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1875: Male compositors struck at Newcastle upon...

Writer or writing item

1875

Male compositors struck at Newcastle upon Tyne because a printer had appointed female compositors.
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany, 1994.
56

1681: The baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)...

Building and people item

1681

The baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) published his first twelve Church Sonatas, dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden (who had abdicated and was living in Rome).
Baroque Composers and Musicians: Arcangelo Corelli. http://www.baroquemusic.org/bqxcorelli.html.

November 1981: The lesbian magazineSappho ended publication...

Building and people item

November 1981

The lesbian magazine Sappho ended publication in London.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
83

20 October 1595: Michel de Montaigne's Essays were entered...

Writer or writing item

20 October 1595

Michel de Montaigne 's Essays were entered in the Stationers' Register , three years after the author's death.
Arber, Edward, editor. A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London 1554-1660, A. D. Privately Printed, 1875–1894, 5 vols.

Maria Theresa Kemble

MTK was an actress and playwright who began her acting career in London at the age of eight and her public career as a writer just before the dawn of the nineteenth century. She wrote...
Maria Theresa Kemble Painting of Maria Theresa Kemble by Samuel de Wilde, in character as the male lover, Patie, in a stage version of Allan Ramsay's Scottish pastoral "The Gentle Shepherd" (which she first played in 1796). She stands in a meadow among mountains, holding a shepherd's crook, dressed in white shirt and trousers, with a tartan jacket, cummerbund, and Scots bonnet sporting a large black feather. Garrick Club.

1878: The Yorkshire Women's Temperance Association...

Building and people item

1878

The Yorkshire Women's Temperance Association merged with the British Women's Temperance Association .
Shiman, Lilian Lewis. Crusade against Drink in Victorian England. Macmillan, 1988.
185

5 December 1821: The first known fatality in a railway accident...

Building and people item

5 December 1821

The first known fatality in a railway accident occurred when carpenter David Brook was hit by a coal train during a storm.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
78

16 October 1843: Søren Kierkegaard published Fear and Trembling...

Writer or writing item

16 October 1843

Søren Kierkegaard published Fear and Trembling under the pseudonym of Johannes de Silentio.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
Arbaugh, George E., and George B. Arbaugh. Kierkegaard’s Authorship; A Guide to the Writings of Kierkegaard. Augustana College Library, 1967.
105-6

November 1382: The House of Commons requested Richard II...

National or international item

November 1382

The House of Commons requested Richard II to make use of wise officers and honest and discreet councillors.
Saul, Nigel. Richard II. Yale University Press, 1997.
81
Saul, Nigel. Richard II. Yale University Press, 1997.
81-2, 173ff

23 April 1924: The British Empire Exhibition opened at Wembley...

Building and people item

23 April 1924

The British Empire Exhibition opened at Wembley with a speech by King George V —his first broadcast speech on the BBC .
BBC Handbook: 1960. BBC, 1960, http://U of A HSS HE 8690 B86.
237
Turner, Ernest Sackville. “The Crystal Palace”. London Review of Books, 25 Nov. 1999, pp. 19-20.
19

Naomi Mitchison

During her life of over a century (she narrowly missed living from the nineteenth into the twenty-first) NM averaged almost a book a year. She published novels, short stories, diaries, poetry, travel books, essays, and...
Naomi Mitchison Black-and-white portrait of Naomi Mitchison. Her hair is pinned at the sides of her head in two buns and she is wearing a fuzzy sweater with two pom poms at the collar.

1735: Some Considerations upon Streetwalkers, while...

Building and people item

1735

Some Considerations upon Streetwalkers, while following its predecessors in blaming prostitutes for lewdness and depravity, added the new idea that women were driven to prostitution out of economic need.
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women. Longman, 1999.
182-3

19 August 1874: John Tyndall attacked religion at a British...

Building and people item

19 August 1874

John Tyndall attacked religion at a British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Belfast.
Knight, David. The Age of Science: The Scientific World-View in the Nineteenth Century. Basil Blackwell, 1986.
190
Dean, Dennis R. “Through Science to Despair: Geology and the Victorians”. Victorian Science and Victorian Values: Literary Perspectives, edited by James Paradis and Thomas Postlewait, New York Academy of Sciences, 1981, pp. 111-36.
127
Sawyer, Paul L. “Ruskin and Tyndall: The Poetry of Matter and the Poetry of Spirit”. Victorian Science and Victorian Values: Literary Perspectives, edited by James Paradis and Thomas Postlewait, New York Academy of Sciences, 1981, pp. 217-46.
233

From August 1917: More than 300,000 British soldiers were killed...

National or international item

From August 1917

More than 300,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded at Passchendaele; many drowned in the mud.
Morgan, Kenneth O., editor. The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. Oxford University Press, 1984.
526

1838: The first Travelling Post Office (night trains...

Building and people item

1838

The first Travelling Post Office (night trains on which mail was sorted in transit) was introduced between London and Liverpool.
Allen, G. Freeman. Railways: Past, Present and Future. Orbis Publishing, 1982.
71
Webster, Ben. “Last post sounds end of the line for night mail”. Times, 16 June 2001, p. 3.
3

Elizabeth Ashbridge

EA was an early eighteenth-century Quaker minister whose preaching was highly valued and who wrote her life-story for the edification of others.
Elizabeth Ashbridge Colour photograph of the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Middlewich, Cheshire. Elizabeth Ashbridge worshipped here until her runaway teenage marriage in 1728.

1930: The Book Guild was funded, on the model of...

Building and people item

1930

The Book Guild was funded, on the model of the Book Society of the previous year, to cater to the needs of the intelligent but not academic (middle-brow) reader.
Mezei, Kathy, and Chiara Briganti. “’She must be a very good novelist’: Rereading E. H. Young (1880-1949)”. English Studies in Canada, Vol.
27
, No. 3, Sept. 2001, pp. 303-31.
305

1807-1813: The widely publicized case of Ann Moore,...

Building and people item

1807-1813

The widely publicized case of Ann Moore , the contentious Fasting Woman of Tutbury, raised the profile of self-starvation, or fasting girls and incited debate as to its causes.
Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. Fasting Girls. Harvard University Press, 1988.
54-9
Hollis, Karen. “Fasting Women: Bodily Claims and Narrative Crises in Eighteenth-Century Science”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
34
, No. 4, 1 June 2001–2026, pp. 523-38.
532, 534

5 July 1926: The decision to admit women to membership...

National or international item

5 July 1926

The decision to admit women to membership in Indian Legislatures was announced.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
I: 843

Elizabeth Boyd

EB was a versatile, ususally satirical author in the earlier half of the eighteenth century. Writing for her livelihood, she undertook a remarkable number of genres, many of which she hybridized or otherwise experimented with...
Elizabeth Boyd Title-page of "The Happy-Unfortunate; or, The Female-Page: a Novel" by Elizabeth Boyd, 1732. Boyd gives her name in full, and adds a quotation from Delarivier Manley in which Manley is actually quoting Anne Finch. The colophon of the publisher, Thomas Edlin, is followed by the date.

17 February 1979: China invaded Vietnam, giving as reasons...

National or international item

17 February 1979

China invaded Vietnam, giving as reasons the disputed status of border territory and Vietnamese incursions across its border.
“1979: China invades Vietnam”. BBC News: On This Day, 17 Feb. 1979.

1 September 1943: Richard Titmuss published Birth, Poverty...

National or international item

1 September 1943

Richard Titmuss published Birth, Poverty and Wealth (which his wife Kathleen had favoured calling Poor Children Die), with infant mortality statistics for different classes in Britain.
Oakley, Ann. Man and Wife: Richard and Kay Titmuss: My Parents’ Early Years. HarperCollins, 1996.
185-6, 190-1
Richard Titmuss was father of Ann Oakley .

1883: Actor Henry Irving declined a knighthood;...

Building and people item

1883

Actor Henry Irving declined a knighthood; the first female actress did not receive a D.B.E. for another 38 years.
Davis, Tracy C. Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture. Routledge, 1991.
4

28 November 1918: Wilhelm II of Germany, the Kaiser, who had...

National or international item

28 November 1918

Wilhelm II of Germany, the Kaiser, who had fled to Holland, abdicated following the Berlin Revolution of 9 November 1918.
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
230

17 January 1917: A Women's Service demonstration was held...

Building and people item

17 January 1917

A Women's Service demonstration was held in the Albert Hall to appeal to women to engage in war work, and to display their determination to go on doing all that was needed.
Fraser, Helen. Women and War Work. G. A. Shaw, 1918.
100
Fraser, Helen. Women and War Work. G. A. Shaw, 1918.
100-1