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 parliament … Continue reading Women MPs in the 1990s
Dr Katrina Navickas from the University of Hertfordshire was the keynote speaker at the History of Parliament Trust and Durham University’s Parliaments and Popular Sovereignty conference, which was held at the People’s History Museum in Manchester in November 2017. She offers a blog on the importance of political history today… There is lively public interest in the origins of popular representation in the British political … Continue reading Why political history still matters
Today’s blog from Philip Loft, currently a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, is part of our week of social media activity about all things petitioning, protest and franchise reform. This is ahead of our public event on the Thursday in Westminster, ‘Parliament and popular sovereignty in the 19th century’. Philip’s paper on petitioning before the development of radical and mass-platform petitioning in the mid-eighteenth century … Continue reading Public Petitioning and Parliament, 1689-1760
To launch our new James I to Restoration blog, and also mark St Patrick’s Day, Dr Patrick Little of the Commons 1640-1660 Section discusses the controversial presence of Irish MPs at Westminster in the 1650s… With Irish political and constitutional issues routinely hitting the headlines – not least because of implications of Brexit for the border and the fact that the Democratic Unionists hold the … Continue reading Irish Disputes at Westminster
Rebekah Moore is currently completing a PhD (Institute of Historical Research/History of Parliament) on the temporary Houses of Parliament and the new Palace of Westminster, 1830-1860. In this guest blog, she draws some parallels between the current proposals for Restoration and Renewal at Westminster and events in the nineteenth century. On 31 January 2018, the House of Commons approved plans for the restoration and renewal … Continue reading Symbolising political change: space and the temporary House of Commons
In this blog our current Director, Dr Stephen Roberts and Editor of the Commons 1422-1504 project, Dr Linda Clark pay tribute to Valerie Cromwell, Director of the History of Parliament Trust between 1991 and 2001. It is with sadness that we relay the news of Valerie’s passing last week to our readers. We were saddened to hear of the death on 7 March of Valerie … Continue reading A tribute to former Director of the History of Parliament Trust, Valerie Cromwell
Today’s blog is a summary from Sonia Tycko, PhD. candidate from Harvard University about the paper that she presented, as part of the Parliaments, Politics and People seminar series at the Institute of Historical Research,’The politics of impressment, 1639-41: a Gloucestershire microhistory’… In 1641, the House of Lords received a petition from a merchant-mariner and a clothier in Gloucestershire. Their target: Sir Ralph Dutton, a courtier … Continue reading Parliament, Politics and People: The politics of impressment, 1639-41: a Gloucestershire microhistory
In the latest post for the Georgian Lords, Dr Stuart Handley considers the difficulties one peerage family experienced in providing for a large family, the strategies pursued and the resulting careers of the offspring of the first Baron Barnard. Eighteenth-century correspondence often focused on the provisions to be made for the children of a marriage. Good planning could avoid the unpredictable nature of the time. … Continue reading What Shall we do with the Children?
Continuing our series on MPs who died while serving in the First World War, Dr. Kathryn Rix looks at an unlikely former MP for Manchester South… On 7th March 1918 Philip Kirkland Glazebrook was killed in action while serving with the army in Palestine. Six years earlier, to the very day, he had taken his seat in the Commons as the newly elected Conservative MP for South Manchester. … Continue reading ‘All that he hoped for and all that he had he gave’: Philip Kirkland Glazebrook (1880-1918)
Continuing with our patron saint series, today we hear from Dr Hannes Kleineke of the Commons 1422-1504 Section about the patron saint of Cornwall, St Piran. Also see Part One and Two of Dr Stephen Roberts’ blogs on Parliament and the Welsh language in honour of St David’s Day… With recent news of the possible reopening of the South Crofty tin mine in Camborne, on the feast day … Continue reading St Piran’s Day: Tin, Tricks and Terror in 15th-century Cornwall
The History of Parliament 