Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian's attention was called to a review in the Wall Street Journal of a book that will be borrowed from London Library at the first possible opportunity: Joel Mokyr's The Enlightened Economy. The reviewer, Trevor Butterworth who is the editor of STATS.org and a columnist for Forbes.com, thinks this is the tome that should be read by all those who are interested in financial and economic matters.The theme of the books is a question: why, of all European countries, many as advanced if not more so, it was Britain that...

On July 30, 1990 Ian Gow, Conservative MP, a strong opponent of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, an erstwhile close friend and colleague of Airey Neave's, a man who worked closely with the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was assassinated by a bomb planted under his car in his constituency. Direct violence entered British politics again as it had done with the assassination of Airey Neave.In the Guardian Jonathan Aitken and Edward Pearce called...

David Torrance, author of the book about Noel Skelton that so fortuitously arrived in the post the other day, has an article in the Scottish edition of The Times (channelled here by his publisher BiteBack). He writes about the hero of his book, a man who was a Unionist, Scottish and British, a Conservative and the man who saw clearly the importance of property-owning democracy, which is the exact opposite of socialist re-distribution by the state in whatever fo...

The poet, essayist, MP, irascible Catholic, Hilaire Belloc was born on July 27, 1870 in France but became a British subject in 1902. There are so many aspects to Belloc's life, some less pleasant than others that only a very long posting would do anything like justice to the man. It seems wrong on his birthday to do anything but to celebrate him as a poet but it is difficult to decide on the poems, those well-known and delightful children's...

Since the sixtieth anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War (too often forgotten by commentators) was marked by Tory Historian, it is worth pointing out that it ended on July 27, 1953 with the signing of a peace agreement at Panmunjom. It lasted three years and cost around 5 million liv...

... a very interesting looking book by David Torrance, a previous contributor to the Conservative History Journal, about Noel Skelton and property-owning democracy. Once I have read it I shall try to interview David for the Journal or the bl...

Tory Historian remembers this very well, indeed. One of the great non-events of the year, for which we may be thankful, though questions were raised at the police handling of the planned but failed second series of blasts on the London tu...

Tory Historian returns with a round-up of recent finds in the historical and archaeological world.Of greatest interest to TH is this collection of Victorian photographs of golfers playing at St Andrews.Ladies are pictured wearing enormous frocks and wielding their clubs while spectators look on.The women were playing for the Ladies' Monthly Medal in September 1884 and the clubhouse can be seen in the background.The distinctive sandy beach...

The Battle of Britain began on July 10, 1940.The day was characterised by convoy raids off North Foreland and Dover. During the night, the east coast, home counties and western Scotland were attacked. The weather was showery in the southeast and Channel, with continuous rain elsewhere.Germany was not really in a position to invade though people may be forgiven for thinking so at the time. The Battle of Britain was the first real set-back...

July 7, 2005 London - four suicide bombers blow up three underground trains and a ...

Tory Historian was intrigued to find this quotation from the Economist of May 3, 1845 on the subject of Sir Robert Peel's Bank Charter Act:It is because we feel strongly that the interference of Parliament, under the pretext of supplying prudence, and regulating the interests and responsibilities of commerce in any way, has always proved a serious failure, and a miserable substitution for that individual caution which it is so well calculated to supplant, that we feel bound to oppose such legislation generally. And particularly...