To commemorate the sad death of Menzies Campbell, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, on 26 September 2025, we are reprinting here the chapter on him from our book British Liberal Leaders (Biteback, 2015).
Sir Menzies Campbell
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Women for Liberty: The women who built Liberalism and the party
September 19, 2026 / 13:00
Educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and the University of London, Gilmore worked in corporate communications, serving as director of communications for the NFU and head of strategy at the Environment Agency. Gilmore joined the Liberal Party while at school and fought her first general election in 1997 at Nottingham South. At a local level she served as a councillor on Taunton Deane Borough Council and later Mid Devon District Council. In the disastrous 2015 election she was selected to contest Taunton Dean in place of retiring Liberal Democrat MP Jeremy Browne but lost to the Conservatives. Selected to contest the new seat of Tiverton and Minehead for the 2024 election, she defeated the former Tory MP Ian Liddle-Grainger with a majority of 3,507. She has been a member of the Public Accounts Committee since October 2024.
To commemorate the sad death of Menzies Campbell, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, on 26 September 2025, we are reprinting here the chapter on him from our book British Liberal Leaders (Biteback, 2015).
Sir Menzies Campbell
(more…)You have a choice of the following plans:
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We publish the Journal of Liberal History and a range of books
The Liberal Democrat History Group promotes the discussion and research of topics relating to the histories of the British Liberal Democrats and its predecessor parties, the Liberal Party and the SDP, and of liberalism more broadly.

We aim to appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of British Liberalism, whether academics, party activists or spare-time students of political history.
Things we do:
Publish the quarterly Journal of Liberal History, containing articles, book reviews, biographies, and meeting reports
Publish books, including Peace, Reform and Liberation: A History of Liberal Politics in Britain 1679-2011, Dictionary of Liberal Thought, and Great Liberal Speeches
Make resources available to students of Liberal history, including news of research in progress and guides to archive sources (see Research resources)
Provide a concise history of the Liberal Democrats and its predecessor parties, along with a more extensive set of historical articles and biographies – the Liberal History Online project, available through themes and time periods.
Publish shorter booklets as concise reference sources, including Liberal History (a concise history of the Liberal Democrats and its predecessor parties), Liberal Leaders 1828-1899, Liberal Leaders of the Twentieth Century and Mothers of Liberty: Women who built British Liberalism
Organise discussion meetings, both in London and as fringe meetings at Liberal Democrat conferences
“There are hazards in everything one does, but there are greater hazards in doing nothing.”
Shirley Williams
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