THEME Business, trade and industry

History of Women and Work

The employment of women through the second half of the C19th and beyond has long been hidden in the data. As more data is digitized and becomes easier to evaluate it is apparent that women had always been employed in an incredibly wide range of occupations. Seek out the women and their hidden occupations in your family history

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Sir Robert Peel 1st Baronet a Prime Minister’s Father

Sir Robert Peel (1st Baronet) site of the original mill

What makes a Prime Minister? Why does the wealth health and education not ensure the success and happiness of future generations? Famous families as a reflection of our own and national history. Sir Robert Peel the first baronet certainly leads us into some intriguing connections…

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Lancashire Cotton Famine

Lancashire cotton famine
This entry is part 2 of 14 in the series Industrial Revolution

The Lancashire Cotton Famine was a crisis in the Lancashire cotton industry in the early 1860’s, reminds us of the impact that global events have on individual economies. The world was as connected by trade and war 150 years ago as it is now. Nothing much changes

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Scotsmen Thomas Blake Glover, Mitsubishi and Kirin Beer

Outstanding Scotsmen and the Far East seem to go together in the 19th and early 20th centuries, being responsible for business and trading companies that are still thriving today. Thomas Blake Glover was one such man, arguably responsible for much of the success of the Meiji Restoration and the overthrow of the Shogun and forming the basis of the new and open Japan and it’s industrial success that continues to this day…

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Portsmouth Dockyard

The closure of the Royal Dockyard at Portsmouth would bring to an end over 5oo years of Royal Naval ship building history in Hampshire

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Three Abraham Darby’s

Abraham Darby
This entry is part 3 of 14 in the series Industrial Revolution

Abraham Darby was the first man to use coke in furnaces, his son produced wrought iron and his grandson built the iron bridge at Ironbridge. 3 generations of the same family contributing to the Industrial Revolution.

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