I’ve spent so much time over the last few weeks reading Victorian civil service letters I’ve found I’ve started to talk in keeping with their general style, a source of great discontent amongst many of us here. I have the honour to be Your most Obedient & humble servant A Wakelam, esq

Bradford Chamber of Commerce learned in 1916 what many of us knew already: women love trams.

In the 18th century jury trial was eroded for poor debtors, instead being dealt with by magistrates (sounds familiar to me). Decisions were arbitrary and the poor suffered. MPs, intellectuals, and even local tradesman spoke out in defence of the ‘the ancient and valuable privilege of trial by Jury’

Just found in the Department for Education archives the perfect band name and album cover for starting the hottest indie band of 2007

'that they have now determined to ... to' WHAT DID YOU DETERMINE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME WHAT YOU DETERMINED

I’m at the national archives and just walked past somebody carrying a bundle of documents with massive “TOP SECRET” stamps all over it and a date mark of 1944. Is it bad form to sit next to them and read over their shoulder?

“And Tiny Tim, who did not die” clearly implies that either Tiny Tim is still alive in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty five or that he regenerates like the doctor either of which fills me with abject terror.

“And Tiny Tim, who did not die” clearly implies that either Tiny Tim is still alive in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty five or that he regenerates like the doctor either of which fills me with abject terror.

Birmingham, my home city, is a fantastic city, with fantastic people- a success story. It has its problems, like anywhere. But the obsession the online right has with it is as transparent as it gets.

Ah the Victorian period, when it was more important to save a few pennies on a second sheet of paper than for the recipient of your letter to be able to read what you’d written

Loving all the various “this is what causes low birth rates” posts tonight when we still haven’t fully worked out what caused them to start declining IN 1850 (when kids were still very much at work and there was no easy contraception)

Begging 19th Century writers to just be normal for five minutes was apparently a fools errand. I'm several pages in and none the wiser at what should be a mild complaint about an aspect of Bradford society c.1820: 'Tweedle, Tweedle, Tweedle, Some Catgut to my Feedle' (??)

Seeing a lot of critical responses from medievalists about this BBC 1066 thing. As an early modernist, just to say that I'm happy to confirm that medieval people were indeed covered in dirt all the time and did all sound like they were in the Wurzels.

There is no better feeling when travelling abroad than your phone magically picking up Eduroam

I maintain that early modern historians remain the most whimsical historians

Followed by 'Jewish Credit, Debt, and Economic Integration in Eighteenth-Century London', by @awakelam.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....

Campop blog #50: In 2021, 76% of UK women with children at home were employed: a century earlier about the same % were engaged in 'home duties'. @awakelam.bsky.social explores patterns and implications from the 1921 census @camunicampop.bsky.social www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...

'Miss Ashworth ... sang the air "Pious Orgies" tastefully and correctly', sometimes its ok to acknowledge the meaning of a word has changed without trying to work out what it used to mean using a work laptop. (Todmorden and Hebden Bridge Weekly Advertiser 8th March 1862)

Loved getting to chat debt imprisonment with Layton Williams, one of the nicest human beings I've ever met, on Who Do You Think You Are? last night even if I only had bad news for him www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Went to Rome. Got threatened by a mirror. 10/10

Standing in a non-moving queue and the American behind me is loudly asking “why are they just making us and here like this”. ITS BECAUSE WE LIKE IT THAT’S WHY.

Taxi driver just turned up the radio volume dramatically because The Script came on and I think this must be some sort of crime

Feeling a lot of affinity with this church advert(?) outside the office every time I look at the news

"A man's ruling passion is to eat' - the Leeds Times in 1841 was really speaking my language

If I were attending this conference and was introduced to any moustachioed Belgian academics, I would run as fast as I could away from the train

Trying to decide if I should go to Wakefield archives solely to find out what the hell is in this box.

I can always tell if the undergraduates have returned by whether the heating has been switched on yet. The undergraduates, dear reader, have not yet returned.

Was wondering if the Spanish Flu stopped British couples from ... "reconnecting" after the First World War. No. No it did not. (data estimated from age given in years and months in the 1921 Census minus nine months)

Setting up for my annual Christmas tradition: crying for 130 minutes while watching It’s a Wonderful Life

Aren't we all Mr Matthew Moncrieff Pattison

Another morning of the endless quantitative historian battle: have I discovered something new and interesting or am I secretly just bad at maths?

'However, as the Jewish population of London grew and proliferated it probably became more difficult over time to attribute such negative characteristics to Abraham next door with whom one could certainly do business.' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Really hope Ridley Scott shows the same deliberate disdain for historians in the Beatles film as he did in Napoleon. Can’t wait to see Ringo leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Borodino.

It’s so windy in London that I’m pretty sure it instead of the tube it would be faster to hold my umbrella higher and fly Mary Poppins style across the capital

Cannot understand why this interviewer in the 1970s felt it wasn't necessary to ask more questions about this Edwardian cat. TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM

15 years on twitter, years of hard research driven work, nothing compares to finding a tortoise in the 1921 census

One of the joys of working more on the early 20th Century is using my treasure trove of family photos in presentations. This one of my great grandfather William's WW1 unit is rather spoilt by his decision to stand behind the flag, making him only recognisable by his distinctive ears

First World War had a lot of long term impacts but it also created a crisis in care. Not all those killed were young men, many left behind widows and children. Census data suggests kids 1-9 in 1921 were more likely to have lost a father than at any other census

Thought I'd liven up my project on orphanhood with some oral history aspects but was not ready for this absolutely devastating old lady recalling her her sister's funeral

Oooooh. Here's where everybody on twitter was hiding