It’s been yet another busy year here at the History of Parliament Trust. By far the most exciting event was the publication in July of our very first volumes focussing on the Upper House. The House of Lords 1660-1715, published in five volumes, features the biographies of nearly 700 spiritual and temporal peers, along with an introductory survey. The volumes are now available through Cambridge … Continue reading Review of the year 2016
Every year the History organises a competition for the best undergraduate dissertation presented in 2016 on a subject relating to British or Irish parliamentary or political history before 1997. Universities across the country submit a wide range of entries of a very high standard, this year covering everything from 17th century political philosophy to Margaret Thatcher’s foreign policy and managerial style. Our judges, the Trust’s … Continue reading History of Parliament dissertation competition 2016
Thanks to Parliament Week, we’re a little behind in our ‘Parliaments, politics and people’ seminar reports. Before tonight’s seminar, here’s our latest report… A month ago Dr Alexander Lock, Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts at the British Library, spoke on ‘Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745-1810), national politics and the York county election of 1784’. The paper was based on Dr Lock’s recently-published biography of Gascoigne, … Continue reading Parliaments, Politics & People seminar: Alex Lock, ‘Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745-1810), national politics and the York county election of 1784’
This week is Parliament Week, a programme of events and activities that connects people across the UK with Parliament and democracy. To mark it, every day this week we are publishing a blog on ‘unlikely parliamentarians’ – the men and women across history who became parliamentarians only unexpectedly. We’re starting with a selection of stories taken from our MPs’ oral history project… Our oral history … Continue reading Unlikely Parliamentarians 1: Modern MPs
Sixty years ago this week the Suez Crisis was in full swing and parliament was in uproar. Here we discuss the crisis through the eyes of the Commons… The Suez Crisis is now seen by historians as one of the defining moments of twentieth century British foreign policy. At the time, the divisions within the country were played out in the Commons chamber, as the … Continue reading Parliament and the Suez Crisis
Our series this summer has taken a look at historical cases of division within political parties. In our last post of the series, this week we discuss the Labour party of the 1930s, and how Ramsay MacDonald came to be reviled by the party he led for many years… The wartime split in the Liberal party and the increase in suffrage in 1918 and 1928 … Continue reading Labour Unrest: Ramsay MacDonald and the Labour party, 1931
Inspired by the political upheaval in many of our political parties after the Brexit vote, we’ve been looking this summer at some historic party splits. In today’s blog we move into the 20th century, and the personal and political rivalry between two Liberal Prime Ministers that pulled their party apart… At the declaration of war in August 1914, Herbert Asquith had been Liberal Prime Minister … Continue reading David Lloyd George and Herbert Asquith: Liberals at war
As many of you will know, every year the History of Parliament Trust organises competitions for schoolchildren on aspects of parliamentary history. We recently invited our 2015 A Level competition winner, Josh Travers of St Ambrose College, Altrincham, to Westminster to receive his prize. John was with an essay on ‘Bill and Ben the battling statesmen: Gladstone vs. Disraeli’. The competition judges felt that this … Continue reading History of Parliament’s Education Competitions: 2015-16
Earlier this week we delved in to our oral history archive to discover the divisions within the Labour Party over Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1970s. In today’s blogpost, we’ve returned to our archive to uncover memories of the struggle to ratify the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, and the resulting impact on the Conservative Party. The Maastricht Treaty was agreed in … Continue reading The parties and Europe 2: Conservatives and Maastricht
The European Referendum campaign is now in full swing, creating heated political debate and causing some unusual alliances. In British politics, however, the issue of Europe and Britain’s role in it has been long-running and divisive for both the Labour and Conservative parties. The issue features prominently in our interviews with former MPs for our oral history archive. In the first of two blogs on … Continue reading The Parties and Europe 1: Labour and the 1975 Referendum
