The Office of Housekeeper of the House of Lords

This note illustrates one aspect of the process whereby the palace of Westminster evolved from a royal residence into the seat of parliament, explains how the housekeeper of that palace came to be associated with the house of lords and lists the holders of the office from the 16th to the 19th century.     

The Speakership of the House of Lords, 1660–1832

The speakership of the house of lords was a lucrative and prestigious post, held by individuals who either as lord chancellor or lord keeper carried out a range of high-profile and demanding judicial duties. There seems to be a contradiction between this and the time-consuming but largely empty ceremonial duties appropriate to this role in the conduct of business in the theoretically self-regulating house of lords. This article suggests that the apparent insignificance of the Speaker's role was a façade that disguised the chancellor's ability to influence the conduct of business in the Lords as well as to exercise leadership and electoral influence over the membership of the Commons. Nevertheless, the precise level of power that he was able to exercise was mediated by the nature of the political infrastructure within which he operated, his own personal and political skills and his relationships with the crown and its other ministers.     

The Members of the House of Lords and the Hanoverian Succession

This essay examines what happened in August and September 1714, from the death of Queen Anne on 1 August to the swearing-in of the new privy council on 1 October, specifically from the perspective of the membership of the house of lords. It confirms that most members were present in London during this period and active in parliament, the privy council, the regency, and politics generally. Very few were absent without a good reason.     

Geoffrey Holmes and the House of Lords Reconsidered

The publication of Geoffrey Holmes's British Politics in the Age of Anne , arguably, did more than any other volume of the period to reinvigorate interest in the house of lords in the Augustan period. The upper chamber, which had been largely overlooked by historians such as Sir Lewis Namier and Robert Walcott, had come to be regarded as a very inferior partner to the house of commons, populated by great landowners whose principal interest was to see the furtherance of their kinship networks. Holmes's work demonstrated clearly the central role of the Lords in British political life and revised radically the accepted orthodoxy that family predominated over ideology in the early 18th century. This article seeks to reassess Holmes's contribution to the study of the Lords in the light of research undertaken since the publication of British Politics and to suggest some ways in which Holmes's model, which remains broadly unassailable, might be reshaped.     

Conservatives,the Constitution and the Quest for a ‘Representative’ House of Lords, 1911–35*

This article presents a new interpretation of Conservative attitudes towards house of lords' reform in the early 20th century. Coinciding, as it did, with the introduction of universal adult suffrage, the campaign to reform and strengthen the second chamber has traditionally been understood as a reaction against democracy. Conversely, this article, emphasizing the politics rather than policies of reform, argues that many Conservatives sought to establish a legitimate role for a second chamber within the new democratic settlement and that the campaign for reform is, consequently, better understood as a constitutional means of ‘making safe’, rather than resisting, mass democracy. The account sheds new light on how the impulse behind reform was frequently rooted in a commitment to democracy, how reform commanded the support of a wide cross section of the Conservative parliamentary party, and why the reform campaign had folded by the early 1930s. In doing so, it reframes an important episode that helped close the long‐19th‐century tradition of constitutional reform in British politics.     

Heir Not Apparent: Douglas Hailsham,the Role of the House of Lords,and the Succession to the Conservative Leadership 1928–31*

The moment that Lord Curzon was passed over and Stanley Baldwin succeeded Andrew Bonar Law as prime minister in 1923 is generally regarded as a turning point in British political history. From this time it appeared that members of the house of lords were barred from leading political parties and becoming prime minister. In an age of mass democracy it was deemed unacceptable for the premier to reside in an unelected and largely emasculated chamber. This understanding is seemingly confirmed by the career of the Conservative politician, Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham. Notwithstanding a late entry into political life, he was regarded as a potential successor to Baldwin. His acceptance of a peerage to become lord chancellor in 1928 has been seen as the moment when Hailsham's claims to lead the Conservative party ended. But although Hailsham never became Conservative leader, his experience undermines the suggestion that peers were unable to lead political parties in inter‐war Britain. Despite his position in the Lords, his chances of succeeding Baldwin never vanished. The crisis in Baldwin's leadership after the loss of the 1929 general election and the lack of a suitable successor in the Commons created the circumstances in which leadership from the Lords by a man of Hailsham's ability could be contemplated. Hailsham's continuing prominence within the Conservative ranks and specifically his contributions to the party during the years 1929–31, together with the thoughts of high‐ranking Conservative contemporaries, make it clear that he very nearly emerged as Baldwin's successor at this time.     

The Debate in the House of Lords on 'No Peace without Spain', 7 December 1711: A New Source

The debate in the house of lords on 'No Peace without Spain' in December 1711 was the first test of the strength of the administration of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, in the upper House. Though there are more sources for this debate than is normal for proceedings in the Lords, few can claim to be by eyewitnesses. A newly 'discovered' anonymous letter from an eyewitness found in the papers of the lord great chamberlain's office in the Parliamentary Archives gives a detailed account of this important debate.     

House of Lords Committee Accommodation and Its Use: Restoration and Renewal in the 19th and 20th Centuries*

Following the 1834 fire, the work of house of lords committees continued virtually without interruption, at first in temporary accommodation and, from 1846, in rooms in the new palace designed by Charles Barry. This article charts the history of house of lords committee activity and the varied use of its accommodation at Westminster from 1834 to the present. Major committee work immediately following the fire included an inquiry into prison reform. Barry's accommodation was scantily fitted out, and quickly needed technical and other adaptations. Committees themselves changed too, with the heaviest phase of private bill activity needed for the creation of the railways tailing off by the late 1860s. Following a low point in committee activity between 1940 and 1970 committee work has developed in fits and starts from 1971 onwards. The further expansion of committees following the Jellicoe committee report of 1992 was accommodated by the reform of private bill procedure, which helped free up committee rooms, and in October 2009, the establishment of the Supreme Court meant that the law lords no longer sat judicially in the large committee rooms 1 and 2. Since 2012, however, the further expansion of committee activity has not been matched by an increase in its accommodation.     

‘Too Wild to Succeed’: The Occasional Conformity Bills and the Attempts by the House of Lords to Outlaw the Tack in the Reign of Anne*

By the late 17th century it had been largely established as a part of the ‘constitution’ that the house of commons played the leading role in proposing financial legislation and that the house of lords by convention could not amend such bills, but only accept or reject them. From the late 1670s, the practice developed of the Commons ‘tacking’ money or supply bills to other, controversial legislation, to try to ensure that the Lords would pass the whole bill. This underhand proceeding sometimes worked, but at other times the Lords amended the non‐monetary parts in such a way as to render the bill unacceptable to the Commons, but such actions sometimes resulted in the loss of financial legislation necessary for the king's government. From the 1690s, the whig‐dominated Lords attempted to ‘outlaw’ tory‐backed tacking by protesting at its unparliamentary nature. This culminated in a formal declaration by the House in 1702 of the unconstitutionality of tacking. The last major attempt at tacking took place over the Occasional Conformity Bills of 1702–4. The final bill of 1704 essentially failed, however, because of the party strengths in the Lords when the tories were outvoted by the whigs. The Lords, however, continued to condemn tacking until at least 1709.     

A Changing House: The Life Peerages Act 1958*

The year 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the Life Peerages Act 1958. The first life peer to obtain his letters patent was Lord Fraser of Lonsdale (Sir William Jocelyn Ian Fraser) on 1 August 1958. The first life peer to be introduced in the Lords was Lord Parker of Waddington (Sir Hubert Lister Parker) on 21 October 1958. The first woman peer to receive her letters patent dated 8 August 1958 was Baroness Wootton of Abinger (Barbara Frances Wootton), and the first woman peer to take her seat in the Lords was Baroness Swanborough (Dame Stella Isaacs, marchioness of Reading), ahead of Baroness Wootton on 21 October 1958. This article gives an overview of the background to life peerages and women peers before 1958, including the importance of two peerage cases, the Wensleydale case 1856 and the Rhondda case 1922. It does so with particular reference to women and the house of lords. It also considers the passage of the act itself; the initial life peers created in 1958; final equality between men and women peers achieved by the Peerage Act 1963; and the impact of life peers on the House since 1958.     

Why the History of Parliament Has Not Been Written*

There have been legions of individual studies of the history of the English/British/United Kingdom parliament, which is not surprising, since its history is widely acknowledged to be so closely bound up with the history of the nation state itself. But there have been remarkably few attempts to put the story together, to try to consider the long‐term development of parliament as an institution. What would such a story look like? This essay discusses some of the critiques of the whiggish narrative of constitutional and parliamentary development to recognise a common theme in whiggism's tendency to anthropomorphise parliament, to describe it as a single organism with agency and purpose. To forgo that temptation, however, makes it difficult to provide a satisfying narrative of parliament over time. The essay tries to imagine how one might construct a history of parliament as an institution which no longer sees it as an actor in its own story, but, instead, a complex collection of ideas, processes, customs, and conventions, which competing forces struggle to organise in order to achieve their goals, and which is also an arena and forum for that competition.     

The Peerage and the Revolution of 1688

Four points support the thesis that the English nobility played a critical role in the revolution. First, the later 17th‐century aristocracy was energetic, wealthy, and connected in ways facilitating political action within, and subsequently outside, the parliamentary arena. Second, it was a class conscious of status and privilege which many policies of James II bumped up against inadvertently, but often with negative consequence. Third, most peers were observant protestants in an age when religious belief, or at least the externals of practice, still mattered greatly. Fourth, habits of deference and traditional spheres of influence at the local level remained surprisingly intact despite intensive royal effort to reshape the lieutenancies, commissions of the peace, and municipal and other corporate bodies. Resistance to repeal of the Test Acts was the issue around which a leadership group emerged in the aristocracy. Initially it focused on a parliamentary solution in which an absolute majority in the house of lords could be counted on to stand firm no matter how the Commons might vote. In the absence of that opportunity and in the face of other events regarded as inimical to class, nation and the protestant interest, many peers turned away from natural alliance with the crown and – in the case of a forward group – conspired with the prince of Orange. Ultimately, more than a third of the nobility aligned itself with those peers intent on constraining the king's freedom of political action, an important factor contributing to his decision to flee.