It’s been a while since I wrote a post about criminal history, one of my favourite subjects, so I decided this month will be a short two part series on smugglers, who I haven’t really covered in previous criminal posts. This first post is on Thomas Johnstone, a smuggler whose life is hard to distinguish from fact or fiction, but is astounding all the same. In fact, his life could easily have come from an adventure novel. The next post will be about the Hawkhurst Gang, a group of smugglers who dominated the coast of South-East England, named after their base of Hawkhurst in Kent. Now, back to T ..read more

Today we are surrounded by male and female doctors who can all offer a range of experience and knowledge. For any women in the process of pregnancy or labour, it is a worry as to who is around you, looking after you and your child. For royal women at this time, it was common to be attended on by male royal physicians, but for Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duchess of Kent, she somewhat broke with that tradition by having a German midwife, Charlotte von Siebold, who was more than qualified to be attending the birth of the all-important heir to the British throne. Who was this midwife and wha ..read more

Since October, I have been working as a Visitor Centre Assistant at Masson Mills, between Matlock Bath and Cromford in Derbyshire. It is one parts of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, which features a number of mills that were the first examples of the modern factory systems in the world. I’m pleased to say that I will be having a book launch for my debut book, Anthony Woodville: Sophisticate or Schemer, which will consist of a talk and book signing, at Masson Mills Visitor Centre on Saturday 16th March between 11am and 1pm. It will be free entry, so it would be great to see as man ..read more

If you are a regular reader, you will know that Charles Dickens is my second favourite author, after Jane Austen of course! I have been lucky to spend a lot of time in Kent on holidays, immersing myself in the county that meant to much to Dickens, where he often found himself the happiest. Despite this, it was also scene of one of his most traumatic experiences in his life, the Staplehurst train crash of Friday 9th June 1865. It is this horrendous event that would play on Dickens for the last five years of his life. On that day, Charles Dickens was returning from a holiday in Paris with his mi ..read more

I am so pleased to welcome back Jo Romero, a friend and follow history blogger. You can view her previous posts on a riot, dog and the George Hotel in Reading here, and Reading During the wars of the Roses here. Her debut book, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses is due to be published at the end of this month. This is a project of Jo’s that I have had the privilege of knowing for a while and was lucky enough to help her on Elizabeth Scales, first wife of Anthony Woodville Jo has been obsessed with history for as long as she can remember and gained her History degree at the Universi ..read more

It’s not long now until my debut book, Anthony Woodville: Sophisticate or Schemer is published on 15th February. I recently received my author copies, which still feels a little surreal. For me, it feels even more surreal that I have been booked for a few book signings, two local to me and another in Ludlow, where Anthony spent a lot of the last ten years of his life looking after his nephew, Edward, Prince of Wales, the future Edward V. This will be an entirely new experience for me, so I hope it goes well. Here is a list of Anthony themed events I’ll be doing so far: Anthony Woodville: Soph ..read more

I’m sorry that this review of a Christmas themed novella is being posted at the end of January, but I had actually bought this as a Christmas present for my sister. She kindly has let me borrow it after she had finished reading it between Christmas and New Year. I really enjoyed it, so I thought I would post a review despite now not being the Christmas period. I must admit, she was reading it at our house of Christmas and just couldn’t put it down. Now I can entirely understand why as I was exactly the same. This book attracted me as it is a good old-fashioned Regency themed romance. No sex, j ..read more

Where do I start with 2023. It’s been full, but not of the nice things unfortunately. Sadly we have lost quite a few people dear to us, most importantly my mum’s brother-in-law, my Uncle Ian, just a couple of months ago. He was such a big part of our lives and was always supportive in everything any of us did. Me and my mum were very ill with Covid earlier in the year, which messed up our family holiday to Ludlow. That was only the first of our 3 holidays that has been ruined, so I’m over due for one I think! Then my mum has been diagnosed with polymyalgia (a rheumatic condition) this summer ..read more

As an avid reader, I usually can’t name all the books I read in a year, the majority of them have a history theme, so as we come to the end of 2023, I thought I would share my top five history books that I’ve read this year. It’s a mixture of different periods, so hopefully there’s something for everybody there. The Unfortunate Colonel Ned Despard by Mike Jay Ned Despard was the last person in Britain to be hung drawn and quartered in 1803, but was he really a traitor, or was he fitted up to put off reformist from being vocal? That is the question this book aims to answer. I think it does that ..read more

November is National American Indian Heritage Month in America. For regular readers, you may not be surprised that I decided to write a post dedicated to that. Despite living in the East Midlands of England, I have always had a genuine interest in the plight of the Native Americans, perhaps feel some guilt towards the cultural appropriation that they were forced to endure. For that reason, I felt it appropriate to share the story of Zitkala-Sa, which means Red Bird in English, who was an influential Native American activist. Her story is a powerful one and I feel that I would have been there w ..read more