It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
Tucked in the row of cookery books in our dining room, we have an edition of Mrs Beeton's Every-Day Cookery. Although it's from 1923 and the sections on household management had been updated, the great bulk of the book is the same as it was when it was first published in 1861. To my knowledge we've never …
Inspired by a recent re-read of Philip Larkin's Jill, the story of a working class northern student in 1940s Oxford, I decided to do some research on early twentieth century student life in Oxford. While I've always known that Oxford a hundred years ago was a heavily male-dominated place, until this week I'd not realised the …
Continue reading Boys will be boys: gender segregation in Edwardian Oxford
In 1842, William Thackeray published the second of his satirical pieces titled Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History, in Punch magazine, for which he was a regular contributor. They are a hilarious send-up of 19th-century English education, as captured through the lectures of the imaginary schoolmistress/historian, Miss Tickletoby. Readers who can remember Our Island Story may see some similarities …
Continue reading Miss Tickletoby’s Lectures on English History: The Anglo-Saxons