The History of Britain Magazine
Welcome to the History of Britain! The home nations share a varied and shared history unlike anywhere else, so we thought it only right to create a section dedicated to our mutual heritage.
Operation Alan: the Role of Welsh soldiers in the Liberation of ‘Den Bosch’
Operation Alan. From 22nd-28th October 1944, the 53rd Welsh Infantry Division, with support from 7th Armoured Divisions, won a hard fought victory at the Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (‘Den Bosch’)…
The Battle of Cable Street
On 4th October 1936 the people of the East End of London halted the march of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts through Stepney, in what became known as The Battle of Cable Street…
World War Two’s Last Officer of Britain’s African Regiments and His Private Battle for Peace
This is the true story of Lieutenant Neville Richards, the last officer of Britain’s forgotten WWII African army, the extraordinary group of Maasai soldiers he led through the jungles of Burma and his struggle for redemption in his twilight years – until a chance meeting finally gave him peace in his final few months aged 100…
K for King in the Car Park – Henry I?
Incredibly, could there be another ‘King in a Car Park’? Philippa Langley, instrumental in the search and discovery of the remains of King Richard III under a Leicester car park, may be on the trail of another ‘king in a car park’, this time Henry I in Reading…
A Very Victorian Two-Penny Hangover
The term ‘hangover’ is universally understood to mean the disproportionate suffering that comes after a night of over-indulgence. But where does the term actually come from? One possible explanation is, somewhat strangely, Victorian England…
A Tale of Two Brummies
In 1903 two Brummies, Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain and businessman Leopold Greenberg, proposed a scheme to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Africa…
Rule Britannia
The patriotic song ‘Rule, Britannia!, Britannia rule the waves’, is traditionally performed at the ‘Last Night of the Proms’. The first public performance of ‘Rule, Britannia!’ however, was in London in 1745, and it instantly became very popular for a nation trying to…
Revive the Airship!
There have been several false dawns for the airship industry since its heyday during the 1920s and 1930s, but the time could now be right for the revival of this beautiful, arcadian, romantic and environmentally friendly form of flight…
Interned by the Japanese in World War Two
88-year-old Ian Gedye was just 10 years old when he was interned with his family for 3 years in a Japanese camp. Here he shares his experiences with us…
Sir Ernest Shackleton and Endurance
A legendary figure in the history of polar exploration, Ernest Shackleton led three British expeditions to the Antarctic including the ‘Endurance’ expedition of 1914-16. With little prospect of surviving on the island, Shackleton took matters into his own hands and set out once more in one of his small lifeboat vessels with…