2025 has been a year of many changes for the History of Parliament, with new projects, a new office, and a new look! But despite this, our brilliant team have continued to produce hundreds of articles, lead groundbreaking research and champion political history across the country.
Here’s Connie Jeffery, our Public Engagement Manager, with a recap of 2025 at the HPT…
2025 has been another busy year for the History of Parliament team, and eagle-eyed followers of our project might have noticed a few changes in recent months…
The most obvious being a new logo for the organisation!
Throughout 2025 our Public Engagement team undertook a wide scale rebranding project, resulting in a new visual identity for the HPT. And it isn’t just a new logo. In November we debuted new banners, leaflets and other new promotional material at the IHR’s History Day in Senate House. Keep an eye out at future History of Parliament events and on social media as we continue to phase in our new look into 2026!
This rebrand is just one part of the History of Parliament’s wider website redevelopment project, which has seen brilliant progress in the past twelve months. Earlier in the year Dr Martin Spychal, Senior Research Fellow in the 1832-1945 House of Commons project, was appointed Digital Humanities Lead, tasked with continuing to redevelop our online database and public facing website, as well as thinking about how the organisation can move forward into a more digital world. We’re excited to see where this development leads in the coming months.
The organisation’s other major change in 2025 was a move into a new office! HPT staff spent the summer organising and packing up our former home in Bloomsbury Square in preparation for our move to Old Street, where we now reside. This was a major task for all of our research sections, many of whom had over twenty years of research notes, books and resources to sort through. Our new office marks a new era for the organisation, as we embrace a more collaborative approach to working and explore a new part of the city.
Amidst all of this change, work on our publications continued throughout the year. In 2025 over 300 biographies were written, totalling nearly 1 million words! In addition, our contemporary history section completed 18 new oral history interviews with former MPs and deposited 26 interviews at the British Library, where they will be archived and made available to the public.
Our staff also contributed to the more than 100 articles published on our website this year. Our most read post from 2025 was Dr Andrew Thrush’s look at how Elizabethan England reacted to an earthquake in 1580. But it is an earlier article from Andrew that takes the crown as our most read post in 2025! Originally published in 2022, read his study of ‘The Execution of Thomas Howard’ here:Â
Colleagues continued to represent the History of Parliament and spread their knowledge across various media outlets this year. Dr Robin Eagles was a frequent voice across local radio stations and published an article in History Today, Dr Kathryn Rix was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 to discuss how women in the 19th century viewed Parliamentary debates, and Dr Alex Beeton also recently featured on Today in Parliament to talk about Christmas in Parliament.
Our Head of Contemporary History, Dr Emma Peplow, was a recurring voice on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Matt Chorley show. Across the year Emma joined Matt to talk about the statues in and around Parliament, providing information about the figures depicted and how these works were commissioned. Emma wrote about some of the statues she profiled in this article.
Dr Martin Spychal also featured on national radio; in November BBC Radio 4 broadcast ‘Materials of State’, a series hosted by David Cannadine examining the history of the British constitution through the objects, for which Martin acted as series researcher. I was personally excited to be involved in this project too, including attending an interview with the new Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, Ed Davis, himself and seeing Black Rod- the object! – in person.
The HPT continued the success of our own podcast series, Tales from the Green Benches: an Oral History of Parliament, too. In June we hosted a special ‘live’ episode of the series, featuring reflections from some of the project’s recent interviewees, Anne Milton former Conservative MP for Guildford, and Gisela, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston, former Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, as well as project founder Dr Priscila Pivatto. The event was recorded and the live episode is still available to listen to wherever you get your podcasts:
Special Episode live from the Houses of Parliament! – Tales from the Green Benches: An Oral History of Parliament
Elsewhere within Parliament, in March we held an event titled ‘London and Parliament: From Medieval to Modern’, which included representatives from all HPT research sections and from UCL’s MA Public History course, who worked with us over a term-long placement. In April we then hosted a panel event, which tracked the topic of reform in the House of Lords from the 18th century through to the current day.
In November members of the HPT team headed to No.11 Downing Street to co-sponsor an event on the history of female cabinet ministers. Our director Dr Jennifer Davey chaired a panel featuring historians of women in Parliament and a selection of former female cabinet ministers- as well as an introduction from Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
And finally, two weeks ago we welcomed Rt Hon. Nick Thomas-Symonds, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations), who gave our Annual Lecture for 2025. The lecture, ‘Clement Attlee’s Labour Governments of 1945-51’, was presented to a sold-out audience, who stayed to enjoy a mince pie and glass of wine to see out the HPT’s year!
Many of our colleagues co-hosted events outside of Westminster too, including two workshops at the British Library: one on Warren Hastings, and another discussing Peter McLagan, Scotland’s first Black MP. Dr Alex Beeton organised a conference on ‘Parliament and the Church, c.1530-1630’, and members of all research sections spoke at an online event on Midlands history.
In staffing news, with Dr Martin Spychal taking on the role of Digital Humanities Lead, Dr Alex Beeton has stepped into the post of Academic Engagement Lead, with support from Dr Naomi-Lloyd Jones, who joined the HPT in late 2024.
Finally, in the summer the team said goodbye and good luck to Dr Stuart Handley, who retired from the HPT after many years of work across our Commons 1690-1715, Lords 1660-1715 and the Lords 1715-1790 projects. His presence in the office is sorely missed, but friends know that he’s never too far away- just head to the IHR!
Thank you to all of our friends, followers and contributors for another brilliant year for the History of Parliament. We’re looking forward to seeing what 2026 brings for us!
CJ