Of Chloroform & Ether, 1847

Of Chloroform & Ether, 1847

Prior to the 1840s, giving birth to a child, or having a limb amputated, or a bullet extracted, or tooth removed, all had one thing in common. Profound levels of pain. To the immense good fortune of future generations, humanity worked out how to rectify or...
Werner Siemens & the Gutta-Percha Tree

Werner Siemens & the Gutta-Percha Tree

In the summer of 1847 the young German army engineer Werner Siemens secures a contract from the Prussian Army to lay a subterranean telegraph line insulated, at his suggestion, by sap from the Malaysian gutta-percha tree. By October the innovative genius has...
Art of 1847

Art of 1847

                                                             ...
Spike Island –  Australian Convicts & the Vagrancy Act

Spike Island – Australian Convicts & the Vagrancy Act

Between 1787 and 1868, over 30,000 Irish men and 9,000 Irish women were transported to the Australian colonies as convicts. The vast majority were held at Spoke Island before they departed for exile from Cobh, the County Cork seaport which had been renamed Queenstown...
Hugh Gough – Of Opium Wars & the Punjabi Sikhs

Hugh Gough – Of Opium Wars & the Punjabi Sikhs

Hugh Gough commanded in more battles than any other British soldier of the nineteenth century save for his fellow Irishman, the Duke of Wellington. This included his victories in the Opium War and the Anglo-Sikh Wars. His mother was a Bunbury. Become a member of...