Current Research

History of Parliament Research

I joined the History of Parliament in 2009 after several years at Cambridge, where I completed my PhD – which was awarded the Seeley Medal and the Prince Consort Prize – at Christ’s College. I was a Fellow of Christ’s and then of Murray Edwards College. I am the assistant editor of the House of Commons, 1832-1945 project. We are currently working on the period 1832-1868, for which I’m researching biographies of MPs and constituencies. The regions I have focused on include Lancashire, Yorkshire and Suffolk.

Research and Publications

I am particularly interested in the development of party organisation, changes in electoral culture, and the interactions between the local and national dimensions of electoral politics. My book on Parties, agents and electoral culture in England, 1880-1910 was published by Boydell & Brewer as part of the Royal Historical Society’s Studies in History series in November 2016.

My other research interests include electoral corruption and legislative attempts to tackle it; parliamentary speech-making and the reporting of parliamentary proceedings; and parliamentary architecture.

I am a member of the editorial boards of Parliamentary History and the Journal of Liberal History. I was a member of the project board for the Vote 100 project which organised a major exhibition in Westminster Hall to mark the 100th anniversary of partial female enfranchisement in 2018.

My publications include:

‘The Backbenchers of the Nineteenth-century Commons: Activity and Accountability in the Age of Reform’, in Culture, Thought and Belief in British Political Life since 1800: Essays in Honour of Jonathan Parry, ed. P. Readman and G. Thomas (Boydell & Brewer, forthcoming, October 2024)

‘1880’, in British General Election Campaigns, 1830-2019, ed. I. Dale (Biteback, 2024), 119-31

‘Living in stone or marble: the public commemoration of Victorian MPs’, in Memory and modern British politics. Commemoration, tradition, legacy, ed. M. Roberts (Bloomsbury, 2024), 139-70

Contributor to Big Ben. An icon of democracy and leadership (2023)

- 'The "most difficult" subject for legislation: parliament and electoral corruption in the nineteenth century', in The many lives of corruption. The reform of public life in modern Britain c. 1750-1950, ed. I. Cawood and T. Crook (Manchester University Press, 2022), 156-76

- 'One of the most effective and welcome workers: Bertha Bowness Fischer, pioneering political organiser', Journal of Liberal History, 112 (2021), 12-19

- 'Foulkes [nee Fischer], Bertha Bowness (1875-1920)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2019)

- 'The backbone of the party: Conservative agents, 1880-1910', Conservative History Journal, 2:7 (2019)

- Contributor to Voice and Vote: Celebrating 100 Years of Votes for Women, ed. Mari Takayanagi, Melanie Unwin and Paul Seaward (2018)

- ‘Who should have the vote? What electoral rights did Britons have in the century before 1918?’, History Today, Aug. 2018, pp. 24-35 [co-authored with Philip Salmon]

- ‘The Second Reform Act and the problem of electoral corruption’, Parliamentary History, 36:1 (2017), 64-81

- Parties, agents and electoral culture in England, 1880-1910 (Boydell and Brewer, 2016)

- ‘ “Whatever passed in Parliament ought to be communicated to the public”: reporting the proceedings of the Reformed Commons, 1833-1850’, Parliamentary History, 33:3 (2014), 453-74

- ‘Professionalisation and political culture. Party agents, 1880-1914’, Journal of Liberal History, 84 (2014), 18-25

- ‘By-elections and the modernisation of party organisation, 1867-1914’, in By-elections in British Politics, 1832-1914, ed. T. Otte and P. Readman (Boydell and Brewer, 2013)

-- ‘“The elimination of corrupt practices in British elections”? Reassessing the impact of the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act’, English Historical Review, CXXIII (2008), 65-97

- ‘Les agents de circonscription en Grande-Bretagne (1880-1914): la professionalisation d’un rôle politique’, Politix, special edition on ‘La fabrique des partis en Grande-Bretagne’, 21:81 (2008), 41-60

- ‘Hidden workers of the party. The professional Liberal agents, 1885-1910’, Journal of Liberal History, 52 (2006), 4-13

- ‘“Go out into the highways and the hedges”: the diary of Michael Sykes, Conservative political lecturer, 1895 and 1907-8’, Parliamentary History, 20:2 (2001), 209-31