Author Archives: Martin Spychal

‘So much for the behaviour of the first assemblage of gentlemen’: views from parliament by a Devonshire Tory

Posted on August 16, 2018

Our Victorian MP of the Month is the Conservative MP for Devonshire South, Montagu Parker. His correspondence with his mother between 1835 and 1841 provides a fascinating perspective on life at Westminster. Montagu Edmund Newcombe Parker (1807-1858) is best known … Continue reading →

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Imagery and props: Wellington, Disraeli and Gladstone

Posted on August 8, 2018

Our research fellow Dr. Martin Spychal shares some insights from his work on the BBC Radio 4 series, Prime Ministers’ Props… I’ve recently been working with our former editorial board member, Professor Sir David Cannadine on the second series of … Continue reading →

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MP of the Month: Joseph Locke (1805-1860)

Posted on April 24, 2018

Our Victorian MP of the Month is Joseph Locke (1805-1860), who represented Honiton from 1847 until his death. With Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) and Robert Stephenson (1803-1859), Locke formed the ‘triumvirate of the engineering world’, who laid the architecture of … Continue reading →

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MP of the Month: George Donisthorpe Thompson (1804-1878)

Posted on December 12, 2017

December’s MP of the Month blog charts the path into Parliament of George Thompson, a self-educated book-seller’s son. As one of Britain’s foremost platform orators he was a major figure in the abolition of slavery in the West Indies and … Continue reading →

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MP of the Month: Charles Gilpin (1815-1874)

Posted on September 27, 2017

One of the most illuminating aspects of our work for the Victorian Commons is the discovery of significant, but long-forgotten, parliamentarians. September’s MP of the Month, Charles Gilpin (1815-1874), certainly falls under this description. As the first and only Quaker … Continue reading →

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Some parallels: the 1832 and 2018 boundary reviews

Posted on July 3, 2017

To celebrate the recent open-access publication of his article ‘‘One of the best men of business we had ever met’: Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act’, our Research Fellow on the 1832-1868 project, Dr Martin Spychal, … Continue reading →

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Five elections in seven years: Peterborough, Whalley and the Fitzwilliam interest

Posted on April 28, 2017

With suggestions of election fatigue setting in across Britain, this week’s blog – featuring our MP of the Month, George Hammond Whalley – looks at a constituency which saw five elections held in seven years between 1852 and 1859: the … Continue reading →

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