Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
By Henry Summer Watson, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Composer Ethel Smyth buys a new-fangled ladies’ bicycle, and scandalises the neighbours.
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© Cogdogblog, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Alice meets Humpty Dumpty, and it turns out that she has been using words wrong all her life.
© Optimist on the run, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA-3.0.
The unsung surveyor from Cheshire, who built railways and made friends across the world.
Photo by Elliott and Fry, via the National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
William Gladstone warns voters not to leave foreign policy in the hands of interventionist politicians.
© Alex ‘Florstein’ Fedorov, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
William Gladstone explains that a truly ‘exceptional nation’ respects the equality and rights of all nations.
© Velvet, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
George Stephenson won the admiration of French navvies by showing them how a Geordie works a shovel.