1865 United Kingdom general election facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
1865 United Kingdom general election

← 1859 11–24 July 1865 (1865-07-11 – 1865-07-24) 1868 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 658 seats in the House of Commons 330 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader Viscount Palmerston Earl of Derby Party Liberal Conservative Leader since 12 June 1859 July 1846 Leader's seat Tiverton House of Lords Last election 356 seats, 65.8% 298 seats, 34.2% Seats won 369 289 Seat change 13 9 Popular vote 508,821 346,035 Percentage 59.5% 40.5% Swing 6.3% 6.3%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in 1865 United Kingdom general election § Notes
Prime Minister before election Viscount Palmerston Liberal Prime Minister after election Viscount Palmerston Liberal

The 1865 United Kingdom general election was a big vote to choose members for the House of Commons. This is the main part of the UK Parliament. In this election, the Liberals, led by Lord Palmerston, won a much larger number of seats. They beat the Conservatives, who were led by the Earl of Derby.

The Liberal Party had actually changed its name from the Whig Party since the last election. Lord Palmerston remained the Prime Minister after this election.

Sadly, Lord Palmerston passed away in October of the same year. Lord John Russell then became the new Prime Minister. Even though the Liberals had many seats, they disagreed on how to change the voting system. Lord Russell resigned in 1866 after losing a vote in Parliament. This led to the Conservatives forming governments, first under Derby and then under Benjamin Disraeli.

This election was special because it was the last time until 2019 that a political party increased its majority after already winning the previous election with fewer seats.

Fairness in Elections: Stopping Corruption

The 1865 election was not very exciting across the country. However, there were many problems with fairness in some local areas. People at the time said there was more dishonest spending and rule-breaking than ever before.

Because of these problems, 50 official complaints were made about the election results. Out of these, 35 were looked into, and 13 elected members of Parliament (MPs) lost their seats because of unfair practices. In four areas, the problems were so widespread that a special group, called a Royal Commission, had to be set up to investigate.

To fix these issues, when Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister in 1867, he introduced a new way to handle election complaints. Before, a group of MPs decided these cases. But with the new Parliamentary Elections Act 1868, special judges would now handle them. This made the process much fairer and more official.

New Voting Areas

For this election, some new voting areas, called constituencies, were created. These included:

• Northern West Riding of Yorkshire
• Southern West Riding of Yorkshire

Election Results: Who Won?

A map showing the results of the 1865 UK general election.

The Liberals won the election with a clear majority. This means they had more than half of all the seats in the House of Commons. Here's a quick look at the main results:

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1865 United Kingdom general election
• 1865 United Kingdom general election in Ireland