The final year of the decade has been a busy one for the History of Parliament Trust. We’ve sent volumes to the publishers, been involved in regional and national engagement projects, started a YouTube channel and undergone many internal changes – here’s Sammy Sturgess with the highlights of 2019… During the final quarter of 2019 we’ve seen some significant changes to staffing at the History … Continue reading Review of the year 2019
Dr Emma Peplow is the new lead coordinator for our Oral History Project. Today she is announcing a new round of training for oral history volunteers. For more information about the project, click here. As many of you know, our oral history project interviews former MPs about their lives and experiences both inside and outside of the House of Commons. Since 2011 we have interviewed … Continue reading Oral History at the History of Parliament Trust: new volunteers needed!
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
Since 2011, in partnership with the British Library, we have been interviewing as many former MPs as we can about their lives and careers in parliament. 155 of our completed interviews have now been deposited at the British Library. Our growing archive contains a wide variety of experiences and views of parliament: from ‘big names’ (Denis Healey, Michael Heseltine, David Owen, David Steel, Jonathan Aitken, … Continue reading Now available online: full interviews with former MPs from our oral history project
Last month we were sad to hear the news of campaigning backbencher Sir Teddy Taylor’s death. In this blog we look back on his life with extracts from our oral history project interview with him in January 2012… Sir Teddy Taylor was one of the first former MPs to be interviewed for our oral history project. Following his death last month, obituaries remembered him as … Continue reading Voices from our oral history project: Sir Teddy Taylor
With Parliament back and Theresa May’s government trying to pass controversial legislation, Emmeline Ledgerwood, one of our oral history project volunteers and PhD student at the British Library/University of Leicester, blogs on the periods of minority government during the 1970s, using excerpts from our oral history project archive… As Westminster returns to work after the summer recess, MPs must become accustomed to an environment which … Continue reading When every vote counted: what minority government in the 1970s meant for MPs
On 12 July we brought together parliamentarians, activists and historians to mark 50 years since the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which partially decriminalised homosexuality in England and Wales. Here we report back from the event… We were delighted when the Speaker accepted our suggestion of to organise an event in his official apartments to mark the anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of … Continue reading 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, 1967
