The History Chap Podcast

Send me a message This is the story of George Edwin Ellison the last British soldier to be killed in the World War 1. Amazingly, he is buried in the same military cemetery in Belgium, where the first British soldier killed in this conflict was also laid to rest, John Parr. In this episode I also tell John Parr's story. Just to make the story complete, I also share with you  the last Commonwea...

Send me a message You might remember the 1957 film Yangtze Incident, starring Richard Todd, all about a Royal Navy vessel, trapped by communist forces deep inside China in 1949. Well, it was based upon real events. And if you think the film was dramatic, then it is not a patch on real life. This is the real story of HMS Amethyst, her crew and a cat called Simon, in  the Yangtze incident 1949. Get...

Send me a message The Battle of Trafalgar is probably Britain's greatest naval victory. It was certainly the one that had the longest lasting impact on her position as a global power in the 19th century. It was also the lasting legacy of her most famous naval commander, Admiral Lord Nelson. At the height of the battle, Nelson was mortally wounded and died soon after hearing of the Royal Navy&...

Send me a message On the back of my stories about the battles of the Nile and Copenhagen, this episode charts the life of Admiral Horatio Nelson. Get my free weekly newsletter Support the show

Send me a message In August 1914, as the British Expeditionary Force conducted a fighting retreat from the Germans following the Battle of Mons, a strange story began to circulate. Outnumbered and in danger of being overrun by the Kaiser’s army, the British were saved by a supernatural army that descended on the advancing Germans. Some said this army consisted of English bowmen from Agincourt, oth...

Send me a message The battle of Copenhagen - or more correctly the First Battle of Copenhagen - was fought between Denmark and the British Royal Navy on the 2nd April 1801. Sandwiched between the Battles of the Nile and Trafalgar (both of which I have talked about in the past), it was yet another emphatic victory by, arguably, Britain’s greatest naval commander - Admiral Horatio Nelson. One which...

Send me a message The Battle of Abu Klea was fought  in January 1885 between the British and the Mahdist forces in Sudan. It was part of the British effort to rescue General Charles Gordon who had been besieged by the Mahdists in Khartoum. General Sir Garnet Wolseley, commanding the Nile Expedition (Gordon Relief Expedition) sent a flying column across the desert to speed up the rescue effort. Bef...

Send me a message The Battle of Tami was fought on the 13th March 1884 between the British and Mahdist armies in Sudan. During the 3 hour battle the British were to lose over 100 men killed and a similar number wounded. It was the costliest battle that they fought in Mahdist War. And despite it being a British victory, for 5 minutes, it all looked like it was about to go horribly wrong; as for one...

Send me a message The Battle of Maiwand was a major British defeat in Afghanistan, back in 1880. Fought on the 27th July 1880, during the 2nd Anglo Afghan War, the Battle of Maiwand was one of the greatest defeats ever suffered by one of Queen’s Victoria’s armies - over 900 men were wiped out by an Afghan army which outnumbered it by 10:1. It is a forgotten story of bravery combined with some ques...

Send me a message On the night of the 1st August 1798, the Royal Navy under Horatio Nelson clashed with  the French off the coast of Egypt. Fought during the French Revolutionary Wars, the battle resulted in arguably one of the finest victories in the Royal Navy's long history. The two fleets were equally matched in numbers and guns. Nevertheless, Nelson achieved a decisive victory sinking 4...

Send me a message Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood VC seemed to have more lives than a cat! Shot twice, numerous riding accidents, bitten by a horse, attacked by a tiger, trampled by a giraffe. Recipient of the the Victoria Cross and the French Legion of Honour. He  fought in the Crimean War, the Ashanti War, the Xhosa War, the Zulu War, the First Boer War, and in both Egypt and Sudan. This is his in...

Send me a message You may have come across the old Victorian music hall song "The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo". But did you know that the song was based upon real events? In 1891, an English inventor and fraudster, Charles Deville Wells, really did break the bank at the casino in Monte Carlo. To this day, no one knows how he did it. This is his incredible story. Sign up for my...

Send me a message The War of Jenkins Ear was fought between Great Britain and the Spanish Empire between 1739 - 1748. Subscribe to my newsletter Despite its comical name, it proved to be a bloody affair particularly at the Battle of Cartagena de Indies (in modern-day Colombia) where the British lost nearly 6,000 men. In the end it was subsumed into the larger War of Austrain Succession which was b...

Send me a message The Pig War in 1859 is one of the most obscure and unusual events in Britain’s long and colourful  history. In this forgotten moment, the United Kingdom and the United States almost went to war…and all because of a dead pig! In a tense stand off 400 US soldiers faced 5 Royal Navy warships on a tiny island between Vancouver and Seattle. Sign up  for my newsletter Support the show

Send me a message In this 2nd part to my story about Sir Garnet Wolseley's Ashanti Ring of officers in Britain's Victorian army, I am going to focus on one of more famous…or infamous member, who deserves a story in his own right. A soldiers soldier, highly popular with his troops. Awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery during the Zulu War. He fought at the battles of Kambula, Ulundi, Tel...

Send me a message The Ashanti Ring were a group of talented British army officers gathered together by general Sir Garnet Wolseley for the Anglo-Ashanti War in 1873. They were, in many ways, to be the fore runner of a General Staff in the Victorian British Army. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter General Wolseley's Ashanti Ring of Officers (sometimes called the Africa Ring or the Wolseley Gang...

Send me a message The Aden Emergency 1963-67, is another one of those forgotten conflicts that marked the end of the British Empire. Over 90 British servicemen were killed and 500 wounded in a 4-year war that not only has been largely forgotten but which Britain never really wanted to fight in the first place. It brought to the end, the 128-year British rule on this southern tip of the Arabian Pen...

Send me a message The Battle of Majuba, fought in South Africa on the 27th February 1881 was one of the British Army’s most humiliating defeats. Of their force of 400 men, the British lost 92 killed (including their commanding general), 134 wounded and 59 captured - a 70% casualty figure. In comparison their Boer opponents lost just 2 men killed and 4 wounded. It would result in the Boers regainin...

Send me a message With General Charles Gordon besieged in Khartoum and Egyptian authority in Sudan in tatters, British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, was forced to intervene. Whilst an expeditionary force, led by General Sir Garnet Wolseley, was being assembled, in the short term he diverted a British force en-route to India to the Red Sea coast of Sudan. Here they met the Mahdist supporting B...

Send me a message The Battle of Ulundi (also called the battle of Ondini) fought on the 4th July 1879 was the final battle of the Anglo-Zulu War. The British victory brought to an end the independent kingdom of the Zulus established by Shaka 50 years before hand. In a bloody, one-sided encounter, over 1,500 Zulu warriors died that morning defending the old Zulu order. Join my free weekly newslette...

Send me a message In 1907, 20 boys came together for a camp on Brownsea Island, in Poole harbour, Dorset. It was the brain child of Boer War veteran, Robert Baden-Powell. Little could he, or they, know that the camp would give birth to the Scouting Movement, which now has over 40 million members worldwide. Whilst any former Scout (or Guide) will probably know that Robert Baden-Powell was the found...

Send me a message The Battle of El Teb fought on the 29th February 1884, was the first battle between the British and the Sudanese Mahdists, that would culminate in the Battle of Omdurman 14 years later. A British Army led by General Gerald Graham VC and consisting of 4,000 men battled 15,000 Sudanese warriors under the Mahdi’s lieutenant, Osman Digna  in eastern Sudan, close to the Red Sea coast....

Send me a message On the 21st November 1916, HMHS Britannic, sister ship to The Titanic, was sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea. despite lying in only 400 feet of water, compared to the Titanic at 12,500 feet, her story has been forgotten. Join my free weekly newsletter Support the show

Send me a message Thomas Alfred Jones from Runcorn, Cheshire, was like a real life Rambo (or the British version of Sgt. Alvin York) who single-handedly captured 102 German soldiers. This is his incredible story from the First World War. Join my free weekly newsletter Support the show

Send me a message The British were to fight a series of battles in Sudan throughout the 1880's and 1890's. Firstly, in an attempt to rescue General Charles Gordon who was besieged by Mahdist forces in Khartoum. And then to avenge his death. But what was Gordon doing in Khartoum in the first place? This is the story of Charles Gordon and how he ended up in Sudan. Join my free weekly newsl...