Innholdsfortegnelse for Aug-22 i Who Do You Think You Are?

GET IN TOUCH ADVERTISING t 0117 300 8803 e andy.williams@ourmedia.co.uk EDITORIAL t 0117 300 8621 e wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Q&A QUERIES e wdytyaquestions@ourmedia.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS AND APP FAQs t 03330 162120* t +44 1604 973728 (overseas) w buysubscriptions.com/customer-services/contact w buysubscriptions.com/customer-services/FAQs WEBSITE QUERIES e wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk *UK calls will cost the same as other standard fixed-line numbers (starting 01 or 02) and are included as part of any inclusive or free minutes allowances (if offered by your phone tariff). Outside of free call packages call charges from mobile phones will cost between 3p and 55p per minute. Lines are open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm. The traces of our ancestors’ lives that we find in parish registers are the building blocks of family history - marriages uniting two families, baptisms marking the next generation and burials,…

London Metropolitan Archive puts maps online The London Metropolitan Archives has added historic maps of London to its free website the London Picture Archive (londonpicturearchive.org.uk). The new maps are an 1889 version of Charles Booth’s poverty maps, which were colour-coded to show the level of poverty on the streets of the capital; an 1899 map of Jewish East London showing the Jewish population of the area at the time; and a 1940 bomb-damage map from London County Council showing the impact of the Blitz. Ancestry improves offering of records from Scotland Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added two new collections of Edinburgh records, specifically 493,534 cemetery records for 1771-1935 and 714,184 extent rolls covering 1580-1847. The cemetery records consist of burial registers including details such as the deceased’s date…

Military records website Forces War Records (forces-war-records.co.uk) is celebrating the Platinum Jubilee by adding the records of soldiers awarded medals to commemorate coronations and jubilees. The collections include the medal rolls for George V’s 1935 Silver Jubilee (85,235 medals), George Vi’s 1937 coronation (90,279 medals), the Queen’s 1953 coronation (138,214 medals) and her 1977 Silver Jubilee (68,377 medals). The rolls include the soldier’s service number, rank and unit.…

The population of England and Wales in the 2021 census, the highest ever recorded (bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61966084) 117 The number of people who died of the bubonic plague in the Asian country of Kyrgyzstan in 1338 and 1339 who may have been the first victims of the global pandemic, according to DNA analysis (washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/16/black-death-kyrgyzstan-central-asia) The Book of St Albans The 13th-century manuscript has been added to Trinity College Dublin’s Virtual Trinity Library website (tcd.ie/virtual-trinity-library) 41 The number of Ordnance Survey five-feet-to-the-mile maps of English towns that have been added to the National Library of Scotland’s free maps website maps.nls.uk…

ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/61452 This collection includes admission/discharge or creed registers for large residential homes run by the capital’s Poor Law authorities. FINDMYPAST w bit.ly/fmp-surrey-1788-1939 Findmypast’s collection ‘Surrey Institutional Records 1788-1939’ contains transcriptions of documents from a number of institutions. HIDDEN LIVES REVEALED w hiddenlives.org.uk View anonymised case files (1881-1918) from the Waifs and Strays Society/Children’s Society and a name index at tinyurl.com/hlr-nam.…

The National Library of Scotland’s Maps website maps.nls.uk makes freely available more than 250,000 detailed images of historic maps. The geographic focus is Scotland, but with good coverage of Ordnance Survey maps of England and Wales too. For newcomers, the best place to start is the guide to using the website at maps.nls.uk/guide and the related help videos at maps.nls.uk/videos. We also have research guides for exploring topics such as houses, buildings and local history at maps.nls.uk/guides, and a site map at maps.nls.uk/site-map, while the latest online additions are highlighted at maps.nls.uk/additions/. The easiest way of finding everything online for a particular place is through the ‘Map Finder - with Marker Pin’ view at maps.nls.uk/geo/find/marker. You can simply put a pin on your place of interest and maps are returned…

The Vatican Apostolic Archive, formerly dubbed the ‘Secret Archive’, is home to thousands of papal documents, including a letter from Mary, Queen of Scots, to Pope Sixtus V begging for her life. Nearby is the parish office which holds the ancestral records for St Peter’s Basilica. Visiting these archives can be tricky, as family historian Danny Parrott has discovered. However, it was worth the wait when he found out more information about the life of his great great grandfather, a globetrotting missionary whose career began amid the palaces of St Peter’s. MY BRICK WALL In my youth, it was mentioned that we had a colourful Italian ancestor. On childhood trips to north Cornwall, it was regaled that he used to wander the lanes of St Endellion singing arias. His name…

858 Æthelwulf, the father of Alfred the Great, dies in Upper Beeding and is buried in Steyning. 1064 Harold Godwinson, also called Harold II, leaves Bosham on the Sussex coast for Normandy. This state visit is commemorated on the Bayeux Tapestry. 1309 Henry de Percy is granted permission to fortify his house at Petworth and turn it into a castle. 1609 Jacobean almshouse Sackville College is founded in East Grinstead for the care of 21 poor men and 10 poor women. 1723 A 1st-century Roman dedication to Neptune and Minerva is found on a damaged slab of marble in Chichester. It becomes known as the Chichester inscription, or Pudens stone. 1760 A ring of beech trees is planted at the Iron Age hill fort of Chanctonbury Ring, near Steyning and…

In 1750 Shipston Shippam, who had been a sergeant in the 72nd Regiment of Foot, opened a shop in Chichester selling butter, cheese and meat. The firm began trading in provisions for the naval dockyard at Portsmouth, then in the late 19th century started making the potted meats and fish pastes that turned it into a household name. West Sussex Record Office has minutes, accounts, photos, correspondence and staff records, as well as a letter of appreciation from Captain Scott before his expedition to the South Pole in 1911.…

INHERITORS OF PARTITION Radio 4 and BBC Sounds Monday 8 August, 9am It is now five years since BBC journalist Kavita Puri’s Partition Voices was broadcast by Radio 4. Marking the 70th anniversary of the day when British India was divided into India and Pakistan, the series-and Puri’s book of the same name - tapped into a growing need among British South Asians to look back at events in 1947. “Partition feels like a historical event from far away,” Puri says, “but there is a younger generation of British South Asians trying to piece together their family histories.” Their efforts are explored in Inheritors of Partition, which follows some of the grandchildren of those who lived through Partition 75 years ago as they research their forebears’ experiences. These family histories,…

Britain was under threat of invasion in 1940, so Winston Churchill devised a plan to create a guerrilla taskforce across Britain. This became the Auxiliary Units - a highly trained and secretive network whose mission it was to inflict maximum disruption on any invading force. Working for the service would be extremely dangerous. Anna Wilson has found out that her great uncle Angus Bruton Wilson was a member of this elite division. “Angus was born in 1894 in Tupsley, Herefordshire, to John and Rachel Wilson,” she says. “John was a seed merchant, and Angus joined the family business after he left school. “I never met my great uncle, but I always felt that I knew him through stories shared by my father and uncle. He was a charming man, as…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST WIN an AncestryDNA test kit from ancestry.co.uk WORTH £79 The writer of our star letter wins an Ancestry DNA test worth £79 - so drop us a line and share your thoughts with us. SAVING FACE Thank you for a most interesting ‘Gem From the Archive’ (July) about Dr Harold Gillies and his work on facial reconstructions. He came from New Zealand, but another surgeon, Henry Pickerill, who had gone to New Zealand from England before the First World War, returned to England during the war and worked alongside Dr Gillies, helping set up the unit at Sidcup. On his return to New Zealand and then in Australia, Dr Pickerill continued this work on this side of the world and Jim…

Family history site Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) has added a new collection of 720,000 trade directory records from the city of York, which were published between 1781 and 1955. Findmypast has digitised and indexed directories held by Explore York Libraries and Archives including Kelly’s City of York Directory, Kelly’s Directory (York Section), Pigot’s General Directory (York Section), Slater’s Commercial Directory of Yorkshire & Lincolnshire, White’s Directory of York, and White’s General Directory of Kingston-Upon-Hull & York (York Section). A number of directories from lesser-known publishers are also included in the new collection such as Holden’s London Directory (York Section), Johnson & Tesseyman’s City of York Directory and Watson’s York City Year Book. Trade directories were used to list businesses and places of residence, and can help family historians to trace their relations…

A group of 78 Scottish historians and organisations have signed an open letter calling for the removal of all access restrictions at the National Records of Scotland (NRS) in Edinburgh. The open letter, published by genealogy research service Old Scottish, complains that access to the NRS Historical Search Room and the ScotlandsPeople Centre, which holds Scottish family history records, is “heavily - and unreasonably - restricted” following the Covid-19 pandemic (oldscottish.com/blog/open-letter-to-nrs). The letter said, “NRS takes weeks to respond to enquiry e-mails, and visits must be booked weeks in advance, with the gap between visits currently anywhere between 5 and 8 weeks… To view more than 12 documents one must book another slot, leading to weeks more of delays.” A spokesperson for the NRS responded to the letter saying, “Our…

Picture the scene: you receive a letter through the post, and as you open it rose petals cascade out. In the age of WhatsApp and text messaging, such romantic gestures seem to belong in bygone days. Through inheriting a collection of letters written in 1926, Sally George has uncovered the story of a passionate affair that prevailed despite family disapproval, jealousy and prejudice. Sally, who lives in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire, has been researching her family tree for 48 years. “The letters were written by my husband Steve’s paternal grandparents, Erroll George and Alice Jenkins. “They were given to me in 2018, because I’m the family historian. Alice and Erroll didn’t like to throw things out, and their papers filled four suitcases and several boxes. They took…

George Müller, a Prussian by birth, came to England in 1829, subsequently becoming pastor at a Bethesda chapel in Bristol. He began working with destitute children in the area and in 1836, with the help of donations of money, household goods and clothing, opened an ‘Orphan House’ in a rented property where 26 orphaned and destitute girls were housed under the care of a matron and governess. Further small homes were opened in the area and by 1843 they provided 120 places for girls, boys and infants. In 1846, Müller acquired a large site at Ashley Down, north Bristol, where his New Orphan House was erected, accommodating 300 children. Over the next 20 years, four further large Orphan Houses were added making it Britain’s largest single-site orphanage, with about 2,000…

BOOK Children’s Homes Peter Higginbotham Pen and Sword, 2017 Peter’s wide-ranging survey of over 300 years of children’s institutions includes information about orphanages, reformatories and magdalen homes. MUSEUM FOUNDLING MUSEUM a 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ t 020 7841 3600 e enquiries@foundlingmuseum.org.uk w foundlingmuseum.org.uk Find out more about the UK’s first children’s charity. The exhibits here include tokens left by mothers to identify their babies, such as coins, buttons, jewellery and pieces of cloth. WEBSITES BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive. co.uk Local newspapers may well mention small or short-lived children’s homes. CHILDREN’S HOMES w childrenshomes.org.uk Peter’s heavily illustrated site has information about thousands of institutions, the organisations that ran them and their records. THE WORKHOUSE w workhouses.org.uk Read about the children’s institutions that were run by each Poor Law…

A VISION OF BRITAIN THROUGH TIME w visionofbritain.org.uk Explore maps going back to 1805 by searching for an address or postcode. BRITISH HISTORY ONLINE w british-history.ac.uk/catalogue/maps This site hosts maps of London, including the complete 1:10,560 Ordnance Survey series. GRIFFITH'S VALUATION w askaboutireiand.ie/griffith-valuation This valuation of Irish property, 1847-1864, lists landholders and householders. KNOW YOUR PLACE - WEST OF ENGLAND w kypwest.org.uk View free historic maps from the likes of Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. NEW LANDSCAPES w berkshireenclosure.org.uk Explore maps and documents generated by the process of enclosing the common fields in Berkshire between 1738 and 1883. NORFOLK HISTORIC MAP EXPLORER w historic-maps.norfolk.gov.uk/mapexplorer/ Here you can view enclosure maps, tithes, first-edition Ordnance Survey maps and aerial photos. OLD HAMPSHIRE MAPPED w oldhampshiremapped.org.uk This resource reproduces lots of high-resolution images…

Were my grandparents married illegally? Q I have been unable to find a birth certificate for my maternal grandmother Rose Coombes, née Dean. Would it have been legal for her to marry my grandfather without one in 1939? Through DNA testing, we have established that Rose’s mother was Daisy Lilly Everett (1887-1964). We believe that Rose may have been given away at birth, or shortly after, and can find no record of her father. She was born around 1904 in Somerset. We can find no records for her until 1939 when she was known as Rose Dean and living in Wiltshire. She claimed she took the surname from the people she worked for as a servant. Steven Smith A It isn’t a strict requirement to produce a birth certificate nowadays…

Victor Silvester, the son of a Wembley clergyman, was one of the most influential figures in popular dance during the first half of the 20th century. He volunteered for the Army when he was under-age, joined the ambulance service in Italy where he was wounded and received a medal for bravery, and became a trainee at Sandhurst, before deciding that the Army wasn't for him. In 1919, he started as a paid dancing partner at the Empress Rooms, Kensington, and in 1922 became world ballroom champion after impressing the judges with his innovative steps. He opened a dance school the following year, eventually running a chain of 23 studios. As a founding member of the Ballroom Committee of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, he played an important role…

BOOKS w tinyurl.com/srs-dig Explore digitised volumes published by Sussex Record Society, including biographies and Poor Law letters. DIRECTORIES w tinyurl.com/spe-suss Explore trade directories covering all of historic Sussex digitised by the University of Leicester. HISTORIC PHOTOS w www.westsussexpast.org.uk Search more than 13,500 photos and other pictures held by the county’s library service and local museums. PARISH REGISTERS w tinyurl.com/fs-suss-reg The free website FamilySearch includes transcriptions and images of Sussex parish registers (1538-1910). SURNAME DATABASE w sussex-opc.org Search for names in East and West Sussex taken from parish material, registers, poll books, memorials and directories.…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk to feature your event here for free PICK OF THE MONTH TACING YOUR FEMALE ANCESTORS From 6 August w tinyurl.com/sog-tracing-female-ancestors Family history is often more focused on male ancestors. Female forebears are harder to research because they usually changed their surname when they got married, and were less likely to leave a trace in the records. This five-week online course from the Society of Genealogists aims to redress the balance, and consists of five classes each lasting one hour. The tutors Else Churchill, Janet Few, Debbie Kennett, Barry Godfrey and Gillian Murphy will cover women’s voices and lives; using mitochondrial DNA to trace the maternal line; autosomal DNA testing; newspaper reports of women criminals; occupations inside and outside the home; real-life case studies; and guides to archival and…

Researchers are trying to trace the descendants of Edward Raban, Aberdeen’s first printer, to mark the 400th anniversary of the establishment of his printing press in 1622. Raban, an Englishman of German heritage, had six children with his first wife Janet/Janet Johnston, two of whom reached adulthood. Edward or Édouard Raban was born in Leiden in 1614 or 1615, died in Orange in France in 1687 and had at least one son, Isaac. Elizabeth Raban was born in Aberdeen c1627, married Gavin Milne in Aberdeen in 1648 and had four children - Isobel, James. William and Robert Milne. If you are related to Edward Raban, please fill in the contact form at raban400.com/raban-family.html.…

Family history site Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has published a collection of exclusive Worcestershire Bishops’ Transcripts records. The collection is divided into two record sets 3,264,925 baptism, marriage and burial records dating from 1600-1812, and 1,727,188 baptism records from 1812-1918. Church of England parish records are the best source of information about births, marriages and deaths before civil registration began in 1837. From 1597 churchwardens were required to send copies of baptism, marriage and burial registers to the bishop of their diocese every year.…

The National Archives in Kew has published two online galleries of more than 40 documents to mark the Platinum Jubilee. The first (nationalarchives.gov.uk/jubilee/gallery/queen-elizabeth-second-highlights/) covers the Queen’s reign and includes her service in the Second World War, marriage to Prince Philip, state visits abroad and the births of her children. The second (nationalarchives.gov.uk/jubilee/gallery/historic-monarchs-highlights/) includes such documents as the Great Seal of Richard III, plans for the coronation of Elizabeth I and a ticket to the coronation of Queen Victoria.…

OFF THE RECORD Alan Crosby shares his views on family history A loaf of bread: what could be more prosaic and everyday than that? It was the staple of existence itself for our forebears. Think of the familiar line from the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” But the reality was not quite so simple. For most people living in the north and west of these islands, the staple food until the middle years of the 19th century was not bread made with wheat flour, but oatmeal in various forms. Wheat does not grow well in these cooler, wetter areas, but oats flourish in more marginal and challenging conditions. Oats had another major advantage - to cook them, you did not need an oven. Adding boiling water…

ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60423 Ancestry’s collection ‘UK& Ireland, Nursing Registers, 1898-1968’, which includes registers published by the Royal College of Nursing as well as the General Nursing Council of England and Wales, helped Sally research Alice Jenkins’ career. FAMILIES IN BRITISH INDIA SOCIETY w fibis.org An estimated three million Britons lived and worked in India between the early 18th century and independence in 1947. You can search the society’s free database to discover more about their lives, or become a member for benefits including access to a research service. Annual membership starts at £12. FINDMYPAST w bit.ly/fmp-pass-leaving-uk Sally was able to trace Erroll George’s movements between Britain and India using the collection ‘Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960’.…

1 BIRTH The birthdate and birthplace may enable a birth certificate to be obtained. Note that the e version of this image on Hidden Lives Revealed is anonymised, as are all the others on that site. 2 BAPTISM The place and date of baptism may give useful leads, such as here to records for the workhouse at Oulton in Yorkshire. 3 PARENTS Parents’ address or death details can help you locate a death e certificate or census entry. They may also, as here, bring to light a previous marriage. 4 PARENTS’ WORK These sections reveal both the nature and place of the parents’ employment. Since Beatrice’s father ran a pub in Lowestoft, you could look in publican licensing records. 5 POOR RELIEF Any information here could provide a connection to records of…

TECH TIPS As you’ll know if you read the ‘Best Websites’ article in our Summer issue, The Ogilby Muster is a fantastic resource for family historians looking for information on their relations who fought during the First World War. Launched by the Army Museums Ogilby Trust, it’s an ever-expanding digital collection of records, photos, letters, diaries and book extracts from 75 collections held nationwide. As our step-by-step guide reveals, it’s easy to search and in addition to saving searches and records for future review, you can purchase full-sized digital images of records for a small cost to incorporate into your research. Although it’s worth searching for individual names, you’re more likely to find useful material pertaining to your ancestors’ units. For example, a search for my great grandfather Joseph Peers…

BOOK Royal Tars Brian Lavery Conway, 2010 Discover the careers and lives of Royal Navy seamen from the earliest times to the Victorian era through first-hand accounts. MUSEUM THE HISTORIC DOCKYARD a Chatham, Kent ME4 4TZ t 01634823800 w thedockyard.co.uk Plunge into the world of the Navy from the days of sail onwards, from shipbuilding and life on board to wrecks. WEBSITE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w tinyurl.com/tna-guides-r Use TNA’s many Royal Navy research guides to investigate its enormous collection of naval records and research your relation’s career in the service.…

ARTICLE DANCE HALLS w tinyurl.com/architect-dance The main focus of James Nott’s article, published in 2018 in the journal Architectural History, is the buildings themselves, but it also includes the social history. BOOKS Dancing in the English Style Allison Abra Manchester University Press, 2017 Abra charts the development and cultural representation of dance between 1918 and 1950. Going to the Palais James Nott Oxford University Press, 2015 Nott explores the social-dancing phenomenon and its impact on British society between the end of the First World War and 1960. VENUE BLACKPOOL TOWER BALLROOM a The Promenade, Blackpool FY1 4BJ t 01253622242 w tinyurl.com/tower-room Relive some of the glamour of the dance-hall days at the iconic ballroom. Booking is essential. VIDEOS LET’S DANCE: DANCING IN BRITAIN 1920-1945 w tinyurl.com/yt-lddib View a 10-minute compilation…

Ancestry has recently added an enormous new collection bringing together vital genealogical resources for all of Sussex that for centuries have lived apart, preserved in churches, parish chests and disparate repositories. West Sussex and East Sussex, which between them border Hampshire, Surrey and Kent, both look after their own distinct archival collections. The East Sussex records are held at The Keep in Brighton, while the West Sussex headquarters can be found in the county town of Chichester. In total, Ancestry’s collection has more than 11 million parish records spanning 457 years, from 1538 to 1995. The vast majority of West Sussex parishes found within have good complete runs of registers from around 1700 onwards. Some newly digitised examples include the marriage record of Victor Barker in 1923, the earliest documented…

BURTENSHAW This is the Sussex variant of the Yorkshire surname Birkenshaw/Birkinshaw. CHALLEN Challen is a locative name from Chalon-sur-Saone or Chalons-sur-Marne in eastern France. CHATFIELD This name derives from a place named Chatfields found in West Sussex. FUNNELL Funnell is common in Sussex, Surrey and Kent. GOODSELL Goodsell is a locative name with several origins including Goodsoal in Burwash, East Sussex. SINDEN This particular habitational surname is thought to have originated in Saynden Farm, which is located in Staplehurst, Kent. STONER The topographic surname Stoner for someone who lived in a stone-built house crops up across East and West Sussex, especially in Brighton, Cuckfield and Lower Beeding. VENES/VENESS This Norman locative name derives from Venoix in Calvados, north-west France. WALDER Walder derives from the Middle English for a person who…

The land tax, first introduced in 1692, was in place in various forms until 1963. Some land-tax assessment records survive in local archives and can be a useful source for tracing ancestors before the census; especially as they were used to determine who was allowed to vote until 1832. The land tax has also left behind a unique jewel - a survey of St Ives, Cambridgeshire, conducted by a local resident, which provides a fascinating snapshot of the town in 1728. The survey is now held by the Norris Museum, St Ives, where museum assistant and archivist Tesley Akeroyd tells us more about it. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE MAP FOR OUR READERS? Edmund Pettis’ Survey of St Ives, 1728 is a small leather-bound book of 54 pages which was re-bound…

MacLehose Press, 368 pages, £20 Alice Urbach ran a cookery school in prewar Vienna, and had published a bestselling recipe book. When the Nazis rose to power, her sisters were murdered, her younger son was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp and her elder son fled to the USA, where he worked in military counterintelligence. Alice escaped Vienna in 1938, undertaking domestic service in England before emigrating to the USA. After the war she discovered that her cookbook had been stolen, Aryanised and republished under someone else’s name. Years later, historian Karina Urbach sought to discover the truth about her grandmother’s cookbook. Alice’s Book, which has recently been translated into English, details her family’s Holocaust survival narrative. It is peppered with precious family photographs and explores what the Nazis frequently did…

Conway, 256 pages, £25 Inspired by the More4 series of the same name and written by one of the show’s on-screen experts, The Great British Dig is an engaging, accessible introduction to practical archaeology, and arms the home enthusiast with the knowledge to start their own dig. Fourteen locations from the programme serve as case studies for explaining formal archaeology techniques, and cover eras from the Bronze Age through to the Second World War. Interwoven with these are informative guides to planning a dig and analysing finds, and the visually appealing volume is packed with photos and diagrams. Although the discussion of ethical issues is sadly absent, the sensitive handling of all topics sets a mindful tone. The individual studies really capture the shifting landscape of our built environment. ARCHAEOLOGY Family…

WATCH ELSECAR 1880 tinyurl.com/yt-eisecar Free This five-minute YouTube video lets you fly across a 3D digital recreation of the model industrial village of Elsecar, South Yorkshire, as it was in 1880. Thanks to Martin Moss of Dextra Visual, supported by volunteers and historians, viewers can travel back in time and glimpse ironworks, collieries, canal boats and the world’s oldest steam engine still in its original location. LISTEN TREASURES OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND nls.uk/treasures/podcast Free This podcast from the National Library of Scotland coincides with the library’s new permanent exhibition of the same name, and sees “some of Scotland’s real life national treasures” discuss their favourite items from the library’s collections. Three episodes are already available and feature the likes of actor Grant Stott, poet Len Pennie and comedian…

REVIEWS What inspired you to write this book? My last two books were about the Tudors, but I’ve always wanted to write about the Civil War. I think it’s the most important event in the most important century of our history, but it’s terribly neglected. So it was a case of asking myself, “What’s the most accessible way to introduce people to this incredible period?” For me, the answer was the story of the siege of Basing House near Basingstoke, which was a Royalist stronghold. The property was colloquially known as Loyalty House because of “Aymez Loyaulte”, the family motto of its owner John Paulet, the 5th Marquess of Winchester. It was one of the longest sieges of the Civil War, and also one of the most brutal. And because…

THE RAJ C Hurst & Co., 496 pages, £30 The story of the British memsahib in the Indian Raj has been largely mistold according to Ipshita Nath, who attempts to explode these myths in this wellresearched, well-written book. Memsahibs were invaluable in providing support for their husbands, while often working in healthcare and education for the benefit of the locals. Most of them knew they were letting themselves in for harsh conditions and a sweltering climate, but few could have foreseen all of the difficulties they were to encounter. Even travelling to India was fraught with danger: Elizabeth Fay complained in a letter in 1779 of “a journey of three days over a dreadful desert… where every hour [we were] in danger of being destroyed by troops of Arabian robbers”.…