Following on from our post about James Abercromby‘s highly-charged partisan election as Speaker in 1835, Philip Salmon explores the 1839 and 1841 elections of his successor Charles Shaw Lefevre. These shed new light on the so-called ‘Bedchamber crisis’ involving Queen Victoria, and hint at tell-tale splits within the Conservative party long before the famous repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Considered by the Liberal … Continue reading The politics of electing the Speaker: The case of Shaw Lefevre (1794-1888)