Yesterday, David Cameron responded to Tim’s open letter calling for patriotism to play a big part in the Conservative manifesto. An aspect of Tim’s suggestions was to improve young peoples’ shockingly poor knowledge of British history because it is difficult to love a country you know nothing about. David Cameron agreed saying that it is “vitally important that we bring back proper teaching of British history in our schools.”
ConHome reader, Dan Beckham, had another great suggestion for tackling this problem. He said that the BBC should make better use of our license fee by producing a series of historical dramas profiling the most important figures in our history. I thought this was a great idea, but began to wonder who the most important figures in our history are. Dan made some suggestions and I add to them below. What do you think? Who shaped the country we know today? Who should every person in the UK know about?
· Winston Churchill and Lloyd George – great world wartime leaders
· William the Conqueror, King John, Oliver Cromwell, Elizabeth I, Henry II, Victoria I, Henry VIII, Guy Fawkes and Lord Nelson – Monarchs, leaders and a rebel who played key roles in shaping Britain either territorially, religiously or structurally
· Adam Smith, Edmund Burke and Margaret Thatcher – architects of modern conservatism
· Clement Atlee and Aneurin Bevan – architects of the welfare state
· Ramsay MacDonald -- landmark premiership for the parliamentary labour movement
· St. Augustine of Canterbury, Florence Nightingale, William Wilberforce, John Wesley, George Cadbury and Joseph Rowntree – great philanthropists
· Issac Newton, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Tim Berner-Lee – great inventors
· William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Joseph Mallord William Turner and John Lennon – great artists
· Robert Peel, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli – great figures of 19th reform era
· Captain Cook and Sir Walter Raleigh – great explorers.