The Boer War (1899-1902) is largely forgotten today but it was a huge and divisive experience at the time, and it proved a fore-runner of the devastating impact of the Great War only twelve years later. Like in the rest of the country, young men in Peterborough volunteered for service in South Africa and the city was engulfed by popular rejoicing when news arrived of the relief of the townships of Ladysmith and Mafeking. But what was the war about and why did it capture people's imaginations so powerfully? What can it tell us about the country, the city and the people we used to be?
 
Dr Sean Lang is Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University, where he specialises in the history of the British Empire.  He is a regular broadcaster on local radio and is the author of British History for Dummies and First World War for Dummies.