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Answer: Methodism

John Wesley was born in Lincolnshire into a religious family (his father was an Anglican minister) and studied theology at Oxford University. His brother, Charles, born four years later followed in his footsteps and the two brothers formed a club, called the Holy Club, at the university where like minded people could meet to study the Bible and pray. From this evolved the Methodist Church, known for its simple forms of dress and lifestyle - Methodists were the leaders of the temperance movement. Charles, the younger Wesley, was a renowned hymn writer - his output exceeding 6,000 - many of which are still sung in the twenty-first century.

Answer: Anne

Queen Anne was the last of the Stuarts, the dynasty which began (in England) when James I succeeded the final Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, in 1603. The Stuarts had a turbulent time, with Charles I being executed and Charles II exiled for many years while Oliver Cromwell was in control. James II was deposed, due to being a Catholic, with the throne passing to his daughters - firstly Mary II, then Anne.

Although Anne had numerous pregnancies, they mostly ended in miscarriage or stillbirth. Of the children who were born alive only one reached double figures and he died at the age of eleven. On her death, the throne passed to George I, the first Hanoverian monarch, who was the closest Protestant in the line of succession - Catholics were barred from the throne.

Answer: Astronomer Royal

If you realised that Edmond Halley was the man who gave his name to Halley's Comet, identifying that he was most likely to be the Astronomer Royal should have been easy. The position of Astronomer Royal dates from the time of King Charles II, with John Flamsteed being appointed in 1675 as the first man to hold the post. Halley was the second and has the benefit of being memorable due to his work on comets, notably the one which bears his name.

He calculated the periods between its appearance and predicted it would next be seen in 1758. Halley himself didn't see it, dying in 1742, but the comet was named for him when it duly appeared in the year he'd calculated.

Answer: A merchant sea captain

The unfortunate Jenkins was the captain of a ship boarded by Spanish privateers who accused Jenkins of smuggling. Surprisingly, the incident happened in 1731 and it took eight years for the incident to be used an an excuse for hostilities. The purpose of the war was to gain ascendency in the Caribbean, for trading purposes.

The war petered out with no overall victor, although British losses were higher than those of the Spanish. The name for the conflict was created by the historian Thomas Carlyle in 1858 and is quirky enough to have stuck.

Answer: Dublin

The oratorio was based on the King James Bible and composed by Handel in 1741. The first public performance was on April 13th in 1742, with London having to wait nearly a year to hear it. The work covers the whole of Jesus's life from the prophecy in Isaiah to His resurrection and parts of the Book of Revelation.

The most famous pieces from it are probably 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' and the 'Hallelujah' chorus where the audience, by tradition, stands during the performance.

Answer: India

This battle took place during the Seven Years' War, when colonisation was rife. On one side was the East India Company, set up to trade in Asia and the other was the Nawab of Bengal, supported by the French, including the French East India Company, whose ambitions were the same as the British company - to have a monopoly on trade.

The major battle was at Palashi, around 100 miles north of Calcutta (now Kolkata), with the name being anglicised to Plassey. Although outnumbered, the British prevailed, took possession of much of the Bengal region, and extended the empire which would last well into the twentieth century. Robert Clive became known as Clive of India and was given a peerage as Baron Clive of Plassey.

Answer: Victory

HMS Victory was built at Chatham Dockyard on the River Medway, with construction taking just under six years. She became the flagship of Admiral Keppel at the First Battle of Ushant and Admiral Kempenfelt at the Second Battle of Ushant in 1778 and 1781 respectively.

In 1979, she took part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent, but is best remembered for being Admiral Lord Nelson's flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. HMS victory is still in commission in the twenty-first century as a museum, located in Portsmouth.

Answer: Cotton

The mill was set up in a small village named Cromford, in Derbyshire. Arkwright had invented a frame for weaving, powered by water, which was too large to be used in the home. Until his invention, spinning and weaving had been a cottage industry, carried out at home, but Cromford Mill became the forerunner of what became the Industrial Revolution, splitting home and workplace.

The mill produced cotton. Not only that, Arkwright provided newly built housing for his employees, since the village was not large enough to accommodate the numbers of workers needed.

His development also included shops, a public house, places of worship and a school. The complex has been preserved as a museum.

Answer: The Times

The Daily Universal Register was first published on 1st January 1785, having been set up by John Walter. Exactly three years later, the newspaper was published under the new name of The Times, and has remained in print under that name ever since. In 1981 it became one of the newspapers owned by News UK, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp publishing empire.

Answer: Vaccination

It's hard to imagine what a leap of faith was required for those who received the first vaccinations, although the disease which Jenner's vaccine protected against was a deadly one - smallpox. Jenner wasn't the first to understand the immunity gained against smallpox by people who caught cowpox, nor that this might protect against the far more serious smallpox, but he was the man whose name is linked to the development of vaccines. Jenner was a doctor in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, a small town in Gloucestershire where he was born and died. Eventually, smallpox would be the first disease to be declared eradicated, but not until 1980.