Keswick is one of the most popular towns in Cumbria, beloved by local residents and the thousands of holidaymakers who visit the Lake District every year. Many are attracted by the spectacular surrounding scenery and the rich history of the area. Those who visit can appreciate why this part of Britain was such a source of inspiration to poets, authors and artists. The first recorded mention of Keswick was in 1276 when Edward I granted a charter for the local market, which is still held in the town today. During the sixteenth century, copper mining brought wealth to the area. Later it was graphite, and then the railways brought the tourists flocking here. In this book, local authors Beth and Steve Pipe seek out the fascinating hidden aspects of Keswick's rich and intriguing heritage. Stories of local people, places and events weave a fascinating tale that spans the centuries. Discover the history and stories behind the Keswick Brewing Company, the town's Literary and Scientific Society and the incredible Alhambra Cinema, which has been in continuous operation for more than a century. Learn more about Keswick's graphite mining industry - a trade that gave the phrases 'black market' and 'a wad of cash' to the English language - and the town's superb pencil museum. For visitors and residents alike, Secret Keswick will reveal more fascinating stories and the lesser-known gems to be found within this delightful Cumbrian town.

Terry Boyle unveils the eccentric and bizarre in these mini-histories of Ontario's towns and cities: the imposter who ran the Rockwood Asylum in Kingston; Ian Fleming's inspiration for James Bond; the Prince of Wales's undignified crossing of Rice Lake; the tragic life of Joseph Brant; the man who advertised his wife's death before poisoning her; as well as Ontario's first bullfight and the answer to the question, "Why did so many lumberjacks sport beards?"

The colourful characters, Native legends, and incredible tales that make up our province's fascinating past come alive in "Hidden Ontario." From Bancroft, Baldoon, and Brighton to Timmins, Toronto, and Trenton, find out more about the Ontario you thought you knew.

This book, to published in two parts, is dedicated to the memories of all those people who once worked for the Great Western Railway in South Wales, at Pontypool Road loco depot, the Eastern Valley and the Vale of Neath railway, as well as to those people who worked in the industries once served by the railway in those locations. In 2016, the UK coal mining industry is extinct, and the future of the steel industry is in doubt. This book serves as a reminder to future generations as to what a fantastic place the South Wales valleys once were for heavy industry and transport infrastructure, and also as a tribute to the pioneering 19th century railway builders. Local railway enthusiast Phil Williams, is a contract structural engineer in the aerospace industry. His father's uncle, Harry Miles, was a Swindon trained locomotive fitter at Pontypool Road in the 1930s. His family have interesting links to the mining industry. His great grandfather was Thomas Williams, the Colliery Engineer at Tirpentwys Colliery from before 1902 up to 1912; and then at Crumlin Valley Colliery Hafodrynys and the Glyn Pits, from 1915 until he died in 1925 aged 76.His father's great grandfather, Joseph Harper, was one of the 1890 Llanerch Colliery disaster rescue team; he worked at the British Top Pits. His father's uncle, Williams Harper was the foreman of the wagon shop at the Big Arch Talywain.

When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records-recently declared a national treasure-are now being translated. Drawing on this remarkable archive, Russell Shorto has created a gripping narrative-a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan-that transforms our understanding of early America.
The Dutch colony pre-dated the "original" thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

Guildford's history dates from Saxon times, and the town has been the residence of kings and many famous men and women, particularly since Henry II turned the Norman castle into a luxurious palace in the twelfth century. Also amongst the town's famous and influential faces was George Abbot, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1611 and was one of the translators of the King James Bible and founded Abbot's Hospital in 1619 - an early example of 'sheltered housing', which still fulfils that role to this day. High above the town is the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. Consecrated in 1961, it was the first cathedral to be built in the South of England since the Reformation. Below it is the University of Surrey, which received its Royal Charter just a few years later. Guildford's people and visitors throughout history come to life in this well-researched account, which also examines the town's architectural development and heritage, from the castle and medieval guildhall to the modern cathedral and beyond, portraying Guildford's significance on a national and sometimes international scale.

From petticoat duels and lucky cats to the Stiffs Express, Lord Nelson's spare nose, the Piccadilly earthquake and the Great Beer Flood of 1814, A Curious Guide to London takes you on a captivating, wildly entertaining tour of the city you think you know, unearthing the capital's secrets and commemorating its rich, colourful and unusual history. Brimming with tales of London's forgotten past, its strangest traditions and its most eccentric inhabitants, this book celebrates the unique, the unusual and the unknown. Perfect for tourists, day-trippers, commuters and the millions of people who call London home, this alternative guidebook will make you look at the city in a whole new light.

A sublimely elegant, fractured reckoning with the legacy and inheritance of suicide in one American family. In 2009, Juliet Patterson was recovering from a serious car accident when she learned her father had died by suicide. His death was part of a disturbing pattern in her family. Her father's father had taken his own life; so had her mother's. Over the weeks and months that followed, grieving and in physical pain, Patterson kept returning to one question: Why? Why had her family lost so many men, so many fathers, and what lay beneath the silence that had taken hold? In three graceful movements, Patterson explores these questions. In the winter of her father's death, she struggles to make sense of the loss-sifting through the few belongings he left behind, looking to signs and symbols for meaning. As the spring thaw comes, she and her mother depart Minnesota for her father's burial in her parents' hometown of Pittsburg, Kansas. A once-prosperous town of promise and of violence, against people and the land, Pittsburg is now literally undermined by abandoned claims and sinkholes. There, Patterson carefully gathers evidence and radically imagines the final days of the grandfathers-one a fiery pro-labor politician, the other a melancholy businessman-she never knew. And finally, she returns to her father: to the haunting subjects of goodbyes, of loss, and of how to break the cycle. A stunning elegy that vividly enacts Emily Dickinson's dictum to "tell it slant," Sinkhole richly layers personal, familial, political, and environmental histories to provide not answers but essential, heartbreaking truth.

The University of Cambridge has always inspired artists and writers, and these sumptuous volumes from 1840 portray some of its most important historic buildings, institutions and people. Each volume includes a collection of essays, anecdotes, poems and reminiscences on the colleges, museums, gardens, streets and character of the town, as well as historical essays on the Boat Race and university teaching. The many illustrations of major sights and important views, such as the Backs, the river Cam and Grantchester meadows, include works by or after several well-known artists, engraver Charles George Lewis and landscape painter John Murray Ince among them. With contributors drawn from the various colleges, the volumes include much interesting material on the history and customs of the University up to 1840. This miscellany is an ideal gift or collector's item for all those interested in the University of Cambridge.

The University of Cambridge has always inspired artists and writers, and these sumptuous volumes from 1840 portray some of its most important historic buildings, institutions and people. Each volume includes a collection of essays, anecdotes, poems and reminiscences on the colleges, museums, gardens, streets and character of the town, as well as historical essays on the Boat Race and university teaching. The many illustrations of major sights and important views, such as the Backs, the river Cam and Grantchester meadows, include works by or after several well-known artists, engraver Charles George Lewis and landscape painter John Murray Ince among them. With contributors drawn from the various colleges, the volumes include much interesting material on the history and customs of the University up to 1840. This miscellany is an ideal gift or collector's item for all those interested in the University of Cambridge.

When Francois de la Rochefoucauld and his brother Alexandre visited Suffolk in 1784, the events which were to lead to the French Revolution in 1789 were already in train. Francois' father, the duc de Liancourt, Grand Master of the Wardrobe at Louis XVI's court, was well placed to appreciate the dangers of the situation in France, and it must have been with anxious hopefulness that he sent his sons (Francois was then 18) to England for a year to appreciate the ordering of these things in a country which had experienced a revolution over a century earlier. Such reflections are never far below the surface of this otherwise cheerful journal of a year abroad, which gives a vivid picture of English provincial life; Francois' observations range over such diverse subjects as English customs and manners and methods of agriculture and stockbreeding, and include a lively account of a general election. Norman Scarfe, the well-known historian of Suffolk and beyond, provides a spirited translation of Francois' journal; it is complemented by numerous illustrations.

Begun as a pork-barrel project by the federal government in the early 1900s, the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians (also known as the Hiawatha Insane Asylum) quickly became a dumping ground for inconvenient Indians. The federal institution in Canton, South Dakota, deprived many Native patients of their freedom without genuine cause, often requiring only the signature of a reservation agent. Only nine Native patients in the asylum's history were committed by court order. Without interpreters, mental evaluations, or therapeutic programs, few patients recovered. But who cared about Indians in South Dakota? After three decades of complacency, both the superintendent and the city of Canton were surprised to discover that someone did care, and that a bitter fight to shut the asylum down was about to begin. In this disturbing tale, Carla Joinson unravels the question of why this institution persisted for so many years. She also investigates the people who allowed Canton Asylum's mismanagement to reach such staggering proportions and asks why its administrators and staff were so indifferent to the misery experienced by their patients. Vanished in Hiawatha is the harrowing tale of the mistreatment of Native American patients at a notorious asylum whose history helps us to understand the broader mistreatment of Native peoples under forced federal assimilation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Many books have been written about Leamington's history, but this one is unique - it is the first to document the history of its pubs. The authors have painstakingly researched more than 200 years of history tracking back to a time in the late 1700s when the small village of Leamington Priors had around 300 residents and just 2 inns. With more than 220 entries and 250 illustrations, this comprehensive work traces the number of co-existing pubs from just 2 to a peak of over 100 before the progressive decline to less than 60 at the end of 2013; opening/closing dates, licence listings and snippets of social history are also included. Whether you are a serious historian, a nostalgic Leamingtonian with a hankering for the local pubs of bygone days or someone who will just enjoy checking out the photos over a quiet pint, this is the book for you.

In 1981 the suspended walkways-or "skywalks"-in Kansas City's Hyatt Regency hotel fell and killed 114 people. It was the deadliest building collapse in the United States until the fall of New York's Twin Towers on 9/11. In Skywalks R. Eli Paul follows the actions of attorney Robert Gordon, an insider to the bitter litigation that followed. Representing the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against those who designed, built, inspected, owned, and managed the hotel, Gordon was tenacious in uncovering damaging facts. He wanted his findings presented before a jury, where his legal team would assign blame from underlings to corporate higher-ups, while securing a massive judgment in his clients' favor. But when the case was settled out from under Gordon, he turned to another medium to get the truth out: a quixotic book project that consumed the rest of his life. For a decade the irascible attorney-turned-writer churned through a succession of high-powered literary agents, talented ghost writers, and New York trade publishers. Gordon's resistance to collaboration and compromise resulted in a controversial but unpublishable manuscript, "House of Cards," finished long after the public's interest had waned. His conclusions, still explosive but never receiving their proper attention, laid the blame for the disaster largely at the feet of the hotel's owner and Kansas City's most visible and powerful corporation, Hallmark Cards Inc. Gordon gave up his lucrative law practice and lived the rest of his life as a virtual recluse in his mansion in Mission Hills, Kansas. David had fought Goliath, and to his despair, Goliath had won. Gordon died in 2008 without ever seeing his book published or the full truth told. Skywalks is a long-overdue corrective, built on a foundation of untapped historical materials Gordon compiled, as well as his own unpublished writings.

This fine Palladian house known as New Park was built between 1777 and 1783 and became part of the golden age of the Georgian country house. Its owner, James Sutton, was one of a new breed of landowners, benefitting from the proceeds of the boom in late eighteenth century trade and from local political influence. The house was a celebration of the dynamism and success of Georgian Devizes, built on its thriving wool trade. As neoclassicism became the defining style for the late eighteenth English country house, New Park, later re-named Roundway Park, perfectly represented the high ambition of the age, the product of the prestigious architect, James Wyatt, and landscape designer, Humphry Repton. Roundway continued to prosper in the Victorian and Edwardian eras under the ownership of the Colston family of Bristol fame. In 1938, on the death of Rosalind Colston, the first Lady Roundway, the house and estate were, on the surface, indistinguishable from their Victorian heyday. But just sixteen years later, the estate had been sold and the house largely demolished as the effects of family tragedy and the weight of social and economic change took their toll. The Forgotten Country House tells for the first time the story of Roundway's rise and fall, the people who built and owned it, lived and worked there, and the contribution they made to their local community. It paints a vivid picture of the lives of gentry families who far outnumbered their more aristocratic counterparts and who played a central role in the rural communities that characterised much of Britain up until the mid-twentieth century. Part family history, part love letter to the English country house, Simon Baynes draws on family papers and new research to pay a fitting, evocative tribute not just to his ancestors, but also to a lost world and the people who lived in it.

The acclaimed author of A Prayer for the Dying brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of tragedy and heroism-the great Hartford circus fire of 1944.

Halfway through a midsummer afternoon performance, Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus's big top caught fire. The tent had been waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline; in seconds it was burning out of control, and more than 8,000 people were trapped inside. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of survivors, O'Nan skillfully re-creates the horrific events and illuminates the psychological oddities of human behavior under stress: the mad scramble for the exits; the hero who tossed dozens of children to safety before being trampled to death.

Brilliantly constructed and exceptionally moving, The Circus Fire is history at its most compelling.

John Hinde was a pioneer of colour photography and one of the most successful postcard publishers in the world. His largest collection of postcards celebrated Ireland. He portrayed an island brightened by his imagination, a place where children were red-haired and freckled, the sun always shining, and the sky forever blue. His idealistic images were to become the stereotypical portrayal of Ireland for many years, and to this day elicit feelings of nostalgia from viewers worldwide. Return to Sender pairs Hinde's iconic, instantly recognisable postcards from the 1950s, '60s and '70s with corresponding contemporary photographs. The side-by-side contrast of these then-and-now photographs, wonderfully captured by photographer Paul Kelly, illustrates the ways Ireland's rural and urban landscapes have changed over the decades or, in some places, not changed at all.

In 1834 the weary missionary Jason Lee arrived on the banks of the Willamette River and began to build a mission to convert the local Kalapuya and Chinook populations to the Methodist Church. The denomination had become a religious juggernaut in the United States, dominating the religious scene throughout the mid-Atlantic and East Coast. But despite its power and prestige and legions of clergy and congregants, Methodism fell short of its goals of religious supremacy in the northwest corner of the continent. In A Country Strange and Far Michael C. McKenzie considers how and why the Methodist Church failed in the Pacific Northwest and how place can affect religious transplantation and growth. Methodists failed to convert local Native people in large numbers, and immigrants who moved into the rural areas and cities of the Northwest wanted little to do with Methodism. McKenzie analyzes these failures, arguing the region itself-both the natural geography of the place and the immigrants' and clergy's responses to it-was a primary reason for the church's inability to develop a strong following there. The Methodists' efforts in the Pacific Northwest provide an ideal case study for McKenzie's timely region-based look at religion.

Mention Staffordshire to most people and they immediately think of a county dominated by heavy industry. While it certainly has a rich industrial heritage - with the Potteries in the north and the iron ore, limestone and coal of the Black Country in the south - there are many more treasures to discover. This north Midlands county has a wealth of natural beauty; sweeping hills and valleys shape its magnificent landscape, which includes moorland, heathland and the Staffordshire Peak District. In this book, professional photographer Noel Bennett captures Staffordshire's diverse and dramatic landscapes. From the cities of Lichfield, Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford to the scenic villages, and the industrial heritage to the breathtaking countryside, Staffordshire in Photographs is an exceptional portrait of the county by a photographer who knows it well. Readers will discover the endless variety of scenery, the hidden delights and the well-loved places that make Staffordshire special.

Charles Henry Cooper charted over half a millennium of life at Cambridge in the Annals of Cambridge. Cooper practised as a solicitor in Cambridge, and was also town clerk from 1849 until his death in 1866. He was a keen historian and devoted a great deal of time to archival research, particularly into local history. Drawing on extensive public and private records, including petitions, town treasurers' accounts, restoration records, death certificates, legal articles and letters to ruling royalty, Cooper compiled a comprehensive chronological history of Cambridge, documenting the 'city of scholars' through its tumultuous political and religious growing pains. It was published in the face of considerable opposition from the university authorities, but was eventually acclaimed as an authoritative account. Volume 3, published in 1845, begins with the accession of James I, covers the Civil War and the Commonwealth, and ends in 1688 on the eve of the Glorious Revolution.

Enid Blyton first visited Dorset at Easter 1931 with her husband Hugh Pollock; she was aged 34 and pregnant with her first child. She would later return to spend many holidays in, and around the town of Swanage in South Dorset's Isle of Purbeck, together with her two daughters: Gillian (born 1931) and Imogen (born 1935), and later with her second husband Kenneth Darrell Waters.What was it about this particular region that would draw her back, time and time again, and what pursuits did she choose to follow whilst she was here? In order to find out, we accompany Enid as she walks, swims off Swanage beach, plays golf, takes the steam train to Corfe Castle, and the paddle-steamer to Bournemouth.Although Enid's stories were drawn from her imagination, this itself was fed and nurtured by external experiences - in the case of the 'Famous Five' books, largely by what she had seen in Dorset. Whereas it is probably futile to attempt to match a specific real life location with her fictitious ones, nevertheless it is a fascinating exercise to retrace her steps, and having done so, to reflect on those topographical features which might have impinged upon her subconscious (or what she called her 'under mind') whilst she was writing the stories. It is often the case that when an author bases his work on a certain place, the subsequent discovery by the reader of that place's true identity may come as a disappointment. Not so in this case, for the real life locations are equally as interesting and exciting as the nail biting adventures of 'The Famous Five' themselves

2022 Best Book Award, Oral History Association Hundreds of stories of activists at the front lines of the intersecting African American and Mexican American liberation struggle Not one but two civil rights movements flourished in mid-twentieth-century Texas, and they did so in intimate conversation with one another. Far from the gaze of the national media, African American and Mexican American activists combated the twin caste systems of Jim Crow and Juan Crow. These insurgents worked chiefly within their own racial groups, yet they also looked to each other for guidance and, at times, came together in solidarity. The movements sought more than integration and access: they demanded power and justice. Civil Rights in Black and Brown draws on more than 500 oral history interviews newly collected across Texas, from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods and everywhere in between. The testimonies speak in detail to the structure of racism in small towns and huge metropolises-both the everyday grind of segregation and the haunting acts of racial violence that upheld Texas's state-sanctioned systems of white supremacy. Through their memories of resistance and revolution, the activists reveal previously undocumented struggles for equity, as well as the links Black and Chicanx organizers forged in their efforts to achieve self-determination.

This is a guide to everything supernatural, paranormal, folkloric, eccentric and, above all, mysterious that has occurred on the dark waters of the enigmatic Loch Ness and the surrounding area of Inverness. Containing Celtic gods and martyrs, telepathy, exorcism and magic, mermaids, demons and saints (and based on texts both ancient and modern), it is a fascinating introduction to the heritage of the area. This is a guide that the armchair adventurer or the on-location visitor can revel in. Comprehensive entries covering Inverness' tombstones, simulacra, standing stones, gargoyles, ruins, churches and archaeological curiosities are complemented by more than 100 photographs. The book also includes notes and cross-references to enable the reader to follow up the sources.

This affectionate but far from sentimental history was published in 1961 to mark the 450th anniversary of the foundation of St John's College, Cambridge. Edward Miller (1915-2000) was a medieval historian who spent most of his career teaching in Cambridge. An undergraduate and research fellow at St John's, he later went on to become Master of Fitzwilliam. His Portrait blends the history of St John's with wider developments in education, as well as social, political and economic history. As such it is a fine example of an institutional history written from within, with an unbiased assessment of the many changes the College had seen. The chapter on the period from 1918 to the early sixties, based on Miller's own reminiscences and those of his colleagues, is an important record of life in the college in an age of modernisation and change.

Charles Henry Cooper charted over half a millennium of life at Cambridge in the five volumes of the Annals of Cambridge. Cooper practised as a solicitor in Cambridge, and was also town clerk from 1849 until his death in 1866. He was a keen historian and devoted a great deal of time to archival research, particularly into local history. Drawing on extensive public and private records, including petitions, town treasurers' accounts, restoration records, death certificates, legal articles and letters to ruling royalty, Cooper compiled a comprehensive chronological history of Cambridge, documenting the 'city of scholars' through its tumultuous political and religious growing pains. It was published in the face of considerable opposition from the university authorities, but was eventually acclaimed as an authoritative account. Volume 5 was published posthumously in 1908 and contains the annals for 1850 1856, together with additions, corrections and an index for the first four volumes.

Charles Henry Cooper charted over half a millennium of life at Cambridge in the five volumes of Annals of Cambridge. Cooper practised as a solicitor in Cambridge, and was also town clerk from 1849 until his death in 1866. He was a keen historian and devoted a great deal of time to archival research, particularly into local history. Drawing on extensive public and private records, including petitions, town treasurers' accounts, restoration records, death certificates, legal articles and letters to ruling royalty, Cooper compiled a comprehensive chronological history of Cambridge, documenting the 'city of scholars' through its tumultuous political and religious growing pains. It was published in parts, in the face of considerable opposition from the university authorities, but was eventually acclaimed as an authoritative account. This second volume, published in 1843, covers the Elizabethan period, from 1546 1601, and includes the founding of the University Press.