History of the Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party is the oldest political party in the United Kingdom and second in the world. The current party was first organised in the 1830s and the name "Conservative" was officially adopted, but the party is still often referred to as the Tory party. The Tories had been a coalition that more often than not formed the government from 1760 until the Reform Act 1832. Modernising reformers said the traditionalistic party of "Throne, Altar and Cottage" was obsolete, but in the face of an expanding electorate 1830s–1860s it held its strength among royalists, devout Anglicans and landlords and their tenants.
Robert Peel, founder and first Conservative Party Prime Minister (1788–1850)
Movie star George Arliss won an Oscar in 1929 for portraying Disraeli as a paternalistic, kindly, homely statesman running a benevolent British Empire
1929 poster criticising the Labour Party
Conservative Prime Minister (1923–1924, 1924–1929 and 1935–1937) Stanley Baldwin.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, was a British statesman, Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the British Empire and military action to expand it, both of which were popular among British voters. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been born Jewish.
1878 portrait
Disraeli as a young man—a retrospective portrayal painted in 1852
Friends and allies of Disraeli in the 1830s: clockwise from top left—Croker, Lyndhurst, Henrietta Sykes and Lady Londonderry
Chair built to carry Disraeli, had he been successful in the by-election. Hughenden collection.