Modern England as we know it started in the industrial heart of Ironbridge in Shropshire- now a verdant gorge that once was black with smog, fire and slag heaps. Dan tries his hand at casting iron at one of the last working foundries in the country and gets the scoop on the scandals of Georgian high society with historian Catherine Curzon. The Regency period was a wild time of £15,000 pineapples, the marriage market and the tell-all memoir of a famous courtesan who named and shamed the Duke of Wellington. But the new wealth England experienced came at a price; Dan traces the dark history of Europe’s addiction to sugar and Britain’s slave trade, while actor Paterson Joseph recounts the powerful words of Black Georgians who spoke truth to Britain’s imperial power and fought for its abolition.
Dan goes back to the Victorian times at the Blists Hill Living Museum in Telford to discover just how gruelling work at the coalface of the industrial revolution was and how great ideas...and not so great ideas... changed the daily lives of Victorians with the help of Collections Curator Kate Cadman.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges. Edited and sound designed by Dougal Patmore and artwork by Teet Ottin.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Twelve Caesars with Mary Beard
Marshal Pétain: Hero or Traitor?
Merlin, The Occult and British Politics
The Dynasty That Made Medieval France
Why Are We Drawn to Dictators?
The Atomic Bomb & Civil War Cigars: Greatest 'What Ifs' from History
The Battle of Okinawa
The Original Kamikaze: The Mongol Invasions of Japan
The Kamikaze Hunters
The Kamikaze Pilots
Rwandan Genocide Explained
Pontius Pilate
The Battle of Crécy
Iran & Israel: From Allies to Enemies
Mao's China, The Berlin Wall and WWII Egypt: Witnessing History with Peter Snow
The Battle of El-Alamein Explained
The Trial of Charles I
What is Zionism?
Plagues
Hollywood Spy: The British WW1 Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbour
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
History Extra podcast
Gone Medieval
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Battleground
The Ancients