A century of publishing The Parliamentarian, the Journal of Commonwealth Parliaments, 1920-2020 The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) traces its origin to a world vastly different from today. When the CPA was founded in 1911 as the Empire Parliamentary Association, the world had scarcely two dozen nations which were parliamentary democracies. The British Empire was composed of one sovereign parliamentary democracy, five dominions, a handful of tiny protectorates and a vast array of colonies. Today, the United Nations has 193 member states, 54 of them in the Commonwealth. The CPA’s membership of 180 Branches also includes fourteen Overseas Territories, three Crown Dependencies and more than 125 sub-national states, provinces and territories in federal-style countries, all with their own Parliaments or Legislatures. Some of the states and provinces and their Legislatures are far larger and their economies more significant than many independent countries.
In January 1920, the ‘Journal of Parliaments of the Empire’ was first published as the record of the debates and activities of the Parliaments of the Association, published four times a year.
The first meeting of the Association, held to mark the coronation of King George V in 1911, paved the way for future meetings of Parliamentarians and as it moved into the 1920s, a new political role emerged for the Association as a link to keeping a changing global empire together. The Association’s membership began to expand, taking in many different countries. Soon other Parliaments joined from Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, and Australia’s states and Canada’s provinces began joining the group to extend the Association into its next phase. As the Association began to expand more widely, the CPA became, and continues to be, the natural arena for Parliamentarians and parliamentary officials to learn their profession from each other. CPA Conferences, which became annual from 1961 having previously been held every two years, added discussions on parliamentary and electoral processes to the usual agenda of political – especially foreign policy – issues. Seminars, such as the Westminster Seminar on Parliamentary Practice and Procedure which began in the early 1950s, meetings of Presiding Officers and Clerks and study groups on parliamentary subjects. In January 1920, the ‘Journal of Parliaments of the Empire’ was first published as the record of the debates and activities of the Parliaments of the Association, published four times a year. In 1949, when the London declaration formed the ‘modern’ Commonwealth, the publication became the ‘Journal of the Parliaments of the Commonwealth’.
In 1949, when the London declaration formed the ‘modern’ Commonwealth, the publication became the ‘Journal of the Parliaments of the Commonwealth’. In 1966, the journal became The Parliamentarian as the established publication of the Association. 24 | The Parliamentarian | 2020: Issue One | 100th anniversary issue 1920-2020
