Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ve been reading a book – Three Men and a Bradshaw – which is an edited set of Victorian travel journals by John Freeman, a London clerk. John Freeman’s journals date from the 1870’s and are roughly contemporary with those … Continue reading →

A couple of years ago, I became fascinated by the Madeleine Smith case – not by the story itself, involving as it did sex and murder among the middle classes of 1850’s Glasgow, but how it was reported world wide. … Continue reading →

Yesterday I tweeted a link to an article from the Atlantic about how libraries, and we really mean university and research libraries, are seeing a massive decline in the use of the books on their shelves. No real surprises there. … Continue reading →

Well about the Polish origins of the name anyway. The name Petropaulowski was in use in English long before the Crimean war. Searching GoogleBooks for the name shows it is used in an account of Cook’s voyages published in Manchester … Continue reading →

The Crimean War has been referred to as the first modern war, by which people usually mean that there was something very like modern trench warfare during the siege of Sebastapol, few large set piece battles with the exception of … Continue reading →

We’ve just had brunch – baked beans (Watties’ from NZ), toast, bacon and the last of our home grown tomatoes. And it struck me that everywhere we’ve been that was governed by Britain in colonial times has a local brand … Continue reading →

Early photography, and we’re talking 1850’s and early 1860’s here, was a cumbersome process. Photgraphic plates had to be prepared almost immediately before use – in itself a messy fume laden business, and then processed almost after exposure, so unstable … Continue reading →

Mount Buffalo was Victoria’s first National park, and really where winter sports began in  Victoria in the late 1800’s. So popular was the park that in 1910 someone had a plan to build a hotel for skiers and summer walkers … Continue reading →

At the top of the hill in Beechworth is a big complex of buildings set in spacious grounds which houses a hotel, some council offices, a day spa, the local ghost tour operators, the local arts society and possibly some … Continue reading →

Following on from yesterday’s family history investigation, I did what I should have done a long time ago, I had a look at the 1901 and 1891 censuses. The 1901 census was more or less what I expected: James, my … Continue reading →