Criminal poisoning at once fascinated and terrified Victorian society. Here Ian Burney shows how the extraordinary case of a doctor, hanged in 1856 for allegedly poisoning an acquaintance, threw up deep-rooted anxieties about poison, detection, and professionalism in Victorian society.
Between autumn 1855 and spring 1856, the attitude of Britain’s war leaders underwent bewildering change as their determination to bring the war with Russia to a desirable conclusion was buffeted by doubts about the commitment of the French, and fears about the motives of French policy, as Brian James reveals.
Walter Harris introduces the retired soldier who brought sound recording to Britain.
Mark Juddery introduces The Story of the Kelly Gang, possibly the first-ever feature film, now largely lost, that was made a hundred years ago in Australia about the notorious outlaw with the unusual body-armour. Hugely popular when it was first released in 1906, it spawned a genre of bushranger movies and epitomized the significance of the Kelly legend in Australian cultural identity.
Continuing his series on how cartoonists have seen events great and small, Mark Bryant looks at the coverage of one of ‘Victoria’s little wars’.
After he fell from power, Bismarck became a mythical hero figure of the right. The legend of the ‘Iron Chancellor’ was wielded by militarists, conservatives, and eventually, Adolf Hitler.
The ‘big red books’ of the Victoria County History are being transformed by an injection of £3.5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, says John Beckett.
Mark Bryant looks at the work of the Punch artist whose drawings symbolized British anger over the Indian Mutiny and established his own reputation.
Mark Rathbone assesses the degree of success achieved by one of the great Victorian Prime Ministers.
Contrary to myth, it wasn’t Prince Albert but another German royal transplant who introduced the Christmas tree to Britain.
