Essays on the History of Parliamentary Procedure

The 8th of February 2015 marked the 200th anniversary of Thomas Erskine May's birth, the most famous holder of the office of the Clerk of the House of Commons. This volume celebrates that event. Bringing together current Clerks in the House of Commons and outside experts, the authors analyse May's profound contribution to the shaping of the modern House of Commons as it made the transition in his lifetime from the pre-Reform Act House to the modern core of the UK's constitutional democracy, symbolised perhaps from its enforced transition between 1834 and 1851 from a mediaeval slum to the World Heritage Palace of Westminster which is the most iconic building in the UK. It constitutes the first sustained analysis of the development of parliamentary procedure in over half a century, attempting to situate the reforms in the way the central institution of our democracy conducts itself in the political contexts which drove those changes.

Paul Evans is Clerk of Committees in the House of Commons in Westminster.