| Abstract: | This article explores the crisis within the Conservative Party in 1922 over the continuation of the coalition with Lloyd George's section of the Liberal Party, focusing on the actions of the Conservative chief whip, Leslie Wilson. Previously unused papers relating to Wilson's career shed new light on his role in the fall of the coalition. Wilson co‐ordinated opposition to the continuation of the coalition in its existing form, helping to solidify the group of junior ministers opposed to Lloyd George into a cohesive and powerful faction, which then forced the Conservative Party leader, Austen Chamberlain, into making concessions. Above all, Wilson was influential in forcing Chamberlain to agree to a meeting of MPs at the Carlton Club on 19 October 1922, at which the rebels won a decisive victory, causing the resignation of Chamberlain as party leader and Lloyd George as prime minister, in one of the most important events in modern British political history. |
