‘The Ship they called the Mayflower‘: The 16th September 2020 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the departure of the ship, Mayflower, from Plymouth Sound in Devon, England. The ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ were drawn from the Puritan separatists who had set up illegal churches in Lincolnshire and other parts of East Anglia. Threatened with fines and/orContinue reading “Four Hundred Years Ago: The Birth of a ‘New England’ – Trans-Atlantic Separatists & the Language of Dissent.”
Category Archives: nonconformity
Poverty, Progress & the Nonconformist Conscience in Britain, 1844-1914: London, Manchester & Birmingham.
The ‘Manchester School’ and the Industrial City: By the 1840s, Manchester had become the symbol of a new form of social organisation, a ‘modern Athens’ to Benjamin Disraeli. But, in a sense, the City deserved the rough treatment it subsequently got from two notable foreign visitors, Alexis de Tocqueville and Friedrich Engels. In 1851, JohnContinue reading “Poverty, Progress & the Nonconformist Conscience in Britain, 1844-1914: London, Manchester & Birmingham.”
The Forging of a Trans-Atlantic Language: Cross-Cultural Currents, 1840-1940
A National Language – From Webster to Whitman: The English Language has always been the most significant battlegrounds of Anglo-American rivalry, a fascinating window on the tensions of the “special relationship”. Divided by a common language, each generation has made the enjoyable discovery that the ‘standard’ English of Britain is different from from the EnglishContinue reading “The Forging of a Trans-Atlantic Language: Cross-Cultural Currents, 1840-1940”
375 Years Ago: The Civil War in the West, July-September 1645 – From the Battle of Langport to the Fall of Bristol.
Lanes to Langport: While the King camped out at Raglan Castle at the beginning of July, to the north of the main ongoing conflict, Royalist troops under Lord Byron were attempting to hold their own at Chester, and in the south-west Lord Goring, continuing to command the King’s army there, was attempting to fight hisContinue reading “375 Years Ago: The Civil War in the West, July-September 1645 – From the Battle of Langport to the Fall of Bristol.”
Empire, Slavery & Reform; 1783-1858: Black Lives & ‘White’ Colonies.
Britain in the World of 1783 – The Economic Advantages of Empire: In the course of the eighteenth century, Britain became the most prosperous trading nation in the world. Her most serious commercial rival was France. At the beginning of the century both countries held possessions in North America, the West Indies and controlled tradingContinue reading “Empire, Slavery & Reform; 1783-1858: Black Lives & ‘White’ Colonies.”
Bristol, Colston and Colonial Trade, 1580-1780
Foreground: The ‘Drowning’ of Edward Colston, 2020 The heart-breaking, public and blatant murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020 has fuelled a storm of protests across the world. ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests have broken out across Britain and other European countries, where the reckoning has reopened questions about the legacies ofContinue reading “Bristol, Colston and Colonial Trade, 1580-1780”
Andrew James 