British History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘British History’
A young George Stephenson takes responsibility for the team spirit at Black Callerton mine.
In 1801, the job of brakesman at Black Callerton pit was given to a young George Stephenson. It was a very responsible job, as it involved lowering and raising miners in the deep and dangerous mineshaft, but Stephenson felt he had a wider duty to the whole mine.
England’s first and greatest historian explains why history is so important.
St Bede begins his famous ‘History’, written in AD 731, with an open letter to the King of Northumbria, Ceolwulf, explaining that history, rightly told, teaches us to refuse the evil, and choose the good. King Ceolwulf later resigned his throne to become a monk, and a saint.
Benjamin Jesty and Edward Jenner continue to save millions of lives because they listened to an old wives’ tale.
Surgeon Edward Jenner (1749-1823) and farmer Benjamin Jesty (1736-1816) are rightly credited with saving more lives than anyone else, by conceiving and demonstrating the principle of vaccination. What is less often emphasised is that it only happened because they listened respectfully to an old wives’ tale.
For two centuries, human traffickers had stolen English men, women and children for the slave-markets of the Arab world.
In the Barbary states of Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli in north Africa, part of the Ottoman Empire, slavery was the norm, and – much as the comforting breadth of the Atlantic did for English slave-owners – the use of European Christians rather than their own brethren allowed Muslims to ease their conscience.
The mild-mannered, artistic monk was nevertheless a founding father of the English nation.
St Bede of Jarrow (673-735) could claim to be one of founding Fathers of the English nation: his ground-breaking ‘History’ helped create a sense of national identity and Christian culture. Artistic yet scientific, jealous of Northumbrian sovereignty yet appreciative of European culture, he exemplifies all that is best in the English people.