On the morning of 20 January 1607, huge areas of South Wales and South West England were flooded. In the wake of the Asian disaster of 2004, the disaster was thought to be a tsunami, but this has been disproved. Contemporary prints show humans clinging to trees, and with animals, struggling in the waters.Broadsheets survive which show people and animals bobbing about in the waters, and people clinging to trees and sitting atop of buildings. People are described heading to work in t...

In 1733 Mr Henry Bridges announced his Microcosm or Little World was on display in Waltham Abbey then toured Britain and the American colonies. It was a giant four tiered machine which demonstrated his world at the time, with the finest art, technology, architecture, music and astronomy.Henry’s story shows the links between religion, magic, science and cabinets of curiosities. It takes us into the worlds of travelling shows, quacks, medicine, engineering, science and freemasonry an...

In the late 18th century, the French claimed an Englishman tired of his wife could dispose of her at Smithfield’s beast market. Examples can be found scattered through press records. Some were, as often claimed, brutal, sometimes drunken affairs. But they varied widely over time, place, and practice. England was the only Protestant nation to retain its pre-reformation marriage and divorce laws. Marriage continued to be easily entered into, but was virtually impossible to escape. Sales took...

Samuel Gist was born in Bristol in the early eighteenth century but was soon orphaned and sent to Virginia as an apprenticed. Despite this unpromising start, he returned to Britain already a successful merchant, a tobacco trader and owned ships and slaves; when he returned to Britain he thrived as insurance broker. When he died in 1815 he left legacies to many charities, but also funded the freedom of his Virginian slaves, which became one of the greatest manumissions.Gist is an en...