Parliamentary History Journal

The latest edition of Parliamentary History will be landing through our subscriber’s letterboxes in the next few weeks! Please do subscribe to get access to these and the many fascinating articles in our archives.

And, last but not least:

Ben Sayle on ‘Constitutional Alienation’ and the Unionist Party During The Ulster Crisis, 1911–1914’

Sarah Moxey on ‘A Motherwell Miracle and A Sponsorship Saga: The Motherwell By–election, 1945’

Harry M. Lewis on ‘Securing a Parliament of Protestant Planters in St. Kitts, 1688–1727’

D.W. Hayton on ‘Party Conflict in an Irish parliamentary borough in the early eighteenth century: The origins of the Kilkenny Corporation Act of 1717’

Other fascinating articles to get stuck into include:

Samuel Lane on ‘Episcopal Attendance at the Parliaments of Edward III’

Alex Beeton on ‘Private sollicitations’: Educational Reform and the Long Parliament, 1642–53

It’s also exciting to have doctoral student @chloechallender.bsky.social contributing ‘Ringside seat? Women’s modes of entry to the early 19th century parliament’, which promises to be a fascinating read!

Parliamentary History Click on the title to browse this journal

We’re delighted that @jamesepeate.bsky.social is one of the early career contributors to the next edition of Parliamentary History on ‘Rough Work on the Hustings’: Sheridan, Cobbett, and Newspapers in the General Election of 1806.

Subscribe here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1750...

You’ll have plenty of articles to tuck into, with fascinating and original subjects including educational reform during the Long Parliament, ‘Constitutional Alienation’ during the 1911-14 Ulster Crisis, and the 1945 Motherwell by-election.

Next month’s edition of Parliamentary History will be the first mostly composed of articles by doctoral and early career scholars, with four drawn from winning entries to our annual essay prize.

There’s still plenty of time to enter this year’s competition: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1750...

2/ to mark the bicentenary of Catholic emancipation, edited by Ashley Walsh of Cardiff University and Peter Walker of the University of Wyoming

1/ Our editor Richard Gaunt has written a chapter on the 1828 County Clare by-election for @iaindale.bsky.social's new book. Daniel O'Connell, a Catholic, was elected to the House of Commons in a major development in the Catholic emancipation campaign. We will have a special issue in 2029

@chloechallender.bsky.social will have an article on women's modes of entry to the early nineteenth-century parliament in our next issue, coming in October. More to follow!

I've just completed the index for @jonathanmcgovern.bsky.social's book 'The Early Parliaments of Henry VIII - an important and very comprehensive work of parliamentary history, coming soon from @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social boydellandbrewer.com/book/the-ear...

A good opportunity to reflect on all the informative and interesting subjects covered by In Our Time over the years, especially on Parliamentary history! The Great Reform Act episode is one of our favourites, what are yours?

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

There’s still plenty of time to submit an entry to the Parliamentary History Essay Prize!

MP of the Month: Edward King Tenison One of our earliest Victorian Commons blogs looked at the career of William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of photography, who sat briefly as Whig MP for Chippenham, 1832-5. Our MP of the Month is …

For #WorldPhotographyDay we are revisiting our blog on a pioneering photographer who was also an Irish MP. Edward King Tenison drew on the work of William Henry Fox Talbot (also an MP) to develop the use of paper negatives. Find out more about him here: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2017/06/27/m...

‘Like herrings in a barrel’: the chamber of the House of Commons prior to 1834 In this new series of blogs on the Palace of Westminster, we look at the three different debating chambers occupied by the MPs who sat in Parliament between 1832 and 1868, beginning with the Common…

#OnThisDay 1834 the Radical MP Joseph Hume argued that a new House of Commons should be built, complaining of over-crowding and the ‘pestilential air’. Find out more about the old House of Commons in our post: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2021/01/25/l...

‘A Reward for so Meritorious an Action’ ? Lord Hervey's Summons to the House of Lords and Walpole's Management of the Upper Chamber (1727–42) In 1733 Lord Hervey was summoned to the house of lords early. The move has traditionally been seen as part of an effort by Walpole to increase his ministry's strength in the upper chamber in spite of...

Hervey's summons to the Lords has traditionally been attributed to Walpole's need for more star talent in the Upper Chamber, but might it also have been to do with an earlier promise following Hervey's duel with William Pulteney?
@parlhistjournal.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Amazing- thank you for this!

Thank you! I'll keep my eyes peeled for this!

Sheridan's skill as an orator is well attested.
However, the real experts are the editors of the Sheridan project, currently being undertaken between the universities of Leeds and Aberystwyth.
ahc.leeds.ac.uk/english/dir-...

FYI, I studied politics and theatre in the 1920s/30s. If I'm 2nd hand book shopping, I have a rule that I'm only allowed to buy plays I mentioned in my PhD thesis and that were printed at the time I was writing about!

It means I have to be disciplined, but it's also quite good fun!

This edition of Sheridan's 'The Rivals' claims that, in speechmaking, Sheridan was "the peer of Fox, Burke, and Pitt in a time full of great orators".

Is this a widely accepted claim today?

@histparl.bsky.social #parlisky #skystorians

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Submissions must be original research, not already accepted for publication. The text should not exceed 10,000 words (including references).

🧵4/4

Submissions should be on a historical subject related to the history of parliaments and their representative institutions in Britain, Ireland, and British Colonial Dependencies.

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onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1750...

The prize is restricted to early career researchers (those within 8 years of the award of their PhD, or within 6 years of their first academic appointment, excluding any period of career break).

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'The Right Honorable J. Ramsay MacDonald addressing the House of Commons', by Sir John Lavery, 1923. Oil on Canvas. Credit Glasgow Life Museums. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-right-honourable-j-ramsay-macdonald-addressing-the-house-of-commons-84786

The Parliamentary History Essay Prize 2025 is open!
The prize is worth £500 and winners will have their essay published in our journal!

The submission deadline is 30 Nov 2025!

For details 👇
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@histparl.bsky.social @georgianlords.bsky.social @victoriancommons.bsky.social

Looking forward to this symposium marking the 250th anniversary of Daniel O'Connell's birth here at the Edmund Burke Theatre @tcddublin.bsky.social, organised by @tlrhub.bsky.social

The Palace of Westminster in London, July 2008, by Mike Gimelfarb. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parliament_at_Sunset.JPG

. @bettovanwaarden.bsky.social shows that, when it came to parliamentary broadcasting, roles were reversed and Westminster, the original model parliament, in fact came to study other parliaments.

Read free 👇
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@HistParl
#History #Parliament

Eleanor Rathbone campaigning LSE https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eleanor_Rathbone_campaigning.jpg

Sir Robert Newman, MP for Exeter 1918-31, was the only interwar Con. MP to be deselected but successfully hold his seat.

Paul Auchterlonie explores his role in supporting legislation for women, for which Eleanor Rathbone called him a 'Guardian Angel'.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...