999 emergency telephone service
The world’s first free emergency telephone service went into operation in 1937 in London. Other numbers such as 333 and 707 were […]
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Equestrian polo
‘Hockey on horseback’ originated in Persia, China and Asia and the British first caught onto it in India in the 1850s. They […]
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The Glorious Revolution
“And whereas it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to […]
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Rose, thistle, flax and daffodil
The national flower of England is the rose ~ the Tudor rose ~ which derives from the Wars of the Roses in […]
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The Conservative & Unionist Party
The Conservative Party is the oldest political party in existence today. Emerging in the late 1670s, it took a moderate line against […]
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“Sorry!”
Elton John sang ‘Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word’ (1976), but this is simply not applicable to the British! It is […]
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Amy Johnson, aviatrix
In the early days of aviation, Amy Johnson CBE (1903-41) was a typist working in London and aeroplanes were a passion in […]
Read MoreIn the early days of aviation, Amy Johnson CBE (1903-41) was a typist working in London and aeroplanes were a passion in her spare time. By 1929 she had earned a pilot’s licence and bought a secondhand De Havilland Gipsey Moth fixed wing, open cockpit, single engine biplane, registration G-AAAH, named Jason I.
Until 5th May 1930 her longest solo flight had been from London to her hometown of Hull, but on that day she took off from Croydon, with just 75 hours’ flying experience under her belt, and started south-eastwards in a straight line, ‘as the crow flies’, heading for Darwin, Australia. This feat had been achieved two years earlier by a man, but she was the first woman to attempt it. She flew for eight hours at a time, with no radio communication and only rudimentary maps.
The journey covered 11,000 miles and she reached her destination on 24th May, to the excitement of the waiting crowd. She was fêted as a superstar and toured Australian high-spots for the next six weeks. In 1932 she married a Scottish aviator and together they set more flying records. Tragically, she died in WW2 after parachuting into freezing water near the propellors of a Royal Navy ship.
(Top image: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)
Leap Day
“Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting February alone, And that hath twenty-eight days clear, […]
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“Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”
In the mid-1800s, central Africa held much mystery for Europeans, with most believing it to be desert like the north. Dr David […]
Read MoreIn the mid-1800s, central Africa held much mystery for Europeans, with most believing it to be desert like the north. Dr David Livingstone (1813-73) from Blantyre had travelled to southern Africa in 1841 as a Christian missionary and ten years later decided to venture forth to explore the unmapped African hinterland.
Slavery had been abolished in the British Empire in 1833 and Livingstone was appalled to see Arab Muslim slave traders marching hundreds of Africans yoked together. He determined to find a passage to the sea to allow trading ships to reform local commerce, thereby eliminating this evil. He mapped many lakes, rapids and rivers, including the Zambezi, and waterfalls, notably Victoria Falls which he named after the Queen, but came to realise there was no such navigable passage.
He ended up at Lake Tanganyika searching for the source of the Nile. Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), a journalist-adventurer from Denbigh, was sent by the New York Herald to find Livingstone, as he had not made contact for several years. On reaching Ujiji town in 1871, Stanley at last found the Doctor, who would become his close friend and father-figure, and the famous greeting was uttered. The now frail and poverty-stricken Livingstone replied with a thankful “Yes”.
(Image [cropped]: wellcomeimages.org / CC BY 4.0)
Queensberry Rules and boxing
Hand-to-hand fighting to settle disputes has developed into several types of sport, one of which is boxing. Bare-knuckle boxing for prize money […]
Read MoreHand-to-hand fighting to settle disputes has developed into several types of sport, one of which is boxing. Bare-knuckle boxing for prize money and gambling began in London in the 1700s and the first champion was Oxfordshire-born James Figg in 1719. In 1743, the first set of rules was drawn up by Figg’s protégé, John ‘Jack’ Broughton after his grief and guilt at punching an opponent to death.
The Broughton Rules banned the gripping of hair and hitting a man when he was down and introduced gloves for practice. The London Prize Ring Rules followed in 1838 and in 1867 the Queensberry Rules were published and became the basis for all boxing matches round the world. Of course, today’s rules are far more extensive and detailed, but the original twelve rules set the expectations of fair play. The expression “by Queensberry Rules” entered the language to mean that gentlemanly conduct was about to be observed.
The UK has had its fair share of boxing champions: Sir Henry Cooper, Ken Buchanan, Frank Bruno, Barry McGuigan, Chris Eubank, Joe Calzaghe, Lennox Lewis, Carl Froch and Anthony Joshua to name a few. The modern trend is for big matches to be hosted in stadiums, such is their popularity.
(Top image: WorldSeriesBoxing at Flickr.com / CC BY-ND 2.0)
Full English breakfast
The full English breakfast was first concocted centuries ago in the country houses, where it was considered proper to send the gentry […]
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The Commonwealth of Nations
One-third of the world’s population live in a member state of The Commonwealth of Nations, previously known as the British Commonwealth. These […]
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