Culture UK
Who are the British? Do they really drink tea, eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and never leave home without an umbrella? Find out more about true Brits; past and present, myth and legend, fact and fiction.
Eadric The Wild
Whilst many will have heard of Hereward the Wake, the less well-known Eadric the Wild also waged war against the Norman invasion of Britain. Like Hereward, he also left history and entered legend…
Pancake Day
The pancake has a very long history and featured in cookery books as far back as 1439. In the UK, pancake races form an important part of the Shrove Tuesday celebrations – an opportunity for large numbers of people, often in fancy dress, to race down streets…
St Valentines Day
The history of the St. Valentine’s Day celebrations appears to have its roots in a pagan fertility festival known as Lupercalia. Celebrated in ancient Rome between 13 – 15 February, the festival is said to have involved lots of naked folk running through the streets spanking the backsides of young women with leather whips, supposedly to…
A Short History of Medicine
In Britain, medicine has drastically changed over the last thousand years, from folk remedies in the early medieval period to the formation of the NHS in the 20th century…
William-Henry Ireland and the Great Shakespeare Hoax
William-Henry Ireland, the son of a London engraver and antiquarian, had dreams of becoming a writer. Instead, he created one of the greatest literary forgeries of the century, somehow managing to convince Georgian society that he had discovered an entire cache of unknown Shakespearean manuscripts…
From outlaw to royal physician – Dr John Forrest
From body snatching to royal physician: the changing fortunes of Dr John Forrest…
Elizabeth Fry
The “Angel of Prisons”. A Quaker minister, social reformer and mother of 11 children, Elizabeth Fry is perhaps best known for her work on behalf of the women and children in Newgate Prison in London. Some of the more specific requirements she concerned herself with after her numerous visits to the prison included ensuring that men and women would be separated, with female guards provided for the female inmates.
Blue Stockings Society
For an 18th century woman, her ‘place’ was to be fashionable, proficient in the social graces, and eloquent yet demure. Society did not deem it acceptable for a woman to be more educated than a man or to share her opinions….
Robert Watson-Watt
A plaque in a remote Warwickshire field reads… “On 26th February 1935 in the field opposite, Roberts Watson Watt and Arnold Wilkins showed for the first time in Britain that aircraft could be detected by bouncing radio waves off them. By 1939 there were 20 stations tracking aircraft at distances up to 100 miles. Later known as radar, it was this invention, more than any other, that saved the RAF from defeat in the 1940 Battle of Britain’…
