#OTD 1941: Birth of Paddy Ashdown. A supporter of the Lib-Lab Pact and the Alliance with the SDP, he was elected the 1st leader of the merged Social and Liberal Democrats in 1988. In 1997, Ashdown led the Lib Dems to their best performance in an election since the 1930s.

#OTD 1994: Happy birthday to Tom Gordon, Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate & Knaresborough since July 2024. Before becoming an MP, he served as a councillor on Newcastle City Council and later represented his hometown on Wakefield City Council.

#OTD 1903: Herbert Gladstone, Chief Whip of the Liberal Party, receives a letter from his political secretary Jesse Herbert, stressing the importance of an agreement over election strategy between the Liberals and the Labour Representation Committee.

#OTD 1983: Simon Hughes wins the Bermondsey by-election, increasing the Liberal share of the vote by an incredible 50.9%. The Labour campaign began disastrously with its candidate, Peter Tatchell, being denounced in the HoC by the Labour leader Michael Foot.

#OTD 1950: Polling day in the 1950 general election. The Conservatives gain 90 seats but Clement Attlee's Labour Party hangs on with a majority of five. The Liberal Party led for the first time by Clement Davies fielded 475 candidates, the largest number since 1929.🧵

#OTD 1880: Birth in Plymouth of Isaac Foot, Liberal MP for Bodmin 1922-24 and 1929-35. Foot joined the Liberal Party in 1907 and was a long-serving member of Plymouth City Council. In 1945, although no longer a member of the Council, he was unanimously elected Lord Mayor.🧵

#OTD 1884: Addressing the House of Commons on the Crimean War, Radical MP John Bright delivers possibly his greatest speech🧵

#OTD 1962: Death of Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett. Liberal MP for Nottingham East 1923-24 and 1929-31. Birkett was a lawyer and a judge and is perhaps best known for his role as an alternate British judge at the Nuremberg Trials.

#OTD 2006: Liberal Democrat candidate Willie Rennie wins Dunfermline and West Fife by-election turning a Labour majority of over 11,000 into a Lib Dem majority of 1,800. The by-election was caused by the death of the sitting Labour MP, Rachel Squire after a long illness. 🧵

#OTD 1999: Death of Stina Robson, Baroness Robson of Kiddington. She chaired the Women's Liberal Federation and the National Liberal Club. She contested 4 parliamentary elections and was made a life peer in 1974.

#OTS 1960: Happy birthday to Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath since 2017. Born in Hanover, she moved to the UK in 1990 and, prior to her election, worked as a teacher, radio journalist and artist.🧵

#OTD 1790: Birth of Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon, Whig MP for Limerick 1820-32 and Cambridge 1832-39. He supported the campaign for Catholic Emancipation and was a strong supporter of the abolition of slavery and of state-supported education. He died in February 1866, aged 75.

#OTD 1899: Henry Campbell-Bannerman delivers his first speech in the House of Commons as Liberal leader. In an article published the day after Campbell-Bannerman became Prime Minister the Manchester Guardian recalled the occasion...🧵

#OTD 1980: Happy birthday to Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat MP for East Dumbartonshire 2005-15 and 2017-19. She served as deputy leader of the Lib Dems and foreign affairs spokesperson until she succeeded Vince Cable as party leader.

#OTD 1963: Death of Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, Liberal leader 1931-35. Born in Toxteth, Liverpool in 1870, Samuel was first elected to Parliament in 1902 for the Cleveland Division of Yorkshire.🧵

#OTD 1924: Writing to his daughter Megan, Lloyd George discusses the recently formed first Labour government. 'A socialist govt. actually in power. But don't get uneasy about your investments or your antiques. Nothing will be removed or abstracted.🧵

#OTD 1876: At a meeting of Liberal MPs held at the Reform Club, Lord Hartington is elected leader of the Liberal MPs in succession to William Gladstone. When Gladstone announced his resignation 3 MPs, Hartington, W.E. Forster and George Goschen emerged as possible successors. 🧵

#OTD 1970: Death aged 97 of Bertrand Russell, philosopher, writer and mathematician. Russell at times described himself as a liberal, socialist and pacifist. He was a committed opponent of war, a proponent of free trade anda supporter of anti-imperialist causes.

#OTD 1982: The Times reports that leading members of the SDP have concluded that they are getting the worst bargain so far in the sharing of Parliamentary seats with the Liberals. It's generally held that this row harmed Alliance performance as the 1983 GE approached.

#OTD 1970: Young Liberals rally in support of their national chair Louis Eakes who had been censured by the Liberal Party executive for his comments supporting anti-apartheid attacks on cricket grounds. 🧵

#OTD 1770: The Duke of Grafton resigns as First Lord of the Treasury. The Whig government did not so much fall as fall apart. Attacked by his predecessor, the Earl of Chatham, and pilloried in the press, Grafton struggled to get legislation through parliament.

#OTD 1910: Following the loss of his seat in the January general election, Chief Whip J.A. Pease has a meeting with PM H.H. Asquith. He recorded in his diary, ‘Saw Asquith about 4 o’clock & had an hour's chat with him. He urged me to find seats for myself Seely & Acland...🧵

#OTD 1845: Birth of Robert Collier, 2nd Baron Monkswell. He entered the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1886 and later served in the Liberal administrations of W E Gladstone and Lord Rosebery as a government whip from 1892-95.

#OTD 1911: Death of Sir Charles Dilke, Liberal MP for Chelsea 1868-86 and Forest of Dean 1892-1911. On the radical wing of the Liberal Party, his tenure at the Local Government Board during Gladstone’s second ministry, when he piloted the Third Reform Act through parliament..🧵

#OTD 1881: W.E. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland introduces the Coercion Bill. Framed to meet the growth of the Irish Land League, its provisions included enabling the Irish Government to arrest without trial any person 'reasonably suspected' of criminal activity & conspiracy

#OTD 1749: Birth of Charles James Fox, MP for Midhurst 1768-74, Malmesbury 1774-80 and Westminster 1780-1806. Born in London in the heart of the establishment - his mother was a great grand-granddaughter of Charles II and his father was part of the Walpole ministry. 🧵

#OTD 1945: Death in a plane crash of Robert Hamilton Bernays, MP for Bristol North 1931-45. He joined the National Liberals after 1935. He held office under the National Government in the Health and Transport Ministries and left a diary of his years in Parliament between 1932-39.

#OTD 1860: The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty is signed, freeing trade between Britain and France. Named after the main British and French originators, Richard Cobden Liberal MP for Rochdale and Michel Chevalier, the treaty stimulated a trade revolution between the two countries.🧵

#OTD 1922: Death of James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, academic and Liberal MP for Tower Hamlets 1880-85 and Aberdeen South 1885-1907. During the WW1, he chaired a commission to look at German atrocities in Belgium and investigated the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire.

#OTD 1826: Birth of Thomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook, Liberal MP for Penryn and Falmouth 1857-65. He was appointed to ministerial office almost immediately after his election. Between 1857 and 1872, he held a succession of posts at the Admiralty, War Office and India Office.

#OTD 1972: Happy birthday to Monica Harding, Liberal Democrat MP for Esher and Walton since 2024. She was Director of Communications for the British Council and CEO of Refugees International Japan, and in 2020, she founded the Britain Project, a convening space for progressives.

#OTD 1885: Advertising begins for the sale of a pamphlet called The Work of the Liberal Party During the Past Fifty Years. 🧵

One week to go! Liberals and Free Trade - discussion meeting, Tuesday 27 January, with Professor Trentmann and Lord Chris Fox. Follows the History Group AGM. For more information and AGM papers and to register, see here: liberalhistory.org.uk/event/libera...

The longest-serving MP ever, Villiers featured in our post on MPs and longevity: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/l...

#OTD 1965: Happy birthday to Gideon Amos, Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton and Wellington since 2024. A qualified architect, Amos served as a director of Planning Aid in 1997, while in 2000 he was appointed the chief executive of the Town and Country Planning Association.

#OTD 2003: Death of Richard Scurrah Wainwright, much respected Liberal MP for Colne Valley from 1966-70 and February 1974-87. In parliament he spoke for the party on finance, trade and industry and finally employment.

#OTD 1898: Death of Charles Pelham Villiers, Whig, Liberal and Liberal Unionist MP for Wolverhampton 1835-85 and Wolverhampton South 1885-98. An early advocate of free trade, Villiers was campaigning to repeal the Corn Laws before Cobden and Bright arrived on the scene.🧵

#OTD 1910: Polling begins in the first of two general elections of 1910. Initial results for the opposition Unionists were encouraging. However, it became clear that the Liberals would be able to remain in office with the support of Labour and the Irish Nationalists.

Two weeks to go! Liberals and Free Trade - discussion meeting, Tuesday 27 January, with Professor Trentmann and Lord Chris Fox. For more information and to register, see here: liberalhistory.org.uk/event/libera...

#OTD 1861: Birth of Stanley Owen Buckmaster, 1st Viscount Buckmaster (1861-1934) in Wandsworth. Buckmaster was a successful barrister. After taking silk in 1902 he was able to take forward his political ambitions and was elected Liberal MP for Cambridge in 1906.🧵

#OTD 1864: Birth of Sir Donald Maclean, Liberal MP for Bath 1906-10, Peebles and Selkirk 1910-18, Peebles and Southern Midlothian 1918-22 and North Cornwall 1929-32.🧵

#OTD 1906: Robert Threshie Reid becomes Baron Loreburn, allowing him to be Lord Chancellor.

#OTD 1846: Granville George Leveson-Gower becomes Earl Granville, later Foreign Secretary.

#OTD 1854: Birth of Herbert Gladstone.

Liberals and Free Trade - discussion meeting, 6.30pm Tuesday 27 January, with Professor Trentmann and Lord Chris Fox. For more information and to register, see here: liberalhistory.org.uk/event/libera...

#OTD 1917: Lewis Vernon "Lulu" Harcourt, son of W. V. Harcourt and Commissioner of Works under CB and Asquith, becomes the first Viscount Harcourt.

#OTD 1837: Birth in Glasgow of Sir David Brand (1837-1908). He was active in the registration courts and was involved in Gladstone's successful Midlothian election campaign of 1880. He became advocate-depute in the Liberal government from 1880 to 1885.

#OTD 1878: Death of Sir William Goodenough Hayter (1792-1878), discovered drowned in a small lake in the grounds of his Berkshire residence following a bout of depression. He was Liberal MP for Wells from 1837 until 1865. 🧵

#OTD 1965: Happy birthday to Sir Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton and leader of the Liberal Democrats!

#OTD 1838: Birth of John Morley (Viscount Morley of Blackburn), Chief Secretary for Ireland under Gladstone in 1886. He was opposed to Britain's involvement in the Boer War and the First World War, the latter of which resulted in his leaving the Government.