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History - British — page 6
762 public-domain history - british books, summarised. Page 6 of 16.
A History of Science
Henry Smith Williams
An expansive survey of human inquiry, this work traces the progression of empirical discovery from ancient foundational concepts to modern laboratory breakthroughs. It offers an engaging, accessible tour through the institutions, experiments, and figures that shaped modern thought.
The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, Being a Proof, with Moral Certitude, of the Authorship of the Document: Together with Some Account of the Whole Thirteen Gunpowder Conspirators, Including Guy Fawkes
Henry Spink
Behind a famous treason lies a thicket of regional ties, silent accomplices, and an anonymous note that exposed everything.
Boating
Walter Bradford Woodgate
A thorough manual on the art, history, and mechanics of rowing, this volume captures the Victorian devotion to athletic discipline and aquatic craftsmanship.
Hyde Park, Its History and Romance
Mrs. (Ethel) Alec-Tweedie
Centuries of British history, fashion, and social strife unfold across the single patch of royal green space known to London as Hyde Park.
The Tower of London, (Vol. 1 of 2)
Gower, Ronald Sutherland, Lord
The Tower of London is a somber, meticulously detailed chronicle of England’s most storied fortress. It serves as both a historical map and a witness to the shifting tides of power, betrayal, and state-sanctioned execution.
The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
The Dover Road is a sprawling, atmospheric inquiry into the history and character of the ancient highway connecting London to the sea. It blends local antiquities, social commentary, and literary reflection into a guided tour of the English landscape.
Merchantmen-at-arms
David W. (David William) Bone
The silent, perilous labor of the British merchant marine during the First World War serves as the backbone of global survival, transforming ordinary sailors into essential, albeit unsung, combatants.
A History of the Cries of London, Ancient and Modern
Charles Hindley
The air of a vanishing metropolis pulses through this collection, where the persistent, melodic, and sometimes grating shouts of street vendors capture the daily rhythm of a London long since lost to history.
The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the South
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
This chronicle traces the evolution of the road from London to Brighton, capturing the transition from the golden age of coaching to the dawn of the motor-car.
1914
French, John Denton Pinkstone, Earl of Ypres
A first-hand account of the opening months of the Great War, detailing the strategic movements, agonizing retreats, and critical command decisions of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.
King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855
E. Keble (Edward Keble) Chatterton
The war between the English Crown and the professional smuggler was a contest of wits, violence, and nautical skill that shaped the coastlines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In Byways of Scottish History
Louis A. Barbé
Forging paths into forgotten history, this collection reveals the human side of royal drama and forgotten feuds behind Scotland's historical narrative.
South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 4 (of 8): From Lord Roberts' Entry into the Free State to the Battle of Karree
Louis Creswicke
The British military machine grinds toward a fragile victory in the South African veldt, documenting a pivotal shift from stalemate to the occupation of Bloemfontein.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 09: European Statesmen
John Lord
Great history is not merely a record of battles and dates, but the study of the powerful figures who shape the destiny of nations. This volume examines the architects of the modern European order, from the chaos of the French Revolution to the rise and fall of empires.
Pickle the Spy
Andrew Lang
The hidden history of a Jacobite traitor reveals the slow, shadowed decay of a royal cause. It is an act of historical detection that unmasks a spy amidst the wreckage of a failed rebellion.
The Nineteenth and Their Times: Being an Account of the Four Cavalry Regiments in the British Army That Have Borne the Number Nineteen and of the Campaigns in Which They Served
J. (John) Biddulph
This chronicle traces the lineage and combat history of the four distinct cavalry regiments that carried the number nineteen in the British Army. It serves as a meticulous record of imperial service from the eighteenth to the late nineteenth century.
Thomas Hardy's Dorset
R. Thurston (Robert Thurston) Hopkins
The rolling hills and stone-built villages of Dorset offer a landscape where the ancient past remains vividly present, etched into the very soil and the speech of its people.
The Postage Stamp in War
Frederick John Melville
The history of a conflict can be written in ink and blood, but it is also recorded in the humble, perforated slips of paper that cross the front lines of the world.
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D
Jonathan Swift
This collection assembles the political reflections and historical observations of a master satirist, offering a window into the intense party rivalries and complex diplomacy that defined the twilight of the Stuart era.
The English Church in the Middle Ages
William Hunt
This account of the English Church traces the centuries-long struggle between ecclesiastical authority, the papacy, and the growing power of the English state. It follows the development of the Church as a national institution from the early Middle Ages through the rise of reformist pressures.
The Transvaal from Within: A Private Record of Public Affairs
Percy Fitzpatrick
This urgent, primary-source chronicle strips away the veneer of late-Victorian colonial politics to expose the simmering tensions, systemic corruption, and catastrophic miscalculations that triggered the collapse of peace in the South African Republic.
The Smugglers: Picturesque Chapters in the Story of an Ancient Craft
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
The illicit history of the British coast comes to life in this detailed account of the bold “free-traders” who defied the Crown for centuries. It captures a world where tea, brandy, and wool were worth more than human life.
Yarmouth Notes, 1830-1872. Collated from the File of the Norwich Mercury
Frederick Danby Palmer
A chronicle of local life in a Victorian coastal town, this collection captures the daily rhythm, political fervor, and peculiar social customs of Great Yarmouth across four transformative decades.
Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
Yorkshire is a land of singular characters, and this collection chronicles the lives of its most eccentric inhabitants, from local prophets and hermits to notorious thieves and self-taught engineers.
The Great Civil War in Lancashire (1642-1651)
Ernest Broxap
The struggle in Lancashire serves as a vivid microcosm of the English Civil War, tracing the rapid escalation from local tension to open, bloody conflict. This account captures the human cost of a deeply divided county.
Craven's Part in the Great War
John T. Clayton
The Great War was a crucible that forged the identity of a generation; this record preserves the names, sacrifices, and local history of the men who marched from the Craven district to meet it.
My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills
Johnstone, James, Sir
This memoir documents the rugged life of a British colonial administrator navigating the complex cultural landscapes and volatile border politics of the remote eastern frontier of India during the late nineteenth century.
Concerning the bi-literal cypher of Francis Bacon discovered in his works
Elizabeth Wells Gallup
A bold investigation claims that the Shakespearean canon hides a secret, encoded history, suggesting that Francis Bacon used a sophisticated typographical puzzle to reveal his true identity as a royal heir.
The Church of Grasmere: A History
Mary L. (Mary Louisa) Armitt
A meticulous archival reconstruction of an ancient Cumbrian landmark, tracing the survival of faith and community through the centuries.**
The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages
John Ashton
This historical chronicle unearths the forgotten layers of London’s Fleet district, where a polluted river, a notorious debtors' prison, and chaotic clandestine weddings once defined the city’s margins.
Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816: Publications of the Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX
Julian Stafford Corbett
Naval warfare is not merely the clash of cannons, but a rigid, evolving language of signals and formations designed to impose order upon the chaos of the open sea. This record captures the slow, intellectual transformation of British tactical doctrine from the erratic skirmishes of the sixteenth century to the…
Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle
Henry Noel Brailsford
This intellectual history traces the arc of radical hope in England, from the French Revolution’s initial promise to the ethereal, transformative poetry of a generation that dared to dream of a perfected human world.
The Great North Road, the Old Mail Road to Scotland: York to Edinburgh
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
This chronicle traces the historic Great North Road from York to Edinburgh, mapping a path through the coaching inns, legends, and vanished customs of a bygone era of travel.
The Rural Life of England
William Howitt
Deep within the English countryside lies an enduring rhythm, where ancient forests, secluded hamlets, and field-worn traditions reveal the heart of a nation’s rustic identity.
Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 2 (of 3)
Richard Bagwell
The sixteenth-century struggle for Ireland is a story of shifting allegiances and intractable conflict, where Tudor authority clashes with the stubborn independence of local chieftains. It captures a defining era of imperial expansion and resistance.
Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century: With Facsimiles, Notes, and Introduction
John Ashton
A nation’s popular imagination lives not in its elite treatises, but in the cheap, battered pamphlets peddled across the countryside to readers hungry for wonders, morals, and miracles.
The Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland. General Assembly
These official records trace a nation’s fierce struggle for religious self-determination, capturing the moment a Scottish church declared its independence from royal dictate and rebuilt its identity from the ground up.
Chronicles of Strathearn
Unknown
Deep in the valley of the River Earn, centuries of battle, faith, and local devotion shape a uniquely stubborn Scottish landscape.
Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Archibald Forbes
An eye-witness account of war and society across the nineteenth century, written with the clear-eyed vigor of a seasoned frontline correspondent.
Echoes of Old Lancashire
William E. A. (William Edward Armytage) Axon
A localized world of forgotten scoundrels, devout radicals, and ancient landed families comes alive through meticulous antiquarian research.
The Commune of London, and other studies
John Horace Round
An uncompromising, forensic dissection of medieval English history, this collection uses original charters and financial rolls to dismantle accepted myths of the Anglo-Norman era.
The Pirates of Malabar, and an Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago
J. (John) Biddulph
Every voyage to the Indian coast was a gamble with death, where European traders faced disease, treacherous waters, and relentless corsairs long before Britain ever established an empire.
The Sovereignty of the Sea: An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial Waters
Thomas Wemyss Fulton
Nations have long shed blood and spent fortunes to claim the open ocean, transforming the fluid, boundary-free waters into fiercely contested political territory.
English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (XIVth Century)
J. J. (Jean Jules) Jusserand
Fourteenth-century England lived on its highways, where pardoners, friars, merchants, and vagabonds forged a nation in motion.
The village labourer, 1760-1832: A study in the government of England before the Reform Bill
J. L. (John Lawrence) Hammond
Stripped of their traditional common rights by parliamentary enclosures, English agricultural workers were driven into poverty, criminalized by harsh laws, and met with brutal state repression when they dared to demand a living wage.
Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British Navy
A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
Through the lives of six exemplary admirals, a master military historian examines how tactical daring, rigid discipline, and professional character transformed the eighteenth-century Royal Navy into an invincible instrument of global sea power.
Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas
William Wood
Through centuries of storm and battle, the freedom of the global oceans has been bought and preserved by the unrelenting vigil of British sea-power.
Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway: from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester
Drake, James, active 1825
A journey through the heart of early industrial Britain shows how steam, steel, and speed reshaped a nation's landscape and daily life.