Tag Archives: Female participation

The radical hostess of Parliament Street: Harriet Grote (1792-1878), the 1832 election and establishing influence as a woman at Westminster

Posted on May 24, 2021 by Martin Spychal

In the second of his blogs on Harriet Grote (1792-1878), our research fellow, Dr Martin Spychal, explores Harriet’s introduction to electoral politics at the 1832 election and her preparations for the 1833 parliamentary session… The 1832 election introduced Harriet Grote … Continue reading →

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‘Had she been a man, she would have been the leader of a party’: Harriet Grote (1792-1878), radicalism and Parliament, 1820-41

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Martin Spychal

In the first of his blogs on Harriet Grote (1792-1878), our research fellow Dr Martin Spychal, explores Harriet’s early life, her emergence as a central figure among London’s intellectual radicals during the 1820s and her arrival on the Westminster political … Continue reading →

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A Highland canvass in a ‘pocket county’: Ronald Gower (1845-1916) and the 1867 Sutherland by-election

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Martin Spychal

In the fourth blog of his series on Lord Ronald Gower (1845-1916), Dr Martin Spychal, uses Gower’s diaries to provide some rare insights into mid-Victorian electioneering in the ‘pocket county’ of Sutherland. This blog was also posted as part of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Constituencies, Elections, Parliamentary life, Queer Parliamentary Life, Ronald Gower Series, Scotland, women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A female politician? Lady Derby and mid-Victorian political life

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Kathryn Rix

Originally posted on The History of Parliament:
Continuing our series on Women and Parliament, Dr. Jennifer Davey of the University of East Anglia looks at the influence of Mary, Countess of Derby (1824-1900) within the worlds of high politics and…

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

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Kathryn Rix

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 →

Posted in Guest blog, Parliamentary buildings, women | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Voice and Vote: behind the scenes

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Kathryn Rix

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 Kathryn Rix

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 Martin Spychal

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 →

Posted in Elections, MP of the Month, women, Working-class politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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

Posted on November 26, 2017 by Kathryn Rix

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 Martin Spychal

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 Kathryn Rix

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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‘The first humble beginnings of an agitation’: the women’s suffrage petition of 7 June 1866

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Kathryn Rix

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the presentation to Parliament of the first mass women’s suffrage petition on 7 June 1866. Signed by around 1,500 women, it was presented to the Commons by John Stuart Mill, who had been returned … Continue reading →

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MP of the month: William Pinney and another kind of ‘slavery election’

Posted on November 29, 2015 by salmonphilip

William Pinney’s career as an MP serves as an important reminder of the legacy of slave ownership in British public life and the very different attitudes to electoral corruption that existed in the nineteenth century, even among radically-inclined Liberals. In Pinney’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Biographies, Constituencies, Corruption, Elections, MP of the Month | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

MP of the month: Wyndham Lewis

Posted on July 28, 2014 by salmonphilip

Wyndham Lewis (1780-1838) is probably best remembered today for bankrolling the future prime minister Benjamin Disraeli’s election to Parliament. Lewis’s wife Mary, an aspiring society hostess with an eye for younger men, had taken a shine to Disraeli and adopted … Continue reading →

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Parliament Week 2013: Women in Democracy

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Kathryn Rix

To mark Parliament Week 2013, the theme of which is ‘Women in Democracy’, we would like to share some of our recent research highlighting the varied nature of female participation in British political life during the nineteenth century, despite the … Continue reading →

Posted in Elections, women | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

MP of the month: George Faithfull

Posted on June 19, 2013 by salmonphilip

Continuing our recent focus on Victorian female voters and women’s suffrage, this MP of the month feature highlights the career of George Faithfull (1790-1863), a Brighton radical who clashed spectacularly with his former supporters over the rights of women voters … Continue reading →

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The Victorian female franchise

Posted on March 18, 2013 by salmonphilip

Welcome to the first of our guest blogs. On BBC Radio 4 tonight Dr Sarah Richardson presents a programme about the discovery of an early Victorian poll book listing women voters (click here to listen). Female participation in non-parliamentary elections … Continue reading →

Posted in Elections, Guest blog, Local government, women | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments