[3] The Home Rule issue was a difficult one for the Liberals at this precise moment, with a split in the Irish Parliamentary Party taking place over the continued leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, following a crisis over the divorce of his partner Katharine O'Shea; Liberal leader William Gladstone had warned the party that Parnell's continued leadership would mean the end of prospects of Home Rule.
(Laughter) ... Mr Parnell was doing his best to wreck Home Rule in Ireland ... if they could only win [the] Bassetlaw election it would put backbone and hope into the Liberals all over the country.
"[7] The Parnell crisis overshadowed all other issues in the campaign, although it was always most likely that Milner would hold his father-in-law's seat, picking up the rural vote while the miners supported the Liberal.
Milner held the seat for the Conservatives, with a substantially increased majority from the last contested election of 728 votes (Beckett-Denison had been returned unopposed in 1886).
He told his supporters that this was a blow against the Liberal leader: "He could only hope that this emphatic answer would cause Mr Gladstone to withdraw himself from the arena of active politics".