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Britain's Olympic visionary
Historian article
Forty-six years before the modern Olympics began, the small Shropshire market town of Much Wenlock was the seemingly unlikely setting for the establishment of an ‘Olympian Games'. Commencing in 1850, they were to become an annual festival in the town. The architect of this sporting enterprise was a local surgeon...
Britain's Olympic visionary
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From tragedy to triumph: The courage of Henrietta, Lady of Luxborough 1699-1756
Historian article
Why is Henrietta Luxborough, who was born in 1699, of interest today? In the first place because of whom she was; in the second because of what happened to her; and in the third because of her courage which enabled her to overcome adversity and lead a life utterly different...
From tragedy to triumph: The courage of Henrietta, Lady of Luxborough 1699-1756
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The history of bigamy
Historian article
Though people are still sometimes prosecuted for repeatedly marrying immigrants to rescue them from the attentions of the Home Office, while forgetting to get divorced between times, one uncovenanted result of the now common practice of living together without matrimony is the decline of that celebrated Victorian institution: bigamy.
In...
The history of bigamy
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Spencer Perceval: private values and public virtues
Historian article
The public man and his career Spencer Perceval's career as a public figure lasted from 1796 when he became a King's Counsel and MP for Northampton until his murder sixteen years later at the age of 49. He was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons at 5.15pm...
Spencer Perceval: private values and public virtues
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The Historian 97: Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
The magazine of the Historical Association
A Victorian deserter's family story: surviving a clash of loyalties - Donald Read (Read article)
Shipwrecks, Clocks and Westminster Abbey: the story of John Harrison - Sir Arnold Wolfendale FRS (Read article)
Wellington’s Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars - Zeta Moore (Read article)
Buffolo Bill and his Wild West show opens in London's...
The Historian 97: Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
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Out and About near Cromford in Derbyshire
Historian feature
The River Derwent is a dominant feature of the Derbyshire landscape from the Ladybower Reservoir to where it joins the River Trent just south of Derby. This river is noted for the sheer power and volume of water it carries: in the 1720s Daniel Defoe observed ‘the Derwent is a...
Out and About near Cromford in Derbyshire
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Disraeli, Peel and the Corn Laws: the making of a conservative reputation
Historian article
125 years after his death, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, still provides the political lode-star for generations of Conservatives. Lately, for the first time in 30 years, Disraeli's name and example has been enthusiastically evoked by the party leadership and David Cameron has projected himself as a Disraeli for the...
Disraeli, Peel and the Corn Laws: the making of a conservative reputation
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Buffalo Bill and his Wild West show opens London's Earl Court in 1887
Historian article
‘It is often said on the other side of the water that none of the exhibitions which we send to England are purely and distinctively American', exhorted Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) in an unsolicited letter of September 1884 to ‘Colonel' William Frederick Cody (1846-1917). ‘If you will take the Wild...
Buffalo Bill and his Wild West show opens London's Earl Court in 1887
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Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
Historian article
Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
The war with France, which began in 1793, had moved to the Iberian Peninsula by 1808. This year is therefore the two-hundredth anniversary of the commencement of the Peninsular War campaigns. War on the Peninsula demanded huge resources of manpower in order to defeat...
Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
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Shipwrecks, Clocks and Westminster Abbey: the story of John Harrison
Historian article
‘Poor England has lost so many men'
On 22 October 2007 an unlikely group of people were to be seen casting wreaths upon the sea off the Scilly Isles. They comprised a Chief Executive, a Naval Commander, a Science journalist and the Fourteenth Astronomer Royal (this writer). A clue which...
Shipwrecks, Clocks and Westminster Abbey: the story of John Harrison
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A Victorian deserter's family story: surviving a clash of loyalties
Historian article
More people than ever are seeking to trace their family histories. People can now sit at home and tap out in seconds from the internet many of their family's previously unknown genealogical details. But what if a century or more ago one of your family had tried to cover his...
A Victorian deserter's family story: surviving a clash of loyalties
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The Historian 95: An American showman
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
The 2007 Medlicott Medal Lecture: What kind of history should school history be? Chris Culpin (Read article)
P. T. Barnum - Promoter of 'freak shows' for the family - John Springhall (Read Article)
Roald Dahl and the Lost Campaign - Trevor Fisher (Read Article)
Presenting Naseby: Documents, terrain, findings and...
The Historian 95: An American showman
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The Historian 96: What did you do in the Hundred Years War, Daddy?
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
What did you do in the Hundred Years War, Daddy? The soldier in later medieval England - Adrian R Bell, Adam Chapman, Anne Curry, Andy King and David Simpkin (Read Article)
Upwards till Lepanto: The Ottoman Turks in early modern Europe - Sarah Newman (Read article)
The Death of Lord...
The Historian 96: What did you do in the Hundred Years War, Daddy?
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Out and about in Holderness
Historian feature
East of Hull lies Holderness, a twohundred square mile portion of the former East Riding of Yorkshire, extending from Hornsea in the north to Spurn Head and flanked by the river Humber and the North Sea. It is a very fertile tract of rich agricultural countryside but it is particularly...
Out and about in Holderness
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The death of Lord Londonderry
Historian article
Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, better known to his contemporaries and to history as Viscount Castlereagh, committed suicide on 12 August 1822, at the age of fifty-three, when Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons. He was one of the great statesmen of his age: as Chief...
The death of Lord Londonderry
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Upwards till Lepanto
Article
Ottoman society centred on the Sultan. He was lawgiver, religious official, leader in battle-and until the late sixteenth century an active field commander on campaign. The Law of Fratricide of Mehmet (Mohammed) II, 1451-81, urged each new Sultan to kill his brothers in order to produce a capable ruler and...
Upwards till Lepanto
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The soldier in Later Medieval England
Historian article
Traditionally, the Middle Ages have been portrayed as the ‘Feudal Age', when men were given land in return for performance of unpaid military service. Whilst this may have formed the basis of the English military system in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it was most certainly not the way armies...
The soldier in Later Medieval England
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The Historian 60: The Knights Templars
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 The Rise and Fall of The Knights Templars - Malcolm Barber (Read article)
10 The Resistible Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte - Malcolm Crook (Read article)
16 The Pilgrimage of Grace - Michael Bush (Read article)
21 The Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait 1898-1899 (Read article)
The Historian 60: The Knights Templars
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The Historian 61: The Press and the Public during the Boer War
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 Vichy France and the Jews - Julian Jackson (Read article)
10 The Press and the Public during the Boer War - Jacqueline Beaumont Hughes (Read article)
16 Cambridge - Elisabeth Leedham-Green (Read article)
21 The Vikings in Britain - Henry Loyn
The Historian 61: The Press and the Public during the Boer War
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The Historian 62: Catherine de Medici
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 Is History Dangerous? - Eric Hobsbawm (Read article)
6 Britain and the formation of NATO - Carl Watts (Read article)
12 Sir William Petty: Scientist, Economist, Inventor 1623-87 - John Adams (Read article)
15 Durham: a personal perspective - G.R. Batho (Read article)
18 Catherine de Medici and the...
The Historian 62: Catherine de Medici
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The Historian 63: Why did People Choose Sides in the English Civil War?
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 Why did People Choose Sides in the English Civil War? - Professor The Earl Russell (Conrad Russell) (Read article)
10 What's new about 'New Labour'? - Andrew Thorpe (Read article)
16 1939 after sixty years - Patrick Finney (Read article)
22 Louis, John and William: The 'Dame Europa'...
The Historian 63: Why did People Choose Sides in the English Civil War?
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The Historian 65: Cooling Memories
Article
Featured articles:
4 From Ashes to Icon: The creation of the National Botanic Garden of Wales - Charles Stirton (Read article)
10 Wanted, The elusive Charlie Peace: A Sheffield killer of the 1870s as popular hero - Dr John Springhall (Read article)
17 Cooling memories: Why we still remember Scott...
The Historian 65: Cooling Memories
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The Historian 66: Shakespeare's Glendower and Owain Glyn Dwr
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 The Value of Biography in History - Antonia Fraser (Read Article)
10 Cholera and the fight for Public Health Reform in mid-Victorian England - Dr Geoff Gill MA, MSc, MD, FRCP (Read Article)
17 Ottawa: Canada's evolving capital - John Talyor
22 Shakespeare's Glendower and Owain Glyn Dwr...
The Historian 66: Shakespeare's Glendower and Owain Glyn Dwr
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The Historian 67: William Morris, Art and the rise of the British Labour Movement
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 William Morris, art and the rise of the British Labour movement - Chris Wrigley (Read Article)
11 Czech Uranium and Stalin's Bomb - Z.A.B. Zeman (Read Article)
18 Bombing and the air war on the Italian Front 1915-1918 - A.D. Harvey (Read Article)
22 The reign of Edward VI:...
The Historian 67: William Morris, Art and the rise of the British Labour Movement
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The Historian 68: Eighteenth Century Britain and its Empire
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 The Wonderful Land of Oz - Douglas Horlock
12 Eighteenth-Century Britain and its Empire - P. J. Marshall (Read Article)
18 ‘The Generous Turk’: Some Eighteenth-Century Attitudes - Hugh Dunthorne (Read Article)
23 ‘The Mouth Of Hell’: Religious Discord at Brailes, Warwickshire, c.1660-c.1800 - Colin Haydon (Read Article)
The Historian 68: Eighteenth Century Britain and its Empire
