A member of a group of British Liberal MPs who left the party in 1886 because of Gladstone's support for Irish Home Rule. Led by Joseph Chamberlain from 1891, they formed an alliance with the Conservative Party in Parliament, and merged officially with them in 1912 as the Conservative and Unionist Party.
The Liberal Unionists fused with the Conservative Party in 1912 and their members were admitted to the Carlton Club.
The triumph of the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists led by Lord Salisbury in the general election of June 1895 represented a groundswell of feeling in favour of imperial greatness.
More typical was Heneage, who at the general election in July, like Watkin at Hythe, stood as a Liberal Unionist with Conservative support.
Though he himself was a Liberal and subsequently a Liberal Unionist, he was prepared to cut across his own party ties.