My blogpost of 11 May 2012, which sparked a lot of interest, needs an update – especially in relation to my speculation that it may have been the Commons Chamber table between 1730-1800. In thinking about the comments to that posting, I had forgotten that Phillis M. Rogers, Curator of Works of Art at the […]
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The Light-Fingered Gentry
The 1834 disaster attracted huge crowds of onlookers. It also attracted large numbers of what The Times called ‘the light-fingered gentry’. Those heading towards the site of the fire from Regent Street found themselves jostled and overtaken by gangs of pickpockets racing down the street to get to the Houses of Parliament where they could […]
The Table Spencer Perceval Didn’t Die On
Today is the 200th anniversary of the day when the British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons. He was shot at 5.15pm at point blank range on 11 May 1812, by John Bellingham, a deranged shipping agent driven mad by his attempts to get the government to […]
Parliament and the Portcullis
The use of the Portcullis as a specifically Parliamentary symbol is not a particularly ancient one. In fact it dates from the building of the new Palace of Westminster the 19th century. The genius of Charles Barry’s design for the west front of the Palace (below right) was – among other things – to match it to […]
A Visit to the Tower of London Zoo in 1827
By the early 1830s, many people thought that Parliament should move away from Westminster to the West End. Part of the reason was that John Nash’s development of Regent’s Street had shifted the fashionable focus of the City north-west. One of the trendy delights in the former Marylebone Fields was the new Zoological Gardens at […]
Health & Safety for Historical Researchers
Historical research doesn’t seem, on the face of it, to be a risky activity. Compared with mining, deep-sea pearl fishing, mountain rescue or identifying mysterious biological agents it isn’t – obviously. But there are physical risks, and here are just some of them. 1. Lifting Heavy Boxes and Volumes Manual handling training is compulsory for archivists and librarians who need […]
