After giving birth to 9 children, the love of her life dying in 1861 and then seemingly spending the next 40 odd years surrounded by a household that consisted mainly of gossiping, conservative upper-class stuffy sycophants – who can blame her.

It’s my view that in actual fact Queen Victoria was a highly intelligent, creative, forward thinking and extremely frustrated individual.  The “we are not amused” syndrome which seemed to embody her was in actual fact created out so many people who were so against anything apart from 19th-century stuffy social rules and counter regulations. In reality it was Victorian society itself who generated the “we are not amused” label – not Queen Victoria (she never used those words).

In 1897 the year of her Jubilee she very nearly refused to appear in public and in her own way threatened to go on strike because of the attitude of those around her.  The truth of the matter was that Queen Victoria was at war with her very own household.  And it was Royal Court that despised her liaison with Abdul Karim whom she had exalted to extraordinary heights.  Apart from being a loyal Indian servant, Abdul Karim was in fact a confidant and Muslim teacher to the Queen.  She doted on this man which further exasperated the Royal household and her immediate family.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was a series of photographs that were taken of the Queen and Abdul Karim and later published in The Graphic and other publications in October 1897.  In one of the photographs the Indian servant is looking directly into the camera lens, whilst the Queen is apparently receiving lessons from him.  But the nature of the photograph questions who actually is the master and who is the servant.  These images sent repercussions around the Empire.

To the unsuspecting newspaper reader they are pictures of certain “interest” where Her Majesty is viewed in a somewhat different light.  But for her immediate family it marked the beginning of the end of a relationship that for many was too intimate and lasting far too long.

If you click this link you will be up to see the original article and the plate that was created as an image from the original photograph.  There is also a small editorial on the bottom right hand side of the page.

In hindsight 115 years on I think we can all make up our mind of the potential political and social timebomb that was building between the Queen Empress and her exalted servant.

see here

You have been warned!

“An enormous load of anxiety has been lifted from the public mind by the news that everything is likely to be well with the passengers and crew of the “Titanic”, and there is also every reason for believing that the leviathan will be enabled to reach port safely.

From the first, there was the strongest hope that the giant liner would be able (at all events) to keep afloat until assistance arrived, and several steamships would you to succour her within a few hours.  These latter have, apparently all been able to reach the disabled vessel, and the passengers have doubtless transferred to some of the attendant boats.  An unofficial message states that the “Titanic” herself is in tow of the “Capathia”.  If this be the case, it is almost a matter of certainty that the loss of the finest steamship ever launched will not have to be recorded.

It has been claimed that the “Titanic” is unsinkable.  The result will show how far the claim is justified; but the fact that the vessel did not founder goes to show that her preservative qualities, at all events, of a remarkable character.  For it can well be imagined what the impact of such a monster must have been.  The “Titanic”, indeed is a floating town.  She had on board no less than 2385 souls; and even that number, we may assume does not represent a full complement of passengers and crew.

It is extremely unfortunate that this queen of the ocean liners should have come to grief upon a maiden voyage.  But the conditions were quite abnormal.  It is seldom that such an enormous quantity of icebergs should be about.  One of the telegram states that the icefield is 70 miles in the extent.  We can realise the terrible danger which this expresses.  Several vessels have simply had to thread their way through the lanes of bergs, and the pity is that the “Titanic” was not able to come clear from the peril.

However if no lives have been lost, we shall not have much cause for regret, and we can only trust that no other vessel beside the “Titanic” has become a victim of the floating ice.”

I found this White Star Line advertisement in The Western Times – exactly 100 years old. Here they are promoting their premium ships, Olympic and Titanic. Three weeks later the sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. Meanwhile Olympic‘s first major mishap occurred six months before this advert on 20 September 1911, when she collided with a British warship, HMS Hawke off the Isle of Wight. Olympic became famous as a First World War fully armed troop ship.

“In the early hours of 12 May 1918, while en route for France with US troops under the command of Captain Bertram Fox Hayes, Olympic sighted a surfaced U-boat 500 m (1,600 ft) ahead. Her gunners opened fire at once, and she turned to ram the submarine, which immediately crash dived to 30 m (98 ft) and turned to a parallel course”.

“Almost immediately afterwards Olympic struck the submarine just aft of her conning tower and her port propeller sliced through U-103‘s pressure hull. The crew of U-103 blew her ballast tanks, scuttled and abandoned the submarine. This is the only known incident in World War I in which a merchant vessel sank an enemy warship. Olympic returned to Southampton with at least two hull plates dented and her prow twisted to one side, but not breached”.

Olympic did not stop to pick up survivors, but continued on to Cherbourg”.  The ship was decommissioned in 1935 and sold.

It’s 1950 and Mr. Clifford Gwilliam, the manager of the Theatre Royal, Exeter (Devon) is confidently reassuring audiences at nearby Ottery St. Mary British Legion that he thought television was a “passing phase”.

By the middle of the 20th century the British cinema and filmmaking industry was heartening audiences and no doubt investors that this new medium, a young upstart, was a here today, gone tomorrow phenomenon. At the same time the BBC, who still held the broadcasting monopoly in Britain, were investing licence money and manpower into developing its television services into the Midlands, the North and the rest of the nation after bringing back television to post-war London in 1947.

Before the end of the decade the monopoly was broken with the advent of commercial television and blanket national service coverage by the BBC and later by ITV in black and white, VHF, 405 lines.

Before the advent of television British cinema was enjoying considerable success after having fought off competition from the Music Hall and wireless broadcasting.

Six years after Mr. Clifford Gwilliam’s speech the South West region was to have a full BBC television service from the North Hessary Tor transmitter on Dartmoor (where my father worked).  In 1956 Independent Television started services in London provided by Rediffusion and ATV. By 1961 Westward Television had broken the regional monopoly in the South West from where Mr. Gwilliam was reassuring his audiences.

Sadly from Mr. Gwilliam’s point of view this technological development which took off in the 1950’s was to change his business and the entire British film industry forever with some cinema chains (ABC and Granada) nervously investing in and embracing television.

The 50^th Jubilee of George III on the 25^th October 1810 was a comparatively low-key affair. Two issues overshadowed the possibility of extensive celebrations – the overall mental and physical health of the monarch and the serious illness of the king’s favourite daughter, Princess Amelia who was to die shortly after this report.

“In late 1810, at the height of his popularity but already virtually blind with cataracts and in pain from rheumatism, George III became dangerously ill. In his view the malady had been triggered by the stress he suffered at the death of his youngest and favourite daughter, Princess Amelia. The Princess’s nurse reported that “the scenes of distress and crying every day … were melancholy beyond description. “He accepted the need for the Regency Act of 1811, and the Prince of Wales acted as Regent for the remainder of George III’s life. By the end of 1811, George III had become permanently insane and lived in seclusion at Windsor Castle until his death ten years later on the 29^th January 1820”.

This news article (Morning Post – Friday 19 October 1810) was typical coverage of the event.

From the 1840’s onwards populations of British cities had swollen to an alarming level as thousands left the traditional agricultural life to find a new life and hopefully work in the industrial and business cities. The cost was estimated at seven and three-quarter million pounds which the media calculated was 6 shillings and 6 pence ‘per head’. This article, published in October 1875 looks at the human, financial and political cost of this, the most infamous and long-term Victorian crisis (please click the article to read it clearly).

There is no doubt that some Victorians were  a tad mad, unquestionably overzealous and darn-right  eccentric. One such gentleman was Henry Tracey Coxwell (born 2 March 1819, Wouldham, Kent died 5 January 1900, Lewes, Sussex). Mr. Coxwell was an English aeronaut. His obsession with ballooning knew no bounds, although by Victorian standards there is no doubt he bolding went where no other man had ever been (almost killing himself and his passengers in the process) (left: Newspapers recording a terrifying incident involving Henry Coxwell’s balloon at Crystal Palace in 1862 which almost became a tragedy).

Henry was the son of a naval officer, educated for the army, but became a dentist. From a boy he had been greatly interested in ballooning, then in its infancy, but his own first ascent was not made until 1844. In 1848 he became a professional aeronaut, making numerous public ascents in the chief continental cities.

Returning to London, he gave exhibitions from the Cremorne Gardens and subsequently from the Surrey Gardens. By 1861 he had made over 400 ascents.

In 1862 in company with Dr James Glaisher, he attained the greatest height on record, about 11,887 m (39,000 ft) (right: Henry Tracey Coxwell).

His companion became insensible, and he himself, unable to use his frost-bitten hands, opened the gas-valve with his teeth, and made an extremely rapid but safe descent. The result of this and other aerial voyages by Coxwell and Glaisher was the making of some important contributions to the science of meteorology. Coxwell was most pertinacious in urging the practical utility of employing balloons in time of war.

Mr. Coxwell had a balloon factory in Richmond Road Seaford Sussex his last ascent was made in 1885.

Here is an account of events recorded by The Nottinghamshire Guardian on Friday 19 September 1862: