Tag Archives: Female participation

An Artist in the Attic: Women and the House of Commons in the Early-Nineteenth Century

Posted on September 13, 2018 by

In this guest post, Amy Galvin-Elliott from the University of Warwick looks at how women were able to witness debates in the House of Commons from the ‘ventilator’, a space used until the fire of October 1834 destroyed the old … Continue reading →

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Voice and Vote: behind the scenes

Posted on July 11, 2018 by

Originally posted on The History of Parliament:
This blog looks at how the History of Parliament has been involved behind the scenes with the Voice and Vote exhibition which opened in Westminster Hall last week. Dr. Philip Salmon and Dr.…

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Before the vote was won: women and politics, 1832-68

Posted on February 2, 2018 by

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which received royal assent on 6 February. For the first time, virtually all the adult male population received the parliamentary franchise, whereas before this reform, around … Continue reading →

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

Posted on December 12, 2017 by

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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‘A woman actually voted!’: Lily Maxwell and the Manchester by-election of November 1867

Posted on November 26, 2017 by

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the casting of a parliamentary vote by Lily Maxwell, a Manchester shopkeeper, more than half a century before the partial enfranchisement of women in 1918. On 26 November 1867, at a by-election in Manchester, … Continue reading →

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

Posted on April 28, 2017 by

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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MP of the Month: Daniel Gaskell (1782-1875)

Posted on June 27, 2016 by

Our Victorian Commons project is shedding new light on the increasingly important role played in the behind-the-scenes business of the post-1832 House of Commons, particularly in the committee-rooms, by MPs who came from non-elite backgrounds. While a family inheritance enabled … Continue reading →

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