19th Century
Gertrude Bell: the uncrowned Queen of Iraq
This is the first article since the railway series went into the sidings, and we are now well overdue an article on the fairer sex. So, this week we bring to you a lady who [more…]
19th Century
18th Century
The Railway’s sleepers: the Patron, the builder and the Polymath
A final journey into history to meet three men whose names never sadly made it into popular memory but who, like all the others, laid the foundations still used by the railways to this day. [more…]
18th Century
Nicholas Wood: The man who wrote the book on railways
He taught Robert Stephenson his trade, judged the Rainhill Trials, and wrote the first proper book on railways, the one that engineers across the world actually used. Not all of us can be gallivanting around [more…]
19th Century
Beamish: the Museum that said yes to everything
You may be surprised to learn that a working time machine has already been invented in County Durham. It exists because one man refused to let the region throw its own history into the skip. [more…]
18th Century
Edward Pease: the Grandfather of the railways
George Stephenson gets the statues. But a plain-dressing Quaker wool merchant from Darlington put up the money, drove the Act through Parliament, and hired Stephenson in the first place. He helped found the world’s first [more…]
18th Century
John Buddle: the man who subdued the monster
He started working life down a pit age six, ran half the coalfield by his thirties, and built an entire harbour to spite his rivals. They called him the King of the Coal Trade, and [more…]
19th Century
Wealthy Wendyball Wayfaring
As the World Gentleman’s Wendyball Invitation Shield dominates yet another weekend, shall we use our weekly plutocrats’ tour of the North to spy upon the round ball game? I think we might as well. For [more…]
19th Century
The Realer World of Little Trains
Burnham, Starmer, by-elections, defence reviews, World Cups, wars and the cost of living? Meh. Never mind all of that, what’s happening in the realer world of little trains? I have an embarrassing gap on my [more…]
19th Century
An Easier (Circular) Route to Plutocracy
Known for muck and brass, the grim north of England was formerly a hotbed of the Industrial Revolution, rich in sweat, resources, enterprise and plutocrats. Nowadays synonymous with grim decline, my wife and I have [more…]