government between 1783 and 1830, with William Pitt the Younger followed by Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.

The Earl of Liverpool was succeeded by fellow Tory Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, whose term included the Catholic Emancipation, which occurred mostly due to the election of Daniel O'Connell as a Catholic MP from Ireland. When the Whigs subsequently regained control, the Representation of the People Act 1832 disenfranchised many rotten boroughs controlled by Tories. In the general election which followed the Tory ranks were reduced to 180 MPs. However, there was one more Tory Prime Minister after this: Robert Peel. With Peel's establishment of the Tamworth Manifesto the name Conservative had begun to be used, but he lost many of his supporters by repealing the Corn Laws, which caused the party to break apart. One faction, led by the Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, survived to become the modern Conservative Party, whose members are sometimes still referred to as Tories.