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.
A Victorian Christmas
Christmas trees, carol singers, Christmas cards, Father Christmas and crackers – integral parts of a traditional Christmas, but why? The Victorians…
The Sinking of the Lancastria
On 17th June 1940, the requisitioned Cunard cruise liner Lancastria came under attack from enemy aircraft while evacuating troops from St Nazaire after the fall of Dunkirk…
HMS Warspite – A Personal Account
Chief Petty Officer Fred Jones was in charge of ‘B’ Turret aboard the ‘Grand Old Lady’ HMS Warspite during the Second War War. His memoirs give us an idea of what war was like at sea…
Gertrude Bell
Best remembered for her travel writings on the Middle East and her key role in establishing the modern state of Iraq, Gertrude Bell has been described as the female Lawrence of Arabia…
Thankful Villages
Millions of families throughout the UK suffered the loss of close family relatives in the Great War of 1914 -18. It appears that barely a family or community across the UK escaped World War I untouched, except that is for the “Thankful Villages”…
Lord Liverpool
Lord Liverpool was a better military strategist than Churchill or Lloyd George, ran the economy better than Pitt, Gladstone or Thatcher, dealt with post-war debt and poverty better than Attlee and won more elections than any of them. That is why Lord Liverpool, who beat Napoleon and presided over the Industrial Revolution, was Britain’s Greatest Prime Minister…
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…