Mother of parliaments

"The mother of parliaments" is a phrase coined by the British politician and reformer John Bright in a speech at Birmingham on 18 January 1865.

It was a reference to England. His actual words were: "England is the mother of parliaments". This was reported in The Times on the following day.

The expression therefore is often wrongly applied to the Parliament of the United Kingdom because of the adoption of the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy by many countries of the former British Empire.