Topics are alphabetical

Click on a link in the topics list to be taken to the relevant article

Cumbrian and social history

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• 1910s

Alcohol

• gin, the Cumbrian connection
• drunkenness, the Georgian view
• beer prices in 1959 (and other drinks)

Animals

• Cute animals

Armstrong & Fleming, Penrith

Beds through the ages

Bicycle mania in 1869

Bonfire Night 1855

Burials – a Victorian public health risk

Christmas in Victorian Penrith

Coats of arms/heraldry

Crime

• see also punishments
• affray and riots in Kingstown
• the Anne Crellin abduction

The Cumberland & Westmorland Herald

The Port Carlisle Dandy]

Deaths

• Death roll in Penrith, 1895

Diseases and medicine in Georgian times

• Georgian medicine

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

Education

• Brunswick Square school, Penrith
• Carlisle Central School

Farming

• Fat stock and other prices in 1959

Fashion

• in 1893

First World War

• – 1918 deaths
• Brunswick Square Penrith
• the Pilkington brothers
• mustard gas
• Tom Telford
• Prisoners of war

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

• A Georgian household

Graffiti – historic

Haaf net fishing at Port Carlisle

Humour

• Victorian
• and here

Industrial Revolution (the), and occupations

Job titles old and new

Life expectancy in 1776 and 1845

Lodging houses and the spread of disease

Love –

• a breach of promise
• 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

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

• in the 1700s
• in the mid-1800s
• the treadmill
• and values

Railways

• The Yanwath railway explosion

Sanitation debated

• middens and rubbish
• Penrith Board of Health and the water closet furore

Science

• Astronomy and navigation

Slander in Stuart England

Slavery

• Robert Lowther

the Solway Artillery Range

Suicide – attitudes towards

superstitions

the telephone – an exciting discovery

Temperance theory

Theatre – Georgian

Thirlepolles – a mysterious ancient delicacy

Transport and travel

• First motor cars
• Travel in the 1700s

Twelfth Night and twelfth cakes

Unfortunate deaths – a few examples

Wages

• in 1843
• and 1844

Weather 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

• part one
• part two

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

• deodands

Manor courts

Manor fines

Old occupations

• Bellman
• Bonesetter

Poor Relief 

Wills and their uses for family history research