This blog looks at how the History of Parliament has been involved behind the scenes with the Voice and Vote exhibition which opened in Westminster Hall last week. Dr. Philip Salmon and Dr. Kathryn Rix of the Victorian Commons project share their contributions to the reconstructions of the ‘ventilator’ and the ‘cage’, where women could listen to parliamentary debates in the nineteenth century, while Dr. … Continue reading Voice and Vote: behind the scenes
Dr Paul Seaward is one of the editors of the “Voice & Vote guidebook” to accompany the UK Parliament Vote 100 project‘s landmark exhibition in Westminster Hall. In today’s blog he explains the contents of the book, who contributed to it and where you can get one… Last week we were delighted to celebrate with the curators of the wonderful Voice and Vote exhibition in Westminster … Continue reading Voice and Vote: Celebrating 100 Years of Votes for Women – a guidebook
As part of our Women and Parliament blog series to mark the centenary of the first women gaining the vote in 1918, this week we hear from Assistant Editor of the Commons 1640-1660 project, Dr Vivienne Larminie. She describes a seventeenth century satirical pamphlet about a fictitious women’s parliamentary meeting and explains how women interacted with Parliament in the seventeenth century… In 1640, a year … Continue reading Women Petitioners and The Parlament of Women
This month’s blog for the Women and Parliament series as part of our activities in celebration of the centenary of the Representation the People Act 1918, which allowed some women to vote in the UK for the first time, comes from our Assistant Director and one of the coordinators of our oral history project, Dr Emma Peplow. She discusses the experiences of women MPs in the … Continue reading Women MPs in the 1990s
This is the second in our blog series, women and parliament in this, the centenary year of the Representation of the People Act 1918. Here at the History of Parliament we are closely involved in celebrations, commemorations and projects relating to this anniversary. So today, on the actual anniversary that this Act became law it seemed pertinent to honour its passage. To that end, our … Continue reading The Representation of the People Act, 1918: A radical reform measure
2018 is the centennial anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 under the terms of which, for the first time in the history of the British Politics, some women were permitted to vote in Parliamentary elections. In order to mark this step in the progression of equality for women in our country’s political system we will be publishing a series of blogs about … Continue reading Women and Parliament in the Fifteenth Century
January 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Speaker’s Conference on Electoral Reform 1916-17, which first sat in October 1916 and reported on 27 January 1917. Dr Mari Takayanagi, Joint Project Manager for the Vote 100 Exhibition Project, discusses the significance of the Conference for women’s suffrage. The Speaker’s Conference on Electoral Reform 1916-17 was the brainchild of Walter Long MP, President of the Local … Continue reading Votes for Women and the Speaker’s Conference on Electoral Reform 1916-17
On 14th December 1918, Countess Constance Markievicz (1868-1927) became the first woman to be elected to the UK Parliament, but she did not take her seat. Dr Mari Takayanagi, Senior Archivist at the Parliamentary Archives and joint Project Manager for Vote 100 discusses how this came about and whether she would in fact have been eligible to be an MP. In 1918, the Representation of … Continue reading The Eligibility of Constance Markievicz
Last week saw the centenary of the death of the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison (1872-1913), who died from her injuries four days after being knocked unconscious by the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby. The Victorian Commons’ Dr. Kathryn Rix went to one of the events held in Parliament last week to mark this anniversary. She writes here about some of the online resources available … Continue reading Emily Wilding Davison and women in Parliament
