Here is a recent blogpost I wrote for the excellent Virtual St Stephen’s Project, a collaborative academic project based at York University which is seeking to reconstruct the history and architecture of one of the most famous and influential buildings of the old Palace of Westminster. It describes how one of the biggest paintings of […]
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Parliament Buildings of the World: No 8 – Canada
Of all the legislatures in the world which follow the Westminster model, the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa seems most familiar to British observers. It has a House of Commons, members of Parliament and a Gothic-revival Parliament building, a Hansard, an impartial Speaker (unlike the USA, for example) and procedural manuals and processes which parallel those in […]
Parliament Burns: A Family Affair
Today is the 180th anniversary of the 1834 fire at Parliament, and I’m delighted that this year has seen the collision of political and family history in the story. When giving a talk about The Day Parliament Burned Down earlier this year in Saffron Walden, Essex, I was approached afterwards by Michael Furlong and his wife […]
Why Books Are My Bag
Today in the UK, it’s Books are My Bag day. All over the country, readers, booksellers and authors are getting together to host the nation’s Big Bookshop Party, in shops throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. To mark this auspicious day, I have taken the opportunity to interview myself about my book-ey thoughts. What Do […]
Walk the Day Parliament Burned Down
When I wrote The Day Parliament Burned Down I didn’t know anything about the economics of the book trade. Now I do. What I know is a lot more about how high-street bookshops are struggling in the face of massive competition from supermarkets and Amazon, and that we should do all we can to support […]
An Unknown Painting of the 1834 Fire Surfaces
Over 44 artists captured the terrible accidental fire which devastated the old Palace of Westminster on 16 October 1834, and its consequences. Renditions ranged from quick pen and pencil doodles to full-scale oil paintings and commercial engravings. The most frequently-painted view of the fire was from the eastern, Lambeth, bank of the river (the most […]
