Journal of Liberal History
For the discussion and research of Liberal, Liberal Democrat and SDP history
Duncan Brack
Liberal Democrat History Group AGM 2024
The Annual General Meeting of the Liberal Democrat History Group will take place at 6.30pm on Monday 29 January. All subscribers to the Journal of Liberal History are welcome to participate. The meeting will take place in-person, at the Violet Bonham Carter Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE. It will also be possible…
Liberal Democrat History Group AGM 2023
The Annual General Meeting of the Liberal Democrat History Group will take place at 6.30pm on Monday 30 January. All subscribers to the Journal of Liberal History are welcome to participate. The meeting will take place in-person, at the Violet Bonham Carter Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE. It will also…
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Lord Tony Greaves (27 July 1942 – 23 March 2021)
by Michael Meadowcroft Tony Greaves never seemed to age. He had a firm belief that politics was capable of transforming society, and his consistent advocacy of local campaigning, community politics and the necessity for both to be anchored in a radical Liberalism had hardly changed from his Young Liberal days. His election to the Lancashire…
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Remembering Shirley Williams
We were saddened to hear of the death of Shirley Williams on 12 April 2021. Shirley played a key role in the foundation of the SDP and of the Liberal Democrats, led the Liberal Democrats in the Lords from 2001 to 2004, and remained active in the Lords and the party until her retirement in…
Tony Greaves: Why I am A Liberal Democrat
Tony Greaves (Lord Greaves) died on 23 March 2021. He was a Liberal legend. The Liberal Party, and the Liberal Democrats, owe an enormous amount to his commitment and drive, in local campaigning, in the House of Lords, and in the development of the party’s policy and ideology. We will publish a full appreciation of…
Liberal Democrat History Group AGM 2021
The Annual General Meeting of the Liberal Democrat History Group will take place at 6.30pm on Monday 1 February. All subscribers to the Journal of Liberal History are welcome to participate. The meeting will take via Zoom, and you will need to register in advance: click here to register. This is the same link we’re…
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Lloyd George and Spanish Flu: In Sickness and in Health
By James Moore The most treasured possessions inherited from my grandfather are undoubtedly two blue volumes that have been with me for most of my life, The War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. Lloyd George was my grandfather’s political hero and so he became mine too. As a teenager I read the Memoirs avidly and they were probably…
How Liberal Democrats secured legislation for equal marriage
To mark LGBT+ History month – February – we remember one of the Liberal Democrat achievements in the coalition government of 2010-15: equal marriage. We reprint here our review (by Baroness Liz Barker) of Liberal Democrat minister Lynne Featherstone’s book, Equal Ever After: The Fight for Same Sex Marriage – and How I Made it…
New Year 2020 sale!
PEACE, REFORM AND LIBERATION: NEW PRICE CUT FOR 2020! £15 off original price (£25) Written by academics and experts, drawing on the most recent research, Peace, Reform and Liberation is the most comprehensive and most up-to-date guide to the story of those who called themselves Liberals, what inspired them and what they achieved over the last 300 years…
Old Heroes for a New Leader: Lib Dem leadership candidates’ historical heroes
As we have in each of the Liberal Democrat leadership elections other than the first one (which took place in 1988, before the History Group had been formed), in June the Liberal Democrat History Group asked the two candidates for the Liberal Democrat leadership to write a short article on their favourite historical figure or…
Liberal History: A concise history of the Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Democrats – New! Ebook and audio versions now available
350 years of party history in 32 pages The Liberal Democrat History Group’s booklet, Liberal History: A concise history of the Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Democrats, is the essential introduction to Liberal history. Now available in print, Kindle and audio versions. Starting with the earliest stirrings of Liberal thought during the civil wars of the seventeenth…
Liberal Democrat History Group AGM, 28 January 2019
The Annual General Meeting of the Liberal Democrat History Group will take place at 6.30pm on Monday 28 January 2019, in the Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2HE. The agenda, minutes of the 2018 meeting and chair’s report for the year 2018 are attached here. Print copies will be…
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Paddy Ashdown 1941–2018
Paddy Ashdown, Leader of the Liberal Democrats 1988–99, passed away on 22 December 2018. As a tribute to his memory, we reprint here in full the chapter on his time as leader from our 2015 book, British Liberal Leaders. We hope this may help to explain to those readers who did not know him why…
Meeting report: The 1918 Coupon Election and its consequences
Evening meeting, 2 July 2018, with Alistair Cooke and Kenneth O. Morgan; chair: Claire Tyler Report by David Cloke Baroness Tyler opened the meeting by noting ironically that the period featured two ingredients that attendees had come to know and love: snap elections and Liberal–Conservative coalitions. Indeed, the parallels with and significance for our own…
Europe: the Liberal Commitment – special issue of the Journal of Liberal History
Opposition to Brexit has become of the defining characteristics of today’s Liberal Democrats. And probably everyone knows that the Liberal Democrats’ predecessors in the Liberal Party supported British entry to the European Community in the 1970s and before. But where does this commitment derive from? The latest Journal of Liberal History(issue 98, spring 2018) explores…
New booklet on Liberal Thinkers
New from the Liberal Democrat History Group Liberalism has been built on more than three centuries’ work of political thinkers and writers and the aspirations of countless human beings who have fought for freedom, democracy, the rule of law and open and tolerant societies. Liberal Thinkers, the History Group’s new booklet, is an accessible guide…
New booklets from the Liberal Democrat History Group
Just published: Mothers of Liberty: women who built British Liberalism. The new edition contains the stories of the women who shaped British Liberalism – including Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill, the suffragist leader Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the first woman Liberal MP Margaret Wintringham, Violet Bonham Carter, Megan Lloyd George, Nancy Seear, Shirley Williams and many…
Liberal history: introductory reading list
The Liberal Democrats draw on a rich heritage of liberal and social democratic traditions stretching back to the seventeenth century. This reading list provides a brief guide to some of the best histories of the party and its predecessors.
Concise history booklet updated to spring 2017
Just out from the Liberal Democrat History Group: Liberal History: A concise history of the Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Democrats – 350 years of party history in 32 pages. Revised and updated to include the coalition and its impact and the 2015 election and its aftermath. The essential introduction to Liberal history, now updated to March 2017. Special…