Posts by Geri Walton
Tea Glossary and Tea Terms of the 18th and 19th Centuries
Samuel Pepys was the first person in Britain who documented drinking a cup tea, which he noted in his diary on 25 September 1660. At the time, it was an exotic drink and was in fact so exotic sometimes people didn’t really understand how to prepare it. A case in point is shown in the…
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Thanksgiving, Thanks-living, and the Jacobite Rising
A sermon was preached on 9 October 1746 by Pastor William Wood to the congregation of Protestant-dissenters in Darlington after the Jacobite Rising. Wood stated that his sermon was to “cultivate Loyalty and Social Affection, on the large and solid Basis of Christian Catholicism, Universal Charity and Benevolence, to which the popish Practice of Persecution…
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Napoleon Bonaparte’s Youngest Brother Jerome Bonaparte
Jerome Bonaparte was Napoleon’s youngest sibling. He was born on the island of Corsica on 15 November 1784 and was barely three months old when his father died. Napoleon soon became responsible for his education, something that Jerome was unwilling to apply himself to as everything other than his studies was of more interest to…
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Jack the Ripper’s Canonical Victims
Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly are considered Jack the Ripper’s canonical victims, so-called because their murders had the same pattern with the same modus operandi, and these five women are considered to be his officially accepted victims. The murders also happened in a relatively short period in…
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When Napoleon Courted Désirée Clary
When Napoleon courted Désirée Clary (born Eugénie Bernardine Désirée Clary), he was about twenty-five. He met her while stationed in Marseille after his strategy proved successful at the Siege of Toulon in 1793. Désirée was the daughter a wealthy Marseille silk manufacturer and merchant named François Clary, who had four children by his first wife,…
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One Visitor’s Tale of Madame Tussaud’s 1883 Exhibition
Heavy rain showers induced one Londoner who had been reading William Black’s Macleod of Dare to ponder about a better way to spend his time. When he looked out his window and saw wet streets and large splashing raindrops, instead of staying inside or following Black’s advice to enjoy an art pilgrimage to the National…
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Thirteen Tales of Murder and Death in the Victorian Era
The Victorian Era is often remembered for its morality with women’s buttoned-up collars and high boots that prevented even the slightest hint of skin beneath. However, there were also many tales of murder and death during that era that captured the public’s imagination. Here are thirteen stories for Halloween. One unusual death happened in May…
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The Imaginary Prisoner of the Bastille known as Comte de Lorges
The imaginary prisoner of the Bastille, known as the Comte de Lorges, was thought to be a real person for many years. Yet, he was no more real than the implements of torture said to be inside the Bastille after it was stormed in 1789. In fact, when a search was conducted for the Bastille’s…
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Laura Bell Courtesan and Preacher
Laura Eliza Jane Seymour Bell was born in 1829 in Glenavy in Northern Ireland to Captain R. H. Bell, who managed Hertford’s Antrim estates, and to the illegitimate daughter of Lord Hertford. Laura who supposedly had an unsupervised childhood, eventually moved to Belfast. There she worked as a shop assistant but was alleged to have…
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The Famous French Actor François Joseph Talma
In 1904, a marble statue was erected in Poix-du-Nord by the sculptor Fagel to one of the greatest actors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The actor’s name was François Joseph Talma. Another statue had been sculpted by Pierre Jean David and erected to Talma in 1837 in the vestibule of the Theatre…
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