Archaeologists have been excavating the notorious British penal settlement of Sarah Island, on Tasmania’s remote west coast.

Hemmed in by impenetrable wilderness, it housed the colony’s hardest criminals, including the notorious cannibal Alexander Pearce.

A team of ten archaeologists recently finished a three week dig on the island.

Parks and Wildlife archaeologist, Jody Steele, says one of the most interesting finds was graffiti etched into the bricks of the one metre by two metre cells.

“We’re hoping we can pull the convict records for the island – the men who were actually stationed out on the island – and cross reference them,” he she said.

“Hopefully get some evidence as to who was in the cells at the time, so we might have a clearer idea about who was being locked up and when.”

A pile of black swan egg shells found in a fireplace, reveal it was a popular menu item.

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The remains of a British pilot and his downed World War II bomber have been found in a small German village.

For Ashford resident John Tutt it marks the end of decades of searching for his brother, Sgt Bernard Frederick Tutt, who died aged just 29.

They grew up in Willesborough and attended the South Central School. Both worked as greengrocers for the Co-operative.

The father-of-two said: “To have found him after all these years is just amazing.

“I know for Bernard’s son Keith it is wonderful because Bernard died when he was just two-months-old and all he knew of his father was what his mother and I told him.

“He feels that his father is something more than just a story now.”

It was thanks to John’s persistent investigations that he received a response to a letter he sent 11 years ago to the Burgermeister of Brandau, a small village 22 miles south east of Frankfurt where the plane came down.

He continued: “I’d written a letter and had never received a response but then out of the blue just before Christmas a young German archaeology student called Felix Klingenbeck wrote to me to say he had found the wreckage.

“He’d informed the Burgermeister when human remains were found and the Burgermeister said he had remembered the letter I sent in 1999 and dug out my address.”

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The Economist has posted an interesting article on how the British middle class of the 18th and 19th centuries shaped the wine industry.

In the 18th century drinking claret helped the rich to distinguish themselves from England’s port-sodden squirearchy. Port was not only the more traditional drink, but also—because it attracted much lower duties—far cheaper. John Hervey, the first Earl of Bristol, spent four times as much on claret as on port, whereas the lusty trenchermen who gathered in the Barbers Hall in the City of London spent a mere £2 on claret as against £850 on port.

When Britain made peace with France in 1713, claret became more accessible and the wine trade flourished. Claret was pricey but rich Londoners, who were also by then big spenders on theatres, spas and music produced by fashionable immigrants, such as Handel, consumed conspicuous quantities. Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first prime minister, used navy ships to smuggle his favourite wines from France. The most expensive one he bought was old burgundy, but that—as now—was available only in tiny quantities. So he relied largely on claret, buying four hogsheads of 24 dozen bottles of Margaux and one hogshead of Lafite every three months. In a single year his wine bill amounted to over £1,200 (£100,000 today). British consumers bought the best stuff and paid top prices. By the time of the French revolution, the British were paying five times as much for their claret as the wine’s other main customers, the notoriously parsimonious Dutch, who preferred the cheaper, lower-grade stuff.

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Pieces of a British warship that was damaged by Albanian mines in 1946 have been found in the Corfu Channel.

The wreckage was found 50 yards (meters) under water in the Corfu Channel between the Albanian mainland and the Greek island of Corfu. It is believed to be a section of the bow of the British destroyer HMS Volage, the researchers said.

Forty-four sailors died in the mine explosions that damaged the Volage and another British Navy destroyer, the HMS Saumarez. Both ships suffered extensive damage but reached Corfu for repairs.

The incident halted talks between Communist Albania and Britain on restoring diplomatic ties that were broken earlier that year. The two countries only formally re-established ties in 1991.

“While largely obscured by mud, the remains show steel frames, electrical wiring, ammunition, stacks of ceramic plates, a British canteen and the remains of boots or shoes,” said James Delgado, president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, who was part of the international team of experts. The institute is nonprofit research body affiliated with Texas A&M University.

A 12-year-old boy who fought at the Battle of the Somme is youngest known British soldier to have served in the First World War.

Mr Maher had told a recruiting officer that he was 18 to enable him to join the 2nd King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment in 1917. But his true age was revealed when he broke down in tears under shellfire and was hauled before an unsympathetic officer.

Mr Maher, who died aged 96 in 1999, remembered: “I was locked up on a train under guard, one of five under-age boys caught serving on the front being sent back to England.

“The youngest was 12 years old. A little nuggety bloke he was, too. We joked that the other soldiers would have had to have lifted him up to see over the trenches.”