Victorian Era
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Victorian Era’
Having brought hundreds of convicts to New South Wales, Arthur Phillip then had to conjure order out of their chaos.
The first British settlement in Australia was established at Sydney Cove on January 26th, 1788, and named after the Home Secretary. The policy of penal transportation was barbarity, but out of it Captain Phillips and his successors conjured civilisation — and began by disobeying orders.
Sir William Napier stopped to console an unhappy little girl, and made her a promise he did not find it easy to keep.
Sir William Napier (1785-1860) was a soldier and military historian, whose monumental ‘History of the Peninsular War’ helped establish the enduring reputation of Wellington, and commands respect to this day. He was also a man of honour whose word was his bond, as the following story, told by his daughter, shows.
When Lord Salisbury asked the Russian Minister of the Interior how many agents the Tsar had in India, the reply came as a shock.
Throughout the nineteenth century, London was afraid that the Russian Empire would invade India through Afghanistan. Russian reassurances fell on deaf ears, leading to war in Afghanistan in 1838-42 and again in 1878-80. Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India, issued a press crackdown, and Russophobia in the home press spiked.
William Stead warned his fellow-journalists to take care that their bellicose rhetoric did not end in a real war with Russia.
After witnessing a Russian village burn to the ground because a boy played with matches in a barn, journalist William Stead (1849-1912) was moved to be severe on those other ‘boys with matches’ — the hawkish British press, whose incendiary words could spark the powder kegs of European politics.
William Stead conceived modern print journalism in the belief that newspapers could change the world.
Driven by a sense of moral crusade, William Stead (1849-1912) transformed newspaper journalism from simple reporting into political activism, pioneering now familiar techniques from headlines, illustrations, interviews and editorial comment to the plain speech and lurid storylines of the tabloids.
John Bright MP urged a critic of the British Raj to offer India more than fine words.
In 1883, Major Thomas Evans Bell, a former employee of the East India Company and a severe critic of the British Raj, was preparing for a lecturing tour in the United States. John Bright MP (who was not uncritical himself) wrote to remind him that what India needed most from Britain and America was not colonial guilt or blame, but free trade.