All articles in Biography & Memoir
6th June, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Local & Family History, Women in History
Tracing bigamy, dishonesty and intrigue in Victorian marriage records
One of the unforeseen and fascinating by-products of the internet age is the uncovering of a web of intrigue and downright dishonesty among the Victorians when it came to getting married. It was impossible for vicars or registrars to check that the information people gave on offi…
29th May, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Military
The Last Cambridge Spy: John Cairncross
Throughout the 1930s, Soviet ‘illegals’ – resident agents operating in Britain – carefully selected, recruited and nurtured emerging talent at Britain’s ancient universities of Cambridge and, to a lesser extent, Oxford. After their graduation these recruits forged highflying care…
21st May, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
Ask the author: Lyndsy Spence on society women
We continue to be fascinated by the glamour, glitz and gossip that made up the lives of the turbulent 20th century’s society women, and historian Lyndsy Spence has brought 10 of these compelling women back to life in her book, She Who Dares. We had a chat with Lyndsy to ask her a…
13th May, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Local & Family History, Military
Uncovering Josef Jakobs
In many ways, history is a tapestry, formed of myriad multi-hued threads woven together into a complex whole. Some of which is visible to us… and some of which is invisible. We rarely see the entire tapestry and many sections are faded and worn by time. In 1988, I asked my mother…
18th April, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, History
Henry VII in seven facts
Overshadowed by his son and granddaughter, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Henry VII is often an afterthought of Tudor history, and yet without him one of the most famous dynasties in British history would never have existed. Here are seven things you might not know about the first T…
11th April, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
In search of Sarah Wilson
I first met Sarah about 20 years ago in the issue of the St. James’s Chronicle for January 10, 1765. The paper had a story that ‘a genteel Woman’ turned up at the home of a farmer on the Hampshire/Surrey border. She told the farmer her name was Sarah Willsbrowson and that sh…
1st April, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History
The land of the ‘free’: Criminal transportation to America
Not many people know that between 1718 and 1775 over 52,000 convicts were transported from the British Isles to America, mainly to Maryland and Virginia, to be sold as slaves to the highest bidder. It is reckoned that transported convicts made up a quarter of the British immigran…
14th February, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History
The deb of 1930: Margaret Whigham enters society
As with every rite of passage in Margaret Whigham’s young life, she strove to be the first of her contemporaries to officially come out into society. Headstrong, wilful and with disregard for her parents’ authority, she wrote in her memoirs: ‘My mother must have realised there wa…
25th January, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, History
Lieutenant-General John Nicholson: Hero or villain?
“You may rely upon this – that if ever there is a desperate deed to be done in India, John Nicholson is the man to do it.” – Herbert Edwardes to Viceroy Lord Canning, 1857 “Let us never forget the intrepid Nicholson.” – Benjamin Disraeli, 1857 “Nicholson was an army in himse…
25th January, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Local & Family History
10 things you should know about Robert Burns
As the national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns has naturally been eulogised, canonised, mythologised and, at times, sanitised. None of this has detracted from his brilliance and his enduring legacy, which continues to inspire both writers and ordinary Scots to this day. 25 J…
18th January, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Sport, Women in History
Mercedes Gleitze: Britain’s empowering swimming heroine
Try to imagine living in a period when young women, especially those born into the working classes, were locked into the age-old traditional role of having first to find a husband, and then having to work exclusively in the home – cleaning, cooking and bringing up children. The b…
14th January, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Military, Women in History
Vera Eriksen: The Second World War’s most enigmatic spy
In September 1940 a beautiful young woman arrived by sea plane and rubber dinghy on the shores of Scotland accompanied by two men. It was to be yet another episode in the Germans’ attempt to penetrate British defences and infiltrate spies into the country. Of all the female spies…