The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Hugh, the Fairfax name is most well-known because of the 3rd Lord, Sir Thomas (1612 – 1671), but what are the origins of the family? The Fairfax family is first heard of in the 12th Century with Henry owning land at Askham near York. Like many people in the north of...
Nelson’s Pathfinders is essential reading for Naval Historians. It is prescient that it is being published a year after the Admiralty announced it will be withdrawing paper charts and notices to mariners from 2026. For anyone unfamiliar with an Admiralty Chart it is a...
Michael Barritt, what first attracted you to naval history? My tutor at Oxford was Piers Mackesy, who was working on seminal books on the period 1793-1815, and this focussed my own interest. My subsequent career as a hydrographic specialist in the Royal Navy broadened...
Books Click on any of the books covers below to either buy or get more information on Amazon Articles Click on the links below to read the full article [dpdfg_filtergrid custom_query="advanced" use_taxonomy_terms="on" multiple_taxonomies="name_of_author"...
Captain Edward Columbine and the West Africa Squadron Perhaps as a result of his Caribbean experiences, Captain Edward Columbine became convinced of the need to abolish the slave trade, and in 1809 he accepted an Admiralty nomination to join a commission for the...
On 29 September 1923, the Palestine Mandate became law and the British Empire reached what would prove to be its maximum territorial extent. It was now the largest empire in history, covering a quarter of the world’s land area and home to 460 million people. This was...
Napoleon's Birthday Napoleon was born on 15 August, 1769. Under the Gregorian calendar this date was a holiday celebrating the Ascension of the Virgin Mary. The French Revolutionaries introduced a new calendar on 5 October, 1793, backdated to 22 September, 1792, the...
I was not completely sure, when asked to review this book, whether 300 pages or so on Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen would be my sort of thing. I am interested in Georgian and Regency History but that interest tends more towards the political and the...
US Assassinations: The Security Failures The news that the Secret Service is under investigation by the Dept. of Homeland Security for lapses in security before, during and after the attempt on former President Trump’s life should not necessarily come as a surprise to...
Izabela Czartoryska The joy of taking on a subject not previously covered by historians is that one can approach it with an open mind, uncovering and assessing virgin sources like an archaeologist. With subjects such as the Congress of Vienna or Napoleon one struggles...
