Regency Cheshire explores the scandals, sports, and pastimes of the great county families such as the Grosvenors of Eaton Hall. Their glittering lifestyle is contrasted with conditions for humble farmers and factory workers. The gentry and mill owners created elegant new villas and beautiful gardens while workers huddled together in slums with inadequate sanitation. The Prince Regent and his cronies danced and feasted while cotton and silk workers starved. Cheshire's rural tranquility was under siege; smoke belched out over the textile and salt towns. Stage coaches rattled through the streets; packet boats and barges sailed down the canals. The author traces the changes in the county's transport system and the effect on its chief industries: silk, cotton, salt, and cheese. Reform and revolution threatened the old social order. Blood was spilt on city streets during election fever and in the struggle for democracy. Napoleon's forces were poised to invade—but Cheshire troops battled their own countrymen instead of marauding Frenchmen. Balls and bear-baiting; highwaymen and hangings; riots and reform: Regency Cheshire tells the story of county life during the age of Beau Brummell, Walter Scott, and Jane Austen.

Regency Cheshire

History

Wilkes, Sue

Europe

Robert_Hale

Sue Wilkes tells the story of the long, heartbreaking fight for reform, not only to improve youngsters' working conditions and opportunities for education, but also to change society's attitudes towards childhood.

The Children History Forgot: Young Workers of the Industrial Age

Young Workers of the Industrial Age: Child Labour in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Business & Money

Economics

Pen and Sword History

For readers with family ties to Manchester and Salford, and researchers delving into the rich history of these cities, this informative, accessible guide will be essential reading and a fascinating source of reference. Sue Wilkes outlines the social and family history of the region in a series of concise chapters. She discusses the origins of its religious and civic institutions, transport systems and major industries. Important local firms and families are used to illustrate aspects of local heritage, and each section directs the reader towards appropriate resources for their research. No previous knowledge of genealogy is assumed and in-depth reading on particular topics is recommended. The focus is on records relating to Manchester and Salford, including current districts and townships, and sources for religious and ethnic minorities are covered. A directory of the relevant archives, libraries, academic repositories, databases, societies, websites and places to visit, is a key feature of this practical book.

Tracing Your Manchester and Salford Ancestors (Tracing your Ancestors)

Pen and Sword Family History

Every family historian has child ancestors, and childhood experiences and records are an essential aspect of research into a past life. That is why Sue Wilkes’s detailed and accessible handbook is such a useful guide for anyone who is trying to find out about the early years of their forbears. In Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood, she explores the history of childhood and education and brings together information about relevant records and archives into one handy reference guide. She outlines ancestors’ childhood experiences at home, school, work and in institutions, especially during Victorian times.In the opening chapter, she reviews basic family history sources, and then she discusses records of childhood in detail. Specialist archives, published sources, recommended reading and other resources and documents are covered.  She focuses primarily on England and Wales and covers the years 1750–1950.     The second part of her book is a directory of archives and specialist repositories. Databases of children’s societies, useful genealogy websites, and places to visit which bring the social history of childhood to life are all included.

Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood

Immerse yourself in the vanished world inhabited by Austen’s contemporaries. Packed with detail, and anecdotes, this is an intimate exploration of how the middle and upper classes lived from 1775, the year of Austen’s birth, to the coronation of George IV in 1820. Sue Wilkes skillfully conjures up all aspects of daily life within the period, drawing on contemporary diaries, illustrations, letters, novels, travel literature and archives. Were all unmarried affluent men really 'in want of a wife'? Where would a young lady seek adventures? Would ‘taking the waters’ at Bath and other spas kill or cure you? Was Lizzy Bennet bitten by bed-bugs while traveling? What would you wear to a country ball, or a dance at Almack’s? Would Mr Darcy have worn a corset? What hidden horrors lurked in elegant Regency houses? Put on your dancing gloves and embrace a lost era of corsets and courtship!

A Visitor's Guide to Jane Austen's England

An Age of Revolutions:Sue Wilkes uncovers the hidden histories of Regency spies and the men they hunted. Eavesdrop on the secret meetings of Britain's underground political societies of the 1790s and early 1800s. Discover the true stories behind the riots, rebellions, and treason trials in late Georgian Britain.Regency Spies explores the plots, intrigues and perils of those thrilling times:* Wolfe Tone's ambitious plan to free Ireland from British rule* Luddites incite arson and machine-breaking in Britain's industrial heartlands* The doomed Pentrich uprising of 1817* The race to stop the 1820 plot to murder cabinet ministers and seize control of the capital Sue Wilkes reveals the shadowy world of Britain's spies, rebels and secret societies from the late 1780s until 1820. Drawing on contemporary literature and official records, Wilkes unmasks the real conspirators and tells the tragic stories of the unwitting victims sent to the gallows. In this 'age of Revolutions', when the French fought for liberty, Britain's upper classes feared revolution was imminent. Thomas Paine's incendiary Rights of Man called men to overthrow governments which did not safeguard their rights. Were Jacobins and Radical reformers in England and Scotland secretly plotting rebellion? Ireland, too, was a seething cauldron of unrest, its impoverished people oppressed by their Protestant masters. Britain's governing elite could not rely on the armed services - even Royal Navy crews mutinied over brutal conditions. To keep the nation safe, a 'war chest' of secret service money funded a network of spies to uncover potential rebels amongst the underprivileged masses. It had some famous successes: dashing Colonel Despard, friend of Lord Nelson, was executed for treason. Sometimes in the deadly game of cat-and-mouse between spies and their prey suspicion fell on the wrong men, like poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. Even peaceful reformers risked arrest for sedition. Political meetings like Manchester's 'Peterloo' were ruthlessly suppressed, and innocent blood spilt. Repression bred resentment - and a diabolical plot was born. The stakes were incredibly high: rebels suffered the horrors of a traitor's death when found guilty. Some conspirators' secrets died with them on the scaffold...

Regency Spies: Secret Histories of Britain’s Rebels and Revolutionaries

Britain’s industrial revolution depended on canals for the cheap movement of materials and goods – until the coming of the railways. Canal companies struggled to compete and went into a long decline, but much of the canal network is still with us today, and interest in the history and heritage of canals - and those who worked on them - is strong. That is why Sue Wilkes’s well researched and highly readable handbook on the subject is so valuable.She concentrates on the people who lived and worked on the waterways – the canal boatmen, their families and their way of life - and those who depended on the canal trade for a living – the lock-keepers, toll collectors, and canal company clerks. She provides a thorough, practical guide to the sources – the archives, books, websites, societies – available for researchers if they are studying our inland waterways, or trying to find out about an ancestor who worked on the canals or was connected with them.Her book is essential reading for anyone interested in this aspect of the industrial past.

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians (Tracing your Ancestors)

If you want to find out about Lancashire‘s history, and particularly if you have family links to the area and your ancestors lived or worked in the county, then this is the ideal book for you. As well as helping you to trace when and where your ancestors were born, married and died, it gives you an insight into the world they knew and a chance to explore their lives at work and at home. Sue Wilkes’s accessible and informative handbook outlines Lancashire’s history and describes the origins of its major industries - cotton, coal, transport, engineering, shipbuilding and others. She looks at the stories of important Lancashire families such as the Stanleys, Peels and Egertons, and famous entrepreneurs such as Richard Arkwright, in order to illustrate aspects of Lancashire life and to show how the many sources available for family and local history research can be used. Relevant documents, specialist archives and libraries, background reading and other sources are recommended throughout this practical book. Also included is a directory of Lancashire archives, libraries and academic repositories, as well as databases of family history societies, useful genealogy websites, and places to visit which bring Lancashire’s past to life. Sue Wilkes’s book is the essential companion for anyone who wants to discover their Lancashire roots.

Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors (Tracing your Ancestors)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilkes, Sue. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wilkes, Sue