Movers and Seconders of the Address in Reply to the Speech in the Commons and the Lords, 1715-1831

The following lists are designed to make available the names of those moving and seconding the address in reply to the speech from the throne in both houses of parliament from 1715 to 1831. The main source for this information are the reports of debates contained in the Parliamentary History to 1803 and the successive series of Parliamentary Debates thereafter. For the house of commons the biographies of members published in successive sections of the History of Parliament are also of assistance. Where these sources fail to provide details information has been sought elsewhere, principally in successive editions of the Political State of Great Britain but also in collections of correspondence.

The Journals of the two Houses do not record the names of movers and seconders as such. However, for the Commons, it is a matter of observation that there is generally a close correlation between the mover and seconder and the members named first and second to the committee responsible for drafting the address. The same cannot be said for the house of lords where it was the invariable practice for the Journals to marshal the names of members of the committee in order of precedence. However, for the years 1724-34 and 1744 the manuscript minutes, the preliminary record of proceedings which form the basis of the Journals, do not observe this practice and there is good reason to believe that, as in the Commons, the first two names listed in these documents are in fact the mover and seconder. In both Houses there is a close correlation between the mover and the member who reports the address from the committee.

In view of these considerations it has been considered helpful to include details from the Journals and the manuscript minutes in the following lists where no other information is available but it should be stressed that, while the conventions described were well established, they were not invariably observed.