@rorymuir.bsky.social
British History - Wellington; the Defeat of Napoleon; Regency Society, careers open to younger sons; Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen (Yale UP Feb 2024) Lives in Adelaide Hills, South Australia
A very entertaining and interesting article that shows the trouble that ‘dull’ garrison life could breed among young officers…
Congratulations - and thanks for some welcome if unsurprising news
In our next free online talk, on 16 February, Dr Nicola Martin will be speaking about how the British Army's experience of pacifying the Scottish Highlands after the '45 Rising helped shape its approach to dissent in the Americas three decades later.
Register at my.demio.com/ref/sknZMpZz...
Good luck, though I’m sure it will go well. And won’t it feel good to put it behind you? (Not the thesis, let alone the Fencibles, but the viva…)
There's a lot going on the world, but I was glad to see an article of mine published in the @jbritishstudies.bsky.social
Read about Shadrack Byfield, an English War of 1812 veteran who buried his own arm, designed a custom prosthesis, and wrote multiple memoirs: doi.org/10.1017/jbr....
Awww thank you - that’s a nice, unexpected Christmas present
Merry Christmas to all and thank you to the Society and all the contributors - I really enjoy these personal recommendations of favourite books on particular subjects.
An old blog about Christmas in the Peninsula.
daringdutycunningplans.wordpress.com/2019/12/02/c...
Thrilled to have been invited back by the @napwarspod.bsky.social to finally discuss my thesis. As Zack said, I am clearly post-submission: how I see the fencibles and their place in the period has changed so much in 4 years
For the better, if I do say so myself 😅
open.spotify.com/episode/0Xz2...
🙄
The British Army and the American War, 1775-83: Fresh Perspectives
Saturday 14 March 2026
Please save the date for our forthcoming conference to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence and the British Army’s doomed efforts to prevent it.
Details at www.sahr.org.uk/view-event.p...
Very pleased my life of Wellington is included in this list - thank you
Sad news…
That is very sad - such a good historian. Thanks for letting us know.
Story of two First World War letters home from Australian soldiers on board ship headed to Europe found in a bottle on a West Australian beach. #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #Anzac
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...
Hi Sam, glad you’ve been enjoying it and hope that Yale will sort it out for you.
😂
Yes, I understand the staff just opened the door and gently ushered it out and it climbed a nearby tree.
Unexpected visitor to a suburban library in Adelaide last night
In this sample article from our Journal, Pete Starling looks at a scheme from the 1850s to train young African men as medical officers for Sierra Leone: www.sahr.org.uk/docs/shar-boys-of-colour-draft-sahrs1120.pdf
Join us to get access to over 400 Journal issues: www.sahr.org.uk/membership.php
Thanks - I’ve read Robin’s (he was my tutor at Uni of Adelaide eons ago), but will look out the Peden and anticipate David French’s volume … and yours too
Is there a good single volume book on British grand strategy in the Second World War? The weight of the official history is more than a little daunting …
Yes, references to cats as pets seem very rare, though I did find one to an eccentric bachelor - a Scottish lawyer - who kept lots, that I included in Love and Marriage
I wish that there was more about Wellington and his dogs, but it wasn’t a subject that got recorded much at the time
Memoirs of George Elers (New York, 1903) p 274
In 1836 George Elers, who had known Wellington in India forty years before, tried to palm off an unwanted St Bernard dog onto the Duke. (Elers had inherited the dog from a friend and had already tried unsuccessfully to give it to a lady who had jilted the friend). Wellington’s reply was concise.
Thanks Rob, very encouraging to see it out in the wild especially here in the remote antipodes!
Our friends at the Army Records Society have launched another round of their fellowship programme, which offers funding over three years to create a volume in their long-running primary source series. Details at www.smh-hq.org/opps/jobs.html.
Thanks to Owen Davis for a lovely review of King George’s Army Vol 2 (Foot Guards and 1-30 Foot). Vol 3 is out now, and Vol 4 not too far away.
#napoleonic #history #helion
www.napoleon-series.org/book-reviews...
Look forward to June!
Here is a list of new #nonfiction #books about the #18thcentury scheduled for next month:
regency-explorer.net/new-releases/
#Regency #Napoleon #history #JaneAusten #read