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1895-1910: William John Courthope published A History...

Writer or writing item

1895-1910

William John Courthope published A History of English Poetry.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.

April 1786: Maximilien Robespierre, speaking at the local...

Building and people item

April 1786

Maximilien Robespierre , speaking at the local academy of Arras, supported the admission of women into literary clubs.
Birchall, Ian H. “Babeuf and the Oppression of Women”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
20
, 1997, pp. 63-75.
66-7

1866: Willoughby Smith discovered that light lowers...

Writer or writing item

1866

Willoughby Smith discovered that light lowers electrical resistance of selenium rods. This, the "photoelectric effect," is the basic principle behind fax machines and televisions.
McNeil, Ian, editor. An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology. Routledge, 1996.
743-4

By 1838: Stagecoaches were doing more business bringing...

Building and people item

By 1838

Stagecoaches were doing more business bringing passengers to and from railway stations than actually transporting passengers over long distances.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
90

1865: English engineer John Hawkshaw made surveys...

National or international item

1865

English engineer John Hawkshaw made surveys for a tunnel under the English Channel.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
112

Grace, Lady Mildmay

GLM , an amateur medical practitioner with unusual depth of skill and range of clients, left a mass of medical notes and recipes dating from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. She also wrote...

1954: The Report of the Church of England Moral...

Building and people item

1954

The Report of the Church of England Moral Welfare Council , The Problem of Homosexuality, advocated the decriminalisation of homosexual practices between consenting adults.
Norman, Edward R. Church and Society in England, 1770-1970. Clarendon, 1976.
411

November 1749: The leading Quaker printer Tace Sowle (known...

Writer or writing item

November 1749

The leading Quaker printer Tace Sowle (known as Tace Sowle Raylton since her marriage in 1706) died, a highly successful businesswoman.
Bracken, James K., and Joel Silver, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 170. Gale Research, 1996.
170: 251

January 1870: The Rights of Woman, a comedy by Emma Schiff,...

Women writers item

January 1870

The Rights of Woman, a comedy by Emma Schiff , premiered at the Globe Theatre .
Mullin, Donald C. Victorian Plays: A Record of Significant Productions on the London Stage, 1837-1901. Greenwood Press, 1987.
Carlson, Susan. “Conflicted politics and circumspect comedy: Women’s comic playwrighting in the 1890s”. Women and Playwriting in Nineteenth-Century Britain, edited by Tracy C. Davis and Ellen Donkin, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 256-76.
256

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is primarily known for her poems; she was also a letter writer. She published very little during her lifetime and the full scope of her output—some 1,775 poems—was discovered only after her death....
Emily Dickinson Daguerrotype of Emily Dickinson by William C North, taken sometime between December 1846 and March 1847. She sits with her right elbow on a table beside her, which also a has a book on it. She wears her hair pulled back tight, and a dark gown with touches of white lace, and a ribbon round her neck. Amherst College.

1913: Edmund Husserl published Ideas: General Introduction...

Writer or writing item

1913

Edmund Husserl published Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (translated in 1931), his next major philosophical enterprise after Logical Investigations, 1900-1.
Oxford Reference. http://www.oxfordreference.com.

June-July 1848: Elections were held in Austria, following...

National or international item

June-July 1848

Elections were held in Austria, following protests in Vienna that resulted in a revision of the suffrage laws to abolish property qualifications.
Deák, István. “Lawful Revolutions and the Many Meanings of Freedom in the Habsburg Monarchy”. Revolution and the Meanings of Freedom in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Isser Woloch, Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 280-14.
300-2

November 1095 to mid-July 1099: The First Crusade was fought: the preaching...

National or international item

November 1095 to mid-July 1099

The First Crusade was fought: the preaching of Peter the Hermit , under the aegis of Pope Urban II (who visited France himself to appeal to men to enlist), raised an army of 300,000 Europeans...

August 1838: The Precursor Society was formed in Ireland,...

National or international item

August 1838

The Precursor Society was formed in Ireland, to seek justice for that country through parliamentary reforms.
Morton, Grenfell. Home Rule and the Irish Question. Longman, 1980.
8-9

Rumer Godden

RG was a popular writer for much of the twentieth century, author of about seventy books: more than twenty novels for adults (some drawing on her own experiences), as well as about the same number...
Rumer Godden Black-and-white photo of Rumer Godden. She is posing at a table with her hand on her chin. There are two wicker baskets in the image, one in the foreground and one in the back.

1932: Art historian Kenneth Clark commissioned...

Building and people item

1932

Art historian Kenneth Clark commissioned from the Omega Workshops a set of dinner plates painted by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant bearing portrait heads of famous women, including Elizabeth I and other queens, Greta Garbo

Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins

As a novelist (beginning anonymously in the late eighteenth century with a string of novels only recently identified as hers, and still publishing—under her name—forty years later), LMH is always didactic. But while some of...
Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins Title-page of Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins, "Memoirs, Anecdotes, Facts, and Opinions", 1824 (her second book of memoirs), vol. 1.

May 1881: The Sentinel, which supported the Contagious...

Building and people item

May 1881

The Sentinel, which supported the Contagious Diseases Acts and emphasized social purity, began monthly publication in London.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
10

1864: John Shanks developed a mechanism for flush...

Building and people item

1864

John Shanks developed a mechanism for flush toilets, which revolutionised domestic sanitation with the introduction of water-closets.
Morrison, Richard. “Victoria’s ’closet’ revolution”. Edmonton Journal, 21 Jan. 2001, p. E6.
E6

1928: Edwin Muir published The Structure of the...

Writer or writing item

1928

Edwin Muir published The Structure of the Novel.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Kermode, Frank. “Fiction and E. M. Forster”. London Review of Books, 10 May 2007, pp. 15-24.
17

1908: Ida Ashworth Taylor published her biography...

Women writers item

1908

Ida Ashworth Taylor published her biography of a famous nineteenth-century English cardinal, The Cardinal Democrat: Henry Edward Manning.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

By 8 June 1725: The criminal Jonathan Wild was hanged: Daniel...

Building and people item

By 8 June 1725

The criminal Jonathan Wild was hanged: Daniel Defoe wrote a hasty account of his life, and eighteen years later Henry Fielding made him a mock-heroic over-reacher.
Defoe, Daniel. “Introduction”. Selected Poetry and Prose of Daniel Defoe, edited by Michael F. Shugrue, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968, p. v - xxvi.
xxii
McDowell, Paula. “Narrative Authority, Critical Complicity: The Case of Jonathan WildStudies in the Novel, Vol.
30
, No. 2, 1 June 1998–2026, pp. 211-31.
225
The date is that of Defoe's catchpenny biography.

1848: The Free Exhibition was established at Hyde...

Building and people item

1848

The Free Exhibition was established at Hyde Park Gallery in London; any artist could exhibit upon the payment of an entrance fee.
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. Virago, 1989.
29
Nunn, Pamela Gerrish. Victorian Women Artists. Women’s Press, 1987.
104-5

December 1865: The Alexandra Magazine and English Woman's...

Building and people item

December 1865

The Alexandra Magazine and English Woman's Journal ceased publication in London.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
2
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press, 1988.
434

Carol Rumens

CR is a leading poet of the later twentieth century and beyond. As well as a dozen poetry volumes she has published a novel, short stories, plays, translations, and reviews of literature and music. She...