Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution by Jane Humphries(Studies in Economic History, Cambridge University Press), 2010 439pp., £60, hard, ISBN 978-0-521-84756-8In Kirkheaton churchyard near Huddersfield there is a 15 foot stone obelisk topped by a flame that commemorates ‘The dreadful fate of 17 children who fell unhappy...

Chinoiserie, Richard Hayman, Shire Publications, 2021, 64p., £8.99. ISBN 978-1-78442-464-0.  Chinoiserie describes the highly imaginative decorative style inspired by a fascination for oriental culture that emerged around 1650, peaked during the Rococo exuberance of the mid-18th century, before going out of fashion in the early-19th century. Motifs including pagodas, pavilions, flowers and...

Churchyards (Britain's Heritage series), Roger Bowdler, Amberley Publishing, 2019, 64p, £8-99. ISBN 9781445691114 This book is dedicated to the memory of Frederick Burgess, the author of English Churchyard Memorials (1963), from whom many of us learned to study and understand what we find in churchyards. This carefully developed study by...

Clarke, Petit and St Mark’s: A 19th Century journey on the Isle of Man, Philip Modiano, RPS Publications, 2022, 44p., £9.00 [plus postage]. ISBN 9781916493117. Contact via enquiries@revpetit.com In this extraordinary booklet Philip Modiano explains the architectural and personal relationship built up between the notable water-colourist, the Revd John Louis Petit,...

Coffee: A Drink for the Devil by Paul Chrystal (Amberley Publishing), 2016 96pp., £9.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-4456-4939-2 In the Western world, coffee consumption is around one-third that of tap water and the poet T.S. Eliot commented that ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.’ After petroleum, coffee is...

Come Wind, Come Weather: Storm: Tempest and Other Natural Phenomena within Local Sources, Trevor James, Lichfield Press, 2021, 116p. £10-00.  ISBN 978-0-905985-62-6  What a pleasure it is to review a book by that arch-reviewer, Dr Trevor James. This book follows closely on his previous one, England’s Saintly Landscapes, and confirms...

Counting Bodies: Population in Colonial American Writing, Molly Farrell, Oxford University Press, 2016, 280pp., £41.99, hard, ISBN 978-0-19-027731-4. Quantifiable citizenship—in the form of birth certificates, census forms, and immigration quotas—is so pervasive that today it appears ahistorical. Yet before the modern colonial era, there was no word for ‘population’ in the sense...

Crime on the Canals, Anthony Poulton-Smith, Pen and Sword, 2019, 120p, £12-99. ISBN 9781526754783. This interesting book is presented as an exposure of criminality on the canal system, and it does achieve that objective rather well. It has to be said that it is more about crime than canals, although...

D-Day: The Soldiers’ Story, by Giles Milton, London, John Murray, 2018, ISBN 978-1-473-4901-9. £25.00 Why one side wins, and another does not, is the key element in military history. That element is not well answered by focusing on the face of battle, the approach that is so often taken today....

Dunkirk to Belsen - John SadlerIn the closing days of the Second World War, men from 113 LAA Battalion RA, originally the 7th Battalion DLI, part of the British 8th Corp, were tasked with taking over an ‘internment camp' from the German Military. This ‘Internment camp' turned out to be...

E. H. Gombrich, ‘A Little History of the World', (Revd Ed., London, 2005), pp. 284.  ISBN: 978-0-300-14332-4 (paperback)Ernest Gombrich is best remembered as one of the most influential art historians and critics of the twentieth century. What is less well known is that at the age of twenty five (whilst...

Early Medieval Kent 800-1220, Sheila Sweetinburgh (ed.) (Boydell Press Kent County Council), 2016 333pp., £50 hard, ISBN 978-0-85115-583-8. This is the tenth volume in the Kent History Project, supported by Kent County Council, that now covers the history of the county from the archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon period through to...

Edward II by Seymour Phillips (Yale English Monarchs, Yale University Press), 2010 679pp., £25 hard, ISBN 978-0-300-15657-7Stuck between two of the greatest medieval English monarchs his father Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots' and his son Edward III, it is hardly surprising that Edward II has gained the reputation...

Edward III by Mark Ormrod (Yale English Monarchs, Yale University Press), 2011 721pp., £30, hard, ISBN 978-0-300-11910-7 With the publication of Edward III, the English Monarchs series now includes biographies of monarchs from Edward the Confessor to Mary Tudor (apart from Henry III and IV) and James II to George...

Elfrida: The First Crowned Queen of England by Elizabeth Norton (Amberley Publishing), 2013, 2014 - 19pp., £9.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-4456-3765-5 The role played by elite women in Anglo-Saxon England and their influence in both politics and religion is now widely recognised. Elfrida is perhaps the most powerful and notorious of...

Elizabeth Jennings: The Inward War, Dana Greene, Oxford University Press, 2018, 258p, £25-00. ISBN 978-0-19-882084-0. This biography contains much detail on Elizabeth Jennings’ life and poetry. Jennings (1926-2001), born into a Roman Catholic family in Oxford, was often depressed, guilt-ridden, needy and lonely. However, for long periods of her life she...

England’s Saintly Landscape, Trevor James, Lichfield Press, 2020, 95 pp, £10-00. ISBN 978-0-905985-94-7 The author is quick to credit W G Hoskins and Eilert Ekwall and their influence is readily apparent in the enthusiasm that permeates this study. Trevor James’ contention is that church dedications, place names, pilgrimage routes, local industries, fairs and...

Exclusionary Empire: English Liberties Overseas 1600-1900 by Jack P. Greene, (ed.)(Cambridge University Press), 2009  305pp., £16.99 paper, 978-0-521-13270-1The development of a comparative approach to British imperial history has been an important development in historiography over the past five years.  This was especially evident in the recently published Replenishing the Earth...

Erasmus Darwin and Evolution, Desmond King-Hele, Stuart Harris [3 Pingle Head, 171 Millhouses Lane, Sheffield S7 2HD], 2014, 212p, £8-00. ISBN 978-0-9542-1518-7 Desmond King-Hele is foremost amongst contemporary scholars who have explored the life, work and ideas of Erasmus Darwin. A substantial portion of this book is a basic introduction...

Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals, Simon Jenkins, Penguin Books Ltd, 2021, 360pp., £30, ISBN: 978-0-241452-63-9. Ever leafed through one of the visitor books found in many of our churches and read the comments? ‘Very peaceful’, ‘Lovely’, ‘Beautiful’, and similar well-meaning but bland observations are typical. Coming up with something more meaningful isn’t...