The Twin Causes of ‘Brexit’ – Migration & Asylum: In 2015, David Cameron and the Conservatives surprisingly won an overall majority of MPs and were able to form a government by themselves. In their Manifesto, they had promised to conduct a renegotiation of the terms of Britain’s membership in the EU, and then ask theContinue reading “Majesty & A Fall from Grace: The Lives & Times of the Latter-Day Windsors – Part Two: Borders, Brexit & Bombings, 2002-17.”
Category Archives: Victoria
Majesty & Grace X: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor – Winter of Discontent to Golden Jubilee, 1979-2002; Part 1 – Wars & Paupers.
Britain at the End of the Cold War World: Britain had retreated from most of its empire by 1970. The only remaining colony was Rhodesia, which had been ruled by a white minority government, illegally, since 1967 and through the seventies. Britain resumed control in 1980 and the country became independent as Zimbabwe later thatContinue reading “Majesty & Grace X: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor – Winter of Discontent to Golden Jubilee, 1979-2002; Part 1 – Wars & Paupers.”
Majesty & Grace IX: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor, 1963-78: Part 1 – Rebellious Britons.
Protest & Planning, 1963-68 – Youth, Vietnam & Grosvenor Square: The 1960s were dramatic years in Britain. Demographic trends, especially the increase in the proportion of teenagers in the population, coincided with economic affluence and ideological experimentation to reconfigure social mores to a revolutionary extent. In 1964, under Harold Wilson, the Labour Party came into power,Continue reading “Majesty & Grace IX: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor, 1963-78: Part 1 – Rebellious Britons.”
Majesty & Grace II – The Lives & Times of The Windsors; George V & Family, 1921-1936.
1922-23 – Four Royal Weddings: The betrothal of 24-year-old Princess Mary to Viscount Lascelles, 39-year-old millionaire son of the Earl of Harewood, was officially announced at Buckingham Palace on 22 November 1921: On the last day of February 1922, the marriage was held at Westminster Abbey. The Abbey was thrown open to the public afterContinue reading “Majesty & Grace II – The Lives & Times of The Windsors; George V & Family, 1921-1936.”
Majesty & Grace I – The Lives & Times of the Windsors, 1901-1921: The Reigns of Edward VII & George V.
Picture: The Battle of Jutland in the North Sea in 1916. Neither side won the battle, but the German fleet was forced to shelter in harbour until 1918. George V’s second son, Albert George (Bertie), Duke of York from 1920, future George VI and the father of the late Queen Elizabeth II, was an officer on board HMS Collingwood.
An Epilogue for Beren & Lúthien: Tolkien’s Last Years, 1966-1973 & The Work of Christopher Tolkien (-2017).
The Road Goes Ever on – Headington to Bournemouth: Although life retirement sometimes seemed ‘grey and grim’ to Tolkien, it also had many elements that suited him. For one thing, he and Edith, at last, had enough money. However, the tax authorities took a large proportion of his earnings, and on one occasion, Tolkien wroteContinue reading “An Epilogue for Beren & Lúthien: Tolkien’s Last Years, 1966-1973 & The Work of Christopher Tolkien (-2017).”
A Gentle Gulliver – Warwickshire Adventures & Sojourns
Mooching with Seymour Henry: Forty years ago this summer (2022), my grandfather, Seymour Henry Gulliver, died aged eighty-two. He was born at the beginning of the twentieth century at Ufton-on-the-Hill, Warwickshire, the seventh child and one of the younger sons of a large family of thirteen children, eleven of whom survived into adulthood. Seymour wasContinue reading “A Gentle Gulliver – Warwickshire Adventures & Sojourns”
Bible Battles & The ‘Ascent of Man’: Nineteenth-Century Sceptics & Critics – Religion, Philosophy & Science.
Victorian Britain – An Age of Conformity? For many people in the early twenty-first century, the title ‘mid-Victorian Britain’ conjures up an image of church-going, sabbath seriousness, packed pews and the head of the household, invariably the father, questioning his progeny on the points of the morning sermon. The very word ‘Victorian’ has passed intoContinue reading “Bible Battles & The ‘Ascent of Man’: Nineteenth-Century Sceptics & Critics – Religion, Philosophy & Science.”
Scenes from Baptist History, 1814-1914: Missionaries, Mechanics & Manufacturers.
Includes a scene from Regent Street Baptist Church, Smethwick, Birmingham, from November 1897, ‘The Church in Meeting Assembled’ by Rev. A. J. Chandler, Minister of Bearwood Baptist Church, Birmingham, 1965-79. Revival, ‘Respectability’ & Reform in Britain, 1814-1859: In 1814, there was an evangelistic revival at Redruth in Cornwall which continued for nine days. An eye-witnessContinue reading “Scenes from Baptist History, 1814-1914: Missionaries, Mechanics & Manufacturers.”
Scenes from Baptist History: Persecution of the Puritans, Evangelical Revival & William Carey, 1662-1812.
Persecution of All ‘Nonconformists’, 1662-87: It was not until 1687 that the dissenting or ‘nonconformist’ churches felt able to look back upon ye Times of our late Troubles since the Act of Uniformity in 1662 had taken away the relative toleration they had experienced in the Interregnum. The Presbyterian minister Richard Baxter (1615-91) had takenContinue reading “Scenes from Baptist History: Persecution of the Puritans, Evangelical Revival & William Carey, 1662-1812.”
Andrew James 