Cumbrian Characters doesn’t touch much on Georgian Cumbria. Mainly because it’s easier to find information on the 19th century. Births, marriages and deaths were standardised as a civil matter...Read More
Georgian medicine: introduction The best way to live a long and healthy life is stay away from doctors and never take medicine. Such was the philosophy of a relative of mine who made it to 94, before ...Read More
Georgian living: 1791 In 1791, George III was on the throne. His son Frederick, Duke of York, married Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia. Composer Joseph Haydn arrived in England. And the Ordna...Read More
A post for Saturday July 20, 2019: the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing. A trawl through local newspapers in the late 1700s show Cumbrians were interested in the heavens. And one Cumbrian Ch...Read More
In a previous post, I looked at the 18th century craze for gin. And how a Cumbrian Character – George Smith, of Kendal – published a ‘how to’ guide for setting up a small commercial still. Sm...Read More
‘Cumbrian gin’ as a search term pulls up some tempting modern offerings. But did you know a Kendal distiller wrote a best-selling book about it in 1725? Gin is in. According to a feature i...Read More
Georgian medicine wasn’t so much ‘kill or cure’ as ‘kill or do very little’. With nothing resembling quality control, or advertising standards, you could peddle any old c...Read More