England Objects to the Treaty of Versailles, June 1, 1919

Journal of Liberal History

Liberal thought and thinkers

  • Thomas Paine, 1737-1809

    Thomas Paine was born on 29 January 1737 at Thetford in Norfolk and was educated at the local grammar school. His father was a stay-maker, and this was Paine’s first occupation. In 1759, he married Mary Lambert, the daughter of a customs officer, but she died within a few months. This may have determined him…

  • Ramsay Muir, 1872-1941

    Ramsay Muir was a leading figure in the Liberal Summer School movement and the National Liberal Federation in the 1920s and 1930s. He was briefly a Liberal MP, but, more importantly, he was one of the most prominent Liberal thinkers in inter-war Britain, and had a marked influence on party policy. After his death, Muir…

  • Think Liberal: The Dictionary of Liberal Thought

    ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ Locke, Bentham, Mill, Hobhouse, Keynes, Rawls … Liberalism has been built on more than three centuries work of political thinkers and writers, and the aspirations of countless human beings who have fought for freedom, democracy, the rule of law and open…

  • John Stuart Mill and the Liberal Party

    Analysis of the impact of the Victorian Liberal philosopher on his party.

  • John Atkinson Hobson, 1858-1940

    John Atkinson Hobson, the economic writer and radical journalist most associated (along with L. T. Hobhouse) with Edwardian New Liberalism was born in Derby on 6 July 1858, the second son of William and Josephine (ne Atkinson) Hobson. William Hobson was the proprietor of the Derbyshire Advertiser, to which his son later contributed, and was…

  • John and Barbara Hammond, 1872-1949 and 1873-1961

    John Lawrence Le Breton Hammond (known as Lawrence) was born in 1872, the son of the Vicar of Drighlington in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Lucy Barbara Bradby (known as Barbara) was born in 1873, the daughter of the headmaster of Haileybury College. Married in 1901, the Hammonds had no children. They became pioneer social…

  • Thomas Paine

    What was the impact of Thomas Paine on Liberalism and liberal thought?

  • Think Liberal

    Review of Duncan Brack and Ed Randall (eds.), Dictionary of Liberal Thought (Politico’s Publishing, 2007).

  • Reformulating Liberalism

    Review of L. T. Hobhouse, Liberalism and Other Writings, edited by James Meadowcroft (Cambridge University Press, 1994).