All articles in History
24th July, 2025 in History, Society & Culture
The most overrated and underrated British kings and queens?
In Measuring Monarchy, Tim Hames proposes a new way to rank our Royals, and makes a case for applying the following five metrics – with entertaining results. professional reputation standing with the public impact on the public purse conduct of foreign policy preparations for suc…
20th June, 2025 in History, Society & Culture, True Crime
Ask the author: Neil Root on The Cleveland Street Scandal
Seasoned journalist, acclaimed author, and true crime historian, Neil Root, delves into one of Victorian society’s most explosive scandals – The Cleveland Street Scandal. A precursor to the prosecution of Oscar Wilde, this book exposes deep-rooted corruption within the Victorian…
29th May, 2025 in History, Society & Culture, Sport, Women in History
Tracing the history of the Women’s Football Association
I like to think that there is a symmetry between my query of myself in 1967 – ‘why don’t girls play football?’ – with my thought over fifty years later that the history of the Women’s Football Association needed to be written down. As I was pretty sure that I was the only survivi…
16th April, 2025 in History, Military, Society & Culture
Black Britain and VE Day
In his book Under Fire, Stephen Bourne draws on first-hand testimonies to tell the whole story of Britain’s black community during the Second World War, shedding light on an oft neglected area of history. Drawing on a wealth of experiences from evacuees to entertainers, gove…
9th April, 2025 in History
The real Sheriff of Nottingham?
In the thirteenth century the law and finances of each English county were under the jurisdiction of a sheriff (the word comes from ‘shire-reeve’), who was appointed by the Crown. Catherine Hanley author of A Pale Horse discusses who was the real sheriff of Nottingham. A shrieval…
3rd March, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, History, Society & Culture, Women in History
From cocktails to cannibals: The adventurous life of Lady Dorothy Mills, explorer and writer
When Lady Dorothy Mills was a young girl, a female relative told her she would never be beautiful so she had better be interesting – and she was. Yet extraordinarily, this is the first book about this fearless woman who became the best-known female explorer of the 1920s and 30s,…
17th February, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History
Ask the author: Catherine Hanley on Joanna Plantagenet
Dr Catherine Hanley holds a PhD in Medieval Studies (Sheffield, 2001), is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is the author of historical works in several genres. Lionessheart is her latest book which follows the story of Joanna Plantagenet – princess, pioneer, captive a…
14th October, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History
Ask the author: Emily Murdoch Perkins on rewriting royal history
Emily Murdoch Perkins discusses her new book Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been, a feminist ‘what if’ history looking at what would have happened if firstborn daughters had been crowned instead of firstborn sons. Where did the idea for the book come from? It all started…
19th September, 2024 in History, Women in History
The rebellious Tudor princess you should know about
Henry, the king who was married six times and started his own church. Mary, the first regnal queen. Elizabeth, the queen who refused to marry. These are the Tudor royals that we all know about – but there’s one who has slipped through the history books and yet is, in my opinion,…
27th August, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, History
How ‘The King’s Loot’ uncovered the murky past of the Windsor Jewellery
The Duchess of Windsor’s notorious jewellery collection was, and still is, the subject of intense speculation regarding not only its murky provenance (were the gems originally sourced clandestinely from the English monarchy’s vast royal collection?), but also its eventual controv…
11th June, 2024 in History, Local & Family History
Has the dragon become a daffodil?
Our national history helps shape our personal identity, but history does not accrete like permanent stratigraphic layers. Serendipitous research can sometimes shatter received assumptions, and we may find that we are not quite the product of a past that was taught to us. Chris Bu…
24th May, 2024 in History, Maritime
Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum: The curious history of pirate music
Pirates and music: I imagine what comes into your head is that haunting refrain from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, or perhaps the soaring chords of an orchestral film score and the thumping rhythm of a sea shanty. Maybe you think of the much later history of ‘pirate r…