On 9th May…

1671 - Thomas Blood, an Irish adventurer better known as ‘Captain Blood’ was caught trying to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London. Thomas Blood was a Parliamentarian during the English Civil War and had his estates taken from him when the monarchy was restored in 1660. Instead of being executed for his treasonous act, Thomas Blood was made a member of the Royal Court and had his land and estates returned to him by Charles II who was impressed by his sheer audacity. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay never met Thomas Blood.

1949 - Britain’s first launderette opened in Bayswater, London.

On 10th May…

1940 - Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of Britain, leading the coalition government through World War II.

On 11th May…

1812 - The British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, was assassinated by a deranged businessman who was angry at his failure to get any government assistance whilst he was wrongly imprisoned in Russia for five years for an alleged debt. The assassin, John Bellingham was executed a week later despite being declared insane.

Spencer Perceval is the only Prime Minister to have been murdered.

On 12th May…

On 13th May…

1787 - Captain Arthur Philip set sail from Portsmouth to Australia with a fleet of eleven ships to set up a new penal colony. The fleet of ships which became known as the ‘First Fleet’, contained convicts, supplies and naval personnel and took 252 days to reach Australia. Captain Arthur Philip later became the founding governor of the Colony of New South Wales.

On 14th May…

1796 - Edward Jenner, a British doctor, discovered the vaccine for smallpox which was one of the most deadly and contagious diseases known to man. It is the only disease (to date) to have been totally eradicated by vaccination. Jenner’s vaccine was the first successful vaccine to be developed.

1881 - Mary Jane Seacole died in London. She was born in Jamaica to a Scottish father and a Jamaican mother and began to learn healing skills using local herbs and plants from her mother who looked after injured soldiers. Mary added to her knowledge of traditional medicines when she travelled around the Caribbean and learnt about Western or European medicines. She travelled to England and asked to be sent to the Crimea as an army nurse where there was a shortage of medical facilities. Mary was refused, but undeterred she paid for her own travel and set up a British Hotel to provide a comfortable place for sick and injured soldiers. She became known as ‘Mother Seacole’.

 On 15th May…