Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The project studied eleven randomly chosen English constituencies at four General Elections (1895, January 1910, 1922 and 1935). Using the local press and other surviving political sources, the project generated a series of database tables. Principal aims and objectives: 1. Establish a clearer chronology for the changing character of electoral politics between 1895 and 1935. 2. Establish a clearer understanding of changing attitudes towards elections and public involvement in politics among politicians and commentators on the one hand, and the general public on the other. 3. Construct a series of database tables on electioneering practices which will become a valuable source for historians interested in understanding social and political change during Britain's rapid emergence as a full democracy between the 1890s and the 1930s. 4. Demonstrate that the proposed new methodology can be developed to study elections on a broader scale - i.e. to earlier and later elections, to non-English constituencies, and perhaps also to intervening elections (e.g. 1900, 1906, 1918, 1924, 1931 etc.). Key findings included: 1) A dramatic shift away from disruption in public politics after 1918 2) A purely temporary increase in women’s involvement in public politics in the early twentieth century – this had been reversed by the 1930s 3) A dramatic streamlining of political meetings in the 1930s 4) A shift away from other ‘frivolous’ forms of political campaigning after 1918 5) The continued importance of the meeting to electioneering throughout the inter-war period
Main Topics:
The project database contains information about the conduct of 2,427 separate election meetings involving 110 different candidates in 48 contests (‘Meetings edited’ table). It also contains information on a wide range of other aspects of electioneering in these 48 contests, including candidate’s (and voters’) activities on polling day, and at the declaration (‘Polling File’), and the use of political propaganda, personal canvassing and other tools of mass persuasion (‘Candidate File’). The data tables also include biographical information about candidates (‘Candidate File’), and more general information about the election results at constituency level (‘Campaign File’), about the overall pattern of results nationally at each General Election (‘General Election info’) and about the local newspapers from which so much of the information has been derived (‘Newspapers file’). The database represents a unique source for historical research, and has pioneered a methodology that could usefully be extended to the study of other periods, and of a wider sample of constituencies. The related analysis file draws mainly on the data base (particularly the ‘Meetings edited’ table), but also includes additional information about constituency type (e.g. rural versus urban).
Purposive selection/case studies
Compilation or synthesis of existing material
