Dr Philip Salmon

Editor psalmon@histparl.ac.uk 

I joined the History of Parliament after completing a DPhil at Exeter College, University of Oxford. For the next 11 years I worked on the award-winning 1820-32 House of Commons volumes, published by Cambridge University Press (2009). I became editor of the 1832-1945 House of Commons project in 2009 and from 2017-21 was a Research Associate at Keble College, Oxford. I am currently a Fellow (Visiting) of Kellogg College, University of Oxford

Research interests
• The development of democratic institutions (national, local and colonial) in Britain, Ireland and Australia, c.1800-1914; their practical workings and impact on the emergence of distinctive political identities; the related ideas, literature and historiography of reform movements
• Elections and the role of the MP in Victorian politics; the cult of the public figure and the changing practices and functions of popular representation
• IT applications in history: digitisation and data analysis; computer-based psephology; ‘digital humanities’ and the impact of the web on political history

Media: for tv, radio, recorded talks and blogs click here

Books
Electoral reform at work: local politics and national parties, 1832-1841, (Royal Historical Society, 2011 & 2002) BUY

‘A truly outstanding contribution to the field of parliamentary and electoral history’, REVIEWS IN HISTORY
‘One of the most important books on nineteenth-century England in recent years’, PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY
‘Outstanding’, HISTORY

Co-editor, Partisan politics, principle and reform in parliament and the constituencies, 1689-1880, (Edinburgh University Press, 2005) BUY

Select articles

‘Political Leadership 1800-1900’ (co-author), in 300 Years of Political Leadership (St. James’s House, 2021), 77-115

‘Prorogation Gallery: historical examples of Parliament being suspended’, Times Literary Supplement, 6 Sept. 2019 VIEW

‘Parliament’, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History, 1800-2000, ed. D. S. Brown, R. Crowcroft and G. Pentland (Oxford University Press, 2018), 83-102 VIEW

Co-author, ‘Who should have the vote? What electoral rights did Britons have in the century before 1918’, History Today, lxviii. (August 2018), 24-35  VIEW

‘The 1818 election: more change than meets the eye’, Conservative History Journal, ii. issue 6 (2018), 18-20 VIEW

‘Nineteenth-century electoral reform’, Modern History Review, xviii (2015), 8-12 VIEW

‘”Plumping contests”: the impact of by-elections on English voting behaviour, 1790-1868′, in By-elections in British Politics, 1832-1914, ed. T. Otte and P. Readman (Boydell and Brewer, 2013), 23-49  VIEW

‘The parliamentary representation of Oxfordshire’, in An Historical Atlas of Oxfordshire, ed. K. Tiller and G. Darkes (Oxfordshire Record Society, 2010), 126-8 VIEW

‘The English reform legislation, 1831-32’, in The House of Commons, 1820-32, ed. D. Fisher (Cambridge University Press, 2009), i. 374-412 VIEW

‘The House of Commons, 1801-1911’, in A Short History of Parliament, ed. C. Jones (Boydell & Brewer, 2009), 248-69 VIEW

‘”Reform should begin at home”: English municipal and parliamentary reform, 1818-32’ in Partisan politics, principle and reform in parliament and the constituencies, 1689-1880, ed. C. Jones, P. Salmon and R. Davis, (Edinburgh University Press, 2005), 93-113 VIEW

Editor, ‘England’s “other” ballot question: the unnoticed political revolution of 1835’, in Partisan Politics, Principle and Reform, 139-163

‘John A. Phillips as a historian’, in Partisan Politics, Principle and Reform, pp. xxii-xxx VIEW

‘An emancipation election, Louth 1826’, History Today, lv (June 2005), 59

‘Joseph Parkes’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, xlii (2004), 777-780 VIEW

‘Electoral reform and the political modernization of England’, Parliaments, Estates, and Representation, xxiii (2003), 49-67 VIEW

‘Local politics and partisanship: the electoral impact of municipal reform, 1835’, Parliamentary History, xix (2000), 357-376 VIEW