1886-1895
Gladstone’s Parliamentary Record 1868-1900
William Gladstone led the Liberal Party in four governments over a quarter of a century (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94) bringing to fruition a wide range of reforms and almost coming to define Liberalism.
Joseph Chamberlain, 1836-1914
In a picture postcard (Tuck & Sons Ltd, c. 1905) Radical Joseph was pictured wearing a coat of many colours. Each segment was labelled with different stages in his political career: socialist, extreme radical, Gladstonian, Liberal Unionist, Conservative and protectionist and food taxer. Inconsistent was one of the more favourable epithets used of Chamberlain. To…
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 1836-1908
There have been four Liberals at the head of clearly Liberal governments – Gladstone, Rosebery, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith. Three of them are well-known names. Yet of the four, ‘CB’ was far and away the best party leader. Only Grimond, in very different circumstances, can compare with him. Had Campbell-Bannerman not become leader in…
Secular intellectuals
Review of William C. Lubenow, Liberal Intellectuals and Public Culture in Modern Britain, 1815-1914: Making Words Flesh (Boydell Press, 2010).
Land and nation in England
Review of Paul Readman, Patriotism, National Identity, and the Politics of Land, 1880-1914 (Royal Historical Society, 2008).
Report: Fighting Labour – the struggle for radical supremacy in Scotland 1885-1929
Report of the Liberal Democrat History Group meeting at the Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference, 13 March 2009, with Professor Richard Finlay, Dr Catriona Macdonald and Jim Wallace. Chair: Robert Brown MSP.
The high summer of Victorian Liberalism
Review of Ian Bradley, The Optimists: Themes and Personalities in Victorian Liberalism (Faber & Faber, 1980).
Sir Jerom Murch and the civic gospel in Victorian Bath
Analysis of the municipal record of the leader of Bath’s Victorian Liberals.