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FAQs

Can I use History of Parliament material in my own work/website?

The History of Parliament website contains material that is the copyright of the History of Parliament Trust or is Crown Copyright, 1964-2011. Some of the material, mostly images, belongs to other copyright holders. Details relating to copyright are contained in the terms and conditions document. Basically, you can retrieve and download material on this web site only for personal, educational and non-commercial use. You can cite from it and make short quotations from it without asking us, as long as you provide a reference to the original (up to about 250 words, as long as this does not constitute the entire article). Any other use requires written permission from the History of Parliament or from the other copyright holder.

How should I cite material on the website?

The urls for each article are permanent and citable: e.g., http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/gardiner-francis-1634-1714

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/constituencies/cambridge

We plan to correct the articles on an ongoing basis, and therefore it is adviseable to include a date in your citation.

Why does one person sometimes have more than one biography?

The online History of Parliament reflects the way in which the print volumes were researched, written and published over a long period of time. Projects were undertaken on a chronological basis, with the volumes covering 1754-90 appearing first, then those covering 1715-54, then the 1660-90, 1509-58 and 1558-1603 volumes, and so on. Many men had careers as Members of Parliament which crossed these chronological boundaries and therefore they have biographies in more than one of the sections into which the History is divided. In the longer term we would like to edit these biographies so that there is only article relating to any Member of Parliament, and also update and correct them at the same time. However it will be a long time before we are able to do this.

Where there is more than one biography of one person, why are the details sometimes different?

The biographies have been researched and written over a long period of time. Often, an article written later may correct information on a particular individual that was published in a previous set of volumes. The articles on the website (with minor exceptions) give the text as it was published; no attempt has been made to update articles published earlier with information provided in articles published more recently.

Where the details are different in two biographies of the same man, which ones are right?

Details in the biography published most recently should be preferred. Publication dates are:

1386-1421 published in 1992

1509-1558 published in 1982

1558-1603 published in 1981

1604-1629 published in 2010

1660-1690 published in 1983

1690-1715 published in 2002

1715-1754 published in 1970

1754-1790 published in 1964

1790-1820 published in 1986

1820-1832 published in 2009

What do all the abbreviations mean?

We are working on expanding the various abbreviations found in the History’s articles. In the meantime, click here for a list of common abbreviations.

I’ve found a mistake. How can I get it corrected?

We’re delighted to hear from people who have corrections or additions to the material published about a particular MP, or constituency. Please write using the contact address given on the website, website@histparl.ac.uk, or by using the form under the ‘contact us’ tab above. Don’t expect any changes to be made quickly, though! We need to make sure that the corrections are right, and we don’t have a lot of spare capacity to do that. We are also working on creating a way of showing corrections and additions to individual articles.

The website suggests that there is material available for 1422-1509 and1640-60 but I can’t get to it. Why?

We are currently working up to the publication of the material for 1422-1509 and 1640-60, which should be in around five or six years’ time. At the moment we are not making the draft articles for these periods available online. The articles will be available online two years after their print publication date. For more information, visit our current research section.

There seems to be a gap between 1629 and 1640. Why?

There was no Parliament between these years, a period often referred to as the ‘Personal Rule’ of Charles I, for this reason. Therefore we don’t claim that our volumes are covering the period.