The last ten days have been further practice for me in how to squeeze research and writing time around work and home life; something which people often me ask about. I’m getting quite used to it now. The main thing is to get straight down to writing whenever you have a slot available, and to identify and schedule those slots in advance. […]
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John Rickman, Census Man
22 August marks the 240th anniversary of the birth of John Rickman (b. 1771). Successively Speaker’s Secretary and Clerk Assistant of the Commons, Rickman was a brilliant polymath: a proto-statistician, founder of the UK Census, reforming Parliamentary official and friend of Byron, Charles Lamb and Telford. He is also a key figure in the story […]
More Corners of Old Westminster
A few more pockets of old Westminster, snapped on a lunchtime walk yesterday. And by Westminster, I really mean Thorney Island, or the area within half a mile’s radius of Westminster Abbey, rather than the modern borough. For some other blog posts on pre-1834 Westminster, you can also see here and here. Street scene in Old Queen Street, by the Two Chairmen pub.As well […]
The Looooooooooooong 18th Century
I recently enjoyed a little lunchtime flurry on Twitter after asking about when the “Long” 18th century ended, in people’s opinion. That’s because The Day Parliament Burned Down makes the case for 1834 as one of the possible dates when the 18th century comes to a halt for various reasons. (In fact, I also argue that 1834 […]
One Year On….
Hooray! This blog is celebrating its first birthday! In the course of the last year I have completed my book, which found a great agent, who found me a great publisher, and as an added bonus I met lots of like-minded folk on Twitter. Thank you all for reading this blog or tweeting me with ideas […]
What the Dickens…?
Dickens in the 1830s, looking a good deal more glamorous than in later life Filling in the publicity form, one question which came up asked about anniversaries or other events which could be used as a hook to promote THE BOOK. There’s the fire itself of course (16 October every year – 178th anniversary in 2012). More topically, there’s the […]
