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Rory Muir

@rorymuir

British History - Wellington; the Defeat of Napoleon; Regency Society, careers open to younger sons; Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen (Yale UP Feb 2024) Lives in Adelaide Hills, South Australia

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Latest posts by Rory Muir @rorymuir

A very entertaining and interesting article that shows the trouble that ‘dull’ garrison life could breed among young officers…

29.01.2026 02:25 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0

Congratulations - and thanks for some welcome if unsurprising news

24.01.2026 02:47 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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In our next free online talk, on 16 February, Dr Nicola Martin will be speaking about how the British Army's experience of pacifying the Scottish Highlands after the '45 Rising helped shape its approach to dissent in the Americas three decades later.
Register at my.demio.com/ref/sknZMpZz...

20.01.2026 14:11 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Good luck, though I’m sure it will go well. And won’t it feel good to put it behind you? (Not the thesis, let alone the Fencibles, but the viva…)

21.01.2026 04:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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There's a lot going on the world, but I was glad to see an article of mine published in the @jbritishstudies.bsky.social
Read about Shadrack Byfield, an English War of 1812 veteran who buried his own arm, designed a custom prosthesis, and wrote multiple memoirs: doi.org/10.1017/jbr....

19.01.2026 12:44 👍 26 🔁 11 💬 3 📌 1

Awww thank you - that’s a nice, unexpected Christmas present

25.12.2025 03:00 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Merry Christmas to all and thank you to the Society and all the contributors - I really enjoy these personal recommendations of favourite books on particular subjects.

24.12.2025 10:19 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Christmas in Wellington’s Peninsular Army In the early 1800s Christmas was far from the commercialised festival of over-indulgence that it is today, but it was still a special day and often the occasion for more than a little feasting. Gif…

An old blog about Christmas in the Peninsula.

daringdutycunningplans.wordpress.com/2019/12/02/c...

24.12.2025 08:49 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Britain's Forgotten Recruits: The Fencibles Spotify video

Thrilled to have been invited back by the @napwarspod.bsky.social to finally discuss my thesis. As Zack said, I am clearly post-submission: how I see the fencibles and their place in the period has changed so much in 4 years

For the better, if I do say so myself 😅

open.spotify.com/episode/0Xz2...

21.12.2025 11:22 👍 10 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

🙄

22.12.2025 02:48 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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The British Army and the American War, 1775-83: Fresh Perspectives

Saturday 14 March 2026

Please save the date for our forthcoming conference to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence and the British Army’s doomed efforts to prevent it.

Details at www.sahr.org.uk/view-event.p...

26.11.2025 12:06 👍 13 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 1

Very pleased my life of Wellington is included in this list - thank you

02.12.2025 05:35 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Sad news…

15.11.2025 02:20 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0

That is very sad - such a good historian. Thanks for letting us know.

15.11.2025 02:20 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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WWI soldier's message in a bottle found on WA beach A century-old message in a bottle from a World War I soldier to his mother has been found on a beach in Western Australia's south.

Story of two First World War letters home from Australian soldiers on board ship headed to Europe found in a bottle on a West Australian beach. #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #Anzac

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

25.10.2025 02:12 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1

Hi Sam, glad you’ve been enjoying it and hope that Yale will sort it out for you.

24.09.2025 02:34 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

😂

11.09.2025 22:23 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Yes, I understand the staff just opened the door and gently ushered it out and it climbed a nearby tree.

11.09.2025 22:23 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Two pictures of a koala in a library

Two pictures of a koala in a library

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Unexpected visitor to a suburban library in Adelaide last night

10.09.2025 22:41 👍 270 🔁 20 💬 15 📌 6
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In this sample article from our Journal, Pete Starling looks at a scheme from the 1850s to train young African men as medical officers for Sierra Leone: www.sahr.org.uk/docs/shar-boys-of-colour-draft-sahrs1120.pdf

Join us to get access to over 400 Journal issues: www.sahr.org.uk/membership.php

08.09.2025 09:14 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Thanks - I’ve read Robin’s (he was my tutor at Uni of Adelaide eons ago), but will look out the Peden and anticipate David French’s volume … and yours too

30.08.2025 11:00 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Is there a good single volume book on British grand strategy in the Second World War? The weight of the official history is more than a little daunting …

30.08.2025 10:05 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Yes, references to cats as pets seem very rare, though I did find one to an eccentric bachelor - a Scottish lawyer - who kept lots, that I included in Love and Marriage

23.08.2025 10:53 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I wish that there was more about Wellington and his dogs, but it wasn’t a subject that got recorded much at the time

23.08.2025 07:12 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Memoirs of George Elers (New York, 1903) p 274

23.08.2025 03:48 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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In 1836 George Elers, who had known Wellington in India forty years before, tried to palm off an unwanted St Bernard dog onto the Duke. (Elers had inherited the dog from a friend and had already tried unsuccessfully to give it to a lady who had jilted the friend). Wellington’s reply was concise.

23.08.2025 03:48 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0

Thanks Rob, very encouraging to see it out in the wild especially here in the remote antipodes!

17.08.2025 03:50 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Jobs and Fellowships | The Society for Military History

Our friends at the Army Records Society have launched another round of their fellowship programme, which offers funding over three years to create a volume in their long-running primary source series. Details at www.smh-hq.org/opps/jobs.html.

16.07.2025 10:24 👍 5 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
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King George’s Army, British Regiments and the Men who led them 1793-1815: Volume 2 | The Napoleon Series King George’s Army, British Regiments and the Men who led them 1793-1815: Volume 2: Foot Guards and 1st to 30th Regiments of Foot. Steve Brown Helion & Company Limited (2024) ISBN: 9781804514382 Pages...

Thanks to Owen Davis for a lovely review of King George’s Army Vol 2 (Foot Guards and 1-30 Foot). Vol 3 is out now, and Vol 4 not too far away.
#napoleonic #history #helion

www.napoleon-series.org/book-reviews...

08.06.2025 02:35 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A compilation of 20 covers of books about the 18th century. You find the whole list by following the link in the skeet

A compilation of 20 covers of books about the 18th century. You find the whole list by following the link in the skeet

Look forward to June!

Here is a list of new #nonfiction #books about the #18thcentury scheduled for next month:
regency-explorer.net/new-releases/

#Regency #Napoleon #history #JaneAusten #read

27.05.2025 17:31 👍 17 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 1