Mark Pack

I'd never heard of Denis Avey until I read this piece in The Times about his bravery during the Second World War. He smuggled himself into Auschwitz (yes, into) so that he could bear witness to the mass murder taking place there. What an amazing person - and a shame that people like him get so [...] »

William Gladstone’s legacy for modern political parties was the subject for discussion at the January meeting of the Liberal Democrat History Group. The meeting was addressed by both Eugenio Biagini, of Cambridge University, and Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary and keen collector of Gladstone memorabilia. Biagini highlighted the contradiction at the heart of Gladstone’s [...] »

I was surprised to discover this was a question people worried over. More surprised to discover someone had written a book about it. Even more surprised to discover that in fact it has been an issue of "long and plentiful" debate which "has never been entirely resolved". And then intrigued to discover, "the evidence is [...] »

What was the typical total on the constituency election expense returns from candidates in the 1910 general elections who fought contested elections? Answer in today’s money is below the jump. The answer is around £85,000. Although this figure is very high by current standards, national expenditure was much lower. The 1906 Liberal election campaign centrally cost around [...] »

From the Liberal Democrat History Group email list: Now available for free download is Journal of Liberal History 45 (winter 2004-05), with articles including an analysis of the careers of the Liberals and social reformers Joseph and Seebohm Rowntree; 'The flawed strategy of the SDP'; 'Richard Cobden and British imperialism'; an appreciation of the life of [...] »

A very occasional series highlighting a previous post that (a) I still think was actually pretty good, but (b) the server stats say not many people came and read. Just in case you, dear reader, may have been wrong in overlooking this post here it is for your enjoyment once more: The 1906 election Imagine you are [...] »

... just be glad you didn't live a hundred years ago. For the first 1910 general election, Parliament was prorogued on 3 December 1909 and the final day of voting (polling took place across several days) was on 10 February, 10 weeks later. Oh, and then there was a second general election later in the [...] »

Earlier this week I blogged about Edward Everett, who is a salutary reminder that more and longer writing or talking doesn't automatically make for more meaning or greater impact. That's because he spoke for two hours in 1863, just before someone else spoke for two and a bit minutes. That someone else was Abraham Lincoln, [...] »

Roger Crowley's book is an account of the naval battles for control of the Mediterranean during the sixteenth century. Predominantly a conflict between the Muslim Ottoman empire and the Christian Spanish empire, the fighting saw many others sucked in - and many people of each religion fighting on the 'wrong' side - but that does [...] »

From the Liberal Democrat History Group's email list: Since the publication of The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism edited by David Laws and Paul Marshall in 2004, there has been an ongoing discussion in the Liberal Democrats about whether the party needs to return to the nineteenth-century Gladstonian inheritance of non-interventionism in economic and social affairs, self-help [...] »