• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Caroline Shenton

Archivist, historian and writer

  • Home
  • Books
    • National Treasures
    • Mr Barry’s War
    • The Day Parliament Burned Down
    • Victoria Tower Treasures
  • Speaking
  • Consultancy
  • About
  • News
  • Contact

In Other (1834) News…

15 March 2012 By Caroline Shenton

I admit to becoming totally obsessed with the 1834 fire at Parliament over the last couple of years. Several diarists and commentators at the time also got fed up with the blanket coverage of the disaster, as this bad-tempered columnist indicates:

“The newspapers have rioted and revel[l]ed in this fire so much, have dallied so fondly with metaphors of all sorts – have lingered so feelingly among regrets, and tropes, and passionate phrases, and still carry their readers on so remorselessly from day to day through periods that have no end, and through passages that lead as those of the Lords and Commons now do to nothing – that anything more in the way of description must prove for the present commonplace. It is enough to say that the fire was not arrested until all the buildings in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords were either destroyed utterly or burnt down to the naked walls” (New Monthly Magazine, vol xlii, Nov 1834, pp. 353-354)

So as an antidote to all this, I list below a few other significant things which were going on in 1834 which shouldn’t be overlooked (in addition, of course, to the great German mouse plague about which I have written elsewhere):

  • The Tolpuddle Martyrs were deported to Tasmania for forming the first agricultural trade union in England
  • Charles Babbage made a breakthrough in his work on his Analytical Engine: the first computer
  • Darwin was voyaging round South America on The Beagle writing up his findings
  • Charlotte Bronte was writing her Angria stories
  • the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act came into force in the British Empire
  • William Morris was born, and Thomas Telford died
  • the harsh new Poor Law was introduced (I don’t really count this, though, as I talk quite a bit about it in the book – lots of commentators thought the fire was a judgment on the legislation)
  • Charles Dickens became a Parliamentary reporter for The Morning Chronicle (oops, done it again).

What have I missed?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Writing and Researching

About Caroline Shenton

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it 'microhistory at its absolute best' while Dan Jones considered it 'glorious'. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barryís War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as 'a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful'. During 2017 Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone's Library.

Footer

About Caroline

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013. Read More…

Recent Posts

  • The Crown Jewels in Wartime
  • Nine Ways to Support An Author for Free
  • Tickets for The Day Parliament Burned Down, 16 Oct 2021 6pm
  • Safe As Houses – An Article for Historic Houses Magazine
  • All the News that’s Fit to Print

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Sign up for my newsletter!

© 2012–2022 Caroline Shenton | All Rights Reserved | Website by Callia Web