So I’m writing a book. Why? There are already many histories of the German air raids on Britain in the First World War: in my proposal, I listed eleven published since the 1980s alone, and even that is hardly exhaustive. Many of these are excellent — Ian Castle’s books, in particular, are required reading on […]
I am delighted to announce that I have signed an advance contract with Cambridge University Press((Founded in 1534. Just sayin’…)) to publish my next book, currently entitled Home Fires Burning: Emotion, Spectacle, and Britain’s First War from the Air, in their Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare series. Here’s a one
The ostensible purpose of the Air Services Exhibition was to raise money for ‘the FLYING SERVICES HOSPITALS’ and ‘VISCOUNT FRENCH’S WAR CHARITIES’, as you can see in the poster above. But those laudable aims didn’t mean it wasn’t also propaganda (as you can also see in the poster above). And, despite the name of the
So if I had been able to go back in time and visit the Air Services Exhibition at the People’s Palace on Mile End Road in November 1917, what would I have seen? Well, there are some photos extant. The one above gives a general idea of the exhibition space.
This advertisement, which appeared in the East Ham and South Essex Mail on 2 November 1917, excited my curiosity. An exhibition of German aircraft… held in the East End of London… just after the Harvest Moon raids? I’m there! Or would be if time travel was a thing. As it’s not (yet…) I’ll have to
A great image found by @100YearsAgoLive of ‘bombing by wireless’ in 1921: The question of aerial armaments will be discussed at the Washington Conference, and it is as well for us, while hoping for the best results from the conclave of the nations, to realise some of the terrifying developments in aerial warfare to which
I have a short, non-peer-reviewed article about Trove bots coming out in History Australia as part of a special issue on Trove; the advanced access version has just been published. Here’s the abstract: Like many other historians I use Trove for both targeted searches and exploratory ones, which in itself has revolutionised my historical research
So how can we find out the identity of the mysterious Señor Alvares? The press is no help; I’ve checked British Newspaper Archive, Gale NewsVault, Chronicling America, Gallica, and Trove. The aeronautical press is no better, since 1904 is before Flight or Aeroplane. All I can find is that he was a Brazilian called Alvares,
Here is what I’ve been able to reconstruct about the Alvares flying machine. Firstly, nothing about Alvares himself, except that he was a Brazilian, who was said to have successfully carried out experiments with smaller gliders in his home country for some 18 years.((Manchester Evening News, 17 September 1904, 3; Daily Mirror (London), 17 September
A few weeks back, @TroveAirBot found a short article from the Port Lincoln, Tumby and West Coast Recorder entitled ‘Dropped From the Clouds’: A balloon which ascended from the Welsh Harp, Hendon, on October 14 [1904], carried with it into the clouds a large flying machine. As no one was in the car of the
