This edited article about tea-clippers originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 705 published on 19 July 1975.

The Cutty Sark by John S Smith

Protesting creaks came from the Ariel’s three masts as the wind billowed the sails and whistled through the rigging of the tea clipper tied up at the jetty in China’s Foochow harbour in 1866.

In his cabin, the skipper looked up from his charts and turned to his mate. “Are we ready to sail?” he asked.

The mate nodded. “Cargo’s all stowed,” he said. “What do you reckon of the other clippers, sir?”

“They’re fine vessels,” mused the skipper. “But we’ll show ‘em a clean pair of heels, all the way to England.”

Opening the door of his cabin, the skipper stepped on to the deck to look at his competitors. There were four other sailing ships, either tied up at the jetty or anchored midstream. All were waiting for the right moment to set sail for England and each wanted to get there first.

These were tea clippers, fine vessels of the mid-nineteenth century with sleek lines for fast speed. If their freight space was small, this did not matter for the cargo they carried was worth a good deal in London. But it had to be got there quickly to fetch the best price and to keep its quality. Consequently, there was always keen competition among the clipper captains to be the first to arrive in London.

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This edited article about Raffles and Singapore originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 694 published on 3 May 1975.

Raffles loaded specimens of plant-life, maps and all his valued  possessions on to the ‘Fame’ when he left Singapore, by C L Doughty

The diamond-shaped island which an 11th century Indonesian prince named “Sanskrit Singapura” – “Lion City” – was hardly an attractive sight when the British merchantman “Indiana” anchored off a sandy beach there at 4 p.m. on January 28, 1819. From the “Indiana’s” deck, Stamford Raffles could see only its smothering of thick jungle. From beyond the tangled vegetation, the stink of swamps was strong enough to reach Raffles’ nostrils and now and then, the roaring of the tigers that infested the jungle echoed in his ears.

Appearances were not deceptive. Singapore in 1819 was indeed a stagnant backwater. Only the ruins of a walled city built there by a 14th century Malay prince showed that civilisation had ever given it a glance. Since then, nothing had been built on the island, apart from a cluster or two of crude, bamboo huts dotted along the shore and in the odd jungle clearing.

Yet, despite all this, Stamford Raffles went ashore on the morning of January 29 in a state of high enthusiasm and not a little excitement. He made straight for the house of the Temenggong, the island’s ruler, and after customary greetings, came quickly to the point. He had come on behalf of the British East India Company to found a settlement, Raffles told the Temenggong. Would the Temenggong agree?

Though a little startled by the Englishman’s urgency and directness, the Temenggong did so. Shortly afterwards, Raffles took his leave, raced back to “Indiana” and immediately ordered a company of sepoys ashore. Within a few hours, the sepoys had erected a group of tents and a house made of matting for Raffles, and Raffles had selected and furnished with twelve guns a site for building a fort.

By the time the sun went down, the British were firmly in residence on Singapore, and Stamford Raffles could spend his first, uncomfortable night there in the pleasant knowledge that he had snatched a great prize into the orbit of the fast-growing British trade empire and out of the grasp of its rivals.

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This edited article about Glamorgan originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 684 published on 22 February 1975.

Coal miner by Wilf Hardy

Have you ever seen an old film of a night express as it thunders through the darkness, scattering scarlet sparks and glowing embers? Or the blackened, grimy funnel of a coaster as it doggedly thrusts its bow through the heavy swell around the coast? Or the dull glow on the skyline that comes from the blazing furnaces of iron and steel works?

If you have, you may wonder what these three things have in common. The answer is in a small valley in the county of Glamorgan, South Wales. From this, the Rhondda valley, once came the best “steam” coal in the world, to stoke the boilers of the trains, ships and factories of the world.

Steam coal is one of the oldest and hardest of coals. Highly compressed, its calorific value makes it give more heat than any other steam-raising fuel. For a hundred years it has been of immense value all over the world.

Why is this coal, centred chiefly in one valley, two miles wide by twelve miles long, found in South Wales? Geologists tell us that it is all a part of the general rock pattern of Britain.

Millions of years ago the mountainous country of Wales was involved in a slow and gentle movement of rock layers, helped by occasional earthquakes. Over the centuries a thrust from the south pushed and forced rocks sideways over each other, broke them or “floded” them, until they were crushed up against the harder, more resistant rocks that form the core of Wales.

Although seams of coal throughout Wales were laid down at the same time, the pressure on some seams was greater. Towards the west, the pressure hardened the coal layers into anthracite. Towards the centre of the coalfield, steam-coal was formed, and to the east quick-burning, smoky flaming coal for household use was born.

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This edited article about Matthew Perry originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 684 published on 22 February 1975.

Matthew Perry lands in Japan after the Japanese government’s initial demand for his immediate departure was withdrawn

In the middle of the 19th century, Japan had sealed herself completely off from the rest of the world. Her people were culturally and emotionally living in the Middle Ages. Her emperor was regarded as god, but for all that the real power lay in the hands of the warrior class known as the Samurai.

For centuries these warriors had fought for their masters, the Shoguns, and through their efforts they had finally unified the country and established a peaceful regime which had lasted for 250 years.

Now that peace seemed to be firmly established in what had hitherto been a country of permanently warring factions, the West was anxious to establish diplomatic relations. The Americans, in particular were anxious to make contact with Japan, mainly because they saw themselves as a Pacific power. The man they chose to make this contact, either peacefully, or by force, was Commander Matthew Perry.

On the 8th of July, 1853, he arrived at Tokyo with two steamers and two sailing vessels. As soon as he landed, the Japanese ordered him to depart!

Perry refused to do such a thing, and coolly pointed out that he would go on shore by force if necessary. When this information was conveyed to the Japanese government, consternation reigned. Finally, it was decided to meet Perry with all due ceremony and 5,000 Japanese troops, who nevertheless presented Perry with enough of a formidable opposition for him to declare that he would leave, but would return with a larger force.

The following year he returned with eight ships, and a formal treaty was signed between the two countries.

As a result of this treaty, Japan took her first steps into the 19th century.

This edited article about Will Adams originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 684 published on 22 February 1975.

Will Adams had been fascinated by shipyards from his boyhood

Will Adams had always been fascinated by shipyards. The idea of setting sail and journeying to the far corners of the Earth was one he had cherished for as long as he could remember. Whenever possible, he had slipped away to the nearest quay to watch provisions being loaded or listen to snatches of tavern talk; and all the time he waited patiently for the day when he, too, could be a part of this strange and exciting world.

Now he was twelve years old and the time had come. The yard at Wapping in London was a riot of colour and noise and confusion on this, his first day at work, and the shipwright who came forward had to shout to make himself heard.

“Where are you from, boy?”

“Gillingham in Kent, sir. Only one mile from Chatham, where the king’s ships do lie.”

The shipwright grunted. “You’ll see plenty of his ships before you serve your time. You are bound apprentice to Master Nicholas Diggins, then? ‘Tis a small beginning, but welcome. We shall talk later, but now you have work to do.”

Dinner that night was a simple affair with broth and oatmeal and a penny piece of beef between four people. But Will remembered it more for the shipwright’s talk of voyages to the Baltic and the Barbary Coast. He promised himself that the journeys he made would be equally famous. It was a promise he more than fulfilled.

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This edited article about Northamptonshire originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 681 published on 1 February 1975.

The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, at her execution in the Great Hall of Fotheringhay Castle

Beautiful and clever, Mary, Queen of Scots, was the centre of intrigue until the day she was executed at Northamptonshire’s Fotheringhay Castle

An old labourer was clearing away the rubble from the ruins of Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, one day in 1820, when among the stones he found a small, mud-caked ring with initials and a lovers’ knot.

It was the gold engagement ring of Mary, Queen of Scots, given her by her second husband, Henry Darnley, whom she had married secretly.

The ring must have fallen from her finger on the day nearly two hundred and fifty years before, when she met her death on the block in the castle’s great banqueting hall.

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This edited article about the War of Jenkins’ ear originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 678 published on 11 January 1975.

The Spanish coastguard captain lunged at Captain Jenkins by C L Doughty

There surely cannot be a better known ear in the history of human activity than the one that Jenkins had and lost.

The ear which a Spanish coastguard cut off the head of Captain Robert Jenkins; the same ear that the same Jenkins picked up, pickled in a bottle, and presented to a Parliamentary Committee as evidence of his ill-treatment at the hands of the dastardly Spanish.

The ear which, indeed, caused a full-scale war between the world’s two greatest nations at the time.

Before considering the case of Jenkins’ ear, however, let us look at some of the things that were happening in the first half of the eighteenth century when Captain Jenkins was commanding his brig Rebecca, running between England and Jamaica.

The Treaty of Utrecht, signed in 1713, had ended a war involving England, France, Spain and Austria, and by its terms England had gained certain trading rights with the Spanish colonies in the West Indies. But greed and ruthlessness on the part of both England and Spain soon put the terms of the treaty into contempt: first one side exceeded its rights, then the other took reprisals, and by 1730 the treaty had broken down.

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This edited article about box-making originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 676 published on 28 December 1974.

Making match-boxes was sweat-shop labour for many children in Victorian times, by Peter Jackson

Now that many things from cereals to washing powder and tea-bags to typing paper are sold in cardboard cartons of one sort or another, it is not surprising that carton-making is a large and important industry. What is surprising is that it began a long time ago, and that several firms who are prominent in this industry today were already making boxes a hundred years ago.

In its early days, however, box-making – as the trade is known – was different in many ways from box-making today. At first, boxes were not included in the price you pay for the contents, as they are today; they were bought individually by people who wanted containers in which to store their possessions. There were large boxes for clothes generally, and smaller ones for hats, ribbons, jewellery, and collars.

It was said:

But a box for hat and cap -
‘Twill keep them safe from all mishap.

This was a familiar London street cry in the eighteenth century; and long before that, in 1635. Sara Jerom and William Webb had applied for a patent for an “engine for cutting timber into thin pieces or scales for making boxes”.

This pinpoints another of the differences between early box-making and modern practice – that in the early days the box-maker’s raw material was not cardboard but wood, in the form of thin chips or scales. This made good sense at the time. Wood was a natural material and it was available in most parts of Britain, whereas cardboard had to be manufactured. It was not until the 1800s that cardboard, or even paper, could be made by machine. Before then, it simply was not produced in the large amounts or at the low cost which its use in packaging would have demanded.

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This edited article about packaging originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 674 published on 14 December 1974.

In Victorian times the grocer packaged loose produce like tea on the premises, by Peter Jackson

As soon as man began to have possessions, he needed containers to keep them in; and as soon as he began to buy or sell, he needed containers which would not only protect the contents but would indicate on the outside what was inside. From this simple need, packaging was born.

To find suitable materials from which containers could be made was not too difficult, but to put identifying marks on them was another matter – especially in the days before printing was introduced, which means, in our western civilisation, before about the middle of the fifteenth century. Though printing wasn’t the only possible means of putting names or symbols or pictures uniformly on quantities of packages, it was (and is) one of the most adaptable, and therefore the most widely used.

Since those days, the practice of packaging has affected everyone’s way of living. It has added at least two phases to our everyday speech – chocolate-box art, and the package deal; and, as you will already have realised, it has a much longer history than people generally think.

The earliest known examples date from the mid-sixteenth century. These were printed paper wrappers, and the contents usually were sheets of writing or printing paper. The oldest of these wrappers which still exists has a black-and-white picture of a horse printed on it from a wood block, as well as the names of the papermaker whose products it contained – Andreas Bernhart of Brunswick in Germany. A later example, also German, for Johann Meiser, 1600, carries coloured illustrations of a paper mill – inside and outside views. This is by far the earliest example of colour in package design, if we could be sure that the colours were part of the original design and were not added later. But, 374 years later, we can’t be sure of this because Meiser’s wrapper must have passed through many hands in the years between.

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This edited article about the Hudson’s Bay Company originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 673 published on 7 December 1974.

Anthony Henday, explorer for he Hudson’s Bay Company by Barrie Linklater

As the oldest chartered company in the world, the Hudson’s Bay Company has had an exciting, adventurous history.

In 1670 King Charles II granted a charter to his cousin Prince Rupert and 17 other noblemen and gentlemen to form ‘The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay.’ These were to be the only people allowed to trade in the area. The first traders settled in what was then called Rupert’s Land. Forts for protection were built, and soon the traders had built up a very profitable business in fur and skin trading with the Indians. The company was not just, however, content to trade in the area. Its members expected to have the right to govern the area as well.

The French colonists who had settled along the St. Lawrence River, which is situated south of the Hudson Bay area, did not like the idea of the British governing the area, and challenged the supremacy of the newcomers by attacking and ransacking the new forts. In 1713, however, when the French had been defeated in another part of Canada, they had to relinquish their claim to Rupert’s Land and hand it back to the British. For fifty years the company was left in peace to carry on its trade.

In 1763 the British won the last battle against the French for the control of Canada, but the Hudson’s Bay Company was still not safe from other traders who wanted to use the area. These joined together to form a rival company and years of violence and bloodshed between the two companies followed.

In 1821 the problem was solved when the two companies joined together in one partnership. Then, in 1869 the Hudson’s Bay Company gave up its right to govern Rupert’s Land and was allowed to keep its royal charter and much of its land. Today, the company is still in existence, three hundred years after the first British traders arrived at Hudson’s Bay to set up business.