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American historian David Montgomery credited King Edward VII with bringing peace to Europe, the Empire and the world.
American historian D. H. Montgomery gave this assessment of the reign of King Edward VII in 1912, two years after the king died and two years before war broke out across the world. Whereas some historians like to focus on Edward’s scandals and family quarrels, Montgomery saw quite a different side to the King.
Sir Henry Craik had heard such glowing reports of Agra’s Taj Mahal, that he was afraid it might prove to be an anticlimax.
In 1907, Sir Henry Craik MP went on a tour of India. That December, he made his way south from New Delhi to Agra, where he marvelled at the sixteenth-century fort and the Pearl Mosque of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) before following the River Yamuna for a mile or so towards Shah Jahan’s legendary monument to his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Would it be all that report had made it?
Lord Cromer, a former Consul-General of Egypt, expressed his frustration at politicians who set too much store by Foreign Office briefings.
In an Introduction to Sir Sidney Low’s study of Egypt in Transition (1914), Lord Cromer (1841-1917), former Consul-General of Egypt, humbly recalled how momentous decisions were taken by men who knew next to nothing about the peoples and societies they were dealing with. But more dangerous by far were the decisions taken by men who had been thoroughly briefed by the Foreign Office.
When it opened in 1901, the Uganda Railway still wasn’t in Uganda, and Westminster’s MPs were still debating whether or not to build it.
Two years after Uganda became a British Protectorate in 1894, work began at Mombasa in British East Africa (Kenya from 1920) on a railway inland to Uganda. Thanks to African terrain and British bureaucracy, when Winston Churchill published the following assessment of it in 1908 the meandering line terminated at Kisumu, 660 route-miles away but still short of the Ugandan border.
Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor recalls his experiences as a judge in the distrustful world of music festivals and brass band contests.
‘Don’t you undertake that job at any price!’ was the advice given to composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor when he was first offered the role of judge at an eisteddfod. But he went, and never regretted it. He fell in love with Wales, and was much in demand ever after for choir festivals and brass band competitions across England too. Even so, the work was not for the faint-hearted.
Berwick Sayers tells how his friend, the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, set out on his last voyage.
Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-seven, leaving behind him his wife Jessie and two children, and a treasury of tuneful and often innovative music that is beginning to be appreciated again today. A close family friend, Berwick Sayers, tells of his last hours.
Gertrude Jekyll throws a tea party for her nine-year-old niece and some very special guests.
Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) liked cats. She kept several of them, and devoted herself and many pages of ‘Home and Garden’ to them. One winter, she threw a little farewell party for her nine-year-old niece following a short stay. The fare was unusual: herring, rice pudding and cream arranged with artistic flair on saucers; but then, the guests were unusual too...