Kate Williams Quotes
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I've written extensively on Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth and seen up close how those women, who were born when the country hoped for a male heir, made their way as leaders.
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I receive many letters from people hoping to research their own houses.
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Throughout the 19th century, Britain bought cheaply from the countries of the empire and compelled subject countries to buy our goods at high prices.
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The British Museum was our first real museum, the property of the public rather than the monarch or the church.
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I am part of a team organising an Emma Hamilton exhibition for the National Maritime Museum for 2016, and the amount of planning is a revelation - borrowing from museums and collections all over the world.
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Are we really so far from the Victorians? Much of what our society holds important was shaped in the 19th century.
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I wonder if there'll ever be a time where you're not judged by your appearance. It seems that wherever you've got to, your appearance is always discussed. It's never said about men. We talk about a man's charisma, not his looks.
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The 19th century became the age of the museum. Objects were scrambled for, specimens seized, and friezes and antiques grasped.
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I wouldn't mind an original letter from Napoleon to Josephine - in the early days, his letters arrived torn to pieces because he was overwhelmed by his passion for her.
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I like boxes because of the secrets they hide.
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As historians, we spend days in archives, gazing at account books. We train would-be historians in the arts of deciphering letters and documents, early Latin, scribal handwriting, medieval French.
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Indeed, throughout much of history and in many cultures, redheads have been viewed with suspicion and fear - and even killed - because of their hair.
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The modern museum has multiple purposes - to curate and preserve, to research, and to reach out to the public. They challenge us and ask us to question our assumptions about the past or the world around us.
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When I was a child, one of my first games was a time machine which I made for my brother - a big box covered in silver and bits of cellophane. I'd close him up in it and joggle him and say, 'We're in Victorian times now... and now we're in Egyptian times, and I can see all these pyramids and pharaohs.'
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Women's stories have been neglected for so long - unless they were queens. Exploring the history of women is a way of redressing that imbalance.
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Redheads were particularly persecuted during the European witch trials of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The colour was associated with the devil, and the pale skin which most redheads have was thought unnatural and deathly.
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One woman came up to me at a lecture and observed that I was much fatter than on television; I think I look better onscreen than in real life. It's the lights.
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Queens perhaps perform better in the role of monarch because they never take their position for granted. Many kings have failed because they believed that the public would love them whatever they did. Queens knew better.
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Anglo-Saxon kings often used to favour their sister's son to their own - for at least you could guarantee there was your own blood in your sister's son!
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Now I would go to London's Pudding Lane on 2 September 1666 and put out that little fire. I'd love to investigate the histories of a few of the buildings that burned for Restoration Home.
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My Welsh grandmother Mair didn't meet my grandfather until she was 28, quite old to be unmarried in the early '40s.
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One of Britain's big problems throughout history has been that we lust after consumer goods from elsewhere, but our friends overseas have been less enthusiastic about buying things we produce.
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When Elizabeth II was crowned - the sixth female monarch since the Norman conquest - the world lit up in her favour.
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Some archives and record offices are housed in your local museum or library; others have their own stand-alone building. Wherever they are, they are a treasure trove.