Subject Essays

Amanda Behm Department of History, University of York The so-called ‘British World’ is a significant concept and topic of controversy in British imperial history. In its divisiveness, it also sheds…

Naomi Lloyd-Jones Department of History, Durham University, Durham, UK This essay is an introduction to politics in nineteenth-century Scotland and Wales. It surveys major electoral trends and political questions, exploring…

Jonathan Parry Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, UK This essay argues that Britain was generally a conservative force in European diplomacy even while regarding itself as a more liberal…

Alex Middleton St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford, UK Historians have always known that nineteenth-century British politics was shaped by forces which worked across national boundaries. But there has been…

Matthew Roberts Department of Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK It is noteworthy just how often the nineteenth century is still seen as the Liberal century. While this period may…

Tom Crook School of History, Philosophy and Culture, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK This essay provides an overview of the ways corruption featured in British politics from the late eighteenth…

Anthony Howe University of East Anglia, UK Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) expounded a clear choice between policies of free trade, which liberalised the economy, emphasising the market and consumer…

Ben Griffin Girton College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK In the eighteenth century, kings expected to govern as well as to reign – to be active participants in the business…

Jay R. Roszman University College Cork, Ireland This essay argues that the Irish question proved a dominant problem in British politics across the long nineteenth century. It charts this process…

Matthew Kidd University of Oxford, UK This essay gives an overview of the trade union, socialist, and political labour movements in Britain from 1848 to 1914, focusing in particular on…