Philobiblon

Interesting piece in the Guardian today about the danger of claiming something as a first – in this case referring to disabled politicians.

The furthest back it goes is “Henry Fawcett, radical Liberal MP for Brighton from 1864 until 1874”, who was blind, and “Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, an Irish aristocrat who represented Wexford from 1866 to 1868 and Carlow for 12 years afterwards. Born with vestigial arms and legs, he used to be carried into the Commons on the back of a servant.”

But it left me thinking that there must have been disabled early modern MPs – certainly you’d think after all that Civil War fighting. Anyone know any?