Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian was browsing through YouTube (yes, technology has reached even TH), looking for films of historical content and importance. No sign of any excerpts from The Young Mr Pitt on which there was a posting before.So, Laurence Olivier it has to be. There are many possibilities but here is one of Tory Historian's favourites: the St Crispin's Day speech. No, this is not the right day for it, but could anyone ever better Sir Larry in Shakespeare? He managed to make it sound like ordinary every-day spee...

Tory Historian has to plead ignorance of a rather curious coincidence: both Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Randolph Churchill, his father, died on January 24, seventy years apart. Lord Randolph died in 1895 at the age of 45. By this time his political career had turned to failure and his health steadily deteriorated, though whether it was tertiary syphilis that killed him, as it was believed for a long time, remains questionable.There is...

Tory Historian is back from Mitteleuropa and has finished reading the recent biography of Arthur Ransome by Roland Chambers, entitled for a rather inadequate reason, The Last Englishman. The reference is to the period immediately after the Bolshevik coup when Ransome was writing somewhat misleading letters to his mother describing himself as the last Englishman left in Petrograd or Moscow. Actually, there were quite a few still and new...

Tory Historian is off for a few days to the old K und K, otherwise known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Two days in Vienna, three in Budapest, then back to Vienna and London on Saturday evening. In the meantime, it may not be possible to post. This is a good opportunity for readers to take a hand and suggest a few ideas for what ought to be covered by this blog and the secondary one, meant to be for longer pieces, in the next few weeks. Offers of articles are encouraged. TH looks forward to some very interesting ide...

Tory Historian is a big sniffy about that dead tree media outlet that calls itself the Conservative History Journal and would like to see more discussion on the blog. Having sighted the lady who is described by many as the greatest Conservative (or any other) Prime Minister of the twentieth century yesterday evening, TH would like to ask readers for their opinions on who was the greatest Conservative Prime Minister in histo...

Temporarily, anyway, as a trip to Central Europe is looming next week. In the meantime, it is worth noting that today is the very sad anniversary of the day when we knew that there would be no more Christies for Christmas. Dame Agatha Christie, one of the greatest and certainly the most widely read detective story writer died on January 12, 1976, having written 83 books under her own name and that of Mary Westmacott. Tory Historian has...

Tory Historian would not be happy at my use of the "p" word but then I am not very happy at Tory Historian not posting for so long. Words will be exchanged.Anyway, I am proof-reading the Conservative History Journal, so progress is being made. It will be a corker, though I say so myse...