Cultural

Sir Robert Peel: Patron of The Arts

“The son of a cotton millionaire scouring the auction rooms of Europe and building lavishly in the latest architectural style,” the Tory leader was a highly representative early nineteenth-century figure. By J. Mordaunt Crook.

Public Opinion Comes of Age: Reform of the Libel Law in the Eighteenth Century

A series of cases over a period of sixty years had raised the question of whether juries could pronounce on the substance of charges of libel and sedition or merely on the facts of publication. H.M. Lubasz writes how Fox’s Libel Act of 1791 put an end to doubt and thereby admitted the public to a larger vote in political affairs.

The Birth of the Dictionary

Among Johnson’s principal aims, he wrote, was to produce a volume, ‘for the use of such as aspire to exactness of criticism or elegance of style’. H.P. Collins assesses whether he succeeded.

The BBC and the General Strike

Stephen Usherwood describes how the crisis of 1926, which silenced the British Press, was a challenge to the broadcasting authorities.

Offenbach

Joanna Richardson describes how after he had moved to Paris, Jacques Offenbach, the son of a cantor at the synagogue in Cologne, created an operatic epitome of the Second Empire.