| Election Name: | 1880 United Kingdom general election |
| Country: | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 1874 United Kingdom general election |
| Previous Year: | 1874 |
| Previous Mps: | List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1874 |
| Next Election: | 1885 United Kingdom general election |
| Next Year: | 1885 |
| Seats For Election: | All 652 seats in the House of Commons |
| Majority Seats: | 327 |
| Elected Mps: | List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1880 |
| Leader1: | Spencer Cavendish |
| Leader Since1: | January 1875 |
| Party1: | Liberal Party (UK) |
| Leaders Seat1: | North East Lancashire |
| Last Election1: | 242 seats, 52.0% |
| Seats1: | 352 |
| Seat Change1: | 110 |
| Popular Vote1: | 1,836,423 |
| Percentage1: | 54.7% |
| Swing1: | 2.7% |
| Leader2: | Benjamin Disraeli |
| Leader Since2: | 27 February 1868 |
| Party2: | Conservative Party (UK) |
| Leaders Seat2: | House of Lords |
| Last Election2: | 350 seats, 44.3% |
| Seats2: | 237 |
| Seat Change2: | 113 |
| Popular Vote2: | 1,426,349 |
| Percentage2: | 42.5% |
| Swing2: | 1.8% |
| Image3: | No image.svg |
| Leader3: | William Shaw |
| Leader Since3: | May 1879 |
| Party3: | Home Rule League |
| Leaders Seat3: | County Cork |
| Last Election3: | 60 seats, 3.7% |
| Seats3: | 63 |
| Seat Change3: | 3 |
| Popular Vote3: | 95,528 |
| Percentage3: | 2.8% |
| Swing3: | 0.9% |
| Map Size: | 380px |
| Prime Minister | |
| Posttitle: | Prime Minister after the election |
| Before Election: | Earl of Beaconsfield |
| Before Party: | Conservative Party (UK) |
| After Election: | William Gladstone |
| After Party: | Liberal Party (UK) |
| Map2 Image: | File:1880 UK GE Composition diagram.svg |
| Map2 Caption: | Composition of the House of Commons after the election |
The 1880 United Kingdom general election was a general election in the United Kingdom held from 31 March to 27 April 1880.
Its intense rhetoric was led by the Midlothian campaign of the Liberals, particularly the fierce oratory of Liberal leader William Gladstone. He vehemently attacked the foreign policy of the government of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, as utterly immoral.
Liberals secured one of their largest-ever majorities, leaving the Conservatives a distant second. As a result of the campaign, the Liberal Commons leader, Lord Hartington and that in the Lords, Lord Granville, stood back in favour of Gladstone, who thus became Prime Minister a second time. It was the last general election in which any party other than the Conservatives won a majority of the votes (rather than a plurality).
The Conservative government was doomed by the poor condition of the British economy and the vulnerability of its foreign policy to moralistic attacks by the Liberals. William Gladstone, appealing to moralistic evangelicals, led the attack on the foreign policy of Benjamin Disraeli (now known as Lord Beaconsfield) as immoral. Historian Paul Smith paraphrases the rhetorical tone which focused on attacking "Beaconsfieldism" (in Smith's words) as a:
Smith notes that there was indeed some substance to the allegations, but: "Most of this was partisan extravaganza, worthy of its target's own excursions against the Whigs."
Disraeli himself was now the Earl of Beaconsfield in the House of Lords, and custom did not allow peers to campaign; this denuded the Conservatives of other important figures such as the Marquess of Salisbury and Lord Cranbrook, and the party was unable to deal effectively with the rhetorical onslaught.[1] Although he had improved the organisation of the Conservative Party, Disraeli was firmly based in the rural gentry, and had little contact with or understanding of the urban middle class that was increasingly dominating his party.
Besides their trouble with foreign policy issues, it was even more important that the Conservatives were unable to effectively defend their economic record on the home front. The 1870s coincided with a long-term global depression caused by the collapse of the worldwide railway boom of the 1870s which previously had been so profitable to Britain. The stress was growing by the late 1870s; prices fell, profits fell, employment fell, and there was downward pressure on wage rates that caused much hardship among the industrial working class. The free trade system supported by both parties made Britain defenceless against the flood of cheap wheat from North America, which was exacerbated by the worst harvest of the century in Britain in 1879. The party in power got the blame, and Liberals repeatedly emphasised the growing budget deficit as a measure of bad stewardship. In the election itself, Disraeli's party lost heavily up and down the line, especially in Scotland and Ireland, and in the urban boroughs. His Conservative strength fell from 351 to 238, while the Liberals jumped from 250 to 353. Disraeli resigned on 21 April 1880.
|}
| Party | Seats | Seats change | Votes | % | % change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 334 | 104 | 1,780,171 | 57.3 | 1.9 | |||
| 3 | 1 | ||||||
| 214 | 105 | 1,326,744 | 42.7 | 1.9 | |||
| 0 | 1,107 | 0.04 | 0.04 | ||||
| Total | 551 | 3,108,022 | 100 | ||||
| Party | Seats | Seats change | Votes | % | % change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 251 | 82 | 1,519,576 | 56.2 | 2.4 | |||
| 3 | 1 | ||||||
| 197 | 83 | 1,205,990 | 43.7 | 2.5 | |||
| 0 | 1,107 | 0.1 | 0.1 | ||||
| Total | 451 | 2,726,673 | 100 | ||||
See main article: 1880 United Kingdom general election in Scotland.
| Party | Seats | Seats change | Votes | % | % change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 52 | 12 | 195,517 | 70.1 | 1.7 | |||
| 6 | 12 | 74,145 | 29.9 | 1.7 | |||
| Total | 58 | 269,662 | 100 | ||||
| Party | Seats | Seats change | Votes | % | % change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 10 | 50,403 | 58.8 | 2.1 | |||
| 4 | 10 | 41,106 | 41.2 | 2.1 | |||
| Total | 33 | 100,509 | 100 | ||||
See main article: 1880 United Kingdom general election in Ireland.
| Party | Seats | Seats change | Votes | % | % change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63 | 3 | 95,535 | 37.5 | 2.1% | |||
| 23 | 8 | 99,607 | 39.8 | 1.0% | |||
| 15 | 5 | 56,252 | 22.7 | 4.3% | |||
| Total | 101 | 251,394 | 100 | ||||
| Party | Seats | Seats change | Votes | % | % change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 5,503 | 49.2 | |||||
| 2 | 5,675 | 50.8 | |||||
| Total | 9 | 11,178 | 100 | ||||