Catalogue description Michael Steed Collection

The collection centres on Steed's time with the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE), as well as his interest in the establishing a regional government for the North of England. The is also material relating to Steed's candidature at the 1967 Brierley Hill by-election and a small amount of other Liberal Party material.
Omitted from the collection is material from Steed's work in the area of psephology.

The collection has been arranged in series that reflect the different area of work/interest's in Steed's life.

Material from Steed's work in the area of psephology has been deposited with Special Collections at the University of Bristol. .

Michael Steed

Aside from the files marked 'closed data protection', the remainder of the collection is open.

The collection was deposited with the Labour History Archive and Study Centre in 2016.

In 1966, Michael Steed became Lecturer in Government at Manchester University before later becoming a specialist in the field of psephology, the detailed analysis of election results.
A leading member of the "radical" wing of the Liberal Party, Steed stood as the candidate for the party at the:1967 Brierley Hill by-election; the 1973 Manchester Exchange by-election, in which he pushed the Conservatives into third place; the 1970 general election, when he was the party's candidate for Truro; and the February 1974 general election, when he stood at Manchester Central,
For many years, Steed was a leading light in the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE), serving on its executive committee and for a time as its treasurer, during a period of time when there was still great hostility to gay rights. Steed often spoke at public meetings, including an acrimonious one in Burnley in 1971 over the proposed establishment of a gay club. This meeting has come to be seen as a watershed in the emergence of a national grassroots gay rights movement in Britain.
In 1975, with his former CHE colleague Paul Temperton, he founded Northern Democrat, a magazine calling for democratic regional government. This later developed into the Campaign for the North, an all-party group pressing for devolution for the English regions; as well as Scotland and Wales.
Steed died in 2023 aged 83.