"The Division Bell Mystery" by Ellen Wilkinson

Ellen Wilkinson (1891-1947) was a Labour member of the British Parliament and, at the time of her death, Minister of Education in the Cabinet. She was associated with a number of worker, education, and women’s causes, including what became known as the Jarrow March, a demonstration by the unemployed that culminated in a march from the Manchester area to London. 

For a brief time in the late 1920s and early 1930s, she was out of office, and one of the things she did was to write a mystery novel, The Division Bell Mystery, published in 1932. The British Library recently republished the novel as part of its Crime Classis series. Wilkinson had been a fan of murder mysteries and especially those of Agatha Christie, and she tried her hand at writing one. It’s not a perfect mystery, but it an entertaining one, and it’s filled with details about the workings of Parliament.

Robert West is a young Member of Parliament who serves as Personal Private Secretary to the Home Office Secretary. He’s showing an old friend around Parliament, and they’re near the private dining rooms when the division bell rings, signifying the need for MPs to return to the House of Commons for a vote. It’s 9 p.m.; Big Ben begins to chime at the same time. And so does what clearly sounds like a gunshot.

Ellen Wilkinson

West and his friend discover the body of an American financier, who had been having dinner with the Home Secretary. At first, the death appears to be suicide, but the police come to realize that it’s murder. Then they learn that the dead man’s flat had been burglarized at the same time, and a security man killed there. 

Because of his position with the Home Secretary, West finds himself helping to investigate the murder and burglary and navigating romantic entanglements at the same time. And it’s through West’s eyes that we come to see not only a large number of suspects but also some of the inner workings of Parliament. (There’s even a character who’s an MP and has the same political inclinations as the author.)

The identification of the killer gets a little hurried at the end, but The Division Bell Mystery is still a worthwhile and rather fun read. This new edition by the British Library includes a preface by Rachel Reeves, MP for Leeds West, and a solid introduction on politics in Golden Age detective fiction by crime writer Martin Edwards.

Related: Red Ellen, a biography of Ellen Wilkinson, by Laura Beers (2016).

"Dominion" by Peter Ackroyd

You might want to call this “everything you wanted to know about British parliamentary history in the 19^thcentury, and then some.”

British author Peter Ackroyd is beginning to approach the end of his multi-volume history of England. Each of the first four volumes has a one-word title (followed by a long subtitle): Foundation, Tudors, Rebellion, and Revolution. The single words of the titles serve as both descriptions of the content and summary themes. 

The fifth and most recent is Dominion: The History of England from the Battle of Waterloo to Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. It covers most of 19^thcentury British history. If there is a primary focus to the volume, it is the push and pull and British politics and parliamentary changes that occurred during the century. 

We follow, in detail, the rise and fall and occasional resurrection of all of the prime ministers and the governments. We see the considerable amount of political activism that occurred during the period, like the Chartist movement that sought, among other things, universal male suffrage. We read about the political protests, often fueled by the industrial and technological changes, that sometimes ended in bloodshed. Dominionalso includes succinct accounts of the significant wars Britain experienced during the Victorian period – the Crimean War, the rebellion in India, and the Boer War.

Ackroyd writes with a comprehensive view and a rather sparkling (and witty) style. A history like this one and its cohorts is not an easy thing to write; in a sense, the author has to hold together all of the information being covered even as he’s writing about a specific event or month or year. 

But Dominion is different from its predecessors. The difference is both significant and surprising, and it lies in what is not included. The previous volumes have covered literary and cultural history, in addition to political, technological, and military events. Dominion has a few scattered quotes from Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackery, George Eliot, and a few other literary figures, but that’s all that’s included. To get two-and-a-half pages on a music hall performer and essentially ignore what Victorian England produced in literature is not a minor omission. The previous volumes included literary history.

Peter Ackroyd

So what you will not find in Dominion, except for the occasional quotation, is Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, the Brontes, and others. Dickens fares slightly better than the rest, but only slightly. Even popular culture is shorted, with a single reference to Gilbert and Sullivan and none at all to Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes stories.

The author is one of Britain’s most prolific popular historians. In addition to his history of England series, he’s also written biographies of Charles Dickens and the artist J.M.W. Turner, among several others; a history of London (and a history of London beneath the streets); and many other works. 

Dominion stands as an in-depth and lively summary of 19^thBritish political history. In that regard, it is comprehensive and well-written. But it is disappointing that Ackroyd didn’t turn his keen eye to the literature of the period as well.

Related:

My review of Revolution by Peter Ackroyd.

My review of Rebellion by Peter Ackroyd.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Top illustration: Queen Victoria, who gave her name to the period.

A Wild Century: “Rebellion” by Peter Ackroyd

The 1600s were a tumultuous century in British history. The Tudor dynasty came to an end with the death of Elizabeth I, and the Stuarts ascended the throne. Disagreements between king and Parliament increased, with the eventual explosion of civil war in the 1640s and the Cromwell protectorate in the 1650s. Then came the Restoration, with Charles II crowned king. Upon his death, his brother James II became king, but his Catholicism and imperial ways were too much. William and Mary, James II’s son-in-law and daughter, ascended the throne in the relatively bloodless Glorious Revolution of 1688.

This is the political history of the century told in detail by writer Peter Ackroyd in Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution. It is the third volume in his history of England, following Foundation and Tudors.

Rebellion is firmly in the tradition of popular history writing in the U.K., and Ackroyd is one of its most prolific writers. The book is a lively, exciting story, and it draws upon a lively, exciting period. Ackroyd writes history with all of its warts, and none of the romanticizing that many popular writers might be prone to.

The most detailed and extensive section is the era that was the most pivotal – roughly 1640 to 1660, covering the fight between Charles I and the royalists on one side and the Independents and Presbyterians of Parliament on the other. The detailed discussion provides a solid summary of both causes and effects, and emphasizes that the it wasn’t a simple “crown versus Parliament” fight. Loyalties could be fluid, and both sides were guilty of extreme positions and acts. It was a time of extremes.

The 17^th century was also a time when some of the greatest literature and theological statements in English history was created. Shakespeare wrote some of his most famous plays. A royal commission of scholars translated and created the King James Version of the Bible. Thomas Hobbes wrote his  Leviathan. Milton wrote his incredible poetry (and spent a time in prison for siding with Cromwell and Parliament). John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. Theologians spent five years (meeting at Hampton Court Palace) creating the Westminster Confession.

Peter Ackroyd

While the focus is political history (and particularly the political history of England), Rebellion also provides context of what was happening in the daily lives of the people. We learn about crop failures; the growth, contraction, and growth of trade; the return of the plague; and the first of London in 1666 (both King Charles II and his brother worked to fight the fire, which burned for three September days).

But it’s the political history where Ackroyd excels and tells his best stories. We learn of the workings and the corruption of the royal courts, the intrigues with various European powers and how that played out in domestic politics, and the inner workings o parliament and how it came to assume power and fight for power.

It’s a rich, exciting story, and Ackroyd tells it extremely well.

Related:

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Painting: Charles I by a follower of Anthony van Dyck (1636).