SS Sussex
SS Sussex was built by William Denny & Bros Ltd for the LBSCR. She was launched on 30 April 1896. She served on the Newhaven – Dieppe route. In 1913,…
At The Battle of Hessy Moor
During the English Civil War, Sir Phillip Monckton gives a good description of what it was like: “At the battle of Hessy Moor I had my horse shot under me…
Charles II Close Shave at Edgehill
Charles II Close Shave at Edgehill During the first battle of the English Civil war, at Edgehill, the parliamentarians came very close to capturing and taking prisoner, the Prince of…
The Bombardment of Constantinople
The bombardment of Constantinople In 1452, when Urban, a Hungarian engineer was turned away by Constantine, the Byzantine Emperor, he was employed by Mehmet II to construct a cannon 27ft…
Desperte Fighting at the Battle of Inkermann
This account of the Battle of Inkermann comes from Private Bancroft of the Grenadiers. He describes the desperate fighting around the Sandbag Battery, “I bayoneted the first Russian in the…
The Storming of Badajoz
At the storming of Badajoz in 1812, George Hennell was attached to the 94thFoot as a volunteer. Here he describes his baptism of fire: “The dead and wounded lay so…
Town Clocks
The end of the Middle Ages saw town clocks being introduced all over Europe. The concept of arriving for and leaving work at certain times was just one example of…
The Blast Furance
In the 1100’s Europeans had mastered a technique for producing cast iron, some 1,500 after the Chinese. This was by means of a blast furnace, so called because of the…
The Windscreen Wiper
The 1908 FA Cup Final was played at Crystal Palace between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Newcastle United. The omens looked bad when before the match the ground was lashed with rain,…
Thomas Burgess Swims the Channel.
At Dover on 6th September 1911, under a warm blue sky, Yorkshireman Thomas Burgess, aged 37, started his 16thattempt to swim the English Channel. He was stark naked except for…