Industrial Revolution

W.H. Chaloner considers the life and times of one of Georgian England's foremost industrial figures.

Sir Lewis Namier shows how, through the growth of mining and the coal-trade, the social and economic character of North-Eastern England was entirely transformed.

The great historical shifts in energy use, from wood to coal, to oil, nuclear power and beyond, have transformed civilisation and will do so again, as Richard Rhodes explains.

The pioneer of English travel writing was born on June 7th, 1662.

From Captain Cook to playboy Prince Bertie, Tessa Dunlop examines the appeal of the tattoo among high society.

Roger Hudson on a moment in the story of Scottish emigration captured in 1923.

The year 1812 was a turning point in the career of the industrialist Robert Owen. Ian Donnachie examines his Essays on a New View of Society, in which Owen first aired the ideas about popular education and workers’ welfare that would make him famous as a reformer.

In 1817, during a period of economic hardship following the war with France, a motley crew of stocking-makers, stonemasons, ironworkers and labourers from a Derbyshire village attempted an uprising against the government. It was swiftly and brutally suppressed. Susan Hibbins tells the story of England’s last attempted revolution.

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Industrial Revolution in what is now a quiet Shropshire town as well as the 200th anniversary of the death of one of Britain’s greatest industrialists, Matthew Boulton. Ross Reyburn reports.

Jean-François Mouhot traces a link between climate change and slavery, and suggests that reliance on fossil fuels has made slave owners of us all.

Commentators have tended to play down the importance of London as a business and industrial centre since 1500, argues Theo Barker, and in the process have distorted the saga of Britain’s economic rise and fall.

Kenneth J. Baird examines change and continuity in 19th-century British social history.

A number of British Heritage sites have been nominated for recognition by UNESCO