The Conservative Party can trace its history back to the very beginnings of political parties in England. While the title ‘Conservative’ was only used from the nineteenth century onwards, the origins of the party are much richer, with deep ties to the Christian faith.
Social architecture
Conservatism as a political philosophy is grounded in the idea of preserving traditional institutions and practices as the basis for good and just society. British conservatism has sought to hold on to what Conservative politician David Willetts calls the “rich social architecture” which weaves society together. These are institutions which stand between the individual and government, including the family, the crown, and, crucially, the church.
For this reason, conservatism in the UK has had very strong links with the established Anglican church. Conservatives see the church as a vital institution that connects people with faith and tradition, and have argued for its continued establishment and presence at the heart of public life. The Church of England has sometimes been known (affectionately or otherwise) as ‘The Conservative Party at prayer’.
The exclusion crisis
Political parties began to emerge in the seventeenth century and came to particular prominence as a result of the so-called ‘Exclusion Crisis’. King Charles II had no heir and a series of Bills in Parliament sought to exclude the King’s brother, James, the Duke of York, from succession because he was a Roman Catholic.
Although none of the Bills were passed, politicians coalesced around two new political factions with lines drawn over religious as well as political issues. The ‘Country Party’, who would later be known as Whigs, supported Protestant Christianity and refused to see a Roman Catholic on the English throne. The Tories, however, were more conservative in nature. While they supported the established Anglican church, they also supported the institution of the crown, and did not feel that Parliament had the authority to dictate the right of succession. (‘Tory’ derived from an Irish word for ‘outlaw’, as opponents used it to associate the party with Catholic harassment.)
The situation was not resolved during the reign of Charles II, and James took the throne only to be deposed three years later in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. The Act of Settlement in 1701 made it clear that Roman Catholics were to be excluded from the throne.
The influence of Burke
Although the term ‘Conservative’ would not be used to describe a political party until the nineteenth century, Edmund Burke (1729–1797) is widely understood to be one of the founders of the Conservative political tradition in Britain, despite representing the Whigs rather than the Tories. As well as influencing the direction of conservative political thinking, Burke also gave it deep Christian foundations.
Burke was a writer as well as a member of Parliament, and is perhaps best known for his work ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ which he wrote against the ideals of the French Revolution. He argued that the revolution failed to properly understand either government or human nature. Burke believed in the Bible’s picture of humanity as created by God but fallen through sin. Any attempt to forge a utopian society based on reason (such as the French Revolution), therefore, would be doomed to failure. As Immanuel Kant wrote, in a phrase often misattributed to Burke: “From the crooked timber of humanity, nothing exactly straight can be built.”
For Burke, the way to combat the brokenness of humanity, from a political perspective, was to hold on to the traditions and practices of the past. This enabled people to thrive, said Burke: “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors”. He saw society as a partnership “not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” Burke saw the twin dangers of selfish individualism and centralised power, and sought a middle ground. He saw society as a collection of ‘little platoons’, like family, church, and neighbourhood, where moral character is forged. This idea of smaller government and local involvement still shapes conservative political thinking today.
This idea of looking back to move forward anchored Burke’s political views in the teachings and traditions of the church. Burke wrote that “religion is the basis of civil society and the source of all good and of all comfort” and summed up his philosophy in these terms: “We fear God, we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates.” Fearing God is the foundation upon which adherence to crown and country are built.
Burke’s conservatism meant that he favoured the established Church of England, although he recognised the worth of other Christian denominations. He wrote that, although not “condemning … the Greek … Armenian, nor, since heats are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we prefer the Protestant, not because we think it has less of the Christian religion in it, but because, in our judgement, it has more.”
Although Burke predated the Conservative Party, his thinking has influenced conservative identity. “The crucial Tory insight,” writes Conservative Peer David Willets, “is that a community has to be embodied in real institutions which are essential to sustain traditions, values, patterns of behaviour.” We can see Burke’s fingerprints here, as well as in the ‘Big Society’ of David Cameron’s era. Leaning on good things from the past, preservation of family, marriage, and community, and a Biblical respect for authority, are all components of conservative politics which were articulated by Burke.
The legacy of Wilberforce
If Burke shaped the Christian political philosophy of what would become the Conservative Party, William Wilberforce (1759-1833) showed what Christian politics could look like in practice.
Wilberforce entered Parliament with his university friend, William Pitt the Younger, who would go on to become Prime Minister. Wilberforce became a Christian a few years after entering Parliament, and was encouraged to continue to serve God in politics by his spiritual mentor, John Newton.
Wilberforce was an independent, not tied to a particular political party, vowing to be “no party man” when he entered Parliament. His friendship with Pitt aligned him more with the Tories than the Whigs, but even Pitt wasn’t entirely comfortable with being seen as ‘a Tory’. Party labels were much more fluid during this era and Wilberforce was a conservative with a little ‘c’ much more than a ‘big-C’ Conservative as we might think of it today.
Wilberforce’s evangelical Christian faith moved him to pursue social reforms, such as the improvement of factory conditions and education provision. But Wilberforce is best known for his tireless campaigning against the transatlantic slave trade, which was abolished in 1807. The subsequent act that freed slaves across the British empire came just before Wilberforce’s death in 1833.
Modern Conservatives, such as George Osbourne and James Cleverly, have tried to adopt Wilberforce as a Tory or Conservative. In reality, Wilberforce’s independence makes him difficult to co-opt for a particular contemporary party. However, his Christian convictions and political zeal, coupled with a (small-c) conservative approach to government, have been an inspiration to many Conservatives, including the current leader, Kemi Badenoch.
Catholic Emancipation
If the division between Whigs and Tories came about because of Protestant and Catholic division, those lines continued to be drawn in the nineteenth century. In 1828, the Catholic Daniel O’Connell won a by-election in County Clare in Ireland. As a member of Parliament, O’Connell would be required to swear the Oath of Supremacy, acknowledging the King as the Supreme Governor of the church, which as a Catholic he could not do.
The Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister at the time, and Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, faced a difficult choice. They could keep the strong links with the established churches but prevent a duly elected representative from serving (and likely causing a violent rebellion in Ireland). Alternatively, they could change the rules to allow Catholics into Parliament but be seen to be abandoning religious principles.
In the end, Wellington and Peel chose what they saw as the ‘lesser of two evils’, passing the Catholic Relief Act in 1829 allowing Roman Catholics into Parliament. This move likely prevented a civil war but alienated traditionalists within the party. Peel and Wellington brought together a coalition of Tories, Whigs and Radicals to push the legislation forward, but the aftermath caused the Tory government to fall and the Whigs to gain power.
In an effort to rebrand the party after Catholic emancipation, the Tories adopted the label ‘Conservative’ to try and portray a more positive image. It was first used as a description of the party in 1830.
The nineteenth century
The newly formed Conservative Party was shaped in the nineteenth century by social reformers including figures such as the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Salisbury, and Benjamin Disraeli.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885), and member of Parliament, became known as the ‘Poor Man’s Earl’ because of his campaign for better conditions for the poor. Shaftesbury saw his labour among the impoverished as a calling from God. After working for better care in lunatic asylums, he wrote in his diary: “So, by God's blessing, my first effort has been for the advance of human happiness. May I improve hourly!”
His political career was marked by many improvements to the working environment, education, and care of poor people, especially women and children. He introduced factory reform which limited working hours and stopped children under 9 from such work. He brought in similar reforms in mines and for chimney sweeps, and founded the Ragged Schools Union providing free education for impoverished children.
Shaftesbury described himself as “an Evangelical of the Evangelicals” and followed the Christian social action tradition pioneered by Wilberforce. After his death, the preacher Charles Spurgeon said about Shaftesbury:
During the past week the church of God, and the world at large, have sustained a very serious loss… we have, in my judgment, lost the best man of the age.… a man most firm in his faith in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; a man intensely active in the cause of God and truth. Take him whichever way you please, he was admirable: he was faithful to God in all his house, fulfilling both the first and second commands of the law in fervent love to God, and hearty love to man. … He lived for the oppressed; he lived for London; he lived for the nation; he lived still more for God.
Shaftesbury did not attain high political office, or ascend to be Prime Minister, someone who did was Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881). His faith was difficult to pin down. Born into a Jewish family, he was given an upbringing in the Church of England, which allowed him to enter political life (something that was impossible for Jews before 1858). When Queen Victoria asked him whether he was a Jew or a Christian, he reportedly replied: “I am the blank page between the Old Testament and the New.”
Whatever his personal convictions, Disraeli further cemented the link between the established Church of England and the Conservative Party, as part of the social architecture of British life. In a speech in Maidstone in 1837, where he was standing as a candidate, Disraeli said:
Convinced that the reformed Religion, as by Law established, in this Country, is at the same time the best guarantee for religious Toleration and orthodox Purity, I feel it my duty to uphold the Rights of our National Church, that illustrious Institution to which we are not less indebted for our civil than for our spiritual Liberties.
Disraeli lent heavily on Hugh Cairns, a key politician and evangelical Christian, for advice. Cairns was involved in social reform and missionary endeavours, following the tradition of evangelical politics of Wilberforce and Shaftesbury.
A further nineteenth century Conservative Prime Minister was Lord Salisbury (1830-1903). After a profound conversion in his teenage years, Salisbury was a High church Anglican and committed his political life to maintaining Christianity (and the established church) at the centre of society.
Building on the political philosophy of Edmund Burke, Salisbury doubted “the capacity of legislation to affect the state of the human soul, which was in itself the only thing that truly mattered in life.” He believed that the world was held in the providence of God, and human beings cannot change God’s control through laws or political action. When commenting on whether to intervene in a particular situation, Salisbury remarked, “Her majesty’s government [is not] in the least degree disposed to encroach on the function of Providence”.
During the nineteenth century, the figures of Shaftesbury, Disraeli, and Salisbury, along with others such as Hugh Cairns, rooted the Conservative Party in the foundations of the Christian faith, the established church, and the moral movement of social reform.
The modern Conservative party
In the years after World War II, the connections between the Conservative Party and Christianity, while still present, began to fade into the background. Nevertheless, there have been leaders who have been open about their faith and the role it plays in their political life.
Margaret Thatcher, for example, spoke about being the daughter of a Methodist lay preacher, and often used Biblical quotations or allusions in her speeches, such as the parable of the Good Samaritan. Her ‘Sermon on the mound’ address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1988 spelt out a political theology that values free will as a gift from God and wealth as a blessing. Despite the historical link between the Conservatives and the Church of England, however, Thatcher came into conflict with the church hierarchy over the Faith in the City report which criticised her economic policies for ignoring the inner-city poor.
Iain Duncan-Smith, who led the Conservatives in the early 2000s, is a committed Roman Catholic, despite having been brought up in the Church of England. After standing down as leader of the Conservatives, Duncan-Smith founded the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a centre-right think-tank which advocates for the poorest in society.
Other Conservative leaders have been less certain of their beliefs while still considering themselves Christians, or at least connected with the established Church of England. David Cameron, Prime Minister in the 2010s, famously borrowed the description of his faith from a future Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, saying:
I believe, you know. I am a sort of typical member of the Church of England. As Boris Johnson once said, his religious faith is a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes. That sums up a lot of people in the Church of England. We are racked with doubts, but sort of fundamentally believe, but don't sort of wear it on our sleeves or make too much of it. I think that is sort of where I am.
While many leaders have expressed some kind of Christian faith, in 2022 Rishi Sunak became the first practising Hindu to become Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party. The current Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has spoken positively about her Christian upbringing. However, she now sees herself as agnostic, despite having married a Roman Catholic and bringing her children up in the Catholic Church. She describes herself as a ‘cultural Christian’.
While there may not be a convinced Christian leading the party, there is still a strong representation of Christians among wider Conservatives, including MPs and Peers. Danny Kruger (who has since moved to Reform), Iain Duncan-Smith, John Glen, and Rebecca Smith, all serve in the House of Commons with Christian faith and conviction.
The Conservative Party of today might seem a far cry from the assurance of Burke and Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and Salisbury. However, the Conservative Party can find its roots in the Christian faith: in disputes between Protestants and Catholics, in the church as a cornerstone of social architecture, in realistic views of human nature and government, and in a drive for social reform and care for the poor.