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Stephen Tomkins

Verified
London
As seen in: Reform, BBC, The Guardian, London Review of Books, History News Network, History Today
Sculptor. Magician. Leopard. Embarrassment. Anagram. Birdseed. Sorry, what was the question again?
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Articles by Stephen Tomkins

At the House of Mr Frog

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By David Hall, Stephen Tomkins Verified, Malcolm Gaskill
| London Review of Books Verified
Cartoonists​ find it as easy to draw puritans as they do Vikings. There’s an example on my pinboard. A behatted man, buttoned up in black, admires his wife’s sampler, which reads: ‘Way to Go, God.’ ‘Nice sentiment, Martha,’ he beams. Martha wears the same gloomy sub fusc, with black bonnet and broad linen collar. Putting slang in puritan mouths is fun because we know that precision and decorum in speech were hallmarks of righteousness.
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The Pilgrim Settlers Before the Mayflower

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By Stephen Tomkins Verified
| History Today Verified
This year, the US looks back four centuries to an intrepid band of refugees making a perilous home in New England. The Mayflower pilgrims had been outlaws in England, members of an underground church known as the Brownists or Separatists. They believed church should be a voluntary community rather than a compulsory state religion. For their refusal to submit to the Church of England they had faced raids, prison, exile and death for the previous 60 years.
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Reexamining the Mayflower 400 Years Later

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By Stephen Tomkins Verified
| History News Network Verified
Stephen Tomkins is the author of eight books on Christian history, including biographies of William Wilberforce and John Wesley. He is the editor of Reform magazine and was previously deputy editor of Third Way. He has a PhD in church history from the London School of Theology. Adapted from The Journey to the Mayflower by Stephen Tomkins, published by Pegasus Books. Reprinted with permission. All other rights reserved.
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Not the Puritan Messiah

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By Stephen Tomkins Verified
| History Today Verified
Elizabethan puritans had to spend a lot of time assuring people that they had no desire to overthrow the queen. Since Elizabeth I had faced repeated uprisings and conspiracies from Catholics, who opposed her religion from one end of the spiritual spectrum, many in positions of power feared such rebellion from the opposite end. Puritans, however, were campaigning for Church reform from a position of complete loyalty.
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ZX81: Small black box of computing desire

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By Stephen Tomkins Verified
| BBC Verified
The Sinclair ZX81 was small, black with only 1K of memory, but 30 years ago it helped to spark a generation of programming wizards. Packing a heady 1KB of RAM, you would have needed many, many thousands of them to run Word or iTunes, but the ZX81 changed everything. It didn't do colour, it didn't do sound, it didn't sync with your trendy Swap Shop style telephone, it didn't even have an off switch.
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