Through the wonderful archive of Getty Images, here is a smattering photographs of prominent Liberal and Liberal Democrat past and present. Scroll down to view. Roll your mouse or put your finger on the photo to read its caption. You can also click on the photo to see it at the Getty Images site with similar photographs.
And yes, I know that Shirley Williams was in the Labour party at the time of the first photo.
If you think I’ve missed out anyone you’d like to see a photo of here, please let me know in the comments and I’ll add them (if appropriate).
I would have liked to have featured Enid Lakeman, Elizabeth Shields, Margaret Wintringham, Liz Lynne, Jackie Ballard, Diana Maddock and Ray Michie but I couldn’t find any useable Getty Images of them.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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10 Comments
A lovely collection Paul.
Ideally it would be nice to have a pic of Claire Brooks in the merger debate 1988 and Linda Jack in the coalition debate 2010.
Thanks Ruth. Sadly neither of those come up on Getty Images.
As a Watforder I feel like Sal Brinton and Dorothy Thornhill should be on there. Took some finding but if you search “Watford Liberal Democrats” they both appear with Nick Clegg
Excellent collection. Thanks Paul.
Not everyone will have known about Vera Terrington, the MP who appears in your last picture sitting in her campaign HQ. She was only the second woman to be a Liberal MP.
She was born Vera Bousher in 1889. Her first husband, Guy Sebright, died in 1912. In 1918 she married Harold Woodhouse, who became Lord Terrington. So it was as Vera Terrington that she became a Liberal MP in December 1923. She had stood in the election the previous year and was one of only thirty-three women candidates.
Anyone in any age who sues The Daily Express is worthy of approval. Vera Terrington took objection to the way she was belittled by the newspaper. The judge ruled against her saying that she had “not suffered a farthings worth of damage” and lost her case. This may tell us more about attitudes of the time, or the judge, than the merits of the case.
As MP for Wycombe, she was one of only eight women in the House of Commons.
She supported the abolition of the means test for old-age pensions and moves to give parents equal rights to custody. She also campaigned against cruelty to animals and was a Member of the Grand Council of the organisation ‘Our Dumb Friends League’.
She lost her seat in parliament to a Unionist reactionary, a retired Major-General called Knox. Knox had several claims to fame (or lunacy) including the fact that he considered Arthur Ransome (the children’s author) to be pro-Bolshevik and his writing to be treasonous.
He suggested that Ransome should be “shot like a dog”.
Fans of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and subsequent books in the series might have preferred it if Vera had kept her seat
She later married Max LensvelI in Cape Town in 1949 and died in Sussex in 1973.
… and we should not forget Penelope Jessel;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituarydame-penelope-jessel-1313346.html
or Honour Balfour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_Balfour
Nice.
None of Kirsty Williams, the most senior female politician in the party?
It’s wonderful to be reminded of Nancy Seear (3rd top) again. As an over enthusiastic Young Liberal in the early 1980s I was recipient of my best ever put down from her at a meeting of Liberal Party Council. She happened to over hear me remarking that I was shocked at the party leaderships interest in Republicanism. As she moved towards me like a missile, her eyes burning a hole in me, she said, “I am a Republican but on a list of 100 Liberal priorities, it comes at 100.” I didn’t agree with her then, and I don’t know, but every time I heard her contribute to a debate, I was reminded that she was a woman and a Liberal worthy of my very highest respect.
Arthur Ransome was the Manchester Guardian correspondent in Russia during the revolution. That may have been enough to cause Major-General Knox’s ire. Or it may have been that he married Trotsky’s secretary as his second wife.
I’ve added Kirsty, Sal and Dorothy. Sadly neither Penelope or Honour appear on Getty Images.
The picture of Hilda and Walter Runciman (third from the bottom) is slightly more problematic. They had both been Liberal MPs (Hilda in the 1920s and Walter for several periods between 1899 and 1937). However during the 1930s he had become Liberal National and then a peer. The photo is of them setting off for Prague in 1938, where Walter was to compile a report for Chamberlain on the Sudeten German question which influenced the PM’s negotiations with Hitler.