A Parliamentary Miscellany: Papers on the History of the House of Lords, published 1964–1991

To mark the 80th birthday of Sir John Sainty, and pay tribute to his enormous contribution to the journal Parliamentary History, the journal has reproduced the texts of all John s memoranda, together with three other House of Lords Record Office publications. The result, A Parliamentary Miscellany, contains a diverse and fascinating collection of papers originally published by the House of Lords Record Office (now the Parliamentary Archives), relating to various aspects of parliamentary history, particularly the history of the House of Lords.

This body of work has been produced by the author over many years, but is now exceedingly difficult to extract, despite its value in having formed the foundations upon which other historians built their work. Now the papers are available for the first time in a single volume, with subjects including the leaders and whips of the political parties, representative peers for Scotland and Ireland, biographies of lords clerks, the origin of the office of chairman of committees, and the presence of the monarch in parliament. This publication is invaluable for researchers, making easily accessible a broad range of information that is difficult and time consuming to obtain both from the parliamentary and the state records at The National Archives.

J.C. Sainty s professional career was spent in the service of the House of Lords culminating in his appointment as Clerk of the Parliaments 1983–90.  He was also Editor of the Office–Holders series published by the Institute of Historical Research, providing accounts of the development and personnel of government departments.  In addition to his interest in parliamentary history he maintains a continuing concern with the history of office–holding generally and the identification of officials of the central government in particular.