We were sad to hear recently of the death of Professor Michael Rush of the University of Exeter. Michael was a pioneering and indefatigable scholar of parliament, whose book, The Role of the Member of Parliament since 1868: from Gentlemen to Players (Oxford 2001), was the first serious study of its kind into the social background and political formation of MPs from the nineteenth century … Continue reading Michael Rush and the Database
In this guest post, previously published on the Victorian Commons, Dr Helen Dampier, Leeds Beckett University, uses the groundbreaking Letters of Richard Cobden Online resource to explore the human side of Richard Cobden. Helen is a co-investigator for the project, which contains a searchable collection of digital transcripts of letters written by Cobden and a virtual exhibition of the original documents. The digital publication of c. … Continue reading Richard Cobden’s letters: the human side
We’re delighted to announce that the History of Parliament Trust will be collaborating with Keele University and the University of Manchester in a doctoral studentship based in part on our Oral History project. Applications are now invited for a collaborative doctoral award, funded by the AHRC North West Consortium, titled ‘A manly place? The experiences of female MPs at Westminster, 1970-2010’. The studentship will be … Continue reading Collaborative Doctoral Award with Keele University and the University of Manchester: ‘A manly place? The experiences of female MPs at Westminster, 1970-2010’
Today’s blog contains details of the Art UK online exhibitions that our researchers have curated during lockdown… The History of Parliament’s researchers have been trying out the Curations tool recently launched by Art UK, which enables anyone to create a digital exhibition from the artworks on its site. With art galleries and museums currently closed, it is an excellent way to visit their collections online. … Continue reading Exploring parliamentary history through art
Coming up in 2020 the History of Parliament Trust has exciting plans for the expansion of our online resources, the first of which is our new YouTube channel… Throughout 2019 at the History of Parliament our Public Engagement Team and the House of Commons 1832-68 project (@TheVictCommons) worked with the Citizens Project at Royal Holloway on a number of their public history projects. These included … Continue reading The History of Parliament Trust is on YouTube
In the first of an occasional series, Dr Paul Hunneyball of the Lords 1604-29 section considers some of the unlikely-sounding posts held by MPs in the early seventeenth century… All published History of Parliament biographies, currently covering periods up to the nineteenth century, begin with a highly compressed digest of information about the life of the man in question. The first paragraph mostly contains genealogical … Continue reading Commission impossible? Deciphering job titles in History of Parliament biographies (part 1)
Here at the History of Parliament, we are always trying to find more images for our website. As you can see in our Gallery, we have plenty of fantastic pictures of MPs throughout the years. Many from the National Portrait Gallery or Parliamentary archives are of the famous faces of our political history, such as ex-Prime Ministers Robert Peel or Lord North, but others also … Continue reading Picture perfect: Could your images feature on the History of Parliament Online?
Today in 1834 a huge fire swept through the old Palace of Westminster, destroying most of the medieval buildings. Caroline Shenton, of the Parliamentary Archives at Westminster and author of ‘The Day Parliament Burned Down’, has written a new article for the ‘Explore’ section of our website to mark the anniversary. Here is an extract from her article on the events of that dramatic night: … Continue reading Burning the House down: The Fire of 1834
For a number of years now, here at the History of Parliament, we’ve been running competitions for school pupils at Key Stage 3 and A level. This year we’ve had plenty of fantastic entries for our 11-14 year old competition (which has made the judging rather tricky!). Our 16-18 year old essay competition is still open – extended this year over the summer break – … Continue reading New set of History of Parliament resources for schools at KS3: The Reformation
