History
Liberal Democrat History Group’s Sound Archive
Adrian Slade carried out all the interviews and here he explains their background:Since 2004 the Journal of Liberal History has been the guardian of what, although I say it myself, is now becoming a uniquely interesting party archive a set of CDs and audio-cassette tapes of in-depth interviews I have conducted with leading Liberal Democrats…
National Sound Archive
The National Sound Archive at the British Library holds various recordings of key Liberal figures.
Edison’s recording of Gladstone
The Gladstone recording would originally have been made on a cylinder for the phonograph which Thomas Edison announced to the world in 1877.
Richard Holme on the merger negotiations
My recollections of the process which led to the merger of the Liberal Party and the SDP are hazy since I am not a diary-keeper. Nor can I give anything but an outsider's view of the formal merger negotiations since, to my chagrin at the time, I was not elected to be a member of…
The Liberals and Ireland since 1801
Underneath the surface of this [Irish question], and wrapped up in it, are nearly all the controversies of principle which will agitate the political atmosphere of our time. It is a microcosm of the whole imperial question.
Macaulay on the lessons of the English Revolution
The History of England from the Accession of James the Second (5 vols., 1849-61; Vol.2, chapter 5).
Preamble to Liberal Democrat constitution
The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.
Liberal Party funding between the wars
One of the major problems facing the Liberal Party in the inter-war period was the lack of funds that they had at their disposal. As the Party became increasingly defunct, so it became impossible to attract the wealthy donors, who formed the foundation of the Liberal finances.
The 1931 general election
The National Government was formed in August 1931, following the failure of Ramsay Macdonald's minority Labour administration to deal with the mounting unemployment that was paralysing Britain. The Conservatives had been pressing for the adoption of protection throughout the proceeding period and the public were becoming increasingly frustrated by the apparent ineffectiveness of the free…