Advanced Biographical Skills for Historians

This interactive workshop will introduce History researchers at all levels to the advanced methods used to research and write biography in a British context from the fifteenth century to the present day. It will also provide attendees with an opportunity to reflect on the wider value of biography to the practice of history.

Professional historians from the History of Parliament, working across several different time periods, will discuss the digital and physical sources that they use to construct the foundational biographical details of a historical figure; the techniques used to build a detailed picture of their political, social and cultural lives; and the interpretative tools used to draw out the wider significance of their subjects to British political life.

The workshop will then reflect on the wider value of biography to the practice of history. Attendees will consider whether biography can be justified as a means to a historical end in itself; the different uses of biography to practitioners across different time periods and historical sub-disciplines; the centrality of biography to the method of prosopography (the use of collective biography to analyse an institution or practice); and the importance of biography as a key practice in the construction and writing of history.

The History of Parliament

The History of Parliament is a major research project creating a comprehensive account of the English, British and UK Parliament from the thirteenth century. Founded before the Second World War and unparalleled in the comprehensiveness of its treatment, the History is generally regarded as one of the most ambitious, authoritative and well-researched projects in British history.

Its published volumes, to date, contain around 26,000 biographical articles on MPs from 1386 to 1832, and well over 2,000 local histories exploring constituency politics and elections over the same period. Work is ongoing on a number of publications covering the periods 1386 to the present day. This includes our oral history project which records the careers and political experiences of MPs since 1945. The project’s published work is freely accessible at www.historyofparliamentonline.org and its staff publish regular short articles and blogs at: historyofparliament.com and victoriancommons.wordpress.com.

Speakers

Dr Alex Beeton is a post-doctoral research assistant on the History of Parliament’s House of Lords 1640-1660 project. His research focuses on parliamentary politics and records during the British Civil Wars. He completed his DPhil thesis at Oxford in 2022 on Parliament and education reform during the English Commonwealth, 1649-53.

Dr Emmeline Ledgerwood manages the History of Parliament Trust’s Oral History project which interviews former MPs about their parliamentary careers. As a historian her research focuses on the intersection of twentieth-century politics, science policy and science. She has used oral history interviews, both original and archived, in many aspects of her research.

Dr Jonathan Mackman is a research fellow on the History of Parliament’s House of Commons 1461-1504 project. He has worked on numerous historical research and archival cataloguing projects over the past 25 years, on subjects such as medieval taxation, the common law, immigration and the northern church, and has written widely on these and other subjects, particularly on aspects relating to the midlands and northern England. His latest publication, an edition of account rolls for the Yorkshire lordship of Middleham, appeared earlier this year.

Dr Martin Spychal is a historian of modern Britain, specializing in nineteenth-century politics, society and culture. His first book, Mapping the State: English boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act will be published later this year by the Royal Historical Society and University of London Press. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the History of Parliament working on the House of Commons 1832-1945 project.

Host or Publisher University of Northampton