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24 May 1875: In the wake of proposed legislation both...

National or international item

24 May 1875

In the wake of proposed legislation both by antivivisectionists and by scientists in favour of animal experiments, Home Secretary Richard Cross announced a Royal Commission on animal vivisection.
French, Richard D. Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society. Princeton University Press, 1975.
96
French, Richard D. Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society. Princeton University Press, 1975.
91
French, Richard D. Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society. Princeton University Press, 1975.
79-80, 91-7, 107-8

Anne Brontë

The youngest of the famous Brontë sisters, AB has had the slightest reputation among the three for her output of poetry and two novels. Recently, however, her fiction's importance and influence has begun to be...
Anne Brontë Detail from the long lost, now well-known, painting of Anne Brontë and her sisters by their brother Branwell, c. 1834. She is shown from the shoulders up, at a three-quarter turn, wearing a blue dress. Her loose blonde curls fall around her face. The picture retains the crease marks from its years folded on top of a wardrobe. National Portrait Gallery

1933: The Screen Writers Guild was founded in the...

Writer or writing item

1933

The Screen Writers Guild was founded in the USA to try to improve the lot of writers working in Hollywood.
Tait, Theo. “That’s Democracy”. London Review of Books, 2 Mar. 2000, pp. 21-2.
22

23 November 1752: George Ballard dated his preface to Memoirs...

Women writers item

23 November 1752

George Ballard dated his preface to Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain . . . (better known as Memoirs of Eminent Ladies); it was published that year.
Ballard, George. Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain. Editor Perry, Ruth, Wayne State University Press, 1985.
41
Griffiths, Ralph, 1720 - 1803, and George Edward Griffiths, editors. Monthly Review. R. Griffiths.
8: 124
Staves, Susan. “Church of England Clergy and Women Writers”. Reconsidering the Bluestockings, edited by Nicole Pohl and Betty Schellenberg, Huntington Library, 2003, pp. 81-103.
84

About 1600: Women made up 10% of listed members of the...

Building and people item

About 1600

Women made up 10% of listed members of the Stationers' Company .
Franck, Irene, and David Brownstone. Women’s World: A Timeline of Women in History. HarperCollins; HarperPerennial, 1995.
50

18 May 1784: A new parliament was called for this date,...

National or international item

18 May 1784

A new parliament was called for this date, following elections; the previous one had been dissolved on 25 March.
Namier, Sir Lewis Bernstein, and John, 1920 - Brooke, editors. The House of Commons, 1754-1790. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1964.
1: 536

11 June 1799: Geologist William Smith, aged thirty, dictated...

Building and people item

11 June 1799

Geologist William Smith , aged thirty, dictated to two clergymen the information that made up his chart entitled The Table of Strata, forerunner of his pioneering geological map dated 1 August 1815.

29 December 1709: Richard Steele's reference in The Tatler...

Building and people item

29 December 1709

Richard Steele 's reference in The Tatler to the new fashion of hoop petticoats marked the establishment of the mode in England or at least in London.
Chrisman, Kimberly. “Unhoop the Fair Sex: The Campaign Against the Hoop Petticoat in Eighteenth-Century England”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
30
, No. 1, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 1996, pp. 5-23.
7-9, 11

Melesina Trench

MT , an Anglo-Irishwoman writing from the later eighteenth century and publishing from the early nineteenth, was in one way a typical upper-class amateur writer, whose output was mostly diaries and letters, published after her...
Melesina Trench Stipple and line engraving of a painting of Melesina Trench, by Francis Holl after George Romney, published 1862. She is seated under a tree, her hands resting on a pillar, holding what looks like a sheet of music. Her gown is light-coloured, with a ruffle around the neckline, and sleeves that are puffy at the shoulder and tight below. She wears a tall bonnet or turban on her loose curled hair. National Portrait Gallery.

September 1943: More than 450,000 women were members of the...

National or international item

September 1943

More than 450,000 women were members of the armed forces, constituting 9.39 per cent of the total.
Goldman, Nancy Loring, and Richard Stites. “Great Britain and the World Wars”. Female Soldiers-Combatants or Noncombatants?: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Nancy Loring Goldman, Greenwood, 1982, pp. 21-46.
30

Susanna Parr

SP was a religious apologist and polemicist: that is, once only, in 1659, when provoked by personal controversy within her former Independent congregation, she put an assertive self-defence in print.

1892: Marshall and Snelgrove introduced the combined...

Building and people item

1892

Marshall and Snelgrove introduced the combined bodice, petticoat, drawers to be worn over a corset and under a vest.
Cunnington, C. Willett et al. The History of Underclothes. Revised, Faber and Faber, 1981.
123

1967: William Tunnicliffe of the Canadian Government...

Writer or writing item

1967

William Tunnicliffe of the Canadian Government Printing Office took a first step towards electronic encoding of text when he spoke on the separation of text content from format.
Goldfarb, Charles. The SGML Handbook. Editor Rubinsky, Yuri, Clarendon, 1990.
567

October 1925: The Author reported the Motion Picture Producers...

National or international item

October 1925

The Author reported the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's ban on filming Sydney Howard 's Pulitzer-Prize-winning play They Knew What They Wanted and Michael Arlen 's The Green Hat.
The Author. Alexander P. Watt.
(Winter 2000) cxi: 4, 188

Mary Pix

MP , writing and publishing at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, was the most prolific female playwright since Behn . Her comedies, full of fun and acute observation...
Mary Pix Painting of Mary Pix by an unknown artist, c. 1690. She wears a beige gown, loose and low on her bare shoulders, and a brown shawl. National Portrait Gallery.

1 January 1936: British Airways began operations after a...

National or international item

1 January 1936

British Airways began operations after a merger of United Airways Limited , Spartan Airlines Limited , and Hillman's Airways .
Bruno writes that British Airways was formed on 1 Oct 1935; the later date indicates...

10 December 1963: Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Sir Andrew Fielding...

National or international item

10 December 1963

Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley from Great Britain were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for researching the ionic mechanisms of nerve cell membranes. The prize was shared with...

August 2007: The British Council, promoter of British...

National or international item

August 2007

The British Council , promoter of British culture in other countries, cut by forty million US dollars the cost of its activity in Europe, in order to expand its activities in the Middle East and...

24 August 1929: Martial law was declared in Jerusalem after...

National or international item

24 August 1929

Martial law was declared in Jerusalem after Jewish and Muslim demonstrations at the Wailing Wall and Arab attacks on Jews.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
I: 881
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
1091

February 1880: A Demonstration of Women was held at the...

Building and people item

February 1880

A Demonstration of Women was held at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in support of women's suffrage.
Holton, Sandra Stanley. “Women and the Vote”. Women’s History: Britain, 1850-1945, edited by June Purvis and June Purvis, University College London, 1995, pp. 277-05.
283
Holton, Sandra Stanley. Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Routledge, 1996.
50-1

17 March 1958: The United States launched another satellite,...

National or international item

17 March 1958

The United States launched another satellite, Vanguard I, into the earth's orbit.
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
275

By 11 February 1718: A hawker named Frances Carver (Blind Fanny)...

Writer or writing item

By 11 February 1718

A hawker named Frances Carver (Blind Fanny) was arrested for singing Jacobite ballads: this did not put an end to her career, which she pursued for another quarter century.
McDowell, Paula. “Women and the business of print”. Women and Literature in Britain, 1700-1800, edited by Vivien Jones, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 135-54.
143

20 September 1932: In London, the Methodist Church formally...

Building and people item

20 September 1932

In London, the Methodist Church formally united its different groups under one body.
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
376
Davies, Rupert E., and E. Gordon Rupp, editors. A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain. Epworth, 1965–2026.
178

28 December 1886: The first Indian National Congress met in...

National or international item

28 December 1886

The first Indian National Congress met in Calcutta to promote Indian advancement.
Keller, Helen, editor. The Dictionary of Dates. Macmillan, 1934, 2 vols.
I: 825
Williams, Neville. Chronology of the Modern World: 1763 to the Present Time. David McKay, 1967.
340

By 3 September 1887: Margaret Louisa Woods published her first...

Women writers item

By 3 September 1887

Margaret Louisa Woods published her first novel, A Village Tragedy.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
3123 (1887): 307