Britain's only remaining illuminations (in the true sense) are in Blackpool, where they are associated with trams, tableaux and tackiness. But where did Blackpool, first lit up in 1879, get the idea for such a display? Georgian London of course.

On Saturday, during a conversation with the lovely Dan Cruickshank the chatter turned to the sad state of 76 Dean Street. It's a subject Dan is passionate about, and we came to conclusion that the parlous situation of this fine building has somehow, and quite wrongly slipped under the radar. Patrick Baty, everyone's favourite historical paint maven, suggested all the people he knows who should be contacted; you know, important people like The Georgian Group and so on, and I said I would blog, Facebook and Tweet about it. We can but try, and this building deserves awareness, if nothing else.

On the 12th of October 1736, on a Jesuit plantation in Cartagena, Columbia a little girl names Mary Sabina was born to the two negro slaves Patrona and Martiniano.

José Gumilla was a priest in charge of the sick on the plantation, and when Mary Sabina was about six months old, he happened to see her when she was with her mother. He discussed the child's extraordinary appearance with Patrona. Mary Sabina had piebaldism, resulting in the astonishing spotted effect visible in the two portraits of her in the gallery. Patrona put it down to the fact that she had a pet dog of black and white colouring of which she had become fond whilst pregnant. Gumilla recommended Patrona guard her baby very carefully lest some ignorant person cast the evil eye upon it.

On the 5th of July 1732 Thomas Gordon was indicted for robbing one John Cooper, of Number 11, Eagle-court, the Strand. The two men had taken a walk together in Chelsea Fields 'to a secret place', and Gordon had threatened Cooper with a knife unless he gave up all his clothing and his jewellery and changed it with Gordon's. At first, it appeared to be one of those robberies that happens late at night on Clapham Common, between two previously unacquainted gentlemen. The vast majority of such crimes are never even reported let alone prosecuted even in these 'enlightened' times, so the fact that John Cooper brought this to trial in 1732 is quite astonishing. The trial that followed was to be even more incredible.

Ask anyone vaguely interested in the metalwork of the 18thC for the name of a female silversmith and nine times out of ten they'll reply, 'Hester Bateman', and not without good reason. Hester is rightly famous for being an illiterate widow who took her late husband's business by the scruff of its neck and forged a dynasty of successful silversmiths; she is wrongly famous for being an artisan who actually manufactured any of the pieces bearing her name. Many collectors and historians delight in the concept of an uneducated widow hammering out some of the prettiest pieces of Georgian silver, but as much as the history-lover in me wants to believe, the evidence simply isn't there.

In Georgian London, fake coin was a problem. There were no banks willing to take in the fake brass shillings you had accidentally picked up in your change at the market. The problem central to counterfeit money, and interference with the currency itself was to do with bullion, and the growth in international trade. England minted coins in both gold and sterling standard silver. These coins had a set value, but they stayed in circulation for a long time, and over the decades, the bullion prices changed, so the actual value of the metal was either lower, or higher than the face value of the coin. If the value was lower, it was cheaper to 'buy' coins and make them into silver dishes, spoons and forks and so on, than it was to buy the bullion to make them.

Whaling: however you look at it, modern sensibilities tell us it's a bad thing. In the 18thC, smaller populations and lack of technology meant it was only possible to hunt something to extinction within a restricted habitat, like the British wolf and the Dodo. The vastness of the oceans equated to an endless bounty in the 18thC consciousness, as well as an otherness that could not be conquered. Whaling was regarded as a perilous occupation, and whatever we now think about the industry, it takes a hard heart not to admire the courage of the men who pursued it, often at the cost of their own lives.

Castration has been used as a punishment, for religious purposes, and also for musical purposes. By the 18thC, men were castrated only as a punishment for sodomy (and not in England), or to keep their voices high and sweet (and only in Italy). Italian castrati were popular throughout Europe for the extraordinary quality of their voices, usually ranging from soprano to contralto but able to sing very high notes without the forced quality of falsetto.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, more than ten weeks prematurely in the winter of 1642/3. His father died before he was born, but the family were not without money, and Isaac and his mother pottered on alone until she remarried a rector when he was three. Isaac, understandably, loathed his step-father. Less understandably, he later recorded that he had threatened to burn both his mother and step-father alive in an outburst of temper. His mother went on to have more children, but remained devoted to her eldest son.

Every century has an epic lady cookery writer: Elizabeth David and Isabella Beeton obviously spring to mind for the 20th and 19th centuries, but how many of you have heard of Hannah Glasse? Like all great cookery writers, Hannah's life was a bit of a mess, but her most famous work, Art of Cookery, first published in 1747 was the household book of the 18th century. It would eventually save Hannah from the debtors' prisons of the Fleet and the Marshalsea, and enable her as a widow to raise her eight children.