At the IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar on Tuesday 5 May, BrendanTam of the University of Warwick, will be discussing political sociability and friendship in late-Hanoverian Britain.
The seminar takes place on 5 May 2026, between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. It is fully ‘hybrid’, which means you can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.
The presence and desirability of friendship, personal ties and connections in politics is a topic of debate which has a long history in British political discourse. Contemporary interest and concern with the propriety of the personal relationships maintained by public figures reflects an ever-present element of the political world. The social networks and connections of a politician are often viewed as illustrative of their public character and suitability to hold public office. They are often viewed and represented negatively, linked to scandal and placed at the centre of allegations of cronyism or corruption.
Despite these negative associations, personal friendships and established connections are central to British parliamentary politics. This personal dimension of politics is nothing new. In the UK Parliament this is most clearly demonstrated by the rhetorical convention of MPs referring to their colleagues in the Commons as ‘my honourable friend’. This convention was established in the eighteenth century, a period marked by looser ties of party affiliation, allegiance and adherence.
The convention is enshrined in paragraph 21.25 of Erskine May: Parliamentary Practice, a compilation of parliamentary rules and procedures. First produced by its namesake Thomas Erskine May in 1844, the guide states the usage of ‘honourable friend’ was a ‘guard against all appearance of personality in debate.’ Its original eighteenth-century usage reflected the way in which parliamentarians navigated their political world, both within and outside of Parliament. It was part of a broader system of claim making that was underpinned by a language of friendship – what I describe as ‘political friendship’.
To invoke friendship in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries was to invoke ties of duty and obligation. Friendship allowed politicians to achieve political goals, to maintain political allegiances and to seek political power in a period where organised political parties and formalised party affiliation were emerging. These ties had to be actively cultivated and maintained through the relationships political actors held.
Central to this dynamic, and to the broader political world of the late-Hanoverian period (1760-1837), was what historians such as Elaine Chalus, Amanda Vickery and Hannah Greig have termed ‘social politics’ or ‘political sociability’. As Chalus explains, ‘social politics’ is:
a very messy, nebulous business, where outcomes can be shaped by such intangible elements as personality, appearance, and influence, and by the creation and manipulation of belief and atmosphere. It is an art as well as a science – and it is with this in mind that we need to approach social politics.
‘Social politics’ was observable through practices of sociability that the political elite of the eighteenth century took part in. These practices included attending balls, the theatre, public dinners, private members clubs, visiting country estates, hunting, gambling and private dining. The rich and varied social life of the politically active involved constant interaction with family, friends, acquaintances and rivals. While some of these practices were forms of exclusive male sociability, it is an area of politics where women were embedded and exerted an active role.
The late-Hanoverian period was a period of change in the political culture of Britain. While exhibiting significant continuity with the eighteenth century, the political environment of Britain had been transformed between the accession of George III in 1760 and the death of William IV in 1837. These changes included shifts in the dynamics of political sociability and the influence it exerted on the dynamics of politics.
When reflecting on the political world of the late 1820s with Charles James Fox, Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, observed a ‘change in the habits of society’ that had altered party politics. He described a world of ‘private dinners, tavern suppers, convivial meetings and perhaps intemperance itself’, all elements that no longer ‘constituted a large portion of the ways and means of public men’. Instead, he described a socio-political world in the 1820s that was less exclusionary and exclusively masculine and partisan. He stated his belief that:
Social intercourse is no longer confined to those qui idem sentiuent de republica [who think the same way about the state]. The comparative disuse of men dinners, improving no doubt the intercourse of private life, has nevertheless very sensibly impaired the strength and union of party zeal and connection.
The changes that Vassall-Fox identified were not straightforward. Partisanship remained a defining characteristic of politics, heightening in periods of national crisis. From the debates over Catholic Emancipation in the 1820s to the reform debates of the early 1830s, ‘party zeal’ had become increasingly visible.
Political activity in private member clubs had shifted from Brooks’s and White’s – social gambling clubs that became partisan due to the composition of their membership – to the explicitly political Carlton and Reform Clubs by the late 1830s. Boundaries between sociability and politics were beginning to be erected that influenced the basis on which and spaces in which political connections were forged and maintained.
These practices underpinned how political actors maintained the networks of duty, obligation and alliances that underpinned politics in the period. These network relationships were what ‘political friendship’ claims were invoking.
On the floor of the Commons, in political pamphlets and handbills, and in private correspondence, invoking friendship in this period for political ends was ubiquitous. Understanding practices of sociability, their evolution during this period and how they were used by individuals to cultivate relationships is central to understanding the role political friendship played in individuals shaping and navigating the political culture of the era.
BT
The seminar takes place on 5 May 2026, between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. It is fully ‘hybrid’, which means you can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.