Topics are alphabetical
Click on a link in the topics list to be taken to the relevant article
Cumbrian and social history
Advertising
Alcohol
- gin, the Cumbrian connection
- drunkenness, the Georgian view
- beer prices in 1959 (and other drinks)
Animals
Armstrong & Fleming, Penrith
Beds through the ages
Bicycle mania in 1869
Bonfire Night 1855
Burials – a Victorian public health risk
Christmas
Coats of arms/heraldry
Crime
- see also punishments
- affray and riots in Kingstown
- the Anne Crellin abduction
- the Longburn murders
- the Dearham riot
- Sarah Nicholson, sinner and victim
The Cumberland & Westmorland Herald
The Port Carlisle Dandy]
Deaths
Diseases and medicine in Georgian times
Diseases and cures in Victorian times
- Quack medicines and ‘miracle cures’
- Scarlet fever in the 1800s
- Consumption, a far from romantic disease
- Bonesetter, a family occupation
- electrotherapy
- mental health
- cholera and other 1830s epidemics
Education
Farming
- Fat stock and other prices in 1959
- notice to quit in 1857
Fashion
Fire service
First World War
- – 1918 deaths
- Brunswick Square Penrith
- the Pilkington brothers
- mustard gas
- Tom Telford
- Prisoners of war
- food control (domestic rationing)
- High Hesket war memorial
Food and drink (alcohol: see A above)
- Food safety
- Frozen fish, a ‘Cumbrian discovery’
- Tea – a social history
Funerals
- The Bowness-on-Solway funeral bidder
- Victorian mourning
Furniture and furnishings
Graffiti – historic
Haaf net fishing at Port Carlisle
Humour
Industrial Revolution (the), and occupations
Jacobites 1745
Job titles old and new
Life expectancy in 1776 and 1845
Lodging houses and the spread of disease
Love –
- a breach of promise.
- and another
- dating advice in the 1840s
- Old maids and more 1840s advice
- near riot at a wedding
Maritime tragedies
- the SS West Cumberland
- the brig Robert Burns
- in early 1813
Militia
- the American invasion of Whitehaven
- Wicked Jimmy Lowther and the Westmorland Militia
Carlisle Museum
Mining – Wellington Pit
Need-fire – a Celtic tradition
New Year traditions down the centuries
Oil on troubled waters – a Cumbrian experiment
Pasche eggs – a Cumbrian tradition
Poetry/poets
Policing
- In the 1840s
Politics
- 1768 Lowther v Portland
- John Tweddle
- 1868 election riots
- 1884 Reform Act
Public houses – see the places index page
Punishments
Railways
- The Yanwath railway explosion
Sanitation debated
- middens and rubbish
- Penrith Board of Health and the water closet furore
Science
Slander in Stuart England
Slavery
Suicide – attitudes towards
the telephone – an exciting discovery
Temperance theory
Theatre – Georgian
Thirlepolles – a mysterious ancient delicacy
Transport and travel
- For the Carlisle Canal and/or Carlisle to Port Carlisle railway, see the Places index page
- First motor cars
- Travel in the 1700s
Twelfth Night
Unfortunate deaths – a few examples
Wages
Weather
- in 1822 and 1827
- in 1881
Wedding customs in the 18th-19th centuries
Window tax or duty
Winter solstice, 1893
Workhouse life and food supplies
Family history tips and advice
Assumptions, the danger of
Bankruptcy and family history resources
Christian names and family history
Cumbrian surnames
Births and other records after 1837
Death certificates and their uses
Divorce and separation
Fake ghost proves the importance of sound research
Perils on online family trees
Inquests
Manor fines
Old occupations
Piecing lives together from sources
Wills and their uses for family history research
