Phoebe
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Puritans, Separatists and the Pilgrim Fathers
So we all know the story… bunch of Puritans, bit of religious persecution and New England was born. Right? Wrong. OK, lets unpick this bit of history and see what happens. Firstly, we have to remember that the Pilgrim Fathers weren’t the first settlers in the new found lands of America. Some conveniently overlook that America had already been successfully colonised in and around Virginia for a good fifteen years before they arrived. The initial Mayflower plan had been an extension of that colony to the North of Jamestown, however through fair means or foul, they landed much further north in the area of Cape Cod, in what is now…
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William Bradford and the Mayflower
Born in around 1590, to wealthy farmers Alice and William Bradford, William lost his father at just a year old. His mother remarried when he was four and he was sent to live with his grandparents. When his grandfather died just two years later, he returned to his mother and step-father only for her to pass away the following year. Young William was soon on the move again, this time to his two uncles, who expected their young charge to be able to help out around the farm. Alas William in his diary, explained he suffered a long illness, quite possibly grief/depression related in modern terms, and so took to…
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D-Day Landings
In 1943, Allied commanders began planning for a full-frontal attack on German coastal defenses of the Normandy region of France. Operation Bodyguard, a highly strategic and minutely planned deceptive prequel to the invasion was put into action to fool deceive the Germans who were aware an invasion was planned. This deception was broken down into several small staged plans of attacks, all bogus, designed to feed information to broadcasts fed to German airwaves. As a result of incorrect prediction of bad weather by their meteorological office in Paris, many of the senior commanders of the Nazi force, despite knowing there was a possible invasion planned, took the chance that it…
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Muhammed Ali
Born in Kentucky, January 1942, Cassius Clay was one of five children of Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr and his wife Odessa O’Grady. Clay Sr was named for the 19thC abolitionist of the same name and passed the name on to his own son. Clay Sr was the descendant of slaves, Odessa however was the grand-daughter of a white Irish immigrant through her paternal line and the great-grand-daughter of a white man and a slave on her maternal side. Cassius would later adopt the name Muhammed Ali, upon his conversion to Islam, and thereafter refusing to answer to what he called his “slave-name”, despite its link with abolition, rather than slavery.…
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Surviving Life in The Workhouse Part 2
In part one, we discussed the development of Poor laws and rates and so on to meet the rising need of the destitute in the community and the provision for children, the elderly and others who were unable to provide for themselves. We had reached the point where Elizabeth I had passed the 1601 Poor Laws, now known as the Old Poor Law, which had passed on the responsibility for collecting the poor rates from parishes and converting it to basic foods, clothing and fuel etc for those in need. Rent allowances and other monies from the rates were also introduced to be given to those in need, enabling them…
