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8 February 1913: Much publicity was generated by suffragist...

Building and people item

8 February 1913

Much publicity was generated by suffragist damage to the orchid houses at Kew Gardens; a couple of weeks later the tea pavilion there was destroyed.
Someone may have been having a joke: the word...

February 1880: The first successful shipment of refrigerated...

Building and people item

February 1880

The first successful shipment of refrigerated meat to England arrived from New South Wales, Australia aboard the SS Strathleven.
Clark, Charles Manning Hope. A Short History of Australia. Revised Illustrated, Penguin, 1986.
148

13 April 1864: A weekly women's newspaper entitled the Young...

Writer or writing item

13 April 1864

A weekly women's newspaper entitled the Young Ladies' Journal began publication in London.
Palmegiano, Eugenia M. Women and British Periodicals, 1832-1867: A Bibliography. Garland, 1976.
23

28 August 1816: The Dey or Governor of Algiers signed a peace...

National or international item

28 August 1816

The Dey or Governor of Algiers signed a peace treaty with England and Holland, one article of which decreed an end to the practice of making slaves of Christians captured in battle.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
86 (1816 no. 2): 354-5

Anna Letitia Waring

Anna Letitia Waring , who published throughout the later nineteenth century and into the twentieth, was a hymn-writer, who also produced instructional tracts and poetry. Although she wrote from an early age right up until...

23 February 1920: The Marconi Company at Chelmsford in Essex...

Building and people item

23 February 1920

The Marconi Company at Chelmsford in Essex began regular twice-daily broadcasts containing news and music.
Harris, Melvin. ITN Book of Firsts. Michael O’Mara Books, 1994.
116
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
359
Singer, Charles et al., editors. A History of Technology. Clarendon, 1958, 8 vols.
7: 1254

November 1926: Woman and Home, a monthly magazine dealing...

Building and people item

November 1926

Woman and Home, a monthly magazine dealing with domestic issues and aimed at middle- and lower-class women, began in London.
Winship, Janice. Inside Women’s Magazines. Pandora, 1987.
166
Braithwaite, Brian, and Joan Barrell. The Business of Women’s Magazines. Associated Business Press, 1979.
158
White, Cynthia L. Women’s Magazines 1693-1968. Michael Joseph, 1970.
95
Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory 1999. 37th ed., R. R. Bowker, 1998.
6955

1609: The Vagrancy Act set out to control rogues,...

Building and people item

1609

The Vagrancy Act set out to control rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars (prostitutes, in particular). This was the first in a long series of such Acts.
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women. Longman, 1999.
90, 92

24 January 1760-14 August 1761: The Public Ledger printed Oliver Goldsmith's...

Writer or writing item

24 January 1760-14 August 1761

The Public Ledger printed Oliver Goldsmith 's series of essays entitled Letters from a Citizen of the World to his Friends in the East.
Goldsmith, Oliver. Collected Works. Editor Friedman, Arthur, Clarendon, 1966, 5 vols.
2: 16n2, 473n1

1756: Jeanne Le Prince de Beaumont published Le...

Writer or writing item

1756

Jeanne Le Prince de Beaumont published Le Magasin des enfants, a collection containing the first influential and literary formulation of the popular fairy story Beauty and the Beast.
Zipes, Jack. “The Origins of the Fairy Tale for Children or, How Script was Used To Tame the Beast in Us”. Children and Their Books: A Celebration of the Work of Iona and Peter Opie, edited by Gillian Avery and Julia Briggs, Clarendon Press, 1989, pp. 119-34.
125-6

1881: The Land Nationalisation Society was founded...

National or international item

1881

The Land Nationalisation Society was founded by Alfred Russel Wallace and others to work for the abolition of private ownership of land.
Wallace, Alfred Russel. “Introduction”. Alfred Russel Wallace: An Anthology of His Shorter Writings, edited by Charles H. Smith, Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 1-8.
4, 7

8 July 1618: Michael Dalton had entered in the Stationers'...

Building and people item

8 July 1618

Michael Dalton had entered in the Stationers' Register his book The Countrey Justice, Containing the Practice of the Justices of the Peace out of their Sessions, designed to raise the level of local administration...

1860: After this date, stirrups became widely used...

Building and people item

1860

After this date, stirrups became widely used by gynaecologists for physical examinations.
Moscucci, Ornella. The Science of Woman: Gynaecology and Gender in England, 1800-1929. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
125

By September 1955: Baby and Child Care, by the US physician...

Building and people item

By September 1955

Baby and Child Care, by the US physician Benjamin Spock , was published in the UK by Bodley Head : among its middle-class readership it inaugurated a new era of child-centred parenting.
British Book News. British Council.
(1955): 1237-8

1718: The Society of Antiquaries, founded in 1572...

Building and people item

1718

The Society of Antiquaries , founded in 1572 but lapsed, was refounded and endured.
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997.
471
Baines, Paul. “’Our Annius’: Antiquaries and Fraud in the Eighteenth Century”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
20
, No. 1, 1997, pp. 33-51.
36

1543: Andreas Vesalius, professor of anatomy at...

Building and people item

1543

Andreas Vesalius , professor of anatomy at Padua University, published De humani corporis fabrica, and Nicolaus Copernicus published De revolutionibus.
Laqueur, Thomas. “Even Immortality”. London Review of Books, 29 July 1999, pp. 3-9.
5
Sobel, Dava. Galileo’s Daughter. Viking, 1999.
173

1 January 1808: The British settlement at Sierra Leone became...

National or international item

1 January 1808

The British settlement at Sierra Leone became a colony, intended to be self-governing, and to embody the Burke an concept of political trusteeship.
Harding, Anthony J. “Anna Maria Falconbridge: A Woman of Sensibility in West Africa, 1790-1793”. Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century Conference, Saskatoon, SK, 20 Oct. 2001.

Eliza Haywood

EH was the most prolific novelist by number of titles (even ignoring those doubtfully ascribed) between Aphra Behn and Charlotte Smith . She also wrote poems, plays, periodicals, conduct books, translation, and theatre history. Her...
Eliza Haywood Black and white engraving of Eliza Haywood by George Vertue after a painting by James Parmentier. It has an oval frame tied with a ribbon at the top and set within a rectangular from. Haywood's hair is tied back, with a lock of it showing on her left shoulder. She is wearing a dress with a deep decolletage and lace at the bosom. This engraving was used as frontispiece to vol. i of her "Secret Histories, Novels and Poems", of which the second (and perhaps only) edition appeared in 1725.

23 October 1835: George Baxter was granted a patent for reproducing...

Writer or writing item

23 October 1835

George Baxter was granted a patent for reproducing paintings in colour.
Gentry, Helen, and David Greenhood. Chronology of Books and Printing. Rev. ed., Macmillan, 1936.
108
Clair, Colin. A Chronology of Printing. Cassell, 1969.
143

1937: The report of the Joint Council of Midwifery...

Building and people item

1937

The report of the Joint Council of Midwifery advocated more strenuous measures to combat the sale of abortifacient drugs.
Brookes, Barbara. Abortion in England: 1900-1967. Croom Helm, 1988.
70

May 1978: Virago Press issued its first Virago Modern...

Women writers item

May 1978

Virago Press issued its first Virago Modern Classics, a historically important series most though not all of which were novels.
Callil, Carmen. “The stories of our lives”. Guardian Unlimited, 26 Apr. 2008.

28 September 1593: Christopher Marlowe's poem Hero and Leander...

Writer or writing item

28 September 1593

Christopher Marlowe 's poem Hero and Leander was posthumously entered in the Stationers' Register .
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.

October 1651: A Navigation Act passed by the English parliament...

National or international item

October 1651

A Navigation Act passed by the English parliament challenged Dutch shipping trade, and helped cause a war (the First Dutch War) which lasted from early 1652 until April 1654.
Pincus, Steven. Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of an English Foreign Policy 1650-1668. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
12-14, 44, 86, 181-2
Worden, Blair. “Conviction on the High Seas”. London Review of Books, 6 Feb. 1997, pp. 12-13.
12-13

1849: Henry David Thoreau published the first edition...

Writer or writing item

1849

Henry David Thoreau published the first edition of his study Civil Disobedience as Resistance to Civil Government in Aesthetic Papers.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

Anna Wickham

Anna Wickham was a prolific poet of the earlier twentieth century: in addition to several hundred published poems, more than a thousand remain unpublished.
Hepburn, James et al. “Editor’s Note and Acknowledgements”. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, p. xxv - xxvi.
xxv
Her poems, with their unique blend of acerbity and lyricism...
Anna Wickham Black-and-white photo of Anna Wickham in her cluttered kitchen, originally published to accompany "Anna Wickham: A Poetess Landlady" in Picture Post, 1946. Looking off-camera, she is seated on a chair and smoking a cigarette.