Researching19th-century merchant seamen

Today we might minimise or even overlook the railway’s significance, because it is such an established part of our lives. Yet at its height the industry employed more than half a million people across

One of the most romantic names from the Age of Sail is the Cutty Sark, the 19th-century British tea clipper that sailed across the world. The ship is now a museum in Greenwich, South-East London, but

From the mid-16th century, anyone running an inn or alehouse needed permission from the justices of the peace. Later, landlords were required to pledge not to allow disorderly conduct in their establi

The congestion charge, LEZ and ULEZ charges… All schemes introduced by mayors of London in recent years, but another has been running in our capital city for much longer. Cart marking, the practice of

Thousands of workers stepping off their morning train has become an enduring image of the railway. But the custom of commuting has constantly evolved, as CHRISTIAN WOLMAR reports

The great naturalist Sir Richard Owen coined the term “dinosaur”, wrote the first scientific descriptions of dinosaurs and was a founder of the first Natural History Museum (NHM) and its first directo