J B Seatrobe is the name used by Janet Seaton & Barry K Winetrobe, who have both had extensive careers in parliamentary research, first in the House of Commons Service, and later at the Scottish Parliament – where Janet set up, and ran for a number of years, the new Parliament’s Research & Information Service. Barry has held a number of academic posts in Public Law and Politics at various UK universities. We have also worked as parliamentary consultants around the world. We have published a number of books and articles on political and parliamentary subjects, both separately and together, and regularly give talks to local groups. More details about our talks can be found in the section on our illustrated talks.
We live in Langport, in south Somerset, where Janet chairs the Langport & District History Society, a registered charity. Their website is here. More than a decade ago, we both helped to create and run the Bagehot Memorial Fund, to commemorate our town’s most famous person, Walter Bagehot (1826-1877). This Bagehot work is now incorporated into the History Society, and can be viewed on their website.
PUBLICATIONS
We have published both under our own names and also as J B Seatrobe. Our publications on political and parliamentary subjects include:
Facts about the British Prime Ministers. (Eds. D. Englefield, J Seaton & I White. H W Wilson, 1995)
Oh Prime Minister! (J B Seatrobe. Robson Books, 1999)
Political London. (J B Seatrobe. Politico’s Publishing, 2000)
Hung, drawn and slaughtered: five decades of political caricatures by Gerald Scarfe. (Exhibition booklet. Janet Seaton & Barry Winetrobe. House of Commons, 2008)
As J B Seatrobe we contributed a series of articles entitled They Were Also MPs (TWAMPS) to Total Politics, a magazine which has now ceased. The series ran for 8 years, and many of the articles, revised and augmented, can be found in the TWAMPS section on this website.
Also under the J B Seatrobe name, we contributed articles on Political Somerset to The Langport Leveller, and later The Somerset Leveller. These are reproduced in the Somerset sections of this website . Currently we are writing an occasional series for The Leveller on quirky aspects of Somerset history, called Somerset Snippets.
Our publications on local history, mainly authored by Janet, include:
Kelway’s Glorious: the story of a pioneering Somerset nursery. Picts Hill Publishing, 2011.
Langport & Huish Episcopi through time. Amberley Publishing, 2013
Hurds Hill: a brief history of the family home of Walter Bagehot, 2014
Hand in glove: Langport’s gloving history. Picts Hill Publishing, 2017