19th Century 1800-1899

Sarah Guppy an English Inventor

sarah guppy

Sarah Guppy an English inventor and a rare breed indeed. She was born in 1770 and developed a passion for engineering that culminated in a plethora of useful and esoteric inventions.

Read More

The Old Music Halls

Old Music Halls

The old music halls filled the ordinary Victorians with a sense of fun and joy in what might otherwise be a pretty desolate life. Their tenure was to be fairly brief though as music halls gave way to picture houses.

Read More

Public Drinking Fountains

Drinking Fountain Movement

Public drinking fountains in London resulted from the Public Drinking Foundation Movement established in 1858 to provide clean water to London’s poor.

Read More

Duke of Wellington Battle of Waterloo 1815

The Duke of Wellington stood at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, facing yet again Napoleon and the French army. He probably never thought he would have to face the Frenchman again after his victory in the Peninsular Campaign. The bloody battle left Wellington victorious

Read More

Bank of England History

Bank of England Sealing of the Charter

Bank of England History next to the East India Company one of our oldest institutions and ironically as the old lady of Threadneedle Street one of the few ‘last men standing. Founded by an associate of Isaac Newton from Trinity College Cambridge days maybe not such a strange connection give Newton was Master of the Royal Mint. Rothschilds to the rescue, so many intriguing connections to an institution we think of as a steadying force. It was not always so. Find out more here…

Read More

Convention of London 1840

When Muhammad Ali defeated the Ottomans and took control of not only Egypt and the Sudan but other Ottoman assets including its own naval fleet Austria Britain Prussia and Russia sought to ensure stability but the French backed Muhammad Ali. Hence the British and Austrian troops attacked Acre to force the peace…

Read More