All articles in Society & Culture
13th December, 2017 in Local & Family History, Society & Culture
Is the future of Harrods safe?
Harrods is an iconic institution. It is at the same time a local shop to the residents of SW1, a department store for those with the resources to buy quality goods at premium prices and a tourist attraction for visitors to London. It has been on its present site as a Harrod’s sho…
6th December, 2017 in Entertainment, Society & Culture
Inventors and artists: The Lumière Brothers
Brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière are credited with developing the first commercially successful movie projection system, paving the way for today’s cinema experience. They pioneered filmmaking techniques in over 1,400 moving pictures, showing everything from a train rushing int…
24th November, 2017 in Society & Culture, Women in History
Lily Maxwell: The first woman to vote
Women in Britain aged over 30 got the vote in 1918, but they weren’t the first women to vote in Britain. Political history is often dominated by characters who have certain things in common; they are well-connected, well-educated, wealthy. Lily Maxwell was none of thes…
23rd November, 2017 in History, Local & Family History, Society & Culture
The Manchester Martyrs of 1867
In 1858, a young man by the name of James Stephens founded a secret society which he called the Irish Republican Brotherhood (an early forerunner of the IRA). This soon became known as the Fenian Movement, derived from the Fianna Eirann, a legendary band of Irish warriors led by…
14th November, 2017 in Local & Family History, Society & Culture
More change in the village: Farming in the early 20th century
Looking across the field behind my house, everything looks much as it might have done eighty years ago – gently sloping land for grazing cattle gives way to the hills behind, the field fringed by native hedgerow. This landscape seems worth preserving because there’s somethi…
10th November, 2017 in Military, Society & Culture
The poppy as a symbol of remembrance
The remembrance poppy has become the defining symbol of reverence for the millions of soldiers who lost their lives in conflict. In the present day the ‘poppy appeal’, organised by The Royal British Legion, takes place in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Sunday, which occurs o…
10th November, 2017 in History, Society & Culture, True Crime
Chloroform: 170 years of controversy
Chloroform, discovered in 1831 by three independent researchers – an American, a German and a Frenchman – has had a multitude of roles. Initially viewed with suspicion, chloroform gained immense popularity after it was administered to Queen Victoria during childbirth. Used in the…
7th November, 2017 in History, Society & Culture
How Russian was the revolution of 1917?
The Russian revolution of 1917, led by Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin to overthrow an ineffective Tsar Nicholas II and establish the fledgling Bolshevik Party, killed millions and changed the world forever. It was later described as ‘the will of the people’ – but how Russian was this…
6th November, 2017 in History, Society & Culture
Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchists
The Civil War threw up new men with values and ideas that separated them from their Tudor forebears: everything was to be questioned and everything debated. Thomas Venner was one such new man, born of the lower orders, bred in the fulcrum of the civil wars, reasonably educated, f…
31st October, 2017 in History, Society & Culture
A short history of witch fever
Medieval folk had long suspected that the Devil was carrying out his evil work on earth with the help of his minions. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII declared this to be the truth in his Papal Bull, which had the result of creating witch-hunts across Europe which lasted for nearly tw…
11th October, 2017 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History
Elizabeth Fry: Saint of prison reform
‘We long to burn her alive’, wrote the Reverend Sydney Smith in 1821 of Elizabeth Fry. ‘Examples of living virtue disturb our repose and give birth to distressing comparisons.’ Even in her lifetime there was a daunting purity about Elizabeth Fry, which chilled her own sisters and…
8th September, 2017 in History, Society & Culture
Gibraltar: Conquered by no enemy
‘As safe as the Rock of Gibraltar’ is an expression understood in many areas of the world. Its meaning reflects both the appearance and the history of the Rock. In prehistoric times its caverns sheltered Neolithic men and women, just as its natural defences sheltered its people f…