Recent content by Stokkie

@gemma I've looked at the registers of Napoleonic POWs on Find My Past and can't find him, I'm afraid. These are alphabetical and hand written in ink. Some of the names are out of order, but they do contain civilians as well as seamen and soldiers. I think given the large numbers of other ranks...

A shout out for Jez Collins's Birmingham Music Archive which celebrates the popular music of all genres of Birmingham. https://birminghammusicarchive.com/index.php/about-bma/

True - but not the end of the story. Boney was exiled on Elba in 1814, but he escaped in February 1815 and reassumed control of France for around one hundred days.He was finally defeated at the battle of Waterloo in June 1815 and this time exiled to the more inaccessible island of St Helena...

Gemma, you say in your first post: Every prisoner was released in 1814 at the end of the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon was hostile to prisoner exchanges or early release as he thought that this would simply free men to attack France.

Besides soldiers or sailors, merchant seamen and civilians were detained as prisoners of war. Officers and 'gentleman travellers' on both sides might be paroled, but the common men had a tougher time of it. J. David Markham describes their lot in the final paragraph of his paper...

Thanks Gemma, we will see what we can find. Good luck! Stokkie

The French Revolutionary Wars lasted from 1792 until 1802. There's a short peace, then the Napoleonic Wars https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/napoleonic-wars-timeline/. So yes, your ancestor would be a soldier or a sailor if he was a prisoner of war in 1810. In that year the French...

George Whitefield preaching. [Wikipedia no restrictions] Selina, Countess of Huntingdon was his patron. Their brand of Calvinist Methodism focussed on personal revelation, Bible reading and preaching and religious conversion. The pulpit rather than the altar being the focal point perhaps...

William Shenstone (1714- 1763) was a poet, but is now chiefly remembered for his Landscape Architecture, he created Leasowes Park https://theleasowes.co.uk which can be visited for free and which many of us may remember as 'Bluebell Dell' from our childhood. The Leasowes has been restored in...

Thanks Warren. Monzo was accepted by my bank without any issues. Thanks for keeping us going.

Hi Warren, The Donate via Paypal link above didn't work today. Will try Monzo. Success!

Yes, either Joseph Priestley or James Watt it isn't clear yet. The other plinth is under construction at the other end of Ratcliff Passage near the reclining bronze figure of Thomas Attwood. So there will be a set of statues there.

The George Shaw photographic exhibition can now be seen on Paradise Street across the road from the Town Hall. It is worth seeing though awkwardly placed on a narrow busy pavement.

Plinth at Paradise St end of Ratcliff Passage.

I was curious about the location of Ratcliff Passage, so being in the city on Tuesday evening, I went to have a look. It runs between the Town Hall and Three Chamberlain Square, a towering red construction which is really too close to the Town Hall. The plinths for the statues are constructed...