Daughter of the famous romantic poet Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace was a child prodigy. Brilliant at maths, she read numbers like most people read words. Lady Byron wanted Ada to be as unlike her father as possible. Ada grew up surrounded by an army of t…

From tunnels and railways to bridges and ships, Isambard Kingdom Brunel would stop at nothing to realise his amazing engineering ideas. Born at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Brunel had a brilliant brain for design, and never tired of buil…

Born a poor Glasgow cotton-mill worker, David grew up to become a great explorer and hero of his time.This is his incredible story. The tough man of Victorian Britain would stop at nothing in his determination to be the first white man to explore Af…

Florence knew she did not want a life of fancy clothes and parties, like the other girls. She was going to do something different - and important. But what? In 1854, she shocked everyone. Florence set out for the Crimea to nurse soldiers injured in…

Victoria was just 18 when she was crowned Queen in 1837 - a tiny figure, with a will of iron. Never was there so queenly a queen. She made Britain great and the people loved her for it.But in 1861 tragedy struck, when her husband Albert died. The li…

Young Charles Dickens's happy childhood came to a sudden end when his father was jailed for debt and, aged 12, he was sent to work in a factory to make shoe polish. By his mid twenties, he was on the verge of becoming the most popular novelist the w…