Uranium And A Parson
[Image: Photos.com]
Silk and a uniform
A souvenir of Napoleon Bonaparte's funeral and a military uniform bought on the internet come under investigation as the History Detectives check out some silk and a uniform.
Brush strokes
You don't have to be Dorian Gray to have an extraordinary picture in the attic.
Starting at the end
The deceased speak to us in ways you might find surprising - follow some deathly clues.
The cases
Ray Adcock has what he believes to be a piece of uranium, kept in a lead-lined cat food tin. Using advanced scientific methods Claire Barratt confirms that it is indeed radioactive, and reveals the hidden story of Britain’s attempts to build a nuclear weapon in secret during the Second World War.
Cath Hewson from Scarborough found a biscuit tin containing documents and old photographs. One photo was of a church minister, bearing her family name. She knew nothing of him so asked Neil Oliver to track down his story.
Neil uncovers the life of her great uncle who began as a scavenger in a cotton mill, became a church minister and went on to advise Winston Churchill on government policy.
The programme also includes some fascinating information about bookbinding and caring for old books.
The clues
Some resources that the History Detectives used in the programme
Uranium
Documents
The Atomic Bomb
Margaret Gowing and Lorna Arnold, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
The Birth of the Bomb
Ronald W Clark, Phoenix Books, London
"Statements Relating to the Atomic Bomb", American Physical Society (APS)
Rev.Mod.Phys.17,472-490 (Issue 4-October 1945)
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes, Simon and Schuster, 1986
ICI: The Company That Changed Our Lives
Carol Kennedy, Hutchinson
Imperial Chemical Industries: A History: The First Quarter-Century, 1926–52
W J Reader, OUP.
Organisations
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
Kings College Database for Tube Alloys Project 1939–1958
The National Archives hold records on the MAUD committee, Tube Alloys and the rolling and extrusion of Uranium
The National Atomic Museum (America's resource for nuclear history and science).
Bibles and other old Books
Bookbinding and the Care of Books
D. Cockerell, St Paul's Bibliographies
"Valuable books should either be issued in bindings that are obviously temporary, or else in bindings that are strong enough to be considered permanent. The usual cloth case fails as a temporary binding, because the methods employed result in serious damage to the sections of the book often unfitting them for rebinding…"
The Bible Society is a useful source of information about bibles. Check which company or organisation published the bible; this may give you a clue as to where to continue your research.
The British Library may hold a similar book or bible to the one you want to find out about.
The Minister
Links
1901 Census Records are useful for tracing family history in England and Wales.
Books
Crockford's Clerical Directory, first published in 1858, contains biographies of over 25,000 Anglican clergy in the UK, details of English, Welsh and Irish benefices and churches and much more. Your local public library will have a copy. It is also available online by subscription.
Organisations
Your local Records Office may contain church records. Contact your local County or Borough Council for details, or you will find it listed on the National Archives website.
A good place for research into English Protestant nonconformity is the Dr William’s Centre for Dissenting Studies.
We used Scarborough Museum to find out the history of photographers Rentz and Schrader.
Content last updated: 03/07/2007
