Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

The triumphs and disasters of 1845

It was a year packed with drama – from the transatlantic crossing of the SS Great Britain to the start of the Irish potato blight that would leave millions starving

The Irish potato famine, which began in 1845, would leave approximately two million starving or displaced. [Alamy]

  • The Year That Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845

    Michael Wheeler

    Cambridge University Press, pp. 280, £29

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