HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-12-23T00:01:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Father Christmas v Santa Claus: the centuries-long battle for Britain's chimneys
items: Tudor childhood: what were children's lives like in the 16th century?
items: Swings and roundabouts: a history of Britain's playgrounds
items: "I felt very alone in a world gone horribly mad": the experiences of evacuees in WW2
items: From murder bottles to arsenic wallpaper: 5 hidden killers in Victorian Britain
items: Victorian education and school | HistoryExtra Academy video lecture
items: Week three quiz: education and school in Victorian Britain
items: Class warfare: a day in the life of a Victorian schoolchild
items: An act of love: breastfeeding in the medieval period
items: The children who fought for the abolition of slavery

Father Christmas v Santa Claus: the centuries-long battle for Britain's chimneys
type: item
date: 2025-12-23T00:00:29.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Children
subject: Christmas
subject: Debate
subject: Historical people
description: The true identity of the white-bearded, red-robed figure who fills children’s stockings at Christmas has long been debated. Thomas Ruys Smith sizes up the merry contenders
encoded: Tis the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature is stirring… but someone is. While the household sleeps, a jolly visitor carefully places presents in stockings hung by the fireplace. After taking a sip of whatever tipple has been thoughtfully left out for him, he pockets a carrot and disappears up the chimney. With a tinkle of sleigh bells he disappears into the night with his faithful reindeer, a merry laugh echoing across the rooftops. It’s a familiar ritual – with one fundamental point of contention. Who do you think it was that brought you these presents? Are you a Father Christmas fundamentalist or are you a Santa Claus supporter? Each figure has his passionate partisans, and each is wrapped up with issues of national and regional identity. A recent YouGov poll of around 4,000 British residents suggested that the UK is split right down the middle on the topic – though Santa enjoyed a narrow lead by a couple of percentage points. What you may find surprising is that this isn’t a modern conundrum. In fact, the ongoing battle for seasonal supremacy has created a schism in British culture since the Victorian era. Despite what some Father Christmas traditionalists might think, Santa Claus is not some recent American arriviste. The forgotten history of the friendly rivalry between this pair of festive icons goes much further back, taking us on a transatlantic journey through popular culture to a time even before our modern celebration of Christmas was taking shape. Nick of time Let’s start at the beginning – or as close as we can get to it. The figure of Father Christmas is undoubtedly more venerable than Santa Claus – in English culture, at least. References to characters who served to personify the period of yuletide feasting and merrymaking can be traced back to at least the 15th century. But Father Christmas really emerged as a champion of the season when Christmas came under threat in Britain. He joined the fray in the midst of religio…

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Tudor childhood: what were children's lives like in the 16th century?
type: item
date: 2025-10-20T08:40:20.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Children
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
description: In the fourth episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series Tudor Life, social historian Ruth Goodman explains what would have been expected of children in the 16th century, and how they were viewed by their elders
encoded: On location at Plas Mawr – an Elizabethan townhouse in Conwy, North Wales, now in the care of Cadw – social historian Ruth Goodman takes us inside the experiences of childhood in the Tudor era, from learning and early schoolhouses to how much they were expected to help in the home. View Green Video on the source website Enjoyed this video? Ruth is hosting a live Q&A for HistoryExtra members on 19 November 2025 at 7pm (GMT). Find out more here Want more from Ruth? Find more episodes of Tudor life here Ruth Goodman is a historian of the social and domestic life of Britain. She has advised the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Globe Theatre and presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm

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Swings and roundabouts: a history of Britain's playgrounds
type: item
date: 2025-07-17T08:00:18.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Children
description: We all have childhood memories of playgrounds. But what does the evolution of outdoor play in Britain tell us about the experience of being young over the past 200 years? Jon Winder serves up a history of sandpits, bombsites and battles with cars
encoded: A pub might seem a strange place to begin a history of Britain’s playgrounds. Yet in June 1858, Charles Dickens delivered a speech at the London Tavern in Bishopsgate Street that, he hoped, would transform the lives of children across the imperial capital. As the guests dined on seasonal delicacies and fine wines, Dickens gave an impassioned plea on behalf of the Playground and Recreation Society, an organisation that had been established just a few months earlier with the express aim of providing “playgrounds for poor children in populous places”. To the accompaniment of music laid on by the band of the 1st Life Guards, the celebrated author extolled the benefits that having a “playground near to their own dwellings where they knew their children would be safe” conferred on parents. “I venture to assert that there can be no physical health without play; and there can be no efficient and satisfactory work without play; that there can be no sound and wholesome thought without play,” he declared. It was a powerful argument, and one to which Dickens’ audience evidently listened – for, by the end of the following year, the Recreation Grounds Act had made its way into law. Henceforth, local authorities across the land would be allowed to create and own playgrounds for children and young people. It marked a turning point in British children’s access to play. Or did it? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-1300568438cmyk-2620726.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A black and white photograph showing. group of children playing in a playground on a concrete housing estate" title="Children play in London’s Lisson Green estate in 1973. Since the Victorian era, playgrounds have been seen as vital to young Britons’ physical and moral development (Image by Getty Images)" /> The new legislation – and Dickens’ high-profile support – could have been a Big Bang moment for the playground movement in Britain. But, despite celebrity en…

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"I felt very alone in a world gone horribly mad": the experiences of evacuees in WW2
type: item
date: 2025-02-20T17:03:03.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Children
subject: Wartime Britain
description: It was a moment of possibilities, dislocation and dread. Dan Todman tells the story of the 1.5 million urban Britons evacuated to the countryside at the start of the Second World War
encoded: It’s October 1939, and an aristocratic couple are discussing how to manage the horde of ill-spoken, slovenly evacuees from the city who have been billeted in their house. Not to worry, the husband tells his wife: bringing the children into a more refined environment will soon civilise the youngsters. Instead, as the sketch plays out on the BBC Home Service, the couple’s lordly airs and graces disappear. It’s the evacuees – sent away from home at the behest of the authorities – who change their hosts, rather than the other way around. It’s a skit that fits with how the story of Second World War evacuation has often been constructed, both at the time and in the years since. Here is a narrative that emphasises a clash of cultures: the rural rich suddenly confronted by the urban poor – a moment replete with topsy-turvy possibilities. But the circumstances around the recording of the sketch itself reveal how evacuation was a much larger and more complex event than this straightforward narrative suggests. Read more | Persuading the people: British propaganda in the Second World War It was performed by a cast of variety performers who had also been evacuated, from London to Bristol. That move was part of the BBC’s own preparations to maintain a schedule of light entertainment to intersperse with the news bulletins and government announcements expected to dominate the airwaves over the first weeks of the war. Seen in this light, the first wave of evacuations was specifically a product of conditions in the autumn of 1939 – but it was also an event that came to have a deep significance in the British folk memory, emblematic of the longer and wider disruptions, separations and anxieties experienced by so many civilians. It was, too, part of a global phenomenon, as states and communities sought to move people out of harm’s way. Thinking about evacuation therefore helps us understand not only Britain’s war, but also a wider human experience – national and local differences notwi…

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From murder bottles to arsenic wallpaper: 5 hidden killers in Victorian Britain
type: item
date: 2024-11-26T14:08:26.000Z
creator: Rachel Dinning
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Children
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
description: The Victorian era is often romanticised as a time of progress, with technological advancements and societal changes reshaping how people lived and worked. But Victorian Britain was also full of hidden dangers that threatened the health and safety of its inhabitants – and the domestic sphere was rife with hazards that could kill or seriously harm. Here, we round up five hidden killers in the Victorian home…
encoded: Back-breaking back-to-backs While wealthier Victorians enjoyed spacious homes with servants to cater to their needs, working class people lived in cramped, badly ventilated, and often poorly constructed houses. Many families were packed into back-to-backs – small, terraced dwellings which had party walls on three of their four sides. Many of these properties had just a single room on each floor and only one window, on the front wall. Staircases could be steep and narrow – not ideal for multiple young children squeezing past one another or women wearing long flowing skirts. These cramped houses offered little privacy and even less comfort for the families that lived in them. The walls were often damp and prone to mould, contributing to respiratory problems. Toilet and water supplies were located outside and usually shared with multiple households – meaning disease and illness could spread quickly. The houses were typically so crammed together that sunlight – with its bacteria and virus-killing properties – would rarely reach the inside. WATCH | Ruth Goodman on what life was like in Victorian Britain View Green Video on the source website Water woes Water could be a huge health hazard in Victorian Britain, especially in poorer households. Most working-class homes didn’t have running water, relying instead on wells or communal pumps for drinking and cleaning. If a water source became contaminated with bacteria, disease and illness could sweep through communities. Four major outbreaks of cholera between 1832 and 1866, caused by contaminated drinking water, ravaged London communities – and led to the death of tens of thousands of people. Read more | The Broad Street cholera outbreak: how bad was it and how was it contained? In 1854, the physician John Snow began mapping incidences of deaths due to cholera and noted the deceased were mostly people whose nearest access to water was a water pump located in Broad Street, Soho. The well was disabled and the outbreak ended. It…

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Victorian education and school | HistoryExtra Academy video lecture
type: item
date: 2024-11-19T17:00:49.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Children
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
description: It was in the Victorian period that school shifted to becoming a more universal experience. Ruth Goodman explores the Ragged school movement, the social mobility that schooling offered and how the classroom was a different experience depending on whether you were a boy or a girl
encoded: View Green Video on the source website Were you paying attention? Now test your knowledge with our Victorian education quiz! Ruth Goodman is a historian of the social and domestic life of Britain. She has advised the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Globe Theatre and presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm

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Week three quiz: education and school in Victorian Britain
type: item
date: 2024-11-19T14:08:59.000Z
creator: Rachel Dinning
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Children
subject: Education
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
description: Test your knowledge on what school and education was like in Victorian Britain with our quiz...
encoded: Watch our video lecture with Ruth Goodman on what education and school was like in Victorian Britain – and test your knowledge below with our quiz! View Riddle on the source website

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Class warfare: a day in the life of a Victorian schoolchild
type: item
date: 2024-11-18T09:00:05.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Children
subject: Education
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
description: Victorian schools could be ideological battlegrounds, where harassed teachers did their best against a backdrop of grinding poverty. Ellie Cawthorne and Susannah Wright study an era's education
encoded: The 4th of May 1899 was not a good day for the head-teacher of St Mark’s School in Leicester. Less than two weeks into her job, she recorded in her school logbook an incident that had begun with the caning of a boy for lying and disobedience. Revolting against his punishment, the boy had started “flinging himself about”, before kicking her and even threatening her with “a clasp knife open in his hand”. To make matters worse, the child’s mother had arrived at the school to castigate the head-teacher in “abusive and threatening language” before demanding that magistrates investigate the school’s conduct. While incidents like this led to lengthy logbook entries, most school days in Victorian Britain were not so dramatic. But daily life in the elementary school classroom was often a battleground between idealistic educationalists, governmental interlopers, struggling parents and hard-pressed teachers. Not to mention the children. Over the course of the 19th century, a patchwork of school systems operated across the country, and the experience of learning in one classroom could be very different from the next. Those who could afford the small fee might attend local parish or church schools. Another alternative, for those willing to embrace a more informal approach to education, were privately run ‘dame schools’ that operated out of local teachers’ homes. From 1833 onwards, child labourers were supposed to receive schooling from their employers under the Factory Act, while those found homeless or begging might be sent to tough industrial schools to learn a trade. Another option for those unable to fund their own education was schools established by charitable organisations. Most notable were the so-called ‘ragged schools’, formed in 1844 to offer free education to Britain’s poorest children. By the 1870s, there were around 350 such institutions across the country, which (in the words of Charles Dickens) “stretch[ed] out a hand” to those children “too ragged, wretched, fil…

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An act of love: breastfeeding in the medieval period
type: item
date: 2024-03-01T09:00:26.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Children
subject: HistoryExtra Academy late-medieval England course
subject: Medieval life
description: What does the history of breastfeeding tell us about medieval society? Hannah Skoda discovers stories of miracle cures, bizarre beliefs and caring communities
encoded: In the late 13th century, a little boy crawled out of his crib while his parents were at a funeral. He was two years old. His name was Roger, and he was the son of one of the cooks at Conwy Castle in north Wales. The curious toddler crawled out of the house, through the dark, and tragically fell off the drawbridge and into the moat. A passer-by spotted his apparently lifeless body: he swiftly prayed and promised a pilgrimage to Hereford if the miracle-working late bishop Thomas Cantilupe would help. The boy’s mother arrived and began to wail and beat her breast: it was all onlookers could do to prevent her from hurling herself into the moat after her son. When the child’s body was handed to her, she tore open her cloak to warm him against her chest. The little boy began to breathe again and suckled at his mother’s breast. Revived, he began to laugh and smile. This moving story was recounted as part of the canonisation process for Thomas Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford. On account of this, and various other miracles, Cantilupe was made a saint of the Catholic church. It’s a story that provides a wonderful insight into the lives of the humblest strata of medieval society. It’s full of familial love, deep emotion, and – importantly – a wider community invested in the well-being of children. Read more | Midwifery and childbirth: a historical A–Z guide The history of breastfeeding lies at the heart of the history of humanity. And it was much talked about in the Middle Ages. The image of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus at her breast was pervasive in medieval Europe. In some ways, this perfect image denigrated real women, who could never hope to live up to this lofty ideal. But breastfeeding was nevertheless widely eulogised, particularly by theologians and medical writers. Bartholomaeus Anglicus, a 13th-century scholastic, wrote that a mother “conceives her children voluptuously, having carried them in her womb where they are nourished by her blood, she bears them in pa…

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The children who fought for the abolition of slavery
type: item
date: 2023-07-25T05:19:07.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Children
subject: Slavery
description: They boycotted sugar, signed petitions and played abolitionist board games. Ryan Hanley and Kathryn Gleadle explore the roles of the young people who fought against the slave trade in Georgian Britain, and consider whether these ‘juvenile abolitionists’ were just doing what they were told by the elders or making a stand on their own right
encoded: Young boys can be notoriously untidy – dirty, even. So perhaps it should have come as no surprise to Shropshire diarist Katherine Plymley when, in 1792, she noticed that her seven year-old nephew Panton’s shoes were “looking very brown”. What raised her eyebrows was the reason, discovered by questioning the servants, why he’d refused to have his shoes shined. He had heard that the polish contained sugar produced on plantations worked by enslaved people. Panton’s scruffiness wasn’t due to indolence or carelessness, but – as he saw it – a moral stand against slavery. And he was far from alone among his peers. Long before Greta Thunberg first raised her head above the climate change parapet, children and younger teenagers were being heralded as moral champions in mass movements for a better future. Notably, during the campaigns for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, children were applauded by many not just as participants but as leaders. But was this just window-dressing by canny abolitionists, keen to shame adults into taking more meaningful action? Were children only acting in accordance with the wishes of their parents? Or were young people truly influential anti-slavery activists in their own right? Read more | Abolition in Britain: the link between slavery and the British national identity The roots of the anti-slavery movement go back at least to the efforts of 17th-century Quakers, but it was only after the establishment of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787 that British activists began to explicitly seek wider public support. Thanks in part to first-hand accounts by formerly enslaved people such as Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince, and to the tireless efforts of travelling lecturers such as Thomas Clarkson and William Dickson, the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade – and, later, of slavery itself – became a hugely popular political and moral cause. In 1792, many consumers in Britain (more than 300,000, by Clarks…

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