A MONUMENTAL WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 24

A MONUMENTAL WORK

Soon will appear the first instalment of a monumental work, which will be the most important publishing enterprise of its kind since the "Dictionary of National Biography." This instalment will consist of three of the 40 volumes to be issued at intervals during the next ten years which, when completed, will constitute a history of the' British Parliament and of British democratic institutions for the period between 1264 and 1918. The responsibility for the whole undertaking rests with a distinguished committee, on which members of all the political parties are serving under the chairmanship of the Lord Chancellor. The publication will be official, and the Treasury has insisted that the committee must have £15,000 in hand towards the total cost of £40,000 before publishing begins. Of this sum more than £11,000 has been raised by subscriptions, mainly from peers and present and former members of the House of Commons. The editor of the first three volumes is Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, M.P., who has been engaged for 30 years on research work in preparation for this enterprise.

The primary purpose of this great history will be to supply lists and biographies, as far as possible, of all persons who have ever sat in Parliament, from its beginning until the end of the World War. The compilation of such lists has been very difficult, for in many cases records are incomplete or even non-existent. One of the first three volumes will consist of biographies of the 2600 known members of the Parliaments that met between 1439 and 1509—the important period that covers the Wars of the Roses. It is believed that there were 3800 members during that period, but particulars have not been discovered of more than 2600. The scope of the work will also include an exhaustive account of the electorate, the methods adopted at elections, changes in parliamentary procedure, methods of legislation, the growth and decline in the power of both Houses, and other matters of importance to the student of constitutional history.