Clay Lane
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Clay Lane’
Allan Quartermain goes in search of a lost tourist and a legendary hoard of diamonds.
‘King Solomon’s Mines’ was published in 1885, and written in open admiration of Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’. It is recognised as spawning the ‘lost world’ genre of novels and movies, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger stories to ‘Indiana Jones’.
The story of the once magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, the city God chose for Israel’s capital.
All that remains of the Temple in Jerusalem is a 187ft section of the western wall, after the rest was destroyed during a rebellion against the Roman Empire in AD 66-74; the heart of the ruined Temple Mount is now occupied by a mosque. The Temple’s history reaches back to the tenth century BC and King Solomon, who first built a House for Israel’s God to dwell among his people.
The invention of the steamboat was a formidable challenge not just of engineering, but of politics and finance.
Steam power came to rivers and lakes even before it came to railways. Exactly who was ‘first’ is often debated, but the short answer is that a Frenchman was the first to try it, a Scotsman was the first to make it work, and an American was the first to make a profit from it.
All but forgotten today, the RCH was one of the most important steps forward in British industrial history.
The humble Railway Clearing House (RCH) brought real co-operation to Victorian Britain’s many different private railway companies, and gave yet further impetus to the country’s accelerating industrial revolution. Its success should be a reminder to private companies that they and their passengers actually share very similar interests.
Thomas Wright never earned more than a foreman’s wage, but he helped hundreds of prisoners back into society.
Thomas Wright (1789-1875) was an ordinary Manchester workman who dedicated his life to helping former prisoners back into society, all on his own time and using his own money. Yet he never earned much over £150 a year, roughly £15,000 today.