Following a reference in the Journal of Lib Dem History I recently came across the most extraordinary labour of love, a biographical directory of people who have been Liberal, SDP and Lib Dem parliamentary candidates from 1945-2019.
This is a 20 year piece of work by Lionel King who I find from the directory is 87, fought Kidderminster in 1964, Sutton Coldfield in 1970, and Walsall South 1987, is former chair of Birmingham University Liberal Society, worked as a teacher and then TV/Media lecturer in FE and held many roles in the Birmingham and West Midlands Party.
The directory is divided into 14 parts, by region and gives a fascinating insight into the range of people attracted to become our parliamentary candidates over the years.
I came across Lionel King's directory for the West Midlands myself a few years ago and blogged about it here.
The whole directory is now online. Lionel would love to hear from people who can help him fill out the entries.
3 comments:
I was supposed to be delivering leaflets today.....
Having spent a year (1973 - 74) employed as a research assistant at Exeter University to compile biographical information on MPs from 1900 I salute Lionel King for this prodigious work of scholarship. It is presumably easier to find information now that the internet exists, but it was hard enough to discover basic facts about many MPs in those days. I can only guess at the problems of finding information about candidates who were not elected (i.e. the overwhelming proportion of Liberals/LibDems). A quick run through the list for South Central reveals that I do have additional knowledge about quite a number of those listed, so I will forward that to Lionel when I have time to compile it.
Fancy saying I went to school in Llandudno! I went to school in Llandudno Junction.
I may sue!
:-)
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