Whigs

Whigs Semi-formal parliamentary grouping in the UK from the late-17th to the mid-19th centuries. The word Whig was used by the Tory supporters of James II for politicians who wished to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. The Whig Party thus became those people who promoted the Glorious Revolution (1688) and who applauded the Hanoverian succession of 1714. Between 1714 and the accession of George III in 1760, the Tories were so discredited by association with the Jacobites that most politicians became Hanoverian Whigs, even in opposition to a Whig ministry. In the reign of George III, Toryism gradually reasserted itself. Whiggism became the party of religious toleration, parliamentary reform, and opposition to slavery. From the appointment of William Pitt (the Younger) as prime minister in 1783 until 1830, the Whigs remained in opposition (with one brief exception). They returned to office under Lord Grey, who passed the Great Reform Act of 1832. By the mid-19th century, they had come to be replaced by, or known as, the Liberal Party.