I'd better start by declaring myself. I'm a former member of the Social Democratic Party and then the Liberal Democrats, leaving the latter for financial reasons when I got married in 1997. I still want them to do well even though I've fallen out of sympathy with most of their policies in recent years and lean more towards UKIP these days. I also have a degree in history.
This is therefore a historical blog covering all the Liberal and SDP MPs from the traditional starting point of the party in 1859* to the present day. I will be including all MPs who had the word "Liberal" somewhere in their designation even though that will mean including some who were barely distinguishable from outright Tories. I will be including all those who stood under the Lib-Lab designation but not those Labour MPs elected under the operation of the Gladstone-Macdonald pact in the period 1906-18. I will include all the Labour members who defected to the SDP in 1981-2 but not those former MPs (eg George Brown) who joined the party but didn't return to Parliament . The same goes for former Tories (eg Hugh Dykes) who joined the Lib Dems after losing their seat. I have decided to include Dick Taverne who co-operated with the local Liberals and would clearly have joined the SDP had it existed at the time !
* I'm well aware that this will exclude some MPs who stood as "Liberals" in elections prior to 1859 and were not elected in 1859 or subsequently. However this would introduce a wholly artificial distinction between them and the "Whigs" and "Radicals" in the same elections and to cover all Whigs would be a step too far. I accept the Willis Tea Room argument because while Aberdeen's coalition had some claim to be a Liberal one, the opposition to Palmerston's subsequent administration from Gladstone, Cobden and Bright gives the lie to suggestions that a genuine fusion of liberal factions had been achieved.
I will try to keep to chronological order starting from 1859 as year zero. Where a number of new MP's came in at the same time (e.g at General Elections) I will order them on a roughly regional basis.
There is no definitive total for the number of "Liberal " MPs elected in 1859; the party affiliations of Irish MPs in particular were loose. The totals in various sources range from 349 to 357. I've identified 353 but if anyone reading this thinks there's a good case for including someone else or excluding someone I've listed please use the comments boxes to that effect.
