The Volunteers at the Kent Battle of Britain Museum Trust at Hawkinge (www.kbobm.org) are looking for a King George VI Period Pillar Post Box to be displayed alongside our King George VI 'K6' Telephone Box within the Museum Grounds.

Can you help????

The museum has emailed the Royal Mail / Post Office PR Department several weeks back but as yet has not had a response. Does anyone reading this know who to speak to within the Post Office to see if they would consider donating one to us as a Registered Charity?

We are sure there are yards around the country full of wartime period Pillar Post Boxes that could do with a new home and some love and attention.

If we can find and acquire one, then it is the volunteers' intention to produce a range of Museum Postcards that next year you can purchase, together with a stamp, from the Museum Shop.

If you wish, you can then write your postcard to yourself or one of your friends, post it in the Museum Pillar Post Box before you leave. Later in the day the postcards will be franked / stamped with a 'Kent Battle of Britain Museum Trust - RAF Hawkinge' stamp and then dropped into the Royal Mail Post Box at the Museum Gates and a few days later you and your friends can have a very personal souvenir of your visit!

We just need to find a Period Pillar Post Box to achieve this!

If you work for the Royal Mail / Post Office or know who to speak to, can you kindly email Dave (Museum Curator) at info@kbobm.org

Many thanks in advance!

I was looking to learn more especially about the early 18th century in Britain as bar the odd stand out event like Hannoverian succession, Walpole, Act of Union etc, post-1688 until 1770s it's one of those periods where my knowledge is pretty sparse and I've not come across anything substantial content wise. Any suggestions? Ta

Hello. I'm an avid history enthusiast from the US and I just listening to the amazing audiobook, 'The Eagle and the Hart" by Helen Castor.

She mentions several times in the book that John of Gaunt wore a necklace that was a symbol of the House of Lancaster. The necklace was a series of connected "S"s. I've seen this necklace in portraits of other people too. Wikipedia basically says that no one is sure but it could have something to do with the motto "Souvent me souvien" (think of me often).

Does anyone hear know what the S's stand for? Also, why did the Lancasters have that motto?

I'm studying A-Level history and while I can find some good historians on my Russia module such as Orlando Figes, I can't say the same for my other module which is on Britain, more specifically "Britain: Industrialisation and the people, 1783-1885". Books obviously don't need to be stuck to that guideline and can cover a shorter period of time too, as long as it's around that time period. For context I have researched and tried to find some books on Britain but the only one I can find is "A short History of England" by Simon Jenkins, which I'm sure will have some brief details on my time period and some context about Britain previously, but definitely not as specific Orlando Figes on Russia for example.

I've been pondering the whole political refrain from both major parties, that the other side will "take us back to the seventies". This idea that Britain was in hoc to a bureaucratic union class. Living standards were awful and that everything felt a bit like Hoxhas Albania!

The last real stuff I read on post war britain was Dominic Sandbrook who comes from a sort of whiggish softly pro thatcher perspective. From what I can gather in Sandbrooks telling everything builds up to britain needing a reset in the 80s. Did it? It can't have been that awful?

Are there any books that refute the idea it was all doom gloom and bureaucratic alienation?

I'm going to check out That Option No Longer Exists by John Medhurst which is from a socialist perspective. And I believe Andy Becketts When the Lights Went Out is similar and will also check that out.

I mean maybe it was all just consistently bad- but I can't get a clear read on post war britain? Like how far is it the sick man of europe and this total outlier? Comparatively were the seventies in Britain that different to anywhere else?

Can anyone reccomend any books that maybe balance the period a bit better? I mean I've got family alive who have fond memories of different aspects if the seventies?

But reading sandbrook with a critical eye I feel it's all a bit the decade of crisis.

I discovered the idea about turning the British Empire into an Imperial Federation while the web. But what exactly did the proposal for an Imperial Federation entail? How would it work in theory? And why wasn't it implemented?

Hi, I am currently doing a research project on Hippie culture in the UK. But I want to make sure I really dig down into the specif impact this movement had on UK history. Although it originated from the US, it flourished differently across different countries.

Does anyone know what was fundamental aspects of Hippie culture in the UK? What impacts did it have on the country? How did it start over there?

Thank you so much fo the help!! (Also, I apologize for any mistakes, English is not my first language).

Hi, not sure if I’m in the right sub, I’m Australian and I was speaking to my father in law today who was born and raised in Brum, he was telling me of his grandmother who was in her 90’s in the late 1960’s. He said she had the alphabet tattooed up her forearm. I was just wondering if anyone knows what this would signify and what kind of woman had visible tattoos that long ago? Cheers.

I read that after the collapse of Roman Britain, an industry arose amongst Britons from scavenging the Roman ruins for artefacts and treasures.

Do we have a lot of information about how this worked and the treasures that people found most valuable at the time? Where did scavengers sell their treasures, for example?

If anyone could please recommend articles or books on the topic, I would be grateful.

I found it hard to Google properly, as I mostly get information about Roman hoards we've found in modern times.

I'm doing biographical research, primarily between 1880 and 1950, and was hoping there might be a online archive of digitized newspapers from the UK from this time period. Does anyone know about a site like that? Thanks in advance!

A philosophical question, no right or wrong answer.

But often perceived poor Kings or queens that made errors, often help bring in indirect legislation to improve the UK.

For example King John indirectly brought in Magna Carta, or Charles the first monarchs less powerful (good thing?)

What is you guys thoughts?

In 2028 England will be able to celebrate the 100th anniversary of all citizens aged 21 or over having the right to vote thanks to the efforts of the suffragettes and many others before them (and in 2069 we will be able to celebrate 100 years of all citizens aged 18 or over having the right to vote). We use the word democracy to refer to systems where at least in theory the ‘demos’ (the people) have the right to vote but in England in 1927 less than half of adults had the right to vote and two hundred years earlier that percentage was far less. Can anyone offer a timeline with sources showing the percentage of the population of England who had the right to vote through history?

Over the past few years, I have asked this at least twice on r/History and r/AmericanHistory and received Upvotes for the post but no one has attempted to answer the question.

Watching a Smithsonian TV show on the American Revolution. They stated as fact that if George Washington had been captured at the Battle of Brandywine he "probably" would have been hung.

Secondarily, when the British capture Philadelphia as a result of the loss at Brandywine, Congress has escaped. Would the British have actually hung Congress (including to drop some names familiar to Americans) John Adams, Sam Adams, John Hancock, etc. if they had caught them in September 1777?

Note I know Charles Lee, a General, was captured in 1776 but he had been a Lt Col. in British Army just 4 years before with long British service and was writing his colleagues, including Howe, to a certain extent making fun of the colonials. He seems a different category.