Dr Martin Spychal
Senior Research Fellow & Digital Humanities Lead
Current Research/Role
I am a Senior Research Fellow on the 1832-1945 House of Commons project, having joined the History of Parliament in 2016. In addition to my research role, I am the History of Parliament’s Digital Humanities Lead. Before joining the History, I completed my doctorate at the Institute of Historical Research. My research for the forthcoming Commons 1832-1868 volumes has focused, and continues to focus, widely on MPs and constituencies across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Research Interests
Outside of the History my wider research interests include the evolution of the political nation and its significance to modern British society and culture; parliamentary reform and the development of the UK’s electoral map to the present day; the integration of new historical approaches into political history and the incorporation of digital humanities and ‘big data’ into historical practice.
My first monograph, Mapping the State: English boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act, was published in September 2024. Offering a major reassessment of the 1832 Reform Act, my book provides the first sustained analysis of the reconstruction of England’s electoral map in 1832 and its impact on politics at Westminster and in the constituencies.
I am a regular contributor to the Victorian Commons and the History of Parliament. I have written over fifty short articles focusing on nineteenth-century politics and political culture, these include extended series on the nineteenth-century radical politician, author and arts patron, Harriet Grote (1792-1878) and the queer MP, artist and author, Lord Ronald Gower (1845-1916).
I work as a series researcher withZinc Media. Previous credits include the BBC Radio 4 series Materials of State [2025], theBBC Radio 4 series Prime Ministers’ Props [2016-2023] and the BBC Archive on 4 showAnthony Blunt: A Question of Retribution [2020].
I am co-convenor of the IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar
Publications
Book
Mapping the state: English boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act (London: Royal Historical Society and University of London Press, 2024)
Chapters in Books
‘Documentary Narrative’, in D. Cannadine (ed.),A Question of Retribution? The British Academy and the Matter of Anthony Blunt(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) [with J. Rivington and K. Syrett]
Journal Articles
‘Boundaries, science and the redrawing of England’s electoral map in 1832’, Journal of Liberal history (Forthcoming, 2026)
“One of the best men of business we had ever met’: Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act’,Historical Research, 90:249 (2017), pp. 543-66. [proxime accessit 2015 Pollard Prize]
Conference papers
‘Who cares about politics? Engaging contemporary audiences with the history of Parliament’, British History Today, Queen Mary, May 2025
‘Surveying Scottish county politics in the constituencies and at Westminster, 1832-68’, Histories of Scottish Politics in the Age of Union, c.1700-1945, Durham University, July 2024
‘“she, yes she was the only member of Parliament”: Harriet Grote and the organisation of radicalism, 1832-41’, Organise! Organise! Organise, Durham University, July 2023
‘Reappraising England’s reformed electoral map, 1832-1868’, Politics Before Democracy, University of East Anglia, April 2023
Campaigning for the Ballot: the parliamentary men and women behind the cause, Voting reform 150 years on from the 1872 Ballot Act, Institute for Historical Research, September 2022.
‘To banish or revive? The ghost of Namier and the future of modern British political history’, Does British Political History have a future?, Queen Mary, London, July 2022.
‘The geography of voting behaviour: towards a roll-call analysis of England’s reformed
electoral map, 1832-68‘, Parliaments, Politics and People Seminar, Institute for Historical Research, March 2021.
‘The Life of Sir Robert Peel – a re-assessment’, Oxted & District History Society, March 2021
Exhibition Material
Rebel, React, Reform Making the UK Parliament (UCL Exhibition Catalogue, 2020) [with V. Larminie]
Specialisms: modern British history; long nineteenth century; political history; electoral politics and culture; history of representation and democracy; electoral geography; digital humanities; big data; roll-call analysis.