Dr Kathryn Rix
Assistant Editor, House of Commons, 1832-1945
Current Research/Role
I am the Assistant Editor of the House of Commons, 1832-1945 project, having joined the History in 2009. Before that I spent several years at the University of Cambridge, where I completed my PhD, which was awarded the Seeley Medal and the Prince Consort Prize, at Christ’s College. I was a Fellow of Christ’s and then of Murray Edwards College, specialising in modern British political history.
I am currently working on the House of Commons, 1832-1868 volumes, for which I have researched numerous biographies of MPs and constituency articles. The regions I have focused on include Lancashire, Yorkshire and Suffolk, and I am also particularly interested in constituencies where electoral corruption was prevalent.
Research Interests
My major research interests have been the development of party organisation, changes in electoral culture, and the interactions between the local and national dimensions of electoral politics. My book on Parties, agents and electoral culture in England, 1880-1910 was published in 2016. Other key themes I have researched include electoral corruption and 19th century legislative attempts to tackle it; parliamentary speech-making and the reporting and recording of parliamentary proceedings; parliamentary architecture; and MPs who died during the First and Second World Wars. I am particularly interested in women’s participation in politics, and I was a member of the project board for the Vote 100 project which organised a major exhibition in Westminster Hall to mark the 100th anniversary of partial female enfranchisement in 2018. I was the section editor for ‘Britain, 1815-1914’ for the Bibliography of British and Irish History for twenty years, and I currently serve on the editorial boards of Parliamentary History and the Journal of Liberal History. My next research project combines two of my interests, looking at ‘Women and Electoral Corruption, 1832-68’.
Publications
Book
Parties, agents and electoral culture in England, 1880-1910 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2016).
Chapters in Books
‘The Backbenchers of the Nineteenth-century Commons: Activity and Accountability in the Age of Reform’, in P. Readman and G. Thomas (ed.), Culture, Thought and Belief in British Political Life since 1800: Essays in Honour of Jonathan Parry (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2024), pp. 233-51
‘1880’, in I. Dale (ed.), British General Election Campaigns, 1830-2019, (London: Biteback, 2024), pp. 119-31.
‘Living in stone or marble: the public commemoration of Victorian MPs’, in M. Roberts (ed.), Memory and modern British politics. Commemoration, tradition, legacy (London: Bloomsbury, 2024), pp. 139-70.
Contributor to Big Ben. An icon of democracy and leadership (London: St James’s House, 2023)
‘The “most difficult” subject for legislation: parliament and electoral corruption in the nineteenth century’, in I. Cawood and T. Crook (eds.), The many lives of corruption. The reform of public life in modern Britain c.1750-1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022), pp. 156-76.
Contributor to M. Takayanagi, M. Unwin and P. Seaward (eds.), Voice and Vote: Celebrating 100 Years of Votes for Women (London: St James’s House, 2018).
Contributor to P. Seaward (ed.), The Story of Parliament: Celebrating 750 years of Parliament in Britain (London: St James’s House & History of Parliament Trust, 2015). ‘By-elections and the modernisation of party organisation, 1867-1914’, in T. Otte and P. Readman (eds.), By-elections in British Politics, 1832-1914, ed. T. Otte and P. Readman (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013), pp. 151-75.
Journal Articles
‘Living Politics: The Professional Agents and Party Organisation, 1880–1914’, in N. Lloyd-Jones (ed.), Political Organising in the Long Nineteenth Century, special issue of Parliamentary History (forthcoming, Feb. 2026)
‘One of the most effective and most welcome workers: Bertha Bowness Fischer, pioneering political organiser’, Journal of Liberal History 112 (2021), pp. 12-19
‘Fischer [married name Foulkes], Bertha Bowness (1875-1920)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2019).
‘The backbone of the party: Conservative agents, 1880-1910’, Conservative History Journal 2:7 (2019).
‘Who should have the vote? What electoral rights did Britons have in the century before 1918?’, History Today 68:8 (2018), pp. 24-35 [with P. Salmon]
‘The Second Reform Act and the problem of electoral corruption’, Parliamentary History, 36:1 (2017), pp. 64-81.
‘“Whatever passed in Parliament ought to be communicated to the public”: reporting the proceedings of the Reformed Commons, 1833-1850’, Parliamentary History, 33:3 (2014), pp. 453-74.
‘Professionalisation and political culture. Party agents, 1880-1914‘, Journal of Liberal History, 84 (2014), pp. 18-25
‘“The elimination of corrupt practices in British elections”? Reassessing the impact of the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act’, English Historical Review, 123:500 (2008), pp. 65-97.
‘Les agents de circonscription en Grande-Bretagne (1880-1914): la professionnalisation d’un rôle politique’, Politix, 21:81 (2008), pp. 41-60.
‘Hidden workers of the party. The professional Liberal agents, 1885-1910’, Journal of Liberal History 52 (2006), pp. 4-13
‘“Go out into the highways and the hedges”: the diary of Michael Sykes, Conservative political lecturer, 1895 and 1907-8’, Parliamentary History, 20:2 (2001), pp. 209-31.
Book Reviews
I have contributed book reviews to Global Intellectual History, Parliamentary History, the Journal of Liberal History, the Journal of Contemporary History, Midland History and Victorian Studies.
Specialisms: Political History, Parliamentary History, Electoral History, Electoral Corruption, Party Organisation .
Read more in ‘Victorian Commons’
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