The History of Britain Magazine

It’s a cliché that it takes a lot to rouse the reserved, polite British to action, but during the long hot summer of 1858 it was clear that the time for talking was over. The Mother of Parliaments was deeply offended by the poor personal hygiene of her neighbour, Old Father Thames…

26th January is the official national day of Australia and marks the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships and the raising of the Union flag at Sydney Cove. The fleet included six ships transporting around 1,000 convicts…

The only British Prime Minister ever to be assassinated, Spencer Perceval was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons in 1812…

The words “Empire Day” summon up an image of a motherly Queen Victoria presiding over an Empire which spanned almost a quarter of the entire globe. However it was not until after the death of Queen Victoria that Empire Day was first celebrated…

Taphophobia, the fear of being buried alive and waking up in one’s own grave, is the stuff of nightmares. Hannah Beswick had a pathological fear of premature burial, after her brother John was found to be still alive at his own funeral…

VE Day. On May 8th 1945, the Allies celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler’s Reich, formally recognising the end of the Second World War in Europe….

By 1825, cotton was Britain’s biggest import. It became the centrepiece of the developing industrial revolution which impacted the country socially, economically and culturally for generations…

During the Garotting Panic of 1862, sensational newspaper reports led the public to believe would-be attackers lurked around every corner. The satirical magazine Punch produced cartoons showing wittily ingenious ways in which people might tackle this “crisis”…