On 15 February 2011 20:18, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Arguably the answer is "yes", back to the 16th century at least. There has actually been quite a lot of havoc onsite over stub MP biographies during the past year, but it transpires that there are pretty good sources back to 1660, and usually adequate sources in the century leading up to that (if you work at it). The ODNB took a decision not to include all MPs (it says somewhere, in terms that suggest that it was a decision that did at least require a moment's thought).
There is a project (even longer-running and slower-burning than the ODNB) to construct a reference work covering all MPs, at least as much as they're known, along with various other bits and pieces:
http://www.histparl.ac.uk/about.html
In the past sixty years, they've managed to cover a little over half the timeframe in twenty-eight (!) volumes. I have never seen their work, I admit, but I'd be intrigued to...