Vichy France

 

by Lester Cowling

We generally have a benign of image of wartime France - the Resistance; RAF Lysanders landing SOE agents in torch-lit fields; bizarre, coded announcements on the BBC, De Gaulle steadfastly leading the Free French from London.

 The eighties sitcom ‘Allo, ‘Allo was a hit here and in France. Laughter helps the healing process.

 It parodied an earlier BBC drama about the Resistance called Secret Army.

 But Secret Army wasn’t set in France. It was set in Belgium.

 And maybe that was because the real story of how the French reacted to the German invasion was a bit more complicated - and not at all funny.

The Mycenaean Civilisation

 

by Mary Cantrille

Late Bronze Age

Timeline:

Minoan period:  3500 BC to 1100 BC (declining from 1450 BC)

Mycenaean period:  1600 BC to 1100 BC

Dark Ages: 1100 BC to 800 BC

Classical Greek period: 800 BC to 200 BC

The Mycenaean era was the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilisation in mainland Greece, noted for its palatial states, urban organisation and writing system – Linear B

The Mycenaean civilisation ranged from mainland Greece to Aegean islands to Western Anatolia. Named after Mycenae, the hilltop palace in the Peloponnese.

 

Origins of Weather Forecasting

 

 by Margaret Pearce

In October 1859, as a ferocious storm raged in the Irish sea, the steam clipper Royal Charter, was dashed onto the rocks off Anglesey, killing more than 450 people. A total of 133 ships were sunk in the storm at a cost of 800 lives.

Robert FitzRoy, the former captain of HMS Beagle, who had been appointed Meteorological Statis to the Board of Trade, wrote to the Times and explained that the storm had been predictable and sinking avoidable.

Barometer readings and other data could be collected and shared using the new technology of telegraphy.  Spurred into action, Fitzroy set up a network of 15 coastal stations to collect data for “weather forecasts” a term he had coined in 1863.  He also arranged for barometers to be installed in fishing harbours and for signals to be used to display weather warnings to ships.

Order in Court

 

by Jackie Hudson

ORDER IN COURT

Good morning everyone and welcome to the Dorset Quarter Sessions.  It seems rather appropriate that I spent a good deal of time researching and preparing my talk while sitting in the Shirehall courtroom where I am a volunteer.

If you are like me, even having spent most of my working life in law, albeit on the other side of the Atlantic, I was hazy about Quarter Sessions.

However, when I was given a book entitled ‘Dorset Quarter Sessions 1625 – 1638’ I couldn’t wait to dip into it.  In fact it was more like a full immersion.  This is the only book containing Dorset Quarter Sessions which remains from before the Civil War and it nearly didn’t survive but was purchased in 1898 from Sothebys by Wilkinson and Hodge, a law firm at a cost of 13 shillings, and donated to the county.  At that time of course it wasn’t contained in a neat albeit heavy book.  It was originally 642 hand-written parchment sheets.

So, let's learn a little about the antecedents of Quarter Sessions.

THE LAST ITALIAN MONARCHS

Linda Hansford

HOUSE OF SAVOY

The House of Savoy is a royal dynasty that was established in 1003 in the historical Savoy region in the Alpine area between what is now France and Italy.  Over time, the House of Savoy expanded its territory and influence through prudent marriages and international diplomacy.  It led to the unification of Italy in 1861 which, before then, had comprised of smaller kingdoms and city states, and ruled the Kingdom of Italy until the time of its deposition in 1946.  From 1861 the Savoyard kings of Italy were:

Victor Emmanuel II, Umberto I, Victor Emmanuel III and finally Umberto II, known as the ‘May King’.

The Black Death and the Great Fire of London

Judith Cooper

Bubonic Plague or the Black Death as it was called is an infection that spread mostly to humans by infected fleas that travel on rodents (rats ,cats, mice etc.)  .The plague killed one and  a half million Europeans during the Middle Ages. 

The Collapse of the Roman Empire in Britain

 by Jenny Meader

When I started looking at this, I had no idea how controversial a topic this is.  I made the mistake of looking at more than one source and discovered that historians tend to be divided into two camps, which we might describe as the “Decline and Fall” camp and the “Change and Continuity” camp.  There is not much disagreement on the facts, but a lot of disagreement on how to interpret them. The source that I have principally used for this is Britain after Rome by Robin Fleming.

Dorchester and its Great Fire from Heaven

By Lester Cowling

We’re accustomed to seeing history as it was played out on the national, or International, stage.

 But its impact is often most interesting at the local level.

 Thirty years ago David Underdown, a Yale professor, published a book called Fire From Heaven - Life in an English town in the Seventeenth Century

 It’s said to be the best study of English life in that period.

 The town in question is Dorchester. I’m using his book as my main, but not only, source  to look at his claim that it became the most Puritan town in England.

 

WHO WAS MOST SIGNIFICANT IN THE HISTORY OF 19th CENTURY MEDICINE?

 by Nigel Watt

I have two objectives for today’s presentation.  First, I want to provide a “big picture” of the players, the discoveries and developments that characterize the story of 19^th Century medicine.  Secondly, I want you to decide who, in this story, was most significant.     

Tacky's revolt

 by David Rhodes

 Introduction

In 1760, some fifteen hundred enslaved black men and women— perhaps fewer but probably many more— took advantage of Britain’s Seven Year’s War against France and Spain, to stage a massive uprising in Jamaica, which began on April 7 in the windward parish of St. Mary’s and continued in the leeward parishes until October of the next year.