Category: oral history

20th century history, oral history, Women and Parliament

‘You’d better accept you’ll have to concentrate on domestic politics for now’ – gender bias in the post-war Commons

As Women’s History Month reaches a close, Dr Emma Peplow, lead coordinator of our Oral History Project, looks back through our interview archive to explore a theme often discussed by female interviewees: gender bias in the post-war House of Commons… For many of the former female MPs interviewed for our oral history project, their experiences in Parliament seem to be both as insiders and outsiders … Continue reading ‘You’d better accept you’ll have to concentrate on domestic politics for now’ – gender bias in the post-war Commons

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20th century history, LGBTQ+ History, oral history, Post-1945 history, social history

Voices from the Oral History Project – Chris Smith

Unusually for a profile of one of our Oral History Project interviewees, Chris Smith has not recently passed away! Yet as the first sitting MP who chose to publicly come out, his is a fascinating interview to focus on this LGBT history month. Dr Emma Peplow, our Oral History Project lead, explores his parliamentary career… Chris Smith, Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury 1983-2005, … Continue reading Voices from the Oral History Project – Chris Smith

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20th century history, oral history, Post-1945 history

Oral History at the History of Parliament Trust: new volunteers needed!

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!

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20th century history, oral history, Post-1945 history, Women and Parliament

Women MPs in the 1990s

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

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20th century history, oral history

Now available online: full interviews with former MPs from our oral history project

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

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20th century history, oral history, Post-1945 history

Voices from our oral history project: Sir Teddy Taylor

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

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