#uk-history — Public Fediverse posts

RE: https://social.tchncs.de/@vfrmedia/116732711617562589

"The Good Old Days"

This is what Reform and Restore voters want for Minorities.

#UKPol #UKPolitics #UKHistory #ReformUK #RestoreBritain #Fascism #Terrorism

RE: https://social.tchncs.de/@vfrmedia/116732711617562589

"The Good Old Days"

This is what Reform and Restore voters want for Minorities.

#UKPol #UKPolitics #UKHistory #ReformUK #RestoreBritain #Fascism #Terrorism

UK Government: New online service opens access to centuries of coal mining history. “This digitised collection brings together detailed maps and plans from former collieries across England, Scotland and Wales, offering an extraordinary view into the history of local landscapes, mining operations, and the lives of the communities who worked within them.”

UK Government: New online service opens access to centuries of coal mining history. “This digitised collection brings together detailed maps and plans from former collieries across England, Scotland and Wales, offering an extraordinary view into the history of local landscapes, mining operations, and the lives of the communities who worked within them.”

The Wrong Kind of Jew: Miriam Margolyes, Michael Rosen & Alexei Sayle - Double Down News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URpIy_pWthk

#PalestineSolidarity #MiriamMargolyes #MichaelRosen #UKpol #AlexeiSayle #antisemitism #jew #jewish #UKhistory #WW2 #JewsForPalestine #history #holocaust #communism #communist

The Wrong Kind of Jew: Miriam Margolyes, Michael Rosen & Alexei Sayle - Double Down News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URpIy_pWthk

#PalestineSolidarity #MiriamMargolyes #MichaelRosen #UKpol #AlexeiSayle #antisemitism #jew #jewish #UKhistory #WW2 #JewsForPalestine #history #holocaust #communism #communist

UK Parliament: A journey into history – Hansard records dating back to 1803 now available online. “Hansard – the official report of Parliament – has added around 130 volumes from the 19th and early 20th centuries to its online database, completing its online archive. The Hansard website now provides users access to debates and proceedings not previously available in digital form.”

UK Parliament: A journey into history – Hansard records dating back to 1803 now available online. “Hansard – the official report of Parliament – has added around 130 volumes from the 19th and early 20th centuries to its online database, completing its online archive. The Hansard website now provides users access to debates and proceedings not previously available in digital form.”

Battle of The Beanfield

There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.

The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.

The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.

Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.

What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.

I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.

That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.

To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.

The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.

To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.

To their critics they represented disorder.

By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.

On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.

Police had prepared extensively.

The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.

A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.

The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.

Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.

Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.

Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.

The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.

Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.

ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.

By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.

That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.

If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.

Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.

Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.

Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.

For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.

First comes the language.

A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.

Then comes the media narrative.

Then comes the justification.

Then comes the force.

That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.

But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.

The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.

And the message was received.

The traveller movement never fully recovered.

Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.

In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.

Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.

Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.

Who gets to occupy public space?

Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?

How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?

And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?

Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.

The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.

Many paid a heavy price for that.

For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.

When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.

It begins with exclusion.

Then comes the roadblock.

Further Reading

Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield

Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985

Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded

Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield

English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation

Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.

Battle of The Beanfield

There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.

The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.

The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.

Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.

What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.

I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.

That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.

To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.

The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.

To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.

To their critics they represented disorder.

By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.

On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.

Police had prepared extensively.

The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.

A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.

The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.

Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.

Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.

Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.

The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.

Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.

ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.

By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.

That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.

If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.

Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.

Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.

Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.

For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.

First comes the language.

A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.

Then comes the media narrative.

Then comes the justification.

Then comes the force.

That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.

But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.

The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.

And the message was received.

The traveller movement never fully recovered.

Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.

In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.

Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.

Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.

Who gets to occupy public space?

Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?

How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?

And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?

Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.

The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.

Many paid a heavy price for that.

For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.

When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.

It begins with exclusion.

Then comes the roadblock.

Further Reading

Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield

Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985

Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded

Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield

English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation

Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.

"Modern genomes do not simply tell us who we are; they preserve how we got here. History does not make migration exceptional – it reveals it as the norm"

#Migration #Genome #History #UKHistory
Beyond Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings: DNA uncovers a dynamic history of migration to Britain
https://theconversation.com/beyond-anglo-saxons-celts-and-vikings-dna-uncovers-a-dynamic-history-of-migration-to-britain-283532

"Modern genomes do not simply tell us who we are; they preserve how we got here. History does not make migration exceptional – it reveals it as the norm"

#Migration #Genome #History #UKHistory
Beyond Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings: DNA uncovers a dynamic history of migration to Britain
https://theconversation.com/beyond-anglo-saxons-celts-and-vikings-dna-uncovers-a-dynamic-history-of-migration-to-britain-283532

International Fire & Safety Journal: Peers approve funding for Grenfell Tower archive and preservation works. “The House of Lords has passed the Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill to provide statutory authority for the construction and long-term management of a permanent memorial at the tower site.”

International Fire & Safety Journal: Peers approve funding for Grenfell Tower archive and preservation works. “The House of Lords has passed the Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Bill to provide statutory authority for the construction and long-term management of a permanent memorial at the tower site.”

#TIL that the Royal Navy started employing female nurses for land-based service in naval hospitals during the 1880s. They weren't commissioned, but were treated as equivalent to junior officers: they had private "cabins" (rooms), were addressed as "Madam", included beside officers in the published Navy List from 1885 onwards, and male Sick Bay Attendants had to follow their "requests" the same as orders from the surgeon.

They were not allowed to treat "afflictions of the middle third of the body" (sexually-transmitted diseases) in the male sailors, and didn't actually go to sea until 1898.

#history #womensHistory #militaryHistory #navalHistory #UKhistory

#TIL that the Royal Navy started employing female nurses for land-based service in naval hospitals during the 1880s. They weren't commissioned, but were treated as equivalent to junior officers: they had private "cabins" (rooms), were addressed as "Madam", included beside officers in the published Navy List from 1885 onwards, and male Sick Bay Attendants had to follow their "requests" the same as orders from the surgeon.

They were not allowed to treat "afflictions of the middle third of the body" (sexually-transmitted diseases) in the male sailors, and didn't actually go to sea until 1898.

#history #womensHistory #militaryHistory #navalHistory #UKhistory

UK govt fed radioactive chapati to Asian women without consent: Dark experiment explained https://english.mathrubhumi.com/technology/science/radioactive-chapati-coventry-experiment-south-asian-women-uk-1969-dh73z671?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #UKHistory #MedicalEthics #Coventry #SouthAsianCommunity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._J._H._Nash

Posting about Paul Marshall and GB News made me think about the origins of his religious convictions.

I would imagine it might be possible to ascribe much of the rise of current C of E conservative evangelicalism to the influence of E. J. H. Nash.

I would like to read a good critical account of Nash and the "Bash campers". I do not hold out high hopes for the book suggested as further reading at the foot of the Wikipedia entry.

Need I add that I consider Nash's influence on British society and culture to have been pernicious?

#UKHistory #EJHNash #ConservativeEvangelicalism #ChurchOfEngland #Iwerne #PaulMarshall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._J._H._Nash

Posting about Paul Marshall and GB News made me think about the origins of his religious convictions.

I would imagine it might be possible to ascribe much of the rise of current C of E conservative evangelicalism to the influence of E. J. H. Nash.

I would like to read a good critical account of Nash and the "Bash campers". I do not hold out high hopes for the book suggested as further reading at the foot of the Wikipedia entry.

Need I add that I consider Nash's influence on British society and culture to have been pernicious?

#UKHistory #EJHNash #ConservativeEvangelicalism #ChurchOfEngland #Iwerne #PaulMarshall

When Did Flogging End In The British Army?
A brutal tradition of discipline. Explore the controversial history of corporal punishment in the British ranks, from the terrifying "Cat o' Nine Tails" to the 19th-century reforms that finally abolished the lash.
#BritishArmy #MilitaryHistory #VictorianEra #HistoryChannel #ArmyLife #UKHistory
https://www.history-channel.org/when-did-flogging-end-in-the-british-army/

British Library: The British Newspaper Archive reaches 100 million pages. “This week the British Newspaper Archive hits the milestone of 100 million digitised pages. We in the British Library news team are celebrating this achievement and our long partnership with Find My Past by picking a few highlights from the BNA.”

British Library: The British Newspaper Archive reaches 100 million pages. “This week the British Newspaper Archive hits the milestone of 100 million digitised pages. We in the British Library news team are celebrating this achievement and our long partnership with Find My Past by picking a few highlights from the BNA.”

Historical Tour Of England’s Doomed Monasteries

Echoes of a lost world. We journey through the haunting ruins of England's great abbeys and priories, exploring the dramatic impact of Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries on the nation's landscape and faith.

#History #UKHistory #Monasteries #Archaeology #EnglishHeritage #Tudors #uk #historical

https://www.history-channel.org/historical-tour-of-englands-doomed-monasteries/

Historical Tour Of England’s Doomed Monasteries

Echoes of a lost world. We journey through the haunting ruins of England's great abbeys and priories, exploring the dramatic impact of Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries on the nation's landscape and faith.

#History #UKHistory #Monasteries #Archaeology #EnglishHeritage #Tudors #uk #historical

https://www.history-channel.org/historical-tour-of-englands-doomed-monasteries/

The Real History Behind Shakespeare’s Life | Secrets of Stratford

The man behind the curtain. We journey to Stratford-upon-Avon to uncover the hidden details of William Shakespeare's life and separate the facts from the myths surrounding the world's greatest playwright.

#History #Shakespeare #Stratford #Literature #UKHistory #Documentary

https://www.history-channel.org/the-real-history-behind-shakespeares-life-secrets-of-stratford/

The Real History Behind Shakespeare’s Life | Secrets of Stratford

The man behind the curtain. We journey to Stratford-upon-Avon to uncover the hidden details of William Shakespeare's life and separate the facts from the myths surrounding the world's greatest playwright.

#History #Shakespeare #Stratford #Literature #UKHistory #Documentary

https://www.history-channel.org/the-real-history-behind-shakespeares-life-secrets-of-stratford/

British Library: The UK Web Archive: continuing our work behind the scenes. “Despite recent challenges, the UK Web Archive team remains dedicated to safeguarding the nation’s online heritage. We are hoping to restore the UK Web Archive towards the middle of 2026.”

British Library: The UK Web Archive: continuing our work behind the scenes. “Despite recent challenges, the UK Web Archive team remains dedicated to safeguarding the nation’s online heritage. We are hoping to restore the UK Web Archive towards the middle of 2026.”

BBC: Writer’s poems helped boost the abolition campaign. “Letters written by a prominent abolitionist are being digitised, filling in a ‘massive bit of the jigsaw’ in the abolition campaign history, experts say. Novelist Hannah More, born in Bristol in 1745, also helped open some of the UK’s first schools for working class people.”

BBC: Writer’s poems helped boost the abolition campaign. “Letters written by a prominent abolitionist are being digitised, filling in a ‘massive bit of the jigsaw’ in the abolition campaign history, experts say. Novelist Hannah More, born in Bristol in 1745, also helped open some of the UK’s first schools for working class people.”

Arts Professional (UK): Cultural treasures worth more than £59m enter public collections. “This year saw museums and archives up and down the country receive cultural gifts given up in exchange for tax relief, with objects spanning an ‘impressive range’, said Arts Council chair Sir Nicholas Serota.”

Arts Professional (UK): Cultural treasures worth more than £59m enter public collections. “This year saw museums and archives up and down the country receive cultural gifts given up in exchange for tax relief, with objects spanning an ‘impressive range’, said Arts Council chair Sir Nicholas Serota.”

Just as one can be critical of all sorts of aspects of Roman Catholicism yet still recognize the hateful part played by anticatholicism in UK and US history, so one can note repressive and reactionary currents within Islam, yet still understand the poisonous politics of the Islamophobia peddled by the right today.

https://www.texasobserver.org/first-ismaili-center-in-houston-rising-islamophobia/

#Islam #Islamophobia #Muslim #Anticatholicism #RomanCatholicism #Catholic #Bigotry #USHistory #UKHistory #USPolitics #UKPolitics

Just as one can be critical of all sorts of aspects of Roman Catholicism yet still recognize the hateful part played by anticatholicism in UK and US history, so one can note repressive and reactionary currents within Islam, yet still understand the poisonous politics of the Islamophobia peddled by the right today.

https://www.texasobserver.org/first-ismaili-center-in-houston-rising-islamophobia/

#Islam #Islamophobia #Muslim #Anticatholicism #RomanCatholicism #Catholic #Bigotry #USHistory #UKHistory #USPolitics #UKPolitics

You can examine this web page on the Old Dock at Liverpool, and never learn that it was built for the slave trade - ships loaded up on provisions, manacles, and torture tools before heading off to Ghana to "buy" human beings.
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/whatson/maritime-museum/event/old-dock-tour
#history #ukhistory #slavery

You can examine this web page on the Old Dock at Liverpool, and never learn that it was built for the slave trade - ships loaded up on provisions, manacles, and torture tools before heading off to Ghana to "buy" human beings.
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/whatson/maritime-museum/event/old-dock-tour
#history #ukhistory #slavery

Look at this story about the famous Old Dock that was the foundation of Liverpool's shipping industry and there is no mention of the fact that its construction was funded by Slave traders and Liverpool lived on the African Slave trade
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/whatson/maritime-museum/event/old-dock-tour
#slavery #ukhistory

Look at this story about the famous Old Dock that was the foundation of Liverpool's shipping industry and there is no mention of the fact that its construction was funded by Slave traders and Liverpool lived on the African Slave trade
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/whatson/maritime-museum/event/old-dock-tour
#slavery #ukhistory

The
@newyorker
has a book review by Daniel Lewis-Krauss where he explains that UK industrialization was due to technology innovation, e.g. the spinning-jenny (1764) as if the slave trade was not the foundation of UK wealth. People at the time were not shy about it either.
#slavery #ukhistory

The
@newyorker
has a book review by Daniel Lewis-Krauss where he explains that UK industrialization was due to technology innovation, e.g. the spinning-jenny (1764) as if the slave trade was not the foundation of UK wealth. People at the time were not shy about it either.
#slavery #ukhistory

British Library: 75 Years of the BNB (and bewitching Narnia books). “In 2025 the British National Bibliography (BNB) marks its 75th anniversary, and following a period of unavailability the database has now been fully restored to users. Read on to discover more about this service, its landmark anniversary and its restoration.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/03/british-library-75-years-of-the-bnb-and-bewitching-narnia-books/

British Library: 75 Years of the BNB (and bewitching Narnia books). “In 2025 the British National Bibliography (BNB) marks its 75th anniversary, and following a period of unavailability the database has now been fully restored to users. Read on to discover more about this service, its landmark anniversary and its restoration.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/03/british-library-75-years-of-the-bnb-and-bewitching-narnia-books/

Today I learned why the Penny Black was replaced by the Penny Red.

https://sgbaldwins.com/stories/1d-red-imperforate-printed-penny-black-plates

#TIL #Philately #History #UKHistory #Stamps #PennyBlack #PennyRed #Fraud

Today I learned why the Penny Black was replaced by the Penny Red.

https://sgbaldwins.com/stories/1d-red-imperforate-printed-penny-black-plates

#TIL #Philately #History #UKHistory #Stamps #PennyBlack #PennyRed #Fraud

New! Breaking Enigma: A World War II Game Changer goes deep inside the top-secret, groundbreaking intelligence work that took place at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Teach with primary sources about Computers and IT, History, Social Studies, Women’s History, Women in Computing, and World History. For grades 8-12 & higher ed.

https://journeysinfilm.org/film/breaking-enigma-a-world-war-ii-game-changer/?utm_source=Mastodon&utm_medium=Social+Media&utm_campaign=Enigma+launch&utm_content=Link

@histodons @militaryhistory

#Education #WorldWarII #History #WomensHistory #Histodons #Homeschooling #Movies #Documentary #InfoSec #UKHistory #BletchleyPark #Infosec #Edutooters

New! Breaking Enigma: A World War II Game Changer goes deep inside the top-secret, groundbreaking intelligence work that took place at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Teach with primary sources about Computers and IT, History, Social Studies, Women’s History, Women in Computing, and World History. For grades 8-12 & higher ed.

https://journeysinfilm.org/film/breaking-enigma-a-world-war-ii-game-changer/?utm_source=Mastodon&utm_medium=Social+Media&utm_campaign=Enigma+launch&utm_content=Link

@histodons @militaryhistory

#Education #WorldWarII #History #WomensHistory #Histodons #Homeschooling #Movies #Documentary #InfoSec #UKHistory #BletchleyPark #Infosec #Edutooters

The Guardian: British Asian families urged to share stories of ‘greatest generation’ who fought for Britain. “British Asian families are being urged to record the experiences of relatives who fought for Britain for ‘future generations’ as data reveals half the British public don’t know that Indian members of the armed forces served in the second world war.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/11/11/the-guardian-british-asian-families-urged-to-share-stories-of-greatest-generation-who-fought-for-britain/

Remember, remember, the fifth of November... Tonight was Bonfire Night in Great Britain, which celebrates the foiling of a plot in 1605 to destroy Westminster and blow the king and government to smithereens. History Extra Magazine takes a look at what might have happened if the group of English Catholics, led by Guy Fawkes, had been successful.

https://flip.it/99AwlB

#BonfireNight #History #UnitedKingdom #GuyFawkes #UKHistory

Remember, remember, the fifth of November... Tonight was Bonfire Night in Great Britain, which celebrates the foiling of a plot in 1605 to destroy Westminster and blow the king and government to smithereens. History Extra Magazine takes a look at what might have happened if the group of English Catholics, led by Guy Fawkes, had been successful.

https://flip.it/99AwlB

#BonfireNight #History #UnitedKingdom #GuyFawkes #UKHistory

BBC: Medieval conflict database ‘keeps folklore alive’. “The War of the Roses took place 1455-1487, with the Battle of Northampton – on the grounds of Delapre Abbey – among its most decisive moments. Led by the Battlefields Trust, the database highlights key sites and memorials relating to the war, which occurred between two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet — the House of York […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/10/19/bbc-medieval-conflict-database-keeps-folklore-alive/