User:Choess/OfficialsGuide

This is intended as a guide for writing and formatting articles on British "officials". I use the term in a very broad sense, including Members of Parliament and to some extent peers.

Categories

Make sure to use Template:DEFAULTSORT and the birth and death year categories (or Template:Lifetime) at the head of the list of categories. Be aware that baronets and peers may have used different styles or titles at different times in their life. For instance, the heirs apparent of earls, marquesses, and dukes are referred to by "courtesy titles", as if they were peers. The sortkey on any given category should be the highest possible title held while that category was applicable to the person. (Obiter dicta from Choess.)

1. Education. Members of the British official hierarchy were often educated at public schools, a circumstance for which we have categories. Examine the sub-categories of Category:People educated by school in England. We also have categories for those educated at the various colleges of Oxford, Cambridge, Trinity College, etc.
2. Law. Many of these people are barristers. Examine the appropriate subcategory of Category:Members of the Bar of England and Wales and related categories.
3. Parliament. We have separate categories for the pre-1707 English Parliament, the Parliament of Great Britain, and the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Do not put people directly into these categories! Within the subcategories of each, you will find classifications of MPs by the geographical location of their constituencies, by the Parliaments in which they served, and by political party. MPs should be classified by location and tenure, and, if possible, by party.
4. Other official bodies. There are categories for Members of the Privy Council of Great Britain, the UK, Ireland, and Canada.
5. Military service. Examine the subcategory structure of Category:British military personnel. Try to make categories as specific as possible with regards to war, whether individual was killed or taken prisoner, officer vs enlisted man, and so forth. Note in particular the subcategories by regiment of Category:British Army officers.
6. Honors and awards. See Category:Decorations of the British Army, and the subcategories Category:Orders of chivalry of the United Kingdom for different gradations of knighthood in various orders. "Ordinary" knights are categorized as Knights Bachelor.
7. Baronetcies.
8. Peerages.
9. Offices. Many government posts have categories associated with them. This includes many posts at the national level, as well as Lord Lieutenancies and Deputy Lieutenancies.
10. Offices in commission. We have Category:Lords of the Admiralty, with a subcategory for First Sea Lords. We need another cat/subcat for the Lord High Admiral's Council. Otherwise, we don't usually show those offices in succession boxes and categories. Change for Lords of the Treasury?

Free online

While it has some irritating lacunae, the London Gazette has extensive records of persons elected to Parliament, persons appointed to Crown offices, commissioning of military officers, and so on. We have a template for easy citation of the Gazette: see Template:LondonGazette.

Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page is also a good source for MP's and other officials. Again, it has templates for easy citing: {{rayment}}, {{rayment-bt}}, {{rayment-hc}}

• Annals and Antiquities of the County Families of Wales
• The county & borough magistrates list (1878)
• The Book of Dignities
• English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661-1714
• English Contested Elections. March 1837
• The House of Commons, November 1901
• Kalendars of Gwynedd
• Members of Parliament, Scotland
• The Parliamentary History of the Principality of Wales
• The Parliamentary Representation of the Six Northern Counties of England
• The Parliaments of England v. 3 (Stooks Smith)
• A Political Index to the Histories of Great Britain & Ireland (Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III)

Subscription online

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Text from its precursor, the Dictionary of National Biography, is in the public domain, but the DNB is archaically phrased, less broad in coverage, and may not reflect recent research.

Books

• Texts from the History of Parliament Trust, with short biographies of MPs and descriptions of politics in the constituencies:
  • The Commons 1386-1421
  • The Commons 1509-1558
  • The Commons 1558-1603
  • The Commons 1660-1690
  • The Commons 1690-1715
  • The Commons 1715-1754
  • The Commons 1754-1790
  • The Commons 1790-1820