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18 April 1791: Horace Walpole reported that sedan chairs...

Building and people item

18 April 1791

Horace Walpole reported that sedan chairs were dying out as a form of transport: London was now too big.
Walpole, Horace. The Letters of Horace Walpole. Editor Toynbee, Mrs Paget, Clarendon, 1903–1925, 16 vols.
14: 416

Louisa Stuart Costello

LSC wrote during the first half of the nineteenth century, producing five travel narratives, several volumes of poetry (both original and translated), numerous historical biographies, and more than twenty-five articles for a variety of noted...
Louisa Stuart Costello Sepia-toned albumen print of Louisa Stuart Costello by Herbert Watkins, 1857. She sits on a carved chair, gazing thoughtfully to her left, with her right hand up to her neckline. Her hair is in ringlets in front and decorated with bows. She wears a dark dress with ruffles descending the sleeves, and a white lace collar. National Portrait Gallery.

Laetitia Pilkington

The fame of the eighteenth-century Irishwoman LP as a memoirist—often thought of as a courtesan memoirist and writer of secret history—has obscured her very considerable merit as a poet and satirist.

: Meic Stephens founded Poetry Wales, published...

Writer or writing item

Spring 1965

Meic Stephens founded Poetry Wales, published at Merthyr Tydfil, partly in order to allow English-language poets to contribute to the revitalised nationalist culture of the period.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

13 November 1858: Lady Clara Cavendish's melodrama The Woman...

Women writers item

13 November 1858

Lady Clara Cavendish 's melodrama The Woman of the World premiered at Queen's Theatre .
Davis, Tracy C., and Ellen Donkin, editors. Women and Playwriting in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
282

George Egerton

GE (born Mary Chavelita Dunne), writer of New Womanshort stories, has been called the first English writer to present female sexual drives explicitly as existing independently of and differently from male sexuality.
Bjørhovde, Gerd. Rebellious Structures. Norwegian University Press, 1987.
129-30
Her stories...

1736: The first lying-in hospital in Great Britain...

Building and people item

1736

The first lying-in hospital in Great Britain was established in Edinburgh.
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press, 1988.
139

19 December 1851: English landscape painter Joseph Turner ...

Building and people item

19 December 1851

English landscape painter Joseph Turner died.
Maas, Jeremy. Victorian Painters. Barrie and Jenkins, 1978.
32-4
Chilvers, Ian, editor. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Oxford University Press, 1990.
475
Boase, Thomas Sherrer Ross, editor. English Art, 1800-1870. Clarendon, 1959.
275

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

Isak Dinesen

ID , cosmopolitan fiction-writer of the mid twentieth century writing in Danish and English, produced short stories in periodicals and collections, a couple of novels, and two highly unusual books about Africa in which the...
Isak Dinesen Black and white photograph of Isak Dinesen. She is shown from the shoulders up, and she wears a fur stole and fur hat, with pearl earrings.

15 February 1775: Lord Barrington, Secretary at War, asked...

National or international item

15 February 1775

Lord Barrington , Secretary at War, asked for British troops in Boston to be increased to about ten thousand men
Thomas, Peter David Garner. Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, 1773-1776. Clarendon, 1991.
198

1954: Another Rosalind Wade novel, Cassandra Calls,...

Women writers item

1954

Another Rosalind Wade novel, Cassandra Calls, was published by Macdonald .
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

Mary Basset

MB was a significant member among the band of sixteenth-century women who were classical scholars and translators. Only two of what are said to have been her many translations survive.

By 1514: Mary, daughter of Henry VII (sister of Henry...

Building and people item

By 1514

Mary , daughter of Henry VII (sister of Henry VIII and later Queen of France), had her own schoolmaster.
Orme, Nicholas. From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy, 1066-1530. Methuen, 1984.
161

26 August 1731: The Grub-Street Journal celebrated Phillis...

Building and people item

26 August 1731

The Grub-Street Journal celebrated Phillis Leveridge , a hawker who worked for Anne Dodd , for her peculiar happiness of misnaming, wresting and commenting upon almost every thing she carries.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon, 1998.
84-5

1959: Microwave cooking was introduced in the ...

Building and people item

1959

Microwave cooking was introduced in the UK.
Yarwood, Doreen. Five Hundred Years of Technology in the Home. B. T. Batsford, 1983.
173

1912: Use of sound waves for underwater detection...

National or international item

1912

Use of sound waves for underwater detection of objects was investigated by English physicists John W. S. Rayleigh and Lewis F. Richardson .
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
180

30 December 1878: Henry Irving and Ellen Terry began their...

Building and people item

30 December 1878

Henry Irving and Ellen Terry began their successful stage partnership at the Lyceum Theatre in London by starring opposite one another in Hamlet.
Cheshire, David F. Portrait of Ellen Terry. Amber Lane Press, 1989.
47
Manvell, Roger. Ellen Terry. Heinemann, 1968.
367

2 September 1843: The Economist, a new weekly founded by businessman...

Writer or writing item

2 September 1843

The Economist, a new weekly founded by businessman and MP James Wilson , issued its first number.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

Judith Kazantzis

JK , a poet, journalist, historical compiler, short-story writer, visual artist, and blogger of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, is known for the strong anti-war, anti-establishment stand she takes in her writings. She has also...
Judith Kazantzis Black and white, head-and-shoulders, smiling photograph of Judith Kazantzis. She wears a light collared shirt in a muted print a necklace of large beads, and simple dangling earrings. Her blonde hair has a long fringe.

1958: The Anglican bishops, meeting at the Lambeth...

Building and people item

1958

The Anglican bishops, meeting at the Lambeth Conference, voted to accept the use of contraceptives for family planning purposes.
Norman, Edward R. Church and Society in England, 1770-1970. Clarendon, 1976.
412

1946: Critic Erich Auerbach published, in German,...

Writer or writing item

1946

Critic Erich Auerbach published, in German, the influential study which became in its English translation, 1953, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. He wrote it at Istanbul, as a Jewish refugee...

16 October 1859: The Harpers Ferry Insurrection took place,...

National or international item

16 October 1859

The Harpers Ferry Insurrection took place, led by white abolitionist John Brown who, along with roughly twenty other men, attempted to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
Evans, Richard J. The Penguin Dictionary of Nineteenth Century History. Editors Belchem, John and Richard Price, Penguin, 1996.
85
Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa, editors. The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World. Henry Holt and Company, 1996.
65
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present. 20th Anniversary Edition, HarperCollins, 1999.
184-186

May 1890: Walter Besant founded The Author, the journal...

Writer or writing item

May 1890

Walter Besant founded The Author, the journal (then monthly) of the Society of Authors which promoted authors' interests and supported grievances against the publishing industry. Besant edited the journal until 1901.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
34, 593

1873: The Plymouth Ladies' Committee, a Contagious...

Building and people item

1873

The PlymouthLadies' Committee , a Contagious Diseases Acts repeal group, published Caroline Nicholson 's What I Saw at the Royal Albert Hospital.
Walkowitz, Judith R. ’We Are Not Beasts of the Field’: Prostitution and the Campaign Against the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1869-1886. University of Rochester, 1974.
121
Walkowitz, Judith R. Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State. Cambridge University Press, 1980.
165