Austen meets celebrity chefs

I was very busy finishing the typescript for my book 'Tracing Your Canal Ancestors' last week, so missed a lot of the fun and frolics for Jane Austen's birthday. If you are fed up with the weather and want cheering up, the Jane Austen spoof 'Sophie' on the Impressions Show  is hilarious - great fun to watch.

The Price of Coal

Coal has long been valued as a fuel source. The industrial revolution greatly increased demand for coal. It was used to smelt iron and generate steam, and coal production in Britain rocketed from six million tons p.a. in 1770 to twenty-three million tons in 1830. By the mid-1850s production was over sixty million tons p.a. Mines were sunk ever deeper to meet the demand.

But coal’s success story had a terrific human cost: thousands of men, women and children were killed down the mines and at the pit brow. You can find out more about working conditions in the mines in my books The Children History Forgot and Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives. There are also some tips on how to trace your coal-mining ancestors, in my feature for this month’s Discover My Past England (now on Genes Reunited) and in my forthcoming book Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors.




Images from the author’s collection:
‘How are you off for coals?’ Satirical postcard from the miners’ strike of 1912.

The New Hartley Pit disaster in Northumberland on 16 January 1862 killed over two hundred men and boys. This Illustrated London News (8 February 1862) engraving shows the long, sad funeral procession at Earsdon.

At home with the Georgians

I finally managed to catch up with Amanda Vickery's new series At Home with the Georgians, and this is a 'must-see' for all Austen fans. Vickery is one of my favourite authors on the period, and I thoroughly enjoyed the programme. When Vickery visited Chawton Cottage and sat at Jane Austen's writing desk, you could see the thrill she felt on being on such hallowed ground.  Vickery also explored the other side of the marriage question through the diaries of some Georgian men - how they longed to set up home and have a soul mate to keep them company. Surely food for thought for all budding Regency novelists!

Do-Gooders

I was very interested to see Ian Hislop's new TV series The Age of the Do-Gooders on BBC2 last night, especially as he covered Robert Owen and his mills at New Lanark which I will be discussing in my forthcoming book on child workers, 'The Children History Forgot' for Robert Hale. Next week's episode is on child labour, so I will be fascinated to see which aspects of the story of the fight to get Britain's working class children into school Hislop covers. Lord Shaftesbury will no doubt loom large, but will Hislop mention the factory inspectors such as Leonard Horner who fought so hard to encourage better education for factory and workshop children?  

The Royal Engagement

A couple of days ago, the nation was treated to the exciting news of Prince William's engagement to Kate Middleton. Things were done very differently when Prince George, son of George III, got engaged to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. The Prince was pressured into the marriage. His father wanted him to provide an heir to the throne, and the young prince was deep in debt. Prince George did not meet his royal bride until three days before the wedding; he had only seen a flattering portrait of her.
Princess Caroline of Brunswick arrived at Gravesend to begin her new life in England on Saturday 4 April 1795 and disembarked on one of the royal yachts the next day.
The lady the prince sent to accompany his new bride was his mistress, Lady Jersey. She brought some new clothes for Princess Caroline: 'a white satin gown, and very elegant turban cap of satin, trimmed with crape, and ornamented with white feathers' (New Annual Register, 1795). The clothes did not flatter the princess's somewhat florid complexion. When the prince, resplendent in his hussar uniform, went to St James's Palace to meet his future wife, he 'appeared extremely agitated'. Things did not bode well for the royal nuptials...
Image: Fashionable full dress with turban adorned with white feathers, Lady's Monthly Museum, November 1798.

Great Expectations

Some interesting news that the Dickens Museum in London has been given lottery funding to help preserve the author's home in Doughty St. I would love to go and have a good rummage in Dicken's library!
Image: Charles Dickens, Beeton's Dictionary of Universal Biography, 1870.

Epic Journey

I visited The National Archives at Kew on Thursday to do some research for my book on canal ancestors. I had a very interesting visit; the staff were extremely helpful. The Archives are kept in an amazing building. The British transport system rather let me down, however. The train I was booked on for my journey down was cancelled, and some of those coming back were late or cancelled, too. I was on a total of nine trains that day travelling from Cheshire to Kew Gardens and back again, and was exhausted by the time I got home.


Thank you to my family and all the Londoners and fellow travellers who helped a baffled Northerner trying to cope with the complexities of London transport!

Photo: The National Archives, Kew, Richmond © Sue Wilkes