The 1886 United Kingdom general election took place from 1 to 27 July 1886, following the defeat of the Government of Ireland Bill 1886. It resulted in a major reversal of the results of the 1885 election as the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, were joined in an electoral pact with the breakaway Unionist wing of the Liberals led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain. The new Liberal Unionist party elected 77 members and gave the Conservatives their parliamentary majority, but did not join them in a formal coalition.
William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals, who supported the Irish Home Rule movement, and their sometimes allies the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by Charles Stewart Parnell, were placed a distant second. The split in the Liberal Party ended the period of Liberal dominance. They had held power for 18 of the 27 years since 1859 and won five of the six elections held during that time, but would only be in power for three of the next nineteen years. The political realignment resulting from the Liberal Unionist split also meant that between this election and the end of World War II, only one election (in1906) would result in a party other than the Conservatives forming a majority government (though the Liberals, and later the Labour Party, would form minority governments with support from smaller parties). This was also the first election since the 1841 election that the Conservatives won a plurality or majority of the popular vote. They would ultimately win at least a plurality of the popular vote in every general election until 1945, again with the exception of the 1906 election.
Blaxill, Luke. From: The War of Words: The Language of British Elections, 1880–1922 (2020) pp. 81–123.
Roberts, Matthew. "Election Cartoons and Political Communication In Victorian England.' Cultural & Social History (2013) 10#3 pp 369–395, covers 1860 to 1890.
Walker, Brian (2005), "The 1885 and 1886 General Elections in Ireland", History Ireland, 13 (6): 36–40, JSTOR27725365
