Abstract
What role did the House of Commons play in the political life of the nation in the aftermath of suffrage?2 There is surprisingly little historiography to help answer the question. We have accounts by Brian Harrison of the role of women MPs and by P.J. Waller of the role of political humour.3 S.A. Walkland’s edited volume on the Commons in the twentieth century contains useful information, although it focuses on procedure and organization, not on the part that that the House played in public life as a whole.4 Of course, we have plenty of knowledge of events that took place in the Commons. No biography of an MP would be complete without an account of his or her maiden speech and any celebrated parliamentary episodes they may have been involved in; and, in addition to Hansard, numerous published diaries and autobiographies provide the raw materials from which such accounts can be fashioned. Yet we have little understanding of how to interpret such events, not merely as building blocks in accounts of the success or failure of policies and individuals, but as part of what Alan Finlayson and James Martin have called the ‘symbolic ritual dimension of politics’.5 Thus we have excellent accounts by H.C.G. Matthew and Jon Lawrence respectively of the culture of public speech outside parliament, and these include the aftermath of suffrage period, but no one has attempted anything similar for the Commons.6
I am grateful to John Whitley for access to the papers of J.H. Whitley and for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. I am also grateful to the participants at the Aftermath of Suffrage conference for comments and suggestions. Any errors that remain are, of course, my own responsibility.
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Notes
Brian Harrison, ‘Women in a Men’s House: the Women MPs, 1919–1945’, Historical Journal 29 (1986): 623–654; P.J. Waller, ‘Laughter in the House: A Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Parliamentary Survey’, Twentieth Century British History 5 (1994): 4–37.
S.A. Walkland (ed.), The House of Commons in the Twentieth Century, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979.
Alan Finlayson and James Martin, “‘It Ain’t What You Say ...”: British Political Studies and the Analysis of Speech and Rhetoric’, British Politics 3 (2008): 445–64, at 448.
H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Rhetoric and politics in Britain, 1860–1950’ in P. J. Waller (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Modem Britain (1987): 34–58; Jon Lawrence, Electing Our Masters, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009.
However, much useful information on MPs’ backgrounds and parliamentary participation can be extracted from Michael Rush, The Role of the Member of Parliament Since 1868: From Gentlemen to Players, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001.
Stuart Ball, ‘Parliament and Politics in Britain, 1900–1951’, Parliamentary History 10 (2008): 243–276, at 243; Paul Seaward and Paul Silk, ‘The House of Commons’, in Vernon Bogdanor (ed.), The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century (2003): 139–188. Another work deserving of mention is Philip Norton (ed.), Eminent Parliamentarians: The Speaker’s Lectures, Biteback, London, 2012, which contains some very helpful insights on the parliamentary contributions of key figures such as Lloyd George.
W. Ivor Jennings, Parliament, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1939. p. 506.
Paul Mulvey, The Political Life of Josiah C. Wedgwood: Land, Liberty and Empire, 1872–1943, Royal Historical Society, London, 2010, pp. 164–77.
Carl Schmitt, The Crisis ofParliamentary Democracy, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1988, p. 4. This work was first published in 1923, with a new edition appearing in 1926.
Martin Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’ Fascists and Fascism in Britain between the Wars, Pimlico, London, 2006, p. 16.
Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1961.
Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the 1930s, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997.
Philip Williamson, Stanley Baldwin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, pp. 75–6, 117–18, 136, 210, 241–2.
Keith Middlemas, Politics in Industrial Society (1979): 22.
See, for example, Andrew Thorpe (ed.), The Failure of Political Extremism in InterWar Britain, Exeter University Press, Exeter, 1989.
Jon Lawrence, ‘The Transformation of British Public Politics After the First World War’, Past & Present 190 (2006): 185–216. By ‘public politics’ Lawrence meant ‘extra-parliamentary politics’, which is sufficient for the purposes of his article but is in general too narrow a definition.
Daniel J.R. Grey, ‘Women’s Policy Networks and the Infanticide Act 1922’, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 21, No. 4, 2010, pp. 441–63.
Lord Snell, Men, Movements and Myself, J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., London, 1936, p. 213.
Jennie Lee, To-Morrow Is a New Day, The Cresset Press, London, 1939, p. 128.
Percy Harris, Forty Years In and Out of Parliament, Andrew Melrose Ltd., London, n.d. (c. 1947), p. 114.
‘Thirty-Three Division’ [pseudonym], ‘Some Thoughts on Electioneering’, The Conservative Agent’s Journal, March 1923.
H. Snell, Daily Life in Parliament, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd, London, 1930, pp. 65, 67.
Hugh Dalton, Call Back Yesterday: Memoirs 1887–1931, Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1953, p. 256.
Sandra Harris, ‘Being Politically Impolite: Extending Politeness Theory to Adversarial Political Discourse’, Discourse & Society., 12.4 (2001): 451–72.
Herbert Morrison, An Autobiography, Odhams Press Limited, London, 1960, p. 95.
Herbert Williams, Politics — Grave and Gay, Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., London, 1949, p. 93.
John Buchan, Memory Hold - the Door, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, London, 1940, pp. 226–7.
The other Speakers during the inter-war period were J.W. Lowther (who served from 1905 to 1921) and E.A. Fitzroy (1928–43).
Laura Beers, ‘Counter-Toryism: Labour’s Response to Anti-Socialist Propaganda’, in Matthew Worley (ed.), The Foundations of the British Labour Party: Identities, Cultures and Perspectives, 1900–39, Ashgate, Farnham, 2009, pp. 231–54. Quotation at 233.
Earl Winterton, Orders of the Day, Cassell and Company Ltd., London, 1953, p. 94.
Patrick Dunleavy and G.W. Jones with Jane Burnham, Robert Elgie and Peter Fysh, ‘Leaders, Politics and Insititutional Change: The Decline of Prime Ministerial Accountability to the House of Commons, 1868–1990’, in R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Dunleavy (eds), Prime Minister, Cabinet and Core Executive, St. Martin’s Press, Basingstoke, 1995), pp. 275–97.
On changing patterns of prime ministerial speech in the later period, see Richard Toye, ‘The Rhetorical Premiership: A New Perspective on Prime Ministerial Power Since 1945’, Parliamentary History, 30 (2011), pp. 175–92.
Maurice Cowling presents 1920–24 as the decisive period: The Impact of Labour 1920–1924: The Beginnings of Modern British Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971.
Winston Churchill, ‘Parliament is the Stage of Empire Drama’, News of the World, 1 Jan. 1939, in Michael Wolff (ed.), The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol. II, Library of Imperial History, London, 1976, p. 429.
Of course the vote itself — which the government actually won — did not lead directly to the fall of Neville Chamberlain. He could have survived had the Labour leaders decided they were willing to serve under him: Nick Smart, ‘Four Days in May: The Norway Debate and the Downfall of Neville Chamberlain’, Parliamentary History, Vol. 17, no. 2 (1998), pp. 215–43.
Philip Norton, ‘Winning the War but Losing the Peace: The British House of Commons During the Second World War’, Journal ofLegislative Studies, 4 (1998), pp. 33–51.
See Duncan Tanner, ‘The Parliamentary Electoral System, the ‘Fourth’ Reform Act and the Rise of Labour in England and Wales’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 56 (1983), pp. 205–19.
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Toye, R. (2013). The House of Commons in the Aftermath of Suffrage. In: Gottlieb, J.V., Toye, R. (eds) The Aftermath of Suffrage. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137333001_5
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