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The Urban Working Classes in England 1880-1914
Historian article
On reading the title of this article, any reader at all familiar with the social history of late Victorian and Edwardian England is likely to think of the revelations at the time of the extent of urban poverty. Two major enquiries, one into London poverty, and the other into poverty...
The Urban Working Classes in England 1880-1914
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Tunnel visions: London’s wartime shelters
Historian article
Ronan Thomas describes two different Second World War shelters in London. One was the top-secret Mayfair bunker in which Winston Churchill sheltered during the Blitz and governed the country from underground; the other protected thousands of south Londoners and went on to provide shelter to visitors to the capital for several years...
Tunnel visions: London’s wartime shelters
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Update: Revisiting the Court of King Charles I
Historian feature
The reputation of kings, as with all political figures, is problematical. It would be surprising if it were any other way. Yet, the monarchy of Charles I remains as controversial as ever. In this article, Michael Questier looks at two diametrically opposed contemporary accounts of monarchical authority in the Stuart...
Update: Revisiting the Court of King Charles I
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Out and about in Zanzibar
Historian article
Joe Wilkinson takes us on a tour of the island of Zanzibar, where the slave trade continued long after the British abolished it.
Mention Zanzibar and most people will think of an Indian Ocean paradise, perfect for honeymooners, relaxing on the popular pristine white north-eastern beaches of Bwejuu and Paje,...
Out and about in Zanzibar
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Recorded Webinar: India and the Second World War
Article
Two-and-a-half million men from undivided India served the British during the Second World War. Their experiences are little remembered today, neither in the West where a Euro/US-centric memory of the war dominates, nor in South Asia, which privileges nationalist histories of independence from the British Empire. What was it like...
Recorded Webinar: India and the Second World War
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The experience of Bilston in the cholera epidemic of 1831–32
Historian article
Alannah Tomkins introduces a well-chronicled early example of how a local community dealt with cholera.
In September 1832 James Holmes, the governor of the workhouse at Bilston in Staffordshire wrote a letter to the salaried parish overseer of Uttoxeter. The initial impetus for the letter came from the two parishes’ shared interest...
The experience of Bilston in the cholera epidemic of 1831–32
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What is interesting about the world wars?
Article
In the past, the two world wars have been mainly studied as military history, focused on armies, campaigns and battles. Historians have concentrated on wars in Europe and in particular on the Western Front in 1914–18 and on the war with Nazi Germany in the west. This has given rise...
What is interesting about the world wars?
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The Diabolical Cato-Street Plot
Historian article
Richard A. Gaunt reminds us that it is still possible to visit the site of a notorious conspiratorial challenge to Lord Liverpool’s government, and why this event was so significant.
At around 7.30pm on Wednesday 23 February 1820, a dozen Bow Street Runners in plain clothes, led by George Thomas...
The Diabolical Cato-Street Plot
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The Mary Celeste: the history of a mystery
Historian article
Graham Faiella guides us through the historical evidence and literary speculation surrounding one of the ultimately unresolved incidents of recent times.
One hundred and fifty years ago, sometime between 25 November and 4 December 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste was abandoned at sea somewhere between the Azores and the coast of Portugal....
The Mary Celeste: the history of a mystery
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Recorded Webinar: ‘Drawing the Line’: the 1947 Partition of India
Article
August 2022 marks 75 years since British India was divided at independence into two separate states: India and Pakistan (the latter including today’s Bangladesh). As with the 70th commemoration in 2017, this anniversary will trigger a great deal of collective remembering in Britain just as in South Asia itself.
Freedom from...
Recorded Webinar: ‘Drawing the Line’: the 1947 Partition of India
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Out and About in Upper Weardale
Historian feature
Tony Fox introduces us to two battlefields and the work of the Battlefields Trust.
Stanhope takes its name from the ‘stony valley’ in which it sits. It is the most significant town in beautiful Upper Weardale. Like many towns in this area Stanhope’s growth accelerated in the nineteenth century as...
Out and About in Upper Weardale
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The Government of the Roman Empire
Classic Pamphlets
The Government of the Roman Empire, as everyone knows, was autocratic, and, like all autocracies, it was ‘tempered by assassination' or by military revolution. The emperor ruled through an imperial service, at once civil and military, in which several grades, corresponding to the social classes of the empire, were always...
The Government of the Roman Empire
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Lord Rochester's Grand Tour 1661 - 1664
Historian article
The late Frank Ellis was working on a full biography of John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, at the time of his death in 2007. He had contributed a life of Wilmot to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which appeared in 2004. In it he wrote that ‘on 21 November...
Lord Rochester's Grand Tour 1661 - 1664
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The Unfortunate Captain Peirce
Historian article
An apprentice biographer researches the career of an eighteenth-century sea captain
On a cold January afternoon in 1986, my neighbour announced that he intended to go to Dorset's Purbeck coast that night. Puzzled, I asked why. He explained it was the 200th anniversary of the wreck of the East Indiaman,...
The Unfortunate Captain Peirce
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First Zeppelin shot down over Britain
Historian article
In the First World War Britain suddenly became vulnerable to aerial attack. Alf Wilkinson records a memorable turning-point in the battle against the Zeppelin menace.
On the night of the 2-3 September 1916 Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson became the first pilot to shoot down a Zeppelin raider over Britain. He...
First Zeppelin shot down over Britain
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Gaming the medieval past
Historian article
Matthew Bennett and Ryan Lavelle explore how the devising, playing and discussion of war games can contribute to historical understanding.
Games as tools for learning are engaging for teachers and students alike. Whether computer-driven, board games, miniatures, role-play or re-enactment, they all provide scenarios within which learners can use a...
Gaming the medieval past
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Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
Historian article
Philip Woods discusses Evelyn Waugh’s contribution to understanding the nature of journalism before the Second World War.
This article compares the value to historians of the two books Evelyn Waugh wrote based on his experiences as a war correspondent covering the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–36. The popular satiric novel Scoop (1938) is...
Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
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The great Liberal landslide: the 1906 General Election in perspective
Historian article
On 1 May 1997 the Conservative party suffered an electoral defeat so overwhelming that political commentators were left rummaging through the statistics of the previous two centuries to find anything similar. The Times concluded on 3 May that it was the party's worst performance since 1832, though 'The disaster suffered...
The great Liberal landslide: the 1906 General Election in perspective
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Out and About in Hull’s Old Town
Historian feature
Sylvia Usher explores a hidden gem in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Wenceslaus Hollar’s map of seventeenth century Hull can be a street guide for the Old Town even today. Modern Hull sprawls along the Humber estuary with residential areas fanning out for three miles or more. Hull as it was...
Out and About in Hull’s Old Town
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England Arise! The General Election of 1945
Historian article
‘The past week will live in history for two things’, announced the Sunday Times of 29 July 1945, ‘first the return of a Labour majority to Parliament and the end of Churchill's great war Premiership.’ Most other newspapers concurred. The Daily Mirror, of 27 July, proclaimed that the 1945 general election...
England Arise! The General Election of 1945
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The ‘workless workers’ and the Waterbury watch
Historian article
Peter Hounsell looks at the role of the Waterbury Watch Company in both the Queen’s Jubilee and the attempt to record and alleviate unemployment in London in the 1880s.
In Britain generally, but for London in particular, 1887 was a year of great contrasts. On 27 June, Londoners lined the...
The ‘workless workers’ and the Waterbury watch
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WWI and the flu pandemic
Historian article
In our continuing Aspects of War series Hugh Gault reveals that the flu pandemic, which began during the First World War, presented another danger that challenged people’s lives and relationships.
Wounded in the neck on the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, Arthur Conan Doyle’s son Kingsley...
WWI and the flu pandemic
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Immigration and the making of British food
Historian article
Panikos Panayi explores the way in which immigration has transformed British eating habits over the last two centuries, whether through the rise of the restaurant and the development of eating out, or the culinary revolution at home.
Those people who voted to leave the European Union in 2016 because of...
Immigration and the making of British food
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Civilian expertise in war
Historian article
Philip Hamlyn Williams introduces us to the commercial and industrial background to modern-day warfare.
When I think of war, I immediately see men and women in one of three uniforms: Royal Navy, RAF and Army. My research over the past seven years into how the British army was supplied in two...
Civilian expertise in war
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The Englishness of George Orwell
Podcast
George Orwell is best known for Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four - one book an allegory of The Russian Revolution, and the other a science fiction dystopia about a globalized world. Before these two last works, the heart and soul of Orwell's writing had been about England and the...
The Englishness of George Orwell
