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1860: At this time, London had approximately twenty-four...

Building and people item

1860

At this time, London had approximately twenty-four rescue homes, providing 1,200 beds to fallen women; provincial homes numbered around forty, offering 1,050 beds.
Bristow, Edward. Vice and Vigilance: Purity Movements in Britain Since 1700. Gill and Macmillan, 1977.
70

1879: Electric lighting was introduced at the library...

Building and people item

1879

Electric lighting was introduced at the library of the British Museum in London; it was accepted slowly by Britain's other libraries.
Kelly, Thomas. A History of Public Libraries in Great Britain 1845-1975. 2nd ed., Library Association, 1977.
72

732: Benedictine nun Leoba (Leofgyth) from Kent, later abbess of Tauberbischofsheim, wrote a letter to Archbishop Boniface

Women writers item

732

Benedictine nun Leoba  (Leofgyth ) from Kent, later abbess of Tauberbischofsheim, wrote a letter to Archbishop Boniface , patron saint of Germany. The letter recalls Boniface's friendship with Leoba’s parents and...

1882: Mr J. J. Fenwick opened his exclusive draper's...

Building and people item

1882

Mr J. J. Fenwick opened his exclusive draper's shop in Northumberland Street, Newcastle upon Tyne; he was one of the first retailers to have a shop front designed by a prominent architect, W. H. Knowles .
Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping 1800-1914: Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. Allen and Unwin, 1964.
205

27 August 1883: The volcano Mount Krakatoa in the Indonesian...

National or international item

27 August 1883

The volcano Mount Krakatoa in the Indonesian archipelago erupted with a force equal to multiple nuclear explosions: the 40,000 people killed included thousands of victims of tidal waves in Hawaii; the ash propelled into...

28 April 1945: Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci...

National or international item

28 April 1945

Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were executed by members of the Committee of National Liberation .
Messenger, Charles. World War Two Chronological Atlas: When, Where, How and Why. Bloomsbury, 1989.
225
Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World At Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
818

15 November 1888: Emery Walker lectured on printing at the...

Writer or writing item

15 November 1888

Emery Walker lectured on printing at the first Arts and Crafts Exhibition.
Cave, Roderick. The Private Press. Faber and Faber, 1971.
133

Hannah Cowley

HC , who is said to have become a dramatist by accident and who probably persevered out of necessity, achieved in time great stage success during the late eighteenth century. She was well acquainted with...
Hannah Cowley Print of the young Hannah Cowley. She sits on a chair in front of a heavy curtain pulled back. Her body is turned to her right, while she looks to the left in semi-profile. She holds a book on her lap, and wears a gown with short sleeves and low neckline, and long gloves. Her hair is styled in a mass of curls on her head and falling down her back.

1 June 1850: Alfred Tennyson anonymously published his...

Writer or writing item

1 June 1850

Alfred Tennyson anonymously published his poetic sequence In Memoriam.
Wise, Thomas J. A Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1967, 2 Vols.
108-11
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
1 June 2010

July 1995: Jeff Bezos launched in Seattle, Washington,...

Writer or writing item

July 1995

Jeff Bezos launched in Seattle, Washington, an online bookselling company named Amazon . It did only moderately well in 1996, but took off the following year.
Wray, Richard. “’Our belief is that there will be lots of winners’”. Guardian Unlimited, 24 Oct. 2005.

28 May 1901: The Federation of Master Printers and Allied...

Writer or writing item

28 May 1901

The Federation of Master Printers and Allied Trades of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland held their first official meeting.
Clair, Colin. A Chronology of Printing. Cassell, 1969.
167
Myers, Robin. The British Book Trade, from Caxton to the Present Day. Andre Deutsch in association with the National Book League, 1973.
304, 306

1622: William Gouge in Of Domesticall Duties voiced...

Building and people item

1622

William Gouge in Of Domesticall Duties voiced the prevailing view that women's lives had public as well as domestic aspects: for them, he wrote, a conscionable performance of household duties was a publike worke.
Crawford, Patricia. “Public Duty, Conscience, and Women in Early Modern England”. Public Duty and Private Conscience in Seventeenth-Century England, edited by John Morrill et al., Clarendon Press, 1993, pp. 57-76.
60

Elizabeth B. Lester

EBL was an early-nineteenth-century didactic novelist whose favourite topic is the question of whether it is better to marry or stay single. Most of her fiction considers this and comparable issues of domestic morality, but...

23 October 1963: The report of the Robbins Committee on Higher...

Building and people item

23 October 1963

The report of the Robbins Committee on Higher Education (recommending the establishment of new universities in Britain) was accepted by the new Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas Home .
Gordon, Peter et al. Education and Policy in England in the Twentieth Century. Woburn, 1991.
257, 324
Simon, Brian. Education and the Social Order, 1940-1990. Lawrence and Wishart, 1991.
222
Mountford, Sir James Frederick. British Universities. Oxford University Press, 1966.
103-4
Collini, Stefan. “HiEdBiz”. London Review of Books, 6 Nov. 2003, pp. 3-9.
5

1772: Henry Dagge argued in Considerations on Criminal...

Building and people item

1772

Henry Dagge argued in Considerations on Criminal Law, against the whole spirit of the times, that the law was morally wrong to make property, not defilement, the measure of damage in cases of abduction.
Schwarz, Joan I. “Eighteenth-Century Abduction Law and Clarissa”. Clarissa and Her Readers, edited by Carol Houlihan Flynn and Edward Copeland, AMS Press, 1999, pp. 269-08.
279

15 March 1845: Friedrich Engels dated the preface of The...

Writer or writing item

15 March 1845

Friedrich Engels dated the preface of The Condition of the Working Class in England.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
Zlotnick, Susan. Women, Writing, and the Industrial Revolution. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
65
Engels, Friedrich, and Eric John Hobsbawm. The Condition of the Working Class in England. Granada, 1969.
173, 174

10 December 1906: Sir Joseph John Thomson from Great Britain...

National or international item

10 December 1906

Sir Joseph John Thomson from Great Britain was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for original work on cathode rays culminating in the discovery of the electron.
Schlessinger, Bernard S., and June H. Schlessinger. The Who’s Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901-1995. 3rd ed., Oryx Press, 1996.
Nobel Prize in Literature. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/.

1984: Best Radio Plays of 1983: The Giles Cooper...

Women writers item

1984

Best Radio Plays of 1983: The Giles Cooper Award Winners included Shirley Gee 's Never in My Lifetime alongside plays by Wally K. Daly , Gerry Jones , Steve May , and Martyn Read .
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

1802: The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act...

National or international item

1802

The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act was passed, regulating the work of children in industrial mills and working conditions more generally.
Warren, Michael. “A Chronology of State Medicine, Public Health, Welfare and Related Services in Britain: 1066 - 1999”. Michael Warren’s Chronology, 6 Jan. 2003.

19 July 1870: Napoleon III declared war on Prussia, initiating...

National or international item

19 July 1870

Napoleon III declared war on Prussia, initiating the Franco-Prussian War.
Hobsbawm, Eric John. The Age of Capital 1848-1875. Abacus, 1975.
92, 97
Cowie, Leonard W., and Leonard Woolfson. Years of Nationalism: European History 1815-1890. Edward Arnold, 1985.
257
Merriman, John M. “Contested Freedoms in the French Revolutions, 1830-1871”. Revolution and the Meanings of Freedom in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Isser Woloch, Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 173-11.
202
Millman, Richard. British Foreign Policy and the Coming of the Franco-Prussian War. Clarendon, 1965.
194
Raymond, Dora Neill. British Policy and Opinion During the Franco-Prussian War. AMS, 1967.
66
Carr, William. The Origins of the Wars of German Unification. Longman, 1991.
205-6
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
292, 294
Dupuy, R. Ernest, and Trevor N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the Present. 2nd ed., Jane’s, 1986.
832, 837

1534: Henry VIII, moving against monastic orders,...

National or international item

1534

Henry VIII , moving against monastic orders, decreed the closure of all convents and their schools.
Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy. Oxford University Press, 1993.
199

19 June 1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed...

National or international item

19 June 1953

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in Sing Sing Prison, New York State, on charges of passing atomic secrets to the USSR.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/.

By mid May 1794: The First Report from the Committee of Secrecy...

National or international item

By mid May 1794

The First Report from the Committee of Secrecy was published in London. The Committee was set up to monitor and investigate potentially seditious activities by the Society for Constitutional Information (founded in April 1780)...

16 June 1836: The London Working Men's Association was...

Building and people item

16 June 1836

The London Working Men's Association was founded.
Goodway, David. London Chartism, 1838-1848. Cambridge University Press, 1982.
22
Goodway, David. London Chartism, 1838-1848. Cambridge University Press, 1982.
22

Monica Dickens

MD was a popular memoirist, novelist, journalist, and writer for children who was active from just before the Second World War until late in the twentieth century. Her fiction is usually closely bound up with...
Monica Dickens Black-and-white photo of Monica Dickens, circa 1954, reading her grandfather's "A Christmas Carol" to her children. Her hands are both reaching out and behind her is a Christmas tree and an unlit fireplace.