Brian Roberts

She and her siblings were illegitimate children. Brian Roberts notes that for ideological rather than practical reasons, her parents had never married. He suggests that Thomas Longworth 's atheism was both militant and eccentric...

The wedding took place at the Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity in Hammersmith. GD ignored her brother's appeals from Canada that she should wait until he got back. Within about a month the...

David Poole , a dancer who had been with the Sadler's Wells ballet company, and his companion Owen Murray (also a dancer), became MR 's and Mullard's closest friends in Cape Town. Other friends were...

Her most vociferous opponents now included John Robinson , editor of the Natal Mercury (who chose to interpret her as a mere mouthpiece for Bishop Colenso ), and in time most of the British Tory...

Historian Brian Roberts writes dismissively: Over-long, cloyingly sentimental, full of incredible coincidences and timely quirks of fate, it was no better and no worse than the average Victorian novel.

As a woman war correspondent (generally known as a Special Correspondent or simply Special) FD was a first. According to historian Brian Roberts she was appointed (by Algernon Borthwick , editor of the Morning Post...

Her visit to Zululand was undertaken at the request of King Cetshwayo , and once there she caused consternation among British officials by attempting to sound out local Zulu opinion about his removal from rule...

According to Brian Roberts , FDoriginated the scheme for providing seaside holiday camps for poor children. She opposed cruelty to animals, blood-sports (which she had once enjoyed), and vivisection. She supported Rationalism, dress reform...

The novel is wrongly called autobiographical by Roberts . In this story tragedy is rooted in English anti-Catholic feeling and nourished by side-effects of the class system. Sir James Deering, who has risen in his...