Defeat of Gladstone's Government of Ireland Bill 1893 (1893)

The Government of Ireland Bill 1893, Gladstone's second attempt at Irish home rule, passed the House of Commons but was rejected by the House of Lords. Unlike the 1886 bill, which failed in the Commons, the 1893 bill secured Commons approval before facing a decisive defeat in the Lords on 8 September 1893.

Episodes

Background and detail

Background. Following the 1892 general election, Gladstone formed a minority Liberal government. He committed to introducing a new Home Rule Bill for Ireland, aiming to enact self-government within the United Kingdom. The bill allowed eighty Irish MPs to sit in Westminster, a reduction from the existing 103, contrasting with the first bill which provided for no Irish MPs.

Commons Proceedings. The bill was introduced in February 1893. It passed the second reading in the House of Commons on 21 April 1893 by 347 votes to 304. The final third reading was passed on 1 September 1893 by 301 to 267, marking a significant shift from the first bill's failure in the lower house.

Lords Rejection. The bill was defeated in the House of Lords on 8 September 1893. The second reading in the Lords was rejected by a wide margin, 419 votes to 41. This veto prevented the enactment of home rule, contrasting with the Commons' earlier approval.

People involved

Sources

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.