Spanning 250 years and six generations of one family, these mini-biographies cover a period of dramatic change in British history from the Georgian period up to the twentieth century.


Among the characters are a country vicar who founded a popular Welsh seaside resort, a poet who rose to become New Zealand’s prime minister, a philanthropic banker from Rochdale who bust the bank, a professor of medicine and friend of the poor who became Birmingham’s first coroner, a community of wool-producing families at the cutting edge of the industrial revolution in West Yorkshire, a Staffordshire country estate owner who married an ex-parlour maid and became embroiled in a famous trial, a Scottish sea captain who voyaged around the world in the service of the East India Company, a religious merchant from Glasgow with links to slave-owners, a young girl’s recollections of rural life in early nineteenth century Calderdale, and a prison governor and explorer who helped found modern Brisbane but was murdered by aborigines in Australia. The final section tells the story of men and women who lived through two world wars and the dying days of the British empire.


Meticulously researched, copiously illustrated, and written in a clear readable style, the book will appeal to those interested in recent British history and the lives of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.