The Berners Street Hoax
On 27 November 1809, a bet between two friends brought a large part of London to a standstill.
On 27 November 1809, a bet between two friends brought a large part of London to a standstill.
Newfoundland was England’s first overseas colony, but its settlement did not follow the usual patterns: its communities were nomadic, moving around the island with the seasons.
The foundations of modern India were laid by the British governor-general, Warren Hastings. But he paid a heavy personal price.
There is beauty to be had from the smallest of objects. In the 18th century, tweezers, toothpicks and clippers became the signs of a polite, and beautiful, society.
In the 18th century, when women in scholarship were not encouraged and medieval languages were little-studied even by men, Elizabeth Elstob become a pioneer in Anglo-Saxon studies, her work even finding its way into the hands of Thomas Jefferson.
The world of shopping in Georgian London offered an array of retail experiences for women in pursuit of the ultimate in fashionable clothing, every bit as sophisticated as those open to the 21st-century shopper.
George Rudé analyses the events of what started as an anti-Catholic protest, but ended with violence and looting.
‘The present folly’, wrote Horace Walpole in 1777, ‘is late hours.’ To arrive late at a party in the Georgian era, writes John Riely, was a sign of fashionable distinction.
In 1732, writes Robert Halsband, ‘a young Lady lately much talk’d on among the polite Part of the World’ was safely delivered of the Prince’s son.
Robert Halsband unearths a remarkable story of amorous intrigue at the court of George II.