Britain

Spas: Pleasure or Penance?

Taking the waters became a Victorian passion and spa towns flourished. In this article the first prize winner in History Today's Essay Competition Pamela Steen, a student at the Open University, describes the pleasure and the pains of this fashion.

Mary Seacole

Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee consider the life of a remarkable Victorian woman.

Gilbert & Sullivan and the Victorian Age

Ian Bradley shows that the characters and plots of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas reveal much that is of interest to the historian about certain individuals and institutions of the Victorian era.