18th-Century Parliamentary Papers

During the eighteenth century the British Parliament ruled over one of the most powerful nations on earth. The matters it debated ranged from the minutely personal, such as individual divorce cases or family financial affairs, through the local, for example the construction or roads or harbours, to matters of the most central national importance, like electoral reform, wars and treaties, catholic emancipation or law and order.

All of these matters were reflected in Parliament's proceedings, in committee reports, bills, accounts of debates, and so on. But the mass of parliamentary papers is poorly indexed, and the complex inter-relationships between the documents difficult to understand. As a result it has often been difficult to mine the richness they contain.

BOPCRIS makes all of this vast and exciting collection of material online for the first time, to allow it to be effectively exploited by anyone interested in anything that went on in Britain - and its colonies - from 1688 to 1834.