19th Century
Murder Most French
Every once in a while, as one turns a page in an old family photo album, one runs the risk of falling across a cause célèbre or even a grisly murder. If, after braving the [more…]
19th Century
17th Century
A Postcard from the IFG Part Two
International Festival of Glass, Stourbridge, August 2022 In Part One, I just about managed to shoehorn two days of the fantastic Festival. Before I carry on telling you about the rest, a quick gallop though [more…]
18th Century
One Small Step for Man… Brindley and the Trent and Mersey Canal
In an earlier piece, I mentioned the Trent and Mersey Canal, with its company headquarters in Stone, hinting that its history and the political shenanigans behind its construction might be worth an article in its [more…]
19th Century
The Rise and Fall of the Needle Gun 1841-1874
The Needle Gun Every once in a while in all fields of engineering there comes along an innovation that so revolutionises the existing technology that it makes long accepted ways of doing things obsolete and [more…]
19th Century
Sabrage, or how to show off at parties
You have all seen old Hollywood movies showing Napoleonic cavalry officers celebrating by cutting the tops off of champagne bottles. The name for this is sabrage. As with most things in movies there is some [more…]
19th Century
In Defence of Kipling
‘When the Rudyards cease their Kipling, and the Haggards ride no more…’ was a favoured line in the era of post Imperial breast-beating, when this voluminous and best-selling writer, both in verse and prose was [more…]
19th Century
Review: 120 Days of Sodom by The Marquis De Sade
Just as an 18th century Président may stalk provincial France looking for innocents to corrupt, so bots chew their way through blogs looking for relevant wares to advertise. We must proceed with caution. On these [more…]
19th Century
Herbert’s War: My Grandfather, Herbert
My paternal grandfather, Herbert, was born in Morley in 1875 to a family of coal miners and woollen weavers. The sixth of twelve children, he was a master boot and shoe maker and repairer. As [more…]
19th Century
Nostalgia Album, Part Four
With there being only 11 years between them both my grandfather, Elihu, and his nephew, John Jr, joined up for the Second War. Last time we looked at my grandfather’s service in the RAOC and [more…]