England

Wit, diner-out, country clergyman and pugnacious liberal journalist, Sydney Smith, said Lord Melbourne, had ‘done more for the Whigs than all the clergy put together.’ Joanna Richardson revisits his reputation.

H.J. Perkin traces the development of England's long love affair with newspapers.

For the English upper and middle classes, writes John Burnett, the nineteenth century was a period of huge and ostentatious meals; but “only during the last twenty years has the population as a whole been economically able to achieve an adequate diet...”

E.N. Williams describes how English merchants and manufacturers amassed huge fortunes, enlarged their political influence, and raised their social status, while many trades of the previous century became dignified and lucrative professions.

Lionel Kochan describes how two of the most important of Russian Revolutionary Conferences were held in Edwardian London.

The Education Act of 1870 was a landmark in Liberal policy, writes Paul Adelman, but it failed to satisfy the Nonconformist conscience of many Liberal supporters.

Admired by Lord Melbourne; and, later, the author of two popular novels, Emily Eden was one of the liveliest of correspondents. By Prudence Hannay.

Widowed for the fourth time, ‘Bess of Hardwick’ came to London for the last time; D.N. Durant writes how this visit shows the Countess of Shrewsbury to have been intent upon legal business over her estates.

Michael Glover investigates the early modern sources of the English reputation as the most indefatigable writers of letters in the world.

‘The pleasure of books possessed me from childhood’ wrote this twelfth-century historian. Among other work, William of Malmesbury, writes J.J.N. McGurk, produced an Historia Novella, extending until 1142.