Britain

Once Rowland Hill had launched the Penny Post, many British citizens, it was said, first learned to read that they might enjoy a letter. By Dee Moss.

George Grey was governor in succession of South Australia, New Zealand, Cape Colony and New Zealand again. Cyril Hamshere charts a most remarkable career in the Victorian Colonial service.

Derek Severn describes how, after service at Trafalgar, Thomas Hardy spent many years with the Navy’s two American Stations and in 1830 was appointed First Sea Lord.

Though they are often seen as polar opposites,the architect of modern Germany and the great British Liberal statesman shared more in common than one might think. Roland Quinault draws comparisons.

Stuart Andrews profiles a scientist, controversialist, and pillar of the British enlightenment; Joseph Priestley found his spiritual home in the United States.

Gerald Morgan introduces Byron’s friend and executor; a radical Whig and head of the East India Company during the Afghan troubles of 1835-43.

As Consul General for Great Britain in Egypt, Henry Salt established a friendly understanding with the free Albanian Viceroy Mohamed Ali. John Brinton describes how, through their relationship, Salt was able to rescue many treasures of ancient Egyptian art.

James Edward Oglethorpe obtained a charter for the founding of Georgia in 1732. Courtney Dainton describes how the English social reformer spent three terms as chief administrator of the colony and lived long enough to see American independence.

The Sikhs of the Punjab were the last strong Indian military power in the early nineteenth century, writes Patrick Turnbull.

Though all his life Burke fought against injustice, cruelty and oppression, his attitude towards the slave-trade was at times ambiguous. Yet, writes Robert W. Smith, the great writer was the first statesman in Britain or Ireland to produce a plan for ending it.