All articles in Biography & Memoir
18th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, History
The final days of Henry VIII
As the power brokers of the next reign span their webs and hovered solicitously in the background, Henry VIII’s ailing body had deteriorated steadily throughout January 1547. Some thirty-eight years earlier, he had ascended the throne of England, the epitome of health and vitalit…
18th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, History
Do we know the real Henry VIII?
For far too long now, the full scale of Henry VIII’s misdeeds and miscalculations has been largely hidden from public view – mainly, it seems, beneath the copious skirts of his six wives, all of whom, both individually and collectively, have received far more than their fair shar…
18th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
Eleanor Talbot: The Secret Queen
Whichever way one looks at it, Eleanor Talbot was the rock upon which the royal House of York foundered. Unwittingly, and for her part, surely, unintentionally, she brought about the downfall of a dynasty. Through her relationship with Edward IV she ultimately shook the Crown of…
18th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, History
The Woodvilles: Were they as bad as history states?
From 1437, when Richard Woodville, a mere knight, made a shocking match to the widowed Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, to 1492, when Queen Elizabeth Woodville breathed her last at Bermondsey Abbey, the Woodvilles trod the boards of the great theatre of fifteenth-century history. T…
17th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Natural World
Why was Charles Darwin a giant of science?
When Charles Darwin announced his theory of evolution by natural selection, he did more than transform biology. Before his great work, humans were comfortably different from other life, a special creation. By showing how life on Earth evolved, Darwin told us that humans too are p…
17th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
Mary Sophia Allen: Suffragette to fascist
Mary Sophia Allen, one of the first British policewomen, was an extraordinary and outrageous woman. Born in 1878, she grew up in Bristol where she rebelled against the strictures of middle class life and, at the age of thirty, left home to become a suffragette. Mary was jailed th…
17th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, History
Why was Isaac Newton such a giant?
Most people associate Isaac Newton with gravity. Of all the forces of nature, gravity is the one whose effects are most obvious to us, and have been since prehistoric times. Everyone knows that an apple falls vertically downwards, as if drawn towards the centre of the Earth. Anyo…
17th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Entertainment
Edgar Wallace at the movies
Edgar Wallace. Prolific best-selling author. Soldier poet. Dramatist, responsible for West End hits. Racing tipster. Journalist who wrote thousands of articles and who scooped the signing of the peace treaty which ended the second Boer War. Parliamentary candidate. As if that was…
17th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
Mrs Guinness: The rise and fall of Diana Mitford
Born at the turn of the twentieth century when votes for women were a distant dream, Diana Mitford’s strive for independence was provocative and courageous. Her father, David, the 2nd Baron Redesdale had his own ideas on modern womanhood – he detested makeup and similar artifices…
17th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Sport
George Raynor: The greatest football coach England never had
Despite being the most successful national coach in the history of football – an accolade bestowed by the Guinness Book of Records – Raynor is one of the least well known within Great Britain. Rising from humble beginnings as a miner’s son, he became a competent but unexceptional…
16th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Transport & Industry
Brunel: The second greatest Brit of all time?
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in Portsmouth and lived in London for almost all his life. Yet it is Bristol, a city where he never had any permanent residence, which jealously regards him as its own. Brunel gave the city its trademark Clifton Suspension Bridge and built its pee…
16th December, 2015 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
There’s something about Jane (Austen)…
Jane Austen died aged only 41, didn’t marry, never had children and lived out her days in the south of England, rarely straying from the genteel and orthodox social circle into which she was born. She completed only six full length novels, and tasted only brief and limited fame i…