Victorian

Franz Xaver Winterhalter's romantic representations of royal and noble personages, writes Joanna Richardson, have an unquestionable charm for those who live in a more pedestrian age.

William Verity describes how Haldane and Asquith were close political friends and colleagues from 1882 until Haldane was abruptly dropped from office in 1915.

If there are turning points in history, the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and the adoption of Free Trade, represented such a moment in Britain. By peaceful means, writes W.H. Chaloner, the new industrial forces in the nation had triumphed over the old landed interests.

Panama, and its American-controlled Canal Zone, have lately been the scene of a revolutionary flutter. W.H. Chaloner asks, what is the history of the building of the Canal, and of the United States connexion with it?

The Italian patriot’s visit to England was extraordinarily successful. But Queen Victoria deplored the scenes it provoked; and Karl Marx described them as “a miserable spectacle of imbecility”.

Architect and landscape-gardener to the sixth Duke of Devonshire, Paxton reached his highest fame in 1851 with the creation of the Crystal Palace, writes Tudor Edwards.

The unexpected fall of Gladstone's government in June 1885 was a cause of acute embarrassment to the parliamentary Opposition, whose victory caught them unprepared.

Joseph Chamberlain entered public life as a self-made man and a Republican Radical: he left it as the leader and idol of Protectionist Toryism. Such are the transformations of the English political scene, writes Robert Rhodes James.

In 1845, writes George Woodcock, a veteran of the Arctic Seas perished with his crews in the Canadian North.

The traditional version of the scramble for empire in Africa during the late nineteenth century is here challenged and critically re-appraised by Eric Stokes.