Phoebe

  • The Green Bicycle Murder

    It was July 5th 1919 and Annie Bella Wright, the eldest of seven children born to an illiterate farm labourer and his wife, lived in a small cottage in the village of Stoughton, just outside of Leicester. Annie was aged 21 at the time, and worked in a factory – Bates’ rubber mill, five miles away from home. Her transport was a bicycle. Bella, as she was known, was like many other young ladies of the time. Earning her own money, contributing to the family and enjoying a level of freedom previously frowned upon until the recently ended Great War had changed the role of women in society. Filling in…

  • Edwin Lutyens

    Edwin Lutyens was born in London in March 1869. He was named for a friend of his father, artist Edwin Henry Landseer. Lutyens studied at the Royal College of Art and graduated as an architect in 1887 before working for a year in the offices of Ernest George and Harold Peto, where he met noted architect Sir Herbert Baker. In 1888 Edwin Lutyens set up his own offices, working for several years in fashionable Bloomsbury Square, during which time he met garden designer and leading horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll, with whom he collaborated on several commissions. His style mixed brick paths, with overflowing borders of lupins, lilies and lavender to create…

  • First and Last

    So following on from my article on the Armistice, what led to it and how it came about, I now want to focus on the impact the procedure and its application had on the men on the ground. As we have seen, the German forces were already in a state of confusion; their efforts were failing and they were losing ground fast. The American belligerent forces had joined the war effort on the side of the Allied Powers early in 1917 during the Spring Offensive, at a time when the Entente were still counting the cost of the futile Somme offensive of 1916. Germany had hoped to follow up the…

  • Peace Treaties

    In honour of Armistice, today I am writing about an important part of the Great War…. The Road to the Armistice, The reason why this topic is often considered reactionary is that although the Armistice was a pre-arranged agreement, first approached at the beginning of 1918 with President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” for achieving peace in Europe, it did nothing to prevent further casualties as the conflict continued until after the Politicians and the Leaders had finished hashing out their terms and conditions, and a Treaty was signed. During this period of negotiation, tens of thousands of the world’s young men continued to be slaughtered. The contents of the final…

  • John Slidell

    Born in New York, in 1793 to merchant John (senior) and his wife Margery McKenzie from Scotland, John Slidell had at least two surviving brothers – Thomas and Alexander – and a sister, Jane, recorded. In 1810 at the age of 17 he graduated Columbia College (now university) and settled in Louisiana, where in 1835 he married Mathilde and had three children. Alfred, Marie and Marguerite. Following a career beginning in mercantile trade, much like his father, after his relocation to Louisiana, eventually settling in New Orleans, Slidell practiced law from around 1819. He served as District Attorney for four years until 1833, following up with a yearlong position within…