Lives Gallery

View of the luxurious reading room onboard the Titanic

A view of one of the many luxurious interior features of the Titanic; the reading and writing room. First class passengers travelled in style onboard the Titanic, having free use of the gym, the Parisian caf and the swimming pool. Built by the shipyard Harland and Wolff for White Star Lines, the liner was almost identical to her sister ship, Olympic and was a rival to Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania'. On her maiden voyage across the Atlantic, the Titanic struck an iceberg on 15th April 1912 and sank with the loss of 1503 lives"

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Daily lives in London during the Blitz

Four images relating to air-raided London in October 1940. Top left shows cast members at the Windmill Theatre which was the only theatre to remain open; the cast slept in the theatre on mattresses laid out on the floor. Top rights shows a communal kitchen in Lambeth run by the Women's Voluntary Services. Bottom right shows a lady carrying an easy chair or bed shelter model and bottom left, a girl lying on one of these portable beds

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

HMS Glorious, aircraft carrier

Royal Navy - HMS Glorious, aircraft carrier, at anchor, steaming up. HMS Glorious was the second of the three Courageous-class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher, they were relatively lightly armed and armoured. Glorious was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later. Glorious was paid off after the war, but was rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the late 1920s. She could carry 30 per cent more aircraft than her half-sister Furious which had a similar tonnage. After re-commissioning in 1930, she spent most of her career operating in the Mediterranean Sea. After the start of the Second World War in 1939, Glorious spent the rest of the year unsuccessfully hunting for the commerce-raiding German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee in the Indian Ocean before returning to the Mediterranean. She was recalled home in April 1940 to support operations in Norway. While evacuating British aircraft from Norway in June, the ship was sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the North Sea with the loss of over 1, 200 lives. Date: circa 1930

© The Peter Butt Aviation Collection / Mary Evans A The Peter Butt Aviation Collection / Mary Evans