Category Archives: Social history

The British Newspaper Archive Downgrade

The British Newspaper Archive (BNA) is a monopoly. No other organisation exists that has scanned and made available thousands of historic British newspapers (though they don’t have access to The Times). Before BNA, the main way of looking at newspapers was to go to local libraries and archives, who might hold the actual newspapers or have them on microfilm. Alternatively, it meant a trip to the British Library, whose newspaper library was based at Colindale in north London, with miles of shelving of newspapers and thousands of reels of microfilm. In 2010 the British Library agreed to partner with Brightsolid, a subsidiary of D C Thomson, to digitise their newspapers, and in 2011 the BNA website went live, a joint enterprise between the British Library and the family history website Find My Past (FMP), also owned by D C Thomson. BNA continues to scan and digitise newspapers.

On 28th July 2026, the British Newspaper Archive was deliberately wrecked. Continue reading →

Chinese Birds

We are delighted that a new edition of When There Were Birds has been published, in simplified Chinese, translator Feng Chao. The publisher is Beijing United Publishing Co, ISBN 978-7-5596-8978-8. Price 78 yuan.

In China, the Douban Books website is an influential book review platform, and we can see that the reviewers of When There Were Birds reveal that they have understood and appreciated what we set out to do in this social history, saying that it is just as relevant to China as to Britain, with phrases such as “The authors’ narrative is poetic yet profound” and “The Adkins’ strength lies in organizing their material into a compelling social history”.

See our website page for When There Were Birds for more details of this book.

 

Zennor Mermaid

Mermaids were supernatural sea creatures, their lower half being a fish’s tail and the upper half a woman, usually with very long blond hair. To see a mermaid was a sign of bad luck, and like witches, they were also considered to be evil, causing natural events like storms and floods, though in some stories they helped people in difficulties. As mythical creatures, they occur worldwide and have been linked to the sirens of ancient Greek mythology. Stories and legends about mermaids crop up all round the coast of Britain, with several from Cornwall.

The lure of the mermaid

On the Cornish Atlantic coast, just west of St Ives, lies the small village of Zennor, where in times past the inhabitants made a living from farming, fishing, mining and quarrying. Nowadays, tourism is predominant, and the attractions include a Museum of Cornish Life and the romance of the mermaid legend. What was probably a much older story was first published in 1873 by William Bottrell, an early collector of folklore, in his book Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall.

It began with a beautiful and richly dressed young woman attending local churches – sometimes Zennor, sometimes Morvah, 5 miles along the coast. Her visits were irregular, but Continue reading →

When There Were Birds

Our new book was published in hardback and e-book on 11th November 2021, called When There Were Birds: The forgotten history of our connections. It is available in all superior bookshops and libraries, as well as online retailers. See our website page for details and reviews.

An audiobook will be available in 2022.

“a marvellously original slice of social history” (Daily Mail, Book of the Week)

 “an appealing social history of Britain … [with] a lot of quirky information” (The Independent)

“The facts and folklore of birdlife … are dissected in admirable detail” (The Sunday Times)

 

A Good Pair of Boots

Cob walls

Many surviving thatched buildings are made of cob, which was a cheap material for constructing walls. There is an old West Country saying: ‘all cob needs is a good hat and a good pair of boots’.

The hat is the thatch, while the boots refer to the foundations. The phrase is still used by some builders today and can be traced back in magazines to at least 1837, but is probably as old as Continue reading →

Daisy Powders

This advert for ‘Daisy Powders’ dates back only to 1952, when it was being marketed as a cure-all for everything, from the terrors of ‘faceache’ to chills, influenza, lumbago and sleeplessness. It feels much like the quack medicines of two centuries ago. No doubt Covid-19 would be added to the list of ailments if ‘Daisy Powders and Tablets’ were still available.

It sounds just like the medicine practised in Jane Austen’s time, which you can read about in our book Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England, or in Nelson’s Navy, which we describe in Jack Tar.

Green Park Gates

While in London a year or so ago, we went to Green Park to see a pair of huge blue and gold wrought-iron gates, a Grade II* Listed Building. The gates, which once formed a grand entrance to Green Park, are a reminder that visible traces of history can be much more complex than first impressions. They were originally made for the estate that Lord Heathfield purchased in 1789 to the west of London, at Turnham Green, which was then a small rural village. Heathfield House was demolished in 1837, but the name survives locally as Heathfield Terrace – not much to mark the hero of the Great Siege of Gibraltar, who is better known as George Augustus Eliott.

 

The Turnham Green gates, now at Green Park

The gates were purchased in 1837 by the Duke of Devonshire for the front of nearby Chiswick House, but in 1897 or 1898 they were moved to the front of Devonshire House in Piccadilly, London. Continue reading →

Climate Change in 1859

Earlier in the year, we were enjoying a lengthy bout of sunny weather in Britain, with predictions of the summer turning into a prolonged heatwave, like the memorable year of 1976. Record-breaking temperatures are often reported with triumph by newspapers, as if this is a good thing. Then later on came the inevitable floods and high winds, leading to much misery.

 

Sunshine and showers in Devon in the summer of 2019

Such changeable weather is duly attributed to climate change, and yet the evidence for Continue reading →

Boz in Oz and Exeter

Charles Dickens is a constant favourite. Some weeks ago, we received a copy of Boz in Oz, the wonderfully named annual journal of the New South Wales Dickens Society in Australia (‘Oz’, of course, meaning Australia, while ‘Boz’ was Dickens’s pen-name). What a treat – 86 pages of beautifully presented articles, news, snippets and reviews, illustrated with loads of colour and black-and-white pictures. It is surely worth joining the society for its journal alone. We have an article in it called “Mile End Cottage, Alphington” (pp. 73–5, with footnotes on p. 86).

Rural banishment

Dickens never had a good relationship with his parents, mainly because he had to constantly Continue reading →

Portsdown Lodge

Jane Austen had two naval brothers, Frank (Francis) and Charles. Frank was born at Steventon in Hampshire in 1774, the sixth Austen child, then came Jane in 1775 and finally Charles in 1779. Both brothers became admirals, but Frank eventually rose to Admiral of the Fleet, the highest rank in the Royal Navy, and he ended up living in Portsdown Lodge.

Portsdown Lodge

Being on the north side of Portsdown Hill, Portsdown Lodge was sheltered from the prevailing winds. It had 14 bedrooms, and the estate had farm buildings and several acres of land that extended to the top of the hill, from where Frank could view Portsmouth, its naval base and the Spithead anchorage. Close by was the main route from London to Portsmouth (now the A3). The nearby George Inn, which still survives (shown here), was a coaching inn on this busy route.

Continue reading →