Tag: Sources

SOURCES FOR QUEEN VICTORIA’S CORONATION.

2020-01-07 age-of-victoria SOURCES 0 Comments

SOURCES ON QUEEN VICTORIA’S CORONATION

Details on Queen Victoria’s coronation are available, but the event is often skimmed over in popular histories on the topic. I touched on her coronation in episode 24, and used the following sources to provide a favour of the day. Tracking down the musical and Order of Service was tricky, but luckily some dedicated Circular in 1902 had gone to a lot of trouble to do a detailed reconstruction, and I’m really glad about that. I will add to this list when I do a future deep dive into the coronation.

In addition to those, I consulted the usual general sources on Victoria that are listed in the sources for episodes on Victoria’s early life.

SOURCES – MASTER CRIMINAL CHARLES PEACE

2019-06-04 age-of-victoria SOURCES, William Habron & Charles Peace 0 Comments

Charlies Peace, Master of Disguise.

Charles Peace was notorious during his criminal career. He is a favourite of many historical true crime fans. There are a lot of events and anecdotes about him; too many to cover in one show.

For the outline I gave you, I used the following sources.

Enthusiasts can find plenty more about him as there are plenty of sources and he pops up everywhere. I even saw a photo of one of his violins on Twitter. It has been put in a museum.

SOURCES FOR 1815-1820 (CONGRESS OF VIENNA & MOUNT TAMBORA)

2018-09-17 age-of-victoria SOURCES 0 Comments

The show has used various sources for the period just after the Napoleonic Wars, up to the birth of Queen Victoria. This list provides the general materials for the Congress of Vienna, the eruption of Mt Tambora, and general social conditions of the period. I will add to this list as the show goes on. The sources for the Peterloo Massacre will appear separately as it is a unique and significant event.

Inevitably we will occasionally refer to these years as background to future episodes, so this is a living document. As the episodes for these years share themes, most sources listed have been used for multiple episodes.

The Year without Summer and the Volcano that changed darkened the world and changed history was especially useful and formed a large chunk of the background sourcing for the Tambora episodes. It is highly readable and I recommend it.

  1. The Congress of Vienna by Harold Nicolson
  2. The Congress of Vienna Rites of Peace Adam Zamoyski
  3. Russia as a great power, 1815–2007 by Iver B. Neumann pub Journal of International Relations and Development, 2008, 11, (128–151)
  4. The Year without Summer and the Volcano that changed darkened the world and changed history by William and Nicolas Klingaman.
  5. The Master Manipulator: A Historical Analysis of Metternich’s Statecraft by  Christopher D’Urso http://www.sirjournal.org/research/2015/11/25/the-master-manipulator-a-historical-analysis-of-metternichs-statecraft
  6. Eruptions that shook the world by Clive Oppenheimer.
  7. The Year without a Summer: The history and legacy of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. Charles Rivers Editors.
  8. Ships’ Log-Books, Sea Ice and the Cold Summer of 1816 in Hudson Bay and Its  Approaches by A.J.W. CATCHPOLE’ and MARCIA-ANNE  FAURER’
  9. The rise and fall of the British Empire by Lawrence James.
  10. America Empire of Liberty by David Reynolds
  11. Progress: its laws and causes by H Spencer.
  12. A History of the cost of living by John Burnett
  13. Old World New Word by Kathleen Burk
  14. Childe Harolds Pilgrimage by Lord Byron.
  15. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly.
  16. The Vampyre by John Polidori
  17. The geography of poor relief expenditure in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century rural Oxfordshire
  18. The making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson
  19. Manchester in the  Victorian Age: The Half Known City by Gary Messinger
  20. Newport Mon South Wales UK from 1800 to 1829 (www.newportpast.com)
  21. Disease and the Modern World. (Harrison)
  22. Age of Revolution 1789-1848 by Hobsbawm

Sources on Napoleon & The 100 Days

2016-02-22 age-of-victoria SOURCES 0 Comments

In the first episodes of the Age of Victoria we’ve been covering Napoleon and the 100 days. There are a ton of great sources out there. I’ve used

  • Memoirs of Napoleon by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne.
  • The 100 Days by Philip Guedalla.
  • Waterloo: A French Perspective by Andrew Field.
  • Prelude to Waterloo: Quatre Bras: The French Perspective by Andrew Field
  • Siborne’s 1815 Campaign Vol 1: The March to Waterloo.
  • The Ascendancy of Europe: 1815-1914 by MS Anderson.
  • French History since Napoleon edited by Martin S. Alexander.
  • Waterloo 1815: Quarte Bras (Waterloo campaign).
  • Redcoat by Richard Holmes.
  • With Napoleon’s Guns: The Military Memoirs of an Officer of the 1st Empire by Colonel Jean-Nicolas-Auguste Noel
  • Wellington’s Guns: The Untold Story of Wellington and his Artillery in the Peninsula and at Waterloo by Colonel Nick Lipscombe
  • Rifles: Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters by Nick Urban
  • Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon’s Grande Armee by John Elting
  • Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon by Gunther Rothenburg
  • Marshal Louis Davout and the Art of Command by Major John M Keefe
  • Napoleon and his Marshalls by MacDonell
  • Waterloo: the aftermath by Paul O’Keeffe

French and British Sources will all contain some bias’s. Primary sources will naturally have limited views due to the confusion during battles, or the relative positions of the observers. Junior officers particularly tended to have a limited view point and overestimate the importance of their section of the conflict. After the restoration of the Bourbons, the writings of many senior French officers and key Bonapartists were necessarily constrained.

Other primary sources will be plagued by bias’s where people exaggerate their own importance (consciously or otherwise), or they will slander people they dislike or adopt national prejudices. Napoleon was habitually dishonest when it suited him and he was bad at accepting fault, preferring to shift the blame onto his subordinates albeit often deservedly. Still primary sources provide one of the best windows into events at the time and how contemporaries perceived them. Napoleon in particular has suffered at the hands of pro and anti Napoleon historians and writers, so especial care should be taken when reading Napoleonic sources. British sources are very prone to adopting a British=good guys, French=bad guys dichotomy.

This barely scratches the surface. There are reading materials covering everything from uniforms to supply wagons to cooking equipment to grand strategy. There are officers journals and accounts by private soldiers. Napoleon had an incredible career so it is well worth diving deeper into.