Accommodation in the Painted Chamber for Conferences between the Lords and the Commons from 1600 to 1834

The Painted Chamber, adjacent to the old house of lords at Westminster, was the venue for conferences between the house of lords and house of commons designed to settle any disagreements between the two Houses. Information about the accommodation in the Painted Chamber and its furnishings is provided by a study of a plan by Sir Christopher Wren dated about 1703 and a painting by William Capon of 1799. This note discusses the layout of the accommodation in the early 17th century and how it changed after the Restoration in 1660 and again at the union with Ireland in 1801. It further considers how the furnishings dictated the use of the space by the managers of the conferences, and how the gentleman of the black rod regulated the use of the Painted Chamber by the public.     

湖南七星墩遗址中红烧土建筑材料的科学分析

新石器时代中期,中国先民将制陶技术运用于房屋建筑中,发展了一系列强度与耐水性能显著提升的烧土建筑材料,极大地改善了居住环境。长江中下游地区新石器时代房屋建筑发展脉络清晰,广泛利用红烧土材料。采用XRD法、XRF法、磁化率法和色度法从物相组成、元素成分、磁化率、色度等方面对湖南七星墩遗址出土的不同文化时期的烧土样品进行综合分析。结果表明,6件红烧土样品应均为就地取土,并在泥料中加入了稻壳和稻草等植物残骸作为羼和料,经人工烘烤而成的建筑材料,等效烧成温度区间为550～700℃。研究结果可丰富史前建筑史的研究,磁化率测温法为未烧制黏土考古材料的烧成温度研究提供了一种科学有效的方法,进一步可尝试应用于早期陶器(尤其低温陶器)的烧成温度研究。     

The Sound of Debate in Georgian England: Auralising the House of Commons

St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster became the first permanent home of the house of commons in 1548. The building had to be adapted to conform to its new use. Visual and architectural adaptations to the space have been discussed in detail, but the building's new role also required improvements to the working use of the space as a forum for public debate. In this essay, acoustic techniques are used to explore how speeches and debate would have sounded during the Georgian period and consider how St Stephen's was adapted for this new use. The results demonstrate that, despite these alterations, the 18th‐century house of commons was not ideally suited to speaking or listening to debate. The listening experience was not uniform across the chamber, and its former use as a medieval chapel may have influenced how well certain positions in the chamber would have experienced speech.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Humour and Insult in the House of Commons: The Case of Palmerston and Disraeli*

Formal prohibitions on ‘personalities’ notwithstanding, a constant of parliamentary life is that members regularly insult one another. Within the conventions of 19th‐century public decorum, humour served as an effective means for some politicians to deliver personal insults to their opponents. This article examines the nature of the personal attacks made by Disraeli and Palmerston on each other between 1837 and 1865, and describes how their styles of humorous insult were different but equally effective. Analysis of their political contest sheds new light on the careers of the two men, while also providing the basis for broader considerations about the changing nature and functions of humour in political discourse from the 18th to the 20th centuries.     

Crossman and Beyond: House of Commons Select Committees in the 1960s

Assessments of the work and impact of house of commons investigatory select committees during the 1960s usually centre on the success or otherwise of the new ‘specialist’ committees established in the second half of the decade. This article uses both quantitative and qualitative evidence to give a more rounded picture, including both new and existing committees. It concludes that 1960s select committees were more popular, active and influential than has previously been appreciated. It also argues that there has been an overvaluation of the role of the Labour cabinet minister, Richard Crossman, in promoting and establishing these committees, and that support for committee work on both front benches and back benches was rather more widespread and substantial than has been assumed. In particular, the article contends that Harold Wilson's role in advancing the work of select committees has been underestimated.     

‘A Sense of Crowd and Urgency’? Atmosphere and Inconvenience in the Chamber of the Old House of Commons

The house of commons before the 1834 fire that destroyed it was small, poky, and uncomfortable. Its effects on the health, audibility, and behaviour of its members were frequently a cause of complaint, and informed the consideration by two select committees in 1831 and 1833 of what could be done to replace the chamber. This article examines the background to the appointment of the committees, and what their discussions reveal about the unsatisfactory nature of the chamber. It considers why there failed to be a consensus on altering the chamber before its destruction.     

Prehistoric farming in the mfolozi and hluhluwe valleys of Southeast Africa: an archaeo-botanical survey

The Mfolozi and Hluhluwe Valleys of southeastern Africa are representative of a sub-tropical biome and have archaeological evidence for farming settlement spanning more than 1500 years. By collecting information on soils and plant communities within the same sample frame as archaeological data, the relative importance of environmental and anthropomorphic influences can be assessed. It is argued that, although climate and soils have determined the overall distribution of plant communities, human land use has had a considerable effect on the composition of both woodland and grassland. The nature of this interaction between man and environment provides inferential data on prehistoric economies and also aids the formulation of conservation policies in protected areas.