Kevin Brown
@kevin-brown.bsky.social
The man behind the book about the man behind the mould.
Historian, writer, lecturer, archivist, author of books on history of medicine, military & maritime history, & Curator of Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum.
Historian, writer, lecturer, archivist, author of books on history of medicine, military & maritime history, & Curator of Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum.
Pinned
Kevin Brown
@kevin-brown.bsky.social
· Apr 20
Titanic, Ship of Lost Illusions: A Floating Microcosm of Edwardian Society, my latest book now out, a study of attitudes to class, race, gender & the cult of manliness exposed on one night as a ship went down: a book to remember www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship...
Bookplates were miniature works of art reflecting their owners’ personalities from the Durer-inspired play on broker Christopher Head’s name to the art deco style woman reading & personifying knowledge for bibliophile Harry Widener to artist Frank Millet’s self-portrait at easel
December 25, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Bookplates were miniature works of art reflecting their owners’ personalities from the Durer-inspired play on broker Christopher Head’s name to the art deco style woman reading & personifying knowledge for bibliophile Harry Widener to artist Frank Millet’s self-portrait at easel
His Durer-inspired bookplate of St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, bearing Christ across a flood is ironic in the light of Christopher Head’s death on Titanic but reflects his own civic service & duty, love of study symbolised by the hermit’s lamp & heraldic family pride
December 25, 2025 at 12:30 AM
His Durer-inspired bookplate of St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, bearing Christ across a flood is ironic in the light of Christopher Head’s death on Titanic but reflects his own civic service & duty, love of study symbolised by the hermit’s lamp & heraldic family pride
Books were important to Christopher Head, quixotic mayor of Chelsea lost on Titanic; when I visited his memorial & former home at Shoreham, I had with me a book he had owned with his bookplate & a copy of my “Titanic: Ship of Lost Illusions” www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship... featuring him
December 25, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Books were important to Christopher Head, quixotic mayor of Chelsea lost on Titanic; when I visited his memorial & former home at Shoreham, I had with me a book he had owned with his bookplate & a copy of my “Titanic: Ship of Lost Illusions” www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship... featuring him
Christopher Head had a taste for grandeur in the homes in Regents Park and Sloan Square he lived in as an adult, befitting a barrister, broker, patron & collector of art and mayor of Chelsea before his death aged 42 on Titanic
December 25, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Christopher Head had a taste for grandeur in the homes in Regents Park and Sloan Square he lived in as an adult, befitting a barrister, broker, patron & collector of art and mayor of Chelsea before his death aged 42 on Titanic
Visiting the ruins of his childhood home & acquiring a secondhand book he had once valued, helped me to see beyond the public persona of broker, barrister, art patron & mayor of Chelsea Christopher Head whose loss on Titanic was reflected in the loss of these remains of his youth
December 25, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Visiting the ruins of his childhood home & acquiring a secondhand book he had once valued, helped me to see beyond the public persona of broker, barrister, art patron & mayor of Chelsea Christopher Head whose loss on Titanic was reflected in the loss of these remains of his youth
Et in Arcadia ego!
December 24, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Et in Arcadia ego!
Happy Christmas and New Year!
Time for some serious reading on a titanic level!
Time for some serious reading on a titanic level!
December 23, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Happy Christmas and New Year!
Time for some serious reading on a titanic level!
Time for some serious reading on a titanic level!
“De toutes les parties de la toilette, la cravate est la seule qui appartienne à l'homme, la seule où se trouve l'individualité … vous n'avez ni aide ni appui; vous êtes abandonné à vous-même; c'est en vous qu'il faut trouver toutes vos ressources” (Balzac, 1830, noeud papillon)
December 23, 2025 at 11:45 AM
“De toutes les parties de la toilette, la cravate est la seule qui appartienne à l'homme, la seule où se trouve l'individualité … vous n'avez ni aide ni appui; vous êtes abandonné à vous-même; c'est en vous qu'il faut trouver toutes vos ressources” (Balzac, 1830, noeud papillon)
In book www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship... & talks I have explored the transfiguration of Victor Peñasco from hedonistic dandy to model of chivalry, piety & manliness but I can never equal his sartorial elegance when unstitching the man behind the stylish suits of Titanic’s hero in a tuxedo
December 22, 2025 at 10:14 PM
In book www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship... & talks I have explored the transfiguration of Victor Peñasco from hedonistic dandy to model of chivalry, piety & manliness but I can never equal his sartorial elegance when unstitching the man behind the stylish suits of Titanic’s hero in a tuxedo
For Balzac “La brute se couvre, le riche ou le sot se parent, l’homme élégant s’habille. La toilette est, tout à la fois, une science, un art, une habitude, un sentiment.” (“The boor covers himself, the rich or the fool adorns himself, the elegant man dresses”) Which one am I?
December 22, 2025 at 10:12 PM
For Balzac “La brute se couvre, le riche ou le sot se parent, l’homme élégant s’habille. La toilette est, tout à la fois, une science, un art, une habitude, un sentiment.” (“The boor covers himself, the rich or the fool adorns himself, the elegant man dresses”) Which one am I?
“connoisseur in creditable viands of various degrees of merit, in manly beverages & trinkets, in seemly apparel & architecture, in weapons, games, dancers & the narcotics…arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure in a becoming way.”
December 22, 2025 at 10:09 PM
“connoisseur in creditable viands of various degrees of merit, in manly beverages & trinkets, in seemly apparel & architecture, in weapons, games, dancers & the narcotics…arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure in a becoming way.”
The 31 January 1909 lecture of Julián Suárez Inclán on the centenary of 1809-14 war of independence at a public meeting of the Real Academia de la Historia in the presence of Alfonso XIII was his recognition as an historian for such a well-connected soldier & liberal politician
December 22, 2025 at 10:07 PM
The 31 January 1909 lecture of Julián Suárez Inclán on the centenary of 1809-14 war of independence at a public meeting of the Real Academia de la Historia in the presence of Alfonso XIII was his recognition as an historian for such a well-connected soldier & liberal politician
‘T was the last rose of summer! Queen Mary’s Gardens, Regents Park, December 2025
December 22, 2025 at 4:57 PM
‘T was the last rose of summer! Queen Mary’s Gardens, Regents Park, December 2025
Morning coffee demands the company of a good book www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship...
December 21, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Morning coffee demands the company of a good book www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship...
There’s something introspective about a ballet about ballet with Matthew Bourne’s “Red Shoes” at Sadlers Wells evoking memories of Moira Shearer in Powell & Pressburger’s 1948 film
December 20, 2025 at 11:22 PM
There’s something introspective about a ballet about ballet with Matthew Bourne’s “Red Shoes” at Sadlers Wells evoking memories of Moira Shearer in Powell & Pressburger’s 1948 film
Probably no tackier nor tasteless nor exploitative than some of the disaster spectaculars in theatres in the past but these immersive experiences are peddling inaccuracies & feeding thrill seeking voyeurism for profit at expense of Titanic victims www.bbc.com/culture/arti...
December 20, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Probably no tackier nor tasteless nor exploitative than some of the disaster spectaculars in theatres in the past but these immersive experiences are peddling inaccuracies & feeding thrill seeking voyeurism for profit at expense of Titanic victims www.bbc.com/culture/arti...
Appreciation for a tour of Fleming’s lab by great nephews of his: “It was great! A very special experience. We appreciated all of your knowledge about him & can’t wait to get home & read the book (I’ve looked at it before but now it has additional meaning).”
December 19, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Appreciation for a tour of Fleming’s lab by great nephews of his: “It was great! A very special experience. We appreciated all of your knowledge about him & can’t wait to get home & read the book (I’ve looked at it before but now it has additional meaning).”
My catalogue entries for Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum loans to 2021-22 Roemer-und Pelizaeus-Museum epidemics exhibition published in “Seuchen: Fluch der Vergangenheit, Bedrohung der Zukunft”(Veröffentlichungen des Museumsvereins Hildesheim), 2025 hilpub.uni-hildesheim.de/server/api/c...
December 15, 2025 at 8:12 AM
My catalogue entries for Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum loans to 2021-22 Roemer-und Pelizaeus-Museum epidemics exhibition published in “Seuchen: Fluch der Vergangenheit, Bedrohung der Zukunft”(Veröffentlichungen des Museumsvereins Hildesheim), 2025 hilpub.uni-hildesheim.de/server/api/c...
A clash of fire & water, Turner & Constable were rivals yet both in their ways revolutionaries as artists with different approaches to landscape painting
December 14, 2025 at 3:47 PM
A clash of fire & water, Turner & Constable were rivals yet both in their ways revolutionaries as artists with different approaches to landscape painting
“Last summer green things were greener, brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer” (Christina Rossetti). Something to muse on in the bleak midwinter or even in summer as the years pass by.
December 14, 2025 at 12:44 AM
“Last summer green things were greener, brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer” (Christina Rossetti). Something to muse on in the bleak midwinter or even in summer as the years pass by.
Not so long ago a cellphone was used to make calls on the go. Now the smartphone has superseded landlines, facilitates all forms of communication, is a portable computer & gateway to information, a navigation tool, a camera, repository of tickets & cards: & we take it for granted
December 13, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Not so long ago a cellphone was used to make calls on the go. Now the smartphone has superseded landlines, facilitates all forms of communication, is a portable computer & gateway to information, a navigation tool, a camera, repository of tickets & cards: & we take it for granted
A nice derangement of epitaphs is what we have come to enjoy for 250 years from Sheridan’s “The Rivals” whether set among the very pineapple of politeness in 1775 Bath or updated to the oracular tongue of the 1920s by Tom Littler at Orange Tree Theatre
December 13, 2025 at 5:40 PM
A nice derangement of epitaphs is what we have come to enjoy for 250 years from Sheridan’s “The Rivals” whether set among the very pineapple of politeness in 1775 Bath or updated to the oracular tongue of the 1920s by Tom Littler at Orange Tree Theatre
There is a poignancy that popular progressive soap manufacturer & clean-cut Titanic victim Tom Pears is only commemorated by an inscription added to his father’s Isleworth grave monument but I have traced his life story in “Titanic: Ship of Lost Illusions” www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship...
December 13, 2025 at 9:48 AM
There is a poignancy that popular progressive soap manufacturer & clean-cut Titanic victim Tom Pears is only commemorated by an inscription added to his father’s Isleworth grave monument but I have traced his life story in “Titanic: Ship of Lost Illusions” www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Titanic-Ship...
“A good chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss resulted from a mistake he made & looks for that mistake in the opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar mistakes & that none of his moves were perfect” (Tolstoy War & Peace)
December 12, 2025 at 5:35 PM
“A good chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss resulted from a mistake he made & looks for that mistake in the opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar mistakes & that none of his moves were perfect” (Tolstoy War & Peace)
“Thank you for keeping this special place for our generation” wrote a visitor to the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum. The birthplace of penicillin should be preserved for all generations.
December 12, 2025 at 12:43 PM
“Thank you for keeping this special place for our generation” wrote a visitor to the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum. The birthplace of penicillin should be preserved for all generations.