Politics

The vast collection of online resources listed below unfold local political issues, activity and personalities from the 12th century until well into the 20th century.

Details about the poll books that record who voted for whom in elections when they took place in public can be found in the Pollbooks and constituencies page - a rich source of names, places and occupations.

• A County Parliament: The First Northamptonshire County Council by Peter Gordon [1985] (page 188)
• A Nineteenth-Century Giant, George Ward Hunt by Margaret Main Schoenberg [1976] (page 349) Biography of a Northamptonshire politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and stood 6 foot 4 inches tall.
• A Royalist Squire's letter on the Eve of the Restoration by Gyles Isham [1960] (page 11) A letter composed in London by Francis Lane of Glendon to his cousin Sir Justinian Isham of Lamport.
• 'A Sensation Almost Without Parallel'?: Reflections on the Third Earl Spencer's Northampton Speech, November 1843 by Nicholas Goddard [1996] (page 265)
• Address of the County of Northampton to General Monk, 1659
• Baptist as Radical: The Life and Opinions of the Rev. John Jenkinson of Kettering (1799-1876) by R L Greenall [1991] (page 210)
• Battle for the Mace! An Incident in the Council Chamber at Northampton, 1836 by Victor A Hatley [1969] (page 239)
• Becoming a Chartist speaker and first leaving Northampton in 1840 by Robert Gammage [1884]
• Charles I and the Revival of Forest Law by Philip Petitt [1961] (page 54)
• ‘Disgraceful Brawls and Drunken Riots’: Disorder During Northampton Borough Elections (1768-1830) by Zoe Dyndor [2009] (page 80)
• Election Squibs Verses circulated in 1705 and 1806.
• Electioneering at Peterborough, 1722 A record of unusual incentives offered to an elector for his vote.
• Elections at Higham Ferrers in the Eighteenth Century by J E Tyler [1953] (page 45)
• Higham Ferrers Elections in 1640 by A Norman Groome [1958] (page 243)
• James Gribble and the Raunds Strike of 1905 by Keith Brooker [1981] (page 275)
• King Stephen and the Empress Matilda: The View from Northampton by Edmund King [2014] (page 17)
• Labour and Socialism in Northampton during the Great War by Matthew Kidd [2014) (page 79)
• Lady Knightley and the South Northamptonshire Election of 1885 by Peter Gordon [1981] (page 265)
• H.B. Lees-Smith: Northampton’s ‘Pacifist’ MP by John Buckell [2015] (page 71)
• Liberals, Radicals and Socialists in Northampton before the Great War by Marie Dickie [1983] (page 51)
• Lord Spencer's Garter Embassy to the Duke of Wurtemburg in 1603 by Earl Spencer [1949] (page 1)
• National Politics and the Local Community in the 18th Century: The Northampton Election of 1734 by David Paton [1985] (page 164)
• Northampton: a study of town expansion, political structures and processes by Anthony John Richard Berry [1987]
• Northampton Independent Labour Party and the opposition to the First World War by John Buckell [2016] (page 71)
• Northamptonshire Agricultural Labourers and the Quest for Allotments - the 1870s by Pamela Horn [1971] (page 371)
• Northamptonshire’s first old age pensioners by John Adams [2006] (page 54) Political background and administration of the newly-established system.
• Old Elections in Northampton by James Ward (1847-1925) [1921] Recalls the conduct of elections extending as far back as 1857.
• Ordeal on Horseback: the Peterborough Abbatial Elections of 1321 & 1338 by John Russell [1996] (page 221)
• Politics and society in Northamptonshire, 1649-1714 by P R Brindle [1983]
• Politics and Society in Late Victorian England by Janet Howarth [1970] (page 269)
• Politics and Society: The Journals of Lady Knightley of Fawsley 1885 to 1913 edited by Peter Gordon [1999]
• Politics in Late Victorian and Edwardian Northamptonshire by John Adams [2008] (page 78)
• Prologue to Fascism: The New Party in Northampton, 1931-32 by Philip M Coupland [2009] (page 90)
• Religion and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII by J J Scarisbrick [1974] (page 85)
• The Blackshirts in Northampton, 1933-1940 by Philip M Coupland [2000] {page 71)
• The First Northamptonshire County Council Revisited by Keith Brooker [2013] (page 70)
• The Forty Men of Northampton's First Customal and the development of Borough Government in Late 12th Century Northampton by John H Williams [1986] (page 215)
• The Headless Trunk: A Study in Northampton Politics 1795-6 by Victor A Hatley [1990] (page 105) includes an analysis of votes cast in the 1796 General Election.
• The Journals of Lady Knightley of Fawsley 1856-1884 edited by Julia Cartwright [1915]
• The Northampton Labour Party and the Abyssinian Crisis of 1935: The Resignation of Cecil L'Estrange Malone by G H Bennett [1996] (page 287)
• The Northampton Women’s Social and Political Union, 1912-1914 By Richard Whitmore [2002] (page 65)
• The Northamptonshire Commission of the Peace (1702) and Parliamentary Polls (1702, 1705) by James Alsop [1981] (page 257)
• The Parliamentary Election in Northamptonshire, 1626 by John K Gruenfelder [1968] (page 159)
• The political culture of elections in Northampton, 1768-1868 by Zoe Dyndor [2010]
• The Second Northamptonshire Election of 1701 by R N Swanson [1978] (page 29)
• The Suffragettes and Suffragists in Northampton by John Buckell [2017] (page 86)
• The Tudor Monarchs and the Lord Lieutenants by Gladys Scott Thomson [1953] (page 4)
• The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wellingborough by John Buckell [2019] (page 57)
• Town and Crown: the Governance of later 13th-century Northampton by John H Williams [2015]
• Town patriotism and the rise of Labour: Northampton 1918-1939 by Marie Dickie [1987]
• Twenty-One Years Ago: The Battle of Yardley Chase by P H McKay [2000] (page 83) Account of campaigns stimulated by the shortlisting in 1979 of this area for possible development as a third London airport.
• Two Justices Fall Out [1952] (page 1) A quarrel between John Wake of Salcey Lawn and George Fermor of Easton Neston which broke out at the Quarter Sessions in 1592 attracted the attention of the Privy Council. Much detail about the lives and characters of the men involved and the interplay between local and national government.