1688-1830
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Viscount Melbourne (William Lamb), 1779-1848
Right from his London birth on 15 March 1779, at Melbourne House in Piccadilly, William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne, was at the centre of Whig social circles. The second son of Peniston Lamb, first Viscount Melbourne, he followed a normal early life for sons of Whig magnates Eton, Cambridge University, and education for a legal…
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Earl Grey (Charles Grey), 1764-1845
Charles Grey, second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick and Baron Grey, was the Prime Minister who oversaw the Great Reform Act of 1832, which overhauled the country’s parliamentary electoral system and was the culmination of two years of intense political crisis. Born on 13 March 1764, at Fallodon in Northumberland, his youth was spent in a…
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Philosopher of freedom
Wilhelm von Humboldt and early German Liberalism.
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Charles James Fox, the Repeal of Poynings Law, and the Act of Union
1782 – 1801: the critical period in Irish and British history during which many of the seeds of the present troubles were sown.
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David Ricardo, 1772-1823
Less well-known than Adam Smith, Ricardo is nevertheless his intellectual and philosophical equal. He is credited alongside Smith with founding the classical school of economics. Inspired by Smith and driven by his friend, James Mill (father of John Stuart Mill), Ricardo provides an historical bridge between the economic and political liberals, although his own writings…
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Crunch times for the Liberal Democrats?
Interviews with Tim Razzall and Chris Rennard.
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Biography: Edmund Burke
The career and political thought of Edmund Burke.
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Grimond’s rival
The life and political career of the contentious, individualistic, right-wing Liberal MP for Cardiganshire from 1945 until 1966, Captain E. Roderic Bowen MP (1913-2001).