1956-1976
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Roy Jenkins (Lord Jenkins), 1920-2003
Roy Jenkins played a significant role in developing and articulating a new progressive vision of social, political and constitutional change. His reforms at the Home Office helped to transform Britain into a more modern, more civilised society. He was a successful, if orthodox, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He played an important and consistent role in…
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Violet Bonham Carter (Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury), 1887-1969
Violet Bonham Carter was born in Hampstead on 15 April 1887 as Helen Violet Asquith, the daughter of Herbert Henry Asquith and his first wife Helen Melland. In 1891 Violet’s mother died of typhoid fever, and in 1894 Asquith married Margot Tennant. At the time of Violet’s birth, Asquith had just entered the House of Commons.…
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Jeremy Thorpe, 1929-2014
The infamy of Jeremy Thorpe’s downfall unfairly colours all else in his life. Thorpe was a stylish, progressive and popular politician. Under his leadership the Liberal Party won more votes than ever before or since at a general election and helped drive legislation taking Britain into the European Community through a divided Parliament. But the…
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Red Guard versus Old Guard? The influence of the Young Liberal movement on the Liberal Party in the 1960s and 1970s
Report of the Liberal Democrat History Group conference fringe meeting held in Birmingham, 12 March 2010, with Matt Cole, Michael Steed, William Wallace, George Kiloh, and Bernard Greaves; chair: Tony Greaves.
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Review: A neglected party
Review of David Dutton, Liberals in Schism – A History of the National Liberal Party (I. B. Tauris, 2008).
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The yellow glass ceiling: the mystery of the disappearing Liberal women MPs
Only six women ever sat as Liberal MPs, and most only for very short periods. This article examines why.
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Liberals and local government in London since the 1970s
Report of meeting of 4 February 2008, with Cllr Sir David Williams and Mike Tuffrey GLA.
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Whatever happened to ‘Orpington Man’?
The Orpington by-election of March 1962 was a political landmark: a stunning victory for Jo Grimond’s Liberal Party, as Eric Lubbock turned a Conservative majority of 14,760 into a Liberal majority of 7,855. The term ‘Orpington Man’ was coined by the press to identify a new type of voter, young, white-collar, skilled, well-educated and upwardly…
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Liberalism and Unionist Northern Ireland
1921 – 1971: despite all the obstacles, Liberalism survived in Northern Ireland after partitition.