A STUPENDOUS WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 26, 30 July 1932, Page 19

A STUPENDOUS WORK

The first part of the monumental task of compiling a biographical record of all the members of the British Parliament between 1298 and the passing of the Beforni Bill 100 years ago has been' completed" by Colonel Josiah Wedgwood. Colonel JWedgwood ■ expects ■to encounter no,, serious difficulty in collecting data regarding .the .33,000 odd members ivhp sat, in Parliament.' between the yea.rs 1400 and 1832. ' . But ho is encountering, difficulty in tracing the .2000 or so, members'of the earliest Parliaments, from 1258! to 1400. For although.lists .of all ; kind> of, officials, fron^ Archbishops of Canterbury. to university graduates, have been proserved from comparatively. early: times, practically nothing is known of the names, professions, and characteristics of the rank' and file-° of the first members of Parliament. Particulars have beeit obtained of elections about ■which nothing was previously known,' including returns for the Parliament of 1469, which never met. Not every man chosen by the suffrages of the electors regarded it as a privilege to' sit in the House of Commons, and' in the- early Middle Ages two; 'knights fled' the country to avoid being sent to Westminister. The last member to draw a salary in the House of Commons before the modern era of payment of members began m 1&J1 seems; to .have .been' An-! arew Marvel), the friend of Milton, and author of a famous Ode to Cromwolj. ~.Maxell-wm £ n Bichard Cromwell's Parliament in '1659, and retained his seat till his death i v 1678.