Watching Labour MPs take a wrecking ball to nature makes me so angry & so sad. Their action tonight voting down amendments to the #PlanningBill intended to protect wildlife & habitats from destruction is so reckless & so counterproductive. People didn’t vote Labour for this 👇

This week I submitted my manuscript for Being Pretty in the Eighteenth Century: a Cultural History of Female Beauty to @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social This book has been a (long) labour of love and I owe so many thank yous to so many people for helping me reach this stage!

If A Pumpkin… and other stories. More comics by kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses last week kevfcomicart.blogspot.com/2025/11/if-p... @greenwich_clib @WoolwichLibrary @WatersmeetVenue @WFlibraries @GreenwichLibs @Royal_Greenwich @Better_UK #LoveLibraries

""Mr. Stainton pursued as fast as he could follow. Up the easy steps he ran at the top of his speed; but, fast as he went, the child went faster." Illustration To Mrs. Riddell's Ghost Story, "Walnut-Tree House."" The Illustrated London News 28.12.1878. #PhantomsFriday #Ghost #GhostStory #1870s

Just a reminder that the Call for Papers for our Spring Seminar Series closes this coming Monday, 10 November 2025. If you were considering applying, please do! We would love to hear from you. Submissions should be sent to our seminar convener at [email protected].

It’s 6 November, and you know what that means, don’t you? YES, THAT’S RIGHT. It’s the 156th anniversary of the death of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s pet wombat

A chat with Dr Philip Blood about 18C politics and my research on loneliness and leadership philipwblood.substack.com/p/in-convers... #skystorians 🗃️

Join us on Saturday 7 February 2026 at Chippenham Town Hall for our ceramics symposium! Explore themes from our next exhibition 'Subversive Forms: Revolutionary approaches to clay' with illustrated talks and a discussion panel with six of the exhibiting artists. Book your tickets 👉 buff.ly/Ui6qpIe

The only mention of bonfire night I can find in @girlsown.bsky.social is within a serial entitled ‘The Shepherd’s Fairy’ with a splendid illustration of #LewesBonfire and a surprisingly unladylike enthusiasm for riot and mayhem, but a hefty dose of contemporary religious and class prejudice.

Also interesting to see the only mention of black masks in this 1887 story is in the context of demons and executioners. Maybe some of the ‘traditions’ www.varsity.co.uk/features/22355 were not so traditional after all.

The work of May Morris (1862-1938) influential English embroidery designer, jeweller, socialist, and editor who supported and taught fellow female artists #WomensArt#WomensArt

Blue Plaque for Charlie Cairoli unveiled Blackpool #circus #clowns Apologies for the image to anyone here who suffers from Coulrophobia. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

We were delighted to support the excellent Music Hall Showcase & Symposium on Saturday at @thelondonarchives.bsky.social. The full day featured diverse talks, engaging conversations, and the opportunity to view music hall materials from TLA's collection, including a fascinating ILEA film from 1974.

Chartist rising in Newport #OnThisDay 1839 ends in the death of 22 “rioters” #Chartism #C19th #History

My pumpkin this year 🎃🎃🎃

Let’s Party like it’s October 1930! #halloween Let’s party like it’s Oct 24th 1930! Candles in apples, black cat & witch decor, Pumpkin with drawn face, Ghost Biscuits, Midnight Cake! 🐈‍⬛🎃🎃🐈‍⬛ Western Daily Press

I’ve made this years #Halloween pumpkin (and so Hev, stick to the end for hers) #Claudia #strictly #traitors

A taster of our special issue on gender and segregation, due out in a few weeks. Thank you also to @dependencybonn.de for funding the conference during which many of these ideas were first discussed.

HELLO NEW FOLLOWERS! We are a small group of historians based in Peterborough (UK). We research WOMEN'S HISTORY, and regularly publish stories on our blog.

One can safely say that Luca Carlevarijs was not a great fan of the 4th Earl of Manchester when he painted his arrival in Venice 1707. Subtle 😹😹😹💩

Morning all 🤗

"The Famous Green Aerial Engine. As announced in our last issue, the aerial engine invented by Mr. G. Green, of Bexhill, has been successful in winning the prize of £5,000 offered in the Naval and Military Aeroplane #Engine Competition..." #Bexhill Observer 24.10.1914. #Aviation #History #1910s #WW1

Treadwell’s is here!

Coming soon to British Online Archives — Witchcraft and Magic in England, c. 1400–1920. Featuring rare records from The National Archives, British Library, UCL, and The Folklore Society. Register your interest: buff.ly/YBeFCF1

A few more excellent accounts added to this Starter Pack. Do please browse and have a great weekend everyone! 🎩🎭🌞 go.bsky.app/B9UJdQY

Reminder - tomorrow is #HistoricEuropeanTheatresDay Looking forward to hearing about your favourite historic theatres #HistoricTheatresDay

Very nice to see you again Heather. It is a bit stormy here today.

"Our Sea Front. Another view of the centre of Bexhill's Sea Front. It does not look an attractive feature even in a photograph. An improvement of Bexhill's "face" is considered overdue, and the first step is now proposed by the Council." #Bexhill Observer 23.10.1926. #Sussex #Seaside #History #1920s

I'm doing an event at The Museum of the Home on Sun 7 December. Tickets are on sale now. museumofthehome.org.uk/whats-on/a-d...

Good news fans, my Richard The Third graphic novel full colour edition is now available on Amazon. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326663224 Or you can get a signed copy at @thoughtbubbleuk.bsky.social next month. Choice is yours. #shakespeare #graphicnovel #booktok #comictok

Can you make our Skychat this week? We’re talking about women writers and mindset. Can you join us? @arleneandrews.bsky.social @sunisamara11.bsky.social @poetsarahdoyle.bsky.social @louiseduckling.bsky.social @jolloyds.bsky.social @heathertweed.bsky.social @nicolawriting.bsky.social

Ok enough faffing around here! Off down my wondrous rabbit hole of 19th Century Circus research. Write! ✍️ Write ✍️ ✍️!

Would anyone be interested in either a couple-hour writing club or a reading group (academic article or book)? Maybe once a week or every two or once a month? Full disclosure: I am sad about being unemployed and I am in need of academic community and conversation to feel like me again.

Everything is terrible right now in general, but in personal good news, my book has a cover and I'm so excited to share it!!! Selling Out Santa is about Hollywood's manipulation of the Christmas holiday for socially conservative ends in the early Cold War 🗃️ www.barnesandnoble.com/w/selling-ou...

Ready for caricaturing and Shakespeare graphic novel flogging fun at Bristol Comicon. Here they come now…

The first British Professional Boxing Association was formed in London in 1885 at the Blue Anchor, Shoreditch. Its founding members numbered around 60. I believe Hezekiah Moscow to be the first Black man to be elected, but the digitised Sporting Life in which they're all named is too faded to read!

Today's @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange theme is all about ✨glamour✨ We're sharing this beautifully illustrated catalogue for shortbreads, biscuits and cakes produced by Huntley & Palmers in 1929. Who doesn't feel this glamourous reaching for a cookie and a cuppa? 🍪 1994.21.50 🖼️

A fun night at the authors dinner with my fellow Isle of Wight Literary Festival authors. All notably more famous than me. But I’m the only person who took a selfie.

For Wednesday, what better than Helen Wilson's handsome and most enjoyable book on the Pinwell sisters and their brilliant woodcarving career victorianweb.org/sculpture/pi...

I'm writing this book partly, mostly, for readers who aren't already into boxing 🥊 The Devil's Dance Floor is about pugilists, pressmen, policemen, and Alf Ball's pet puma. Murder, madness, Jem Smith's tight tights. We got wives. Bald bears. A Victorian epidemic of discarded orange peel! Smallpox!

At Eastbourne #OnThisDay 1892, Lewis Carroll recorded in his journal just four words: "Death of Alfred #Tennyson." It was a personal blow to him as well as a national event, as Ray Dyer explains: victorianweb.org/authors/carr... .

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians. Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd Please let us know if there are gaps. #Skystorians 1/2

Born #OnThisDay 1819 Edward William Watkin, Liberal MP for Great Yarmouth 1857, Stockport 1864-8 (& later MP for Hythe). He was a major railway entrepreneur & made a failed attempt to extend his network to France with a Channel Tunnel.

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Dog days! (dies caniculares). The Romans associated hot weather (in late summer) and madness with the “Dog Star” Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major. It was a dangerous time to write poetry.

I thought I recognised it as Plas Newydd! We visited nearly 40 years ago but I was very taken by the idea of a special chamber to apply your wig powder.

Bronze & enamel lectern by Gilbert Bayes in the Savoy Chapel, memorial to Laurence (son of Henry) Irving who drowned with 1000 others when the Empress of Ireland sank off Canada in 1914. Its captain Henry Kendall, on his prior ship, sent the radio message that led to Dr Crippen's arrest.

Today I have mostly been having a fun day at the Lakes meeting people. Then I've only gone & spent ages colouring pages of Romeo and Juliet, so I'm missing the blooming launch event. It's like I really enjoy doing comics or something Here's a bit I just coloured, Kickstarter runs for a fortnight