{"id":18174,"date":"2025-08-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/?p=18174"},"modified":"2025-08-16T10:55:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T09:55:02","slug":"lords-reform-a-victorian-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/08\/14\/lords-reform-a-victorian-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Lords reform: a Victorian perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unlike the House of Commons, which underwent major \u2018democratic\u2019 reform in the 19th<\/sup> century, the Lords remained virtually unchanged during the entire Victorian period. With a new hereditary peers bill<\/a> now entering its final stages, Dr Philip Salmon<\/a> explores how and why the House of Lords was able to survive the ‘age of reform’, highlighting constitutional difficulties that still have relevance today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 19th<\/sup> century is traditionally seen as a key period of \u2018democratisation\u2019 in British politics. The reform acts of 1832, 1867 and 1884 vastly expanded the number of people who could vote in elections (with the glaring exception of women) and created a constituency system based on similarly sized electoral districts. By the end of the century, a recognisably modern and almost democratic voting system had emerged, underpinning the legitimacy and authority of the elected House of Commons. But where did all this leave the \u2018other place\u2019, the unelected and hereditary House of Lords?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
The trial of Queen Caroline in the House of Lords 1820, Sir George Hayter (1820-1823). \u00a9 National Portrait Gallery, London<\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The traditional assumption has been that as the electoral system \u2018democratised\u2019, so too the Commons became the superior body in Parliament. The constitutional stand-off between the two Houses over the reform bill in 1831-2 is widely seen as a pivotal moment in this process. Under the threat of new pro-reform peers being created, the Lords were eventually forced to surrender to the Commons and agree to pass the 1832 Reform Act<\/a>. And with a new electoral system in place after 1832, which limited the former ability of many members of the Lords to control elections, the Commons now had an even greater claim to be dominant and implement its policies without opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
The Reform Bill Receiving the King’s Assent by Royal Commission, 7 June 1832; William Walker, Samuel William Reynolds Jr, Samuel William Reynolds (1836); \u00a9 National Portrait Gallery. London<\/a>; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a>. The Reform Act receiving royal assent in the Lords – note the empty benches of the anti-reform peers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The leader of the Tory anti-reformers in the Lords, the Duke of Wellington, had little doubt about the significance of the Reform Act, famously declaring that it would \u2018destroy the House of Lords\u2019. The constitutional theorist Walter Bagehot, writing 30 years later, agreed, arguing that the Reform Act had fundamentally altered the \u2018function\u2019 of the Lords, effectively making it a temporary \u2018revising\u2019 or \u2018suspending\u2019 chamber. Writing in 1908 the legal expert Lawrence Lowell noted how the \u2018Great\u2019 Reform Act had drawn \u2018attention to the fact that an hereditary body, however great the personal influence of its members, could never \u2026 be the equal \u2026 of a representative chamber\u2019. Chris Ballinger in his recent magisterial work on the 20th<\/sup> century Lords has also suggested that \u2018the power of the Lords diminished throughout the nineteenth century\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One problem with this narrative though is that it does not capture the whole story. One of the most striking features to emerge from our ongoing research on the post-1832 House of Commons<\/a> is the continuing role of the Lords in actively shaping and even deciding many aspects of the political agenda. Some of this occurred behind the scenes, but there was also a significant amount in terms of policy and procedural initiatives that have been overlooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An assertive Lords<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a few months after the first reformed election of 1832 returned a huge majority for the Whig-Liberals, for instance, the Lords successfully managed to block the Whig ministry\u2019s controversial Irish Church \u2018appropriation\u2019 reforms, in what the Ultra-Tory Lord Ellenborough gleefully termed a \u2018triumph\u2019. Emboldened, they then went on to modify the terms of the bill to abolish slavery in favour of slaveowners, before proceeding to throw out major reforms granting the admission of Dissenters to Oxford and Cambridge Universities and allowing Jews to sit in Parliament. The Lords would continue to reject bills for Jewish emancipation \u2013 reforms that had passed the elected Commons \u2013 on another eight occasions before 1858.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lords became even more assertive after the 1835 election reduced the Whig government\u2019s majority, rejecting or amending an all-time record number of Commons bills over the next two Parliaments. One of the most significant of these was the Whig ministry\u2019s 1835 municipal corporations bill<\/a>, replacing the old corporations that had governed English towns with newly elected town councils. Drawn up by the radical election agent Joseph Parkes<\/a>, the bill that originally passed the Commons proposed abolishing all the freemen voters who had been admitted by the old corporations, despite their \u2018ancient right\u2019 privileges having been preserved under the terms of the 1832 Reform Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latching on to this controversial clause, the Lords drastically amended the bill out of all recognition, arguing that disfranchising these freemen voters was not only grossly unfair, but a modification of the settlement of 1832 by stealth, which went way beyond the remit of a local council bill. Appalled by the attack on their ancient rights, freemen voters across the nation rallied behind the Lords\u2019 amendments, in what became a popular and successful campaign. Sensing this was not the best issue on which to make a stand, the Whig leadership in the Commons reluctantly accepted most of the Lords\u2019 changes, including the preservation of freemen voters. As Joseph Parkes later admitted, \u2018we committed a great mistake in the bill. It was absurdly foolish \u2026 to attack the freemen \u2026 Nor was it exactly fair to attempt it through the municipal bill. We were clearly \u2026 causing unpopularity among a large class of the people\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this issue, as on many others that followed, the Lords had clearly managed to gauge and represent public opinion in a way that challenged the authority of the Commons. The results of the next general election seemed to vindicate their actions. In 1837 the Whig government\u2019s majority was almost completely wiped out, with most freemen voters supporting anti-Whig candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This notion of the House of Lords being able to articulate the \u2018will of the people\u2019 more accurately than the Commons is most famously associated with the extraordinary theories developed later in the 19th<\/sup> century by the 3rd<\/sup> Marquess of Salisbury. The leader of the Conservatives in the Lords from 1881-1902, and three times Conservative prime minister, Salisbury did more than anyone else to fashion a \u2018doctrine\u2019 of the Lords being a genuinely representative assembly, untainted by party diktats and the \u2018demagoguery\u2019 of election cycles. As Salisbury put it in June 1869:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We must try to impress upon the country the fact that, [just] because we are not an elective House, we are not a bit less a representative House \u2026 It may be that the House of Commons in determining the opinion of the nation is wrong; and \u2026 does not represent the full \u2026 convictions of the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury speaking in the House of Lords<\/em>; supplement to<\/em> The Graphic (1894)<\/em>; \u00a9 National Portrait Gallery, London<\/em><\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After 1885 Salisbury and other Tory peers even began to suggest that owing to the representative deficiencies of the new first-past-the-post system \u2013 a system which ironically Salisbury himself had helped to implement in 1885 \u2013 the Lords could be a better interpreter of public feeling than the Commons, with its \u2018crude\u2019 non-proportional election system based on simple \u2018bare majorities\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most striking example of Salisbury\u2019s \u2018doctrine\u2019 in action was the Lords\u2019 rejection of Gladstone\u2019s second Irish Home Rule bill by 419 votes to 41 in 1893, incidentally the largest Lords vote of the century. Salisbury insisted that Irish Home Rule had not been sufficiently mandated at the previous general election and needed clearer national support, as part of what became known as his \u2018referendal theory\u2019. In 1894 the Lords threw out other Commons bills on similar grounds, dealing with employers\u2019 liabilities and arbitration for evicted Irish tenants. The result of the 1895 general election then rewarded Salisbury and the Conservative-Unionists with a substantial majority, seemingly vindicating Salisbury\u2019s claims about the Lords being more representative than the Commons and the \u2018conscience of the nation\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
The Home Rule Debate in House of Lords, 1893, Gladstone’s Second Bill Rejected, Marquess of Salisbury Speaking; Dickinson Brothers and Joshua James Foster (1893); Image credit: Parliamentary Art Collection via Art UK<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Opposition to the Lords<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not everyone accepted the idea that the Lords enjoyed this representative function. The Lords\u2019 steady rejection of bills approved by the Commons \u2013 whether it was the civil and religious reforms of the 1830s, financial measures such as the repeal of paper duties in the 1860s, military reforms in the 1870s, electoral reforms in the 1880s, and almost every bill relating to Ireland \u2013 triggered regular calls for reform of the Lords in the popular press, on the hustings and eventually in the Commons itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier demands for change in the mid-1830s by radicals such as George Grote and John Roebuck and the Irish agitator Daniel O\u2019Connell included plans to replace all hereditary peers with elected delegates, and to deprive the Lords of their ability to completely reject bills. Removing the bishops also became a standard demand. These under-studied proposals, many of which resemble today\u2019s arguments, provided a field-day for satirists but rarely made it to the floor of the Commons, let alone a vote.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Two<\/a>
The Lords being attacked by a battering ram with the head of O\u2019Connell, H. B. (John Doyle), Sketches<\/em>, June 1836. PD via Wellcome Collection<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

By the 1850s, however, a number of leading Whigs and Liberals had also begun to contemplate changes to the Upper House. Faced with likely opposition in the Lords on major policies such the repeal of navigation laws, for example, the prime minister Lord John Russell repeatedly considered introducing life peerages for distinguished men from outside the Commons, only to be dissuaded by his Cabinet warning that this could lead to the \u2018packing\u2019 of the Lords by the government of the day, again a familiar modern argument. In the end Russell, like other party leaders, was forced to fall back on the use of \u2018proxy votes\u2019 \u2013 voting rights transferred by absent peers to other Lords \u2013 to get his government\u2019s agenda through. The abolition of these proxies in 1868 by a standing order undoubtedly made it more difficult for some later governments to manage the Lords, increasing the calls for reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1856 a solitary \u2018trial\u2019 life peerage was eventually created with the approval of the Queen, to bolster the legal expertise available to Palmerston\u2019s government. Sir James Parke, a noted jurist, was ennobled as Baron Wensleydale. When it came to it, however, the Lords refused to let him take his seat, arguing that his life peerage would dilute the hereditary honour of the House and establish a dangerous precedent. Wensleydale was quickly upgraded to a hereditary peerage. It would not be until 1876 that two senior judges were admitted to the Lords on a temporary basis, and not until 1887 that these new \u2018law lords\u2019 were then made into peers for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More substantive proposals for Lords reform eventually emerged in the last two decades of the 19th<\/sup> century, against the backdrop of Salisbury\u2019s increasingly bold assertions about the Lords\u2019 representative mandate. In 1884, 1886 and 1888 the radical MP Henry Labouchere introduced motions to abolish the Lords, each time increasing his Commons support. In 1894 he won a vote in the Commons calling for the removal of the Lords\u2019 ability to reject bills. No legislation was prepared, however, before the 1895 election brought Salisbury back into power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/a>
William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne; London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company (1890s); \u00a9 National Portrait Gallery, London<\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"A<\/a>
George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston; Ogden’s (c.1899-1905); \u00a9 National Portrait Gallery, London<\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile in the Lords itself the future Liberal leader Lord Rosebery moved for a committee to look at life peerages and restrictions on hereditary peers in 1884. Four years later he proposed bringing in elections for a limited number of hereditary peers, who would serve a fixed term, and life peerages for delegates representing local councils and some overseas colonies. None of these initiatives was successful. The idea of life peerages, and making hereditary peers undertake some form of public service before they qualified to sit, was later taken up by a group of young, dashing aristocratic MPs in the Commons, famously led by the Liberal Unionist William Palmer and the Conservative George Curzon (later viceroy of India and leader of the House of Lords). As their campaign showed, by the 1890s even some Conservative-Unionists were also beginning to advocate change, not to restrict the Lords\u2019 powers \u2013 the policy increasingly favoured by most Liberals and the National Liberal Federation \u2013 but instead to enhance the Lords\u2019 legitimacy and authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why wasn\u2019t the Lords reformed during the 19th<\/sup> century?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This takes us back to the question of why the Lords, unlike the Commons, avoided being constitutionally reformed during the 19th<\/sup> century? The traditional argument that the Lords adopted a more submissive role following the 1832 Reform Act, accepting the superior status of the Commons, is clearly not the answer. Both in terms of the number of bills the Lords blocked or amended after 1832, and in terms of developing its own distinct claim to reflect the will of the nation, it remained a highly assertive and influential body. The number of public petitions that continued to be sent to the Lords provides yet another indicator of its importance as a national forum for drawing parliamentary attention to all sorts of political causes, and as a useful arbiter of local grievances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linked to this, the Lords also performed a crucial but much overlooked role in managing private legislation. The latest edition of How Parliament Works<\/em> notes that the \u2018vast majority\u2019 of laws passed by Parliament \u2018and by far the more important, are public\u2019. Throughout the 19th<\/sup> century, however, exactly the opposite was true. Not only did \u2018private\u2019 acts of Parliament (not to be confused with private members\u2019 bills) completely transform the physical environment and create Britain\u2019s modern infrastructure \u2013 legalising the construction of railways, canals, tramways, docks, sewers, roads, bridges, museums, parks, and essential utilities such as water, gas and electricity (to name but a few) \u2013 but they also outnumbered \u2018public\u2019 acts by a factor of more than two to one well into the 20th century. The sheer volume of private bill work undertaken by the Lords, particularly from the 1840s, eventually forced them to develop new, streamlined legislative procedures, many of which went on to be copied or adapted by the Commons and transferred to the handling of public business as well.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
Acts of Parliament, 1800-2000
Source: P. Salmon, \u2018Parliament<\/a>\u2019, in The Oxford handbook of Modern British political history, 1800-2000<\/em> (2018), p. 89<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The fact that so many prime ministers<\/a> sat in the Lords rather than in the Commons also helped to bolster its status and legitimacy. Over half the twenty prime ministers of the 19th century, including the two longest serving (Liverpool and Salisbury), formed their governments as peers, while two more (Russell and Disraeli) started out in the Commons but later served as premier in the upper house. For just over half the entire nineteenth century, the government was led by a prime minister sitting in the Lords. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Underpinning this, rather than being separate or even rival institutions, as is sometimes assumed, the Victorian Commons and Lords were deeply integrated in terms of their practical business, politics and personnel. Family ties and patronage networks ensured a very close working relationship between members of both Houses, with many MPs either succeeding or being promoted to peerages. Behind the scenes, both the membership of the Lords and the Commons also began to adapt, reflecting new types of wealth associated with industrialisation and the professions such as banking and commerce. Over 40% of the new peers created after 1882 were from non-landed backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most significant of all, the Lords certainly didn\u2019t oppose every progressive measure sent up from the Commons, instead passing many reforms that are now viewed as key milestones in Britain\u2019s political development. It granted Dissenters equal civil rights in 1828, finally agreed to pass Catholic emancipation in 1829 and allowed the Catholic college of Maynooth to be state funded in 1845, despite so many Lords (and bishops) being staunchly Protestant Anglicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1846 the Lords even backed Peel\u2019s highly controversial repeal of the corn laws, despite its membership being overwhelmingly landed and major beneficiaries of agricultural protection. Significantly, the rebellion of the Conservative party on this issue against Peel was actually lower in the Lords than it was in the Commons. In 1867, despite huge misgivings, the Lords also agreed to pass Disraeli\u2019s second Reform Act, the greatest extension of voting rights of the 19th<\/sup> century, only eclipsed in its scope by the 1918 Representation of the People Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that it was Tory \/ Conservative governments that proposed so many of these major reforms of the 19th<\/sup> century clearly helped to reduce the number of conflicts between the two Houses during this period. Despite years of Liberal peerage creations, the Lords always remained a Tory chamber, with Liberal membership peaking at 40% in 1880. The dominance of the Tory peers combined with their loyalty to party \u2013 ironically the very thing that Salisbury liked to criticise the Commons for \u2013 ensured that most Tory bills, even highly controversial ones, nearly always passed the Lords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This partisan bias of the House of Lords is of course often viewed as the cause of its undoing in the early 20th<\/sup> century, when its veto over legislation was finally reduced to a delaying power of two years by the 1911 Parliament Act. But for most of the 19th<\/sup> century this same partisan Tory bias also helped the Lords to survive. For as long as Conservative ministries continued to enact progressive reforms in the national interest, the number of dramatic \u2018peers versus people\u2019 moments remained limited, keeping the Lords on the right side of history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A. Adonis, Making aristocracy work: the peerage and the political system in Britain 1884-1914<\/em> (1993)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C. Ballinger, The House of Lords 1911-2011<\/em> (2012)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R. Davis, A political history of the House of Lords 1811-1846<\/em> (2008)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R. Davis (ed.), Lords of Parliament. Studies, 1714-1914<\/em> (1995)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R. Davis (ed.), Leaders in the Lords 1765-1902<\/em> (2003)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R. Davis, \u2018Wellington, Peel and the House of Lords in the 1840s\u2019, in C. Jones, P. Salmon & R. Davis (eds.), Partisan politics, principle and reform in Parliament and the constituencies, 1689-1880<\/em> (2005), 164-82<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R. Davis, \u2018House of Lords, 1801-1911\u2019, in C. Jones (ed.), A Short History of Parliament<\/em> (2009), 193-210<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J. Hogan, \u2018Party management in the House of Lords, 1846-1865\u2019, Parliamentary History<\/em> (1991), x. 124-50<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D. Large, \u2018The decline of the \u201cparty of the crown\u201d and the rise of parties in the House of Lords, 1783-1837\u2019, English Historical Review<\/em> (1963), lxxviii. 669-95<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G. Le May, The Victorian Constitution<\/em> (1979), 127-51<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord Longford, A history of the House of Lords<\/em> (1988)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A. Lowell, The government of England<\/em> (1908), i. 394-422<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P. Salmon, \u2018Parliament\u2019, in D. Brown et al (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Modern British political history, 1800-2000<\/em> (2018), 83-102<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E. A. Smith, The House of Lords in British Politics and Society 1815-1911<\/em> (1992)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R. Smith (ed.), The House of Lords: a thousand years of British tradition<\/em> (1994)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A. Turberville, \u2018The House of Lords and the Advent of Democracy, 1837-67\u2019, History<\/em> (1944), xxix. 152-83<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C. Comstock Weston, The House of Lords and ideological politics. Lord Salisbury\u2019s referendal theory and the Conservative party, 1846-1922<\/em> (1995)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C. Comstock Weston, \u2018Salisbury and the Lords, 1868-1895\u2019, Historical Journal<\/em> (1982), xxv. 103-29<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike the House of Commons, which underwent major \u2018democratic\u2019 reform in the 19th century, the Lords remained virtually unchanged during the entire Victorian period. With a new hereditary peers bill now entering its final stages, Dr Philip Salmon explores how and why the House of Lords was able to survive the ‘age of reform’, highlighting constitutional difficulties that still have relevance today. The 19th century … Continue reading House of Lords reform: a Victorian perspective<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37925350,"featured_media":18176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[124494893,4706867,774275991,774275545,126553,774276090,774275647,774275895,774275561],"tags":[18542440,98224558,774276177,35890,284412,774276086],"class_list":["post-18174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-victorian-commons","category-19th-century-history","category-arthur-wellesley-1st-duke-of-wellington","category-charles-grey-2nd-earl-grey","category-electoral-reform","category-legislative-history","category-queen-victoria","category-robert-gascyone-cecil-3rd-marquess-of-salisbury-prime-ministers","category-victorian","tag-1832-reform-act","tag-1867-reform-act","tag-1884-reform-act","tag-featured","tag-house-of-lords","tag-house-of-lords-reform"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/main.00eb69f8.the_trial_of_queen_caroline_1820.3b281d58.jpg?fit=1440%2C950&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QYNW-4J8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2147,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2018\/01\/24\/the-second-reform-act-of-1867-party-interest-or-the-road-to-democracy-a-debate-between-rt-hon-the-lord-adonis-and-kwasi-kwarteng-mp\/","url_meta":{"origin":18174,"position":0},"title":"\u2018The Second Reform Act of 1867: party interest or the road to democracy?\u2019: A debate between Rt. Hon. The Lord Adonis and Kwasi Kwarteng MP","author":"History of Parliament","date":"January 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Tuesday the History of Parliament hosted our annual lecture in Westminster - also our new Director, Dr Stephen Roberts\u2019 first event. The event focused on the Second Reform Act of 1867 in the wake of its 150th anniversary in 2017. This year we approached proceedings differently to the traditional\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Victorian"","block_context":{"text":"Victorian","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/periods\/victorian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19349,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2026\/01\/01\/happy-new-year-from-the-victorian-commons-for-2026\/","url_meta":{"origin":18174,"position":1},"title":"Happy New Year from the Victorian Commons for 2026!","author":"Philip Salmon","date":"January 1, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Here\u2019s wishing all our readers a very enjoyable New Year! 2025 was a particularly memorable year for our 1832-68 House of Commons project and the History of Parliament. After 20 years based at Bloomsbury Square in the so-called \u2018knowledge quarter\u2019 around the British Museum, we sorted and packed decades of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "19th Century history"","block_context":{"text":"19th Century history","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/centuries\/19th-century-history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image_20251210_0001.jpg?fit=1200%2C970&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image_20251210_0001.jpg?fit=1200%2C970&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image_20251210_0001.jpg?fit=1200%2C970&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image_20251210_0001.jpg?fit=1200%2C970&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image_20251210_0001.jpg?fit=1200%2C970&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1501,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2017\/06\/01\/going-to-the-polls-in-historical-perspective\/","url_meta":{"origin":18174,"position":2},"title":"\u2018Not another one!\u2019: going to the polls in historical perspective","author":"Philip Salmon","date":"June 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"With UK electors heading off to the national polls for the third time in as many years and as part of our Election 2017 series, Dr Philip Salmon, editor of the Victorian Commons, looks for similar levels of electioneering activity in earlier periods... By June the UK will have clocked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Victorian"","block_context":{"text":"Victorian","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/periods\/victorian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/restoring-the-constitution-medal-1832.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/restoring-the-constitution-medal-1832.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/restoring-the-constitution-medal-1832.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/restoring-the-constitution-medal-1832.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4749,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2020\/05\/27\/parliamentary-reform-and-its-impact-on-exeter-1820-1868\/","url_meta":{"origin":18174,"position":3},"title":"\u2018The power of returning our members will henceforth be in our own hands\u2019: parliamentary reform and its impact on Exeter, 1820-1868","author":"Martin Spychal","date":"May 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Dr Martin Spychal, research fellow for the Commons 1832-68, uses polling and voter registration data to explore the 1832 Reform Act\u2019s impact on elections in Exeter.","rel":"","context":"In "Victorian Commons"","block_context":{"text":"Victorian Commons","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/sections\/victorian-commons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/exeter-1831-pro-reform-poster-sepia.jpg?fit=745%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/exeter-1831-pro-reform-poster-sepia.jpg?fit=745%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/exeter-1831-pro-reform-poster-sepia.jpg?fit=745%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/exeter-1831-pro-reform-poster-sepia.jpg?fit=745%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18563,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/09\/17\/the-role-and-power-of-the-victorian-house-of-lords\/","url_meta":{"origin":18174,"position":4},"title":"The role and power of the Victorian House of Lords","author":"Philip Salmon","date":"September 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Dr Philip Salmon looks at a key element of Parliament which we don't usually have much opportunity to reflect on in our work on Victorian MPs and constituencies: the House of Lords. As he explains below, the upper chamber played a vital role in many important 19th century reforms and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Victorian Commons"","block_context":{"text":"Victorian Commons","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/sections\/victorian-commons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/POW_POW_2801-001.jpg?fit=1200%2C728&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/POW_POW_2801-001.jpg?fit=1200%2C728&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/POW_POW_2801-001.jpg?fit=1200%2C728&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/POW_POW_2801-001.jpg?fit=1200%2C728&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/POW_POW_2801-001.jpg?fit=1200%2C728&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":53,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2012\/11\/22\/earl-greys-government\/","url_meta":{"origin":18174,"position":5},"title":"On this Day in 1830 \u2013 the formation of Earl Grey\u2019s government","author":"Philip Salmon","date":"November 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Today\u2019s Parliament Week \u2018on this day\u2019 article, written by the Victorian Commons\u2019 Dr Philip Salmon, focuses on reform in the early 19th Century. It\u2019s very fitting that the formation of Earl Grey\u2019s reforming government in 1830 should fit neatly into our series of Parliament Week articles. Aside from the blend\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "19th Century history"","block_context":{"text":"19th Century history","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/centuries\/19th-century-history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/reform-jugs-picture.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37925350"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18174"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18368,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18174\/revisions\/18368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}