Being Curious about the Past, by Gillian Polack
I’m not at my desk. This is rare for me. I’ve been unwell for a number of years and one of the results is that I almost live at my desk. Except now. I am travelling. I’m meeting with other History...
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Latin - Lost in translation? By Caroline K. Mackenzie
You may recall from an earlier blog I wrote for the History Girls that Autumn is my favourite time of year. This September is no exception. A further source of joy and optimism this year is the...
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Secret Voices by Sarah Gristwood
We at the History Girls are grateful to Sarah Gristwood for this guest post about her latest, fascinating, book. It was way back, in my early twenties, that I first developed an interest in the...
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Operation Manna - food from heaven in WW2
by Deborah Swift In the last few weeks we have heard a lot on the news about WW2's 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden and Arnhem - the attempt by the Allies to free occupied Holland. It was...
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Himiko the Shaman Queen ~ by Lesley Downer
‘Your ambassadors have arrived here with your tribute, four male slaves and six female slaves plus two pieces of cloth with designs, each 20 feet in length. You live very far away across the sea; yet...
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A Victorian Marital Disasterby Stephanie WilliamsIn the 1850’s the public breakdown of the marriage of Edward Bulwer-Lytton and his wife Rosina filled the press with a scandal that resounded through...
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Marianne North - Victorian traveller and painter of plants: by Sue Purkiss
(Apologies - life has caught me on the hop, and I don't have a new post for today. However, I'm happy to have the opportunity to repost this one, from seven years ago: it's about one of my favourite...
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FIGHTING FOR SPACE: A VISIT TO LEEDS ROYAL ARMOURIES. Penny Dolan
Back in the late Nineties, and new to the North, I visited the Royal Armouries Leeds. I recall parking on an empty brownfield site, among broken brick outlines of past industrial buildings. Around...
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November 9th, 1989 - Celia Rees
There are a few dates in history when the world turned. June 28th, 1914, when shots fired by Govrilo Princip in Sarajevo, set off a train of events which resulted in the outbreak of the First World...
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In Praise of Martial By LJ Trafford
Author's own pumpkin carving effort.Alas the month of October has passed. October is a great month, it is the bridge between autumn and winter, the final resting point before the shops decide it’s...
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"Goings-on" in medieval nunneries by Carolyn Hughes
I have just finished writing the next book in my Meonbridge Chronicles series, set in medieval England. This story centres, not on Meonbridge, as the other novels do for the most part, but on a priory,...
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Cornelia Africana - What a woman! by Elisabeth Storrs
My previous posts about Roman women have centered on victims (Lucretia and Virginia) and villains (Tarpeia and Tullia Minor) whose virtues and vices served as exemplars both good and bad. Today I write...
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More Venetian than the Venetians - Michelle Lovric
There is a little corner of Venice that is forever Slav. I’m devoting this blog to that corner, which is best known for its jewel-box of paintings by Vittore Carpaccio, the artist commissioned by the...
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Foundling Stories - Stacey Halls and Rose Tremain by Judith Allnatt
In 1747, in a fine room at the splendid buildings of London’s Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright holds her one-day-old baby girl. Alongside other mothers, Bess draws a ball from a bag in a lottery held to...
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THE FAMILY DOLL
In the earlier days of THE HISTORY GIRLS, we used to have a 'Cabinet of Curiosities.' I think this family heirloom I am briefly going to talk about would make an interesting addition to the said...
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The London Under London by Miranda Miller
This is a photo of the Great Hall of the Guildhall which has been the City of London’s civic and ceremonial centre since the 12th century. In the Middle Ages the Lord Mayor of London was almost as...
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Entertaining the Troops in World War II, by Carol Drinkwater
A very proud me on Remembrance Sunday, 9th November 2024, in London.Below, I am in the company of: (left) Alan Wolven in the chair. Alan is a pianist. Now in his nineties, he is...
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The Armada at Anstruther by V.E.H. Masters
Early one morning in November of 1588 the villagers of Anstruther on the East coast of Scotland awoke to find a ship in their harbour with over 250 starving Spanish Armada sailors and soldiers on...
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Mattia Preti: Italian Baroque Artist by Kathryn Gauci
Mattia Preti: Italian Baroque Artist by Kathryn GauciDetail: Mattia Preti’s Self Image - a painting by the southern Italian artist acquired by Heritage Malta. Photo:Times of Malta. Having recently...
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January Floods by Maggie Brookes
On Boxing Day it was 20 years since the terrible tsunami in the Indian ocean. Remembering our shock on hearing about that disaster, which killed 230,000 people, started me thinking about floods which...
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