Talk:John Lee Lee

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Party affiliation[edit]

The article states that John Lee Lee "was a British Tory politician". However the article for the constituency that he sat for Wells, indicates that Lee was not a Tory, but a Whig,at a time when the Whigs were the main opposition to the Tories. Further complicating things this article is in Category:Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies. However the Liberal Party did not official exist until 1859, well after Lee was an MP, although the label was sometimes, but inconsistently, applied to politicians who would normally be called Whigs of Radicals. While party allegiance in the UK was fluid at this time, and it is possible he identified with more than one party in his lifetime, what is here at the moment looks very inconstant and it would be good if someone could find a source which gives his actual political affiliation and amends the article accordingly. Dunarc (talk) 20:48, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

From reading the History of Parliament biography used in the refs, he started out a Tory, and from 1832 "sat as an advocate of ‘moderate Whig principles’ until his retirement in 1837". DuncanHill (talk) 21:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - from reading that it sounds like he was at least Tory sympathiser in the 1820s, difficult to pigeonhole by 1830 and then a Whig by 1832. I would be interested to see what FWS Craig lists him as standing as in 1832, but do not have that particular volume to hand. I suspect that, as with so many MPs of this time, he is not someone that is easy to label. Dunarc (talk) 22:33, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]