In the final part of his series, Peter White reveals the birth of a modern disabled identity in the 19th century - through the lives of some extraordinary independent blind women. Peter says, 'I'm used to people describing me as disabled. Fair enough, I can't see. But I do wonder sometimes whether putting me into a disabled category really makes much sense. Some of my best friends use wheelchairs, but the truth is our needs could hardly be more different. I fall over them, they run over me!...

Disabled children are everywhere in popular fiction - Tiny Tim, What Katy Did, The Secret Garden. But what about the real children of the 19th century? What were their lives like, and where can we hear their voices? In this 9th programme in the series, Peter White searches for documents which reveal the reality of children's lives. He discovers new research into the history of the Brave Poor Things, a charity which set out to 'save' disabled children across the country through organised...

Peter White explores sex and marriage between disabled people and reveals the shameful history of eugenics in Britain. The programme begins with a document from Buckingham Palace - an order for some glamorous undergarments for a Royal Trousseau. They were sewn by the women of the Girls' Friendly Society, a group of disabled seamstresses who made a living by sewing sexy underwear. But they themselves had no expectation of marriage, or a sex life. In fact, if they were discovered not to be a...

Peter White has a close encounter with a huge wooden leg, and asks who got access to new technology in the 19th century. Strangely, wooden legs were thought to be sexy in the 19th century. During the 22 years of war with France, tens of thousands of British soldiers and sailors gave their lives for their country. Surviving, with a missing limb, became tangible proof of valour - and virility. However, the reality of life with a wooden leg was anything but romantic. Peter White discovers an...

Work and disability has always been an awkward fit. Peter White says, 'When as a teenager I said I wanted to be a broadcaster, there was a sharp intake of breath. Shouldn't I be considering becoming a piano tuner, or a physiotherapist? That's what blind people did. I wanted to know what it was like in the past, when people had to work - or starve.' What he discovers is surprising - disabled people were everywhere in the 19th century work-force. In some parts of the country, more than 60%...

Peter White draws on the latest research to reveal the lives of physically disabled people in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today - Finding a Voice: Peter discovers William Hay, an 18th-century MP born with spinal curvature who has left us a remarkably revealing account of his life. Peter comments, 'This series has been full of surprises for me - surprises even after making programmes about disability for 30 years. But perhaps this discovery has been for me the most startling. It's a book...

Peter White draws on the latest research to reveal the lives of physically disabled people in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, he explores ideas of beauty and deformity which had a real impact on the lives of people with disabilities. In the 18th century, you could be transformed from beautiful to 'deformed' overnight. We hear the first-hand account of one woman who suffered this transformation - the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a society beauty who caught smallpox when she was 26:...

Peter White draws on the latest research to reveal the lives of physically disabled people in the 18th and 19th centuries. In this third episode, he challenges our modern ideas of freaks and freak shows. Many disabled people who exhibited themselves in the 18th century were in fact wealthy entrepreneurs. Historians now argue that they were in charge of their own careers, and they challenged society's expectations of what disabled people could achieve. Case studies include the artist Matthew...

Peter White draws on the latest research to reveal the lives of physically disabled people in the 18th and 19th centuries. In this second episode - the search for Miracle Cures. Peter says, 'Every so often in the street someone sees me with my white stick and comes up to me -and offers me my sight back. I'm usually quite rude to them, it depends what kind of day I'm having. But the idea of miracle cures runs very deep.' It goes back at least to the Middle Ages, to the earliest accounts we...

Across the country, historians are discovering the voices of disabled people from the past. In this 10-part series, Peter White draws on the latest research to reveal first-hand accounts of what it was like to live with physical disability in the 18th and 19th centuries. The result is moving, revealing, and sometimes very funny: 'Sirs, I am a dwarf. I have lost my job at the circus and what is a dwarf to do in such a situation? In this Godforsaken place the snow comes so deep that a...