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William Owen

@wdowen.bsky.social
491 followers 356 following 464 posts

Advisor on digital transformation & conservation in the cultural sector @ wdowen.substack.com. Writing about East India Company influence on Art, Lit, Science & industry @ eaho.substack.com

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 11h
The Ebihen archipelago on the north Brittany coast has 3 of the world’s best beaches in its 1km x 0.3km extent, all virtually unoccupied as only accessible 2hrs either side of low tide: unspeakably beautiful.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Oh if only the Guardian’s politics team were as perspicacious and unaffected by centrist normality as its football commentators www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
This civil war on the British right is a charade – its politics are more united than ever | Jonathan Liew
Don’t be fooled by its bickering leaders. Their calibrated fake fighting will probably end in coalition, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Hmmm, possibly offensive to sharks: not a parasitic species
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
These egregious and lying scare quotes come free - no extra charge - with your @theguardian.com subscription www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
theguardian.com
Thousands gather in London to express support for Palestinians after three years of ‘genocide’
Twenty arrested in first march since Ed Miliband declared UK’s position was that Israel’s occupation of West Bank was unlawful
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
And here’s another one
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Towards a National Collection (TaNC) @nationalcollection.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Wikimedia project, part of the N-RICH Prototype programme. Led by Histropedia, the project will explore how Wikidata and Linked Open Data can connect data services and research infrastructures across the UK cultural heritage sector. tinyurl.com/356zfd4j
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
No No No: Science can say what it will but *money* will rule the day. (You’ll know what I mean if you get to the end of this worthwhile review). www.theguardian.com/film/2026/oc...
theguardian.com
A Statement review – outstanding climate change dramedy about a 1980 meeting
Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti and Tatiana Maslany lead an excellent ensemble in this dramatization of a failed 1980 conference on climate change
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Are words like 'tenebrous' used for any purpose other than to force us to reach for the dictionary?
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The way the world works: [Manchester] City lawyer Simon Cliff asserts that “Uefa doesn’t respond to anything other than aggression”, and threatens the governing body of European football … with “the destruction of their rules and organisation”. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The Manchester City case shows us how the global mega-rich now expect to operate with impunity | Jonathan Liew
When transnational alliances have scarcely been weaker, the way the club was allegedly run offers a bleak vision of a world driven by brute power and wealth, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Yep saw that. There’s clearly been some weird collective panic in the FT features and marketing teams, fearing a slump in How to Spend It readership. I’m sure you can buy the paper in Monaco though.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Ah, the heights of academe
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Do you have a view of mountains or Menai straits?
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Enjoying the Mediterranean weather under a Mediterranean pine in Metropolitan London reading about the ‘Godzilla’ El Niño now at 3 degrees above average
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Big news, this has been a long time coming: strong evidence that there are multiple hidden chambers behind Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, possibly Nefertiti’s tomb. Nick Reeves’ work builds on laser scanning data captured by Factum Foundation > a decade ago. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Exclusive: New evidence for hidden chambers beyond Tutankhamun’s tomb
Geophysical survey yields ‘tantalizing’ data that could point to Nefertiti’s burial place – but it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Big news, this has been a long time coming: strong evidence that there are multiple hidden chambers behind Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, possibly Nefertiti’s tomb. Nick Reeves’ work builds on laser scanning data captured by Factum Foundation > a decade ago. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Exclusive: New evidence for hidden chambers beyond Tutankhamun’s tomb
Geophysical survey yields ‘tantalizing’ data that could point to Nefertiti’s burial place – but it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The story behind the name "Cally" is "Ferodo"
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Nobody mentions Cold Comfort Farm for three decades, and then suddenly @davidveevers.bsky.social it’s the talk of the town. How? Is this ‘the vibe’?
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Scare quotes watch reveals Zionist sub-editor (and/or political editor) at work at the Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing
Ed Miliband announces sanctions on trade with settlers as PM says in the Guardian it is time to act
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
…and failing to rigorously scrutinise how their actions, on donations and conduct, is damaging to the idea of democratic politics overall.” Patrick Howse, former BBC News producer on BBC News’ response to C4 expose of Reform seeking illegal cash donations. bylinetimes.com/2026/09/07/t...
bylinetimes.com
The BBC Is Just Nodding Along
The corporation's news coverage has lost its soul as a bulwark against unaccountable power and extremism, writes a former BBC News producer
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
“my profession … smiles at hard-right figures when they walk into a TV studio and are given a disproportionate amount of air time to make their fact-free assertions while nodding along to their scapegoating of the weak, the disadvantaged, the foreign, and the displaced …
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I’m picturing this a.m.’s editorial meet at BBC News in Millbank House. At issue the plausibility of a long-planned editorial line for Reform conference, 'Preparing for Government'. Chris Mason is on the phone to Robbie Gibb: “WE STICK WITH IT!”. Nick Robinson grimly checks his intro one more time
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
It’s immensely reassuring and empowering when persistence pays off.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
And should also be read in conjunction with this analysis by a French researcher of the strategy and tactics behind the hounding of Jason Arday and its ultimate purpose, in which Orr, and Toby Young, both figure broligarchy.substack.com/p/the-killin...
broligarchy.substack.com
The killing of a black man
A French researcher exposes the network of “race realists” who hunted Jason Arday like prey and the media who fell into their trap
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
BBC News R4 Today introduces a feature on supercharged El Niño by twice emphasising this is a natural phenomena and without linking the ‘supercharging’ to global warming by fossil fuel use. This is a repeated tick, editorial policy, not sloppy journalism. BBC News has gone full Trump.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
UK must end all trade with Israel, says co-founder of BDS movement
Exclusive: sanctions against ministers and settler groups are ‘smoke and mirrors cop-out’ says Omar Barghouti
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
No, really ...
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
From the FT, with no intended irony: ‘It’s like playing on concrete’: drought leaves sports pitches across England unplayable. - Rugby and football matches postponed as dry weather affects grassroots and amateur sports ...
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
A news item that tells us that next year is going to be the hottest ever because of El Niño without mentioning CO2 induced heating has got to be funded by fossil fuel companies - yeah? Well it’s BBC News, in every radio bulletin today.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
3/3 Yet at the end of the story there is a convergence. Ella becomes involved in a personal struggle for the truth concerning her husband’s death in Gallipoli, in which she discovers that he was killed twice-over by Winston Churchill & only in part through the agency of Turkish bullets.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
2/3 Nurgis, the third of five sisters, was at St Hilda’s College Oxford in 1906 with Eliza’s granddaughter, Ella Ogilvy Bell. They led parallel and very different lives on opposite sides of the struggle: Nurgis joined the Rashtriya Stree Sabha women's movement; Ella married a British Army captain.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
The life of Eliza Ogilvy opens up rabbit holes I sometimes run down gratefully. This is a deep one, concerning the granddaughters of the Congress leader Dadabhai Naoroji and their leading role in the Indian liberation movement in Mumbai in the 1920s and ‘30s. eaho.substack.com/p/the-captai...
eaho.substack.com
The Captain sisters in Bombay, organising women's resistance to British rule in India
Dadabhai Naoroji paid for his granddaughters to have the very best education at Oxford & the Sorbonne; they used it wisely, to lead the women's Satyagraha movement and the boycott campaign in Bombay.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Re. Point 1, don’t underestimate history: understand our past, present and possible futures [plural]
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
@eicathomefinn.bsky.social @alanlester.bsky.social Thank you for your kind words! The kernel of the book (so far) is here eaho.substack.com/s/the-book/a... but yet to cover 2H19C. The explanation of how it fits together, and how one things leads to another, is here: eaho.substack.com/p/introducin...
eaho.substack.com
Introducing Eliza Ogilvy (the long edition)
A literary life in Scotland, India, Italy and London; a network of artists, writers and scientists; a microhistory of the East India Company and its influence on British culture in the 19th Century.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
I’m standing in the rain. It’s not the monsoon but it’s gorgeous!
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Oh, and show with-the-wind newspapers too (Like @theguardian.com, carrying a dozen or more stories about Jason Arday, some of which heaped on the harrassment, eg. www.theguardian.com/education/20...
theguardian.com
Jason Arday claimed he was paid ‘1.4 million’ by publisher for memoir
Simon & Schuster still plans to publish book by Cambridge academic who resigned this week amid plagiarism claims
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
We need to show rightwing newspapers that actions have consequences. Add your name: goodlawproject.org/s/abb8a1
goodlawproject.org
Jason Arday: Demand a public inquiry now | Good Law Project
Commission an immediate public inquiry into how to ensure a responsible press given its contribution to Dr Arday’s tragic death.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Thanks Margot. Adding in part 3 on diverse mechanisms by which Indian and Chinese wealth was transferred to capital formation in Britain, inc. Macnaghten & Prinsep connections with GWR, Lushington & Harris with London Chatham & Kent, and P&O with opium transit eaho.substack.com/p/163-old-in...
eaho.substack.com
16.3 Old Indians, new money
David Ogilvy was a cog in the machine that directed wealth gained in China and India into British capital formation during the railway boom and bust of 1843-50. The consequences were transformative.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
And here is Part 1, Railway mania eaho.substack.com/p/161-railwa...
eaho.substack.com
16.1 Railway mania
How profits extracted from India fuelled Britain's railway bubble; how William Aytoun played a small part in its bursting; and how Eliza Dick found herself in an East India Company marriage.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
And here is Part 1, Railway mania eaho.substack.com/p/161-railwa...
eaho.substack.com
16.1 Railway mania
How profits extracted from India fuelled Britain's railway bubble; how William Aytoun played a small part in its bursting; and how Eliza Dick found herself in an East India Company marriage.
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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
1/2 Following on from @eicathomefinn.bsky.social & others (link), William Owen has been researching the East India Company's influence on British society & economy. This eastern influence merged with that of the Atlantic slavery complex to help transform the nation. uclpress.co.uk/book/the-eas...
uclpress.co.uk
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Something to watch giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
giftarticle.ft.com
The Bayeux Tapestry loan is a model for the Parthenon Marbles
Burnham has a chance to create a legislative carve-out that speeds the process of returning the artefacts to Greece
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Bristol University's failed appeal to overturn David Miller's tribunal victory confirms legal protections for anti-Zionism as a philosophical belief - and is ignored by all m/s media except the BBC and Al Jazeera. Times, Telegraph and Guardian are much too busy hounding Jason Arday to cover it.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
This is just one of the ways in which wealth generated in India & China was mobilised, via savings, into investments in capital goods in Britain, which is the subject of this 3-part essay on East India Company involvement in the railway mania of 1843-50. eaho.substack.com/p/161-railwa...
eaho.substack.com
16.1 Railway mania
How profits extracted from India fuelled Britain's railway bubble; how William Aytoun played a small part in its bursting; and how Eliza Dick found herself in an East India Company marriage.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
As the great opium smuggler James Matheson once remarked, it is “opium revenue on which [the East India Company] chiefly rely for the means of paying the dividends on their Stock”. And yes, a guaranteed annual dividend of £630,000 was divided between some 4500 individual shareholders.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
So why the scare quotes? The article says “Two of the most frequently used chemicals in pet flea and tick treatments – imidacloprid and fipronil – are banned for use in pesticides in the EU and UK due to their severe toxicity to fish, invertebrates, bees.” www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
theguardian.com
Calls to ban ‘toxic’ pet flea treatments that harm UK wildlife and environment
Over-the-counter treatments for cats and dogs contain chemicals that are banned in pesticides and pollute waterways
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Reposted by William Owen
William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
As the great opium smuggler James Matheson once remarked, it is “opium revenue on which [the East India Company] chiefly rely for the means of paying the dividends on their Stock”. And yes, a guaranteed annual dividend of £630,000 was divided between some 4500 individual shareholders.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
This is just one of the ways in which wealth generated in India & China was mobilised, via savings, into investments in capital goods in Britain, which is the subject of this 3-part essay on East India Company involvement in the railway mania of 1843-50. eaho.substack.com/p/161-railwa...
eaho.substack.com
16.1 Railway mania
How profits extracted from India fuelled Britain's railway bubble; how William Aytoun played a small part in its bursting; and how Eliza Dick found herself in an East India Company marriage.
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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
As the great opium smuggler James Matheson once remarked, it is “opium revenue on which [the East India Company] chiefly rely for the means of paying the dividends on their Stock”. And yes, a guaranteed annual dividend of £630,000 was divided between some 4500 individual shareholders.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Thinking through the unedifying, un-evidence-based rush to an undefined, apparently unmodelled paradigm of 'specialisation, what's being lost/threatened? Herts History was an excellent example of performing to a top standard in REF, but also much more than that. Questions to think with include: 1/4
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