Victorian

The Brighton Chain Pier

L.W. Cowie describes what was, for seventy years, a key feature of the fashionable resort on the English south coast.

The Abyssinian Boy

Darrell Bates describes Queen Victoria's special affection for young people of exotic origin. One for whom she especially cared was Prince Alamayu of Abyssinia.

Queen Adelaide: A Portrait

Joanna Richardson describes how the prosaic alliance arranged between the middle-aged Duke of Clarence and Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen became at length an extremely happy marriage.

The Matabele War, Part I

In the 1890s, writes J.V. Woolford, the colony of Rhodesia was a centre of conflict between Matabele warriors and the Mashona in which the British became involved on the Mashona side.

Margaret Fuller in Europe: 1846-1850

‘Give me truth: cheat me by no illusion’ demanded this intrepid American enthusiast, who, during her early middle age, landed in Europe for the first time. There, writes Joyce Clark Follet, she found love, adventure, hardship and the revolutionary cause she needed.

I.K. Brunel, Engineer, 1859

Uniquely of engineers, the reputation of Brunel lives on, commemorated by a university, dockyards, steamships, and countless other works of his discipline. But what, asks Walter Minchinton, were his achievements?