Author Archives: dgm

Captain Fred Burnaby was a Victorian adventurer and balloonist, chiefly remembered today for his epic horse rides across Anatolia and Central Asia. I’ve never quite made up my mind whether he undertook these rides with tacit approval as part of … Continue reading →

I’ve just finished reading Paupers and Pig Killers, Jack Ayres’ edition of William Holland’s diary. William Holland was a parson in Somerset around the turn of the nineteenth century and kept a diary for the first few years of the … Continue reading →

In Melbourne, at the corner of Dandenong Road and Hotham Street, lies St Kilda Cemetery. I’ve driven past it hundreds of times, and never stopped to look, but today I did. J was doing something else, so I hopped on … Continue reading →

The short answer is, of course they did, but if you were to go on the evidence of paintings alone you might be forgiven for thinking that Victorian women did not have pubic hair. This clearly was not the case. … Continue reading →

I was on a beach a few days ago, birdwatching, when I noticed a small corroded metal disk stuck in a crack. “Wow, a coin!” I thought, and did what anyone else would and picked it up. Well the face … Continue reading →

First snow: Camp Hill pic.twitter.com/89UxYb3KfC — Dead In Halifax (@deadinHalifax) November 24, 2021 I was idly surfing twitter this morning and almost proved that I was as much of a gonk as J says that I am. I’d seen the … Continue reading →

A few days ago I posted the following to twitter: There was a major post Napoleonic wars re coinage in 1816 making the idea of 1814 coins being found interesting:Coin stash discovered at Port Arthur archaeology dig gives rare insight … Continue reading →

A long time ago, nearly forty years ago now, I lived for a time in a village called Newbridge on Wye almost slap bang in the centre of Wales. At the time, further up the hill from where I lived, … Continue reading →

Piecing together the outline of his life was absurdly easy, in part because the UK National Archives hold the UK army records from the period, the activities of local history societies and the deep interest of military historians in the … Continue reading →

Today was clock change day, when the clocks went forward for summer. Typically it was a damp day, threatening rain, so we went for a walk up to the town cemetery. As Beechworth’s an old town, the cemetery’s pretty old … Continue reading →