2024 has been another busy year at the History of Parliament. With a new Director at the helm, we formed new partnerships, launched online projects, and continued to produce original research- all while navigating a General Election! Here is our Public Engagement Manager, Connie Jeffery, with a review of what we got up to over the past twelve months…
At the end of 2023 the History of Parliament welcomed Dr Jennifer Davey to the director post, and it was straight down to business in the New Year! In January Jennie and members of our Civil Wars project headed to Trinity College, Dublin, to talk about the recently published House of Commons 1640-1660 publication. The team then travelled to The National Archives at Kew in February to host a workshop discussing the volumes and the research processes behind them. In this workshop attendees were given the opportunity to view some of the original sources housed at The National Archives that were used within our publication, as well as allowing attendees to talk informally with our researchers about their work.
Fast forward to the end of the year and we were as busy as ever, particularly with the launch of our first official podcast! Tales from the Green Benches: An Oral History of Parliament launched in November, with a series of six episodes discussing the experiences of MPs in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Hosted by the History of Parliament’s Head of Contemporary History Dr Emma Peplow and interviewer and historian Dr Alex Lock, each episode used clips from former MPs themselves, as told to our Oral History project, to explore the reality of life in Westminster. A bonus episode also discussed the nature of Oral History itself, as well as what makes the History of Parliament’s project so special. All episodes can still be found on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube- or wherever you get your podcasts!
Our research teams continued to work on our six active core projects this year, producing nearly 300 new biographies- our Medieval project, headed by Dr Hannes Kleineke, even discovered some previously unknown MPs! Our staff have also been producing articles for our WordPress site throughout the year.
Long-term followers will recognise this year’s most read article, with Dr Paul Hunneyball’s 2019 piece James I and the duke of Buckingham: love, power and betrayal once again taking this year’s top spot. But coming in just behind it at number two is a new post from Dr Robin Eagles, who at the end of November wrote about the descendants of Thomas Cromwell. In just a few weeks this piece, The Last of the Cromwells, managed to become one of our most popular posts ever!
The Public Engagement team welcomed two new members this year, Joe Baker and Alfie Steer, both in the role of Public Engagement Assistant. They have been busy curating the History of Parliament’s online presence, updating our website, and working hard to ensure that we keep up to date with the fluctuating state of social media. You can now find the History of Parliament, the Georgian Lords and the Victorian Commons on all major social media platforms, including X, BlueSky and Instagram! The History of Parliament also continues to post on TikTok, with new videos for 2024 including ‘Could George I speak English?’ and ‘Tony Benn: MP or Peer?’. But it was a video from the previous June that really took off this year, as our video ‘The Origins of Black Rod’, reshared for the State Opening of Parliament in July, hit over 130K views by the end of 2024.
A lot of videos were also produced for our ‘Georgian Elections Project’, an online project led by our Public Engagement Team and Dr Robin Eagles, editor of our House of Lords 1715-1790 section. During the spring, we were delighted to host two students from the University of York’s Public History MA course, who produced a series of TikTok videos discussing the nature of elections in the 18th century. These videos, along with other written content produced by Dr Eagles and some of our friends from the Eighteenth Century Political Participation and Electoral Culture project, were shared on every day of the 2024 General Election campaign. Some of the topics explored included: the origins of the Tories, the Whigs and the other political forces of the time; what happened at Hustings; and electioneering methods. All of the articles, and links to our TikTok videos, can be seen here. We’re excited to team up with the York Public History course again for another project in 2025!
We continued to work closely with a number of other academic institutions too. At the start of the year we awarded our 2023 Undergraduate Dissertation prize to Joshua Franklin, who won for the dissertation ‘Thatcherism and deregulation in the City of London’. The winner of this year’s competition will be announced early in the New Year. And in November a team from the History of Parliament presented a workshop on writing political biography at the University of Northampton.
Our 2024 events calendar was unfortunately impacted by June’s General Election, and our Annual Lecture was forced to be cancelled as Parliament went into purdah. However, our followers interested in the Civil War will be happy to know that we are still hoping to present Dr Stephen Roberts’s lecture, Power and the Culture of the Commons in the Long Parliament, at some point in 2025. Make sure to follow the History of Parliament’s social media channels, or Eventbrite page, to be the first to find out the rescheduled date.
Nonetheless, this year did see a number of successful events from the History of Parliament team! In March a panel of academics gathered in Parliament to reflect on clips from our Oral History Project, discussing the experiences of women in Parliament after 1997. This event, held during Women’s History Month, questioned whether the increase in women MPs altered the culture of Parliament, and how female MPs from different generations talk about their time in the Chamber.
At the end of the March Dr Robin Eagles, editor of our House of Lords 1715-1790 project, hosted a workshop discussing Robert Harley’s legacy at the British Library, and in April Dr Alex Beeton from our Lords 1640-1660 section welcomed a selection of academics to the History of Parliament offices for a workshop discussing ‘Parliament in Revolutionary Britain’. We were also delighted to sponsor July’s ‘Histories of Scottish Politics in the Age of Union’ conference at Durham University, with Dr Martin Spychal from our 1832-68 section also presenting a paper and chairing a panel.
The History of Parliament continued to host the Parliaments, Politics and People seminar at the Institute of Historical Research this year, and in November staff hosted a stand at the IHR and School of Advanced Studies’ History Day 2024. Finally, in October many representatives from the History of Parliament attended the launch event celebrating our latest collaboration with St James’s House publishers, ‘The Commonwealth at 75’.
Many of our colleagues also celebrated external publications this year! In June Dr Robin Eagles published his book Champion of English Freedom: The Life of John Wilkes, MP and Lord Mayor of London. Dr Martin Spychal from our House of Commons 1832-1868 section also published a book, with his work Mapping the State: English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act published in November.
Dr Kathryn Rix’s chapter ‘Living in stone or marble: the public commemorations of Victorian MPs’, was published in Memory and modern British politics, and Kathryn also published a chapter on the 1880 election for the book General Election Campaigns, 1830-2019. Dr Hannes Kleineke and Dr Jonathan Mackman from our House of Commons 1461-1504 project both published works through the Lists and Index Society, and Dr Patrick Little, from our House of Lords 1640-1660 project, has had his recent work Ireland in Crisis: War, Politics and Religion 1641-1650 published in paperback. We would also like to congratulate our colleague Dr Alex Beeton, was also awarded the IHR’s Pollard Prize for 2024!
Finally, this year saw a few changes to the staff in our Bloomsbury Square office. In April Dr Andrew Barclay, who worked on our House of Commons 1640-1660 publication, retired from the History of Parliament after many years of brilliant research. Kirsty O’Rourke left the Public Engagement team in March, but remains a valued member of our Oral History volunteer interviewer team. Dr Alex Beeton formally joined our House of Lords 1640-1660 project as a Research Assistant, and at the end of the year we welcomed Dr Naomi Lloyd-Jones to the post of Research Assistant in our House of Commons 1832-1868 project!
We would also like to end on a note of remembrance for our former colleague Dr Simon Healy, who passed away this year. Simon worked with the History of Parliament for a number of years and was a key member of the Parliamentary History community. He will be missed.
Thank you to everyone for supporting the History of Parliament for another year. Plans are already starting for 2025, so be sure to follow us on our social media platforms to keep up to date with all of our work and upcoming events. We have big things in the pipeline!
Wishing you all a happy New Year, and here is to a great 2025!
CJ