A warm welcome to my web pages and I hope historians will find something of interest here. First of all, a little information about me! I was educated at the Universities of Wolverhampton and Birmingham, gaining an MSc in the development of infrastructure in poorer countries at the latter institution many years ago. Subsequently, most of my career was spent as a senior adviser in the Department for International Development, which has now been absorbed into the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I have lived in Nairobi, Bangkok, and Barbados and have travelled to more than seventy countries during my career. I’ve always had an interest in history and the social sciences, and after retirement was fortunate enough to undertake independent research for a PhD in these areas. In my thesis, I investigated the social, cultural, economic, political, aesthetic and environmental attitudes towards new technologies in Victorian England. The information was gleaned from central government and local authority archives, as well as those of professional institutions, and contemporary newspaper articles. My first blog will be about the meaning of streets to the Victorians, how they were used, and the political controversies they generated. Subsequently, debates about the aesthetic and environmental impact of new technologies on the urban fabric, which varied considerably between industrialised cities, will be discussed. Future blogs will consider the development of urban transport ystems in the Black Country of England, the role of infrastructure in the colonial era, and Romanesque church sculpture. Quite a wide range of topics!