Police have today executed a number of warrants as part of an investigation into a disturbance in Oldham.

 

This morning (Wednesday 27 November 2019) officers visited 14 properties across Oldham and Crumpsall as well as a property in West Yorkshire.

 

Warrants were executed at Oldham and Crumpsall

 

13 men aged between 15 and 40 years of age were arrested on suspicion of violent disorder.

 

The action comes as part of Operation Woodville – a long-running investigation into serious public disorder occurring on Saturday 18 May 2019 in the Limeside area of Oldham.

 

As part of ongoing enquiries, police have released the images of (26) people that they want to speak to.

 

Chief Superintendent Neil Evans of GMP’s Territorial Commander with responsibility for Oldham said: “As the scale of this morning’s operation demonstrates, we continue to treat May’s disturbance with the upmost seriousness.

“We have been in liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service since the early stages of the investigation and a team of detectives has been working to identify those whose criminal behaviour resulted in the ugly scenes witnessed.

“Investigators have been working alongside key local partners as part of our extensive enquiries. Specialist detectives from our Major Investigations Team as well as local officers have been involved in hours of work assessing evidence and information received from the public.

 

“While we have made a number of arrests, our enquiries remain very much ongoing.

 

“In conjunction with this morning’s positive action, we have released a number of images of people who we want to speak to concerning their actions on 18 May 2019.

 

“As we have previously said, we understand and respect the right to peaceful protest and counter-protest. However we will not tolerate it when this crosses into criminal behaviour.

 

“Accordingly, we can and will respond when that line is crossed.

 

“It remains a line of enquiry that a number of those who were involved with the disorder had travelled to Oldham from outside Greater Manchester.

 

“As such, we are continuing to liaise with our partners in neighbouring forces.

 

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank those who have already been in touch with officers.

 

“We must continue to work together as a community and support the justice process so that criminal behaviour is appropriately and proportionately challenged.”

 

Information can be left with police on 0161 856 6551 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

 

He was the son of Arthur Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Hadham (who was executed in 1649) and of Elizabeth Morrison, daughter and heir of Sir Charles Morrison of Cassiobury in Hertfordshire, and was baptized on 2 January 1632.

 

In June 1648, then a sickly boy of sixteen, he was taken by Lord Fairfax's soldiers from Hadham to Colchester, which his father was defending, and carried every day around the works with the hope of inducing Lord Capel to surrender the place.

 

At the Restoration he was created Viscount Malden and Earl of Essex (20 April 1661), the latter title having previously died out with Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. It was granted with special remainder to the male issue of his father, and Capel was made lord-lieutenant of Hertfordshire and a few years later Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire.

 

Early on, he showed himself antagonistic to the court, to Roman Catholicism, and to the extension of the royal prerogative, and was coupled by Charles II with Denzil Holles as "stiff and sullen men," who would not yield against their convictions to his solicitations. In 1669 he was sent as ambassador to King Christian V of Denmark, in which capacity he gained credit by refusing to strike his flag to the governor of Kronborg.

 

In 1672 he was made a privy councillor and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He remained in office till 1677, and his administration was greatly commended by Burnet and Ormonde, the former describing it "as a pattern to all that come after him." He identified himself with Irish interests, and took immense pains to understand the constitution and the political necessities of the country, appointing men of real merit to office, and maintaining an exceptional independence from solicitation and influence.

 

The purity and patriotism of his administration were in strong contrast to the hopeless corruption prevalent in that at home and naturally aroused bitter opposition, as an obstacle to the unscrupulous employment of Irish revenues for the satisfaction of the court and the king's expenses. In particular he came into conflict with Lord Ranelagh, to whom had been assigned the Irish revenues on condition of his supplying the requirements of the crown, and whose accounts Essex refused to pass. He opposed strongly the lavish gifts of forfeited estates to court favourites and mistresses, prevented the grant of Phoenix Park to the duchess of Cleveland, and refused to encumber the administration by granting reversions. Finally the intrigues of his enemies at home, and Charles's continual demands for money, which Ranelagh undertook to satisfy, brought about his recall in April 1677.

 

He immediately joined the country party and the opposition to Lord Danby's government, and on the latter's fall in 1679 was appointed a commissioner of the treasury, and the same year a member of Sir William Temple's new-modelled council. He followed the lead of Lord Halifax, who advocated not the exclusion of James, but the limitation of his sovereign powers, and looked to the Prince of Orange rather than to the Duke of Monmouth as the leader of Protestantism, incurring thereby the hostility of Lord Shaftesbury, but at the same time gaining the confidence of Charles.

 

He was appointed by Charles together with Halifax to hear the charges against the Duke of Lauderdale. In July he wrote a wise and statesmanlike letter to the king, advising him to renounce his project of raising a new company of guards. Together with Halifax he urged Charles to summon the parliament, and after his refusal resigned the treasury in November, the real cause being, according to one account, a demand upon the treasury by the duchess of Cleveland for £25,000, according to another "the niceness of touching French money," "that makes my Lord Essex's squeasy stomach that it can no longer digest his employment."

 

Subsequently his political attitude underwent a change, the exact cause of which is not clear—probably a growing conviction of the dangers threatened by a Roman Catholic sovereign of the character of James. He now, in 1680, joined Shaftesbury's party and supported the Exclusion Bill, and on its rejection by the Lords carried a motion for an association to execute the scheme of expedients promoted by Halifax. On 25 January 1681 at the head of fifteen peers he presented a petition to the king, couched in exaggerated language, requesting the abandonment of the session of parliament at Oxford. He was a jealous prosecutor of the Roman Catholics in the popish plot, and voted for Lord Stafford's attainder, on the other hand interceding for Archbishop Plunkett, implicated in the pretended Irish plot. He, however, refused to follow Shaftesbury in his extreme courses, declined participation in the latter's design to seize the Tower in 1682, and on Shaftesbury's consequent departure from England became the leader of Monmouth's faction, in which were now included Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, and Lord Howard of Escrick.

 

Essex took no part in the wilder schemes of the party, but after the discovery of the Rye House Plot in June 1683, and the capture of the leaders, he was arrested at Cassiobury and imprisoned in the Tower.

 

His spirits and fortitude appear immediately to have abandoned him, and on July 13 he was discovered in his chamber with his throat cut. His death was attributed, quite groundlessly, to Charles and James, and the evidence points clearly if not conclusively to suicide, his motive being possibly to prevent an attainder and preserve his estate for his family. Lord Ailesbury wrote: "The Earl asked very coldly for a razor to cut his nails, and being accustomed so to do gave no manner of suspicion. He went into a small closet," where his servant afterward found him "dead and wallowing in blood"... the assumption being that the reason he "cutt his own throat with a knife" was because of his knowledge of the Rye House Plot. If not killed by them, he was, however, undoubtedly a victim of the Stuart administration, and the antagonism and tragic end of men like Essex, deserving men, naturally devoted to the throne, constitutes a severe indictment of the Stuart rule.

   

Lady Elizabeth Percy, Countess of Essex, Viscountess Malden (1 December 1636- 5 February 1718) was an English noblewoman, being the daughter of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland. She was the wife of Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, PC, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Lady Elizabeth was the subject of a portrait by court painter Sir Peter Lely.

 

Lady Elizabeth was born on 1 December 1636 at Petworth Manor, Sussex, England, one of the five daughters of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland by his first wife Lady Anne Cecil. She had one older surviving sister, Anne who married Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield. Her paternal grandparents were Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, known by his sobriquet of The Wizard Earl, and Dorothy Devereux, the sister of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Dorothy Devereux was also a direct descendant of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Queen consort Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth's maternal grandparents were William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury and Lady Catherine Howard.

 

When Elizabeth was just a year old, her mother died; her father married secondly in 1642, Lady Elizabeth Howard. Elizabeth had a younger half-brother from her father's second marriage, Joceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland.

 

On 19 May 1653 at Petworth, Lady Elizabeth married Arthur Capell, 2nd Baron Capell of Hadham. On 20 August 1661, he was created Viscount Malden and the first Earl of Essex by King Charles II of England; Elizabeth was henceforth styled as the Countess of Essex. The marriage produced one surviving son and a daughter:

 

* Algernon Capell, 2nd Earl of Essex (28 December 1670- 10 January 1710), married Mary Bentinck, by whom he had one son William Capell, 3rd Earl of Essex who in his turn married Lady Jane Hyde, by whom he had issue.

* Anne de Vere Capell (1675- 14 October 1752), married on 25 July 1688, Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, by whom she had two sons and four daughters.

 

Elizabeth had five other sons who all died in early infancy.[1] In 1672, Elizabeth's husband was made a Privy Counsellor, and appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was dedicated to stamping out English corruption in Ireland; one of his many acts was to prevent Phoenix Park in Dublin from being granted to King Charles's former mistress Barbara Villiers who had been promised the Park as well as the fertile lands surrounding it as a gift from the king.[2] In point of fact, it was due to the Earl of Essex that Phoenix Park continues to exist in the 21st century.

 

In 1677, the Essexes returned to England; in 1679, the Earl was appointed First Lord of the Treasury. He was implicated in the Rye House Plot in June 1683 and sent to the Tower of London. It was there on 13 July 1683 that he committed suicide by cutting his own throat, leaving Elizabeth a widow at the age of forty-six. She never remarried.

 

She died on 5 February 1718, and was buried in Watford, Hertfordshire.

 

by Sir Peter Lely,painting,circa 1653

FORT IRWIN, Calif. - U.S. Army Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, execute a rehearsal of a mission for live fire operations during Decisive Action Rotation 15-02 at the National Training Center here, Nov. 11, 2014. The decisive action training environment was developed in order to create a common training scenario for use throughout the Army. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Charles Probst, Operations Group, National Training Center)

This nose job was excellently executed by the Elisha Cuthbert Plastic Surgery and as a result it looks very natural and not overdone.

 

plasticsurgerychanges.com/elisha-cuthbert-plastic-surgery/

Eye Benches IV, executed by Louise Bourgeois in 2001, sits on the Camp street side of Lafayette Square. The pair of bronze sculptures, each measuring 54" x 107" x 65" and equipped with lights for eye sockets, is part of Sculpture for New Orleans, curated by Michael Manjarris and Peter Lundberg.

 

Lafayette Square, bound by St. Charles Avenue, Camp Street and Maestri Street, was founded in 1788 for the City's first suburb, Faubourg Ste. Marie, making it the second oldest park in New Orleans. Originally called "place publique", the square was renamed after Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, the French aristocrat and general who fought on the American side in the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette declined the invitation to become the first Governor when the United purchased Lousiana, but his popularity was evident when he visited New Orleans from April 9-15, 1825 to cheers of "Vive Lafayette!"

 

In the early 20th Century, three bronze statues were placed along the East/West axis of the square. A statue of Henry Clay was moved from the intersection of Canal and Royal and placed in the center of the park, and statues of John McDonogh and Benjamin Franklin were placed on St. Charles Avenue and Camp Street, respectively. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage to many of the trees, and broken glass and debris scattered from nearby buildings made Lafayette Square unsafe. A group of neighborhood residents and downtown workers formed the non-profit Lafayette Square Conservancy (LSC), to renovate, improve and preserve the space.

Rockefeller Center, Midtown Manhattan

 

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

The ground floor and mezzanine floor interior of the RCA Building, built in 1931-33, is one of the major components of What is the largest and most important buildings constructed at Rockefeller Center. As the RCA Building in its form and siting is the focus of the major east-west axis running through the Center from Fifth to Sixth Avenues, so is its ground floor and mezzanine floor interior an important continuation of that axis. The double-height entrance lobby symbolically welcomes visitors, drawing them from the Rockefeller Plaza entrance, past the information desk, into corridors flanked by shops, which create the sense of a grand concourse, and leading to six elevator banks with high-speed elevators which efficiently carry tenants and visitors up into the 70-story building. The experience of the visitor to the ground floor and mezzanine floor interior is enhanced by the extensive program of murals, executed by Jose Maria Sert and Frank Brangwyn, which were conceived as an intrinsic part of the building and a continuation of the overall art scheme used on the exteriors of the Rockefeller Center buildings.

 

The RCA Building and Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center is one of the most important architectural projects ever undertaken in America. It was unprecedented in scope, near visionary in its urban planning and unequalled for its harmonious integration of architecture, art and landscaping. The complex grew out of an ill-fated plan to build new midtown quarters for the Metropolitan Opera Company. When the original scheme collapsed, the project was transformed into the private commercial enterprise of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Construction of the original complex began in 1931 and ended with the completion of the fourteenth building in 1939.

 

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from Brown University in 1897 he joined his father's office and for some years held directorships of such businesses as the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, United States Steel Corporation and Missouri Pacific Railroad among others. By about 1911, however, Rockefeller had become almost totally involved with philanthropic, civic, educational and religious enterprises such as the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Sanitary Commission and International Education Board to name a few only. A devout Baptist, he also founded the Institute for Social and Religious Research and funded construction of Riverside Church (1927-30). The latter was just one of the many architectural undertakings which Rockefeller sponsored.

 

He also funded the restoration of the palaces at Fontainebleau and Versailles and Reims Cathedral in France, the Agora and Stoa of Attolos in Athens, and in America, Washington Irving's "Sunnyside" heme, Colonial Williamsburg and the birthplace of George Washington. He also supplied the land for the Museum of Modem Art, for the Rockefeller Institute and Fort Tryon where he built the Cloisters. later, in 1946, Rockefeller donated land for the construction of the United Nations along the East River and gave generously to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Although never an opera devotee, he supported the Metropolitan Opera project as just one more worthy civic and cultural cause.

 

Rockefeller's involvement in the project to relocate the Metropolitan Opera began on May 21, 1928, when Benjamin Morris presented the scheme to potential investors during a dinner at the Metropolitan Club. Among the guests was Ivy Lee, Rockefeller's public relations manager. He recommended the proposal to his employer, noting that it would "make the [Opera] Square and the immediate surroundings the most valuable shopping district in the world." Rockefeller was interested. He, his sister and father lived in three large houses on W. 53rd and 54th Streets (just three blocks north of the proposed Opera site) and owned a good deal of real estate in the area. Development of a cultural center would insure the quality of his neighborhood while increasing the value of his speculative properties. But before making any commitment, Rockefeller sought development advice from prominent real estate advisors, the Todd, Robertson & Todd Engineering Corp. among them.

 

John Reynard Todd (1867-1945) was a lawyer who, in partnership with Henry Clay Irons, became accidentally involved in construction and rentals. Todd & Irons developed their building activities into a lucrative business through which they erected and sold at large profits numerous hotels, apartments and commercial structures. Among them was the Cunard Building whose lobby was designed by Benjamin Morris and which stood directly across the street from Rockefeller's Standard Oil Building at 26 Broadway. When Irons retired in 1919 Todd went into partnership with his physician brother, Dr. James M. Todd (c. 1870-1939), and Hugh S. Robertson (1880-1951), a specialist in real estate and financial management. Together they were responsible for the internal planning, construction and rental of the Ritz and Barclay Hotels, Postum Building and the fabulously successful Graybar Building which they linked to Grand Central Terminal with corridors.

 

John R. Todd was the personal friend of Thomas M. Debevoise and Charles O. Heydt, Rockefeller's legal and real estate advisors and it was due to them that he became involved in the Opera project. It was through Debevoise that Todd's son Webster (in the engineering firm of Todd & [Joseph O.] Brown) was engaged in Rockefeller's restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in 1928. And through Heydt that Todd, his brother and Robertson were hired to develop Rockefeller's midtown complex. Heydt informed Rockefeller that Todd had been involved "in very large enterprises, [had] architects in his own office, and--[had] never made a failure. He [understood] thoroughly the matter of financing the construction of large buildings...and would be in a position to help prospective tenants...construct their own buildings." Todd, he said, was "a hard-headed business man."Todd, Robertson & Todd was one of five real estate firms to advise Rockefeller on the development potential of the Opera project in autumn, 1928.

 

In addition to the Opera and its plaza (to be designed by Benjamin Morris), the firm recommended a remarkably progressive mixed use complex including hotels, apartment and office buildings, a shopping arcade and department store (the latter in continuation of the development of Fifth Avenue with such fashionable counterparts as Saks and Altmans). The plan also included two new private streets and a lower level for vehicular traffic, parking and freight deliveries. The scheme was prepared over Labor Day weekend, 1928 by two little known, 38 year old architects on Todd's staff: L. Andrew Reinhard and Hairy Hofmeister.

 

Under Todd's directive, Reinhard & Hofmeister prepared an improved plan in mid-September, 1928. Two weeks later (October 1, 1928) Rockefeller made a commitment to lease from Columbia College the three blocks between 48th-51st Streets. The land stretched west from Fifth Avenue but stopped short of Sixth Avenue where street frontage was privately owned. (In subsequent years Rockefeller acquired the western lots as well). The Columbia contract was not actually signed until December 31, 1928, at which point Rockefeller agreed to pay approximately $3.5 million annual rent during 1928-1952 with options for three 21-year renewals.

 

On October 1, 1929 (precisely a year after Rockefeller agreed to lease the Columbia property) Todd, Robertson & Todd were appointed managers of the project. Their mandate was to "build the thing, put it on a profitable basis, and sell it to the world." By the end of October their staff architects (Reinhard & Hofmeister) were named architects of the development. They were experienced in the internal layouts preferred by Todd and familiar with his theory that "business property income production supercedes pure aesthetics." Todd recommended at the same time that Harvey Corbett and Benjamin Morris be engaged as consulting architects (although the latter declined after December, 1929). He also suggested employment of Raymond Hood, the man of ideas whose reputation as a leading skyscraper designer had skyrocketed in recent years.

 

Todd selected architects "who would be primarily interested in good planning, utility, cost, income, low operating expenses and progress...[men who were not too] committed to the architectural past [nor] too much interested in wild modemism."[6] The pooling of eight different talents from three different firms allowed for a division of labor and for an undertaking too large for most private offices of the day. Architecture by committee modified the singular dominance of any one personality, but also seems to have generated competition and controversy. The situation was resolved in February 1930, when the architects united in a collective known as the Associated Architects. Thereafter all drawings bear the three firm names in strict alphabetical order: Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray; Hood, Godley (until 1931) & Fouilhoux; Reinhard & Hofineister.

 

The Associated Architects

Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray

Harvey Wiley Corbett (1873-1954) was born to physician parents in San Francisco, California. He was educated at the University of California (1895), the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris (1906) and the atelier of the historistic Jean Louis Pascal. Between 1903 and 1912 he was in partnership with F. Livingston Pell and between 1912 and 1928 with Frank J. Helmle. While a lecturer at the School of Architecture of Columbia University (1907-11, 1920-35), Corbett trained many students in the "Atelier Colurttoia," which was modeled after the system of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. One of Corbett's major works was the Bush Terminal Building on W. 42nd Street (1923) which established his reputation as a practitioner of "modern" architecture. Its success led Irwin Bush to commission from Corbett designs for the $10,000,000 Bush House in London. Dedicated to "the friendship to English speaking peoples," this American-English center was to find its counterpart in the British Empire Building at Rockefeller Center.

 

Corbett was an early and strong advocate of the skyscraper as an urban building form and wrote and lectured extensively in support of this concept. He was a practical architect who envisioned the future city with super-block skyscrapers, tiered streets and multi-level transportation systems. Corbett had a reputation as a skilled planner who worked within budget while remaining aware of the city scape and urban design. He acted as a consultant to the Regional Plan Association and served on the architectural planning committees for the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition (beginning in 1929) and the 1939 New York World's Fair.

 

Corbett was a fellow of both the American Institute of Architects and the Royal Institute of British Architects and received honorary degrees from the University of California, the University of Liverpool and Columbia University. He was a member of the Fine Arts Commission of the State of New York and served as president of the Architectural League of New York and the National Arts Society.

 

Corbett submitted his "Symposium" design after the retirement of Frank Helmle in 1928 and his establishment of a new partnership with William MacMurray and Wallace Harrison. Together they designed the Roerich Museum and Master Apartments on Riverside Drive in New York and the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall in Hartford, Connecticut. Because of the latter experience in theater design and because of Corbett*s formidable reputation, the Rockefeller developers were anxious to secure the firm's expertise.

 

William H. MacMurray (1868-1941) became associated with Corbett same time before 1927. His prime concern was the partnership's business affairs. He had little to do with the design of the Rockefeller Center project. Wallace K. Harrison (1895-1982), by contrast, was very much involved in matters of design and after the death of Raymond Hood in 1934 he exerted an increasingly strong influence on Rockefeller Center's architectural form. He was also responsible for one of the Center's new buildings on the west side of Sixth Avenue.

 

Harrison was born to a foundry superintendent in Worcester, Massachusetts. He quit school at 14 to take a $5.00/wk job as an office boy with the contracting firm of O.W. Norcross, simultaneously attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute. In 1915 he became a draftsman in the New York office of McKim, Mead & White and attended evening classes at the atelier of Harvey Corbett. In 1917 Harrison enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He then returned briefly to McKim, Mead & White before winning a Rotch Traveling Scholarship and a year at the American Academy in Rome. Upon his return to New York in 1922 Harrison became a draftsman for Bertram Goodhue who was then engaged on the Nebraska State Capitol. In 1926 Harrison married Ellen Milton whose brother was the son-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and in the following year, joined in partnership with Corbett, Helmle (soon to retire) and MacMurray.

 

In 1935 Harrison left Corbett's office and formed a partnership with J. Andre Fouilhoux who had worked with Raymond Hood until the latter's death in 1934. Six years later Max Abramowitz (1908-1959) was taken on as a partner. When Fouilhoux died in 1945 the firm survived as Harrison & Abramowitz and went on to become one of the most successful postwar architectural concerns in America. Included among its works are parts of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Nelson Rockefeller's Empire State Plaza in Albany and the United Nations (for which Rockefeller donated the land in 1946). In 1967 Harrison was awarded the gold medal of the American Institute of Architects for his "demonstrated ability to lead a team in producing significant architectural works of high quality over a period of more than 30 years." Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux.

 

Raymond Mathewson Hood (1881-1934) was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He studied at Brown University before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1900 and later, the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris (1905, 1908-10). As a draftsman he was employed in the offices of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, Boston; Palmer, Hornbostel & Jones, New York; and Henry Hornbostel, Pittsburgh. He set up his own office in New York in 1914, but did not achieve any great architectural success until 1922. In that year John Mead Howell asked Hood to join him in submitting a design for the Chicago Tribune competition. Their winning scheme was a soaring tower terminating in setback peaks and flying buttresses of neo-Gothic design, distinguished by its logical plan and clarity of design.

 

The competition established Hood's reputation as a skyscraper designer and brought his firm several notable commissions: the American Radiator Building, Daily News Building and the McGraw Hill Building, all in New York City, and all in the years immediately preceding Rockefeller's development. Hood was also associated with Harvey Corbett on plans for the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition of 1933.[10] His good working relationship with Corbett, together with Hood's originality and the publicity generated by his previous skyscraper designs, were positive factors in his selection for the new complex. Before his premature death in 1934, Hood played a dominant role in the design of Rockefeller Center. He was responsible for the introduction of building setbacks and rooftop gardens, the establishment of uniformly low-rise elevations along Fifth Avenue and significantly, the suggestion to bring the radio industry to the Center.

 

Hood was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a president of the Architectural League of New York, and a trustee of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. He received the Medal of Honor of the Architectural League in 1926, and in 1940 was posthumously awarded a gold medal from the New York Chapter of the AIA.

 

Hood brought to the Center Godley and Fouilhoux, his partners since the mid 1920s. Frederick A. Godley (1887-1961) received his B.A. from Yale University (1908), an M.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1910) and a diploma of architecture from the Ecole des Beaux Arts (1913). After working in the Boston architectural office of Guy Lowell, he established his own firm in 1915 (Godley & Haskell, 1913-18; Godley & Sedgwick, 1918-24). In 1924 he joined Raymond Hood in the firm of Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux, specializing in the business affairs of the office. He left the firm in 1931, while the Rockefeller Center project was underway, to join the faculty of the Yale University School of Architecture, where he taught until 1947. Godley was also a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and chairman of the educational committee of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design.

 

Jacques Andre Fouilhoux (1879-1945), a Paris-born engineer, received his training at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures. Emigrating to the United States in 1904, he established the firm of Fouilhoux & Whiteside in Port 1 and, Oregon in 1908. He later worked for Albert Kahn, noted industrial architect, in Detroit, among others. After World War I Fouilhoux moved to New York where he formed a partnership with Raymond Hood in 1927. Following Hood's death, Fouilhoux became partners with Wallace K. Harrison (formerly of Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray) and together they continued to be involved with Rockefeller Center. With their new partner Max Abramowitz they designed the Rockefeller Apartments, general plans, major buildings, Trylon and Perisphere for the New York World's Fair of 1939. In collaboration with others Fouilhoux designed the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill housing projects in Brooklyn.

 

He fell to his death from one of their roofs in 1945. Fouilhoux was a fellow of the American Institute of Arch tects and served as treasurer of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design. Reinhard Hofmeister I. Andrew Reinhard (1891-1964) was the son of a carpenter-cabinet maker who, at age 14, became an office boy for Benjamin Morris (the architect initially commissioned to design the new Opera). Reinhard then studied at the Mechanics Institute in New York and finished his formal education at the Beaux-Arts Society of Design. He then returned to Morris' firm as a junior designer and worked in other prominent offices, notably that of Raymond Hood (who would later make some of the greatest contributions to Rockefeller Center). Reinhard then spent eight years with Todd, Robertson & Todd during which time he and Hofmeister worked en rentals and interior layouts for the Graybar Building. In 1928 Reinhard & Hofmeister formed a partnership.

 

Henry Hofmeister (1891-1962) was a self-trained architect who, after only two years of high school, joined the firm of Warren & Wetmore. He worked there for 17 years before joining Todd, Robertson & Todd. Hofmeister acquired a reputation for being methodical and having a good knowledge of such practical matters as plumbing, ventilation and efficient interior layouts. He organized the Rockefeller Center architectural office and supervised the preparation of the necessary architectural drawings. He was, according to Reinhard, "the man who got the work out." Following the completion of Rockefeller Center, the partners received gold medals for their work from the Architectural league of New York and the Fifth Avenue Association.

 

Other works later executed by Reinhard & Hofmeister include the World's Fair Hall of Music of 1939 (which has many spatial similarities to Radio City Music Hall); the Federal Building at John F. Kennedy International Airport; the Chrysler Building East; buildings for the New York Medical College; Chase Manhattan Bank; the Italian, Swedish and Waterman steamship lines? the Dun and Bradstreet home office building in New York; the surgical building and research center of the New England Medical Center in Boston? the Deeds Carillon Tower in Dayton, Ohio; and the World War II American cemetery chapel at Neuville en Condroz in Belgium. In 1947 the firm expanded as Reinhard, Hoftneister & Walquist, but dissolved upon Reinhard's retirement in 1956.

 

Reinhard was a member of the National Commission of Fine Arts in Washington in 1945-50, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and served as an officer of the New York Chapter of the AIA, the Architectural league and Municipal Art Society. Hofmeister served as a consultant during World War II to Nelson Rockefeller, then coordinator of Inter--American Affairs with the state Department- He was a member of the American Institute of Architects, the New York Building Congress and the Architectural league of New York, directing the League's program for aiding unemployed or needy architects for a number of years. Shortly before his death, Hofmeister served as a planning consultant on the Lincoln Center project.

 

Throughout the proceedings Rockefeller had intended to share costs with the Opera and to develop the site with buildings constructed by individual tenants. He never planned to carry the entire lease by himself, nor did he ever consider taking on full responsibility for its architectural development. But finding himself at an annual loss of more than $3,000,000 for the lease of the 12 acres, he boldly proceeded--in the teeth of the Depression--to develop the largest private enterprise ever undertaken in America.

 

Within one month of the Opera's withdrawal from Rockefeller Center negotiations were underway with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). A suggestion from Raymond Hood brought the two concerns together. Having recently designed studios at 711 Fifth Avenue for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), a subsidiary of RCA, Hood was intimately aware of the prodigious expansion of radio and emerging television technology. He correctly foresaw RCA's need for an enlarged center of operations. Architect Wallace Harrison followed up Hood's suggestion with a relative of the chairman of RCA's real estate committee. By February 1930, serious negotiations were underway with the Rockefeller developers. A contract was signed and announced to the press on June 4, 1930.[16]

 

In its early history the wireless was used almost exclusively for marine telegraphy, and was adopted in 1901 by the U.S. Navy as a substitute for homing pigeons. Its greater potential was not realized until April 12, 1912, when a young David Sarnoff, working in the British Marconi Company's New York branch above Wanamaker's Department Store, intercepted a Morse Code message: the Titanic was "sinking fast." Monitored for days as news-seeking crowds swelled the streets, the calamity served as a tremendous boost to both Marconi and Sarnoft. it also proved the reliability of the wireless and led to speculation about its potential to broadcast sound. Four years later and still employed by Marconi, Sarnoff suggested that radio be used to entertain the nation. Visionary at the time, his idea was not realized until the mid 1920s when post-war prosperity found a radio in nearly every American heme.

 

The enormous growth of the radio industry and its increasing importance in American culture had led the far sighted Owen D. Young, chairman of General Electric (one of RCA's corporate parents^, to inquire about the possibilities of consolidating RCA's operations in a complex at Rockefeller's development. Corporate reorganization four months later gave RCA independence under its new president David Sarnoff. In partial settlement RCA transferred to G.E. its new office building on 51st Street and Lexington Avenue (Cross & Cross, 1929-30).

 

The radio group then moved to Rockefeller's development, profoundly altering its character in the process. In replacing the Opera, RCA transformed the complex from an semi-cultural enterprise into a democratic focus for mass entertainment and the corporate headquarters for burgeoning technology. In the words of a contemporary, it substituted "a vision of the future [for] a vision of the past." The impact was such that for years the entire development was popularly, but inaccurately, called "Radio City." The name properly applies only to that part of Rockefeller Center which borders on Sixth Avenue, and which was dominated by RCA and its subsidiaries, the most notable being NBC, Radio-Keith-Orpheum ("RKO," a leading producer, distributor and exhibitor of motion pictures) and RCA Victor (one of the foremost manufacturers of phonographs and records in America). The Sixth Avenue position of the Radio Group was particularly appropriate as it complemented New York's theater district to its immediate southwest.

 

Although still somewhat speculative in its recent independence--and weathering the Depression with reduced profits --- RCA's new president David Sarnoff made an enormous §4.25 million annual rent commitment to Rockefeller Center. In return RCA was allowed to name the entertainment section of the development as well as its two theaters ("Radio City Music Hall" and the "RKO Roxy (later Center) Theater." It also won exclusive broadcasting rights among the many tenants in the complex and most importantly, the right to display the RCA logo atop its own skyscraper in the heart of the Center (on the site originally intended for the Opera) .

 

Nearly 300 men began excavation of the RCA Building in July 1931.[21 ] Steelwork commenced early the next year and the building was completed thirteen months later. Its architectural design was the result of several conditioning factors. On the most rudimentary level was the accommodation of varied tenant requirements and the maximum utilization of available land. The solution was the combination of three different buildings into a single structure (more than 1,000 feet long) which spans the full block between Rockefeller Plaza and Sixth Avenue. On the east, taking full advantage of light and air, are the 70-story corporate offices of RCA. Additional office space was provided along Sixth Avenue in the sixteen-story slab of the RCA Building West. The mid block section, much less desirable for office space, was allotted to NBC's broadcasting studios which needed no windows but only large amounts of layered horizontal space.

 

The technical specifications of this unit were particularly exacting. In order to insure soundproofing all the studios were designed with "floating" walls, floors and ceilings, suspended and insulated from the building's structural frame.

 

In keeping with his intention to build prime quality business space, developer John R. Todd insisted that no office be more than 27-1/2 feet from a window (the maximum at which natural light and air can be adequately provided). By contrast, many contemporaneous office structures were built to maximum girth leaving dark and unventilated spaces at their cores. The Associated Architects responded to Todd's requirement by grouping high speed elevators into central banks and surrounding them on each floor with a corridor and ring of offices of the required 27-1/2 foot depth. It totally outmoded the wedding cake arrangement where elevators were grouped on either side of a long central corridor, forced deep into the building by the zoning regulations which required towers (and therefore the elevators which serviced those towers) to be set back from the street.

 

The arrangement at RCA provided more than two million square feet of prime office space, distinguishing it for years as the world's largest office building infloor area.

 

The plan of the lobby and corridors reflect this scheme, as well, leading from the Rockefeller Plaza entrance, past shops which have both exterior and interior shopfronts, and into the elevator banks.

 

The Artwork and the Artists

 

A series of morals, part of Professor Hartley Burr Alexander's overall thematic program for Rockefeller Center, appears to have been part of the interior scheme from the beginning. As early as January 1932, contracts for morals in the RCA Building were rumored. Hood publicly revealed the project in a speech at the Architectural League in February. Despite pressures from groups of American artists, a decision was made to invite artists of international standing to decorate the interior of the RCA Building. On September 2, 1932, John Todd and Raymond Hood set sail for Europe:

 

The painting of ten panels each of which will be at least 17 by 20 feet will be discussed with the foreign artists, whose names were not disclosed. . . .All the decor-it ions. . < will fir. in the inclusive ornamental theme and will tell in the symbolic language of the arts a connected story.

 

After being turned down by Henri Matisse and not even making contact with Pablo Picasso, Hood and Todd met success with Jose Maria Sert, Diego Rivera, and Frank Brangwyn. Hood wrote to Rockefeller that Rivera's murals would face the main entrance, Sert's would be on the north wall, and Brangwyn's on the south.[28] The official press announcement described them:

 

Rivera's mural. . .will show "man at the crossroads looking with uncertainty but with hope and high vision to the choosing of a course leading to a new and better future." Sert's four panels will express man's new mastery over the material universe, through his power, will, imagination, and genius. Brangwyn's pieces will depict man's new relationship to society and his fellow-man his family, his relationships as a worker, as a part of government, and his ethical or religious relationships.

 

In addition to determining the themes of the murals, the architects had also decided on a color scheme: black, white, and gray on a light background.

 

Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) was born in Bruges, Belgium, where his Welch father practiced as a church architect and supplier of ecclesiastical furnishings. His family returned to London in 1875 where the boy was befriended by architect A. H. Mackmurdo. Subsequently Brangwyn worked for two years in the office of William Morris (1882-84), helping to design seme of his wallpapers. He then worked independently and by the turn of the century had specialized in murals. Among his most celebrated works are his murals on the interior of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center, those for the State Capitol at Jefferson City, Missouri, and the "People, Flora and Fauna of the British Empire" which covers 3000 square feet of the Civic Center in Swansea, Wales. A prolific and versatile artist, Brangwyn designed stained glass, furniture, and other applied arts as well as interiors and street pageants in addition to his work as a muralist, lithographer, etcher, and woodcutter.

 

Brangwyn established a considerable international reputation and is represented in collections from New York to Prague. He was knighted in 1941, followed eleven years later by the unprecedented honor of a retrospective exhibition in his own lifetime at the Royal Academy, of which Brangwyn had been a member since 1919.

 

Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was born in Mexico, attending the Acadernia de San Carlos in Mexico City. He studied and worked in Europe from 1907 to 1922, returning to Mexico in 1922 to become one of the founders of the Mexican mural movement. Between 1922 and 1930 he decorated the Anfiteatro Bolivar of the National Preparatory School, the Ministry of Education Building, both in Mexico City, the chapel of the National School of Agriculture at Chapingo, and began work in the Palacio de Cortes at Cuernavaca. Working in. the United States between 1930 and 1934, Rivera created murals for the California School of Fine Arts, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the RCA Building, the latter—ultimately destroyed— the subject of tremendous controversy. Other notable Mexican work includes murals representing various aspects of Mexican history in the Palacio Nacional (1929-35, 1944-50).

 

José María Sert (1876-1945) was corn in Barcelona, Spain. Moving to Paris in his early twenties to study art, he spent most of his career there. He held his first American exhibition at the Wildensteiij-Galleries, New York, in the spring of 1924. Primarily known for his work as a muralist, Sert designed murals for the winter homes of Joshua S. Cosden, Edward T. Stotesbury, and Addison Mizner, adorned the north dining room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel with a series of murals depicting the marriage of Quiteria in Cervantes' Don Quixote, and decorated the council chambers in the league of Nations building in Geneva (1930). His murals for the RCA Building were carried out between 1933 and 1941, gaining a certain notoriety, because they, in part, replaced the destroyed Diego Rivera mural.

 

While the choice of foreign artists was controversial, even further controversy was to follow. The artists began working en the murals in late 1932. Rivera objected to the color scheme and the requirement to paint on canvas, and through the intervention of Nelson Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s sen, was allowed to paint on the plaster in tempera and to use color. Rivera began work in March 1933; his assistants had previously prepared the wall and paint and were transferring his sketches to the plaster. As the painting took form, its socialist inclinations became obvious. Prominently displayed in the composition were a head of Lenin and workers parading with red flags. Nelson Rockefeller requested the substitution of another face. Rivera suggested a partial change in composition, one which would leave Lenin in place but balanced by an American historical leader; failing that, he wrote "rather than mutilate the conception I should prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety."

 

On May 9, the Center ordered Rivera to stop work and covered the fresco with canvas. Rivera was paid in full, and on February 9, 1934, the fresco was destroyed and removed, not to be replaced until 1937, by another Sert work.

 

Sert's initial work for the RCA Building was installed along the north corridor in May 1933. Painted in his Paris studio on canvas, each panel is 25 feet wide by 17 feet high and depicts one aspect of "man's new mastery of the problems of modem civilization." Unlike Rivera, Sert had no intention of making a political statement. He considered mural painting "the complement of architecture. . . .On those walls the moralist puts what is called for. Nothing more, nothing less. . . .Mural painting is an extension of a building's function. It is a part of building, and no muralist must ever forget that."

 

Brangwyn's work for the south corridor did not arrive until December 1933. Like Sert's work, these are four panels, 25 feet by 17 feet. Brangwyn had no problems with the theme—man's relationship to society—but chose in the final panel to depict the Sermon on the Mount. Doubts were raised by Rockefeller Center officials, perhaps made sensitive by the Lenin controversy, about the depiction of the figure of Christ, suggesting that a light shining down from heaven might suffice. Brangwyn objected, and finally the problem was solved by showing Christ as a hooded figure, his back turned to the spectator, standing against a background of lighted clouds.

 

Sert's 1937 mural on the west wall of the entrance lobby replaced the disgraced Rivera work, after negotiations with Picasso to fill the space col lapsed. Titled "American Progress, the Triumph of Man's Accomplishments Through Physical and Mental Labor," it completed "the pictorial epic of humanity's struggle begun in the other murals"

 

Another Sert mural was installed in March 1941 on the ceiling above the Rockefeller Plaza entrance. Entitled "Time" it was put in place after the lobby lighting system was modified to allow for its illumination. Other Sert murals may be seen on the north and south walls of the first elevator bank, representing the spirit of dance and man's triumph in communication, on the north and south stairways to the mezzanine (these are titled "Contest-1940" and "Fraternity of Men") and on the north and south balustrades, representing "Fire" and "Light." These were installed in 1937.

 

Conception and Design

 

The design of the lobby of the RCA Building is a continuation of the exterior building design, with its emphasis on form and axis, as well as a major mural program which extends the overall art scheme of Rockefeller Center.

 

Lobbies of office buildings of this period generally combined two functions: a grand entrance and public space, and a passageway to the elevator system. The Chrysler Building's lobby (1928-30) is a prime example: a highly ornamental triangular-shaped lobby, whose vertex is the entrance and whose base is a wall opening with two sets of elevator banks. The Empire State Building (1930-31) because of its size and layout required a separation of the two functions, with a chapel-like grand entrance space, and a series of corridors leading to the elevators. The RCA Building lobby employs a similar scheme. /

 

The layout of the lobby floor was in large part dictated by that of the general office floor plans. Because of Todd's requirement that no office be more than 27-1/2 feet from a window, the elevators were placed in central banks and then surrounded with corridors and offices. In the lobby the central core of elevators is flanked by circulation corridors and then by shops opening onto the corridors. Access, too, had to be provided to the NBC Studios in the mid-section of the building. This is accomplished by means of a separate lobby with its own elevator bank. In addition, easy access was required to the underground concourse and the balconies at mezzanine level. Staircases flanking the entrance lobby and within the central core serve this purpose. The manifestation of the long corridors and elevator banks is that of a large public concourse.

 

An effect of grandeur was sought in the entrance lobby, but because of the service core this occupies a relatively confined area. The architects chose to maximize the effect by creating a double-height space which opens from the Rockefeller Plaza entrance and continues into the corridors through means of mezzanine balconies. These, in turn, allow access to second floor office space. The character of the double-height space is further enhanced by the mural program. The use of rich, elegant materials, such as veined marbles and bronze, and the attention to detail are characteristic of the quality displayed throughout the construction of Rockefeller Center. The details themselves, from shopfronts to indicator signs, from ventilation grilles to elevator doors, are modernistic in design, in keeping with the overall design of the Center.

 

Description

 

The interior of the RCA Building consists of two sections: the entrance lobby off Rockefeller Plaza, and the connecting corridors and elevator banks which , with the inner store windows and entrances, create the effect of a grand concourse.

 

The entrance lobby, opening off Rockefeller Plaza, is a relatively restricted space. On the eastern wall is a the major entrance, and at the west is the information desk, behind which rises Sert's mural of "American Progress." The lower portion of the entrance wall contains six sets of revolving doors and two sets of double-leaf doors of bronze and glass set within a paneled bronze screen which projects slightly into the space. Rising above the doorways is a large screen of cast glass designed by Lee Lawrie- Fifty-five feet long and fifteen feet high, it is molded in high relief and constructed of uniform blocks, 19 by 29 by 3 inches, bonded by vinelite. Flanking the entrance are stairways leading up to the mezzanine and staircases and escalators leading down to the underground concourse. The information desk opposite the doorway is of Champlain gray marble, which is almost black in color, adorned with incised moldings at top and bottom.

 

Four large piers, faced with reeded ivory marble terminating in a bronze molding, channel traffic through the space. Light fixtures are incorporated into the piers so as to illuminate Sert's mural of '*Time," which spreads out over the entire entrance lobby ceiling. Three figures, representing Past, Present, and Future, are shewn with their feet resting on the tops of the piers. Hour glasses, held by the figures of Past and Future, are being placed on the scales held by the figure of Present. The airplanes in flight are to indicate iron's partial conquest of time and space.

 

Sert's mural "American Progress" on the wall behind the information desk (which is also the eastern wall of the easternmost elevator bank) depicts America's development through the union of intelligence and strength. On the right are figures of Poetry, Music, and Dance looking upward for inspiration; on the left are men of action, represented by statues of labor. These two groups flank pictures of Ralph Waldo Oner son, the philosopher and thinker, and Abraham Lincoln, as the man of action. In the center background are the towers of Rockefeller Center. This device of depicting the building in lobby art was a favorite with designers of the period, being used in both the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building.

 

The lobby opens into corridors flanking the elevator banks, and for the extent of the first five elevator banks and the elevator hallways, this is a double-height space dominated by rows of piers, carrying on the east-west axis, faced with the same ivory marble as that used on the piers in the entrance lobby. The walls are faced with Champlain marble up to the height of the shopfronts and elevator doors, terminating in bronze moldings. Beveled bronze service doors may be seen on the outer walls opposite the piers. Above the marble is a beige plaster surface on the outer vails, while the inner elevator bank walls are adorned with morals which wrap around the corners onto the elevator hallway walls.

 

The work of Sert is represented by figures hoisting a globe up over scaffolding depicting man's triumph in communications—radio, telephone, and telegraph— on the south wall of the first elevator bank, and figures representing the spirit of the dance on the north wall of the first elevator bank. Sert's first four murals for the RCA Building may be seen on the next four elevator banks facing the north corridor.

 

In order they are: "The abolition of pain and labor of former ages by the creative intelligence of the machine,'' with human figures and oxen pulling a heavy load with a railroad engine in the background; "The conquests of the pests and epidemics of yesteryear by scientific invention,'' with figures lined. ' up waiting to received inoculations; "The stamping out of tyranny and slavery," with figures of slaves pushing enormous blocks of stone; and "The suppression of war through the combined faculties of man applied to the quest of human happiness," dominated by figures grouped around and emerging from giant cannons.

 

The four elevator banks on the south corridor display Frank Brangwyn's murals and are meant to be seen in sequence running west to east: "Man laboring painfully with his own hands; living precariously and adventurously with courage, fortitude, and the indomitable will to survive," depicting figures in the wilderness; "Man the creator and master of the tool. Strengthening the foundations and multiplying the comforts of his abiding place," with figures in an arbor cultivating vines; "Man the master and servant of the machine, harnessing to his will the forces of the material world, mechanizing labor and adding these to the promise of leisure," with figures working at a forge; and "Man's ultimate destiny depends not on whether he can learn new lessons or make new discoveries and conquest, but on his acceptance of the lesson taught him close upon two thousand years ago," with figures listening to Christ preaching the Sermon on the Mount.

 

On the outer walls are a series of shopfronts with doors and windows framed in bronze. In the elevator hallways, the elevator doors are of beveled bronze and are set in bronze reveals. Ventilator grilles, directory boards, indicator signs, elevator indicator signs, and elevator indicator lights in this section are framed in bronze, employing curved, streamlined motifs.

 

The outer walls rise to mezzanine balconies with hand seme streamlined bronze railings on both the north and south. The stairways leading to the mezzanine flanking the entrance have Champlain marble wainscoting and bronze railings. Adorning the staircases are additional Sert murals: "Contest-1940" with figures of the five races of mankind using the world as a football to compete for global supremacy, at the north, and "Fraternity of Men" with the figures of the five races clasping their hands in brotherhood, at the south. Terminating the double-height corridors, the balconies extend across the ground floor corridors at mezzanine level, and the balcony fronts display Sert murals: "Fire" representing the sun at the north? and "Light" depicting the supreme ruler of the world at the south. Throughout the murals adopt a monochromatic color scheme of beige, gray, and black which harmonizes with the other interior finishes.

 

At the mezzanine level the inside of the balcony is faced with Champlain marble. The outer walls are ivory marble above a Champlain marble wainscoting terminating in a bronze molding at the height of the doorways. The walls above are plain beige plaster, as are the ceilings.

 

Offices with bronze doors and bronze window surrounds open onto the balconies. The mezzanine continues as corridors westward beyond the balconies; both inner and outer walls have finishes similar to the outer walls of the balconies, and the office door and window configurations and finishes as they open onto the corridors are also similar. In the area adjacent to the western elevator bank are four piers, faced in ivory marble above a Champlain marble base and terminating in bronze molding strips-The floors throughout the mezzanine are of black terrazzo executed in rectangular patterns outlined with bronze strips.

 

At ground floor level, the corridors continue westward along the east-west axis beyond the fifth elevator bank. The ceiling level drops and this difference in height is marked by a change in materials. The corridor walls are faced in Champlain marble terminating in bronze moldings, and piers, continuing in the line of those in the double-height corridors, are also faced in Champlain marble terminating in bronze molding strips. Bronze waste receptacles are placed at the bases of several. The ceilings are white plaster. The treatment of the shopfronts on the outer walls is like that of the shopfronts in the double-height corridors. The floor surface is uniform throughout the ground floor, with black terrazzo set in panels with a green-gray center section, outlined with bronze strips.

 

Hallways extend from the corridors leading to the entrances from 49th Street and 50th Street. Each has two sets of revolving doors, framed in bronze. Bronze letters with the street names are placed above the doors. The walls continue the Champlain marble facing and bronze moldings of the corridor walls and are accented by bronze ventilation grilles, taking streamlined forms, display windows framed in bronze, and beveled bronze service doors. Directory boards and indicator signs throughout the corridors and hallways are outlined with bronze in streamlined motifs.

 

West of the elevator banks is a stairway leading down to the underground concourse; this is lined with Champlain marble and has bronze moldings, and handsome bronze railings. Similarly a stairway lined with Champlain marble and ivory marble in the same location leads up to the mezzanine. An enclosed stairway leads up to the mezzanine at the juncture of the RCA Building with the RCA Building West, while an open stairway leads down to the underground concourse. Both stairways are lined with Champlain marble and have bronze railings and bronze moldings.

 

The NBC lobby is faced with Champlain marble terminating in bronze moldings in the deep reveals opening from the corridors, and light green marble on the walls, terminating in nickel bronze moldings.

 

- From the 1985 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Today, Thursday 16 November 2017, police executed warrants at eight addresses across the Moss Side and Hulme areas of Manchester.

 

The warrants were executed as the latest phase of Operation Malham, targeting the supply of drugs in South Manchester.

 

This follows previous raids last week, which means more than 14 properties have been searched and eight people arrested in total as part of the operation.

 

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Walker, of GMP’s City of Manchester team, said: “We are dedicated to rooting out those who seek to make profits from putting drugs on our streets.

 

“Today’s raids have resulted in the arrests of five people which have only been made possible through the support of partner agencies and community intelligence.

 

“We are grateful for all your support and help and I would urge you to continue to report anything suspicious to help us stop people who are benefitting from crime and remove drugs from our city.”

 

Anyone with information should contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

THE LOVAT MEMORIAL

The most striking memorial inside the burial ground is a large ashlar obelisk commemorating Lord Thomas Fraser, 10th Lord Lovat, who died in 1699 when visiting his brother-in-law at Dunvegan Castle. Note that the inscription uses the spelling 'Frazer' for the family name.]

 

The monument was erected by his son Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat. The younger Fraser supported Bonnie Prince Charlie's 1745 rebellion, and, as a result, was tried for treason and executed on Tower Hill in London in 1747.

 

Lord Lovat was the last person to be executed by beheading in England. It could have been worse; he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, but King George commuted the sentence to a less painful death by beheading.

 

A visitor in 1888 recorded the obelisk as lying in pieces on the ground, but it has obviously been restored at some point since then.

 

THE DUNVEGAN

TWO CHURCHES WALK

If you’re planning to explore the local area, Dunvegan village and perhaps the Giant MacAskill museum, then this walk will start you off on the right foot. As it’s only minutes from our doorstep, there’s plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast before you set off. Then head out along the road towards Dunvegan Castle to find the starting point.

 

Take a Hike

The relatively easy walk from the Duirinish Church of Scotland is 2 miles (3 km). It passes through woodland and open moor and can take between 45 minutes – 1 hour depending on how long you stop along the way.

 

The walk starts through the gate to the left of the church and there is an information board giving details of the route.

 

If you’re walking this woodland route in spring or summer then you will be treated to a display of wildflowers. You may miss them, however, if you are distracted by glimpses of Loch Dunvegan through the trees.

 

The walk will take you up to the Millennium Stone, a prominent viewpoint over Dunvegan village. From here there are views across Loch Dunvegan to Macleod’s Tables and The Cuillin Ridge in the distance. Then head downhill to the ruins of St Mary’s Church below.

 

More information about this walk can be found on the Walkhighlands website.

 

The Millennium Stone

This 15-foot (5 metre) high stone was brought up from south Skye. It was erected by the people of the Dunvegan community on 24th June 2000 (Midsummer’s Day) to commemorate the new millennium. This was an impressive feat, using only hand power and rope-techniques. A process that would have been used to build stone circles thousands of years ago.

 

The stone stands proudly on top of a low crag overlooking the village of Dunvegan.

 

St Mary’s Church & Burial Ground

The remains of this post-reformation parish church and burial ground are situated in Kilmuir on the outskirts of Dunvegan village. They have been recognised as a monument of national importance by Historic Environment Scotland.

 

The site has been the focus of religious worship over centuries and there are indications that the church was a medieval foundation. This is seen in the East-West alignment of the church and the existence of three medieval carved grave slabs. Although the parish itself dates to the post-reformation period. The north entrance shows a date of 1694 and the burial enclosure with its balustrade walls dates from 1735.

 

Once the parish church for Duirinish, it was the burial site for a number of the Chiefs of the Clan MacLeod. The most recent was John MacLeod of MacLeod in February 2007. In addition, generations of the MacCrimmons, hereditary pipers to the Clan, are at rest in the graveyard.

 

An early 18th-century ashlar obelisk memorial to Lord Thomas Frazer (father of 11th Lord Lovat, who was executed on Towerhill in 1747), dominates the graveyard. There are also two medieval grave slabs with claymore and leaf design and a third that is extremely worn with only the border visible.

 

Dunvegan is a village on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It is famous for Dunvegan Castle, seat of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod. Dunvegan is within the parish of Duirinish, and Duirinish Parish Church is at Dunvegan. In 2011 it had a population of 386.

 

In The Norse Influence on Gaelic Scotland (1910), George Henderson suggests that the name Dùn Bheagain derives from Old Gaelic Dùn Bheccáin ([the] fort of Beccán), Beccán being a Gaelic personal name. Dùn Bheagain would not mean 'little fort' as this would be Dùn Beag in Gaelic.

 

Dunvegan sits on the shores of the large Loch Dunvegan, and the Old School Restaurant in the village is noted for its fish, caught freshly from the loch itself. Dunvegan is situated at the junction of the A850, and the A863. The B884 road also has a junction with the A863, at the eastern end of Dunvegan.

 

Dunvegan's permanent population is declining. However, numbers staying in the area during holidays have increased dramatically over the years since 2001.

 

Tourist information used to be situated in the parade of shops at Lochside, but is now available on a seasonal basis at Dunvegan Castle's St Kilda Shop. The Giant MacAskill Museum, which celebrates the life of Angus Mòr MacAskill was established in 1989 and is managed by Peter MacAskill, father of the street trials cycle rider Danny MacAskill.

 

The Isle of Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in the country. Although Sgitheanach has been suggested to describe a winged shape, no definitive agreement exists as to the name's origins.

 

The island has been occupied since the Mesolithic period, and over its history has been occupied at various times by Celtic tribes including the Picts and the Gaels, Scandinavian Vikings, and most notably the powerful integrated Norse-Gaels clans of MacLeod and MacDonald. The island was considered to be under Norwegian suzerainty until the 1266 Treaty of Perth, which transferred control over to Scotland. The 18th-century Jacobite risings led to the breaking-up of the clan system and later clearances that replaced entire communities with sheep farms, some of which involved forced emigrations to distant lands. Resident numbers declined from over 20,000 in the early 19th century to just under 9,000 by the closing decade of the 20th century. Skye's population increased by 4% between 1991 and 2001. About a third of the residents were Gaelic speakers in 2001, and although their numbers are in decline, this aspect of island culture remains important.

 

The main industries are tourism, agriculture, fishing, and forestry. Skye is part of the Highland Council local government area. The island's largest settlement is Portree, which is also its capital, known for its picturesque harbour. Links to various nearby islands by ferry are available, and since 1995, to the mainland by a road bridge. The climate is mild, wet, and windy. The abundant wildlife includes the golden eagle, red deer, and Atlantic salmon. The local flora is dominated by heather moor, and nationally important invertebrate populations live on the surrounding sea bed. Skye has provided the locations for various novels and feature films, and is celebrated in poetry and song.

 

A Mesolithic hunter-gatherer site dating to the seventh millennium BC at An Corran in Staffin is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Scotland. Its occupation is probably linked to that of the rock shelter at Sand, Applecross, on the mainland coast of Wester Ross, where tools made of a mudstone from An Corran have been found. Surveys of the area between the two shores of the Inner Sound and Sound of Raasay have revealed 33 sites with potentially Mesolithic deposits. Finds of bloodstone microliths on the foreshore at Orbost on the west coast of the island near Dunvegan also suggest Mesolithic occupation. These tools probably originated from the nearby island of Rùm. Similarly, bloodstone from Rum, and baked mudstone, from the Staffin area, were found at the Mesolithic site of Camas Daraich, also from the seventh millennium BC, on the Point of Sleat, which has led archaeologists to believe that Mesolithic people on Skye would travel fairly significant distances, at least 70 km, both by land and sea.

 

Rubha an Dùnain, an uninhabited peninsula to the south of the Cuillin, has a variety of archaeological sites dating from the Neolithic onwards. A second- or third-millennium BC chambered cairn, an Iron Age promontory fort, and the remains of another prehistoric settlement dating from the Bronze Age are nearby. Loch na h-Airde on the peninsula is linked to the sea by an artificial "Viking" canal that may date from the later period of Norse settlement. Dun Ringill is a ruined Iron Age hill fort on the Strathaird Peninsula, which was further fortified in the Middle Ages and may have become the seat of Clan MacKinnon.

 

The late Iron Age inhabitants of the northern and western Hebrides were probably Pictish, although the historical record is sparse. Three Pictish symbol stones have been found on Skye and a fourth on Raasay. More is known of the kingdom of Dál Riata to the south; Adomnán's life of Columba, written shortly before 697, portrays the saint visiting Skye (where he baptised a pagan leader using an interpreter) and Adomnán himself is thought to have been familiar with the island. The Irish annals record a number of events on Skye in the later seventh and early eighth centuries – mainly concerning the struggles between rival dynasties that formed the background to the Old Irish language romance Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin.

 

Legendary hero Cú Chulainn is said to have trained on the Isle of Skye with warrior woman Scáthach.

 

The Norse held sway throughout the Hebrides from the 9th century until after the Treaty of Perth in 1266. However, apart from placenames, little remains of their presence on Skye in the written or archaeological record. Apart from the name "Skye" itself, all pre-Norse placenames seem to have been obliterated by the Scandinavian settlers. Viking heritage, with Celtic heritage is claimed by Clan MacLeod. Norse tradition is celebrated in the winter fire festival at Dunvegan, during which a replica Viking long boat is set alight.

 

The most powerful clans on Skye in the post–Norse period were Clan MacLeod, originally based in Trotternish, and Clan Macdonald of Sleat. The isle was held by Donald Macdonald, Lord of the Isles’ half-brother, Godfrey, from 1389 until 1401, at which time Skye was declared part of Ross. When the Donald Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, re-gained Ross after the battle of Harlaw in 1411, they added "Earl of Ross" to their lords' titles. Skye came with Ross.

 

Following the disintegration of the Lordship of the Isles, Clan Mackinnon also emerged as an independent clan, whose substantial landholdings in Skye were centred on Strathaird. Clan MacNeacail also have a long association with Trotternish, and in the 16th century many of the MacInnes clan moved to Sleat. The MacDonalds of South Uist were bitter rivals of the MacLeods, and an attempt by the former to murder church-goers at Trumpan in retaliation for a previous massacre on Eigg, resulted in the Battle of the Spoiling Dyke of 1578.

 

After the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, Flora MacDonald became famous for rescuing Prince Charles Edward Stuart from the Hanoverian troops. Although she was born on South Uist, her story is strongly associated with their escape via Skye, and she is buried at Kilmuir in Trotternish. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell's visit to Skye in 1773 and their meeting with Flora MacDonald in Kilmuir is recorded in Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Boswell wrote, "To see Dr Samuel Johnson, the great champion of the English Tories, salute Miss Flora MacDonald in the isle of Sky, was a striking sight; for though somewhat congenial in their notions, it was very improbable they should meet here". Johnson's words that Flora MacDonald was "A name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour" are written on her gravestone. After this rebellion, the clan system was broken up and Skye became a series of landed estates.

 

Of the island in general, Johnson observed:

 

I never was in any house of the islands, where I did not find books in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them, except one from which the family was removed. Literature is not neglected by the higher rank of the Hebrideans. It need not, I suppose, be mentioned, that in countries so little frequented as the islands, there are no houses where travellers are entertained for money. He that wanders about these wilds, either procures recommendations to those whose habitations lie near his way, or, when night and weariness come upon him, takes the chance of general hospitality. If he finds only a cottage he can expect little more than shelter; for the cottagers have little more for themselves but if his good fortune brings him to the residence of a gentleman, he will be glad of a storm to prolong his stay. There is, however, one inn by the sea-side at Sconsor, in Sky, where the post-office is kept.

 

— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

 

Skye has a rich heritage of ancient monuments from this period. Dunvegan Castle has been the seat of Clan MacLeod since the 13th century. It contains the Fairy Flag and is reputed to have been inhabited by a single family for longer than any other house in Scotland. The 18th-century Armadale Castle, once home of Clan Donald of Sleat, was abandoned as a residence in 1925, but now hosts the Clan Donald Centre. Nearby are the ruins of two more MacDonald strongholds, Knock Castle, and Dunscaith Castle (called "Fortress of Shadows"), the legendary home of warrior woman, martial arts instructor (and, according to some sources, Queen) Scáthach. Caisteal Maol, a fortress built in the late 15th century near Kyleakin and once a seat of Clan MacKinnon, is another ruin.

 

In the late 18th century the harvesting of kelp became a significant activity, but from 1822 onward cheap imports led to a collapse of this industry throughout the Hebrides. During the 19th century, the inhabitants of Skye were also devastated by famine and Clearances. Thirty thousand people were evicted between 1840 and 1880 alone, many of them forced to emigrate to the New World. The "Battle of the Braes" involved a demonstration against a lack of access to land and the serving of eviction notices. The incident involved numerous crofters and about 50 police officers. This event was instrumental in the creation of the Napier Commission, which reported in 1884 on the situation in the Highlands. Disturbances continued until the passing of the 1886 Crofters' Act and on one occasion 400 marines were deployed on Skye to maintain order. The ruins of cleared villages can still be seen at Lorgill, Boreraig and Suisnish in Strath Swordale, and Tusdale on Minginish.

 

As with many Scottish islands, Skye's population peaked in the 19th century and then declined under the impact of the Clearances and the military losses in the First World War. From the 19th century until 1975 Skye was part of the county of Inverness-shire, but the crofting economy languished and according to Slesser, "Generations of UK governments have treated the island people contemptuously" --a charge that has been levelled at both Labour and Conservative administrations' policies in the Highlands and Islands. By 1971 the population was less than a third of its peak recorded figure in 1841. However, the number of residents then grew by over 28 percent in the thirty years to 2001. The changing relationship between the residents and the land is evidenced by Robert Carruthers's remark c. 1852, "There is now a village in Portree containing three hundred inhabitants." Even if this estimate is inexact the population of the island's largest settlement has probably increased sixfold or more since then. During the period the total number of island residents has declined by 50 percent or more. The island-wide population increase of 4 percent between 1991 and 2001 occurred against the background of an overall reduction in Scottish island populations of 3 percent for the same period. By 2011 the population had risen a further 8.4% to 10,008 with Scottish island populations as a whole growing by 4% to 103,702.

 

Historically, Skye was overwhelmingly Gaelic-speaking, but this changed between 1921 and 2001. In both the 1901 and 1921 censuses, all Skye parishes were more than 75 percent Gaelic-speaking. By 1971, only Kilmuir parish had more than three-quarters of Gaelic speakers while the rest of Skye ranged between 50 and 74 percent. At that time, Kilmuir was the only area outside the Western Isles that had such a high proportion of Gaelic speakers. In the 2001 census Kilmuir had just under half Gaelic speakers, and overall, Skye had 31 percent, distributed unevenly. The strongest Gaelic areas were in the north and southwest of the island, including Staffin at 61 percent. The weakest areas were in the west and east (e.g. Luib 23 percent and Kylerhea 19 percent). Other areas on Skye ranged between 48 percent and 25 percent.

 

In terms of local government, from 1975 to 1996, Skye, along with the neighbouring mainland area of Lochalsh, constituted a local government district within the Highland administrative area. In 1996 the district was included in the unitary Highland Council, (Comhairle na Gàidhealtachd) based in Inverness and formed one of the new council's area committees. Following the 2007 elections, Skye now forms a four-member ward called Eilean a' Cheò; it is currently represented by two independents, one Scottish National Party, and one Liberal Democrat councillor.

 

Skye is in the Highlands and Islands electoral region and comprises a part of the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency of the Scottish Parliament, which elects one member under the first past the post basis to represent it. Kate Forbes is the current MSP for the SNP. In addition, Skye forms part of the wider Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency, which elects one member to the House of Commons in Westminster. The present MP Member of Parliament is Ian Blackford of the Scottish National Party, who took office after the SNP's sweep in the General Election of 2015. Before this, Charles Kennedy, a Liberal Democrat, had represented the area since the 1983 general election.

 

The ruins of an old building sit on top of a prominent hillock that overlooks a pier attended by fishing boats.

Caisteal Maol and fishing boats in Kyleakin harbour

The largest employer on the island and its environs is the public sector, which accounts for about a third of the total workforce, principally in administration, education, and health. The second-largest employer in the area is the distribution, hotels, and restaurants sector, highlighting the importance of tourism. Key attractions include Dunvegan Castle, the Clan Donald Visitor Centre, and The Aros Experience arts and exhibition centre in Portree. There are about a dozen large landowners on Skye, the largest being the public sector, with the Scottish Government owning most of the northern part of the island. Glendale is a community-owned estate in Duirinish, and the Sleat Community Trust, the local development trust, is active in various regeneration projects.

 

Small firms dominate employment in the private sector. The Talisker Distillery, which produces a single malt whisky, is beside Loch Harport on the west coast of the island. Torabhaig distillery located in Teangue opened in 2017 and also produces whisky. Three other whiskies—Mac na Mara ("son of the sea"), Tè Bheag nan Eilean ("wee dram of the isles") and Poit Dhubh ("black pot")—are produced by blender Pràban na Linne ("smugglers den by the Sound of Sleat"), based at Eilean Iarmain. These are marketed using predominantly Gaelic-language labels. The blended whisky branded as "Isle of Skye" is produced not on the island but by the Glengoyne Distillery at Killearn north of Glasgow, though the website of the owners, Ian Macleod Distillers Ltd., boasts a "high proportion of Island malts" and contains advertisements for tourist businesses in the island. There is also an established software presence on Skye, with Portree-based Sitekit having expanded in recent years.

 

Some of the places important to the economy of Skye

Crofting is still important, but although there are about 2,000 crofts on Skye only 100 or so are large enough to enable a crofter to earn a livelihood entirely from the land. In recent years, families have complained about the increasing prices for land that make it difficult for young people to start their own crofts.

 

Cod and herring stocks have declined but commercial fishing remains important, especially fish farming of salmon and crustaceans such as scampi. The west coast of Scotland has a considerable renewable energy potential and the Isle of Skye Renewables Co-op has recently bought a stake in the Ben Aketil wind farm near Dunvegan. There is a thriving arts and crafts sector.

 

The unemployment rate in the area tends to be higher than in the Highlands as a whole, and is seasonal, in part due to the impact of tourism. The population is growing and in common with many other scenic rural areas in Scotland, significant increases are expected in the percentage of the population aged 45 to 64 years.

 

The restrictions required by the worldwide pandemic increased unemployment in the Highlands and Islands in the summer of 2020 to 5.7%; which was significantly higher than the 2.4 percent in 2019. The rates were said to be highest in "Lochaber, Skye and Wester Ross and Argyll and the Islands". A December 2020 report stated that between March (just before the effects of pandemic were noted) and December, the unemployment rate in the region increased by "more than 97%" and suggested that the outlook was even worse for spring 2021.

 

A report published in mid-2020 indicated that visitors to Skye added £211 million in 2019 to the island's economy before travel restrictions were imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report added that "Skye and Raasay attracted 650,000 visitors [in 2018] and supported 2,850 jobs". The government estimated that tourism in Scotland would decline by over 50% as a result of the pandemic. "Skye is highly vulnerable to the downturn in international visitors that will continue for much of 2020 and beyond", Professor John Lennon of Glasgow Caledonian University told a reporter in July 2020.

 

Tourism in the Highlands and Islands was negatively impacted by the pandemic, the effects of which continued into 2021. A September 2020 report stated that the region "has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to date when compared to Scotland and the UK as a whole". The industry required short-term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions". A scheme called Island Equivalent was introduced by the Scottish government in early 2021 to financially assist hospitality and retail businesses "affected by Level 3 coronavirus restrictions". Previous schemes in 2020 included the Strategic Framework Business Fund and the Coronavirus Business Support Fund.

 

Before the pandemic, during the summer of 2017, islanders complained about an excessive number of tourists, which was causing overcrowding in popular locations such as Glen Brittle, the Neist Point lighthouse, the Quiraing, and the Old Man of Storr. "Skye is buckling under the weight of increased tourism this year", said the operator of a self-catering cottage; the problem was most significant at "the key iconic destinations, like the Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing", he added. Chris Taylor of VisitScotland sympathised with the concerns and said that the agency was working on a long-term solution. "But the benefits to Skye of bringing in international visitors and increased spending are huge," he added.

 

An article published in 2020 confirmed that (before the pandemic), the Talisker Distillery and Dunvegan Castle were still overcrowded in peak periods; other areas where parking was a problem due to large crowds included "the Old Man of Storr, Kilt Rock, the Quiraing, the Fairy Pools, and Neist Point. This source also stated that Portree was "the busiest place on the island" during peak periods and suggested that some tourists might prefer accommodations in quieter areas such as "Dunvegan, Kyleakin and the Broadford and Breakish area".

 

Skye is linked to the mainland by the Skye Bridge, while ferries sail from Armadale on the island to Mallaig, and from Kylerhea to Glenelg, crossing the Kyle Rhea strait on the MV Glenachulish, the last turntable ferry in the world. Turntable ferries had been common on the west coast of Scotland because they do not require much infrastructure to operate, a boat ramp will suffice. Ferries also run from Uig to Tarbert on Harris and Lochmaddy on North Uist, and from Sconser to Raasay.

 

The Skye Bridge opened in 1995 under a private finance initiative and the high tolls charged (£5.70 each way for summer visitors) met with widespread opposition, spearheaded by the pressure group SKAT (Skye and Kyle Against Tolls). On 21 December 2004, it was announced that the Scottish Executive had purchased the bridge from its owners and the tolls were immediately removed.

 

Bus services run to Inverness and Glasgow, and there are local services on the island, mainly starting from Portree or Broadford. Train services run from Kyle of Lochalsh at the mainland end of the Skye Bridge to Inverness, as well as from Glasgow to Mallaig from where the ferry can be caught to Armadale.

 

The island's airfield at Ashaig, near Broadford, is used by private aircraft and occasionally by NHS Highland and the Scottish Ambulance Service for transferring patients to hospitals on the mainland.

 

The A87 trunk road traverses the island from the Skye Bridge to Uig, linking most of the major settlements. Many of the island's roads have been widened in the past forty years although there are still substantial sections of single-track road.

 

A modern 3 story building with a prominent frontage of numerous windows and constructed from a white material curves gently away from a green lawn in the foreground. In the background there is a tall white tower of a similar construction.

 

Students of Scottish Gaelic travel from all over the world to attend Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Scottish Gaelic college based near Kilmore in Sleat. In addition to members of the Church of Scotland and a smaller number of Roman Catholics, many residents of Skye belong to the Free Church of Scotland, known for its strict observance of the Sabbath.

 

Skye has a strong folk music tradition, although in recent years dance and rock music have been growing in popularity on the island. Gaelic folk rock band Runrig started in Skye and former singer Donnie Munro still works on the island. Runrig's second single and a concert staple is entitled Skye, the lyrics being partly in English and partly in Gaelic and they have released other songs such as "Nightfall on Marsco" that were inspired by the island. Ex-Runrig member Blair Douglas, a highly regarded accordionist, and composer in his own right was born on the island and is still based there to this day. Celtic fusion band the Peatbog Faeries are based on Skye. Jethro Tull singer Ian Anderson owned an estate at Strathaird on Skye at one time. Several Tull songs are written about Skye, including Dun Ringil, Broadford Bazaar, and Acres Wild (which contains the lines "Come with me to the Winged Isle, / Northern father's western child..." about the island itself). The Isle of Skye Music Festival featured sets from The Fun Lovin' Criminals and Sparks, but collapsed in 2007. Electronic musician Mylo was born on Skye.

 

The poet Sorley MacLean, a native of the Isle of Raasay, which lies off the island's east coast, lived much of his life on Skye. The island has been immortalised in the traditional song "The Skye Boat Song" and is the notional setting for the novel To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, although the Skye of the novel bears little relation to the real island. John Buchan's descriptions of Skye, as featured in his Richard Hannay novel Mr Standfast, are more true to life. I Diari di Rubha Hunis is a 2004 Italian language work of non-fiction by Davide Sapienza [it]. The international bestseller, The Ice Twins, by S K Tremayne, published around the world in 2015–2016, is set in southern Skye, especially around the settlement and islands of Isleornsay.

 

Skye has been used as a location for several feature films. The Ashaig aerodrome was used for the opening scenes of the 1980 film Flash Gordon. Stardust, released in 2007 and starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, featured scenes near Uig, Loch Coruisk and the Quiraing. Another 2007 film, Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, was shot almost entirely in various locations on the island. The Justin Kurzel adaption of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender was also filmed on the Island. Some of the opening scenes in Ridley Scott's 2012 feature film Prometheus were shot and set at the Old Man of Storr. In 1973 The Highlands and Islands - a Royal Tour, a documentary about Prince Charles's visit to the Highlands and Islands, directed by Oscar Marzaroli, was shot partly on Skye. Scenes from the Scottish Gaelic-language BBC Alba television series Bannan were filmed on the island.

 

The West Highland Free Press is published at Broadford. This weekly newspaper takes as its motto An Tìr, an Cànan 's na Daoine ("The Land, the Language, and the People"), which reflects its radical, campaigning priorities. The Free Press was founded in 1972 and circulates in Skye, Wester Ross, and the Outer Hebrides. Shinty is a popular sport played throughout the island and Portree-based Skye Camanachd won the Camanachd Cup in 1990. The local radio station Radio Skye is a community based station that broadcast local news and entertainment to the Isle Of Skye and Loch Alsh on 106.2 FM and 102.7 FM.

 

Whilst Skye had unofficial flags in the past, including the popular "Bratach nan Daoine" (Flag of the People) design which represented the Cuillins in sky blue against a white sky symbolising the Gaelic language, land struggle, and the fairy flag of Dunvegan, the Island received its first official flag "Bratach an Eilein" (The Skye Flag) approved by the Lord Lyon after a public vote in August 2020. The design by Calum Alasdair Munro reflects the Island's Gaelic heritage, the Viking heritage, and the history of Flora MacDonald. The flag has a birlinn in the canton, and there are five oars representing the five areas of Skye, Trotternish, Waternish, Duirinish, Minginish, and Sleat. Yellow represents the MacLeods, and Blue the MacDonalds or the MacKinnons.

 

The Hebrides generally lack the biodiversity of mainland Britain, but like most of the larger islands, Skye still has a wide variety of species. Observing the abundance of game birds Martin wrote:

 

There is plenty of land and water fowl in this isle—as hawks, eagles of two kinds (the one grey and of a larger size, the other much less and black, but more destructive to young cattle), black cock, heath-hen, plovers, pigeons, wild geese, ptarmigan, and cranes. Of this latter sort I have seen sixty on the shore in a flock together. The sea fowls are malls of all kinds—coulterneb, guillemot, sea cormorant, &c. The natives observe that the latter, if perfectly black, makes no good broth, nor is its flesh worth eating; but that a cormorant, which hath any white feathers or down, makes good broth, and the flesh of it is good food; and the broth is usually drunk by nurses to increase their milk.

 

— Martin Martin, A Description of The Western Islands of Scotland.

 

Similarly, Samuel Johnson noted that:

 

At the tables where a stranger is received, neither plenty nor delicacy is wanting. A tract of land so thinly inhabited must have much wild-fowl; and I scarcely remember to have seen a dinner without them. The moor-game is every where to be had. That the sea abounds with fish, needs not be told, for it supplies a great part of Europe. The Isle of Sky has stags and roebucks, but no hares. They sell very numerous droves of oxen yearly to England, and therefore cannot be supposed to want beef at home. Sheep and goats are in great numbers, and they have the common domestic fowls."

 

— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

A black sea bird with a black beak, red feet and a prominent white flash on its wing sits on a shaped stone. The stone is partially covered with moss and grass and there is an indistinct outline of a grey stone wall and water body in the background.

 

In the modern era avian life includes the corncrake, red-throated diver, kittiwake, tystie, Atlantic puffin, goldeneye and golden eagle. The eggs of the last breeding pair of white-tailed sea eagle in the UK were taken by an egg collector on Skye in 1916 but the species has recently been re-introduced. The chough last bred on the island in 1900. Mountain hare (apparently absent in the 18th century) and rabbit are now abundant and preyed upon by wild cat and pine marten. The rich fresh water streams contain brown trout, Atlantic salmon and water shrew. Offshore the edible crab and edible oyster are also found, the latter especially in the Sound of Scalpay. There are nationally important horse mussel and brittlestar beds in the sea lochs and in 2012 a bed of 100 million flame shells was found during a survey of Loch Alsh. Grey Seals can be seen off the Southern coast.

 

Heather moor containing ling, bell heather, cross-leaved heath, bog myrtle and fescues is everywhere abundant. The high Black Cuillins weather too slowly to produce soil that sustains a rich plant life, but each of the main peninsulas has an individual flora. The basalt underpinnings of Trotternish produce a diversity of Arctic and alpine plants including alpine pearlwort and mossy cyphal. The low-lying fields of Waternish contain corn marigold and corn spurry. The sea cliffs of Duirinish boast mountain avens and fir clubmoss. Minginish produces fairy flax, cats-ear, and black bog rush. There is a fine example of Brachypodium-rich ash woodland at Tokavaig in Sleat incorporating silver birch, hazel, bird cherry, and hawthorn.

 

The local Biodiversity Action Plan recommends land management measures to control the spread of ragwort and bracken and identifies four non-native, invasive species as threatening native biodiversity: Japanese knotweed, rhododendron, New Zealand flatworm and mink. It also identifies problems of over-grazing resulting in the impoverishment of moorland and upland habitats and a loss of native woodland, caused by the large numbers of red deer and sheep.

 

In 2020 Clan MacLeod chief Hugh MacLeod announced a plan to reintroduce 370,000 native trees along with beaver and red squirrel populations to the clan estates on Skye, to restore a "wet desert" landscape which had depleted from years of overgrazing.

Police from Tameside investigating modern slavery and drugs trafficking between Tameside and #Humberside have made arrests this morning.

 

Warrants were executed at addresses in #NewtonHeath, #Failsworth, and the #NorthernQuarter area as part of an operation dedicated to disrupting a drugs line between Tameside and #Hull that involves the criminal exploitation of vulnerable children.

 

The action is part of #OperationMarconi which was formed in June 2020 and concerns the exploitation of children from Tameside aged between 16 and 17.

 

It is one of over 20 investigations being led by GMP Tameside's Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) team dedicated to modern slavery and the exploitation of vulnerable people who have been coerced into criminal activity in the district.

 

The CCE team have already made an additional eight arrests as part of those investigations and four people have been charged with modern slavery and drug offences.

 

A number of vulnerable individuals coerced into 'county lines' and identified as high-risk have been safeguarded and re-housed with support from local partner agencies.

 

County lines describes organised criminal networks involved in exporting illegal drugs into one or more importing areas within the UK, using dedicated mobile phone lines.

 

Children and vulnerable adults are often exploited to move and store the drugs and money often through coercion, intimidation, violence and weapons.

 

Police continue to collaborate with social services and schools, in particular, to help spot the signs of any children that may have been identified to be at risk of such exploitation.

 

Detective Constable Laura Hughes, of GMP Tameside's Child Criminal Exploitation team, said: "Today's action is a significant statement as we continue to tackle the pernicious exploitation of vulnerable young people for illicit gains.

 

"We have been working tirelessly in the CCE team in Tameside to work with local agencies in identifying and safeguarding potential victims of this criminality, while pursuing those that we believe are responsible for such exploitation.

 

"Tackling 'county lines' by its nature requires closely co-ordinated work, not just with local partners, but also policing partners from across the country and I would like to thank Humberside Police for their support during this operation so far.

 

"A lot of our work is based on intelligence and we are forever gaining a clearer picture as to how these criminal enterprises operate and are developing a real understanding of how these groups recruit and coerce vulnerable young people.

 

"It is important people know to spot the signs of when someone may be being exploited; whether it being withdrawn from family and friends and skipping school, to having more than one phone and going missing from home more regularly.

 

"Anyone with suspicions or concerns should contact police online via our website, call 101 and always dial 999 in an emergency. Details can be passed to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111."

 

Dedicated to St Chad & St Mary

Established in the year 669 when Chad visited the site as it was a scene of martyrdom when Christians were executed by the Roman Invaders for their faith

Extract from

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichfield_Cathedral

During the evening hours of Friday March 14th, 2008 and the early morning hours of Saturday March 15th, 2008 officers stopped several vehicles and seized a quantity of drugs and cash which resulted in the execution of warrants on residents within Haldimand and Norfolk Counties. At three separate residents warrants were executed resulting in the seizure of 57 lbs of cannabis marihuana with an estimated street value of $114,000.00 (one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars) along with $15,500.00 (fifteen thousand five hundred dollars) in Canadian currency.

 

PRESS RELEASE

The church is executed in the Romanesque style, constructed of red brick, with cement dressings, a slate roof, and small copper dome to the dominant 42 metre high, asymmetrically placed tower. The comprehensive interior decorative scheme is of murals depicting the apostles, numerous saints, imaginings of purgatory, heaven and hell, and numerous seraphims and cherubims. It was executed by Francesco Floreani between 1931 and 1938.

 

Floreani was a migrant Italian from Udine, who had studied painting at Udine College and then at the Academy of Arts in Turin. He arrived in Melbourne in 1928 and briefly was a house painter in Melbourne. During the Depression he became an itinerant farm worker in Bairnsdale. In 1931 he approached Father Cremin for work, and after completing some minor commissions he set about a comprehensive decorative scheme for the church. The content of his murals were probably at least partly directed by Father Cremin, and are in flat, stylised manner, possibly inspired by Renaissance religious art. Father Cremin paid Floreani 3 pounds per week from his own purse.

  

Kathleen Margaret NEUSS. Sister NFX70527 A.I.F. 10 Gen. Hosp. Australian Army Nursing Service. Born 16 October 1911 Executed (Murdered) 16 February 1942 aged 30 by the Japanese on Radji beach at Bangka Island shortly after surviving the sinking of the Steam Ship, Vyner Brooke. She and the other were ordered into the water and when they were waist deep all were machine gunned down. Daughter of John Henry and Mary Catherine Neuss, of Inverell, New South Wales, Australia.

Some notes from her Service Record. She enlisted 17 December 1940 in Emergency Unit at Victoria Barracks, Sydney, N.S.W. aged 28. Civilian occupation, nurse. She embarked on Queen Mary with the 10th Australian General Hospital on the 3 February 1941 disembarked at Singapore 18 February. Reported missing 16 February 1942. Later reported missing, believed killed on or after the 11 February 1942. Another entry on her record shows 14 February POW S.W.P.A. Presumed to be dead (Malaya)

Last entry 16 February POW S.W.P.A. Deceased while POW EXECUTED by JAPS (see her army record) Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Singapore

One nurse survived although being shot and that was Sister Vivian Bullwinkel. She lived and testfied at the War Crime trials later on.

 

Constance Mary NICHOL. Sister 336877,Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service attached to 44 West African General Hospital died 15 August 1945 aged 22. Daughter of William and Ethel Nichol, of Brampton, Cumberland. At rest in Yaba Cemetery, Nigeria.

 

Elizabeth Lilian Fisher NICHOLSON. Hospital Sister Voluntary Aid Detachment killed 16 April 1941 aged 53 at the Royal Hospital. Burial location not known. She was born 5 December 1888, baptised 15 May 1889 at St Mary, Walton on the Hill, Lancashire daughter of William and Frances Martha Nicholson. She was residing with her parents 29 Carnarvon

Death reported by Chelsea Metropolitan Borough.

London Gazette dated 9 September 1941.

ELIZABETH LILIAN FISHER NICHOLSON,

Deceased.

Pursuant to the Trustee Act, 1925 (as amended).ALL persons having claims against the estate of Elizabeth Lilian Fisher Nicholson late of Gordon

House Royal Hospital Chelsea in the county of London Spinster a Sister at the said Royal Hospital (who died on the i6th day of April 1941 and probate

of whose Will was granted by the Principal Probate Registry on the 27th day of August 1941 to the under named Midland Bank Executor and Trustee

Company Limited) are required to send particulars thereof in writing to the under named Company at 27-32 Poultry London E.C.2 on or before the i4th

day of November 1941 after which date the under named Company will proceed to distribute the assets having rega'rd only to the claims of which the undernamed Company shall then have had notice.—Dated

this 5th day of September 1941. MIDLAND BANK EXECUTOR AND

TRUSTEE COMPANY Limited, 27-32, (137) Poultry, London, E.C.2.

 

Christina Margaret NICOLSON. Sister 238106, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve died 7 December 1942 aged 22. Daughter of Capt. James Henry Nicolson and Janet Elizabeth Nicolson. S.R.N. Commemorated on the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial, Brookwood, Surrey.

 

Christina NICOL. Sister R2, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service died 6 February 1917 aged 34. Daughter of James Nicol and Helen Henderson Nicol, of Westfield, Caithness.

1911 census records she was born 1881 on the Falkland Island. She was in the army stationed at McGregor Barracks, Stanhope Line, Aldershot. Occupation, Trained Sick Nurse of Louise Margaret Hospital

GRO Death registration shows Christine Nicol aged 36 died in the registration district of St George Hanover Square, London (1st Quarter Jan-Mar 1917) At rest in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.

 

Mary NICOL. Sister. (The CWGC have her as a civilian) She was killed at when the ship S.S.Kula was sunk on the 14 February 1942 at Pom Pong Island, the day before Singapore surrendered to the Japanese. Daughter of Mrs. Nicol, of 28 Wardmill Road, Arbroath, Angus. S.S. Kula is her resting place.

 

Ruth Mary NODDER. Nurse of the Territorial Force Nursing Service died 24 May 1918 aged 33. Daughter of the Rev.John Bourne and Mary Eleanor Margaret Nodder, of Ashover Rectory, Chesterfield, Derbyshire. At rest in Rawalpindi War Cemetery, Pakistan.

 

Jane Lauder NODWELL. Nurse, Voluntary Aid Detachment died of influenza 19 November 1918 aged 24 at Yorkhill War Hospital, Glasgow. Daughter of Samuel and Jane Nodwell of Roxburghshire In 1901 she was living with her parents and siblings in the Black Bull Hotel, Church Place, Moffat, Dumfriesshire.

 

Margaret NOLAN . Sister 238701 Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service died 7 December 1942 aged 29. Daughter of Patrick and Ellen Nolan, of Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, Irish Republic. Commemorated on the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial, Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.

 

Caroline Mary NORMAN. Ambulance Sister, died 9 April 1941 aged 47. C.N.R.; S.J.A.B. Ambulance Sister. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Sore, of 16 Duke Street, Haughley, Stowmarket; wife of Henry F. Norman, of Park Hill Cottage, Gorleston Road. Died at F.A.P., Till Road. Death recorded by the Lowestoft Municipal Borough.

 

Grace Eleanor Boyd NOURSE. Nursing Sister, Canadian Army Medical Corps. (Home Service) Born 27 May 1878 in Quebec to Daughter of Elizabeth Ann Nourse of Sherbrooke, Quebec, and the late Alfred T. Nourse; sister of Kenneth Gordon, Hugh C. and Idona Ruth. Died 3 February 1916, At rest in Elmwood Cemetery, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

 

Lily NUGENT. Staff Nurse, Australian Army Nursing Service. Attached to Staff of Camp, Clearing Hospital, Enoggera died in the morning of 21 February 1918 in St Vincent's Private Hospital, Sydney. She was suffering from Phthisis this may have caused her death. Her next of Kin was her uncle Patrick Nugent, Bloomfield, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

At rest in Rookwood Necropolis, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

 

Phyllis NUTTALL. Sister 274639, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service died 12 February 1944.

Commemorated on the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial, Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.

 

B O'BRIEN. Sister 218386 Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service died 31 July 1945. At rest in Tehran War Cemetery, Iran.

 

Moyra O'BRIEN. Staff Nurse 2/Res/O/83 Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve died 21 February 1917. At rest in Aldershot Military Cemetery, Hampshire.

 

Kate Elizabeth OGG. Voluntary Aid Detachment. Born 1887 in the registration district of Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland to Catherine Elizabeth and John Ogg. In 1891 she resided with her parents and sister at 31 Bolingbroke Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. 1901 resided with her parents and siblings at 46 Bolingbroke Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. 1911 with her parents and siblings at 5 Havlock Street, Newcastle on Tyne, occupation, school teacher. Died 23 February 1919 of pneumonia, she may be at rest in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her last residence was 43 Elswick Row, Newcastle upon Tyne.

heatonhistorygroup.org/2016/10/02/kate-elizabeth-ogg-reme...

 

Lady Mabel Grieselda Esther Sudley OGILVY (Spinster) Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve Her parents were Lieutenant Colonel David Stanley William Ogilvy who died in 1900. Her mother was Mabel Frances Elizabeth Ogilvy, nee Gore, Countess of Airlie died in 1956 and was the Vice President of the (Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Born 22 January 1892, died 4 November 1918.

Wills and Admin, Ancestry. She resided at 56 Ashley Gardens Westminster, Middlesex and died 4 November 1918 at 17 Manchester Street, Manchester Square, Middlesex. Her estate went to The Right Honourable Mabel Frances Elizabeth Ogilvy, nee Gore, Countess of Airlie, widow.

 

Alice Margaret O'DONNELL . Sister VFX112194 Australian Army Nursing Service died 14 May 1943 aged 41. Daughter of Sidney James O'Donnell and Letitia Ann O'Donnell. of Myrtleford, Victoria. Commemorated on the Sydney Memorial, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Some notes from her service records.

She enlisted 29 October 1942 at Heidelberg and posted to 115 Heidelberg Military Hospital, Victoria aged 41 years and 7 months. Occupation, trained nurse. She embarked from Australia on Hospital Ship, Centaur on the 13 March 1943 and was reported missing believed to have been drowned by enemy action 14 May 1943. Body not recovered.

 

Amy Veda O’GRADY. Nursing Sister, Australian Army Nursing Service died 12 August 1916.

Born Castlemaine, Victoria to Daniel O'GRADY and Ellen nee EGAN and of Rev. O'Grady of Presbytery, Preston, Vic.

Enlisted 10 August 1915 aged 39 years. Trained at Melbourne Hospital

Embarked 24 August 1915 at Melbourne per 'Morea' Served in Egypt and India Died of Cholera at Colaba War Hospital, Bombay, India 12 August 1916 Buried Sewree Cemetery, Bombay plot 10 lien T grave no 3

Now commemorated on the Kiree 1914-1918 Memorial, India.

www.ozsportshistory.com/wardeaths/O'Grady_Amy_Veda.pdf

 

Margaret O’GRADY. Voluntary Aid Detachment. Drowned with her sister Mary Teresa (May) 10 October 1916 aged 24 when the ship she was on S.S. R.M.S Leinster was torpedoed and sunk by U-Boat-123 while bound for Holyhead. She was native Newmarket on Fergus, County Clare Her sister May O'Grady also a nurse was on the ship, her body was never recovered. Margaret is at rest in the family plot at Quin Abbey, County Clare Both were returning to England after a holiday with their parents Francis and Mary O'Grady

turtlebunbury.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/the-sinking-of-the...

 

Mary Teresa (May) O’GRADY. Nurse Voluntary Aid Detachment. Born 1894 at Newmarket on Fergus, County Clare, Ireland to Francis and Mary O'Grady. In 1911 she was residing with her parents and siblings at 3 Mausnarylaan (Tomfinlough Clare) Drowned with her sister Margaret 10 October 1916 aged 24 when the ship she was on S.S. R.M.S Leinster was torpedoed and sunk by U-Boat-123 while bound for Holyhead aged 24. Her body was never recovered.

 

Rosa O’KANE Sister (2nd Lieutenant) Australian Army Nursing Service. . Born 14 April 1891 daughter of Mrs. Jeanie E. O'Kane, of Charters Towers, Queensland. Died Quartine Station, Woodmans Point 21 February 1918 of influenza and pneumonia aged 28 at 1.45p.m. At rest in Quarantine Station, Woodman Point, Western Australia.

 

Elsie OKELL. Probationary Nurse died 2 June 1941 aged 20. Daughter of Percy and Elsie OKell of Liverpool Road Farm. She was one of 14 nurses killed at Salford Royal Hospital, Manchester during the blitz. She is at rest with her parents in St Matthew's Churchyard, Buckley, Hawarden, Flintshire.

 

Annie Margaret O’LOUGHLIN. Sister 234988, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve died 13 September 1943. aged 27 at the Salerno Campaign. Born 1916 at Templelusk, Avoca, County Wicklow, Ireland to James Joseph O'Loughlin and Rosanna Mary O'Loughlin, nee Hannigan of Avoca, Co. Wicklow, Eire. Commemorated on the Cassino Memorial, Italy.

 

CATHERINE O’LOUGHLIN. Sister 325344, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve died 24 June 1945. At rest in Celle War Cemetery, Niederachsen, Germany.

ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/sister-c-oloughlin-qaimns.1...

 

Eleanor Frances (Ellen) ORFORD. Nurse British Red Cross Society. (Nursing Sister, Voluntary Aid Detachment, Kingstown Division.) Born 1889 in Kildare Ireland to Thomas and Margaret and sister to Mary T, Bride and Minnie. They all in the 1911 census resided at Foxhill House 3 Foxhill, (farm) Athy, County Kildare. Died 3 September 1917 at Birkenhead of enteric fever

 

Mary JohnstonFORGIE. Nursing Sister Colonial Service, Malayan, General Hospital. Died near Pom Pong Island while on S.S. Kuala 17 February 1942 aged 34. Daughter of J. A. Forgie, of Clova, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire and of the late David Forgie. Her body was never found, what a death she must have had. R.I.P. Mary wherever you may be.

The following short extract from www.malayanvolunteersgroup.org.uk/uploads/1/0/7/3/1073876... Please read.

Preface:

This list and document have been compiled as a memorial and out of empathy and respect to the women, children and men who lost their lives in that cruel attack by Japanese bombers on the small coastal ship, converted into an auxiliary vessel, “SS. Kuala” on 14 February 1942, twelve hours after it escaped from Singapore.

This was the day before Singapore surrendered to the Japanese.

 

Many of the women and children were killed on the ship itself, but even more by continued direct bombing and machine gunning of the sea by Japanese bombers whilst they were desperately trying to swim the few hundred yards to safety on the shores of Pom Pong Island. Many others were swept away by the strong currents which are a feature around Pom Pong Island and, despite surviving for several days, only a handful made it to safety. The Captain of the “Kuala”, Lieutenant Caithness, recorded of the moment “…thirty men and women floated past on rafts and drifted east and then south – west, however only three survivors were picked up off a raft on the Indragiri River, a man and his wife and an army officer…”. The bombing continued even onto the Island itself as the survivors scrambled across slippery rocks and up the steep slopes of the jungle tangled hills of this small uninhabited island in the Indonesian Archipelago – once again,

Caithness, recorded “…but when the struggling women were between the ships and the rocks the Jap had turned and deliberately bombed the women in the sea and those struggling on the rocks…’. Several survivors including Able Seaman Gunner, John Sarney, RNZN, (who wrote it in a letter to his wife); Dr Chen Su Lan who wrote “ … every time the bombs dropped and the rattling of machine –guns was heard … “; and also friends of Mr. Tay Lian Teck who reported to his family that they saw him “… being machine gunned by Japanese planes…” recorded that the Japanese planes machine gunned the survivors trying to reach shore - this is disputed by other survivors who say there was no machine gunning. The researcher is, sadly, sure that the Japanese aircraft did machine gun survivors in the sea.

Once people reached Pom Pong Island, Caithness records, “…the lady doctors and nurses, most of whom were Australian and British nurses from various hospitals in Malaya, carried the wounded to a clearing in the jungle about a hundred feet above sea level …”. He adds”…the scene was one never to be forgotten and too awful to mention…”. Only the day before this totally unwarranted carnage occurred at Pom Pong Island, the once vibrant city of Singapore had been in its death throes as the Japanese shelled and bombed it into submission on the night of 13 February 1942. Total chaos had reigned as several thousand civilians milled in fear on the wharves on Singapore harbour whilst bombs and shells were falling amongst them and killing many. They struggled and pushed onto the ships in the harbour with no thought of Passenger Lists, so exactly who was on board that day has been a very confused picture ever since.

This document is an attempt to set the record straight.

 

Author. What a death these poor souls must have endured. I wonder who was the worse in WW2, the Germans or the Japanese.

 

Bridget Agnes O’SULLIVAN. Sister 322073, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve died 10 February 1946 aged 30. Daughter of Frederick and Mary O'Sullivan, of Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Irish Republic. At rest in Rangoon War Cemetery, Burma.

 

Margaret Mary O’SULLIVAN. Sister 234989, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve died 7 December 1942. Commemorated on the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial, Brookwood, Surrey.

 

Eva Doreen OWEN. Nurse Voluntary Aid Detachment died at sea 2 April 1943 aged 40 Daughter of Oliver Edward and Mary Ellen Owen, of Rosedale, Pickering Brook, West Australia. She died on S.S. Melbourne Star which was attacked by U-Boat 129 which fired three torpedoes at 8.23 hours. The ship blew up in less that two minutes . The ship made it twice to Malta and back without being damaged, first during Operation Substance in July 1941 and then during Operation Pedestal in August 1942.

Source uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/2841.html

 

Margaret Alice OWEN. Probationary Nurse died 3 June 1941 aged 21 from injuries received at her place of work Salford Royal Hospital, Manchester was hit during the Manchester Blitz on the 2nd June. Daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. David Owen of The Cornell, St Asaph, Flintshire. Her effects went Mary Jane Roberts wife of William Roberts. No record of her resting place could be found.

 

Edith Mary OXLEY. Sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. She may be the following person. Born 1878 at Bermondsey, Surrey to Arthur and Elizabeth M Oxley, residing with her parents and siblings (1881) at 14 Parfitt Road, Rotherhithe, London. Died of influenza 12 December 1918 aged 45.

On the 24 January 1893 she registered into Royal British Nurses Associations. 22 December 1902 she enrolled into Military Hospital Harrismith, Orange River Coloney. At rest in Pioneer Cemetery, Harare, Zimbabwe.

 

V Anna PADMAVATHI. Cadet (Nursing) Auxiliary Nursing Service (India) 3003 died 11 August 1947 aged 27. Daughter of N. Paomanabba Pillai, of Kaitharanai, Travancore, India. Commemorated on the Delhi/Karachi 1939-1945 War Memorials, India.

 

Doris PAGE. Nurse, British Red Cross Society died 14 February 1917 aged 20 of pneumonia. She is commemorated on the Exmouth War Memorial and may be at rest in Exmouth. photo

 

Isabella PAGET. Nurse, British Red Cross Society died 2 May 1917 of pneumonia photo

 

Dorothy Agnes PAICE. Nurse Voluntary Aid Detachment died 26 August 1941 aged 22 on the Isle if Scilly Nurse of Bona Vista, St. Mary's. Daughter of Gerald Charles and Agnes Annie Paice, nee Jenkins. Died at Bona Vista. At rest on the Isle of Scilly

 

Mollie Laura Arnaud PAINTER. Sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Born 1904 Rochester Kent to Lt Colonel George Evelyn Painter formerly Royal Engineers and Mary Josephine Painter, nee Murphy of Epsom, Surrey. Died 5 July 1941 aged 36 in India. At rest in Madras War Cemetery, India either St Mary or St Patrick's Cemetery.

 

Maud Beatrice PARISH nee Simpson (Mrs) Nurse, British Red Cross Society/ Voluntary Aid Detachment. Born 1893 to John and Maria Elizabeth Simpson, nee Osborn. In 1911 she was residing with her parents and siblings at 3 Pedworth Road, Rotherhithe, London, occupation, mantle finisher. Died 1 September 1918 aged 25 in the registration district of Rochford, Essex . Husband of Arthur T Parish. Married 1917 in the registration district of West Ham. (Please note this person is mentioned twice on this memorial.

 

Elizabeth Kelly PARKER. Matron, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. Daughter of Joseph Donaldson Parker J.P. and Elizabeth Dobbs Parker of Castlecorner, County Kilkenny. Died 16 October 1916 aged 37 of dysentery contracted on service in Egypt. She at rest Hadra War Memorial Cemetery, Alexandria, Egypt. photo

 

Lilian Lavinia PARKER. Nurse, British Red Cross Society. Died of pneumonia contracted on service 5 February 1919 aged 28 photo

Source for photographs www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205380994

 

Amy Maud Augusta PARROTT. Sister, Australian Red Cross Society (Volunteer Aid Detachment) died of pneumonic influenza 24 October 1918 aged 37 .Daughter of Col. and Mrs. T. S. Parrott, of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is at rest in Brixton Cemetery, Johnnesburg.

Photo credit S.A. War Grave Project

www.southafricawargraves.org/search/details.php?id=19687

 

Mrs Ada Betty PARRY, nee Dowie, Nurse, British Red Cross Society died 28 June 1917 of illness contracted on duty aged given as 51 (should be 56) at Nursing Home, Bartlow, Leckhampton. Born 1861, baptised 3 April 1861 at St Mary's Church, Charlton Kings, daughter of Charles, brewer and Adelaide Butt nee Chapman. Father's occupation given as farmer. In 1881 aged 20 she was residing with her mother at Sydenham House, Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire. She was married 15 September 1886 at St Mary's Church, Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire to George Marcella Parry. Both were aged 23 and resided at Charlton Kings. . At rest Charlton Kings Churchyard, Gloucestershire. Her residence at the time of death was 5 Blenheim Parade, Cheltenham Her effects went to Charles Edward Parry, Sergeant, King's African Rifles. Please note, she was baptised in 1861. Photo

 

Olga Patricia Hilton PARRY. Probationary Nurse. Born 14 August 1925 died 17 June 1944 aged 18 Daughter of William Hilton Parry, (Military Cross) surgeon and Martha Parry of Ty Newydd. 6 Castle Street, Caernarvon

Wills and Admin. She was resided at Tynewydd, Caernarvon, spinster died

17 June 1944 at St Mary Abbots Hospital, London. Her effects went to William Hilton Parry, medical practitioner.

Awarded Military Cross 1918. (Royal Army Medical Corps)

Military Cross citation, reads

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in command of a bearer division. He led his bearer squads through shellfire with great fearlessness and devotion, in order to collect the wounded, and worked without a rest for thirty-six hours, dressing and evacuating wounded from the front line under the most trying conditions. "

 

Margaret McCullough PARKINSON, nee Stirling. Sister 308132 South African Military Nursing Service. Wife of R Parkinson of Johannesburg, South Africa died 29 November 1944. At rest in Voortrekkerhoogte Old Military Cemetery, South Africa (Source SA War Grave Project) (CWGC have the following M Stirling-Parkinson. South African Military Nursing Service died 29 November 1944. Wife of R Parkinson of Johannesburh. At rest in New Military Cemetery, Thaba Tshwane, Gauteng, South Africa.

 

Constance Harriet PARTRIDGE. Staff Nurse, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve died 5 January 1920 aged 42 at Ellerslie, Trinity Road, Ventnor. Daughter of Arthur William and Blanche Emily Partridge. Her Residence in England was Moorelands, The Edge, near Stroud, Gloucestershire. Her effects went to Sybil Marion Partridge, spinster. £4,137.14s.11d. At rest in Ventnor Cemetery, Isle of Wight.

www.isle-of-wight-memorials.org.uk/war-graves/ven/ventnor...

 

Sengamalai PARVATHI. Cadet (Nursing) 3340 Auxiliary Nursing Service (India) died 15 March 1947 aged 19. Neice of Mr. Ramaswami Servi, of Akkhnur Tittagudi, South Arcot, India. Commemorated on the Delhi-Karchi 1939-1945 Memorial, India.

 

Olive Dorothy PASCHKE. Matron(Major) VX38812 Australian Army Nursing Service, 10th General Hospital. died 14 February 1942 aged 36 in Malaya.

Some notes from her service records. Born 19 July 1905, enlisted 3 September 1940 at the A.A.M .C. Depot, William Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, occupation, trained nurse of the Jessie McPherson Hospital, William Street. Her mother Mrs Ottilie Paschke was her next of kin. She embarked from Sydney on H.M.T Queen Mary 491 on the 3 February 1941. New Years Honours List approved by the King awarded the Royal Red Cross 1st Class on the 24 December 1941. Notified by cable, number 8052. Posted to 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station, 6 January 1942, then 10th Australian General Hospital same day. On the 13 January 1942 posted back to 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station.

Embarked Singapore 12 February 1942

Promoted to Major 23 March 1942

Reported missing believed killed on or after 11 February 1942 in Malaya.

Commemorated on the Singapore memorial, Singapore

 

Jessie Jane PATERSON. Staff Nurse Territorial Force Nursing Service. Born in 1882, she was the fourth daughter of James and Marion Paterson, of Dalbeattie. Her father was a draper. She attended Dalbeattie Higher Grade Public School. She became a nurse and worked at Darvel, Ayrshire and at Stobhill, Glasgow. She enlisted in the Teritorial Force Nursing service in 1914. She served in Macedonia and died of dysentry at Vertekop. Died 29 September 1916 aged 34 of illness in Macedonia. At rest in Mikra British Military Cemetery, Kalamaria, Greece. photo

 

Chandra Rachel PAUL. Cadet (Nursing) 1397 Auxiliary Nursing Service (India) died 31 July 1946. Daughter of Daya Sila and Sundermma Paul of Bangalore, India. Commemorated on the Delhi-Karchi 1939-1945 Memorial, India.

 

Katherine Veronica PEACH. Sister 743, Territorial Army Nursing Service. Born 1911 at Evenlode, near Stroud, Gloucestershire to Charles William and Evelyn Violet Peach nee Burder. In 1911 aged 2 months she was residing with her parents and siblings at Evenlode, near Stroud, Gloucestershire. In 1932-1936 she was at St Thomas' Hospital, London. 1939 she was with her parents at The Vicarage, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, occupation, State registered Nurse. Died 8 August 1941 aged 30. At rest in Ismailia War Cemetery, Egypt.

 

Hilda Florence Letitia Anna PEARE. Nurse, British Red Cross Society

2nd Western Gen. Hospital Voluntary Aid Detachment. ( Dublin Detachment, No 24). Died from a severe attack of Scarlatina (Scarlet Fever) 14 March 1917 aged 23 at Military Hospital, Seymour Park, Manchester.

Born in Co. Wexford, Ireland in 1894 to Sarah and Richard Peare of Kilmallock House, Enniscorthy She was laid to rest with full military honors in Southern Cemetery, Manchester in PlotQ consecrated 287, grave 1 . Photo credit, Imperial War Museum. On irish soldiers

 

Phyllis Ada PEARSE. Staff Nurse, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service died of illness 29 April 1915 aged 28 contracted on service in France. Daughter of Vivian Francis and Emily Ada Pearse, of 8, Eldon Park, South Norwood. London. At rest in Ste Marie Cemetery, Le Havre, France. The photo has a different date of death. No other death for a P Pearse (Female) registered with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

 

It has been a busy few weeks, planning and executing a seven part project for one of my favorite clients and squeaking in other work between those shoots. Between at project and my other responsibilities, I have pulled almost a month (maybe more, who can remember) for 7 day work weeks. So, I am headed up to lake Bruin with a few friends for a much-needed couple of days off.

 

Before I go, I thought I’d throw a few images up on the site that were outtakes from the recent shoots. It’s been a fun project where I had a lot of creative latitude. I feel extraordinarily fortunate to be able to make a living doing something I really love, namely taking pictures. But, when I am doing client work, I am sometimes restricted in what I can post. Such is the life of the freelancer.

 

Although I do plan on doing some work on a wedding that I recent photographed, this weekend will be more about play than work. Depending on the conditions, I would like to get some shooting in while I am up there. Readers of this blog won’t be surprised to know that I love north Louisiana and the photographs I am occasionally able to capture from the mystical, empty place.

 

I hope you all have a good weekend and just to keep this site active (I’ve been slack about posting, I know). Here are some of the shots I took recently but which probably won’t make the cut with the client.

 

Check out more at my blog, for lots of photos, recipes, tech talk, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in the comments, I'm just not crazy about them. Also, if you want to use any of my Commercial Commons licensed photos please link the attribution back to my blog (listed above) and use my full name, Frank McMains. Thanks! Sorry, but you have to pay to use fully copyright protected photos.

The church is dedicated to St Magnus the Martyr, earl of Orkney, who died on 16 April 1118. He was executed on the island of Egilsay having been captured during a power struggle with his cousin, a political rival. Magnus had a reputation for piety and gentleness and was canonised in 1135.

 

The identity of the St Magnus referred to in the church's dedication was only confirmed by the Bishop of London in 1926. Following this decision a patronal festival service was held on 16 April 1926. In the 13th century the patronage was attributed to one of the several saints by the name of Magnus who share a feast day on 19 August, probably St Magnus of Anagni (bishop and martyr, who was slain in the persecution of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd century). However, by the early 18th century it was suggested that the church was either "dedicated to the memory of St Magnus or Magnes, who suffer'd under the Emperor Aurelian in 276 [see St Mammes of Caesarea, feast day 17 August], or else to a person of that name, who was the famous Apostle or Bishop of the Orcades." For the next century historians followed the suggestion that the church was dedicated to the Roman saint of Cæsarea. The famous Danish archaeologist Professor Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae (1821–85) promoted the attribution to St Magnus of Orkney during his visit to the British Isles in 1846-7, when he was formulating the concept of the 'Viking Age', and a history of London written in 1901 concluded that "the Danes, on their second invasion ... added at least two churches with Danish names, Olaf and Magnus". A guide to the City Churches published in 1917 reverted to the view that St Magnus was dedicated to a martyr of the third century, but the discovery of St Magnus of Orkney's relics in 1919 renewed interest in a Scandinavian patron and this connection was encouraged by the Rector who arrived in 1921.

 

A metropolitan bishop of London attended the Council of Arles in 314, which indicates that there must have been a Christian community in Londinium by this date, and it has been suggested that a large aisled building excavated in 1993 near Tower Hill can be compared with the 4th-century Cathedral of St Tecla in Milan. However, there is no archaeological evidence to suggest that any of the mediaeval churches in the City of London had a Roman foundation. A grant from William I in 1067 to Westminster Abbey, which refers to the stone church of St Magnus near the bridge ("lapidee eccle sci magni prope pontem"), is generally accepted to be 12th century forgery, and it is possible that a charter of confirmation in 1108-16 might also be a later fabrication. Nonetheless, these manuscripts may preserve valid evidence of a date of foundation in the 11th century.

 

Archaeological evidence suggests that the area of the bridgehead was not occupied from the early 5th century until the early 10th century. Environmental evidence indicates that the area was waste ground during this period, colonised by elder and nettles. Following Alfred's decision to reoccupy the walled area of London in 886, new harbours were established at Queenhithe and Billingsgate. A bridge was in place by the early 11th century, a factor which would have encouraged the occupation of the bridgehead by craftsmen and traders. A lane connecting Botolph's Wharf and Billingsgate to the rebuilt bridge may have developed by the mid-11th century. The waterfront at this time was a hive of activity, with the construction of embankments sloping down from the riverside wall to the river. Thames Street appeared in the second half of the 11th century immediately behind (north of) the old Roman riverside wall and in 1931 a piling from this was discovered during the excavation of the foundations of a nearby building. It now stands at the base of the church tower. St Magnus was built to the south of Thames Street to serve the growing population of the bridgehead area and was certainly in existence by 1128-33.

 

The small ancient parish extended about 110 yards along the waterfront either side of the old bridge, from 'Stepheneslane' (later Churchehawlane or Church Yard Alley) and 'Oystergate' (later called Water Lane or Gully Hole) on the West side to 'Retheresgate' (a southern extension of Pudding Lane) on the East side, and was centred on the crossroads formed by Fish Street Hill (originally Bridge Street, then New Fish Street) and Thames Street. The mediaeval parish also included Drinkwater's Wharf (named after the owner, Thomas Drinkwater), which was located immediately West of the bridge, and Fish Wharf, which was to the South of the church. The latter was of considerable importance as the fishmongers had their shops on the wharf. The tenement was devised by Andrew Hunte to the Rector and Churchwardens in 1446. The ancient parish was situated in the South East part of Bridge Ward, which had evolved in the 11th century between the embankments to either side of the bridge.

 

In 1182 the Abbot of Westminster and the Prior of Bermondsey agreed that the advowson of St Magnus should be divided equally between them. Later in the 1180s, on their presentation, the Archdeacon of London inducted his nephew as parson.

 

Between the late Saxon period and 1209 there was a series of wooden bridges across the Thames, but in that year a stone bridge was completed. The work was overseen by Peter de Colechurch, a priest and head of the Fraternity of the Brethren of London Bridge. The Church had from early times encouraged the building of bridges and this activity was so important it was perceived to be an act of piety - a commitment to God which should be supported by the giving of alms. London’s citizens made gifts of land and money "to God and the Bridge". The Bridge House Estates became part of the City's jurisdiction in 1282.

 

Until 1831 the bridge was aligned with Fish Street Hill, so the main entrance into the City from the south passed the West door of St Magnus on the north bank of the river. The bridge included a chapel dedicated to St Thomas à Becket for the use of pilgrims journeying to Canterbury Cathedral to visit his tomb. The chapel and about two thirds of the bridge were in the parish of St Magnus. After some years of rivalry a dispute arose between the church and the chapel over the offerings given to the chapel by the pilgrims. The matter was resolved by the brethren of the chapel making an annual contribution to St Magnus. At the Reformation the chapel was turned into a house and later a warehouse, the latter being demolished in 1757-58.

 

The church grew in importance. On 21 November 1234 a grant of land was made to the parson of St Magnus for the enlargement of the church. The London eyre of 1244 recorded that in 1238 "A thief named William of Ewelme of the county of Buckingham fled to the church of St. Magnus the Martyr, London, and there acknowledged the theft and abjured the realm. He had no chattels." Another entry recorded that "The City answers saying that the church of ... St. Magnus the Martyr ... which [is] situated on the king's highway ... ought to belong to the king and be in his gift". The church presumably jutted into the road running to the bridge, as it did in later times. In 1276 it was recorded that "the church of St. Magnus the Martyr is worth £15 yearly and Master Geoffrey de la Wade now holds it by the grant of the prior of Bermundeseie and the abbot of Westminster to whom King Henry conferred the advowson by his charter."

 

In 1274 "came King Edward and his wife (Eleanor) from the Holy Land and were crowned at Westminster on the Sunday next after the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady (15 August), being the Feast of Saint Magnus (19 August); and the Conduit in Chepe ran all the day with red wine and white wine to drink, for all such as wished." Stow records that "in the year 1293, for victory obtained by Edward I against the Scots, every citizen, according to their several trade, made their several show, but especially the fishmongers" whose solemn procession including a knight "representing St Magnus, because it was upon St Magnus' day".

 

An important religious guild, the Confraternity de Salve Regina, was in existence by 1343, having been founded by the "better sort of the Parish of St Magnus" to sing the anthem 'Salve Regina' every evening. The Guild certificates of 1389 record that the Confraternity of Salve Regina and the guild of St Thomas the Martyr in the chapel on the bridge, whose members belonged to St Magnus parish, had determined to become one, to have the anthem of St Thomas after the Salve Regina and to devote their united resources to restoring and enlarging the church of St Magnus. An Act of Parliament of 1437 provided that all incorporated fraternities and companies should register their charters and have their ordinances approved by the civic authorities. Fear of enquiry into their privileges may have led established fraternities to seek a firm foundation for their rights. The letters patent of the fraternity of St Mary and St Thomas the Martyr of Salve Regina in St Magnus dated 26 May 1448 mention that the fraternity had petitioned for a charter on the grounds that the society was not duly founded.

 

In the mid-14th century the Pope was the Patron of the living and appointed five rectors to the benefice.

 

Henry Yevele, the master mason whose work included the rebuilding of Westminster Hall and the naves of Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral, was a parishioner and rebuilt the chapel on London Bridge between 1384 and 1397. He served as a warden of London Bridge and was buried at St Magnus on his death in 1400. His monument was extant in John Stow's time, but was probably destroyed by the fire of 1666.

 

Yevele, as the King’s Mason, was overseen by Geoffrey Chaucer in his capacity as the Clerk of the King's Works. In The General Prologue of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales the five guildsmen "were clothed alle in o lyveree Of a solempne and a greet fraternitee" and may be thought of as belonging to the guild in the parish of St Magnus, or one like it. Chaucer's family home was near to the bridge in Thames Street.

 

In 1417 a dispute arose concerning who should take the place of honour amongst the Rectors in the City churches at the Whit Monday procession, a place that had been claimed from time to time by the Rectors of St Peter Cornhill, St Magnus the Martyr and St Nicholas Cole Abbey. The Mayor and Aldermen decided that the Rector of St Peter Cornhill should take precedence.

 

St Magnus Corner at the north end of London Bridge was an important meeting place in mediaeval London, where notices were exhibited, proclamations read out and wrongdoers punished. As it was conveniently close to the River Thames, the church was chosen by the Bishop between the 15th and 17th centuries as a convenient venue for general meetings of the clergy in his diocese. In pictures from the mid-16th century the old church looks very similar to the present-day St Giles without Cripplegate in the Barbican. According to the martyrologist John Foxe, a woman was imprisoned in the 'cage' on London Bridge in April 1555 and told to "cool herself there" for refusing to pray at St Magnus for the recently-deceased Pope Julius III.

 

Simon Lowe, a Member of Parliament and Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company during the reign of Queen Mary and one of the jurors who acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554, was a parishioner. He was a mourner at the funeral of Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester from 1554 to 1558 and Rector of St Magnus from 1537 to 1558, who was interred in the church on 30 November 1558 with much solemnity. In accordance with the Catholic church's desire to restore ecclesiastical pageantry in England, the funeral was a splendid affair, ending in a magnificent dinner.

 

Lowe was included in a return of recusants in the Diocese of Rochester in 1577, but was buried at St Magnus on 6 February 1578. Stow refers to his monument in the church. His eldest son, Timothy (died 1617), was knighted in 1603. His second son, Alderman Sir Thomas Lowe (1550–1623), was Master of the Haberdashers' Company on several occasions, Sheriff of London in 1595/96, Lord Mayor in 1604/05 and a Member of Parliament for London. His youngest son, Blessed John Lowe (1553–1586), having originally been a Protestant minister, converted to Roman Catholicism, studied for the priesthood at Douay and Rome and returned to London as a missionary priest. His absence had already been noted; a list of 1581 of "such persons of the Diocese of London as have any children ... beyond the seas" records "John Low son to Margaret Low of the Bridge, absent without licence four years". Having gained 500 converts to Catholicism between 1583 and 1586, he was arrested whilst walking with his mother near London Bridge, committed to The Clink and executed at Tyburn on 8 October 1586. He was beatified in 1987 as one of the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales.

 

Sir William Garrard, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman, Sheriff of London in 1553/53, Lord Mayor in 1555/56 and a Member of Parliament was born in the parish and buried at St Magnus in 1571. Sir William Romney, merchant, philanthropist, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman for Bridge Within and Sheriff of London in 1603/04 was married at St Magnus in 1582. Ben Jonson is believed to have been married at St Magnus in 1594.

 

The patronage of St Magnus, having previously been in the Abbots and Convents of Westminster and Bermondsey (who presented alternatively), fell to the Crown on the suppression of the monasteries. In 1553, Queen Mary, by letters patent, granted it to the Bishop of London and his successors.

 

The church had a series of distinguished Rectors in the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th century, including Myles Coverdale (Rector 1564-66), John Young (Rector 1566-92), Theophilus Aylmer (Rector 1592-1625), (Archdeacon of London and son of John Aylmer), and Cornelius Burges (Rector 1626-41). Coverdale was buried in the chancel of St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, but when that church was pulled down in 1840 his remains were removed to St Magnus.

 

On 5 November 1562 the churchwardens were ordered to break, or cause to be broken, in two parts all the altar stones in the church. Coverdale, an anti-vestiarian, was Rector at the peak of the vestments controversy. In March 1566 Archbishop Parker caused great consternation among many clergy by his edicts prescribing what was to be worn and by his summoning the London clergy to Lambeth to require their compliance. Coverdale excused himself from attending. Stow records that a non-conforming Scot who normally preached at St Magnus twice a day precipitated a fight on Palm Sunday 1566 at Little All Hallows in Thames Street with his preaching against vestments. Coverdale's resignation from St Magnus in summer 1566 may have been associated with these events. Separatist congregations started to emerge after 1566 and the first such, who called themselves 'Puritans' or 'Unspottyd Lambs of the Lord', was discovered close to St Magnus at Plumbers' Hall in Thames Street on 19 June 1567.

 

St Magnus narrowly escaped destruction in 1633. A later edition of Stow's Survey records that "On the 13th day of February, between eleven and twelve at night, there happened in the house of one Briggs, a Needle-maker near St Magnus Church, at the North end of the Bridge, by the carelessness of a Maid-Servant setting a tub of hot sea-coal ashes under a pair of stairs, a sad and lamentable fire, which consumed all the buildings before eight of the clock the next morning, from the North end of the Bridge to the first vacancy on both sides, containing forty-two houses; water then being very scarce, the Thames being almost frozen over." Susannah Chambers "by her last will & testament bearing date 28th December 1640 gave the sum of Twenty-two shillings and Sixpence Yearly for a Sermon to be preached on the 12th day of February in every Year within the Church of Saint Magnus in commemoration of God's merciful preservation of the said Church of Saint Magnus from Ruin, by the late and terrible Fire on London Bridge. Likewise Annually to the Poor the sum of 17/6. "The tradition of a "Fire Sermon" was revived on 12 February 2004, when the first preacher was the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.

 

Parliamentarian rule and the more Protestant ethos of the 1640s led to the removal or destruction of "superstitious" and "idolatrous" images and fittings. Glass painters such as Baptista Sutton, who had previously installed "Laudian innovations", found new employment by repairing and replacing these to meet increasingly strict Protestant standards. In January 1642 Sutton replaced 93 feet of glass at St Magnus and in June 1644 he was called back to take down the "painted imagery glass" and replace it. In June 1641 "rail riots" broke out at a number of churches. This was a time of high tension following the trial and execution of the Earl of Strafford and rumours of army and popish plots were rife. The Protestation Oath, with its pledge to defend the true religion "against all Popery and popish innovation", triggered demands from parishioners for the removal of the rails as popish innovations which the Protestation had bound them to reform. The minister arranged a meeting between those for and against the pulling down of the rails, but was unsuccessful in reaching a compromise and it was feared that they would be demolished by force. However, in 1663 the parish resumed Laudian practice and re-erected rails around its communion table.

 

Joseph Caryl was incumbent from 1645 until his ejection in 1662. In 1663 he was reportedly living near London Bridge and preaching to an Independent congregation that met at various places in the City.

 

During the Great Plague of 1665, the City authorities ordered fires to be kept burning night and day, in the hope that the air would be cleansed. Daniel Defoe's semi-fictictional, but highly realistic, work A Journal of the Plague Year records that one of these was "just by St Magnus Church".

 

Despite its escape in 1633, the church was one of the first buildings to be destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. St Magnus stood less than 300 yards from the bakehouse of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane where the fire started. Farriner, a former churchwarden of St Magnus, was buried in the middle aisle of the church on 11 December 1670, perhaps within a temporary structure erected for holding services.

 

The parish engaged the master mason George Dowdeswell to start the work of rebuilding in 1668. The work was carried forward between 1671 and 1687 under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, the body of the church being substantially complete by 1676. At a cost of £9,579 19s 10d St Magnus was one of Wren's most expensive churches. The church of St Margaret New Fish Street was not rebuilt after the fire and its parish was united to that of St Magnus.

 

The chancels of many of Wren’s city churches had chequered marble floors and the chancel of St Magnus is an example, the parish agreeing after some debate to place the communion table on a marble ascent with steps and to commission altar rails of Sussex wrought iron. The nave and aisles are paved with freestone flags. A steeple, closely modelled on one built between 1614 and 1624 by François d'Aguilon and Pieter Huyssens for the church of St Carolus Borromeus in Antwerp, was added between 1703 and 1706. London's skyline was transformed by Wren's tall steeples and that of St Magnus is considered to be one his finest.

 

The large clock projecting from the tower was a well-known landmark in the city as it hung over the roadway of Old London Bridge. It was presented to the church in 1709 by Sir Charles Duncombe (Alderman for the Ward of Bridge Within and, in 1708/09, Lord Mayor of London). Tradition says "that it was erected in consequence of a vow made by the donor, who, in the earlier part of his life, had once to wait a considerable time in a cart upon London Bridge, without being able to learn the hour, when he made a promise, that if he ever became successful in the world, he would give to that Church a public clock ... that all passengers might see the time of day." The maker was Langley Bradley, a clockmaker in Fenchurch Street, who had worked for Wren on many other projects, including the clock for the new St Paul's Cathedral. The sword rest in the church, designed to hold the Lord Mayor's sword and mace when he attended divine service "in state", dates from 1708.

 

Duncombe and his benefactions to St Magnus feature prominently in Daniel Defoe's The True-Born Englishman, a biting satire on critics of William III that went through several editions from 1700 (the year in which Duncombe was elected Sheriff).

 

Shortly before his death in 1711, Duncombe commissioned an organ for the church, the first to have a swell-box, by Abraham Jordan (father and son). The Spectator announced that "Whereas Mr Abraham Jordan, senior and junior, have, with their own hands, joinery excepted, made and erected a very large organ in St Magnus' Church, at the foot of London Bridge, consisting of four sets of keys, one of which is adapted to the art of emitting sounds by swelling notes, which never was in any organ before; this instrument will be publicly opened on Sunday next [14 February 1712], the performance by Mr John Robinson. The above-said Abraham Jordan gives notice to all masters and performers, that he will attend every day next week at the said Church, to accommodate all those gentlemen who shall have a curiosity to hear it".

 

The organ case, which remains in its original state, is looked upon as one of the finest existing examples of the Grinling Gibbons's school of wood carving. The first organist of St Magnus was John Robinson (1682–1762), who served in that role for fifty years and in addition as organist of Westminster Abbey from 1727. Other organists have included the blind organist George Warne (1792–1868, organist 1820-26 until his appointment to the Temple Church), James Coward (1824–80, organist 1868-80 who was also organist to the Crystal Palace and renowned for his powers of improvisation) and George Frederick Smith FRCO (1856–1918, organist 1880-1918 and Professor of Music at the Guildhall School of Music). The organ has been restored several times - in 1760, 1782, 1804, 1855, 1861, 1879, 1891, 1924, 1949 after wartime damage and 1997 - since it was first built. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was one of several patrons of the organ appeal in the mid-1990s and John Scott gave an inaugural recital on 20 May 1998 following the completion of that restoration. The instrument has an Historic Organ Certificate and full details are recorded in the National Pipe Organ Register.

 

The hymn tune "St Magnus", usually sung at Ascensiontide to the text "The head that once was crowned with thorns", was written by Jeremiah Clarke in 1701 and named for the church.

 

Canaletto drew St Magnus and old London Bridge as they appeared in the late 1740s. Between 1756 and 1762, under the London Bridge Improvement Act of 1756 (c. 40), the Corporation of London demolished the buildings on London Bridge to widen the roadway, ease traffic congestion and improve safety for pedestrians. The churchwardens’ accounts of St Magnus list many payments to those injured on the Bridge and record that in 1752 a man was crushed to death between two carts. After the House of Commons had resolved upon the alteration of London Bridge, the Rev Robert Gibson, Rector of St Magnus, applied to the House for relief; stating that £48 6s. 2d. per annum, part of his salary of £170 per annum, was assessed upon houses on London Bridge; which he should utterly lose by their removal unless a clause in the bill about to be passed should provide a remedy. Accordingly, Sections 18 and 19 of 1756 Act provided that the relevant amounts of tithe and poor rate should be a charge on the Bridge House Estates.

 

A serious fire broke out on 18 April 1760 in an oil shop at the south east corner of the church, which consumed most of the church roof and did considerable damage to the fabric. The fire burnt warehouses to the south of the church and a number of houses on the northern end of London Bridge.

 

As part of the bridge improvements, overseen by the architect Sir Robert Taylor, a new pedestrian walkway was built along the eastern side of the bridge. With the other buildings gone St Magnus blocked the new walkway. As a consequence it was necessary in 1762 to 1763 to remove the vestry rooms at the West end of the church and open up the side arches of the tower so that people could pass underneath the tower. The tower’s lower storey thus became an external porch. Internally a lobby was created at the West end under the organ gallery and a screen with fine octagonal glazing inserted. A new Vestry was built to the South of the church. The Act also provided that the land taken from the church for the widening was "to be considered ... as part of the cemetery of the said church ... but if the pavement thereof be broken up on account of the burying of any persons, the same shall be ... made good ... by the churchwardens".

 

Soldiers were stationed in the Vestry House of St Magnus during the Gordon Riots in June 1780.

 

By 1782 the noise level from the activities of Billingsgate Fish Market had become unbearable and the large windows on the north side of the church were blocked up leaving only circular windows high up in the wall. At some point between the 1760s and 1814 the present clerestory was constructed with its oval windows and fluted and coffered plasterwork. J. M. W. Turner painted the church in the mid-1790s.

 

The rector of St Magnus between 1792 and 1808, following the death of Robert Gibson on 28 July 1791, was Thomas Rennell FRS. Rennell was President of Sion College in 1806/07. There is a monument to Thomas Leigh (Rector 1808-48 and President of Sion College 1829/30, at St Peter's Church, Goldhanger in Essex. Richard Hazard (1761–1837) was connected with the church as sexton, parish clerk and ward beadle for nearly 50 years and served as Master of the Parish Clerks' Company in 1831/32.

 

In 1825 the church was "repaired and beautified at a very considerable expense. During the reparation the east window, which had been closed, was restored, and the interior of the fabric conformed to the state in which it was left by its great architect, Sir Christopher Wren. The magnificent organ ... was taken down and rebuilt by Mr Parsons, and re-opened, with the church, on the 12th February, 1826". Unfortunately, as a contemporary writer records, "On the night of the 31st of July, 1827, [the church's] safety was threatened by the great fire which consumed the adjacent warehouses, and it is perhaps owing to the strenuous and praiseworthy exertions of the firemen, that the structure exists at present. ... divine service was suspended and not resumed until the 20th January 1828. In the interval the church received such tasteful and elegant decorations, that it may now compete with any church in the metropolis."

 

In 1823 royal assent was given to ‘An Act for the Rebuilding of London Bridge’ and in 1825 John Garratt, Lord Mayor and Alderman of the Ward of Bridge Within, laid the first stone of the new London Bridge. In 1831 Sir John Rennie’s new bridge was opened further upstream and the old bridge demolished. St Magnus ceased to be the gateway to London as it had been for over 600 years. Peter de Colechurch had been buried in the crypt of the chapel on the bridge and his bones were unceremoniously dumped in the River Thames. In 1921 two stones from Old London Bridge were discovered across the road from the church. They now stand in the churchyard.

 

Wren's church of St Michael Crooked Lane was demolished, the final service on Sunday 20 March 1831 having to be abandoned due to the effects of the building work. The Rector of St Michael preached a sermon the following Sunday at St Magnus lamenting the demolition of his church with its monuments and "the disturbance of the worship of his parishioners on the preceeding Sabbath". The parish of St Michael Crooked Lane was united to that of St Magnus, which itself lost a burial ground in Church Yard Alley to the approach road for the new bridge. However, in substitution it had restored to it the land taken for the widening of the old bridge in 1762 and was also given part of the approach lands to the east of the old bridge. In 1838 the Committee for the London Bridge Approaches reported to Common Council that new burial grounds had been provided for the parishes of St Michael, Crooked Lane and St Magnus, London Bridge.

 

Depictions of St Magnus after the building of the new bridge, seen behind Fresh Wharf and the new London Bridge Wharf, include paintings by W. Fenoulhet in 1841 and by Charles Ginner in 1913. This prospect was affected in 1924 by the building of Adelaide House to a design by John James Burnet, The Times commenting that "the new ‘architectural Matterhorn’ ... conceals all but the tip of the church spire". There was, however, an excellent view of the church for a few years between the demolition of Adelaide Buildings and the erection of its replacement. Adelaide House is now listed. Regis House, on the site of the abandoned King William Street terminus of the City & South London Railway (subsequently the Northern Line), and the Steam Packet Inn, on the corner of Lower Thames Street and Fish Street Hill, were developed in 1931.

 

By the early 1960s traffic congestion had become a problem and Lower Thames Street was widened over the next decade to form part of a significant new east-west transport artery (the A3211). The setting of the church was further affected by the construction of a new London Bridge between 1967 and 1973. The New Fresh Wharf warehouse to the east of the church, built in 1939, was demolished in 1973-4 following the collapse of commercial traffic in the Pool of London and, after an archaeological excavation, St Magnus House was constructed on the site in 1978 to a design by R. Seifert & Partners. This development now allows a clear view of the church from the east side. The site to the south east of The Monument (between Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane), formerly predominantly occupied by fish merchants, was redeveloped as Centurion House and Gartmore (now Providian) House at the time of the closure of old Billingsgate Market in January 1982. A comprehensive redevelopment of Centurion House began in October 2011 with completion planned in 2013. Regis House, to the south west of The Monument, was redeveloped by Land Securities PLC in 1998.

 

The vista from The Monument south to the River Thames, over the roof of St Magnus, is protected under the City of London Unitary Development Plan, although the South bank of the river is now dominated by The Shard. Since 2004 the City of London Corporation has been exploring ways of enhancing the Riverside Walk to the south of St Magnus. Work on a new staircase to connect London Bridge to the Riverside Walk is due to commence in March 2013. The story of St Magnus's relationship with London Bridge and an interview with the rector featured in the television programme The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank, first broadcast on BBC Four on 14 June 2012. The City Corporation's 'Fenchurch and Monument Area Enhancement Strategy' of August 2012 recommended ways of reconnecting St Magnus and the riverside to the area north of Lower Thames Street.

 

www.stmagnusmartyr.org.uk/history/history-church

The outstanding feature of this solid Victorian church, built by John Oldrid Scott in 1871, is the series of windows by the firm of Morris and Co. The east window of the north aisle represents some early saints including Alban and Aidan, while that in the west end shows six angels. Nearby is an early representation of Kentish saints, whose popularity was increasing in the middle of the nineteenth century, including Augustine, Ethelbert and Bertha. The east window is by the same firm, but dates from after the death of Burne-Jones and is not so finely executed. The oak reredos was added by Charles Oldrid Scott in 1925, who also worked on the altar rails and low chancel screen. In the churchyard there is a good monument made of Coade artificial stone in 1807.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Speldhurst

 

-------------------------------------------

 

SPELDHURST

IS the last parish remaining undescribed in this lath. It lies the next adjoining parish south eastward from Penshurst, and was sometimes written, in antient records, Speleberste, but in the Tex t u Rossensis, Speldburst.

 

THE PARISH of Speldhurst is about three miles across each way; the north-west part, in which the church stands, and Hallborough, is within the hundred of Somerden, as is the hamlet of Groombridge, three miles from the church, at the southern boundary of it, where a branch of the river Medway separates this county from Sussex, throughout all which the soil remains a stiff clay; the remaining part of this parish is in the hundred of Warchlingstone, which stretches across a narrow district, by Mitchell's and Tophill farms, and towards the parish of Ashurst, which it includes, thus entirely separates that part of the hundred of Somerden in which the hamlet of Groombridge lies, and surrounds three sides of it, from the other in which the church stands. The soil in the eastern part of this parish changes to an uninterrupted scene of losty hills, with deep vallies intersecting, the soils are a stiff loam and a barren sand, which covers a continued bed of rock stone, several of which appear above it, of large size and dimensions, greatly abounding with iron ore, which renders the springs of it more or less chalybeate; at the south east boundary of the parish is the noted resort of Tunbridge-wells, (of which a further account will be given hereafter) situated thirty-five miles from London, and five from Tunbridge town; here the high road branches off to the right, by Rust-hall, and the hamlets of Bishopsdown and Rust-hall common, on by Groombridge, across the branch of the Medway into Sussex.

 

The large and populous hamlet or village of TUNBRIDGE-WELLS is situated at the south-east boundary of this parish; part of it only is in Speldhurst, another part in the parish of Tunbridge, and the remainder in that of Fant, in the county of Suffex. It consists of four smaller districts, named from the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant, and Mount Sion; the other is called The Wells, from their being within it, which altogether form a considerable town; but the last is the centre of business and pleasure, for there, besides the Wells themselves, are the market, public parades, assembly rooms, taverns, shops, &c. Near the Wells is the chapel, which stands remarkably in the three parishes above mentioned—the pulpit in Speldhurst, the altar in Tunbridge, and the vestry in Fant, and the stream, which parted the two counties of Kent and Suffex, formerly ran underneath it, but is now turned to a further distance from it. The right of patronage is claimed by the rector of Speldhurst, though he has never yet possessed the chapel or presented to it; the value of it is about two hundred pounds per annum, which sum is raised by voluntary subscription; divine service is performed in it every day in summer, and three times a week in winter. Adjoining to it is a charity school, for upwards of fifty poor boys and girls, which is supported by a contribution, collected at the chapel doors, two or three times a year.

 

The trade of Tunbridge-wells is similar to that of Spa, in Germany, and consists chiefly in a variety of toys, made of wood, commonly called Tunbridge ware, which employs a great number of hands. The wood principally used for this purpose is beech and sycamore, with yew and holly inlaid, and beautifully polished. To the market of this place is brought, in great plenty, from the South downs, in Sussex, the little bird, called the wheatear, which, from its delicacy, is usually called the English ortolan. It is not bigger in size than a lark; it is almost a lump of fat, and of a very delicious taste; it is in season only in the midst of summer, when the heat of the weather, and the fatness of it, prevents its being sent to London, which otherwise would, in all likelihood, monopolize every one of them. On the other or Suffex side of the Medway, above a mile from the Wells, are the rocks, which consist of a great number of rude eminences, adjoining to each other, several of which are seventy feet in height; in several places there are cliffs and chasms which lead quite through the midst of them, by narrow gloomy passages, which strike the beholder with astonishment.

 

THESE MEDICINAL WATERS, commonly called TUNBRIDGE-WELLS, lie so near to the county of Suffex that part of them are within it, for which reason they were for some time called Fant-wells, as being within that parish. (fn. 1) Their efficacy is reported to have been accidentally found out by Dudley lord North, in the beginning of the reign of king James I. Whilst he resided at Eridge-house for his health, lord Abergavenny's seat, in this neighbourhood, and that he was entirely cured of the lingering consumptive disorder he laboured under by the use of them.

 

The springs, which were then discovered, seem to have been seven in number, two of the principal of which were some time afterwards, by lord Abergavenny's care, inclosed, and were afterwards much resorted to by many of the middling and lower sort, whose ill health had real occasion for the use of them. In which state they continued till queen Henrietta Maria, wife of king Charles I. having been sent hither by her physicians, in the year 1630, for the reestablishment of her health, soon brought these waters into fashion, and occasioned a great resort to them from that time. In compliment to her doctor, Lewis Rowzee, in his treatise on them, calls these springs the Queen's-wells; but this name lasted but a small time, and they were soon afterwards universally known by that of Tunbridge-wells, which names they acquired from the company usually residing at Tunbridge town, when they came into these parts for the benefit of drinking the waters.

 

¶The town of Tunbridge being five miles distant from the wells, occasioned some few houses to be built in the hamlets of Southborough and Rusthall, for the accommodation of the company resorting hither, and this place now becoming fashionable, was visited by numbers for the sake of pleasure and dissipation, as well as for the cure of their infirmities; and soon after the Restoration every kind of building, for public amusements, was erected at the two hamlets above mentioned, lodgings and other buildings were built at and near the wells, the springs themselves were secured, and other conveniencies added to them. In 1664, the queen came here by the advice of her physicians, in hopes of reinstating her health, which was greatly impaired by a dangerous fever, and her success, in being perfectly cured by these waters, greatly raised the reputation of them, and the company increasing yearly, it induced the inhabitants to make every accommodation for them adjoining to the Wells, so that both Rusthall and Southborough became ruinous and deserted by all but their native inhabitants. The duke of York, with his duchess, and the two princesses their daughters, visited Tunbridge-wells in the year 1670, which brought much more company than usual to them, and raised their reputation still higher; and the annual increase continuing, it induced the lord of the manor to think of improving this humour of visiting the wells to his own profit as well as the better accommodation of the company. To effect which, he entered into an agreement with his tenants, and hired of them the herbage of the waste of the manor for the term of fifty years, at the yearly rent of ten shillings to each tenant, and then erected shops and houses on and near the walks and springs, in every convenient spot for that purpose; by which means Tunbridge wells became a populous and flourishing village, well inhabited, for whose convenience, and the company resorting thither, a chapel was likewise built, in 1684, by subscription, on some ground given by the lady viscountess Purbeck, which was, about twelve years afterwards, enlarged by an additional subscription, amounting together to near twenty-three hundred pounds.

  

About the year 1726, the building lease, which had been granted by the lord of the manor of Rusthall, in which this hamlet is situated, expiring, the tenants of the manor claimed a share in the buildings, as a compensation for the loss of the herbage, which was covered by his houses. This occasioned a long and very expensive law suit between them, which was at last determined in favour of the tenants, who were adjudged to have a right to a third part of the buildings then erected on the estate, in lieu of their right to the herbage; upon which all the shops and houses, which had been built on the manor waste, were divided into three lots, of which the tenants were to draw one, and the other two were to remain to the lord of the manor; the lot which the tenants drew was the middle one, which included the assembly room on the public walk, which has since turned out much the most advantageous of the three. After which long articles of agreement, in 1739, were entered into between Maurice Conyers, esq. then lord of the manor of Rusthall, and the above mentioned tenants of it, in which, among many other matters, he agreed to permit the public walks and wells, and divers other premises there, to be made use of for the public benefit of the nobility and gentry resorting thereto, and several regulations were made in them concerning the walks, wells, and wastes of the manor, and for the restraining buildings on the waste, between the lord and his tenants, according to a plan therein specified; all which were confirmed and established by an act of parliament, passed in 1740. Since which several of the royal family have honoured these wells with their presence, and numbers of the nobility and persons of rank and fashion yearly resortto them, so that this place is now in a most flourishing state, having great numbers of good houses built for lodgings, and every other necessary accommodation for the company. Its customs are settled; the employment of the dippers regulated; (fn. 2) its pleasures regulated; its markets well and plentifully supplied, at a reasonable rate, with sowl, fish, meat, every other kind of food, and every convenience added that can contribute to give health and pleasure.

 

The whole neighbourhood of Tunbridge-wells abounds with springs of mineral water, but as the properties of all are nearly the same, only those two, which at the first discovery of them were adjudged the best, are held in any particular estimation. These two wells are enclosed with a handsome triangular stone wall; over the springs are placed two convenient basons of Portland stone, with perforations at the bottom; one of them being given by queen Anne, and the other by the lord of the manor; through which they receive the water, which at the spring is extremely clear and bright. Its taste is steely, but not disagreeable; it has hardly any smell, though sometimes, in a dense air, its ferruginous exhalations are very distinguishable. In point of heat it is invariably temperate, the spring lying so deep in the earth, that neither the heat of summer, nor the cold of winter, affects it. When this water is first taken up in a large glass, its particles continue at rest till it is warmed to nearly the heat of the atmosphere, then a few airy globules begin to separate themselves, and adhere to the sides of the glass, and in a few hours a light copper coloured scum begins to float on the surface, after which an ochreous sediment settles at the bottom. Long continued rains sometimes give the water a milky appearance, but do not otherwise sensibly affect it. From the experiments of different physicians, it appears that the component parts of this water are, steely particles, marine salts, an oily matter, an ochreous substance, simple water, and a volatile vitriolic spirit, too subtile for any chemical analysis. In weight it is, in seven ounces and a quarter, four grains lighter than the German Spa (to which it is preferable on that account) and ten grains lighter than common water; with syrup of violets this water gives a deep green, as vitriols do. (fn. 3) It requires five drops of oleum sulphuris, or elixir of vitriol, to a quart of water, to preserve its virtues to a distance from the spring.

 

This water is said to be an impregnation of rain in some of the neighbouring eminences, which abound in iron mineral, where it is further enriched with the marine salts and all the valuable ingredients, which constitute it a light and pure chalybeate, which instantly searches the most remote recesses of the human frame, warms and invigorates the relaxed constitution, restores the weakened fibres to their due tone and elasticity, removes those obstructions to which the minuter vessels of the body are liable, and is consequently adapted to most cold chronical disorders, lowness of spirits, weak digestions, and nervous complaints. Dr. Lodowick Rowzee, of Ashford, in this county, wrote a Treatise of the Nature and Virtues of these Waters, printed in 12mo. 1671; and Dr. Patrick Madan wrote a Philosophical and Medical Essay on them, in 1687, in quarto.

 

THE MANOR OF SPELDHURST, in the reign of king Edward III. was in the possession of Sir John de Pulteneye, lord of the neighbouring manor of Penshurst, a man of great account at that time, as has been already noticed before, who, in the 19th year of that reign, on his perfecting the foundation he had begun of a college in the parish of St. Lawrence, Canon-street, London, afterwards called the College of St. Laurence Poultney, settled the manor with the church of Speldshurst on it.

 

¶It remained part of the possessions of the college till its suppression in the reign of king Edward VI. when it was granted among other premises, by the description of the manor of Speldhurst and Harwarton (then demised to Sir William Waller, at the rent of 16s. 8d. per annum) of the clear yearly value of 13l. 14s. 1d. together with the patronage of the church appendant to the manor, parcel of the late college of St. Laurence, Poultney, London, to Henry Polsted. (fn. 4) How the manor of Speldhurst passed afterwards I have not found, only that after several intermediate owners, it came into the name of Goodhugh, and in the latter end of the reign of king George I. was possessed by Richard Goodhugh, esq. from which name it passed by a female heir, Sarah, in marriage to Mr. Rich. Round, whose son, Mr. Richard Round, of Stonepit, in Seale, died possessed of it, and the trustees of his insant children are now in the possession of it.

  

SPELDHURST is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester, and deanry of Malling.

 

The church, which was dedicated to St. Mary, was a neat building, having a spire steeple at the west end of it, in which hung four bells.

 

On Thursday, October 22, 1791, a dreadful storm of thunder and lightning happened in these parts, which set fire to this church, a ball of fire being observed to enter the center of the shingled part of the spire, and instantly a thick smoke, followed by slames issued from it, and there being no help at hand, every thing contributed to its destruction. The high wind, the rain and hail having ceased, drove the flames from the steeple on the church, and in about four hours this beautiful structure was totally reduced to a heap of ruins, The bells were melted by the intense heat, the monuments in it, and every thing else which could become a prey to the fiery element were reduced to ashes; the stone walls only were left, but in so ruinous a condition as not to be fit for future use, and what is extraordinary, the font, though left entire, was turned upside down; the tombs and head stones near the church were considerably damaged. A brief was obtained towards the re-building of it, but the work, though the size of it has been greatly reduced, the new church, consisting but of one isle and a very small chancel, has gone on but slowly, and at this time is not near finished, and neither steeple nor bells are yet agreed upon, the brief not producing so much as was expected.

 

In the old church, before it was burnt down, there were the following monuments and inscriptions:— In the chancel, on the south wall, an antient and beautiful monument,. with the arms of Waller, with the augmentation and several quarterings, for Sir Walter Waller; a brass plate for John Waller, esq. obt. 1517. In the nave, were several brass plates for the same family, one of them for William Waller, esq. of Groombridge, obt. 1555. The porch was very curious, over which was an antique shield, cut in stone, being the arms of France, with a file of three flambeaux, for Charles, duke of Orleans, mentioned before. He built this porch, and was a good benefactor to the repairs of the church itself. (fn. 19)

 

By a fine levied in the 39th year of king Henry III. before Gilbert de Preston, and others justices itinerant, Walter de la Dene, the possessor of this advowson, granted it to the Walter Fitzwalter in tail general, to hold of him and his heirs for ever, at the yearly rent of one penny, and performing all other services due from thence to the capital lords of the fee.

 

¶Roger de Padlesworth was patron of the church of Speldhurst in the 48th year of the same reign, and he then released his right to certain rent and service due for lands granted to the chapel of Gromenebregge, situated within his manor of Speldhurst. In the reign of king Edward III. the manor and church of Speldhurst were part of the possessions of Sir John de Pulteneye, who, in the 19th year of that reign, on his perfecting the foundation and endowment of his college in the parish of St. Lawrence, in Canon-street, London, afterwards called the College of St. Lawrence Poultney, settled both manor and advowson on it. (fn. 20) Three years after which, anno 1347, Hamo, bishop of Rochester, at the instance and petition of Sir John de Pulteneye, by his instrument appropriated this church to that college for ever, reserving out of it nevertheless a fit portion to the perpetual vicar serving in it, to be presented to the bishop and his successors, by the master or guardian and the chaplains of the college, by which he might be supported decently, and be enabled to discharge the episcopal dues and other burthens incumbent on him; and he decreed, that they should take possession of this church immediately on the death or cession of Sir Thomas, then rector of it (whom he by no means intended to prejudice by this appropriation) without any further licence or authority obtained for that purpose, saving, nevertheless, and reserving to himself and his successors canonical obedience from the master or guardian and chaplains or their successors, on account of their holding this church as aforesaid, and the visitation of it, and other rights due to the church and the bishop of Rochester, and to the archdeacon of the place, either of custom or of right, and all other rights and customs in every thing whatsoever; and saving and reserving in the church a perpetual vicarage, which he then decreed should take effect at the death or resignation of the rector of it. And he willed, that a sit and competent portion should be assigned out of the fruits, rents and produce of it to such vicar to serve in it, who should first be presented by the master, &c. to be instituted and admitted by the bishop, or his successor, into it, before his admission, according as circumstances required, to the use of him and his successors for ever. And he willed and decreed, that the portion above-mentioned should for ever consist of the tithes of filva cedua, pannage, apples, and fruits of other trees, hay, herbage, flax, hemp, wool, milk, butter and cheese, lambs, calves, pigs, swans, pidgeons, fowlings, huntings, mills, fisheries, merchandizing, and in all other small tithes and dues of the church, oblations and obventions whatsoever belonging to the altarage, together with competent buildings situate on the soil of the church, to be assigned for the habitation of the vicar, and in which the visitors of the ordinary might be commodiously received. And he willed and decreed, that the vicar for the time being, (after the books and vestments belonging by custom to the rector to provide, should have been sufficiently provided by the master, &c.) should cause the books to be bound, and the vestments to be washed, repaired and amended, as often as need should be; and should find and provide, at his own expence, bread, wine, and processional tapers, and other lights necessary in the chancel, and the accustomed attendants in the church; and should keep and maintain in a proper state, at his own costs, the buildings allotted to his vicarage, after they should have been once sufficiently repaired, and assigned as an habitation for him and his successors, and should wholly pay all episcopal dues, and archidiaconal procurations, and should undergo and acknowledge all other extraordinary burthens, which should be incumbent or laid on him, according to the taxation of his portion, which, so far as related to them, he estimated and taxed at sixty shillings sterling; but that the master, &c. should undergo and acknowledge, at his and their own costs for ever, all other ordinaries and extraordinaries, according to the taxation of their portion, which he estimated at six marcs and an half. Lastly, that his cathedral church of Rochester might not be in any manner hurt, or prejudiced by this appropriation, he, in recompence of such loss, as it might happen to receive from it, either in the not receiving the profits of it whilst it should become vacant, or otherwise, reserved a certain annual pension of seven shillings sterling from this church to him and his successors, to be yearly paid at the feast of the Purification of the blessed Virgin Mary, by the master, &c. as soon as they should have obtained effectual and full possession of it, &c. (fn. 21)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp275-300

Orchard Beach, Pelham Bay Park, Bronx, New York City, New York

 

Summary

 

The Orchard Beach Bathhouse and Promenade, which since 1936 has served as the major waterfront recreation complex for Bronx residents, is an outstanding example of the federally-funded public works projects executed during the Great Depression of the

 

1930s. Located in Pelham Bay Park and fronting on Long Island Sound, Orchard Beach was constructed in 1934-37 during the administration of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Department Commissioner Robert Moses with funds obtained largely from the Works Progress Administration. Planned on a massive scale, its construction required a major landfill and a mile-long seawall to connect Hunter Island to the mainland, creating an entirely new, artificial landscape. Designed by a talented staff supervised by the well- known architect Aymar Embury II and the noted landscape architects Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano, the facility contains a bathhouse in a Modern Classical style and a wide promenade, the plan of which was influenced by Beaux-Arts principles. The concrete, brick, and limestone bathhouse, embellished with tile and terrazzo finishes, features two monumental colonnades that radiate outward from a raised central terrace. The crescent-shaped promenade, which follows the curve of the beach, is paved with hexagonal blocks and edged by cast-iron railings evoking a nautical motif. Situated on the promenade are Moderne style concession and supply buildings, park benches, drinking fountains, and modernistic lamp posts. The original and creative use made of these materials and forms, and the careful siting of the facility, make it a distinguished, individual design. Orchard Beach, a major accomplishment of engineering and architecture, and New York City&apos;s most ambitious park project of the New Deal, is recognized as being among the most remarkable public recreational facilities ever constructed in the United States.

 

History of the Site1

 

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

 

The drive to acquire new parkland for the citizens of the City of New York began with FrederickLaw Olmsted, who was the chief of the Park Department&apos;s Bureau of Design and Superintendence in the 1870s. His vision for the developing the Bronx included a system of parks and parkways, with roads following the existing topography rather than a rigid grid system as in Manhattan. City officials rejected his recommendations and dismissed him in 1877. However, his ideas were not forgotten. John Mullaly, editor of the New York Herald Tribune, rallied public enthusiasm for the plan. In 1881, New York Park Association was formed. It was made up of many of the City&apos;s leading businessmen and professionals, such as Charles L. Tiffany, Gustav Schwab, Jordan L. Mott, Egbert L. Viele, and H.B. Claflin. They proposed creating new public parkland by preserving large tracts of open land in rural areas that were newly annexed or soon-to-be-annexed to the City. The Association was unsuccessful, however, in persuading the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen to authorize a commission to oversee the selection of new parkland, so they took their case to the New York State Legislature. Despite much political opposition, the Legislature created the Park Commission in 1883. It proposed three large parks: Pelham Bay, Bronx, and Van Cortlandt, and three smaller parks: Crotona, Claremont, and Saint Mary&apos;s.

 

New York City government officials opposed the purchase of these lands because of the cost of acquisition; they were especially hostile toward Pelham Bay Park because the land was still located beyond city limits. After much debate and a series of court cases, all of the parks, including the embattled Pelham Bay Park, were secured for the City by 1887. Not only would there be thousands of acres of new parkland, but also a system of parkways - the Pelham, Mosholu, Claremont and Crotona Parkways - which would serve as green linkages between the great parks. Pelham Bay Park, the largest tract of land purchased under the bill, officially became the City&apos;s first public seaside park, as well as its largest park,on December 12, 1888. The City consolidated several estates to create Pelham Bay Park, including lands belonging to the Hunter, Furman, Edgar, Lorillard, Morris, Stinard, Marshall, LeRoy, and Delancey families. The park&apos;s largely natural acreage was virtually ready-made parkland, requiring only the construction of roads and walks.

 

During the late nineteenth century, the Bronx Park Department leased some former estate buildings to various organizations, such as the Jacob Riis Settlement. One of these, the Bartow-Pell Mansion is a designated New York City Landmark. Several others were either demolished or converted into hotels and restaurants. By the 1930s, virtually all of them had been demolished. The Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, however, remains and is a designated New York City Landmark. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the City began to lease land in the park to campers, who constructed tents and small bungalows on Hunters Island. When it became overcrowded, another camp was opened on Rodman&apos;s Neck in 1905. Orchard Beach was named for the numerous orchards behind it. Orchard Beach eventually grew into a summer colony of more than 300 tents and bungalows, with wooden locker rooms and bathhouses. In 1912, about 2,000 people occupied the beach on summer weekdays and 5,000 a day on weekends. Boating and fishing were also popular activities within the park, and the renowned film maker, D.W. Griffith used the park&apos;s islands as the setting for several early silent movies. By the late 1920s, urbanization had reached the areas bordering the park and the facilities were becoming overcrowded and run-down. Vandalism was rampant and sanitation was poor. The press began to decry the monopolization of the park by the leaseholders, who were mainly Tammany Hall insiders who paid nominal sums for their leases, and then sub-leased the sites at much higher rates. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, the City obtained funds to construct improvements at Orchard Beach from the Civil Works Administration (CWA), one of the pre-New Deal Federal relief programs set up to combat unemployment. The hastily prepared changes to Orchard Beach were ill- conceived and poorly built.

 

An improperly designed breakwater and retaining wall, intended to expand the beach area, instead eroded the beach and caused flooding at high tide. The old unsanitary wooden bathhouses were replaced with poorly-ventilated and unattractive bathhouses built of paving blocks, and the beach was blanketed with uninviting, gray New England sand. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932 in the middle of the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash in 1929. Roosevelt promised to rebuild confidence in American capitalism and to improve the nation&apos;s standard of living by creating an economic program of unprecedented public spending on social programs and construction projects, known as the New Deal. New York City had been especially hard hit by the economic downturn,4 and its citizens, also hoping for change, elected Fiorello LaGuardia to the mayoralty of New York City in 1933 under a reform-minded "fusion" ticket. He chose New York State Park Commissioner, Robert Moses, a champion of reform politics, as New York City’s new Park Commissioner. The new mayor&apos;s success in securing a lion&apos;s share of monies made available by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), and Moses&apos; superb management skills and his ability to attract talented designers and engineers to his staff, resulted in profound physical changes in the environment of New York City. The recreation of Orchard Beach, beginning in 1934, was one of the most ambitious and successful projects undertaken by Moses with funds largely provided by the WPA.

 

Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Moses and the New Deal5

 

Fiorello H. La Guardia became the ninety-ninth mayor of the City of New York in January 1934, as an anti-Tammany Hall reform candidate. A maverick Republican and a five-term congressman from East Harlem, LaGuardia won the 1933 mayoral election on a "fusion" ticket, after losing the 1929 mayoral race on the Republican line. The Fusion Conference Committee at first considered Robert Moses, another Republican, who was appointed Chairman of the New York State Council of Parks in 1924 by his political mentor, Governor Alfred E. Smith, a Tammany Hall Democrat from New York City. However, the committee decided against Moses because of his association with Smith, and chose LaGuardia instead. At the time, Moses was a popular public figure with a reputation as a progressive and as the builder of great parks and parkways, such as Jones Beach and the Northern State Parkway on Long Island. His endorsement of LaGuardia during the campaign was considered instrumental in securing a victory for LaGuardia. As a reward, the mayor-elect invited Moses to join his future administration within a week of the election. Moses accepted the position of Commissioner of Parks on the condition that the existing five independent Park Departments, one for each borough, be consolidated into one with himself as the sole Commissioner, and that the Park Commissioner&apos;s authority include control of the City&apos;s parkways.

 

He also demanded that he be appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Triborough Bridge Authority, which was then building the bridge of that name, and that a new agency, the Marine Parkway Authority, which would build a bridge to the Rockaways, be created with himself at the helm. Already in charge of the Long Island State Park Commission, the New York State Council of Parks, the Jones Beach State Park Authority, and the Bethpage State Park Authority, Moses would then be in control of all existing and proposed parks and parkways in the New York metropolitan region, with the exception of areas outside of New York State. Moses began to assess the state of the City&apos;s parks and to plan for the future as soon as LaGuardia announced his intention to appoint him as Commissioner of Parks. According to one source: "Immediately after the election he wrote out, on a single piece of paper, a plan for putting 80,000 men to work on 1,700 relief projects."

 

Moses hired a consulting engineer and three assistant engineers to survey every park and parkway in the City. It was completed by the time he took office in mid-January 1934. When Moses took over the Park Department, it was already employing 69,000 relief workers with a total monthly payroll of eight million dollars provided by the federal Civil Works Administration and the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA). However, Moses found the men to be ill- equipped and inadequately supervised, and thought that many of the construction projects had been poorly designed. Included among these was the earlier Orchard Beach reconstruction, which Moses considered to be an unacceptable design for such a grand site. He immediately began to revamp the entire operation of the Park Department and established a Division of Design at the Arsenal in Central Park. The staff was to be headed up by experienced professionals drawn mainly from his State agencies. They were a talented staff of young architects, landscape architects and engineers. Some of them had worked on the designs for Long Island&apos;s highly acclaimed parks, including Jones Beach, which is considered one of Moses&apos; greatest accomplishments. His staff also included a number of well-known designers, among them architect Aymar Embury II and Gilmore D. Clarke, a landscape architect and civil engineer.

 

The Department needed to immediately begin producing plans and blueprints, so that the growing force of relief workers could be assigned to worthwhile projects. Within a week, Moses managed to persuade CWA officials to drop some of the regulations governing the hiring of staff and to relax its spending limits on project planning, allowing him to hire 600 architects, engineers and draftsmen at salaries above CWA wage guidelines. By the first of February, they were busily producing designs and blueprints. The Division of Design was organized in the following manner: a topographical unit of about 400 surveyors and draftsmen, a landscape architecture unit of about sixty people, an architecture unit made up of sixty architects and draftsmen, and an engineering unit of about fifty. Smaller units included an Arboricultural Department and an Inspection Department. All the work in the Division of Design was under the direct supervision of the Park Engineer, who was aided and advised by a Consulting Architect, a Consulting Landscape Architect, and a Consulting Engineer.7 All new projects began in the topographical unit, where a complete survey of the land was prepared. It then moved on to the landscaping unit, where the basic concept for the design was developed. Next, the three units: landscape, architecture, and engineering, collaborated to produce the final design and all the necessary construction documents.

 

The Park Engineer and his aides had to approve all the designs. Moses himself sometimes stepped in to revise or overrule a design, especially on the larger, more visible projects. Moses&apos; superior management ability and political savvy allowed him to move projects along very quickly and to produce concrete results, gaining for him much public admiration. However, his personal demeanor, described as stubborn and arrogant, offended many and made him many enemies. He was known to sometimes fire people on the spot, and for no apparent reason. At times, he disregarded the legitimate authority of other governmental agencies. Once, when the Department of Plant and Structures refused to suspend a ferry service that used a terminal in the path of constructing the Triborough Bridge approach road, Moses had his men demolish the terminal while the boat was on the other side of the river. He feuded with President Franklin D. Roosevelt for years, even while Washington was pouring millions of dollars into Moses&apos; own Park Department. His later battles with and subsequent triumphs over community groups opposed to the routing of the Gowanus and the Cross-Bronx Expressways through their neighborhoods are now legendary. To many he was a master builder; to others he was a spoiled bully; and he seemingly always had his way. In the summer of 1934, however, Robert Moses was a hero. Hundreds of projects, covering virtually every City neighborhood, had been completed. Structures were repainted, tennis courts resurfaced, and lawns reseeded. Hundreds of new construction projects were either underway or being designed.8 Among the projects being drawn up at the time was the new Orchard Beach.

The Design and Construction of Orchard Beach11

 

Orchard Beach and the entirety of Pelham Bay Park, geologically the southernmost extension of the jagged New England coastline and the most complex natural environment within New York City, sit on a foundation of Hartland bedrock. This bedrock underlies Long Island Sound, which had been a river until it was flooded at the end of the last ice age, 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind large boulders and a mixture of rocks, gouging out small coves in the bedrock, thus forming an irregular coastline. Glacial boulders in the Pelham Bay Park area include the Gray Mare Rock on Hunter Island and Mishow Rock at the north end of Orchard Beach. Left behind by the floodwaters were a series of salt and fresh water marshes, estuaries, coves, bays, inlets, islands, peninsulas, forests, uplands and meadows. At the time when Pelham Bay Park was acquired by the City, large urban parks were generally thought of as being pleasure grounds mainly for passive recreation and for the quiet contemplation of nature. Most parks, Pelham Bay Park among them, were preserved in their natural states or, like Central Park, landscaped to take advantage of the natural topography.

 

By 1930, all that had changed and, led by the thinking of Robert Moses, such parks came to be seen as vast recreational facilities for the urban masses. The value of the landscape was no longer just in the appreciation of nature, but rather in their potential for the placement within them of recreational facilities. Thus, the natural landscape could be manipulated and altered at will, as was the situation in Pelham Bay Park for the construction of Orchard Beach. The natural beauty of its shallow bays and rocky islands, gave way to a grandiose reshaping into an artificial landscape created with seawalls and landfills, a method of environmental manipulation known as land reclamation. Robert Moses was known to have been an avid swimmer who resided near the ocean in Babylon, Long Island. Thus, he took a special interest in the design and construction of the bathing and swimming facilities, such as Jones Beach, Orchard Beach and Riis Park, as well as the neighborhood swimming pools. Moses was said to have spent a lot of time at the Orchard Beach site, imagining about how best to remake the facility. After thinking of the concept for the new beach, he took his designers on a tour of the area, relaying his ideas to them.

 

The setting for Moses&apos; vision of a new Orchard Beach was the easternmost area of the park fronting on Pelham Bay, a protected basin on Long Island Sound. Surrounding the bay are parts of Rodman Neck, a wooded peninsula on the Bronx mainland extending southward into Eastchester Bay; two large islands, Hunters and City Islands; and three smaller islands, the Twin Islands and High Island. Separating Rodman Neck from Hunters Island was a shallow inlet called LeRoy Bay. Moses&apos; scheme consisted of creating a gigantic recreation area with a mile-long beach, a wide promenade, a large bathhouse including viewing terraces and concessions, picnic groves, game areas, playgrounds, and a parking field for several thousand cars. He instructed his designers to be imaginative, as they had been at Jones Beach, to make the new facility fit visually into the Pelham Bay Park environment. According to one account, it was Moses who first suggested the use of a colonnade at the site, citing the verticality of the site&apos;s wooded, hilly backdrop. To accomplish these plans, all the existing buildings on the site, including the private bungalow colony and the newly completed beach improvements, had to be demolished and Hunters Island had to be connected to Rodman Neck by filling in LeRoy Bay. On February 27, 1934, Moses publicly announced his plans for Orchard Beach, envisioning the proposed improvements to be similar to those made earlier at Jones Beach.

 

He described Orchard Beach in its current state as a "monstrosity," criticizing the poor design of the recently constructed seawall and bathhouses and accusing the Tammany-connected campers of "monopolizing" the beach. He vowed to open the beach to all the public. During the next couple of months, while the Division of Design was preparing the preliminary plans, Moses was engaged in a legal battle to evict the campers from the beach. By mid-May 1934, the courts decided that the City had the right to break the campers&apos; leases, clearing the way for the project. The very next day, the Division of Design released the chart of development for Orchard Beach, showing a configuration of two smaller curving beaches, rather than the one large crescent-shaped beach that was eventually built.12 Soon thereafter, the bungalow colony was demolished. Over the course of the next year, the design for the facility was revised and fine-tuned, with the final design officially being released to the public in July of 1935. The published rendering showed a layout and design that was very close to what was eventually to be built: a curving beach and promenade with a concave plaza framed by two curving colonnades, joined at the center by a large terrace. Spreading out beside each colonnade were large, open-air locker rooms that were more expansive than what was actually built. Behind the bathhouse stretched a long tree-lined mall with a parking lot on one side and groves on the other.

 

Robert A. Caro credits Moses with the idea to use a colonnade in the design of the bath house, but not specifically for suggesting its concave plan.13 It is known, however, that the plan of the bath house was revised from convex to concave between Spring 1934 and Summer 1935. At about the same time, a competition was conducted to redesign the Palais du Trocadero, an art museum and theater across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The winning scheme by the architects J. Carlu, L. Boileau and L. Azema was a classically-influenced design consisting of a concave plan facing the river, featuring two wings joined by a raised central terrace in an arrangement very similar to the bath house at Orchard Beach. Furthermore, the curving wings were constructed of white stone and have vertically arranged windows flanked by tall pilasters. The curving colonnades at Orchard Beach produce a similar effect. The design for the Trocadero was widely published at the time. Embury and his design team may have been influenced by its design in their scheme for Orchard Beach. Landfill operations at the site began in early 1935, and problems immediately arose concerning the quality of the fill. Commissioner Moses planned to use sand only, but was pressured by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to use municipal waste provided by the Department of Sanitation in an apparent cost saving measure.14

 

Since the seawalls needed to hold back the fill were only partially built, refuse began washing out into Pelham Bay and Long Island Sound, polluting the coastline for miles around.15 The work was stopped, and Moses demanded that the Department of Sanitation clean up the mess. It had become clear that municipal waste was not a suitable fill material for the site, so Moses appealed to the Board to immediately appropriate $500,000 for 1,700,000 cubic yards of sand needed to complete the fill operation, so that the beach could open for the 1936 season.16 The main seawall, on the east side of the site facing Long Island Sound, was built by placing boulders and large rocks in a mile- long, crescent-shaped pile to created the curve of the beach. The wall is twenty-five feet wide at the floor of the bay and rises twenty-one feet, tapering to a point above high tide. A somewhat smaller seawall was constructed on the west side of the beach, creating a lagoon on the back bay behind Hunter Island. A total of 4,000,000 cubic yards of landfill was deposited, most of it dredged from Jamaica Bay and Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Barges carried the sand to the site, discharging it into hydraulic pumps, which then deposited it a rate of 4,000 cubic yards per day.

 

Approximately 115 acres of dry land were created in this manner. Schematic drawings of the bathhouse facility and related buildings were made by the Division of Design during 1935 and the working drawings were produced and revised over the course of several months beginning in late 1935 through early 1937, with production peaking in Spring 1936. The construction of the facility would be phased over the course of two years to permit the reopening of the beach for the 1936 season. The plan was to first complete a part of the southern section of the beach, a piece of the south bath house, and a small parking area in 1936, while work continued on the rest of the site. The pace of construction accelerated greatly in Spring 1936 in anticipation of opening the facility that summer. Some 4,000 relief workers funded through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) were being bused to the site every day from the I.R.T. Pelham Bay station.17 The crews were able to complete a remarkable amount of work in the three months prior to the opening of the beach in late July. Roads were laid, the temporary parking lot built, 250,000 cubic yards of sand were deposited on the beach, and one of the six bath house units was completed. To accomplish all this, crews worked for twenty-four hours a day in three shifts. Nevertheless, the opening was delayed for one week due to a shortage of available heavy equipment needed to deliver sand from Rockaway Inlet in Queens. On July 25, 1936, the partially built facility was opened with much fanfare.

 

As planned, the temporary facility included part of the south section of the permanent bathhouse containing shower and locker space for about 2,300 people, a beach with a capacity for 35,000 bathers, and parking for 2,000 cars. The festivities were attended by 10,000 people. Several dignitaries were present, including Mayor LaGuardia, Commissioner Moses, Bronx Borough President James J. Lyons, and federal Public Works Administrator Victor L. Ridder. Also in attendance was George Mand of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, who was cheered by the crowd when he labeled the beach "The Riviera of New York City." The celebration culminated in a fireworks show with a ninety foot display in which the words "Orchard Beach" were spelled out in fiery letters.18 On opening day, the larger part of the bath house, including the colonnade consisted only of its steel frame, and the facility, including much of the promenade and most of the beach and parking lot, was more than a year away from completion. Construction took place all summer long while the temporary beach and bath house remained open to the public. Work at Orchard Beach continued at a frenzied pace during the following winter, and when the beach reopened to little fanfare for the 1937 summer season, bathers were treated to a modern shorefront facility, which included a classically-inspired bath house building with an 180-degree panorama of Long Island Sound. Crews were, however, still on hand putting the finishing touches on the bathhouse, and the seawall, promenade, parking area and mall were not completely done until the next summer.

 

The completed facility boasted a mile-long beach, 200 feet wide at high tide, with a capacity of 100,000 bathers, bath house facilities for 7,000 people, a forty -five acre parking lot for 8,000 cars, and a mile-long, fifty-foot wide promenade. In addition to having showers, lockers and lavatories, the one- thousand by two-hundred foot bath house building included spacious waiting rooms, flower-lined ramps, administrative offices, reception areas, first aid stations, concessions spaces, a large cafeteria, an upstairs restaurant, storage areas, a boiler room, and a laboratory for testing water quality. The upper terrace of the bath house featured a large decorative fountain (removed in 1941), while the lower terrace had a dance floor and a bandstand (also now removed). Four utility and storage buildings, one story in height and constructed of brick, were built in pairs along the promenade, about a thousand feet to the north and to the south of the bath house. Eighteen lifeguard stations on the beach protected the bathers. The facility also included a large park area with picnic groves, baseball diamonds, football fields, tennis courts and children&apos;s play areas. Nearby a sewerage disposal plant and a large incinerator were constructed. There were also a water treatment plant, an incinerator, and a bus terminal large enough to hold twenty buses at a time. The natural vegetation of Rodman Neck and Hunter&apos;s Island was preserved, consisting mainly of chestnut, oak, hickory, black locust and black cherry trees. The newly created land was landscaped with flower beds, shrubbery and sod, along with a variety of trees, including poplars, oaks and elms.

 

Planters for flowers, shrubs and small trees were installed on the upper terrace, while the lower terrace was planted with trees. The facility, which was open daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the summer season, was expected to generate nearly $175,000 per year in gross revenue, with an operating cost of approximately $134,000. While no charge was imposed for admission to the beach itself, it cost fifty cents to enter the dressing rooms and the fee for renting a locker was fifteen cents for children and a quarter for adults. Other fees included bathing suit rentals for one dollar including a fifty cent deposit, thirty-five cents for towel rentals including a fifteen cent deposit, and parking fees of a quarter for cars and motorcycles, and fifty cents for buses. A large staff was necessary to operate the facility, including a general supervisor of operations with two assistants, a stenographer and typist, nurses, watchmen, gardeners, laborers, ticket agents, engineers, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and numerous attendants, lifeguards and clerks. Although the new Orchard Beach was generally considered a great success by the public and the press, several problems arose during it first year of operation. Rowdy behavior at the facility became a major concern, resulting in the opening of a special Orchard Beach Court at the nearby 45th Precinct Station House. A hurricane in 1938 caused $50,000 in damage to the facility, including $10,000 worth to the bath house. The cost of operating and maintaining the vast facility was higher than the original estimates, and Robert Moses complained to Mayor LaGuardia that the current operating fund for Orchard Beach and Riis Park did not allow for the proper maintenance of these facilities.19 He threatened to not open the beaches that summer without the necessary personnel. Water pollution caused by sewage discharges from City Island was another problem. Only after Moses threatened to close the beach permanently did the Board of Estimate approved $250,000 for the construction of a treatment plant on City Island. Traffic jams caused by the crowds on weekends affected nearby neighborhoods, especially the residents and businesses of City Island.

 

Subsequent History20

 

In 1938, just one year after completing it, the city began planning a substantial expansion of the popular Orchard Beach facility. The proposal called for expanding the locker rooms and for extending the beach and promenade northward to the Twin Islands. The first phase to be carried out was a 150 foot extension to the south locker room in 1939, which was built using materials and detailing that matched the original design. The stone fountain, removed from the upper terrace in 1941, was replaced by the present pavement featuring a compass motif. The rest of the work was delayed by material and manpower shortages during the Second World War. 21 Construction resumed in 1945 with the enlargement of the north locker room in a more simplified design than the original. In 1946-47, work on the beach and promenade extension got underway. The seawall and landfill were extended northward connecting Hunter and the Twin Islands, permitting the promenade to be lengthened by 1,200 feet and creating seven new acres of beach. Prior to this, the bathing area ended at the inlet that separated Twin Island from Hunter Island. The new section of promenade was paved with hexagonal blocks to match the existing, and the original fencing, lamp posts and benches were replicated for the new section. Two new jetties at either end of the beach were constructed to break the strong tides and to prevent the beach&apos;s sand from being washed away.

 

Also, the brick utility buildings on the promenade were altered for the installation of concessions. A number of alterations occurred in the 1950s. In 1952, new concession windows were added under the stairs leading from the upper to the lower terraces. Following a series of severe storms that damaged the beach, the north jetty was enlarged in 1955, and new beach sand was deposited. In 1962, a brick comfort station and concession building was constructed on the promenade, 2,800 feet north of the bath house. During the middle and late 1960s, the windows and doors were restored and new lockers were installed. Following that, however, came an extended period of neglect lasting through the 1970s. A proposal to replace the north locker room with a theater was rejected in 1974. By 1980, Orchard Beach had become a rundown facility with a reputation for being unsanitary and unsafe. Beginning in 1980, the Parks Department began planning for the rehabilitation of Orchard Beach to coincide with its fiftieth anniversary in 1986. Over $1,000,000 was spent on a variety of work, the most noticeable of which is the replacement of the original steel doors to the cafeteria with new aluminum units. However, the rehabilitation was not complete. Many parts of the bath house, including the north locker room, remain closed to the public.

 

The Architecture and Site of the Orchard Beach Bathhouse and Promenade

 

The New Deal construction projects within New York City, such as Orchard Beach, were a part of a national trend which included similar projects undertaken by various governmental agencies, ranging from the vast Tennessee Valley Authority to small cities and towns. Urban projects built with WPA funding often possessed similar qualities from region to region, partly because the difficult economic climate dictated the use of inexpensive building materials, but also because the programs provided employment opportunities for a generation of young architects and engineers who were committed to modernism. For example, the bathhouse and waterfront facilities at Aquatic Park in San Francisco are similar in plan and appearance to the public pool and beachfront projects being built at about the same time in New York City. The California facility, with its streamlined, concrete facade and steel-framed windows, bears a striking resemblance to the facade added in 1936 with WPA funds to the bathhouse at Jacob Riis Park in Queens. Influenced by Beaux-Arts planning principles, the architecture of the Orchard Beach bathhouse is a simple and restrained interpretation of classical styles, while the promenade features streamlined Moderne characteristics employing nautical motifs. Like the public pools and other waterfront projects built in New York City by Robert Moses during the New Deal, Orchard Beach used inexpensive materials, particularly concrete, red brick, and asphalt paving, in its construction. However, the original and creative use made of these modest materials by Moses&apos; talented design teams and the careful siting of each project makes every one of them a distinguished, individual design, as much related to their specific environment and needs as to one another.

Four of the eight Nazi saboteurs facing the death penalty are shown during their trial inside the U.S. Justice Department building July 12, 1942. They had arrived in America by submarine and intended to blow up strategic facilities and transportation throughout the U.S during World War II.

 

From left to right: Wener Thiel, Richard Quirin, an unidentified defense attorney, Herman O. Neubauer and Edward John Kerling.

 

After the U.S. declared war on Germany following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Nazi leader Adolph Hitler authorized a mission to sabotage the American war effort and attack civilian targets to demoralize the American civilian population inside the United States.

 

Recruited for Operation Pastorius, named for the leader of the first German settlement in America, were eight German residents who had lived in the United States.

 

Two of them, Ernst Burger and Herbert Haupt, were American citizens. The others, George John Dasch, Edward John Kerling, Richard Quirin, Heinrich Harm Heinck, Hermann Otto Neubauer, and Werner Thiel, had worked at various jobs in the United States.

 

All eight were recruited into the Abwehr military intelligence organization and were given three weeks of intensive sabotage training in the German High Command school on an estate at Quenz Lake, near Berlin, Germany. The agents were instructed in the manufacture and use of explosives, incendiaries, primers, and various forms of mechanical, chemical, and electrical delayed timing devices.

 

Their mission was to stage sabotage attacks on American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York; locks on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky; the Horseshoe Curve, a crucial railroad pass near Altoona, Pennsylvania, as well as the Pennsylvania Railroad's repair shops at Altoona; a cryolite plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey.

 

The agents were also instructed to spread a wave of terror by planting explosives on bridges, railroad stations, water facilities, and public places. They were given counterfeit birth certificates, Social Security Cards, draft deferment cards, nearly $175,000 in American money, and driver's licenses, and put aboard two U-boats to land on the east coast of the U.S.

 

Before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, head of the team, left sensitive documents behind on a train, and one of the agents when drunk announced to patrons at a bar in Paris that he was a secret agent.

 

On the night of June 12, 1942, the first submarine to arrive in the U.S., U-202, landed at Amagansett, New York, which is about 100 miles east of New York City, on Long Island, at what today is Atlantic Avenue beach.

 

It was carrying Dasch and three other saboteurs (Burger, Quirin, and Heinck). The team came ashore wearing German Navy uniforms so that if they were captured, they would be classified as prisoners of war rather than spies. They also brought their explosives, primers and incendiaries, and buried them along with their uniforms, and put on civilian clothes to begin an expected two-year campaign in the sabotage of American defense-related production.

 

When Dasch was discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guardsman John C. Cullen, Dasch offered Cullen a $260 bribe. Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter. An armed patrol returned to the site but found only the buried equipment; the Germans had taken the Long Island Rail Road from the Amagansett station into Manhattan, where they checked into a hotel. A massive manhunt was begun.

 

The other four-member German team headed by Kerling landed without incident at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, south of Jacksonville on June 16, 1942. They came on U-584, another submarine.This group came ashore wearing bathing suits but wore German Navy hats. After landing ashore, they threw away their hats, put on civilian clothes, and started their mission by boarding trains to Chicago, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio.

 

The two teams were to meet on July 4 in a hotel in Cincinnati to coordinate their sabotage operations.

 

Dasch called Burger into their upper-story hotel room and opened a window, saying they would talk, and if they disagreed, "only one of us will walk out that door—the other will fly out this window." Dasch told him he had no intention of going through with the mission, hated Nazism, and planned to report the plot to the FBI. Burger agreed to defect to the United States immediately.

 

On June 15, Dasch phoned the New York office of the FBI to explain who he was, but hung up when the agent answering doubted his story. Four days later, he took a train to Washington, DC and walked into FBI headquarters, where he gained the attention of Assistant Director D. M. Ladd by showing him the operation's budget of $84,000 cash.

 

Besides Burger, none of the other German agents knew they were betrayed. Over the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover made no mention that Dasch had turned himself in, and claimed credit for the FBI for cracking the spy ring.

 

Information that Dasch and Burger had exposed the operation was withheld from the public until after World War II was over in order to make it appear to the American public and to Nazi Germany that the FBI was effective in preventing sabotage.

 

Fearful that a civilian court would be too lenient, President Roosevelt issued Executive Proclamation 2561 on July 2, 1942 creating a military tribunal to prosecute the Germans. Placed before a seven-member military commission, the Germans were charged with the following offenses:

 

1) Violating the law of war;

2) Violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy;

3) Violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and

4) Conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.

 

The trial was held in Assembly Hall #1 on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C. on July 8, 1942.

 

Lawyers for the accused, who included Lauson Stone and Kenneth Royall, attempted to have the case tried in a civilian court but were rebuffed by the United States Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), a case that was later cited as a precedent for the trial by military commission of any unlawful combatant against the United States.

 

The trial for the eight defendants ended on August 1, 1942. Two days later, all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life in prison and Dasch's to 30 years because they had turned themselves in and provided information about the others.

 

The others were executed on August 8, 1942 in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field in the Blue Plains area in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C.

 

In April 1948, U.S. President Harry Truman granted clemency to Dasch and Burger who were deported to the American zone in Germany and required to live in that area or face re-imprisonment.

 

Fourteen other people were charged with aiding the eight saboteurs. They were Walter and Lucille Froehling, Otto and Kate Wergin, Harry and Emma Jaques, Anthony Cramer, Helmut Leiner, Herman Heinrich, Maria Kerling, Hedwig Engemann, Hans Max Haupt and Erna Haupt, and Ernest Kerkhof.

 

Nearly all were held as enemy aliens and several were sentenced to death for treason, but had their convictions reversed on appeal. Some were re-tried on lesser charges. Some never went to trial.

 

--Information partially excerpted from Wikipedia

 

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmPiRmT4

 

The photographer is unknown. The image is believed to be a U.S. government photograph. It is housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.

 

Caedwalla of Wessex

 

In 685 it was invaded by Caedwalla of Wessex. The Jutish king of the Isle of Wight, Arwald, died in action and his nephews were betrayed to Caedwalla, who subsequently died of wounds received in the battle. The two boys were converted to Christianity and immediately executed. Their names are unknown, but are called collectively "St.Arwald"- after their pagan uncle (who died fighting Christianity).

 

The West Saxon invasion was by all accounts prolonged and bloody.

 

St.Bede states that "...After Caedwalla had obtained possession of the kingdom of the Gewissae, he took also the Isle of Wight, which till then was entirely given over to idolatry, and by merciless slaughter, endeavoured to destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and to place their stead people from his own province; binding himself by a vow, though it is said that he was not yet regenerated in Christ, to give the fourth part of the land and of the spoil to the Lord, if he took the Island. He fulfilled this vow by giving the same for the service of the Lord to Bishop Wilfrid..."

 

It is reported in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle that during Caedwalla's attempts to subdue the population he was gravely wounded - wounds from which he would die within a couple of years. Before final subjugation most of the Jutish population of the island were killed and the remnant forced to accept Christianity as their religion and the West Saxon dialect as their language. Bede states that Caedwalla endeavoured to "mercilessly" destroy the population, but that 300 "hides" were given to the Church in the person of St Wilfrid. A "hide" was the amount of land required to support a family, and the Island was rated at 1200 hides. Caedwalla was a Christian sympathiser under the tutelage of St Wilfrid and St Aldhelm and had promised Wilfrid a quarter of the land in return for his assistance in claiming the Wessex throne. Unfortunately for them, the Jutish Islanders were not only heathens, but apostates, and the mass conversion of the Island probably did not occur as smoothly as had been planned.

 

From 685 therefore the island can be considered to have become part of Wessex and following the accession of West Saxon kings as kings of all England then part of England. The island became part of the shire of Hampshire and was divided into hundreds as was the norm.

 

The Saxons

 

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells how Wiht-land suffered particularly from Viking predations. Alfred the Great's navy defeated the Danes in 871 after they had "ravaged Devon and the Isle of Wight". During the second wave of Viking attacks in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (975-1014) the Isle of Wight was taken over by the Danes as a base to harry Southern England, referred to as their "frith-stool". The inlet on the west of the River Medina at Werrar Copse seems to have been their main base. In 1002 Ethelred ordered the killing of all the Danes in England in the St. Brice's Day Massacre but the Danish Army remained intact, based on the Isle of Wight. In 1012 Sweyn Forkbeard revenged the Danish defeat. Ethelred was forced to flee England: he spent Christmas on the Isle of Wight en route to refuge in Normandy.

 

The Island again played a critical role in English history as the base for Harold Godwinson and his brothers in their revolt against Edward the Confessor and yet again in 1066, when Tostig Godwinson arrived to collect supplies - but very little other support - en route to his defeat by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Both men had manors on the Isle of Wight - Harold at Kern and Tostig at Nunwell.

 

The Norman Conquest

 

In the Domesday book (1086) the Island's name is Wit. The Norman Conquest of 1066 transferred the overall manorial rights of the Island to William FitzOsbern as Lord of the Isle of Wight. Carisbrooke Priory and the fort of Carisbrooke Castle were founded. The Island did not come under full control of the Crown until it was sold by the dying last Norman Lord, Lady Isabella de Fortibus, to Edward I in 1293.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment, with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him.

[edit] Medieval

 

After the Norman Conquest, the title of Lord of the Isle of Wight was created and William Fitz-Osborne who subsequently founded Carisbrooke Priory and the fortifications on what was to become Carisbrooke Castle became the first to hold the title. (It is possible that the site of Carisbrooke Castle had previously been fortified originally by Romans and subsequently by Jutes or Saxons; there still remains a late Saxon burgh, or defensive wall, built to defend the site from Viking raiders.) The Island did not come under the full control of the crown until the Countess Isabella De Fortibus sold it to Edward I in 1293 for six thousand marks.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him. The title of Lord of the Isle of Wight expired in the reign of Henry VII with the title of Governor or Captain being used for sometime thereafter. During the English Civil War King Charles fled to the Isle of Wight believing he would receive sympathy from the governor Robert Hammond. Hammond was appalled, and incarcerated the king in Carisbrooke Castle. Charles was later tried and executed in London.

 

Henry VIII who developed the Royal Navy and its permanent base at Portsmouth, fortifications at Yarmouth, East & West Cowes and Sandown, sometimes re-using stone from dissolved monasteries as building material. Sir Richard Worsley, Captain of the Island at this time, successfully commanded the resistance to the last of the French attacks in 1545. In July 1545; French troops had landed on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight. Their aim was to seize important areas of the island; allowing the French to gain overall control of the Isle of Wight; giving the French a valuable jumping-off point for further operations against the mainland. However, the French advance was decisively defeated, when the local Isle of Wight militia defeated the French troops in the Battle of Bonchurch. Much later on after the Spanish Armada in 1588 the threat of Spanish attacks remained, and the outer fortifications of Carisbrooke Castle were built between 1597 and 1602.

 

In 1587 two Roman Catholic missionaries Anderton and Marsden, originally from Lancashire, but trained in France, were returned to England in disguise on the ferry to Dover, but due to a severe gale landed in Cowes in the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately for them, such was the danger they were in that they loudly prayed to God to "save the first of your seminarians to returm=n to England" which was overheard by fellow passengers who reported them to Governor Carey. They were taken to London for trial, but executed by hanging, drawing and quartering in Cowes, although the exact site is unknown. They were declared "Venerable" by Pope Pius XI.

[edit] Early Modern and Modern

 

Charles I evaded custody under the Army at Hampton Court by riding to Southampton in order to escape to Jersey. However,he and his companion became lost in the New Forest and missed their intended ship, and fled to the Isle of Wight instead. The Governor Colonel Robert Hammond had declared for Parliament and Charles was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Since an extensive bowling green was built for his use this was initially in some comfort, but this was made closer after an abortive escape attempt, when he failed to get through the window to where Royalist sympathisers under John Oglander were waiting with a horse.

 

Charles was approached by the Presbyterian faction of Parliament and concluded the Treaty of Newport, offering him a constitutional monarchy. However Charles had no intention of accepting its restrictions upon Royal power and also concluded the Engagement with the Scots to invade on his behalf. As a result of his perceived faithlessness, the moderate faction at Parliament were discredited and Charles was moved to more prison-like conditions at Hurst Castle and thence to execution on 30 January 1649.

 

Later Cromwell was to use Carisbrooke Castle as a place of imprisonment for Fifth Monarchists opposed to his Protectorate including Thomas Harrison and Christopher Feake.

 

Queen Victoria made the Isle of Wight her home for many years, and as a result it become a major holiday resort for members of European royalty, whose many houses could later claim descent from her through the widely flung marriages of her offspring. During her reign in 1897 the World's first radio station was set up by Marconi at the Needles battery at the western tip of the Island.

 

The famous boat-building firm of J. Samuel White was established on the Island in 1802. Other noteworthy marine manufacturers followed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Saunders-Roe a key manufacturer of the Flying-boats and the world's first hovercraft. The tradition of maritime industry continues on the Island today.

 

In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, a sizeable network of railways was built on the island, notable for its punishing gradients and numerous tunnels, particularly to reach the town of Ventnor. Since the early twentieth century, these lines were often linked to plans for a tunnel under the Solent, an idea still talked of today. Most of the rail network closed between 1956 and 1966, and is now a series of cyclepaths.

 

The first Governor to hold the crown representative title used now of Lord-Lieutenant was Lord Mountbatten of Burma until his murder in 1979. Lord Mottistone was the last Lord Lieutenant to also hold the title Governor (from 1992 to 1995). Since 1995 there has been no Governor appointed and Mr Christopher Bland has been the Lord Lieutenant.

[edit] Caulkheads and other Island terms

 

Historically, inhabitants of the Isle of Wight have been known as Vectensians or Vectians (pronounced Vec-tee-ans). These terms derive from the Latin name for the Island, Vectis. Vectian is a word used more formally to describe certain geological features which are typical of the Island. As with many other small island communities the term Islander has long been used, and is commonly heard today. The term Overner is used for people originating from mainland Great Britain. This is an abbreviated form of Overlander; which is an archaic English term for an outsider still found in a few other places such as parts of Australia.

 

People born on the island are colloquially known as Caulkheads (sometimes erroneously written as it is spoken, Corkheads), a word comparable with the name Cockney for those born in the East End of London. Some argue that the term should only apply those who can also claim they are of established Isle of Wight stock either by proven historical roots or, for example, being third generation inhabitants from both parents' lineage.[6]

 

One theory about the term 'caulkhead' is that it comes from the once prevalent local industry of caulking boats; a process of sealing the seams of wooden boats with oakum. It is said that the shipyard at Bucklers Hard in the New Forest employed labourers from the Isle of Wight , mainly as caulkers, in the building of early warships. Islanders may have been called "Caulkheads" during this time either because they were indeed so employed, or merely as a derisory term for perceived unintelligent labourers from another place. Another more fanciful story is that a group of armoured Island horsemen were chased into the sea by the marauding French, and took refuge on a sandbank when the tide came in, thus appearing to float in the sea despite their heavy armour, hence the name Cork- i.e. Caulk-, -heads When this supposed event happened is not clear, since the Island was frequently attacked in the Middle Ages, however in the last instance in 1546 Sandown Castle was under construction some way offshore and a battle was fought on site, resulting in the French being driven off and this could fit this particular tale.[7] In local folklore it is said that a test can be conducted on a baby by throwing it into the sea from the end of Ryde Pier whereupon a true caulkhead baby will float unharmed. Thankfully there is no record of the test ever being carried out.

[edit] Political History

 

The island's most ancient borough was Newtown on the large natural harbour on the island's north-western coast. A French raid in 1377, that destroyed much of the town as well as other Island settlements, sealed its permanent decline. By the middle of the sixteenth century it was a small settlement long eclipsed by the more easily defended town of Newport. Elizabeth I breathed some life into the town by awarding two parliamentary seats but this ultimately made it one of the most notorious of the Rotten Boroughs. By the time of the Great Reform Act that abolished the seats, it had just fourteen houses and twenty-three voters. The Act also disenfranchised the borough of Yarmouth and replaced the four lost seats with the first MP for the whole Isle of Wight; Newport also retained its two MPs, though these were reduced to one in 1868 and eventually abolished completely in 1885.

 

Often thought of as part of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight was briefly included in that county when the first county councils were created in 1888. However, a "Home Rule" campaign led to a separate county council being established for the Isle of Wight in 1890, and it has remained separate ever since. Like inhabitants of many islands, Islanders are fiercely jealous of their real (or perceived) independence, and confusion over the Island's separate status is a perennial source of friction.

 

It was planned to merge the county back into Hampshire as a district in the 1974 local government reform, but a last minute change led to it retaining its county council. However, since there was no provision made in the Local Government Act 1972 for unitary authorities, the Island had to retain a two-tier structure, with a county council and two boroughs, Medina and South Wight.

 

The borough councils were merged with the county council on April 1, 1995, to form a single unitary authority, the Isle of Wight Council. The only significant present-day administrative link with Hampshire is the police service, the Hampshire Constabulary, which is joint between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

 

From the closing decades of the 20th century onwards, there has been considerable debate on the Island over whether or not a bridge or tunnel should connect the island with mainland England. The Isle of Wight Party campaigned from a positive position, although extensive public debate on the subject revealed a strong body of opinion amongst islanders against such a proposal. In 2002 the Isle of Wight Council debated the issue and made a policy statement against the proposal.

[edit] Autonomy and Political Recognition

 

A number of discussions about the status of the island have taken place over many years, with standpoints from the extreme of wanting full sovereignty for the Isle of Wight, to perhaps the opposite extreme of merging with Hampshire. The pro-independence lobby had a formal voice in the early 1970s with the Vectis National Party. Their main claim was that the sale of the island to the Crown in 1293 was unconstitutional. However, this movement now has little serious support. Since the 1990s the debate has largely taken the form of a campaign to have the Isle of Wight recognized as a distinct region by organizations such as the EU, due to its relative poverty within the south-east of England. One argument in favour of special treatment is that this poverty is not acknowledged by such organizations as it is distorted statistically by retired and wealthy (but less economically active) immigrants from the mainland.

 

In more recent times, the regionalist movement has been represented by the Isle of Wight Party.

 

Isle of Wight Disease

 

In 1904 a mysterious illness began to kill honeybee colonies on the island, and had nearly wiped out all hives by 1907 when the disease jumped to the mainland, and decimated beekeeping in the British Isles. Called the Isle of Wight Disease, the cause of the mystery ailment was not identified until 1921 when a tiny parasitic mite, Acarapis woodi was first described by J. Rennie. The mite inhabited the tracheae of individual bees, and greatly shortened their lifespan, causing eventual death of the colony. The disease (now called Acarine Disease) frightened many other nations because of the importance of bees in pollination. Laws against importation of honeybees were passed, but this merely delayed the eventual spread of the parasite to the rest of the world.

 

Isle of Wight Festival

 

A large rock festival took place near Tennyson Down, West Wight in 1970, following two smaller concerts in 1968 and 1969. The 1970 show was notable for being the last public performance by Jimi Hendrix before his death. The festival was revived in 2002 and is now an annual event, with other, smaller musical events of many different genres across the Island becoming associated with it.

 

The first of the modern festivals was a one day affair termed Rock Island,[9] which expanded to two days in 2003, then three days by 2004.

This morning, Thursday 2 February 2017, officers executed warrants at addresses across Miles Platting and Ancoats.

 

The warrants were executed as part of Operation Rudow a multi-agency operation targeting organised crime and the supply of drugs across Greater Manchester.

  

Chief Inspector Andy Cunliffe, of GMP’s City of Manchester team, said: "Drugs ruin lives and destroy communities. We will systematically root out and dismantle groups that seek to profit from flooding our streets with drugs.

  

"Today, we have made arrests after executing warrants across North Manchester.

  

"By sharing information with our partners, we are better equipped to tackle organised crime and make it impossible for them to profit from it.

  

"I'd like to thank the community who came forward with information that has proved vital in making this enforcement action a success.

 

“We still however, need people to come forward with information to prevent people from benefiting from the proceeds of crime at the demise of others. If you know about it, report it.

  

"Organised crime has no place on the streets of Greater Manchester and we will continue to work tirelessly to remove the scourge of criminal gangs."

  

Anyone with information should contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Executed the VGS (Vacuum Gain System) mod for the Bypass Valve, which helps build up boost faster and keeping the valve closed when boost is building.

 

It really works, but I will change the valve anyway (and do the VGS mod again :) ).

 

Partnr: 11617568423

Brewr 31, United States Air Force Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker 67-1514 assigned to the 128th ARW of the Wisconsins Air National Guard at Milwaukee General Mitchell International Airport executes a touch and go, clibing off Runway 25L at Milwaukee as part of a training mission.

The church is dedicated to St Magnus the Martyr, earl of Orkney, who died on 16 April 1118. He was executed on the island of Egilsay having been captured during a power struggle with his cousin, a political rival. Magnus had a reputation for piety and gentleness and was canonised in 1135.

 

The identity of the St Magnus referred to in the church's dedication was only confirmed by the Bishop of London in 1926. Following this decision a patronal festival service was held on 16 April 1926. In the 13th century the patronage was attributed to one of the several saints by the name of Magnus who share a feast day on 19 August, probably St Magnus of Anagni (bishop and martyr, who was slain in the persecution of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd century). However, by the early 18th century it was suggested that the church was either "dedicated to the memory of St Magnus or Magnes, who suffer'd under the Emperor Aurelian in 276 [see St Mammes of Caesarea, feast day 17 August], or else to a person of that name, who was the famous Apostle or Bishop of the Orcades." For the next century historians followed the suggestion that the church was dedicated to the Roman saint of Cæsarea. The famous Danish archaeologist Professor Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae (1821–85) promoted the attribution to St Magnus of Orkney during his visit to the British Isles in 1846-7, when he was formulating the concept of the 'Viking Age', and a history of London written in 1901 concluded that "the Danes, on their second invasion ... added at least two churches with Danish names, Olaf and Magnus". A guide to the City Churches published in 1917 reverted to the view that St Magnus was dedicated to a martyr of the third century, but the discovery of St Magnus of Orkney's relics in 1919 renewed interest in a Scandinavian patron and this connection was encouraged by the Rector who arrived in 1921.

 

A metropolitan bishop of London attended the Council of Arles in 314, which indicates that there must have been a Christian community in Londinium by this date, and it has been suggested that a large aisled building excavated in 1993 near Tower Hill can be compared with the 4th-century Cathedral of St Tecla in Milan. However, there is no archaeological evidence to suggest that any of the mediaeval churches in the City of London had a Roman foundation. A grant from William I in 1067 to Westminster Abbey, which refers to the stone church of St Magnus near the bridge ("lapidee eccle sci magni prope pontem"), is generally accepted to be 12th century forgery, and it is possible that a charter of confirmation in 1108-16 might also be a later fabrication. Nonetheless, these manuscripts may preserve valid evidence of a date of foundation in the 11th century.

 

Archaeological evidence suggests that the area of the bridgehead was not occupied from the early 5th century until the early 10th century. Environmental evidence indicates that the area was waste ground during this period, colonised by elder and nettles. Following Alfred's decision to reoccupy the walled area of London in 886, new harbours were established at Queenhithe and Billingsgate. A bridge was in place by the early 11th century, a factor which would have encouraged the occupation of the bridgehead by craftsmen and traders. A lane connecting Botolph's Wharf and Billingsgate to the rebuilt bridge may have developed by the mid-11th century. The waterfront at this time was a hive of activity, with the construction of embankments sloping down from the riverside wall to the river. Thames Street appeared in the second half of the 11th century immediately behind (north of) the old Roman riverside wall and in 1931 a piling from this was discovered during the excavation of the foundations of a nearby building. It now stands at the base of the church tower. St Magnus was built to the south of Thames Street to serve the growing population of the bridgehead area and was certainly in existence by 1128-33.

 

The small ancient parish extended about 110 yards along the waterfront either side of the old bridge, from 'Stepheneslane' (later Churchehawlane or Church Yard Alley) and 'Oystergate' (later called Water Lane or Gully Hole) on the West side to 'Retheresgate' (a southern extension of Pudding Lane) on the East side, and was centred on the crossroads formed by Fish Street Hill (originally Bridge Street, then New Fish Street) and Thames Street. The mediaeval parish also included Drinkwater's Wharf (named after the owner, Thomas Drinkwater), which was located immediately West of the bridge, and Fish Wharf, which was to the South of the church. The latter was of considerable importance as the fishmongers had their shops on the wharf. The tenement was devised by Andrew Hunte to the Rector and Churchwardens in 1446. The ancient parish was situated in the South East part of Bridge Ward, which had evolved in the 11th century between the embankments to either side of the bridge.

 

In 1182 the Abbot of Westminster and the Prior of Bermondsey agreed that the advowson of St Magnus should be divided equally between them. Later in the 1180s, on their presentation, the Archdeacon of London inducted his nephew as parson.

 

Between the late Saxon period and 1209 there was a series of wooden bridges across the Thames, but in that year a stone bridge was completed. The work was overseen by Peter de Colechurch, a priest and head of the Fraternity of the Brethren of London Bridge. The Church had from early times encouraged the building of bridges and this activity was so important it was perceived to be an act of piety - a commitment to God which should be supported by the giving of alms. London’s citizens made gifts of land and money "to God and the Bridge". The Bridge House Estates became part of the City's jurisdiction in 1282.

 

Until 1831 the bridge was aligned with Fish Street Hill, so the main entrance into the City from the south passed the West door of St Magnus on the north bank of the river. The bridge included a chapel dedicated to St Thomas à Becket for the use of pilgrims journeying to Canterbury Cathedral to visit his tomb. The chapel and about two thirds of the bridge were in the parish of St Magnus. After some years of rivalry a dispute arose between the church and the chapel over the offerings given to the chapel by the pilgrims. The matter was resolved by the brethren of the chapel making an annual contribution to St Magnus. At the Reformation the chapel was turned into a house and later a warehouse, the latter being demolished in 1757-58.

 

The church grew in importance. On 21 November 1234 a grant of land was made to the parson of St Magnus for the enlargement of the church. The London eyre of 1244 recorded that in 1238 "A thief named William of Ewelme of the county of Buckingham fled to the church of St. Magnus the Martyr, London, and there acknowledged the theft and abjured the realm. He had no chattels." Another entry recorded that "The City answers saying that the church of ... St. Magnus the Martyr ... which [is] situated on the king's highway ... ought to belong to the king and be in his gift". The church presumably jutted into the road running to the bridge, as it did in later times. In 1276 it was recorded that "the church of St. Magnus the Martyr is worth £15 yearly and Master Geoffrey de la Wade now holds it by the grant of the prior of Bermundeseie and the abbot of Westminster to whom King Henry conferred the advowson by his charter."

 

In 1274 "came King Edward and his wife (Eleanor) from the Holy Land and were crowned at Westminster on the Sunday next after the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady (15 August), being the Feast of Saint Magnus (19 August); and the Conduit in Chepe ran all the day with red wine and white wine to drink, for all such as wished." Stow records that "in the year 1293, for victory obtained by Edward I against the Scots, every citizen, according to their several trade, made their several show, but especially the fishmongers" whose solemn procession including a knight "representing St Magnus, because it was upon St Magnus' day".

 

An important religious guild, the Confraternity de Salve Regina, was in existence by 1343, having been founded by the "better sort of the Parish of St Magnus" to sing the anthem 'Salve Regina' every evening. The Guild certificates of 1389 record that the Confraternity of Salve Regina and the guild of St Thomas the Martyr in the chapel on the bridge, whose members belonged to St Magnus parish, had determined to become one, to have the anthem of St Thomas after the Salve Regina and to devote their united resources to restoring and enlarging the church of St Magnus. An Act of Parliament of 1437 provided that all incorporated fraternities and companies should register their charters and have their ordinances approved by the civic authorities. Fear of enquiry into their privileges may have led established fraternities to seek a firm foundation for their rights. The letters patent of the fraternity of St Mary and St Thomas the Martyr of Salve Regina in St Magnus dated 26 May 1448 mention that the fraternity had petitioned for a charter on the grounds that the society was not duly founded.

 

In the mid-14th century the Pope was the Patron of the living and appointed five rectors to the benefice.

 

Henry Yevele, the master mason whose work included the rebuilding of Westminster Hall and the naves of Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral, was a parishioner and rebuilt the chapel on London Bridge between 1384 and 1397. He served as a warden of London Bridge and was buried at St Magnus on his death in 1400. His monument was extant in John Stow's time, but was probably destroyed by the fire of 1666.

 

Yevele, as the King’s Mason, was overseen by Geoffrey Chaucer in his capacity as the Clerk of the King's Works. In The General Prologue of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales the five guildsmen "were clothed alle in o lyveree Of a solempne and a greet fraternitee" and may be thought of as belonging to the guild in the parish of St Magnus, or one like it. Chaucer's family home was near to the bridge in Thames Street.

 

In 1417 a dispute arose concerning who should take the place of honour amongst the Rectors in the City churches at the Whit Monday procession, a place that had been claimed from time to time by the Rectors of St Peter Cornhill, St Magnus the Martyr and St Nicholas Cole Abbey. The Mayor and Aldermen decided that the Rector of St Peter Cornhill should take precedence.

 

St Magnus Corner at the north end of London Bridge was an important meeting place in mediaeval London, where notices were exhibited, proclamations read out and wrongdoers punished. As it was conveniently close to the River Thames, the church was chosen by the Bishop between the 15th and 17th centuries as a convenient venue for general meetings of the clergy in his diocese. In pictures from the mid-16th century the old church looks very similar to the present-day St Giles without Cripplegate in the Barbican. According to the martyrologist John Foxe, a woman was imprisoned in the 'cage' on London Bridge in April 1555 and told to "cool herself there" for refusing to pray at St Magnus for the recently-deceased Pope Julius III.

 

Simon Lowe, a Member of Parliament and Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company during the reign of Queen Mary and one of the jurors who acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554, was a parishioner. He was a mourner at the funeral of Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester from 1554 to 1558 and Rector of St Magnus from 1537 to 1558, who was interred in the church on 30 November 1558 with much solemnity. In accordance with the Catholic church's desire to restore ecclesiastical pageantry in England, the funeral was a splendid affair, ending in a magnificent dinner.

 

Lowe was included in a return of recusants in the Diocese of Rochester in 1577, but was buried at St Magnus on 6 February 1578. Stow refers to his monument in the church. His eldest son, Timothy (died 1617), was knighted in 1603. His second son, Alderman Sir Thomas Lowe (1550–1623), was Master of the Haberdashers' Company on several occasions, Sheriff of London in 1595/96, Lord Mayor in 1604/05 and a Member of Parliament for London. His youngest son, Blessed John Lowe (1553–1586), having originally been a Protestant minister, converted to Roman Catholicism, studied for the priesthood at Douay and Rome and returned to London as a missionary priest. His absence had already been noted; a list of 1581 of "such persons of the Diocese of London as have any children ... beyond the seas" records "John Low son to Margaret Low of the Bridge, absent without licence four years". Having gained 500 converts to Catholicism between 1583 and 1586, he was arrested whilst walking with his mother near London Bridge, committed to The Clink and executed at Tyburn on 8 October 1586. He was beatified in 1987 as one of the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales.

 

Sir William Garrard, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman, Sheriff of London in 1553/53, Lord Mayor in 1555/56 and a Member of Parliament was born in the parish and buried at St Magnus in 1571. Sir William Romney, merchant, philanthropist, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman for Bridge Within and Sheriff of London in 1603/04 was married at St Magnus in 1582. Ben Jonson is believed to have been married at St Magnus in 1594.

 

The patronage of St Magnus, having previously been in the Abbots and Convents of Westminster and Bermondsey (who presented alternatively), fell to the Crown on the suppression of the monasteries. In 1553, Queen Mary, by letters patent, granted it to the Bishop of London and his successors.

 

The church had a series of distinguished Rectors in the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th century, including Myles Coverdale (Rector 1564-66), John Young (Rector 1566-92), Theophilus Aylmer (Rector 1592-1625), (Archdeacon of London and son of John Aylmer), and Cornelius Burges (Rector 1626-41). Coverdale was buried in the chancel of St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, but when that church was pulled down in 1840 his remains were removed to St Magnus.

 

On 5 November 1562 the churchwardens were ordered to break, or cause to be broken, in two parts all the altar stones in the church. Coverdale, an anti-vestiarian, was Rector at the peak of the vestments controversy. In March 1566 Archbishop Parker caused great consternation among many clergy by his edicts prescribing what was to be worn and by his summoning the London clergy to Lambeth to require their compliance. Coverdale excused himself from attending. Stow records that a non-conforming Scot who normally preached at St Magnus twice a day precipitated a fight on Palm Sunday 1566 at Little All Hallows in Thames Street with his preaching against vestments. Coverdale's resignation from St Magnus in summer 1566 may have been associated with these events. Separatist congregations started to emerge after 1566 and the first such, who called themselves 'Puritans' or 'Unspottyd Lambs of the Lord', was discovered close to St Magnus at Plumbers' Hall in Thames Street on 19 June 1567.

 

St Magnus narrowly escaped destruction in 1633. A later edition of Stow's Survey records that "On the 13th day of February, between eleven and twelve at night, there happened in the house of one Briggs, a Needle-maker near St Magnus Church, at the North end of the Bridge, by the carelessness of a Maid-Servant setting a tub of hot sea-coal ashes under a pair of stairs, a sad and lamentable fire, which consumed all the buildings before eight of the clock the next morning, from the North end of the Bridge to the first vacancy on both sides, containing forty-two houses; water then being very scarce, the Thames being almost frozen over." Susannah Chambers "by her last will & testament bearing date 28th December 1640 gave the sum of Twenty-two shillings and Sixpence Yearly for a Sermon to be preached on the 12th day of February in every Year within the Church of Saint Magnus in commemoration of God's merciful preservation of the said Church of Saint Magnus from Ruin, by the late and terrible Fire on London Bridge. Likewise Annually to the Poor the sum of 17/6. "The tradition of a "Fire Sermon" was revived on 12 February 2004, when the first preacher was the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.

 

Parliamentarian rule and the more Protestant ethos of the 1640s led to the removal or destruction of "superstitious" and "idolatrous" images and fittings. Glass painters such as Baptista Sutton, who had previously installed "Laudian innovations", found new employment by repairing and replacing these to meet increasingly strict Protestant standards. In January 1642 Sutton replaced 93 feet of glass at St Magnus and in June 1644 he was called back to take down the "painted imagery glass" and replace it. In June 1641 "rail riots" broke out at a number of churches. This was a time of high tension following the trial and execution of the Earl of Strafford and rumours of army and popish plots were rife. The Protestation Oath, with its pledge to defend the true religion "against all Popery and popish innovation", triggered demands from parishioners for the removal of the rails as popish innovations which the Protestation had bound them to reform. The minister arranged a meeting between those for and against the pulling down of the rails, but was unsuccessful in reaching a compromise and it was feared that they would be demolished by force. However, in 1663 the parish resumed Laudian practice and re-erected rails around its communion table.

 

Joseph Caryl was incumbent from 1645 until his ejection in 1662. In 1663 he was reportedly living near London Bridge and preaching to an Independent congregation that met at various places in the City.

 

During the Great Plague of 1665, the City authorities ordered fires to be kept burning night and day, in the hope that the air would be cleansed. Daniel Defoe's semi-fictictional, but highly realistic, work A Journal of the Plague Year records that one of these was "just by St Magnus Church".

 

Despite its escape in 1633, the church was one of the first buildings to be destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. St Magnus stood less than 300 yards from the bakehouse of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane where the fire started. Farriner, a former churchwarden of St Magnus, was buried in the middle aisle of the church on 11 December 1670, perhaps within a temporary structure erected for holding services.

 

The parish engaged the master mason George Dowdeswell to start the work of rebuilding in 1668. The work was carried forward between 1671 and 1687 under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, the body of the church being substantially complete by 1676. At a cost of £9,579 19s 10d St Magnus was one of Wren's most expensive churches. The church of St Margaret New Fish Street was not rebuilt after the fire and its parish was united to that of St Magnus.

 

The chancels of many of Wren’s city churches had chequered marble floors and the chancel of St Magnus is an example, the parish agreeing after some debate to place the communion table on a marble ascent with steps and to commission altar rails of Sussex wrought iron. The nave and aisles are paved with freestone flags. A steeple, closely modelled on one built between 1614 and 1624 by François d'Aguilon and Pieter Huyssens for the church of St Carolus Borromeus in Antwerp, was added between 1703 and 1706. London's skyline was transformed by Wren's tall steeples and that of St Magnus is considered to be one his finest.

 

The large clock projecting from the tower was a well-known landmark in the city as it hung over the roadway of Old London Bridge. It was presented to the church in 1709 by Sir Charles Duncombe (Alderman for the Ward of Bridge Within and, in 1708/09, Lord Mayor of London). Tradition says "that it was erected in consequence of a vow made by the donor, who, in the earlier part of his life, had once to wait a considerable time in a cart upon London Bridge, without being able to learn the hour, when he made a promise, that if he ever became successful in the world, he would give to that Church a public clock ... that all passengers might see the time of day." The maker was Langley Bradley, a clockmaker in Fenchurch Street, who had worked for Wren on many other projects, including the clock for the new St Paul's Cathedral. The sword rest in the church, designed to hold the Lord Mayor's sword and mace when he attended divine service "in state", dates from 1708.

 

Duncombe and his benefactions to St Magnus feature prominently in Daniel Defoe's The True-Born Englishman, a biting satire on critics of William III that went through several editions from 1700 (the year in which Duncombe was elected Sheriff).

 

Shortly before his death in 1711, Duncombe commissioned an organ for the church, the first to have a swell-box, by Abraham Jordan (father and son). The Spectator announced that "Whereas Mr Abraham Jordan, senior and junior, have, with their own hands, joinery excepted, made and erected a very large organ in St Magnus' Church, at the foot of London Bridge, consisting of four sets of keys, one of which is adapted to the art of emitting sounds by swelling notes, which never was in any organ before; this instrument will be publicly opened on Sunday next [14 February 1712], the performance by Mr John Robinson. The above-said Abraham Jordan gives notice to all masters and performers, that he will attend every day next week at the said Church, to accommodate all those gentlemen who shall have a curiosity to hear it".

 

The organ case, which remains in its original state, is looked upon as one of the finest existing examples of the Grinling Gibbons's school of wood carving. The first organist of St Magnus was John Robinson (1682–1762), who served in that role for fifty years and in addition as organist of Westminster Abbey from 1727. Other organists have included the blind organist George Warne (1792–1868, organist 1820-26 until his appointment to the Temple Church), James Coward (1824–80, organist 1868-80 who was also organist to the Crystal Palace and renowned for his powers of improvisation) and George Frederick Smith FRCO (1856–1918, organist 1880-1918 and Professor of Music at the Guildhall School of Music). The organ has been restored several times - in 1760, 1782, 1804, 1855, 1861, 1879, 1891, 1924, 1949 after wartime damage and 1997 - since it was first built. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was one of several patrons of the organ appeal in the mid-1990s and John Scott gave an inaugural recital on 20 May 1998 following the completion of that restoration. The instrument has an Historic Organ Certificate and full details are recorded in the National Pipe Organ Register.

 

The hymn tune "St Magnus", usually sung at Ascensiontide to the text "The head that once was crowned with thorns", was written by Jeremiah Clarke in 1701 and named for the church.

 

Canaletto drew St Magnus and old London Bridge as they appeared in the late 1740s. Between 1756 and 1762, under the London Bridge Improvement Act of 1756 (c. 40), the Corporation of London demolished the buildings on London Bridge to widen the roadway, ease traffic congestion and improve safety for pedestrians. The churchwardens’ accounts of St Magnus list many payments to those injured on the Bridge and record that in 1752 a man was crushed to death between two carts. After the House of Commons had resolved upon the alteration of London Bridge, the Rev Robert Gibson, Rector of St Magnus, applied to the House for relief; stating that £48 6s. 2d. per annum, part of his salary of £170 per annum, was assessed upon houses on London Bridge; which he should utterly lose by their removal unless a clause in the bill about to be passed should provide a remedy. Accordingly, Sections 18 and 19 of 1756 Act provided that the relevant amounts of tithe and poor rate should be a charge on the Bridge House Estates.

 

A serious fire broke out on 18 April 1760 in an oil shop at the south east corner of the church, which consumed most of the church roof and did considerable damage to the fabric. The fire burnt warehouses to the south of the church and a number of houses on the northern end of London Bridge.

 

As part of the bridge improvements, overseen by the architect Sir Robert Taylor, a new pedestrian walkway was built along the eastern side of the bridge. With the other buildings gone St Magnus blocked the new walkway. As a consequence it was necessary in 1762 to 1763 to remove the vestry rooms at the West end of the church and open up the side arches of the tower so that people could pass underneath the tower. The tower’s lower storey thus became an external porch. Internally a lobby was created at the West end under the organ gallery and a screen with fine octagonal glazing inserted. A new Vestry was built to the South of the church. The Act also provided that the land taken from the church for the widening was "to be considered ... as part of the cemetery of the said church ... but if the pavement thereof be broken up on account of the burying of any persons, the same shall be ... made good ... by the churchwardens".

 

Soldiers were stationed in the Vestry House of St Magnus during the Gordon Riots in June 1780.

 

By 1782 the noise level from the activities of Billingsgate Fish Market had become unbearable and the large windows on the north side of the church were blocked up leaving only circular windows high up in the wall. At some point between the 1760s and 1814 the present clerestory was constructed with its oval windows and fluted and coffered plasterwork. J. M. W. Turner painted the church in the mid-1790s.

 

The rector of St Magnus between 1792 and 1808, following the death of Robert Gibson on 28 July 1791, was Thomas Rennell FRS. Rennell was President of Sion College in 1806/07. There is a monument to Thomas Leigh (Rector 1808-48 and President of Sion College 1829/30, at St Peter's Church, Goldhanger in Essex. Richard Hazard (1761–1837) was connected with the church as sexton, parish clerk and ward beadle for nearly 50 years and served as Master of the Parish Clerks' Company in 1831/32.

 

In 1825 the church was "repaired and beautified at a very considerable expense. During the reparation the east window, which had been closed, was restored, and the interior of the fabric conformed to the state in which it was left by its great architect, Sir Christopher Wren. The magnificent organ ... was taken down and rebuilt by Mr Parsons, and re-opened, with the church, on the 12th February, 1826". Unfortunately, as a contemporary writer records, "On the night of the 31st of July, 1827, [the church's] safety was threatened by the great fire which consumed the adjacent warehouses, and it is perhaps owing to the strenuous and praiseworthy exertions of the firemen, that the structure exists at present. ... divine service was suspended and not resumed until the 20th January 1828. In the interval the church received such tasteful and elegant decorations, that it may now compete with any church in the metropolis."

 

In 1823 royal assent was given to ‘An Act for the Rebuilding of London Bridge’ and in 1825 John Garratt, Lord Mayor and Alderman of the Ward of Bridge Within, laid the first stone of the new London Bridge. In 1831 Sir John Rennie’s new bridge was opened further upstream and the old bridge demolished. St Magnus ceased to be the gateway to London as it had been for over 600 years. Peter de Colechurch had been buried in the crypt of the chapel on the bridge and his bones were unceremoniously dumped in the River Thames. In 1921 two stones from Old London Bridge were discovered across the road from the church. They now stand in the churchyard.

 

Wren's church of St Michael Crooked Lane was demolished, the final service on Sunday 20 March 1831 having to be abandoned due to the effects of the building work. The Rector of St Michael preached a sermon the following Sunday at St Magnus lamenting the demolition of his church with its monuments and "the disturbance of the worship of his parishioners on the preceeding Sabbath". The parish of St Michael Crooked Lane was united to that of St Magnus, which itself lost a burial ground in Church Yard Alley to the approach road for the new bridge. However, in substitution it had restored to it the land taken for the widening of the old bridge in 1762 and was also given part of the approach lands to the east of the old bridge. In 1838 the Committee for the London Bridge Approaches reported to Common Council that new burial grounds had been provided for the parishes of St Michael, Crooked Lane and St Magnus, London Bridge.

 

Depictions of St Magnus after the building of the new bridge, seen behind Fresh Wharf and the new London Bridge Wharf, include paintings by W. Fenoulhet in 1841 and by Charles Ginner in 1913. This prospect was affected in 1924 by the building of Adelaide House to a design by John James Burnet, The Times commenting that "the new ‘architectural Matterhorn’ ... conceals all but the tip of the church spire". There was, however, an excellent view of the church for a few years between the demolition of Adelaide Buildings and the erection of its replacement. Adelaide House is now listed. Regis House, on the site of the abandoned King William Street terminus of the City & South London Railway (subsequently the Northern Line), and the Steam Packet Inn, on the corner of Lower Thames Street and Fish Street Hill, were developed in 1931.

 

By the early 1960s traffic congestion had become a problem and Lower Thames Street was widened over the next decade to form part of a significant new east-west transport artery (the A3211). The setting of the church was further affected by the construction of a new London Bridge between 1967 and 1973. The New Fresh Wharf warehouse to the east of the church, built in 1939, was demolished in 1973-4 following the collapse of commercial traffic in the Pool of London and, after an archaeological excavation, St Magnus House was constructed on the site in 1978 to a design by R. Seifert & Partners. This development now allows a clear view of the church from the east side. The site to the south east of The Monument (between Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane), formerly predominantly occupied by fish merchants, was redeveloped as Centurion House and Gartmore (now Providian) House at the time of the closure of old Billingsgate Market in January 1982. A comprehensive redevelopment of Centurion House began in October 2011 with completion planned in 2013. Regis House, to the south west of The Monument, was redeveloped by Land Securities PLC in 1998.

 

The vista from The Monument south to the River Thames, over the roof of St Magnus, is protected under the City of London Unitary Development Plan, although the South bank of the river is now dominated by The Shard. Since 2004 the City of London Corporation has been exploring ways of enhancing the Riverside Walk to the south of St Magnus. Work on a new staircase to connect London Bridge to the Riverside Walk is due to commence in March 2013. The story of St Magnus's relationship with London Bridge and an interview with the rector featured in the television programme The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank, first broadcast on BBC Four on 14 June 2012. The City Corporation's 'Fenchurch and Monument Area Enhancement Strategy' of August 2012 recommended ways of reconnecting St Magnus and the riverside to the area north of Lower Thames Street.

 

www.stmagnusmartyr.org.uk/history/history-church

A study of Beijing must by nature oscillate between a consideration of top-down planning - the "magic square" diagram that undergirds countless square, walled, Chinese cities - and bottom-up emergence. As much as the city is lines drawn by the sovereign and executed by his minions, it's also a kind of mat-building, the mere consequence of repeating, at massive scale, the same basic tissue over and over again - the fundamental piece being the narrow residenial lane, or hutong. Up until the late 20th century, most of Beijing was a network of thousands of these lanes, fronted by single-story courtyard houses (siheyuan). (In its essence, this arrangement is quite similar to the Shanghai lilong.) This typology, which solidifed by the Ming period, formed a low-rise, low-density “carpet” of a city, while responding directly to cultural norms. The extended family, living together, was sorted out in a Confucian hierarchy: the elders got the best-appointed rooms in the northern wing, younger members got the east and west, and servants and support program went to the south. A screen wall shielded views from the street, for the sake of privacy and decorum. As well, the siheyuan type respects the climate of northern China; the north/south axis catches the southern sun in the winter, while the blank north wall shelters against the northern winds. In being so arranged, the siheyuan also corresponded with feng-shui principles that labeled certain orientaons, funcons, and numbers as auspicious.

 

Thus, the grain of the hutongs is east/west, while the bigger streets, running parallel to the city’s fundamental north/south axis, contained shopping and artisan workshops. Repeat until you've filled the available land within the city; your city's population is now maximized until you build more walls, as multistory construction was reserved for monumental buildings. The hutong within the clearly delimited walled city is therefore also a model of extremely long-term social stability; dynasties rose and fell but the social order of China carried on.

 

(For a discussion of the social hierarchy of the type, and its symbolic connections to the larger city, see my discussion of the Forbidden City.)

 

But the stable order of hutongs and siheyuan has been under pressure for decades. As discussed in that Forbidden City text, the move of the capital back to Beijing in 1949 precipitated a debate over how to accommodate the government's functions. The historic-preservationist faction was in the wrong place at the wrong time: Mao's government saw China as being in a state of revolution, caught up in the exuberant hope of great social transformation. Mao was happy to capitalize on the symbolism of history by taking over the old capital - but he was fundamentally suspicious of history as a thing of value in itself.

 

The Mao-era demolitions, however, were confined to certain specific sites. The largest was Tian’anmen Square, where space was cleared for an enormous public assembly grounds, as well as new museums and the “Great Hall of the People,” cranked out in 1959 as one of the “Ten Great Constructions” celebrating the tenth anniversary of the People’s Republic. Communist urban planners, with Soviet advice, also knocked down the old city walls, filled in moats, and planned for the concentric expansion of the city with successive ring roads. But compared to many other autocratic regimes, the PRC took on few grand building projects. Most government-directed development in this period was focused on new industrial towns on greenfield sites (another Soviet-inspired idea). The top priority was to kick-start China’s economic development, through self-contained factory complexes which included their own housing, schools, and other amenities. But these complexes were on the periphery - tearing down old buildings takes time and money, after all - and Beijing remained largely intact.

 

The hutongs really began to feel the squeeze during the Cultural Revolution. In an effort to forcibly create a new urban proletariat, the government deliberately increased the population of Beijing beyond its carrying capacity (even as a parallel movement forced city dwellers back to the farm to be “re-educated”). Overpopulated siheyuan dwellers filled in the courtyards to create more inhabitable space, in the process cutting themselves off from a system of light and air that had functioned for centuries. While the street network remained the same, the lifestyle it supported was being pushed to the breaking point. By 1978 the density was one person per 3.6 square meters of living space. This put considerable strain on the buildings as well as the traditional social fabric - again, probably by design. The overpopulated siheyuan became a kind of urbanistic time bomb, storing up a huge, unresolved demand for housing. When the Deng economic reforms came to Beijing in the 1990s, and it became possible to meet this demand through new construction, the value of hutong land would rise far above what could possibly be made off one-story courtyard dwellings. The city began a wave of demolition and construction virtually unmatched in human history.

 

This development boom proceeded on a cycle similar to that which we’ve observed in Shenzhen and elsewhere, with the difference that Shenzhen began the 1980s as a handful of sleepy fishing villages, not a capital with centuries of historic fabric and millions of inhabitants. Demand for new construction was driven up both by the previous overcrowding, but also by the perceived obsolescence of sihueyuan. High rise developments offer modern conveniences, if not the same attention to tradition - or the close-knit community of the old neighborhoods. Life along a hutong, does, after all, involve dealing with unreliable utilities, failing infrastructure, and shared, unconditioned latrines. One can see how many Chinese might see the change as an unmitigated improvement, even while it’s tempting for outsiders to see the fate of Beijing as a retread of the errors of Western

urban renewal.

 

By the turn of the millennium, 2/3 of the hutongs had been demolished - before preparations for the Olympics kicked off another round of demolition and construction. The number of people needing to be relocated is huge; just building Finance Street involved relocating 45,000 people. The largest swath of still-standing siheyuan (as of this writing) seems to be the area just south and west of Tian’anmen Square; a 1999 master plan established certain historic preservation districts, but by that point the damage had been done, and it’s not clear how strict the limitations are in practice.

 

We visited a surviving cluster of siheyuan, and they do give some sense of the animated, multi-programmed street life that must have once been universal in Beijing. But the mere fact that they are clusters robs them of most of their strength. One's reminded of the strips of weedy landscape preserved as highway medians; technically, they may add up to a large amount of open green space, but being discontinuous, they can hardly support even a single animal, let alone the complex weave of a real ecosystem. A city's economy works through aggregations and multiplications brought on by sheer quantity. Beijing is more populous than ever, obviously, but if the hutong is surrounded by automobile streets, how can its shops hope to have customers? How can its residents hope to walk to their places of business?

 

I suspect that demolition is thus a self-accelerating cycle: once the city is damaged enough for life within the hutong to become affected, incentives grow to cash in and move out. As more people do so, more of the city is wiped out, and more of what remains is unable to function as it once did. There may be some effort to preserve and restore small sections, either as tourist attractions or as charming shopping districts a la Xintiandi; we saw a bit of what looked like this across from Tian'anmen. But as urbanism, it is already effectively extinct.

The outstanding feature of this solid Victorian church, built by John Oldrid Scott in 1871, is the series of windows by the firm of Morris and Co. The east window of the north aisle represents some early saints including Alban and Aidan, while that in the west end shows six angels. Nearby is an early representation of Kentish saints, whose popularity was increasing in the middle of the nineteenth century, including Augustine, Ethelbert and Bertha. The east window is by the same firm, but dates from after the death of Burne-Jones and is not so finely executed. The oak reredos was added by Charles Oldrid Scott in 1925, who also worked on the altar rails and low chancel screen. In the churchyard there is a good monument made of Coade artificial stone in 1807.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Speldhurst

 

-------------------------------------------

 

SPELDHURST

IS the last parish remaining undescribed in this lath. It lies the next adjoining parish south eastward from Penshurst, and was sometimes written, in antient records, Speleberste, but in the Tex t u Rossensis, Speldburst.

 

THE PARISH of Speldhurst is about three miles across each way; the north-west part, in which the church stands, and Hallborough, is within the hundred of Somerden, as is the hamlet of Groombridge, three miles from the church, at the southern boundary of it, where a branch of the river Medway separates this county from Sussex, throughout all which the soil remains a stiff clay; the remaining part of this parish is in the hundred of Warchlingstone, which stretches across a narrow district, by Mitchell's and Tophill farms, and towards the parish of Ashurst, which it includes, thus entirely separates that part of the hundred of Somerden in which the hamlet of Groombridge lies, and surrounds three sides of it, from the other in which the church stands. The soil in the eastern part of this parish changes to an uninterrupted scene of losty hills, with deep vallies intersecting, the soils are a stiff loam and a barren sand, which covers a continued bed of rock stone, several of which appear above it, of large size and dimensions, greatly abounding with iron ore, which renders the springs of it more or less chalybeate; at the south east boundary of the parish is the noted resort of Tunbridge-wells, (of which a further account will be given hereafter) situated thirty-five miles from London, and five from Tunbridge town; here the high road branches off to the right, by Rust-hall, and the hamlets of Bishopsdown and Rust-hall common, on by Groombridge, across the branch of the Medway into Sussex.

 

The large and populous hamlet or village of TUNBRIDGE-WELLS is situated at the south-east boundary of this parish; part of it only is in Speldhurst, another part in the parish of Tunbridge, and the remainder in that of Fant, in the county of Suffex. It consists of four smaller districts, named from the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant, and Mount Sion; the other is called The Wells, from their being within it, which altogether form a considerable town; but the last is the centre of business and pleasure, for there, besides the Wells themselves, are the market, public parades, assembly rooms, taverns, shops, &c. Near the Wells is the chapel, which stands remarkably in the three parishes above mentioned—the pulpit in Speldhurst, the altar in Tunbridge, and the vestry in Fant, and the stream, which parted the two counties of Kent and Suffex, formerly ran underneath it, but is now turned to a further distance from it. The right of patronage is claimed by the rector of Speldhurst, though he has never yet possessed the chapel or presented to it; the value of it is about two hundred pounds per annum, which sum is raised by voluntary subscription; divine service is performed in it every day in summer, and three times a week in winter. Adjoining to it is a charity school, for upwards of fifty poor boys and girls, which is supported by a contribution, collected at the chapel doors, two or three times a year.

 

The trade of Tunbridge-wells is similar to that of Spa, in Germany, and consists chiefly in a variety of toys, made of wood, commonly called Tunbridge ware, which employs a great number of hands. The wood principally used for this purpose is beech and sycamore, with yew and holly inlaid, and beautifully polished. To the market of this place is brought, in great plenty, from the South downs, in Sussex, the little bird, called the wheatear, which, from its delicacy, is usually called the English ortolan. It is not bigger in size than a lark; it is almost a lump of fat, and of a very delicious taste; it is in season only in the midst of summer, when the heat of the weather, and the fatness of it, prevents its being sent to London, which otherwise would, in all likelihood, monopolize every one of them. On the other or Suffex side of the Medway, above a mile from the Wells, are the rocks, which consist of a great number of rude eminences, adjoining to each other, several of which are seventy feet in height; in several places there are cliffs and chasms which lead quite through the midst of them, by narrow gloomy passages, which strike the beholder with astonishment.

 

THESE MEDICINAL WATERS, commonly called TUNBRIDGE-WELLS, lie so near to the county of Suffex that part of them are within it, for which reason they were for some time called Fant-wells, as being within that parish. (fn. 1) Their efficacy is reported to have been accidentally found out by Dudley lord North, in the beginning of the reign of king James I. Whilst he resided at Eridge-house for his health, lord Abergavenny's seat, in this neighbourhood, and that he was entirely cured of the lingering consumptive disorder he laboured under by the use of them.

 

The springs, which were then discovered, seem to have been seven in number, two of the principal of which were some time afterwards, by lord Abergavenny's care, inclosed, and were afterwards much resorted to by many of the middling and lower sort, whose ill health had real occasion for the use of them. In which state they continued till queen Henrietta Maria, wife of king Charles I. having been sent hither by her physicians, in the year 1630, for the reestablishment of her health, soon brought these waters into fashion, and occasioned a great resort to them from that time. In compliment to her doctor, Lewis Rowzee, in his treatise on them, calls these springs the Queen's-wells; but this name lasted but a small time, and they were soon afterwards universally known by that of Tunbridge-wells, which names they acquired from the company usually residing at Tunbridge town, when they came into these parts for the benefit of drinking the waters.

 

¶The town of Tunbridge being five miles distant from the wells, occasioned some few houses to be built in the hamlets of Southborough and Rusthall, for the accommodation of the company resorting hither, and this place now becoming fashionable, was visited by numbers for the sake of pleasure and dissipation, as well as for the cure of their infirmities; and soon after the Restoration every kind of building, for public amusements, was erected at the two hamlets above mentioned, lodgings and other buildings were built at and near the wells, the springs themselves were secured, and other conveniencies added to them. In 1664, the queen came here by the advice of her physicians, in hopes of reinstating her health, which was greatly impaired by a dangerous fever, and her success, in being perfectly cured by these waters, greatly raised the reputation of them, and the company increasing yearly, it induced the inhabitants to make every accommodation for them adjoining to the Wells, so that both Rusthall and Southborough became ruinous and deserted by all but their native inhabitants. The duke of York, with his duchess, and the two princesses their daughters, visited Tunbridge-wells in the year 1670, which brought much more company than usual to them, and raised their reputation still higher; and the annual increase continuing, it induced the lord of the manor to think of improving this humour of visiting the wells to his own profit as well as the better accommodation of the company. To effect which, he entered into an agreement with his tenants, and hired of them the herbage of the waste of the manor for the term of fifty years, at the yearly rent of ten shillings to each tenant, and then erected shops and houses on and near the walks and springs, in every convenient spot for that purpose; by which means Tunbridge wells became a populous and flourishing village, well inhabited, for whose convenience, and the company resorting thither, a chapel was likewise built, in 1684, by subscription, on some ground given by the lady viscountess Purbeck, which was, about twelve years afterwards, enlarged by an additional subscription, amounting together to near twenty-three hundred pounds.

  

About the year 1726, the building lease, which had been granted by the lord of the manor of Rusthall, in which this hamlet is situated, expiring, the tenants of the manor claimed a share in the buildings, as a compensation for the loss of the herbage, which was covered by his houses. This occasioned a long and very expensive law suit between them, which was at last determined in favour of the tenants, who were adjudged to have a right to a third part of the buildings then erected on the estate, in lieu of their right to the herbage; upon which all the shops and houses, which had been built on the manor waste, were divided into three lots, of which the tenants were to draw one, and the other two were to remain to the lord of the manor; the lot which the tenants drew was the middle one, which included the assembly room on the public walk, which has since turned out much the most advantageous of the three. After which long articles of agreement, in 1739, were entered into between Maurice Conyers, esq. then lord of the manor of Rusthall, and the above mentioned tenants of it, in which, among many other matters, he agreed to permit the public walks and wells, and divers other premises there, to be made use of for the public benefit of the nobility and gentry resorting thereto, and several regulations were made in them concerning the walks, wells, and wastes of the manor, and for the restraining buildings on the waste, between the lord and his tenants, according to a plan therein specified; all which were confirmed and established by an act of parliament, passed in 1740. Since which several of the royal family have honoured these wells with their presence, and numbers of the nobility and persons of rank and fashion yearly resortto them, so that this place is now in a most flourishing state, having great numbers of good houses built for lodgings, and every other necessary accommodation for the company. Its customs are settled; the employment of the dippers regulated; (fn. 2) its pleasures regulated; its markets well and plentifully supplied, at a reasonable rate, with sowl, fish, meat, every other kind of food, and every convenience added that can contribute to give health and pleasure.

 

The whole neighbourhood of Tunbridge-wells abounds with springs of mineral water, but as the properties of all are nearly the same, only those two, which at the first discovery of them were adjudged the best, are held in any particular estimation. These two wells are enclosed with a handsome triangular stone wall; over the springs are placed two convenient basons of Portland stone, with perforations at the bottom; one of them being given by queen Anne, and the other by the lord of the manor; through which they receive the water, which at the spring is extremely clear and bright. Its taste is steely, but not disagreeable; it has hardly any smell, though sometimes, in a dense air, its ferruginous exhalations are very distinguishable. In point of heat it is invariably temperate, the spring lying so deep in the earth, that neither the heat of summer, nor the cold of winter, affects it. When this water is first taken up in a large glass, its particles continue at rest till it is warmed to nearly the heat of the atmosphere, then a few airy globules begin to separate themselves, and adhere to the sides of the glass, and in a few hours a light copper coloured scum begins to float on the surface, after which an ochreous sediment settles at the bottom. Long continued rains sometimes give the water a milky appearance, but do not otherwise sensibly affect it. From the experiments of different physicians, it appears that the component parts of this water are, steely particles, marine salts, an oily matter, an ochreous substance, simple water, and a volatile vitriolic spirit, too subtile for any chemical analysis. In weight it is, in seven ounces and a quarter, four grains lighter than the German Spa (to which it is preferable on that account) and ten grains lighter than common water; with syrup of violets this water gives a deep green, as vitriols do. (fn. 3) It requires five drops of oleum sulphuris, or elixir of vitriol, to a quart of water, to preserve its virtues to a distance from the spring.

 

This water is said to be an impregnation of rain in some of the neighbouring eminences, which abound in iron mineral, where it is further enriched with the marine salts and all the valuable ingredients, which constitute it a light and pure chalybeate, which instantly searches the most remote recesses of the human frame, warms and invigorates the relaxed constitution, restores the weakened fibres to their due tone and elasticity, removes those obstructions to which the minuter vessels of the body are liable, and is consequently adapted to most cold chronical disorders, lowness of spirits, weak digestions, and nervous complaints. Dr. Lodowick Rowzee, of Ashford, in this county, wrote a Treatise of the Nature and Virtues of these Waters, printed in 12mo. 1671; and Dr. Patrick Madan wrote a Philosophical and Medical Essay on them, in 1687, in quarto.

 

THE MANOR OF SPELDHURST, in the reign of king Edward III. was in the possession of Sir John de Pulteneye, lord of the neighbouring manor of Penshurst, a man of great account at that time, as has been already noticed before, who, in the 19th year of that reign, on his perfecting the foundation he had begun of a college in the parish of St. Lawrence, Canon-street, London, afterwards called the College of St. Laurence Poultney, settled the manor with the church of Speldshurst on it.

 

¶It remained part of the possessions of the college till its suppression in the reign of king Edward VI. when it was granted among other premises, by the description of the manor of Speldhurst and Harwarton (then demised to Sir William Waller, at the rent of 16s. 8d. per annum) of the clear yearly value of 13l. 14s. 1d. together with the patronage of the church appendant to the manor, parcel of the late college of St. Laurence, Poultney, London, to Henry Polsted. (fn. 4) How the manor of Speldhurst passed afterwards I have not found, only that after several intermediate owners, it came into the name of Goodhugh, and in the latter end of the reign of king George I. was possessed by Richard Goodhugh, esq. from which name it passed by a female heir, Sarah, in marriage to Mr. Rich. Round, whose son, Mr. Richard Round, of Stonepit, in Seale, died possessed of it, and the trustees of his insant children are now in the possession of it.

  

SPELDHURST is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester, and deanry of Malling.

 

The church, which was dedicated to St. Mary, was a neat building, having a spire steeple at the west end of it, in which hung four bells.

 

On Thursday, October 22, 1791, a dreadful storm of thunder and lightning happened in these parts, which set fire to this church, a ball of fire being observed to enter the center of the shingled part of the spire, and instantly a thick smoke, followed by slames issued from it, and there being no help at hand, every thing contributed to its destruction. The high wind, the rain and hail having ceased, drove the flames from the steeple on the church, and in about four hours this beautiful structure was totally reduced to a heap of ruins, The bells were melted by the intense heat, the monuments in it, and every thing else which could become a prey to the fiery element were reduced to ashes; the stone walls only were left, but in so ruinous a condition as not to be fit for future use, and what is extraordinary, the font, though left entire, was turned upside down; the tombs and head stones near the church were considerably damaged. A brief was obtained towards the re-building of it, but the work, though the size of it has been greatly reduced, the new church, consisting but of one isle and a very small chancel, has gone on but slowly, and at this time is not near finished, and neither steeple nor bells are yet agreed upon, the brief not producing so much as was expected.

 

In the old church, before it was burnt down, there were the following monuments and inscriptions:— In the chancel, on the south wall, an antient and beautiful monument,. with the arms of Waller, with the augmentation and several quarterings, for Sir Walter Waller; a brass plate for John Waller, esq. obt. 1517. In the nave, were several brass plates for the same family, one of them for William Waller, esq. of Groombridge, obt. 1555. The porch was very curious, over which was an antique shield, cut in stone, being the arms of France, with a file of three flambeaux, for Charles, duke of Orleans, mentioned before. He built this porch, and was a good benefactor to the repairs of the church itself. (fn. 19)

 

By a fine levied in the 39th year of king Henry III. before Gilbert de Preston, and others justices itinerant, Walter de la Dene, the possessor of this advowson, granted it to the Walter Fitzwalter in tail general, to hold of him and his heirs for ever, at the yearly rent of one penny, and performing all other services due from thence to the capital lords of the fee.

 

¶Roger de Padlesworth was patron of the church of Speldhurst in the 48th year of the same reign, and he then released his right to certain rent and service due for lands granted to the chapel of Gromenebregge, situated within his manor of Speldhurst. In the reign of king Edward III. the manor and church of Speldhurst were part of the possessions of Sir John de Pulteneye, who, in the 19th year of that reign, on his perfecting the foundation and endowment of his college in the parish of St. Lawrence, in Canon-street, London, afterwards called the College of St. Lawrence Poultney, settled both manor and advowson on it. (fn. 20) Three years after which, anno 1347, Hamo, bishop of Rochester, at the instance and petition of Sir John de Pulteneye, by his instrument appropriated this church to that college for ever, reserving out of it nevertheless a fit portion to the perpetual vicar serving in it, to be presented to the bishop and his successors, by the master or guardian and the chaplains of the college, by which he might be supported decently, and be enabled to discharge the episcopal dues and other burthens incumbent on him; and he decreed, that they should take possession of this church immediately on the death or cession of Sir Thomas, then rector of it (whom he by no means intended to prejudice by this appropriation) without any further licence or authority obtained for that purpose, saving, nevertheless, and reserving to himself and his successors canonical obedience from the master or guardian and chaplains or their successors, on account of their holding this church as aforesaid, and the visitation of it, and other rights due to the church and the bishop of Rochester, and to the archdeacon of the place, either of custom or of right, and all other rights and customs in every thing whatsoever; and saving and reserving in the church a perpetual vicarage, which he then decreed should take effect at the death or resignation of the rector of it. And he willed, that a sit and competent portion should be assigned out of the fruits, rents and produce of it to such vicar to serve in it, who should first be presented by the master, &c. to be instituted and admitted by the bishop, or his successor, into it, before his admission, according as circumstances required, to the use of him and his successors for ever. And he willed and decreed, that the portion above-mentioned should for ever consist of the tithes of filva cedua, pannage, apples, and fruits of other trees, hay, herbage, flax, hemp, wool, milk, butter and cheese, lambs, calves, pigs, swans, pidgeons, fowlings, huntings, mills, fisheries, merchandizing, and in all other small tithes and dues of the church, oblations and obventions whatsoever belonging to the altarage, together with competent buildings situate on the soil of the church, to be assigned for the habitation of the vicar, and in which the visitors of the ordinary might be commodiously received. And he willed and decreed, that the vicar for the time being, (after the books and vestments belonging by custom to the rector to provide, should have been sufficiently provided by the master, &c.) should cause the books to be bound, and the vestments to be washed, repaired and amended, as often as need should be; and should find and provide, at his own expence, bread, wine, and processional tapers, and other lights necessary in the chancel, and the accustomed attendants in the church; and should keep and maintain in a proper state, at his own costs, the buildings allotted to his vicarage, after they should have been once sufficiently repaired, and assigned as an habitation for him and his successors, and should wholly pay all episcopal dues, and archidiaconal procurations, and should undergo and acknowledge all other extraordinary burthens, which should be incumbent or laid on him, according to the taxation of his portion, which, so far as related to them, he estimated and taxed at sixty shillings sterling; but that the master, &c. should undergo and acknowledge, at his and their own costs for ever, all other ordinaries and extraordinaries, according to the taxation of their portion, which he estimated at six marcs and an half. Lastly, that his cathedral church of Rochester might not be in any manner hurt, or prejudiced by this appropriation, he, in recompence of such loss, as it might happen to receive from it, either in the not receiving the profits of it whilst it should become vacant, or otherwise, reserved a certain annual pension of seven shillings sterling from this church to him and his successors, to be yearly paid at the feast of the Purification of the blessed Virgin Mary, by the master, &c. as soon as they should have obtained effectual and full possession of it, &c. (fn. 21)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp275-300

The church is dedicated to St Magnus the Martyr, earl of Orkney, who died on 16 April 1118. He was executed on the island of Egilsay having been captured during a power struggle with his cousin, a political rival. Magnus had a reputation for piety and gentleness and was canonised in 1135.

 

The identity of the St Magnus referred to in the church's dedication was only confirmed by the Bishop of London in 1926. Following this decision a patronal festival service was held on 16 April 1926. In the 13th century the patronage was attributed to one of the several saints by the name of Magnus who share a feast day on 19 August, probably St Magnus of Anagni (bishop and martyr, who was slain in the persecution of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd century). However, by the early 18th century it was suggested that the church was either "dedicated to the memory of St Magnus or Magnes, who suffer'd under the Emperor Aurelian in 276 [see St Mammes of Caesarea, feast day 17 August], or else to a person of that name, who was the famous Apostle or Bishop of the Orcades." For the next century historians followed the suggestion that the church was dedicated to the Roman saint of Cæsarea. The famous Danish archaeologist Professor Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae (1821–85) promoted the attribution to St Magnus of Orkney during his visit to the British Isles in 1846-7, when he was formulating the concept of the 'Viking Age', and a history of London written in 1901 concluded that "the Danes, on their second invasion ... added at least two churches with Danish names, Olaf and Magnus". A guide to the City Churches published in 1917 reverted to the view that St Magnus was dedicated to a martyr of the third century, but the discovery of St Magnus of Orkney's relics in 1919 renewed interest in a Scandinavian patron and this connection was encouraged by the Rector who arrived in 1921.

 

A metropolitan bishop of London attended the Council of Arles in 314, which indicates that there must have been a Christian community in Londinium by this date, and it has been suggested that a large aisled building excavated in 1993 near Tower Hill can be compared with the 4th-century Cathedral of St Tecla in Milan. However, there is no archaeological evidence to suggest that any of the mediaeval churches in the City of London had a Roman foundation. A grant from William I in 1067 to Westminster Abbey, which refers to the stone church of St Magnus near the bridge ("lapidee eccle sci magni prope pontem"), is generally accepted to be 12th century forgery, and it is possible that a charter of confirmation in 1108-16 might also be a later fabrication. Nonetheless, these manuscripts may preserve valid evidence of a date of foundation in the 11th century.

 

Archaeological evidence suggests that the area of the bridgehead was not occupied from the early 5th century until the early 10th century. Environmental evidence indicates that the area was waste ground during this period, colonised by elder and nettles. Following Alfred's decision to reoccupy the walled area of London in 886, new harbours were established at Queenhithe and Billingsgate. A bridge was in place by the early 11th century, a factor which would have encouraged the occupation of the bridgehead by craftsmen and traders. A lane connecting Botolph's Wharf and Billingsgate to the rebuilt bridge may have developed by the mid-11th century. The waterfront at this time was a hive of activity, with the construction of embankments sloping down from the riverside wall to the river. Thames Street appeared in the second half of the 11th century immediately behind (north of) the old Roman riverside wall and in 1931 a piling from this was discovered during the excavation of the foundations of a nearby building. It now stands at the base of the church tower. St Magnus was built to the south of Thames Street to serve the growing population of the bridgehead area and was certainly in existence by 1128-33.

 

The small ancient parish extended about 110 yards along the waterfront either side of the old bridge, from 'Stepheneslane' (later Churchehawlane or Church Yard Alley) and 'Oystergate' (later called Water Lane or Gully Hole) on the West side to 'Retheresgate' (a southern extension of Pudding Lane) on the East side, and was centred on the crossroads formed by Fish Street Hill (originally Bridge Street, then New Fish Street) and Thames Street. The mediaeval parish also included Drinkwater's Wharf (named after the owner, Thomas Drinkwater), which was located immediately West of the bridge, and Fish Wharf, which was to the South of the church. The latter was of considerable importance as the fishmongers had their shops on the wharf. The tenement was devised by Andrew Hunte to the Rector and Churchwardens in 1446. The ancient parish was situated in the South East part of Bridge Ward, which had evolved in the 11th century between the embankments to either side of the bridge.

 

In 1182 the Abbot of Westminster and the Prior of Bermondsey agreed that the advowson of St Magnus should be divided equally between them. Later in the 1180s, on their presentation, the Archdeacon of London inducted his nephew as parson.

 

Between the late Saxon period and 1209 there was a series of wooden bridges across the Thames, but in that year a stone bridge was completed. The work was overseen by Peter de Colechurch, a priest and head of the Fraternity of the Brethren of London Bridge. The Church had from early times encouraged the building of bridges and this activity was so important it was perceived to be an act of piety - a commitment to God which should be supported by the giving of alms. London’s citizens made gifts of land and money "to God and the Bridge". The Bridge House Estates became part of the City's jurisdiction in 1282.

 

Until 1831 the bridge was aligned with Fish Street Hill, so the main entrance into the City from the south passed the West door of St Magnus on the north bank of the river. The bridge included a chapel dedicated to St Thomas à Becket for the use of pilgrims journeying to Canterbury Cathedral to visit his tomb. The chapel and about two thirds of the bridge were in the parish of St Magnus. After some years of rivalry a dispute arose between the church and the chapel over the offerings given to the chapel by the pilgrims. The matter was resolved by the brethren of the chapel making an annual contribution to St Magnus. At the Reformation the chapel was turned into a house and later a warehouse, the latter being demolished in 1757-58.

 

The church grew in importance. On 21 November 1234 a grant of land was made to the parson of St Magnus for the enlargement of the church. The London eyre of 1244 recorded that in 1238 "A thief named William of Ewelme of the county of Buckingham fled to the church of St. Magnus the Martyr, London, and there acknowledged the theft and abjured the realm. He had no chattels." Another entry recorded that "The City answers saying that the church of ... St. Magnus the Martyr ... which [is] situated on the king's highway ... ought to belong to the king and be in his gift". The church presumably jutted into the road running to the bridge, as it did in later times. In 1276 it was recorded that "the church of St. Magnus the Martyr is worth £15 yearly and Master Geoffrey de la Wade now holds it by the grant of the prior of Bermundeseie and the abbot of Westminster to whom King Henry conferred the advowson by his charter."

 

In 1274 "came King Edward and his wife (Eleanor) from the Holy Land and were crowned at Westminster on the Sunday next after the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady (15 August), being the Feast of Saint Magnus (19 August); and the Conduit in Chepe ran all the day with red wine and white wine to drink, for all such as wished." Stow records that "in the year 1293, for victory obtained by Edward I against the Scots, every citizen, according to their several trade, made their several show, but especially the fishmongers" whose solemn procession including a knight "representing St Magnus, because it was upon St Magnus' day".

 

An important religious guild, the Confraternity de Salve Regina, was in existence by 1343, having been founded by the "better sort of the Parish of St Magnus" to sing the anthem 'Salve Regina' every evening. The Guild certificates of 1389 record that the Confraternity of Salve Regina and the guild of St Thomas the Martyr in the chapel on the bridge, whose members belonged to St Magnus parish, had determined to become one, to have the anthem of St Thomas after the Salve Regina and to devote their united resources to restoring and enlarging the church of St Magnus. An Act of Parliament of 1437 provided that all incorporated fraternities and companies should register their charters and have their ordinances approved by the civic authorities. Fear of enquiry into their privileges may have led established fraternities to seek a firm foundation for their rights. The letters patent of the fraternity of St Mary and St Thomas the Martyr of Salve Regina in St Magnus dated 26 May 1448 mention that the fraternity had petitioned for a charter on the grounds that the society was not duly founded.

 

In the mid-14th century the Pope was the Patron of the living and appointed five rectors to the benefice.

 

Henry Yevele, the master mason whose work included the rebuilding of Westminster Hall and the naves of Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral, was a parishioner and rebuilt the chapel on London Bridge between 1384 and 1397. He served as a warden of London Bridge and was buried at St Magnus on his death in 1400. His monument was extant in John Stow's time, but was probably destroyed by the fire of 1666.

 

Yevele, as the King’s Mason, was overseen by Geoffrey Chaucer in his capacity as the Clerk of the King's Works. In The General Prologue of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales the five guildsmen "were clothed alle in o lyveree Of a solempne and a greet fraternitee" and may be thought of as belonging to the guild in the parish of St Magnus, or one like it. Chaucer's family home was near to the bridge in Thames Street.

 

In 1417 a dispute arose concerning who should take the place of honour amongst the Rectors in the City churches at the Whit Monday procession, a place that had been claimed from time to time by the Rectors of St Peter Cornhill, St Magnus the Martyr and St Nicholas Cole Abbey. The Mayor and Aldermen decided that the Rector of St Peter Cornhill should take precedence.

 

St Magnus Corner at the north end of London Bridge was an important meeting place in mediaeval London, where notices were exhibited, proclamations read out and wrongdoers punished. As it was conveniently close to the River Thames, the church was chosen by the Bishop between the 15th and 17th centuries as a convenient venue for general meetings of the clergy in his diocese. In pictures from the mid-16th century the old church looks very similar to the present-day St Giles without Cripplegate in the Barbican. According to the martyrologist John Foxe, a woman was imprisoned in the 'cage' on London Bridge in April 1555 and told to "cool herself there" for refusing to pray at St Magnus for the recently-deceased Pope Julius III.

 

Simon Lowe, a Member of Parliament and Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company during the reign of Queen Mary and one of the jurors who acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554, was a parishioner. He was a mourner at the funeral of Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester from 1554 to 1558 and Rector of St Magnus from 1537 to 1558, who was interred in the church on 30 November 1558 with much solemnity. In accordance with the Catholic church's desire to restore ecclesiastical pageantry in England, the funeral was a splendid affair, ending in a magnificent dinner.

 

Lowe was included in a return of recusants in the Diocese of Rochester in 1577, but was buried at St Magnus on 6 February 1578. Stow refers to his monument in the church. His eldest son, Timothy (died 1617), was knighted in 1603. His second son, Alderman Sir Thomas Lowe (1550–1623), was Master of the Haberdashers' Company on several occasions, Sheriff of London in 1595/96, Lord Mayor in 1604/05 and a Member of Parliament for London. His youngest son, Blessed John Lowe (1553–1586), having originally been a Protestant minister, converted to Roman Catholicism, studied for the priesthood at Douay and Rome and returned to London as a missionary priest. His absence had already been noted; a list of 1581 of "such persons of the Diocese of London as have any children ... beyond the seas" records "John Low son to Margaret Low of the Bridge, absent without licence four years". Having gained 500 converts to Catholicism between 1583 and 1586, he was arrested whilst walking with his mother near London Bridge, committed to The Clink and executed at Tyburn on 8 October 1586. He was beatified in 1987 as one of the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales.

 

Sir William Garrard, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman, Sheriff of London in 1553/53, Lord Mayor in 1555/56 and a Member of Parliament was born in the parish and buried at St Magnus in 1571. Sir William Romney, merchant, philanthropist, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman for Bridge Within and Sheriff of London in 1603/04 was married at St Magnus in 1582. Ben Jonson is believed to have been married at St Magnus in 1594.

 

The patronage of St Magnus, having previously been in the Abbots and Convents of Westminster and Bermondsey (who presented alternatively), fell to the Crown on the suppression of the monasteries. In 1553, Queen Mary, by letters patent, granted it to the Bishop of London and his successors.

 

The church had a series of distinguished Rectors in the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th century, including Myles Coverdale (Rector 1564-66), John Young (Rector 1566-92), Theophilus Aylmer (Rector 1592-1625), (Archdeacon of London and son of John Aylmer), and Cornelius Burges (Rector 1626-41). Coverdale was buried in the chancel of St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, but when that church was pulled down in 1840 his remains were removed to St Magnus.

 

On 5 November 1562 the churchwardens were ordered to break, or cause to be broken, in two parts all the altar stones in the church. Coverdale, an anti-vestiarian, was Rector at the peak of the vestments controversy. In March 1566 Archbishop Parker caused great consternation among many clergy by his edicts prescribing what was to be worn and by his summoning the London clergy to Lambeth to require their compliance. Coverdale excused himself from attending. Stow records that a non-conforming Scot who normally preached at St Magnus twice a day precipitated a fight on Palm Sunday 1566 at Little All Hallows in Thames Street with his preaching against vestments. Coverdale's resignation from St Magnus in summer 1566 may have been associated with these events. Separatist congregations started to emerge after 1566 and the first such, who called themselves 'Puritans' or 'Unspottyd Lambs of the Lord', was discovered close to St Magnus at Plumbers' Hall in Thames Street on 19 June 1567.

 

St Magnus narrowly escaped destruction in 1633. A later edition of Stow's Survey records that "On the 13th day of February, between eleven and twelve at night, there happened in the house of one Briggs, a Needle-maker near St Magnus Church, at the North end of the Bridge, by the carelessness of a Maid-Servant setting a tub of hot sea-coal ashes under a pair of stairs, a sad and lamentable fire, which consumed all the buildings before eight of the clock the next morning, from the North end of the Bridge to the first vacancy on both sides, containing forty-two houses; water then being very scarce, the Thames being almost frozen over." Susannah Chambers "by her last will & testament bearing date 28th December 1640 gave the sum of Twenty-two shillings and Sixpence Yearly for a Sermon to be preached on the 12th day of February in every Year within the Church of Saint Magnus in commemoration of God's merciful preservation of the said Church of Saint Magnus from Ruin, by the late and terrible Fire on London Bridge. Likewise Annually to the Poor the sum of 17/6. "The tradition of a "Fire Sermon" was revived on 12 February 2004, when the first preacher was the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.

 

Parliamentarian rule and the more Protestant ethos of the 1640s led to the removal or destruction of "superstitious" and "idolatrous" images and fittings. Glass painters such as Baptista Sutton, who had previously installed "Laudian innovations", found new employment by repairing and replacing these to meet increasingly strict Protestant standards. In January 1642 Sutton replaced 93 feet of glass at St Magnus and in June 1644 he was called back to take down the "painted imagery glass" and replace it. In June 1641 "rail riots" broke out at a number of churches. This was a time of high tension following the trial and execution of the Earl of Strafford and rumours of army and popish plots were rife. The Protestation Oath, with its pledge to defend the true religion "against all Popery and popish innovation", triggered demands from parishioners for the removal of the rails as popish innovations which the Protestation had bound them to reform. The minister arranged a meeting between those for and against the pulling down of the rails, but was unsuccessful in reaching a compromise and it was feared that they would be demolished by force. However, in 1663 the parish resumed Laudian practice and re-erected rails around its communion table.

 

Joseph Caryl was incumbent from 1645 until his ejection in 1662. In 1663 he was reportedly living near London Bridge and preaching to an Independent congregation that met at various places in the City.

 

During the Great Plague of 1665, the City authorities ordered fires to be kept burning night and day, in the hope that the air would be cleansed. Daniel Defoe's semi-fictictional, but highly realistic, work A Journal of the Plague Year records that one of these was "just by St Magnus Church".

 

Despite its escape in 1633, the church was one of the first buildings to be destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. St Magnus stood less than 300 yards from the bakehouse of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane where the fire started. Farriner, a former churchwarden of St Magnus, was buried in the middle aisle of the church on 11 December 1670, perhaps within a temporary structure erected for holding services.

 

The parish engaged the master mason George Dowdeswell to start the work of rebuilding in 1668. The work was carried forward between 1671 and 1687 under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, the body of the church being substantially complete by 1676. At a cost of £9,579 19s 10d St Magnus was one of Wren's most expensive churches. The church of St Margaret New Fish Street was not rebuilt after the fire and its parish was united to that of St Magnus.

 

The chancels of many of Wren’s city churches had chequered marble floors and the chancel of St Magnus is an example, the parish agreeing after some debate to place the communion table on a marble ascent with steps and to commission altar rails of Sussex wrought iron. The nave and aisles are paved with freestone flags. A steeple, closely modelled on one built between 1614 and 1624 by François d'Aguilon and Pieter Huyssens for the church of St Carolus Borromeus in Antwerp, was added between 1703 and 1706. London's skyline was transformed by Wren's tall steeples and that of St Magnus is considered to be one his finest.

 

The large clock projecting from the tower was a well-known landmark in the city as it hung over the roadway of Old London Bridge. It was presented to the church in 1709 by Sir Charles Duncombe (Alderman for the Ward of Bridge Within and, in 1708/09, Lord Mayor of London). Tradition says "that it was erected in consequence of a vow made by the donor, who, in the earlier part of his life, had once to wait a considerable time in a cart upon London Bridge, without being able to learn the hour, when he made a promise, that if he ever became successful in the world, he would give to that Church a public clock ... that all passengers might see the time of day." The maker was Langley Bradley, a clockmaker in Fenchurch Street, who had worked for Wren on many other projects, including the clock for the new St Paul's Cathedral. The sword rest in the church, designed to hold the Lord Mayor's sword and mace when he attended divine service "in state", dates from 1708.

 

Duncombe and his benefactions to St Magnus feature prominently in Daniel Defoe's The True-Born Englishman, a biting satire on critics of William III that went through several editions from 1700 (the year in which Duncombe was elected Sheriff).

 

Shortly before his death in 1711, Duncombe commissioned an organ for the church, the first to have a swell-box, by Abraham Jordan (father and son). The Spectator announced that "Whereas Mr Abraham Jordan, senior and junior, have, with their own hands, joinery excepted, made and erected a very large organ in St Magnus' Church, at the foot of London Bridge, consisting of four sets of keys, one of which is adapted to the art of emitting sounds by swelling notes, which never was in any organ before; this instrument will be publicly opened on Sunday next [14 February 1712], the performance by Mr John Robinson. The above-said Abraham Jordan gives notice to all masters and performers, that he will attend every day next week at the said Church, to accommodate all those gentlemen who shall have a curiosity to hear it".

 

The organ case, which remains in its original state, is looked upon as one of the finest existing examples of the Grinling Gibbons's school of wood carving. The first organist of St Magnus was John Robinson (1682–1762), who served in that role for fifty years and in addition as organist of Westminster Abbey from 1727. Other organists have included the blind organist George Warne (1792–1868, organist 1820-26 until his appointment to the Temple Church), James Coward (1824–80, organist 1868-80 who was also organist to the Crystal Palace and renowned for his powers of improvisation) and George Frederick Smith FRCO (1856–1918, organist 1880-1918 and Professor of Music at the Guildhall School of Music). The organ has been restored several times - in 1760, 1782, 1804, 1855, 1861, 1879, 1891, 1924, 1949 after wartime damage and 1997 - since it was first built. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was one of several patrons of the organ appeal in the mid-1990s and John Scott gave an inaugural recital on 20 May 1998 following the completion of that restoration. The instrument has an Historic Organ Certificate and full details are recorded in the National Pipe Organ Register.

 

The hymn tune "St Magnus", usually sung at Ascensiontide to the text "The head that once was crowned with thorns", was written by Jeremiah Clarke in 1701 and named for the church.

 

Canaletto drew St Magnus and old London Bridge as they appeared in the late 1740s. Between 1756 and 1762, under the London Bridge Improvement Act of 1756 (c. 40), the Corporation of London demolished the buildings on London Bridge to widen the roadway, ease traffic congestion and improve safety for pedestrians. The churchwardens’ accounts of St Magnus list many payments to those injured on the Bridge and record that in 1752 a man was crushed to death between two carts. After the House of Commons had resolved upon the alteration of London Bridge, the Rev Robert Gibson, Rector of St Magnus, applied to the House for relief; stating that £48 6s. 2d. per annum, part of his salary of £170 per annum, was assessed upon houses on London Bridge; which he should utterly lose by their removal unless a clause in the bill about to be passed should provide a remedy. Accordingly, Sections 18 and 19 of 1756 Act provided that the relevant amounts of tithe and poor rate should be a charge on the Bridge House Estates.

 

A serious fire broke out on 18 April 1760 in an oil shop at the south east corner of the church, which consumed most of the church roof and did considerable damage to the fabric. The fire burnt warehouses to the south of the church and a number of houses on the northern end of London Bridge.

 

As part of the bridge improvements, overseen by the architect Sir Robert Taylor, a new pedestrian walkway was built along the eastern side of the bridge. With the other buildings gone St Magnus blocked the new walkway. As a consequence it was necessary in 1762 to 1763 to remove the vestry rooms at the West end of the church and open up the side arches of the tower so that people could pass underneath the tower. The tower’s lower storey thus became an external porch. Internally a lobby was created at the West end under the organ gallery and a screen with fine octagonal glazing inserted. A new Vestry was built to the South of the church. The Act also provided that the land taken from the church for the widening was "to be considered ... as part of the cemetery of the said church ... but if the pavement thereof be broken up on account of the burying of any persons, the same shall be ... made good ... by the churchwardens".

 

Soldiers were stationed in the Vestry House of St Magnus during the Gordon Riots in June 1780.

 

By 1782 the noise level from the activities of Billingsgate Fish Market had become unbearable and the large windows on the north side of the church were blocked up leaving only circular windows high up in the wall. At some point between the 1760s and 1814 the present clerestory was constructed with its oval windows and fluted and coffered plasterwork. J. M. W. Turner painted the church in the mid-1790s.

 

The rector of St Magnus between 1792 and 1808, following the death of Robert Gibson on 28 July 1791, was Thomas Rennell FRS. Rennell was President of Sion College in 1806/07. There is a monument to Thomas Leigh (Rector 1808-48 and President of Sion College 1829/30, at St Peter's Church, Goldhanger in Essex. Richard Hazard (1761–1837) was connected with the church as sexton, parish clerk and ward beadle for nearly 50 years and served as Master of the Parish Clerks' Company in 1831/32.

 

In 1825 the church was "repaired and beautified at a very considerable expense. During the reparation the east window, which had been closed, was restored, and the interior of the fabric conformed to the state in which it was left by its great architect, Sir Christopher Wren. The magnificent organ ... was taken down and rebuilt by Mr Parsons, and re-opened, with the church, on the 12th February, 1826". Unfortunately, as a contemporary writer records, "On the night of the 31st of July, 1827, [the church's] safety was threatened by the great fire which consumed the adjacent warehouses, and it is perhaps owing to the strenuous and praiseworthy exertions of the firemen, that the structure exists at present. ... divine service was suspended and not resumed until the 20th January 1828. In the interval the church received such tasteful and elegant decorations, that it may now compete with any church in the metropolis."

 

In 1823 royal assent was given to ‘An Act for the Rebuilding of London Bridge’ and in 1825 John Garratt, Lord Mayor and Alderman of the Ward of Bridge Within, laid the first stone of the new London Bridge. In 1831 Sir John Rennie’s new bridge was opened further upstream and the old bridge demolished. St Magnus ceased to be the gateway to London as it had been for over 600 years. Peter de Colechurch had been buried in the crypt of the chapel on the bridge and his bones were unceremoniously dumped in the River Thames. In 1921 two stones from Old London Bridge were discovered across the road from the church. They now stand in the churchyard.

 

Wren's church of St Michael Crooked Lane was demolished, the final service on Sunday 20 March 1831 having to be abandoned due to the effects of the building work. The Rector of St Michael preached a sermon the following Sunday at St Magnus lamenting the demolition of his church with its monuments and "the disturbance of the worship of his parishioners on the preceeding Sabbath". The parish of St Michael Crooked Lane was united to that of St Magnus, which itself lost a burial ground in Church Yard Alley to the approach road for the new bridge. However, in substitution it had restored to it the land taken for the widening of the old bridge in 1762 and was also given part of the approach lands to the east of the old bridge. In 1838 the Committee for the London Bridge Approaches reported to Common Council that new burial grounds had been provided for the parishes of St Michael, Crooked Lane and St Magnus, London Bridge.

 

Depictions of St Magnus after the building of the new bridge, seen behind Fresh Wharf and the new London Bridge Wharf, include paintings by W. Fenoulhet in 1841 and by Charles Ginner in 1913. This prospect was affected in 1924 by the building of Adelaide House to a design by John James Burnet, The Times commenting that "the new ‘architectural Matterhorn’ ... conceals all but the tip of the church spire". There was, however, an excellent view of the church for a few years between the demolition of Adelaide Buildings and the erection of its replacement. Adelaide House is now listed. Regis House, on the site of the abandoned King William Street terminus of the City & South London Railway (subsequently the Northern Line), and the Steam Packet Inn, on the corner of Lower Thames Street and Fish Street Hill, were developed in 1931.

 

By the early 1960s traffic congestion had become a problem and Lower Thames Street was widened over the next decade to form part of a significant new east-west transport artery (the A3211). The setting of the church was further affected by the construction of a new London Bridge between 1967 and 1973. The New Fresh Wharf warehouse to the east of the church, built in 1939, was demolished in 1973-4 following the collapse of commercial traffic in the Pool of London and, after an archaeological excavation, St Magnus House was constructed on the site in 1978 to a design by R. Seifert & Partners. This development now allows a clear view of the church from the east side. The site to the south east of The Monument (between Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane), formerly predominantly occupied by fish merchants, was redeveloped as Centurion House and Gartmore (now Providian) House at the time of the closure of old Billingsgate Market in January 1982. A comprehensive redevelopment of Centurion House began in October 2011 with completion planned in 2013. Regis House, to the south west of The Monument, was redeveloped by Land Securities PLC in 1998.

 

The vista from The Monument south to the River Thames, over the roof of St Magnus, is protected under the City of London Unitary Development Plan, although the South bank of the river is now dominated by The Shard. Since 2004 the City of London Corporation has been exploring ways of enhancing the Riverside Walk to the south of St Magnus. Work on a new staircase to connect London Bridge to the Riverside Walk is due to commence in March 2013. The story of St Magnus's relationship with London Bridge and an interview with the rector featured in the television programme The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank, first broadcast on BBC Four on 14 June 2012. The City Corporation's 'Fenchurch and Monument Area Enhancement Strategy' of August 2012 recommended ways of reconnecting St Magnus and the riverside to the area north of Lower Thames Street.

 

www.stmagnusmartyr.org.uk/history/history-church

"The memorial to the victims of communism is dedicated to all victims not only those who were jailed or executed but also those whose lives were ruined by totalitarian despotism"

 

View On Black

Dawn raids saw 10 people arrested as part of a crackdown on the supply of drugs in the Bury area

 

This morning (Thursday 13 June 2019) a team of officers executed warrants at properties across 6 addresses in the Manchester, Oldham, Salford and Bury areas.

 

The warrants were part of Operation Ballerina – set up by GMP to target those believed to be involved in the supply of Class A drugs across the Bury area.

 

A large amount of Class A drugs and cash was recovered and 7 men and 3 women were arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply and supplying Class A drugs and remain in custody

 

Superintendent Paul Walker, of GMP’s Bury district, said: “This was the second raid in as many weeks that specifically targeted the supply of drugs, and has now seen 18 people arrested. This morning was a huge success with a large amount of Class A drugs and cash recovered, along with several vehicles used in the commission of criminal offences.

 

“Our stance remains the same, we do not tolerate the supply of drugs, and we will continue to take action if there is any suspicion of offences being committed in Greater Manchester.

 

“Operation Ballerina is very much ongoing, and we are continuing to crack down on the supply of drugs across Bury and the wider region.

 

"Our most powerful tool in the fight against drugs is the information we receive from the community. If you suspect drugs are being used or cultivated in your area, we urge you to get in touch with the police as soon as you can."

 

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 0161 856 9023, or anonymously via the independent charity Crimestoppers, on 0800 555 111.

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website. www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

This statue of Secretariat, executed by sculptor John Skeaping in 1974 and presented as a gift of Paul Mellon to the National Museum of Saratoga stands in the center of the paddock at Belmont Park Racetrack.

 

It was here, on June 9, 1973, that Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes in dominating fashion to become the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown. Competing against only four horses before a crowd of 67,605, Secretariat won by 31 lengths in a time of 2 minutes and 24 seconds, which still remains the world record on dirt at the 1.5 mile. No horse has come within 1.4 seconds of that time. At the mile and 3/8 point, Secretariat had run faster than Man o' War's record from when the Belmont was run at that length.

 

Sired by Bold Ruler out of the dam Somethingroyal, Secretariat was born at Meadow Farm in Caroline County, Virginia in 1970. Owned by Penny Chenery, he was trained by Canadian Lucien Laurin and ridden by fellow Canadian jockey Ron Turcotte. Nicknamed Big Red, he won the Kentucky Derby in a still record time (1:59 2/5) over rival Sham whose 1:59 4/5 equals Monarchos' 2001 time as the second fastest in history. Even more impressively, he achieved the unheard of feat of "negative splitting", running each quarter-mile (402 m) segment faster than the one before it. Secretariat won the Preakness by two and a half lengths in a time that has been historically contested. The official time is recognized as 1:54 2/5, but two Daily Racing Form clockers claimed a time of 1:53 2/5 which would've broken the track record--a time that has since been matched twice and bested once. Secretariat never duplicated his Belmont Stakes performance, but continued to run impressively. His time of 1:45 2/5 for 1 1/8 miles, a world record at the time, in the inaugural Marlboro Cup. In winning his first start on grass in the Man o' War Stakes, he set a still standing track record of 2:24 4/5, without being whipped once.

 

Altogether, Secretariat won 16 of his 21 career races and finished out of the money just once. He won the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year twice--as the first two year old ever to be honored as such, and again as a three year old. In retirement at Claiborne Farm, he stood stud siring as many as 600 foals including the 1979 Travers Stakes winner General Assembly, 1986 Horse of the Year Lady's Secret, 1988 Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Risen Star, and the 1990 Melbourne Cup winner Kingston Rule. His blood flows through many other notable racehorses, including 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Smarty Jones, and he is most noted as a broodmare sire.

 

In 1989, Secretariat was afflicted with laminitis and he was euthanized on October 4. In death, he was received the ultimate honor for a horse--he was buried whole at Claiborne Farm. Before his burial, he was necropsied at the University of Kentucky where he was discovered that his heart was approximately twice the size of a normal horse.

 

ESPN listed Secretariat 35th of the 100 greatest athletes of the 20th century, one of three non-humans on the list. In 1974, Secretariat was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Arnold WeskerA meek, quiet man named Arnold Wesker (the first Ventriloquist) plans and executes his crimes through a dummy named Scarface, with the dress and persona of a 1920s gangster (complete with pinstripe suit, cigar, and Tommy gun). His name comes from the nickname of Al Capone, after whom Scarface is modeled.

 

Born into a powerful Mafia Family, Wesker developed Dissociative Identity Disorder after seeing his mother assassinated by thugs from a rival Family. Growing up, his only outlet was ventriloquism.

 

The issues Showcase '94 #8-9 establish an alternate origin story: After a barroom brawl in which he kills someone during a violent release of his repressed anger, Wesker is sent to Blackgate Penitentiary. He is introduced to "Woody"—a dummy carved from the former gallows by cellmate Donnegan—who convinces him to escape and kill Donnegan in a fight which scars the dummy, thus resulting in the birth of Scarface.

 

Wesker lets the Scarface personality do the dirty work, including robbery and murder. He is totally dominated by Scarface, who barks orders at him and degrades him with verbal (and even physical) abuse. Wesker is unable to enunciate the letter "B" while throwing his voice, and replaces them with the letter "G" instead (for example, Scarface often calls Batman "Gatman").

 

In the 1995 Riddler story The Riddle Factory, it is revealed that a gangster named "Scarface" Scarelli had once been active in Gotham City, though he had apparently died long before Batman's era. A supernatural aspect to Scarface was hinted at in Wesker's origin story in Showcase '94, when Wesker's cellmate creates the first Scarface doll from a piece of gallows wood. 2001's Batman/Scarface: A Psychodrama reinforces this and shows the dummy to be indirectly responsible for two accidents while separated from Wesker (with at least one fatality). The dummy also retained his speech impediment while operated by a young boy and seemed to even show awareness of his name during this period.

 

In one issue of The Batman Adventures, the comic book based on Batman: The Animated Series, Wesker tries to reform by working puppets in a children's show with "Froggy", a new, friendlier puppet. However, the female star of the show is outraged when the show's cancellation is announced, and, having discovered Wesker's previous crimes with Scarface, reunites her hated boss with the murderous dummy. Later, as Wesker and Scarface are getting away, Froggy comes out to save Wesker from Scarface, resulting in a car wreck and the "death" of Froggy.[1]

 

The Ventriloquist is one of many villains in the Rogues Gallery to be confined to Arkham Asylum when Batman apprehends him. One particularly memorable series of events concerning him took place during the Knightfall saga, after Bane had destroyed Arkham and released its inmates. Unable to find Scarface, the Ventriloquist uses a sock puppet in his place for a short time (aptly named Socko). After an ill-fated team-up with fellow escapee Amygdala,[2] he procures a number of other hand puppets to fill in for Scarface, including one of a police officer which he refers to as "Chief O'Hara" (in reference to a character from the 1960s Batman TV show). Later, when Wesker does indeed find Scarface, Scarface and Socko are set at odds until a standoff occurs, and the puppets shoot each other, leaving Wesker unconscious and bleeding from two wounded hands.[3]

 

During the events of the Cataclysm story arc, the stress caused by the earthquake apparently triggered the release of another personality within Wesker in the form of the 'Quakemaster', who claimed to have caused the earthquake himself over a video and threatened to trigger another unless he was paid $10 million. However, the seismologist Quakemaster had captured to provide him with information deliberately feeds him inaccurate scientific data to provide detectives looking for her with information as to her location. Robin subsequently deduces 'Quakemaster's' true identity due to his speeches always taking great effort to avoid saying any words with the letter 'B'.

 

In one issue, Wesker is apparently killed, and in a bizarre twist, Scarface appears to still talk and act alive before he is destroyed. This death appears to have been retconned in "One Year Later" (presumably due to the events of the Infinite Crisis crossover). Wesker appears as one of the members of the Secret Society of Super Villains that faces the Jade Canary, who pitches Scarface off the top of a roof.

  

The death of the Ventriloquist. Art by Don Kramer.In Detective Comics #818, an issue in what would later become the book Batman: Face the Face, Wesker is murdered by an unseen assailant. The puppet Scarface is stepped on and its head crushed. The dying Wesker uses Scarface's hand to leave a clue regarding his murder: a street name. Later in the storyline, it is revealed that Tally Man, acting as an enforcer for the Great White Shark, is responsible for the murder.[4]

 

During the Blackest Night crossover, Wesker is among the many deceased villains that receive a black power ring and is reanimated into a Black Lantern. Using his power ring, Wesker creates a construct of Scarface made of black energy. He is shown murdering many police officers.[5]

 

In The New 52 post-Flashpoint continuity, Arnold Wesker is now living, his death apparently erased from reality in the DC Universe. He appears in Batman: The Dark Knight #2. Implied to be in possession of the Venom steroid, he clashes briefly with Nightwing.

  

THOMAS, WILLIAM, architect, water-colourist, and engineer; b. c. 1799 in Suffolk, England, son of William Thomas and Ann —; m. 17 Sept. 1826 Martha Tutin in Birmingham, England, and they had four sons and six daughters; d. 26 Dec. 1860 in Toronto.

 

William Thomas’s significance among his generation of architects in British North America lies not only in the outstanding nature of the work he executed but also in the unique opportunity his career affords of tracing the relationship between his extensive preparation in England and his work in Canada, the latter being more accomplished and much more important relatively. Other architects such as John George Howard*, George Browne*, Frederic William Cumberland*, and Thomas Fuller* arrived when they were much younger than Thomas, with the result that their early work is unknown. Thomas came in his maturity.

 

Shortly after William’s birth, the family settled at Chalford, Gloucestershire, where his father was innkeeper of the Clothier’s Arms. William and his three brothers all entered the building trades. John, the youngest, was apprenticed to a letter-carver or mason at first, studied briefly under William in the early 1830s, and achieved some success as an architect; he is, however, best remembered as one of the most prolific sculptors of the period. Between 1812 and 1819 William was apprenticed to John Gardiner, a local carpenter and joiner.

 

Some time after receiving his indenture papers, William moved to Birmingham, where he married Martha Tutin in 1826. He may have been the pupil of Richard Tutin, a builder-turned-architect who was apparently a relative of Martha. In 1829 Thomas entered into partnership with him, but it was probably dissolved the following year. In 1832 Thomas moved to nearby Leamington, a flourishing watering-place in Warwickshire. Here he had a varied career: initially serving as agent for a developer, he promoted and executed his own building speculation schemes and designed numerous buildings for clients. The failure of a local bank in 1837 may have obliged him to apply for the office of town surveyor – he was acting surveyor in 1838–39 – and undoubtedly precipitated his bankruptcy in 1840, along with those of most of the other building speculators in Leamington. Thomas had opened a branch-office in Birmingham, but there were few architectural commissions available because of widespread depression in the early 1840s.

 

Thomas’s architectural work in England comprises designs for a remarkable range of structures, including houses, churches, shops, a conservatory, a public bath complex, and iron and stone bridges. The bulk of his work, however, consisted chiefly of speculative housing for the middle class in Leamington. He is known to have designed town houses on Beauchamp Terrace, beginning in 1831, and two chapels in 1834. Two impressive housing complexes followed the next year: Lansdowne Circus, a horseshoe-shaped grouping of plain Georgian-style semi-detached houses and villas (most with decorative cast-iron porches and balconies under tent-shaped roofs), and adjacent Lansdowne Crescent, a curving terrace of connected and landscaped town houses executed in a fully elaborated classical style. For Lansdowne Crescent, Thomas had acquired the property in partnership, furnished the designs, and developed some parcels with covenants requiring conformity in the design of façades. In a somewhat similar vein he was responsible for the development on Brandon Parade and Holly Walk (which adjoined both the crescent and the circus) of about ten villas, in a mixture of Grecian and Gothic Revival designs. Before his bankruptcy Thomas lived in one of these villas, Elizabethan Place, which is conspicuously dated 1836 and signed “WT.” A combination of small volumes balanced in effective groupings with ornamental flourishes at the edges is characteristic of the mature Thomas. Victoria Terrace, Pump Room and Baths, a multipurpose building begun in Leamington in 1837, formed a major focus of the town and was his grandest work in England.

 

In Duddeston (Birmingham) he erected St Matthew’s Church (Anglican) in 1839–40. This rectangular brick building, executed in a mixture of Early English and Decorated Gothic Revival styles with a projecting three-storey tower at the west end, would be used by Thomas as a basis in developing many of his Canadian churches. In the same years he was also responsible for a palatial draper’s shop in Birmingham called Warwick House. A water-colour by Thomas of this highly ornamented block, which was bombed in World War II, shows a four-storey building of seven bays, with immense display windows set between graceful piers opening up the ground floor, while the second and third floors are set off by colossal columns and the fourth floor is richly treated as an attic. This was a successful formula for commercial structures and would be used for one of Thomas’s best-known works in Canada. In essence, Thomas’s career up to this point forms a modest and provincial parallel, in its range of activity, styles, and enterprise, to that of John Nash, the fashionable architect who had done so much to reshape London in the first quarter of the 19th century.

 

In December 1842 Thomas sent to press a slim book entitled Designs for monuments and chimney pieces, a discreet piece of self-advertisement which was published in London the following year. Consisting of 41 lithographed plates with 46 Grecian, Roman, Gothic and Elizabethan patterns, the book is indicative of the eclectic approach to architectural design prevalent during the late Georgian and early Victorian periods. Like most other designers, Thomas felt free to choose historical revival styles that were deemed fitting to the location and function of a work. His churches, for example, were generally designed in the Gothic style, which readily identified their religious function and association with the devout Christian beliefs of the Middle Ages.

 

In April 1843 Thomas left England for Toronto. Precisely what prompted him, in his early 40s, to emigrate with his wife and eight children or to choose Toronto for his new home is unknown. His forced bankruptcy three years earlier and the dearth of work must have been contributing causes, but the key factor was probably his ambition. Toronto, which was entering a boom period with a population of more than 15,000 but with only three practising architects, was an appealing location for an industrious architect. Thomas’s journal of his transatlantic crossing in 1843 reveals an acute and well-informed observer. He emerges from the journal as a patient and loving father, a warm and sympathetic man. Possessed of a considerable sense of humour, he was very sociable as well and enjoyed chess, card-playing, conversation, singing, and dancing. Thomas settled with his family at 5 York Street and opened an office at 55 King Street East, in the city’s main commercial district. His first major commission in Toronto seems to have been the Commercial Bank of the Midland District on Wellington Street. Designed in 1844 and built a year later, it was one of the earliest banks fashioned in the Greek Revival mode in British North America and its façade remains one of the best examples of that style in the city. The only other bank known to have been designed by Thomas, the Bank of British North America, Hamilton (1847–49), has been demolished.

 

It was, however, his churches that brought early acclaim. Reputedly there were eventually more than 30 of these, 12 in Toronto alone. The first, St Paul’s Church (Anglican) in London, was erected in 1844–46 of red brick (with a white-brick front) in the Decorated Gothic style. Described by William Henry Smith* in the year of its completion as “the handsomest gothic church in Canada West,” it was elevated to cathedral status in 1857 [see Benjamin Cronyn*] and extended in the 1890s by means of transepts.

 

Before St Paul’s was completed, Thomas commenced his most ambitious ecclesiastical work and the largest church in Toronto at the time, St Michael’s Cathedral (Roman Catholic), which was constructed in 1845–48 of the then-fashionable white brick. Extending from Bond to Church streets on the north side of Shuter, its long flank commanded McGill Square before that area was built over. St Michael’s too was designed in the Decorated Gothic style, but on a cruciform plan, and it was both more substantial and more ornamental in character than St Paul’s. The congregation could not immediately afford Thomas’s tower and spire; these and the dormers were later added by the firm of Thomas Gundry and Henry Langley*. A palace for Bishop Michael Power* was also designed by Thomas, in the Tudor Revival style, and was erected in 1845 on Church Street just north of the cathedral.

 

Thomas was especially favoured by Presbyterian congregations, particularly those created as a result of the disruption of 1844 [see Robert Burns*]. In Toronto alone he designed Knox’s Church (Free Presbyterian), Queen Street (1847–48), a church for the United Presbyterian congregation of the Reverend John Jennings*, Bay Street (1848), and Cooke’s Church (Free Presbyterian), Queen Street (1857–58). But he worked for many other denominations in the city, designing the Methodist New Connexion Church, Temperance Street (1846), the Unitarian Church, Jarvis Street (1854), Zion Church (Congregational), Bay and Adelaide streets (1855–56), and the German Evangelical Lutheran Church, Bond Street (1856–57). All have been torn down or replaced.

 

Although Thomas was unsuccessful in the 1849 competition for the Church of England cathedral in Toronto, he received commissions in 1851–52 from Anglican congregations in Guelph and Hamilton which resulted in churches of considerable significance. St George’s Church in Guelph, begun in 1851, was not only one of the first churches executed in the Romanesque Revival style in British North America but was also one of the first based on an asymmetrical plan. Three bays, including a corner tower forming a porch on the axis of Wyndham Street, were added in stone to an existing wooden church. Designs drafted by Thomas in 1856 for the rest of the church and for an elegant interior were not implemented and the church was later demolished. In Hamilton, where he had opened an office by 1849, possibly in the care of his son William Tutin, Thomas began work on Christ’s Church (now the Anglican cathedral) in 1852. This was his most adventurous work structurally, calling for a stone building on a basilican plan, with a tall nave carried on piers, a decoratively treated open wooden roof, clerestory lighting, flanking aisles, and a short but distinct chancel. These features suggest that the design was an early instance in this province of the ritualistic neo-medievalism advocated in architectural design by the Ecclesiological Society in England, though Thomas was by no means doctrinaire in his designs for churches. Only the chancel and two bays of Christ’s Church were built, as tall additions to Robert Charles Wetherell’s neoclassical wooden church of 1842, and the disjointed effect gave rise to the name “the hump-backed church.” In 1873–77 it was completed. Simpler churches were well within Thomas’s capability and at least three still stand: St George’s-on-the-Hill Church (Anglican) of 1847 in Etobicoke (Toronto), the Free Presbyterian Church (now Grace United) of 1852 in Niagara (Niagara-on-the-Lake), and MacNab Street Church (Presbyterian) of 1856 in Hamilton. Of these, the Niagara church is particularly appealing. Executed in a predominantly Romanesque mode, it features chunky corbel tables and pilaster strips which look less skimped than those in his conventional Gothic designs.

 

Thomas’s design for another Presbyterian church in Hamilton, the well-preserved St Andrew’s (renamed St Paul’s in 1874), was his most successful composition. It was begun in 1854 on a large budget, which encouraged a rich treatment in stone and an elaborate interior. The tower is bold and massive, with deep angle buttresses and dense carving in areas such as the entrance and the gables. The octagonal spire is apparently the only stone spire erected in Ontario. The interior is equally striking in the richness of its sombre decoration, carved in dark wood. Although the cost proved ruinous for its congregation, the church has been consistently admired: in 1901 the Canadian Architect and Builder regarded it as still “well worth the study of architects” because “the construction is genuine” and “an essential part of the aim was honest work.”

 

Thomas was busy almost continuously designing a succession of significant public buildings for centres throughout British North America. These include the Fireman’s Hall and Mechanics’ Institute building, Toronto (1845), the combined district court-house, town hall, and market, Niagara (1846–48), the Talbot District Jail, Simcoe (1847–48), the House of Industry, Toronto (1848), the Kent County Court-House, Chatham (1848–49), the St Lawrence Hall, Arcade, and Market building, Toronto (1849–51), the town hall and market-house, Peterborough (1851), the town hall and market, Guelph (1856–57), the custom-house, Quebec (1856–60), the town hall and market-house, Stratford (1857), the city jail (now known as the Don Jail), Toronto (1859–64), and the Halifax County Court-House, Halifax (1858–62). All survive except those in Peterborough and Stratford, and the Fireman’s Hall and Mechanics’ Institute building in Toronto. Most of these commissions were won in competition and follow a common formula in their design: a long symmetrical front, with a projecting frontispiece under a pediment, often with colossal orders, seated on a heavy base. Not all of Thomas’s competition designs were successful. In 1859, for example, he was an unsuccessful entrant in the contest for the parliament buildings in Ottawa.

 

The best known of Thomas’s public structures is undoubtedly St Lawrence Hall in Toronto which, with its original arcade and market, comprised the St Lawrence Buildings. An earlier town hall and market on the site, designed by Henry Bowyer Joseph Lane, were destroyed in the fire of 1849 and Thomas immediately received the commission for their replacements, his design closely following his successful (but unexecuted) competition design of 1845 for refronting the earlier buildings. The St Lawrence Buildings were I-shaped, with the hall fronting on King Street, the market on Front Street, and the 200-foot arcade between the two. The hall contained shops on the ground floor, committee rooms on the second, and an assembly room on the third, the latter offering a more dignified space for concerts, balls, lectures, and the like than those provided by local hotels or the earlier town hall and market. An enlarged and more controlled version of Thomas’s Warwick House (executed in Birmingham nearly a decade earlier), St Lawrence Hall is his most graceful exercise in classical design. The market and arcade have been replaced, but the hall has been refurbished and remains an important civic focus.

 

Thomas’s earlier public buildings at Niagara and Chatham are both Late Georgian in style and nearly as restrained as St Lawrence Hall, but most of his other public works were designed in a forceful Victorian version of the Renaissance Revival style. There is a deliberate crudity of scale and texture in these visually powerful buildings which reflects their association with the law, public administration, and commerce. They are characterized by blocky masses, rugged surfaces, and abrupt transitions. The Halifax County Court-House best displays these characteristics in Thomas’s later public buildings. The dominant feature of this sandstone structure is its heavily textured frontispiece with bands of contrasting stone at every level up to the stout brackets that support the simple pediment. The three splendid keystones, which are carved in the form of sombre bearded heads and alternate with lion’s-head medallions, are hallmarks of Thomas’s last, and most vigorous, architectural phase.

 

His civic architecture also included public schools, which were just beginning to be designed in Canada as architecturally distinctive institutions. His Union School in London (1849), described two years later in a government report as “by far the finest school house in the Province,” was followed by designs for two schools in Toronto. In 1851 the city’s first elected school-board, under the chairmanship of Dr Joseph Workman*, launched a school-design competition. Thomas’s plan was used in 1852–53 for the Park and Louisa Street schools. These were designed in the Tudor style, which was popular for institutional buildings because it afforded ample lighting and ventilation as well as an interesting silhouette, all within a reasonable budget. All three schools have been demolished. In 1853 Thomas received the commission for the combined county grammar and common schools in Goderich.

 

The columnar monument to Sir Isaac Brock* on Queenston Heights (1853–56) is arguably Thomas’s most florid composition. It is 185 feet tall, rising from a richly trophied base guarded by carved lions. A colossal statue of Brock stands on a lavish capital, designed by Thomas himself rather than drawn from the classical orders. Gates, a lodge, and steps, all completed in 1859, frame the monument in scenographic fashion. Thomas displayed a stone model of it at the universal exposition in Paris in 1855.

 

His English work had consisted largely of housing and numerous Canadian examples can be identified. In Toronto, a handsome row of houses called Wellington Terrace, built on Wellington Street in 1847, has been demolished, but three units of another group, built in 1848, survive on Church Street behind St Michael’s Cathedral. In Hamilton, Thomas’s firm was said by the Halifax Reporter in 1860 to be responsible for “the greater number of the very beautiful private residences that meet the eye in every direction.” Surviving work there attributed to Thomas includes Undermount (on John Street), designed for John Young* in the Italianate style in 1847, and two Gothic villas: the Presbyterian manse (at Herkimer and Park streets), completed in 1854, and Inglewood (on Inglewood Drive), built for Archibald Kerr about the same date. Thomas’s Wilderness House (1848–51), built for Aeneas Kennedy, was destroyed in 1853. Thomas also designed a villa in London for Lawrence Lawrason*. His own Toronto residence, Oakham House (1848), a Gothic composition on Church Street, stands but has been gutted and additions replace his office wing on Gould Street; his 1859 Italianate home on Mutual Street has been destroyed. He is also known to have built houses in Toronto for at least six prominent businessmen, including John McMurrich*. Among Thomas’s last known residential works was the house, which still stands, built in St Catharines in 1859–60 for William Hamilton Merritt*.

 

Mixed commercial and residential buildings by Thomas were surely numerous too. The first of these was probably the Adelaide Buildings on Yonge Street (1844), which were altered in 1853 and subsequently torn down. In 1846 William Henry Smith described some stores designed by him and under construction on King Street, Toronto, as “the handsomest buildings of the kind in Canada, and equal to anything to be seen in England.” Although some of the stores were damaged in the fire of 1849 and others were demolished later, several still survive, now generally altered. More stylish were two Italianate works, both large-scale dry-goods businesses: the 1847 store (named the Golden Lion in 1849) of Robert Walker and Thomas Hutchinson on King Street and the premises of Ross, Mitchell and Company, built at Yonge and Colborne streets about 1856. Both have been demolished. In a period of vigorous economic growth in Canada, at least three other Toronto firms, including Bryce, McMurrich and Company, commissioned buildings from Thomas, who also designed stores in Port Hope and Hamilton.

 

Thomas formally took two of his sons, William Tutin and Cyrus Pole, both of whom he had trained, into his flourishing business in January 1857 and the firm became William Thomas and Sons. It was shortly to expand again. Thomas’s design for Knox’s Church in Toronto had so impressed visiting members of St Matthew’s Church (Presbyterian) in Halifax that, when it was destroyed by fire in 1857, his firm was asked to design its replacement, which was built on Barrington Street in 1858–59 and still stands. This project brought the Thomas firm to Halifax, where Cyrus opened an office in 1858. The firm’s successful entry that year in the county court-house competition no doubt led to commissions after the fire of 1859 for rebuilding much of the commercial section at the north end of Granville Street [see George Lang*]. At least 12 four-storey buildings, more than half of the new construction, were designed by the firm and nearly all were completed by the end of 1860. The group is remarkable not only for the number and variety of the commissions (executed simultaneously for no less than eight different clients) but for the impact of the resulting streetscape, which survives. Contiguous properties called the Palace Buildings were handled uniformly as the largest single design. Unity of effect elsewhere in the group was achieved through the use of stone (from different Nova Scotian quarries), elevations of related height, and recurring rhythms. All but one building had decorative cast-iron shop-fronts, which are important as early examples of this type of construction in British North America. Cyrus Pole Thomas visited Daniel D. Badger’s Architectural Iron Works in New York in 1860 to arrange for the shop-fronts and internal detailing, some of which were later reproduced in Badger’s lavish publication, Illustrations of iron architecture.

 

Thomas had risen quickly in Canada and had made a number of connections in the Toronto community and elsewhere. Concerned for the public enjoyment of the arts, he was probably instrumental in establishing the Toronto Society of Arts in 1847; he was elected its first president and showed his architectural drawings at the society’s exhibitions of 1847 and 1848. He maintained limited contact with English architecture through the publications that he bought and the visit he paid in 1851 to the Great Exhibition in London, where his brother John exhibited sculpture. When John George Howard made a trip to England in 1853, Thomas served as city engineer in his stead and was appointed to superintend the work on Toronto’s Esplanade. He also trained architects of the next generation, including, in addition to his sons, William George Storm*, who became a leading architect in Toronto, first in partnership with Frederic William Cumberland and then on his own.

 

The role played latterly by the sons in Thomas’s business is difficult to determine. The later work of William Tutin, who moved to Montreal about 1863, is both more assured and more flamboyant than that of his father; Cyrus, who worked in Montreal before settling in Chicago, claimed credit for the firm’s Haligonian work. It is reasonable, however, to assume a division of labour in William Thomas’s last years. He suffered “long and continued illness,” necessitating a journey to England in 1858. The financial burden of illness and treatment is reflected in the firm’s extra efforts to collect new commissions and overdue payments. There was ever-increasing competition for architectural work: by 1859 there were 16 architects in Toronto, many of them well trained in the latest developments in style and construction. Thomas’s seniority was nevertheless recognized and he was elected president in 1860 of the Association of Architects, Civil Engineers and Provincial Land Surveyors of the Province of Canada, which had been established the previous year.

 

William Thomas died on 26 Dec. 1860 of diabetes, according to cemetery records. Survived by his wife and six of their ten children, he was buried in the family’s plot at St James’ Cemetery beneath the handsome Grecian tombstone which he no doubt had designed. Although his obituary in the Globe commented conventionally that he would be remembered for “his kindly social qualities which endeared him to a numerous circle of friends,” the statement rings true. A portrait, a bust, and a photograph all show an engaging figure. Moreover, maintaining a successful practice required a diplomatic touch in an era when, increasingly, important commissions were for public buildings, which entailed intense professional competition and often difficult negotiations with building committees.

 

A combination of experience, ambition, and personality made him a leading architect, with the largest architectural practice in British North America. He apparently prided himself on his ability to design substantial structures which could be built at reasonable cost. When Upper Canada was experiencing a great wave of prosperity, Thomas and a handful of other architects, including William Hay* and Kivas Tully*, were able to design major buildings for the fast-growing communities: churches to express their faith, civic structures to display their pride and their optimism about the future, and commercial buildings and residences to reveal their growing wealth.

 

Thomas was the versatile architect who, in the manner of his period, worked in various styles, some of which he rendered in a fashion that can be clearly identified as his. The prevailing aesthetic of the picturesque movement was especially important to him, with its emphasis on variety and richness of visual effect. But deeply rooted in his work too was the older Georgian tradition of compactness, balance, and regularity. Such conservatism of style is not surprising in one who immigrated to the colony in mid life and whose contact with professional developments in Britain was limited to rare return visits and the receipt of publications. What is all the more remarkable, in contrast to other designers of the same generation working in British North America, is Thomas’s professional maturation and independence which was demonstrated, in the work he produced in his last decade, by his new-found confidence in large works, his use of cast-iron, and his own form of the Italianate style. But although he continued to develop, the financial constraints imposed by some clients, a limited range of materials, and a shortage of skilled workmen must have contributed to a certain severity that is also noticeable in his architecture.

 

It was no mean achievement to have made a major contribution to Leamington’s residential street-scape; subsequently Thomas reshaped the skyline of Canadian cities from Halifax to London with a series of churches and public buildings. George P. Ure, in his Hand-book of Toronto, claimed that “his high professional talent and correct taste have tended greatly to the embellishment and improvement” of Toronto, above all. Thomas’s obituary in the Globe concurred: “To him we owe some of the most tasteful buildings of which our city can boast.” His contributions to the development of architecture as well as the scope and quality of his work substantiate Thomas Ritchie’s claim that William Thomas was “one of the founders of the Canadian architectural profession.”

Polish: Muzeum Katyńskie

 

The Katyn Museum is located at the site of Warsaw's citadel and commemorates the Katyn massacre ("zbrodnia katyńska" in Polish) - the mass murder of approximately 22000 Polish nationals carried out by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by a proposal (dated 5th March 1940) from Lavrentiy Beria, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps who had been captured and imprisoned by the USSR during the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. This official document was approved and signed by the Soviet Politburo, including its leader Joseph Stalin.

 

As well as approximately 8000 officers of the Polish army, the victims of the Katyń massacre included 6000 police officers and thousands of university lecturers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, civic leaders, politicians, government officials, priests and other members of the "bourgeoisie" who had been targeted for arrest following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland.

 

By physically eliminating Poland’s military and civilian elites, Stalin wanted to decapitate the Polish nation and ensure it was less able to resist the enforced Sovietisation of the occupied Polish territories.

 

The victims were all citizens of Poland, but not all were ethnically Polish - for example, the murdered army officers included Ukrainians, Belarusians and several hundred Jews, among them Baruch Steinberg, the Chief Rabbi of the Polish army. The majority were interned at three Soviet camps (Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostaszków) before being taken to NKVD mass murder sites, where they were executed and buried in mass graves.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Steinberg

 

Although the killings took place at several different locations in Soviet Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the massacre is named after the Katyń forest in the Smolensk Oblast of western Russia where the graves of the Kozielsk prisoners were discovered in 1943. The exact fate of the other victims and the location of their graves was not confirmed until five decades later. After the discovery of the Katyń burial site the USSR denied responsibility for the massacre and tried to blame it on the Germans, and continued to lie about the killings for 50 years until finally admitting Soviet guilt in 1990 and revealing where the remaining victims were buried.

 

It eventually became possible to exhume and identify the bodies from the mass murder sites at Charków (Kharkiv), where the NKVD murdered the prisoners who were interned at Starobielsk, and Miednoje (Mednoye), where the NKVD murdered the prisoners who were interned at Ostaszków - as well as other locations such as Bykownia (Bykivnia).

 

Most of the Ostaszków prisoners were killed by Beria's chief executioner Vasily Blokhin, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner by Stalin at the end of April 1940 for demonstrating "skill and organisation in the effective carrying out of special tasks".

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Blokhin

 

Although several other ex-members of the NKVD eventually confessed to participating in the Katyń massacre, none of the perpetrators were ever brought to justice, and neither the Soviet government nor successive governments of Russia have ever permitted a full investigation of this war crime.

 

There's also no shortage of vatniks, tankies and other useful idiots out there who are still in denial about it, even though claims that the murders were carried out by the Germans have zero credibility and have been comprehensively debunked (it's actually impossible for the Polish prisoners interned at Ostaszków - who disappeared without trace in 1940 and whose bodies were found in Miednoje in 1991 - to have been captured, killed and buried by the Germans, who never reached either of these locations in Russia at any time during World War 2)....

 

holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2023/02/debunking-gro...

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

Executed between 1929 and 1931 for the Palais des Colonies by Alfred Janniot – assisted by his collaborators Gabriel Forestier and Charles Barberis and 30 specialist workers. The bas-relief covers a surface area of 1,130 m², a height of 13 metres and a length of 90 metres. Described as the world’s biggest bas-relief, it covers the entire façade of the Palais de la Porte Dorée. It features a series of allegories in the midst of abundant fauna and lush flora. It was intended as an illustration of the economic contributions made by the colonies to metropolitan France.

 

monument.palais-portedoree.fr/en/the-decors/janniot-s-bas...

  

Altar of the Sacred Heart, St. Annes R. C. Cathedral, Leeds designed by Greenslade and executed by Nathaniel Hitch in 1904. The gift of Peter O'Hara a wholesale grocer from Leeds. Moses is seen in the panel on the left and The Crucifixion on the right.

 

Underneath is an alabster panel depicting the Last Supper, The statue of the Sacred Heart is by Cesare Formilli, (1860 -1942) - 1922

 

From the London Gazette July 4th 1902

 

"PETER JOSEPH O'HARA, Deceased; Pursuant to the Statute, 22 and 23 Vic., cap. 35. ALL persons- having claims against. the estate of Peter .Joseph. O'Hara, late-of .5, Coburg-street, in the city of Leeds, trading as a Wholesale Provision Merchant, under the-name of O'Hara and Company, at 6 and 7, Wade-street, in Lee Is aforesaid (who died on the 16th April last), are required to send written particulars thereof 'before 9th August next to the undersigned Solicitor for his executors, the Very Reverend .Canon Roger O’Hara, the Reverend Denis O'Hara, Patrick Wyms, and Martin Casey, who will, after such date, distribute the deceased's assets, having regard only to the claims of which they shall then have had notice. —Dated 3rd July, 1902. RICHARD FELIX MORGAN-, Victoria-chambers, South Parade, Leeds."

  

More on Cesare Formilli - www.royalacademy.org.uk/ra-magazine/blog/review-amongst-h...

 

www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/reading-the-ch...

 

Translated by Google

 

"Formilli, Cesare. - He was born in Rome to Alessandro and Medosi Carolina and was baptized on 1 August 1860 (Rome, Arch stor. Vicariate, S. Andrea delle Frate, Baptisms, 1860 f. No. 65. 565). Student at the Institute of Fine Arts in Rome, F. later attended the courses of the pictorial decoration of the School of Drawing Application to the industrial arts, industrial annexed to the Museum of Art, edited by D. Bruschi.

On the occasion of the exhibitions organized at the end of the course of the school year in which students were exposed to the wise, F. In 1878 he exhibited drawings for a piece of furniture and a mirror painted the following year won the second prize for the design of a cabinet in the Renaissance style (Raimondi, 1984-85).

 

Still very young F. was part of the group of artists "gathered spontaneously" around John (Nino) Costa (Italy ... 1885, p. 46) that, since the early years of his career, was a fundamental point of reference. The F. In fact, before he joined the Golden Club, then the Circle of Italian artists, both founded by Costa (1876, 1879) with the express purpose of promoting the renewal of painting in Italy. In subsequent years, the F. continued to support the efforts of the teacher, including the formation of the Etruscan School, a group of considerable importance for the Roman artistic environment created by the French between 1883 and 1884, not coincidentally the first works of F., and Le Fiumicino early morning hours (Jervis, 1991), were exhibited in 1885 along with the other "Etruscan", as part of the usual exhibitions organized by the Society of amateurs and connoisseurs of fine arts. Of them, as most of the works of F., the current location is unknown.

 

The work early in the morning we can know the subject as it was reproduced in photogravure signed Corticelli and designed by F., of Italy ... 1885 (p. 65): a smooth running of naked cherubs on a lawn wrapped in the fog.

 

Always appear on the same periodic two photogravures, probably the first tests of F. as an illustrator. The first is a drawing, engraved by E. Ballarini, which reproduces a fragment of the entablature of the Baths of Agrippa, described in an article by A. Capannari (1882, p. 3 s.) And which serves as a frontispiece to the first issue of the magazine (1882, p. 1). The second, entitled Funiculì Funiculà, it is only signed by F. as a designer, and according to what was stated in a short anonymous article, plays the part of "a watercolor painting on silk done by a fan from the young Mr. Formilli" (1883, p. 160).

 

The F. was a member of the group "In Arte Libertas" (Rossetti Agresti, 1904, p. 218), born at the initiative of the painters A. Morani and A. Ricci and strongly inspired by the innovative programs of the Coast. The F. not participated in the first exhibition of the association held in 1886, but in the same year, together with the artists themselves, was among the authors of the graphic works intended to illustrate the "founder of Italian art books" (I. de Guttry - MP Maino - M. Quesada, The minor arts copyright in Italy from 1900 to 1930, Rome-Bari 1985, p. 136), the poetry collection of G. D'Annunzio Isaotta Guttadauro, for this F. executed an engraving illustrating some verses of the poem Hyla! Hyla! (Frandini, 1972, p. XXXII). At the second exhibition of the group took place in 1887, at the studio of S. Vannutelli Pamphili palace in Piazza Navona, F. participated with a work of which it is known the title in English: Sabine Hills (Jervis, 1991). The links of the association, as those of the School Etruscan (which among other things were part of many British artists), with England were, in fact, very solid in the same year, the artist exhibited two landscapes at the Grosvenor Gallery London (Graves, 1969), which for many years was the stronghold of the "Etruscan", later replaced by the New Gallery. During the exhibition held in London in 1888, the artists of the "Art In Libertas" was reserved for a particular room.

 

On this occasion the F. presented to the public the following works: River Farfa Sabina, Morning Mountain juniper (which is perhaps to be identified with the Sabine Hills), First hour of the night, Trees Ludovisi Villa, Villa Medici, S. Pietro seen from the Tiber, after the hurricane, Ostia, Villa Adriana, Tivoli, costume worn by Charlemagne at his coronation in Rome in 801, carried out in collaboration with G. Vannicola (Esposiz. ital., London, 1888).

 

The F. appears also among the signatories of the Statute of the "Art In Libertas", drawn up in 1890 (Rossetti Agresti, 1904, p. 220). Even in this first phase of activity of F. could go back to the two watercolors, Villa Borghese in Rome and Older homes Piperno (Rome, coll. S. Raskovic: Raskovic, 1989; De Rosa PA - PE Trastulli, '800 Lazio, Rome 1994, p. 43).

 

Since 1894, F. permanent resident in London, and in this same year, he was able to exhibit the manifestations of the Royal Academy. The F. began by presenting a design for the decoration of a house in Lisbon the following year, the design for a living, in 1896 the preparatory panels with female figures and peacocks for a room in Walsingham House, decoration that was to be performed in multi-colored graffiti, a particular technique developed by the artist (Graves, 1905 The Studio, 1897 n. 56, p. 119-121). Of the other works exhibited at the Royal Academy in the following years we only know the English titles reported by Graves (1905): 1899 Closing the link, depicting a blacksmith's forge (The Athenaeum, May 27, 1899, p. 664) 1902 Surprised , 1903 My son's regiment. Between 1887 and 1913, again in England, F. participated in several art exhibitions in which he exhibited a total of 85 works of which, however, do not know the titles (Johnson - Greutzner, 1976).

 

The contacts with Italy were kept, though: on the occasion of the great International Exhibition held in Rome in 1911 were commissioned to F. reproductions casts of the tombs of Edward the Confessor and Henry III and his daughter, performed by masters cosmateschi to Westminster Abbey; these works, exhibited in this circumstance in the Castel Sant'Angelo, are now part of the collections of the Museum of Rome (Nos. 397, 400, 399; Calosso Bertini, 1911 Dangers Ridolfini, 1963).

 

A sign of the esteem that the F. he earned with his appointment to London was the Commander of the Crown of Italy, an honor of which he could boast on the title page of his first literary work, The stones of Italy, published in London in 1927. In this work, illustrated with 32 photographs from his watercolors F. remember having held the position of Commissioner of the English section at the Rome Biennale II, which also took part as an exhibitor (catal., p. 174 ff.).

 

The purpose of the book was to propose a "journey" in particular places of the peninsula, not necessarily among the best known, of which the author refers impressions, suggestions, with frequent digressions on episodes of the past history. The F. chose mostly little-known buildings and monuments, most of the Middle Ages. We recall in this connection a few titles: The Genoa side entrance of the Cathedral of St. Lorenzo and Port Sovereign with the house of C. Columbus; Viterbo The balcony of the beautiful Galiana, in Venice The antique shop at the bridge of the Dai and the square of S. Geronimo. The original watercolors of Palazzo Bevilacqua in Bologna and 'wing of the cathedral of Milan with the tower of St. Gottardo are currently located at the collection Raskovic (Raskovic, 1989).

 

Characters quite similar has the second test of literary F., The castles of Italy, published in London in 1933, with 24 illustrations taken from watercolors (see also The Connoisseur, April 1934, p. 271) the artist himself. This is the last track so far known of the many-sided activity of F.: The premise of the book is dated March 20, 1933 and was written in Rome. No known neither the place nor the date of death of Formilli.

 

Sources and Bibl.: A. Capannari, About ancient Corinthian entablature nell'efebeo discovery of the Baths of Agrippa, in Italy and artistic shows, I (1882-83), p. 1, 3 s.; Funiculì Funiculà, ibid., II (1883), p. 158, 160, G. Cantalamessa, Giovanni Costa, ibid., III (1885), p. 46 s., C., Our engravings, ibid., P. 63, 65; Italian Exhibition in London, Report, London, 1888, p. 459, 478, 495 s., O. Rossetti Agresti, Giovanni Costa. His life, work and times, London 1904, p. 202, 211 s., 218, 220; A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts. A complete dictionary of contributors and their work From its foundation in 1769 to 1904, London 1905, II, p. 140, A. Bertini Calosso The retrospective exhibitions in the Castel Sant'Angelo, in Art, XIV (1911), p. 462 n. 2; General Guide of retrospective exhibitions in the Castel Sant'Angelo, Bergamo, 1911, p. 76-80; F. Hermanin, The retrospective exhibitions in the Castel Sant'Angelo, New Anthology, April 1911, p. 535, P. Misciattelli, The Life and Art in Castel Sant'Angelo, Life in Art, IV (1911), p. 110, E. Somare, History of Italian painters 800, Milan, 1928, II, p. 77, A. Muñoz, Museum of Rome, Rome, 1930, p. 12-15, C. Dangers Ridolfini, Visit to the Museum, in the Museum of Rome. Itinerary, Rome 1963 p. 23, P. Frandini, Nino Costa and the Roman art scene between 1870 and 1890, in aspects of art in Rome from 1870 to 1914 (catal.), Rome 1972, p. XXX-XXXII, G. Posts, the "Byzantine Chronicle," "The Banquet" and the luck of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Rome, ibid., P. XXXVI, The Etruscan School. Centenary 1876-1976 (catal.), London 1976, pp.. nn, The Etruscan School from 1870 to 1900. Inglese artists working in Rome (catal.), Carlisle, 1978, p. 3, 7 AM Damsel, The Symbolist painting in Italy from 1885 to 1890, Turin 1981, p. 81 n. 86 D. Sources, Cellini, Rome, 1981, p. 10, 13, 18 s.; Nino Costa and his English friends (catal.), edited by S. Berresford - P. Nicholls, Milan 1982, p. nn, G. Seedlings, Costa, John, in Diz. biogr. the Italians, XXX, Rome 1984, p. 193 G. Raimondi, The Museum of Industrial Art, thesis, University of the Studies of Rome "La Sapienza", aa 1984-1985, p. 8, 201, 225, P. Pallottino, History of Illustration Italian, Bologna 1988, p. 189; painters dell'Immaginifico. D'Annunzio and illustrators of his works, edited by R. Mammuccari - R. Langella (catal., Rome), Velletri, 1989, p. 30, S. Raskovic, A sentimental artistic painter. CF, ibid., P. 160 s.; Hufschmidt TF - L. Jannattoni, Ancient Greek coffee. History environments collections, Rome 1989, p. 50; Marabottini TA, Nino Costa, Turin 1990, p. 40 s.; C. Bon Valsassina, Painting in Rome in the second half of the nineteenth century, painting in Italy. The nineteenth century, Milan 1991 I, p. 447, 460, AV Jervis, ibid., II, p. 830 s., H. Vollmer, Künstlerlexikon des XX. Jahrh., II, p. 133, A. Graves, A Dictionary of artists who have Exhibited works in the principal London exhibitions from 1760 to 1893, Bath 1969, p. 101 J. Johnson - A. Greutzner, The Dictionary of British artists 1880-1940, Suffolk 1976, p. 181 J. Busse, aller Maler und Internationales Handbuch des Bildhauer 19. Jahrhunderts, Wiesbaden 1977, p. 422."

 

and

 

"Caesar Formilli (Rome 1860 -? 1935)

 

Caesar Formilli, watercolourist and writer on art, was born August 1, 1860 in Rome.

 

He attended the Museum of Industrial Art, where he studied decorative painting. During his studies, receiving awards for school furniture designs. He goes to Nino Costa, which suffers strongly influence, and joined in 1879 in the Artists' Club, founded by Costa in response to criticism of Italian art at the Paris Exposition of 1878. In 1884 part of the founding group of the "School Etruscan", an association, commissioned by Costa, landscape painters of Italian and English, which is still raised in the painting to identify the sentiment of nature. Formilli participates with the artists of this association to the exhibitions of the Society of Amateurs and Connoisseurs Rome in 1885 with two paintings, Fiumicino and the first hours of the morning. In 1886, together with other artists, called by Joseph Cellini, collaborates illustration of 'Isaotta Guttadauro of Gabriele D'Annunzio. In 1887 Formilli participate in the Show group "In Arte Libertas" with the landscape Sabine Hills, Anglophiles expression of the feelings of the artist, which led him towards the end of the century to move to London. Here you can take part in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and with twenty-four color plates illustrating the book, The Castles of Italy, published in 1934. He died in London on December 8, 1942.

 

Pasqualina Di Gaeta

 

REFERENCES:

 

Painters and Painting nineteenth century Italian De Agostini, Novara 1997-1998

 

Thieme-Becker, Allge meines bildenden Lexikon der Künstler, Leipzig 19 92

 

Various Authors: Painting in Italy - The nineteenth century - Electa, Milan 1991

 

AM Comanducci, Visual Dictionary of painters and engravers modern Italian, Milan 1962"

Egypt 1936: Indiana Jones has failed. He was somehow captured and executed by the Nazis. Fortunately, the Ark was not found. It is still hidden in Tanis beneath the dunes. Now... 14 sets of people have been chosen to be sent back to the thirties to hunt the

ark...

 

The rules: find the Ark. And deliver it safely to the Allied nations before the Nazis find it.

 

May the best combatant win!

 

SCENARIO:

  

In the desert....

 

A wormhole opens and drops two individuals into the sand... One clad in a flanel shirt and jeans, the other his wife. Kenny and Becca receive their instructions and look out at the soldier infested dig site...

 

Nathan and Ashley find themselves in the desert as well. They know their job, and Nathan looks out at the surroundings, picking up on details only an absolute movie geek would even know. He tightens his fedora and strides forward, wife in hand.

 

A small door appears in the sand. Out walks a young blonde girl who just received directions from a white rabbit. "Curiouser and curiouser...."

 

A small tornado drops a house in the dunes. As the door creaks open a young brunette and her dog realize they aren't in Kansas anymore....

 

In the camp the Nazis.... A robed man is yanked into a tent. A minute later the same man appears again. Or does he? Look closely and you can see that this man has green feet and two toes. Leonardo's eyes look forward with purpose as he seeks anyone with answers...

 

Another portal drops a well dressed man with a panama hat in the sand. Juan Valdez screams as his pot of Columbian coffee spills on his hand. He stands, and with a quizzical look says, "Que?"

 

Explosions rock the front lines and a bearded man breaks another soldier's neck. Chuck Norris, cowboy hat and all, as arrived. He grabs the only remaining German soldier by the neck and slams him into a truck. "Where is the Ark....?"

 

After draining his Canteen full of cookie dough down his throat, Cookie Monster continues his trek towards the Archaelogical dig. Willing and ready to find the Ark, which he plans to fill with Milanos....

 

A similar portal drops a small white glove in the kitchen area of the Nazi camp. He contemplates two things.... One: How Cheeseburger helper would make even these meals better and Two: How does one hand carry an Ark?

 

A Disc like craft crashes into the nearby desert. A tentacled being crawls from the wreckage and initates the self destruct and blows the craft apart. The creature had been promised that the artifact he searches for will guarantee a future victory over Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum....

 

Sweating and breathing heavily, William Shatner (NOT Kirk) struggles to reach the camp in time. The whole time wondering what sort of deals Priceline may have on Hotels locally.....

 

The door to the weapons bunker creaks open... Bill Nye in a blue overcoat enters and looks the situation over. Wondering what he may be able to construct to save the Ark and save the future...

 

Slave One lands, allowing the most feared bounty hunter in the "Galaxy far, far away" to search for his most expensive bounty yet. Boba Fett cocks his gun, and slowly moves toward the site...

 

Billy Mays uses a Zorbeez to wipe the sweat off his brow. He curses Vince Offer as his towel is nowhere near as absorbent as ShamWow. He secretly wishes that the Ark could be found with 5 easy payment of $19.95....

  

Caedwalla of Wessex

 

In 685 it was invaded by Caedwalla of Wessex. The Jutish king of the Isle of Wight, Arwald, died in action and his nephews were betrayed to Caedwalla, who subsequently died of wounds received in the battle. The two boys were converted to Christianity and immediately executed. Their names are unknown, but are called collectively "St.Arwald"- after their pagan uncle (who died fighting Christianity).

 

The West Saxon invasion was by all accounts prolonged and bloody.

 

St.Bede states that "...After Caedwalla had obtained possession of the kingdom of the Gewissae, he took also the Isle of Wight, which till then was entirely given over to idolatry, and by merciless slaughter, endeavoured to destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and to place their stead people from his own province; binding himself by a vow, though it is said that he was not yet regenerated in Christ, to give the fourth part of the land and of the spoil to the Lord, if he took the Island. He fulfilled this vow by giving the same for the service of the Lord to Bishop Wilfrid..."

 

It is reported in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle that during Caedwalla's attempts to subdue the population he was gravely wounded - wounds from which he would die within a couple of years. Before final subjugation most of the Jutish population of the island were killed and the remnant forced to accept Christianity as their religion and the West Saxon dialect as their language. Bede states that Caedwalla endeavoured to "mercilessly" destroy the population, but that 300 "hides" were given to the Church in the person of St Wilfrid. A "hide" was the amount of land required to support a family, and the Island was rated at 1200 hides. Caedwalla was a Christian sympathiser under the tutelage of St Wilfrid and St Aldhelm and had promised Wilfrid a quarter of the land in return for his assistance in claiming the Wessex throne. Unfortunately for them, the Jutish Islanders were not only heathens, but apostates, and the mass conversion of the Island probably did not occur as smoothly as had been planned.

 

From 685 therefore the island can be considered to have become part of Wessex and following the accession of West Saxon kings as kings of all England then part of England. The island became part of the shire of Hampshire and was divided into hundreds as was the norm.

[edit] The Saxons

 

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells how Wiht-land suffered particularly from Viking predations. Alfred the Great's navy defeated the Danes in 871 after they had "ravaged Devon and the Isle of Wight". During the second wave of Viking attacks in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (975-1014) the Isle of Wight was taken over by the Danes as a base to harry Southern England, referred to as their "frith-stool". The inlet on the west of the River Medina at Werrar Copse seems to have been their main base. In 1002 Ethelred ordered the killing of all the Danes in England in the St. Brice's Day Massacre but the Danish Army remained intact, based on the Isle of Wight. In 1012 Sweyn Forkbeard revenged the Danish defeat. Ethelred was forced to flee England: he spent Christmas on the Isle of Wight en route to refuge in Normandy.

 

The Island again played a critical role in English history as the base for Harold Godwinson and his brothers in their revolt against Edward the Confessor and yet again in 1066, when Tostig Godwinson arrived to collect supplies - but very little other support - en route to his defeat by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Both men had manors on the Isle of Wight - Harold at Kern and Tostig at Nunwell.

[edit] The Norman Conquest

 

In the Domesday book (1086) the Island's name is Wit. The Norman Conquest of 1066 transferred the overall manorial rights of the Island to William FitzOsbern as Lord of the Isle of Wight. Carisbrooke Priory and the fort of Carisbrooke Castle were founded. The Island did not come under full control of the Crown until it was sold by the dying last Norman Lord, Lady Isabella de Fortibus, to Edward I in 1293.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment, with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him.

[edit] Medieval

 

After the Norman Conquest, the title of Lord of the Isle of Wight was created and William Fitz-Osborne who subsequently founded Carisbrooke Priory and the fortifications on what was to become Carisbrooke Castle became the first to hold the title. (It is possible that the site of Carisbrooke Castle had previously been fortified originally by Romans and subsequently by Jutes or Saxons; there still remains a late Saxon burgh, or defensive wall, built to defend the site from Viking raiders.) The Island did not come under the full control of the crown until the Countess Isabella De Fortibus sold it to Edward I in 1293 for six thousand marks.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him. The title of Lord of the Isle of Wight expired in the reign of Henry VII with the title of Governor or Captain being used for sometime thereafter. During the English Civil War King Charles fled to the Isle of Wight believing he would receive sympathy from the governor Robert Hammond. Hammond was appalled, and incarcerated the king in Carisbrooke Castle. Charles was later tried and executed in London.

 

Henry VIII who developed the Royal Navy and its permanent base at Portsmouth, fortifications at Yarmouth, East & West Cowes and Sandown, sometimes re-using stone from dissolved monasteries as building material. Sir Richard Worsley, Captain of the Island at this time, successfully commanded the resistance to the last of the French attacks in 1545. In July 1545; French troops had landed on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight. Their aim was to seize important areas of the island; allowing the French to gain overall control of the Isle of Wight; giving the French a valuable jumping-off point for further operations against the mainland. However, the French advance was decisively defeated, when the local Isle of Wight militia defeated the French troops in the Battle of Bonchurch. Much later on after the Spanish Armada in 1588 the threat of Spanish attacks remained, and the outer fortifications of Carisbrooke Castle were built between 1597 and 1602.

 

In 1587 two Roman Catholic missionaries Anderton and Marsden, originally from Lancashire, but trained in France, were returned to England in disguise on the ferry to Dover, but due to a severe gale landed in Cowes in the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately for them, such was the danger they were in that they loudly prayed to God to "save the first of your seminarians to returm=n to England" which was overheard by fellow passengers who reported them to Governor Carey. They were taken to London for trial, but executed by hanging, drawing and quartering in Cowes, although the exact site is unknown. They were declared "Venerable" by Pope Pius XI.

[edit] Early Modern and Modern

 

Charles I evaded custody under the Army at Hampton Court by riding to Southampton in order to escape to Jersey. However,he and his companion became lost in the New Forest and missed their intended ship, and fled to the Isle of Wight instead. The Governor Colonel Robert Hammond had declared for Parliament and Charles was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Since an extensive bowling green was built for his use this was initially in some comfort, but this was made closer after an abortive escape attempt, when he failed to get through the window to where Royalist sympathisers under John Oglander were waiting with a horse.

 

Charles was approached by the Presbyterian faction of Parliament and concluded the Treaty of Newport, offering him a constitutional monarchy. However Charles had no intention of accepting its restrictions upon Royal power and also concluded the Engagement with the Scots to invade on his behalf. As a result of his perceived faithlessness, the moderate faction at Parliament were discredited and Charles was moved to more prison-like conditions at Hurst Castle and thence to execution on 30 January 1649.

 

Later Cromwell was to use Carisbrooke Castle as a place of imprisonment for Fifth Monarchists opposed to his Protectorate including Thomas Harrison and Christopher Feake.

 

Queen Victoria made the Isle of Wight her home for many years, and as a result it become a major holiday resort for members of European royalty, whose many houses could later claim descent from her through the widely flung marriages of her offspring. During her reign in 1897 the World's first radio station was set up by Marconi at the Needles battery at the western tip of the Island.

 

The famous boat-building firm of J. Samuel White was established on the Island in 1802. Other noteworthy marine manufacturers followed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Saunders-Roe a key manufacturer of the Flying-boats and the world's first hovercraft. The tradition of maritime industry continues on the Island today.

 

In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, a sizeable network of railways was built on the island, notable for its punishing gradients and numerous tunnels, particularly to reach the town of Ventnor. Since the early twentieth century, these lines were often linked to plans for a tunnel under the Solent, an idea still talked of today. Most of the rail network closed between 1956 and 1966, and is now a series of cyclepaths.

 

The first Governor to hold the crown representative title used now of Lord-Lieutenant was Lord Mountbatten of Burma until his murder in 1979. Lord Mottistone was the last Lord Lieutenant to also hold the title Governor (from 1992 to 1995). Since 1995 there has been no Governor appointed and Mr Christopher Bland has been the Lord Lieutenant.

[edit] Caulkheads and other Island terms

 

Historically, inhabitants of the Isle of Wight have been known as Vectensians or Vectians (pronounced Vec-tee-ans). These terms derive from the Latin name for the Island, Vectis. Vectian is a word used more formally to describe certain geological features which are typical of the Island. As with many other small island communities the term Islander has long been used, and is commonly heard today. The term Overner is used for people originating from mainland Great Britain. This is an abbreviated form of Overlander; which is an archaic English term for an outsider still found in a few other places such as parts of Australia.[5]

 

People born on the island are colloquially known as Caulkheads (sometimes erroneously written as it is spoken, Corkheads), a word comparable with the name Cockney for those born in the East End of London. Some argue that the term should only apply those who can also claim they are of established Isle of Wight stock either by proven historical roots or, for example, being third generation inhabitants from both parents' lineage.[6]

 

One theory about the term 'caulkhead' is that it comes from the once prevalent local industry of caulking boats; a process of sealing the seams of wooden boats with oakum. It is said that the shipyard at Bucklers Hard in the New Forest employed labourers from the Isle of Wight , mainly as caulkers, in the building of early warships. Islanders may have been called "Caulkheads" during this time either because they were indeed so employed, or merely as a derisory term for perceived unintelligent labourers from another place. Another more fanciful story is that a group of armoured Island horsemen were chased into the sea by the marauding French, and took refuge on a sandbank when the tide came in, thus appearing to float in the sea despite their heavy armour, hence the name Cork- i.e. Caulk-, -heads When this supposed event happened is not clear, since the Island was frequently attacked in the Middle Ages, however in the last instance in 1546 Sandown Castle was under construction some way offshore and a battle was fought on site, resulting in the French being driven off and this could fit this particular tale.[7] In local folklore it is said that a test can be conducted on a baby by throwing it into the sea from the end of Ryde Pier whereupon a true caulkhead baby will float unharmed. Thankfully there is no record of the test ever being carried out.

[edit] Political History

 

The island's most ancient borough was Newtown on the large natural harbour on the island's north-western coast. A French raid in 1377, that destroyed much of the town as well as other Island settlements, sealed its permanent decline. By the middle of the sixteenth century it was a small settlement long eclipsed by the more easily defended town of Newport. Elizabeth I breathed some life into the town by awarding two parliamentary seats but this ultimately made it one of the most notorious of the Rotten Boroughs. By the time of the Great Reform Act that abolished the seats, it had just fourteen houses and twenty-three voters. The Act also disenfranchised the borough of Yarmouth and replaced the four lost seats with the first MP for the whole Isle of Wight; Newport also retained its two MPs, though these were reduced to one in 1868 and eventually abolished completely in 1885.

 

Often thought of as part of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight was briefly included in that county when the first county councils were created in 1888. However, a "Home Rule" campaign led to a separate county council being established for the Isle of Wight in 1890, and it has remained separate ever since. Like inhabitants of many islands, Islanders are fiercely jealous of their real (or perceived) independence, and confusion over the Island's separate status is a perennial source of friction.

 

It was planned to merge the county back into Hampshire as a district in the 1974 local government reform, but a last minute change led to it retaining its county council. However, since there was no provision made in the Local Government Act 1972 for unitary authorities, the Island had to retain a two-tier structure, with a county council and two boroughs, Medina and South Wight.

 

The borough councils were merged with the county council on April 1, 1995, to form a single unitary authority, the Isle of Wight Council. The only significant present-day administrative link with Hampshire is the police service, the Hampshire Constabulary, which is joint between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

 

From the closing decades of the 20th century onwards, there has been considerable debate on the Island over whether or not a bridge or tunnel should connect the island with mainland England. The Isle of Wight Party campaigned from a positive position, although extensive public debate on the subject revealed a strong body of opinion amongst islanders against such a proposal. In 2002 the Isle of Wight Council debated the issue and made a policy statement against the proposal.

[edit] Autonomy and Political Recognition

 

A number of discussions about the status of the island have taken place over many years, with standpoints from the extreme of wanting full sovereignty for the Isle of Wight, to perhaps the opposite extreme of merging with Hampshire. The pro-independence lobby had a formal voice in the early 1970s with the Vectis National Party. Their main claim was that the sale of the island to the Crown in 1293 was unconstitutional. However, this movement now has little serious support. Since the 1990s the debate has largely taken the form of a campaign to have the Isle of Wight recognized as a distinct region by organizations such as the EU, due to its relative poverty within the south-east of England. One argument in favour of special treatment is that this poverty is not acknowledged by such organizations as it is distorted statistically by retired and wealthy (but less economically active) immigrants from the mainland.

 

In more recent times, the regionalist movement has been represented by the Isle of Wight Party.

[edit] Isle of Wight Disease

 

In 1904 a mysterious illness began to kill honeybee colonies on the island, and had nearly wiped out all hives by 1907 when the disease jumped to the mainland, and decimated beekeeping in the British Isles. Called the Isle of Wight Disease, the cause of the mystery ailment was not identified until 1921 when a tiny parasitic mite, Acarapis woodi was first described by J. Rennie. The mite inhabited the tracheae of individual bees, and greatly shortened their lifespan, causing eventual death of the colony. The disease (now called Acarine Disease) frightened many other nations because of the importance of bees in pollination. Laws against importation of honeybees were passed, but this merely delayed the eventual spread of the parasite to the rest of the world.

[edit] The Isle of Wight Festival

Main article: Isle of Wight Festival

 

A large rock festival took place near Tennyson Down, West Wight in 1970, following two smaller concerts in 1968 and 1969. The 1970 show was notable for being the last public performance by Jimi Hendrix before his death. The festival was revived in 2002 and is now an annual event,[8] with other, smaller musical events of many different genres across the Island becoming associated with it.

 

The first of the modern festivals was a one day affair termed Rock Island,[9] which expanded to two days in 2003,[9] then three days by 2004.[10]

Cette statue avait été exécutée à la fin du XVIIIe siècle pour Mlle Clairon, célèbre actrice du Théâtre-Français, et décorait la maison qu'elle avait achetée en 1786 à Issy, près de Paris. Sur le socle, elle avait fait graver deux vers de Voltaire:

"qui que tu sois, voici ton maître:

il l'est, le fut, ou le doit être!"

Achetée ensuite par A. D. Cromot de Fougy, conseiller du roi, l'oeuvre fut transférée sous la Révolution au dépôt du château de Sceaux, puis exposée au musée des Monuments français où elle figura de 1796 à 1806. En 1807, le ministre de l'Intérieur Champagny signa l'ordre de la transférer à Malmaison, où elle était destinée à orner le nouveau temple de l'Amour construit dans le parc de l'impératrice en bordure de la rivière anglaise. Ce petit bâtiment de forme classique, surélevé sur un podium de quatre marches, présentait en façade un fronton décoré d'une couronne de fleurs encadrées par des rubans et six colonnes en marbre des Flandres. Pour compléter ce décor, des vases de fleurs furent installés à l'entrée et des massifs de rhododendrons plantés sur les berges de la rivière.

C'est à l'intérieur de ce temple, sous la voûte ornée de rosaces, que fut placée la statue de Tassaert. Ce sculpteur anversois, qui étudia à Londres puis à Paris, fut agréé à l'Académie en 1769 et réalisa également deux statues de Louis XV et une de Madame de Pompadour en Diane. Appelé à Berlin en 1775 par le roi de Prusse Frédéric II comme sculpteur officiel de sa cour, il y fut très actif, décorant les divers châteaux royaux jusqu'à sa mort en 1788.

En 1877, lors de la vente du domaine de Malmaison, cette sculpture entra dans les collections du musée du Louvre, qui la déposa au château en 1970.

 

Webster Replying to Senator Hayne, the centerpiece painting in the Great Hall at Faneuil Hall, was executed by artist George Peter Alexander Healy from 1843-1850. The largest painting in the Hall's collection, it depicts Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster debating with South Carolina Senator Robert Y. Hayne on preserving the Union when the country was on the brink of the Civil War.

 

Faneuil Hall, part of the Boston National Historical Park and a well-known stop along the Freedom Trail, has served as a marketplace and meeting hall since 1742. Known as the "Cradle of Liberty", it was the site of several important events of the American Revolution including James Otis' re-dedication address in 1763, Samuel Adams' impassioned plea following the Boston Massacre in 1970 that eventually led to the establishment of the Committee of Correspondence here in 1772, and the first meeting in protest of the imposed tea tax in 1773 that ultimately led to the Boston Tea Party.

 

The original Hall was built by artist John Smibert in 1740–1742 in the style of an English country market, with an open ground floor and an assembly room above. The 38-pound, 52-inch gilded grasshopper weathervane on top of the building was created by silversmith Shem Drowne in 1742 and was modeled on the grasshopper weathervane on the London Royal Exchange. Funded by a wealthy Boston merchant, Peter Faneuil, who died shortly after the building was completed. Almost destroyed by a fire in 1761, it was rebuilt with funds raised by the state lottery and re-opened in 1763.

 

By 1806, the city had outgrown the hall and Charles Bulfinch was commissioned to expand the building--doubling the height and width, while managing to keep intact the walls from the original structure. Four new bays were added, to make seven in all; a third floor was added; the open arcades were enclosed; and the cupola was centered and moved to the east end of the building. Bulfinch applied Doric brick pilasters to the lower two floors, with Ionic pilasters on the third floor. This renovation added galleries around the assembly hall and increased its height. The building was entirely rebuilt in 1898–1899, of noncombustible materials. The building underwent a major internal renovation during the 1970's.

 

Faneuil Hall is now part of the larger Faneuil Hall Marketplace, which includes three long granite buildings called North Market, Quincy Market, and South Market. Its success in the late 1970s led to the emergence of similar marketplaces in other U.S. cities. Inside the Hall are dozens of paintings of famous Americans, including the mural of Webster's Reply to Hayne and Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington at Dorchester Heights. The first floor operates as a market, while the second floor is taken up by the Great Hall, where Boston's town meetings were once held. The third floor houses the museum and armory of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. Founded in 1638, this is the oldest military company in the US, and considered the third oldest in the world.

 

In recent history, Faneuil Hall was the home to President John F. Kennedy's last campaign speech and Senator John Kerry's concession speech in the 2004 presidential election.

 

The Marketplace fronted by Miss Anne Whitney's Samuel Adams statue on Congress Street.

 

In 2007, Faneuil Hall Marketplace was ranked #64 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.

 

In 2008, Faneuil Hall was ranked #4 in America's 25 Most Visited Tourist Sites by Forbes Traveler.

 

National Historic Register #66000368

 

Below is a list of notable people buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

 

Thomas Ashe - died on hunger strike in 1917

Kevin Barry - a medical student executed by the British for his role in the Irish War of Independence. (His body was moved from Mountjoy Prison to Glasnevin in October 2001, having been accorded a state funeral.)

Piaras Beaslai - Easter Rising survivor turned writer

Sir Alfred Chester Beatty - art collector

Brendan Behan - author and playwright

Harry Boland - friend of Michael Collins and anti-Treaty politician. Image of Harry Boland's grave

Christy Brown - writer of My Left Foot and subject of the film of the same name

Father Francis Browne - Jesuit priest and photographer who took the last known photographs of RMS Titanic

Cathal Brugha - first President of Dáil Éireann (January - April 1919) Image of Cathal Brugha's grave

Sir Roger Casement - Human rights campaigner turned Irish revolutionary, executed by the British in 1916.2Image of Casement grave

Robert Erskine Childers - Irish republican and Treaty signatory executed by the Irish Free State government during the Irish Civil War. Erskine Childers' grave, located in the Republican Plot.

J. J. Clancy - Irish Nationalist MP (1847-1928)

Michael Collins - assassinated republican leader, Anglo-Irish Treaty signatory & first internationally recognised Irish head of government.

Dáithí Ó Conaill - a founder member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

Roddy Connolly - socialist politician and son of James Connolly.

Andy Cooney - Irish republican

John Philpot Curran - patriotic barrister, renowned wit, lawyer on behalf of Wolfe Tone and other United Irishmen, Sarah Curran's father.

William Dargan - Ireland's rail pioneer

Charlotte Despard

Éamon de Valera - 3rd President of Ireland (1959-1973) and dominant leader of 20th century.

Sinéad de Valera - wife of Éamon de Valera, buried in the same plot.

Anne Devlin - famed housekeeper of Robert Emmet

John Devoy - Fenian leader. Image of John Devoy's grave.

John Blake Dillon - Irish writer and politician

Martin Doherty IRA member

Frank Duff - founder of the Legion of Mary

James Fitzmaurice - aviation pioneer

Edmund Dwyer Gray - Irish 19th century MP, son of Sir John Gray.

Sir John Gray - Irish 19th century MP. Image of Sir John Gray's gravestone

Maud Gonne - nationalist campaigner, love of W.B. Yeats's life, famed beauty and mother of Nobel & Lenin Peace Prize winner Seán MacBride, who is buried in the grave also. Image of Maud Gonne & Seán MacBride's grave

Arthur Griffith - President of Dáil Éireann (January - August 1922).

Joseph Patrick Haverty - Irish painter

Tim Healy - 1st Governor-General of the Irish Free State. image of Tim Healy's grave.

Denis Caulfield Heron - lawyer and politician

Gerard Manley Hopkins - poet

Peadar Kearney - composer of the Irish National Anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann

Kitty Kiernan - fiancée of Michael Collins

James Larkin - Irish trade union leader and founder of the Irish Transport & General Workers Union (ITGWU).

Seán MacBride - founder of Clann na Poblachta and a founder-member of Amnesty International.

Edward Cardinal MacCabe - late 19th century Archbishop of Dublin & Primate of Ireland. Image of the elaborate monument to Cardinal MacCabe.

Dick McKee - prominent member of the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence.

Terence MacManus - Irish rebel and shipping agent.

James Patrick Mahon - Irish nationalist politician and mercenary.

Countess Constance Markiewicz - first woman elected to the British House of Commons and a minister in the first Irish government.

Manchester Martyrs - gravestone honouring three members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood known in history as the Manchester Martyrs who were in fact buried in the grounds of a British prison following their execution by the British.

Dermot Morgan - Irish satirist and star of Father Ted. He was cremated in Glasnevin but is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery.

Kate Cruise O'Brien - writer & publisher. This is not Kate O'Brien who is buried in Faversham Cemetery.

Daniel O'Connell - dominant Irish political leader from 1820s to 1840s. O'Connell's tomb under the specially built round tower O'Connell's tomb interior

Patrick Denis O'Donnell - well-known Irish military historian, writer, and former UN peace-keeper.

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa - Fenian leader. Patrick Pearse's oration at his funeral in 1915 has gone down in history.

Eoin O'Duffy - Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and leader of The Blueshirts.

Thomas O'Hagan, 1st Baron O'Hagan - Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

Kevin O'Higgins - assassinated Vice-President of the Executive Council.

Seán T. O'Kelly - 2nd President of Ireland (1945-1959).

John O'Mahony - a founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

John O' Leary (Fenian poet) [1]

James O'Mara - nationalist leader and member of the First Dáil

Henry O'Neill - painter and archaeologist.

Charles Stewart Parnell - dominant Irish political leader from 1875 to 1891.

Patrick (P.J.) Ruttledge - Minister in Éamon de Valera's early governments.

Daniel D. Sheehan - first independent Irish labour MP.

Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington - founder of Irish Women's Franchise League

Patrick James Smyth Journalist and politician

David P. Tyndall - prominent Irish businessman who transformed the grocery business

 

Caedwalla of Wessex

 

In 685 it was invaded by Caedwalla of Wessex. The Jutish king of the Isle of Wight, Arwald, died in action and his nephews were betrayed to Caedwalla, who subsequently died of wounds received in the battle. The two boys were converted to Christianity and immediately executed. Their names are unknown, but are called collectively "St.Arwald"- after their pagan uncle (who died fighting Christianity).

 

The West Saxon invasion was by all accounts prolonged and bloody.

 

St.Bede states that "...After Caedwalla had obtained possession of the kingdom of the Gewissae, he took also the Isle of Wight, which till then was entirely given over to idolatry, and by merciless slaughter, endeavoured to destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and to place their stead people from his own province; binding himself by a vow, though it is said that he was not yet regenerated in Christ, to give the fourth part of the land and of the spoil to the Lord, if he took the Island. He fulfilled this vow by giving the same for the service of the Lord to Bishop Wilfrid..."

 

It is reported in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle that during Caedwalla's attempts to subdue the population he was gravely wounded - wounds from which he would die within a couple of years. Before final subjugation most of the Jutish population of the island were killed and the remnant forced to accept Christianity as their religion and the West Saxon dialect as their language. Bede states that Caedwalla endeavoured to "mercilessly" destroy the population, but that 300 "hides" were given to the Church in the person of St Wilfrid. A "hide" was the amount of land required to support a family, and the Island was rated at 1200 hides. Caedwalla was a Christian sympathiser under the tutelage of St Wilfrid and St Aldhelm and had promised Wilfrid a quarter of the land in return for his assistance in claiming the Wessex throne. Unfortunately for them, the Jutish Islanders were not only heathens, but apostates, and the mass conversion of the Island probably did not occur as smoothly as had been planned.

 

From 685 therefore the island can be considered to have become part of Wessex and following the accession of West Saxon kings as kings of all England then part of England. The island became part of the shire of Hampshire and was divided into hundreds as was the norm.

 

The Saxons

 

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells how Wiht-land suffered particularly from Viking predations. Alfred the Great's navy defeated the Danes in 871 after they had "ravaged Devon and the Isle of Wight". During the second wave of Viking attacks in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (975-1014) the Isle of Wight was taken over by the Danes as a base to harry Southern England, referred to as their "frith-stool". The inlet on the west of the River Medina at Werrar Copse seems to have been their main base. In 1002 Ethelred ordered the killing of all the Danes in England in the St. Brice's Day Massacre but the Danish Army remained intact, based on the Isle of Wight. In 1012 Sweyn Forkbeard revenged the Danish defeat. Ethelred was forced to flee England: he spent Christmas on the Isle of Wight en route to refuge in Normandy.

 

The Island again played a critical role in English history as the base for Harold Godwinson and his brothers in their revolt against Edward the Confessor and yet again in 1066, when Tostig Godwinson arrived to collect supplies - but very little other support - en route to his defeat by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Both men had manors on the Isle of Wight - Harold at Kern and Tostig at Nunwell.

 

The Norman Conquest

 

In the Domesday book (1086) the Island's name is Wit. The Norman Conquest of 1066 transferred the overall manorial rights of the Island to William FitzOsbern as Lord of the Isle of Wight. Carisbrooke Priory and the fort of Carisbrooke Castle were founded. The Island did not come under full control of the Crown until it was sold by the dying last Norman Lord, Lady Isabella de Fortibus, to Edward I in 1293.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment, with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him.

 

Medieval

 

After the Norman Conquest, the title of Lord of the Isle of Wight was created and William Fitz-Osborne who subsequently founded Carisbrooke Priory and the fortifications on what was to become Carisbrooke Castle became the first to hold the title. (It is possible that the site of Carisbrooke Castle had previously been fortified originally by Romans and subsequently by Jutes or Saxons; there still remains a late Saxon burgh, or defensive wall, built to defend the site from Viking raiders.) The Island did not come under the full control of the crown until the Countess Isabella De Fortibus sold it to Edward I in 1293 for six thousand marks.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him. The title of Lord of the Isle of Wight expired in the reign of Henry VII with the title of Governor or Captain being used for sometime thereafter. During the English Civil War King Charles fled to the Isle of Wight believing he would receive sympathy from the governor Robert Hammond. Hammond was appalled, and incarcerated the king in Carisbrooke Castle. Charles was later tried and executed in London.

 

Henry VIII who developed the Royal Navy and its permanent base at Portsmouth, fortifications at Yarmouth, East & West Cowes and Sandown, sometimes re-using stone from dissolved monasteries as building material. Sir Richard Worsley, Captain of the Island at this time, successfully commanded the resistance to the last of the French attacks in 1545. In July 1545; French troops had landed on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight. Their aim was to seize important areas of the island; allowing the French to gain overall control of the Isle of Wight; giving the French a valuable jumping-off point for further operations against the mainland. However, the French advance was decisively defeated, when the local Isle of Wight militia defeated the French troops in the Battle of Bonchurch. Much later on after the Spanish Armada in 1588 the threat of Spanish attacks remained, and the outer fortifications of Carisbrooke Castle were built between 1597 and 1602.

 

In 1587 two Roman Catholic missionaries Anderton and Marsden, originally from Lancashire, but trained in France, were returned to England in disguise on the ferry to Dover, but due to a severe gale landed in Cowes in the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately for them, such was the danger they were in that they loudly prayed to God to "save the first of your seminarians to returm=n to England" which was overheard by fellow passengers who reported them to Governor Carey. They were taken to London for trial, but executed by hanging, drawing and quartering in Cowes, although the exact site is unknown. They were declared "Venerable" by Pope Pius XI.

[edit] Early Modern and Modern

 

Charles I evaded custody under the Army at Hampton Court by riding to Southampton in order to escape to Jersey. However,he and his companion became lost in the New Forest and missed their intended ship, and fled to the Isle of Wight instead. The Governor Colonel Robert Hammond had declared for Parliament and Charles was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Since an extensive bowling green was built for his use this was initially in some comfort, but this was made closer after an abortive escape attempt, when he failed to get through the window to where Royalist sympathisers under John Oglander were waiting with a horse.

 

Charles was approached by the Presbyterian faction of Parliament and concluded the Treaty of Newport, offering him a constitutional monarchy. However Charles had no intention of accepting its restrictions upon Royal power and also concluded the Engagement with the Scots to invade on his behalf. As a result of his perceived faithlessness, the moderate faction at Parliament were discredited and Charles was moved to more prison-like conditions at Hurst Castle and thence to execution on 30 January 1649.

 

Later Cromwell was to use Carisbrooke Castle as a place of imprisonment for Fifth Monarchists opposed to his Protectorate including Thomas Harrison and Christopher Feake.

 

Queen Victoria made the Isle of Wight her home for many years, and as a result it become a major holiday resort for members of European royalty, whose many houses could later claim descent from her through the widely flung marriages of her offspring. During her reign in 1897 the World's first radio station was set up by Marconi at the Needles battery at the western tip of the Island.

 

The famous boat-building firm of J. Samuel White was established on the Island in 1802. Other noteworthy marine manufacturers followed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Saunders-Roe a key manufacturer of the Flying-boats and the world's first hovercraft. The tradition of maritime industry continues on the Island today.

 

In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, a sizeable network of railways was built on the island, notable for its punishing gradients and numerous tunnels, particularly to reach the town of Ventnor. Since the early twentieth century, these lines were often linked to plans for a tunnel under the Solent, an idea still talked of today. Most of the rail network closed between 1956 and 1966, and is now a series of cycle paths.

 

The first Governor to hold the crown representative title used now of Lord-Lieutenant was Lord Mountbatten of Burma until his murder in 1979. Lord Mottistone was the last Lord Lieutenant to also hold the title Governor (from 1992 to 1995). Since 1995 there has been no Governor appointed and Mr Christopher Bland has been the Lord Lieutenant.

[edit] Caulkheads and other Island terms

 

Historically, inhabitants of the Isle of Wight have been known as Vectensians or Vectians (pronounced Vec-tee-ans). These terms derive from the Latin name for the Island, Vectis. Vectian is a word used more formally to describe certain geological features which are typical of the Island. As with many other small island communities the term Islander has long been used, and is commonly heard today. The term Overner is used for people originating from mainland Great Britain. This is an abbreviated form of Overlander; which is an archaic English term for an outsider still found in a few other places such as parts of Australia.

 

People born on the island are colloquially known as Caulkheads (sometimes erroneously written as it is spoken, Corkheads), a word comparable with the name Cockney for those born in the East End of London. Some argue that the term should only apply those who can also claim they are of established Isle of Wight stock either by proven historical roots or, for example, being third generation inhabitants from both parents' lineage.

 

One theory about the term 'caulkhead' is that it comes from the once prevalent local industry of caulking boats; a process of sealing the seams of wooden boats with oakum. It is said that the shipyard at Bucklers Hard in the New Forest employed labourers from the Isle of Wight , mainly as caulkers, in the building of early warships. Islanders may have been called "Caulkheads" during this time either because they were indeed so employed, or merely as a derisory term for perceived unintelligent labourers from another place. Another more fanciful story is that a group of armoured Island horsemen were chased into the sea by the marauding French, and took refuge on a sandbank when the tide came in, thus appearing to float in the sea despite their heavy armour, hence the name Cork- i.e. Caulk-, -heads When this supposed event happened is not clear, since the Island was frequently attacked in the Middle Ages, however in the last instance in 1546 Sandown Castle was under construction some way offshore and a battle was fought on site, resulting in the French being driven off and this could fit this particular tale.[7] In local folklore it is said that a test can be conducted on a baby by throwing it into the sea from the end of Ryde Pier whereupon a true caulkhead baby will float unharmed. Thankfully there is no record of the test ever being carried out.

 

Political History

 

The island's most ancient borough was Newtown on the large natural harbour on the island's north-western coast. A French raid in 1377, that destroyed much of the town as well as other Island settlements, sealed its permanent decline. By the middle of the sixteenth century it was a small settlement long eclipsed by the more easily defended town of Newport. Elizabeth I breathed some life into the town by awarding two parliamentary seats but this ultimately made it one of the most notorious of the Rotten Boroughs. By the time of the Great Reform Act that abolished the seats, it had just fourteen houses and twenty-three voters. The Act also disenfranchised the borough of Yarmouth and replaced the four lost seats with the first MP for the whole Isle of Wight; Newport also retained its two MPs, though these were reduced to one in 1868 and eventually abolished completely in 1885.

 

Often thought of as part of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight was briefly included in that county when the first county councils were created in 1888. However, a "Home Rule" campaign led to a separate county council being established for the Isle of Wight in 1890, and it has remained separate ever since. Like inhabitants of many islands, Islanders are fiercely jealous of their real (or perceived) independence, and confusion over the Island's separate status is a perennial source of friction.

 

It was planned to merge the county back into Hampshire as a district in the 1974 local government reform, but a last minute change led to it retaining its county council. However, since there was no provision made in the Local Government Act 1972 for unitary authorities, the Island had to retain a two-tier structure, with a county council and two boroughs, Medina and South Wight.

 

The borough councils were merged with the county council on April 1, 1995, to form a single unitary authority, the Isle of Wight Council. The only significant present-day administrative link with Hampshire is the police service, the Hampshire Constabulary, which is joint between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

 

From the closing decades of the 20th century onward, there has been considerable debate on the Island over whether or not a bridge or tunnel should connect the island with mainland England. The Isle of Wight Party campaigned from a positive position, although extensive public debate on the subject revealed a strong body of opinion amongst islanders against such a proposal. In 2002 the Isle of Wight Council debated the issue and made a policy statement against the proposal.

Autonomy and Political Recognition

 

A number of discussions about the status of the island have taken place over many years, with standpoints from the extreme of wanting full sovereignty for the Isle of Wight, to perhaps the opposite extreme of merging with Hampshire. The pro-independence lobby had a formal voice in the early 1970s with the Vectis National Party. Their main claim was that the sale of the island to the Crown in 1293 was unconstitutional. However, this movement now has little serious support. Since the 1990s the debate has largely taken the form of a campaign to have the Isle of Wight recognized as a distinct region by organizations such as the EU, due to its relative poverty within the south-east of England. One argument in favour of special treatment is that this poverty is not acknowledged by such organizations as it is distorted statistically by retired and wealthy (but less economically active) immigrants from the mainland.

 

In more recent times, the regionalist movement has been represented by the Isle of Wight Party.

 

Isle of Wight Disease

 

In 1904 a mysterious illness began to kill honeybee colonies on the island, and had nearly wiped out all hives by 1907 when the disease jumped to the mainland, and decimated beekeeping in the British Isles. Called the Isle of Wight Disease, the cause of the mystery ailment was not identified until 1921 when a tiny parasitic mite, Acarapis woodi was first described by J. Rennie. The mite inhabited the tracheae of individual bees, and greatly shortened their lifespan, causing eventual death of the colony. The disease (now called Acarine Disease) frightened many other nations because of the importance of bees in pollination. Laws against importation of honeybees were passed, but this merely delayed the eventual spread of the parasite to the rest of the world.

 

The Isle of Wight Festival

Main article: Isle of Wight Festival

 

A large rock festival took place near Tennyson Down, West Wight in 1970, following two smaller concerts in 1968 and 1969. The 1970 show was notable for being the last public performance by Jimi Hendrix before his death. The festival was revived in 2002 and is now an annual event, with other, smaller musical events of many different genres across the Island becoming associated with it.

 

The first of the modern festivals was a one day affair termed Rock Island, which expanded to two days in 2003, then three days by 2004.

Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York

 

The Baumann Brothers Furniture and Carpets Store was built in 1880-81 for James McCreery (1826-1903), a well-known textiles merchant of Scottish descent. It was designed by the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine, whose principals, David and John Jardine, were brothers also of Scottish birth.

 

One of the more prominent, prolific, and versatile New York firms in the late-nineteenth century, D. & J. Jardine executed designs for a wide variety of building types, including a number of notable cast-iron fronts, in contemporary styles. The wide cast-iron front facade of the Baumann Brothers store, manufactured by the West Side Architectural Iron Works, is one of the Jardines’ and one of the city’s most inventive, unusual, and ornamental. Built toward the end of the heyday of cast-iron fronts in New York and the flourishing creativity in that material, the Baumann Brothers store is also a signal achievement of Aesthetic Movement design.

 

An amalgam of ornamental influences, including neo-Classical, neo-Grec, and Queen Anne styles, is embraced to achieve a decorative overall composition. Another designed, though simpler, facade on 13th Street is clad in brick and stone with a cast-iron ground story. The building’s prime location was in the midst of Manhattan’s primary retail shopping district, which included 14th Street, Union Square, and Ladies’ Mile. From 1881 to 1897, it housed Baumann Brothers, a furniture manufacturing company established c. 1870 by Albert and Ludwig Baumann, Bohemian Jewish immigrants. By 1884, the firm occupied the entire structure and billed itself as “the largest and most complete furnishing establishment in America.”

 

For eight decades, the ground story contained 5-10-and-25-cent stores, beginning with the fourth Woolworth store in Manhattan (1900-28), acclaimed at its opening as “the largest ten-cent store in the world” and in 1910 the location of the chain’s first lunchroom. This space was later a store for F. & W. Grand, H.L. Green, and McCrory. The upper stories were leased for over eight decades for show rooms and manufacturing by various firms related to the textile and sporting goods industries, as well as a gymnasium and classrooms for the Delehanty Institute (1930-63), which trained candidates of the Police and Fire Departments. The upper stories are currently used as an annex to the Parsons School of Design, while the ground story contains a drugstore.

 

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

 

Union Square, Ladies’ Mile, and 14th Street

 

The land for Union Square, at the juncture of Broadway and the Bowery (later Fourth Avenue and Park Avenue South) north of 14th Street, was set aside as a public space by the City in 1832 and opened as a park in 1839. Residential development, on lots facing the square and on the blocks to the east, began in the 1830s. This area emerged as the city’s most fashionable neighborhood and, by the end of the 1840s, the square was surrounded by residences. With the expansion of New York’s port in the 1840s and the introduction of railroads into Lower Manhattan in the 1850s, the drygoods trade grew rapidly and the city solidified its position as the country’s leading commercial center. As downtown business and warehouse districts expanded to handle this trade, hotels, retail shops, and theaters moved northward along Broadway, following residential development. The first hotels were built in the Union Square area around 1850. The Academy of Music (1853-54, Alexander Saeltzer; demolished) and Steinway Hall (1863-64, John Kellum; 1866; demolished) on East 14th Street contributed to Union Square’s status as the city’s entertainment and classical music center. Most of the city’s piano makers and many theaters, both legitimate and popular, located here.

 

By the end of the Civil War, many of the residences around the square were being converted to boarding houses or to commercial uses, and large retail stores, such as Tiffany & Co. (1868), began to replace earlier buildings. Within a decade, the stretch of Broadway, particularly between Union and Madison Squares, had become known as “the Ladies’ Mile” and was lined with the country’s foremost purveyors of fashion, furniture, and luxury items. In addition, the area to the east of Union Square was the northern extent of Kleindeutschland, the German-American community that by 1880 constituted about one-third of the city’s population. The magnitude of commercial activity in the vicinity was indicated by King’s Handbook of New York in 1893:

 

the retail shopping district [is] from 10th Street to above 23d Street. In Broadway, 14th Street and 23d Street principally, the prominent retail establishments are the wonder and admiration of all who see them, and in extent and in variety of goods they are not surpassed elsewhere in the world. It has been estimated that the trade in this district annually amounts to over $500,000,000.

 

James McCreery and the Construction of His Building at 22-26 East 14th Street

 

In 1880, well-known drygoods merchant James McCreery purchased the southern portion of the parcel of land at 22-26 East 14th Street (that extended through the block to 19-25 East 13th Street), between Fifth Avenue and University Place near Union Square. The northern portion of this parcel, the site of the Greek Revival style hotel Arlington House (1846), was once part of the farm of Henry Spingler (c. 1746-1814) dating from the late-eighteenth century; this portion of the parcel was retained by Spingler’s heirs in the Van Beuren family, so it was leased by McCreery. This land (and the building that McCreery constructed on it) remained under the separate ownership of the Van Beuren estate and McCreery interests until the 1960s, when the entire lot and the building came under common ownership.

 

James McCreery (1826-1903), born in Ireland of Scottish Presbyterian descent, immigrated to Baltimore in 1845. He worked for the drygoods firm of Hamilton Easter & Co. and in the late 1850s was that company’s agent in Paris. In 1862, McCreery moved to New York City where he found a position with Ubsdell, Peirson & Lake, a drygoods concern at 471 Broadway. He became a partner in Lake & McCreery at that location in 1864; after Lake’s retirement in 1867, the firm became James McCreery & Co. McCreery built his own store (1868-69, John Kellum; altered), at 801 Broadway (northwest corner of East 11th Street) that featured two full cast-iron fronts and a mansard roof. This prime location was just a block north of A.T. Stewart’s cast-iron-fronted Uptown Store (1862-70, Kellum; demolished). McCreery sold his new building to the Methodist Book Concern and Missionary Society, remaining as a tenant, but repurchased the property in 1889 and his firm occupied the entire building. Considered “one of the most highly esteemed dry-goods establishments in America,” primarily for retail and wholesale textiles, McCreery operated “the largest silk-dealing house in the country” according to the New York Times. He opened a branch store (1893-94, Alfred Zucker; demolished) at Sixth Avenue and West 23rd Street. At the time of his firm’s 25th anniversary, McCreery was listed by the Times “in the front rank of the merchant princes of the metropolis.” After McCreery retired from business in 1901, his son James Crawford McCreery (1853-1934), who had been in his father’s firm since 1877 and was a partner since 1889, formed the James McCreery Realty Co. to handle the family’s extensive real estate holdings and served as president.

 

Architects D. & J. Jardine filed in November 1880 for the construction of a five-story castiron-fronted, timber-and-iron-framed building for a first-class drygoods store on McCreery’s 14th Street parcel. The Manufacturer and Builder in January 1881 carried the following item:

 

A large store is to be erected by James McCreery on the south side of East Fourteenth street, at Nos. 22, 24 and 26, now occupied by the Arlington Building. It will extend through to Thirteenth street, and will be five stories high. Its ground dimensions will be 75 feet front and 206-1/2 feet in depth. The material will be brick, with an iron front. The estimated cost is $75,000.

 

Construction began in December 1880 and was completed in September 1881, with Samuel Lowden as mason. The full cast-iron front facade of the structure was manufactured by the West Side Architectural Iron Works. The rear 13th Street facade is clad in brick and stone with a cast-iron ground story. The building originally featured an elevator to the second story.

 

It is unknown whether McCreery planned to relocate his own firm here, but he never used the building for his own business. Roughly two-thirds (Nos. 22-24) was initially leased to Baumann Brothers for a furniture and carpets store. The businesses of two other early tenants, in Nos. 24-26, failed: Flint & Warren (1881), purveyors of drygoods, millinery, wraps, furs, and Paris costumes; and E. D. Bassford (1882-83), dealer in crockery and house furnishings.

 

The Architects: D. & J. Jardine

 

Born in Whithorn, Wigtownshire, Scotland, David Jardine (1830-1892) trained under his builder-architect father before immigrating to America in 1850. In New York City he established an architectural practice by 1855, then was a partner in Jardine & [Edward G.] Thompson in 1858-60. His brother, John Jardine (1838-1920), also born in Whithorn, immigrated to the United States and worked for the U.S. government during the Civil War in the design of monitors and gunboats. John moved to New York City, and in 1865 formed an architectural partnership with David. D. & J. Jardine, which lasted until David’s death, was one of the more prominent, prolific, and versatile architectural firms in the city in the second half of the nineteenth century. George Elliott Jardine (1841-1902), another brother from Whithorn, began working for the firm in 1882. All three brothers were members of the Saint Andrew’s Society of the State of New York, a Scottish-American organization which was apparently the source of some of their commissions. A fourth member of the firm, from 1872 to 1891, was Jay (Joseph) H. Van Norden.

 

D. & J. Jardine was active in rowhouse development in Greenwich Village and on the Upper East and Upper West Sides from the late-1860s through the mid-1880s. The firm achieved prominence for its designs, in a variety of contemporary styles, for religious structures, store-andloft buildings, warehouses, office buildings, and apartment houses. D. & J. Jardine designed a number of notable cast-iron-fronted buildings, including: No. 319 Broadway (“Thomas Twin”)(1869-70); G. Rosenblatt & Bro. Buildings, 57 Walker Street (1870), and 734 Broadway (1872-73); No. 28 Howard Street (1872), for F.G. Frazer; Davies Building (1874-75), 678 Broadway; Jones Building (1875-76, demolished), 171-175 8th Avenue, for drygoods merchant Owen Jones; B. Altman & Co. Building (1876-80), 625-629 Sixth Avenue; No. 121 Mercer Street (originally owned by the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary) (1879); and Baumann Brothers (1880-81).

 

Among the firm’s other notable extant commissions are: the Fourth Reformed Presbyterian Church (1874), 359-365 West 48th Street; D.S. Hess & Co. Building (1880), 35-37 West 23rd Street; and the Castree-Halliday Buildings (1887), store-and-loft structures located at 13-17 Jay Street. The firm’s multiple-residential structures, few of which survive, included the Jardine Apartments (1872, demolished), 203-205 West 56th Street, one of New York City’s earliest French flats buildings; Clermont Apartments (1878, demolished), 1706-1708 Broadway; St. Marc Hotel (1880, demolished), 434 Fifth Avenue; Palermo Apartments (1882, demolished), 125 East 57th Street; Dundonald Flats (1885), 71 West 83rd Street; the Alpine (1886-87, demolished), bachelor flats at 1282-1286 Broadway; and the Wilbraham (1888-90), bachelor flats at 1 West 30th Street.

 

Of D. & J. Jardine in 1885, it was said that “no firm of architects has done so much toward beautifying and building up the city as th[is] prominent and old established house,” while David Jardine was later called by the American Architect & Building News “one of the best known of the older generation of New York architects.” After David’s death in 1892, John and George Jardine were joined by William W. Kent in the firm of Jardine, Kent & Jardine. In 1911, the firm became Jardine, Kent & [Clinton M.] Hill; its successor firm after 1913 was Jardine, Hill, & [Harris H.] Murdock. John Jardine committed suicide in 1920 at the age of 82. The firm continued as Jardine, Murdock, & Wright after 1936.

 

Cast-Iron-Fronted Buildings in New York City

 

Cast iron was used as an architectural material for entire facades of American commercial buildings in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century, and was particularly popular in New York City. Promoted and manufactured by James Bogardus and Daniel D. Badger, cast-iron parts were exported nationally for assembly on the site. Touted virtues of cast iron included its low cost, strength, durability, supposed fireproof nature, ease of assembly and of parts replacement, ability to provide a wide variety of inexpensive ornament, and paintable surfaces. The economy of cast-iron construction lay in the possibilities inherent in prefabrication: identical elements and motifs could be continually repeated and, in fact, could be later reproduced on a building addition, thus extending the original design. After a number of simple “constructive” cast-iron buildings in the late 1840s by Bogardus, the material was employed for commercial (store-and-loft, warehouse, and office) buildings modeled after Venetian palazzi, from the mid-1850s through the 1860s. Designed in imitation of masonry and featuring round-arched fenestration, this mode is exemplified by the Cary Building (1856-57, King & Kellum), 105-107 Chambers Street, and the Haughwout Building (185657, John P. Gaynor), 488-492 Broadway.

 

After the Civil War, the French Second Empire style began to influence designs in cast iron. Some buildings, such as McCreery’s store (1868-69) and No. 287 Broadway (1871-72, John B. Snook), were still Italianate but with mansard roofs. Cast-iron fronts in the Second Empire style, produced into the 1880s, were generally articulated with segmental-arched fenestration framed by columns and pilasters; large areas of glass; and a certain abstraction and paring-down of elements combined with the usage of variations on classically-inspired ornament. Examples are the Arnold Constable Store (1868-76, Griffith Thomas), 881-887 Broadway, and No. 28-30 Greene Street (1872, Isaac F. Duckworth). The arrangement of cast-iron fronts, with their layered stories of arcades and colonnades, in turn influenced the design of contemporary masonry commercial buildings in New York.

 

A third type of cast-iron front, which emerged after about 1870, fully exploited the possibilities of the material and featured a basic grid of large rectangular fenestration framed by columns/pilasters and vertical members that were highly abstracted and greatly reduced in width. Examples include the Roosevelt Building (1873-74, Richard Morris Hunt), 478-482 Broadway; No. 34-42 West 14th Street (1878, W. Wheeler Smith); No. 462 Broadway (1879, John Correja); and No. 361 Broadway (1881-82, Smith).

 

In a few instances, major architects produced more exotic works, such as the Moorish style Van Rensselaer Store (1871-72, Hunt; demolished), 474-476 Broadway, and No. 435 Broome Street (1873, William Appleton Potter), with Eastlake decoration. In the 1870s and 80s, popular contemporary styles influenced cast-iron ornamentation. Neo-Grec style motifs, including incised lines and sharp geometric abstraction, further expressed the crisp “metallic” qualities of cast iron. A late example displaying neo-Grec style influence is No. 112 Prince Street (1889, Richard Berger). The Queen Anne style and Aesthetic Movement introduced abstract or floral patterns, as seen on No. 361 Broadway. In the stylistic experimentation of the 1880s, buildings sometimes incorporated a picturesque variety of materials, including red brick, sections of cast-iron, and terra cotta. With the knowledge that buildings of cast iron were not in fact fireproof, however, particularly after the Boston and Chicago fires of 1872 and the 1879 New York fire that destroyed rows of such structures on Worth and Thomas Streets, restrictive revisions were made to the New York City building code in 1885. This contributed to ending the era of cast-iron fronts in the city, although they continued to some extent through the 1890s.

 

The cast-iron fronts designed by D. & J. Jardine display this overall progression and stylistic change. No. 319 Broadway (1869-70) is one of the city’s finest extant corner buildings in the round-arched palazzo mode; No. 57 Walker Street (1870), No. 734 Broadway (1872-73), and the Jones Building (1875-76) were designed in the Second Empire style; and No. 678 Broadway (1874-75) combines elements of the French Renaissance style with neo-Grec stylization. The B. Altman & Co. Building (1876-77 and 1880) is one of the city’s finest cast-iron essays in the neo-Grec style, with abstracted and incised ornament. No. 121 Mercer Street (1879), of the grid type, is decorated by neo-Classical elements and stylized anthemia. The wide cast-iron front facade of the Baumann Brothers Furniture and Carpets Store (1880-81) is one of the firm’s and one of the city’s most inventive, unusual, and ornamental. The fifth story has segmental-arched windows typical of the Second Empire style, while the lower stories are aligned with the grid type of cast-iron front, though the third- and fourth-story columns are surmounted by stylized impost blocks bearing neo-Grec influence. Ornament is classically-inspired (columns, pilasters, quoins, keystones, swags, anthemia); neo-Grec (incising, abstraction, cornice modillions, stylized pilasters, bosses, panel blocks); and Queen Anne style/Aesthetic Movement (overall patterning, decorative fascias, sunflowers, foliation, strapwork). Certain decorative elements on this building, such as panels with sunflowers, are similar in effect, as executed in cast iron, to what architects were achieving with terra cotta during this period. Built toward the end of the heyday of cast-iron fronts in New York and the flourishing creativity in that material, the Baumann Brothers store, on which an amalgam of influences is embraced to achieve a decorative overall composition, is also a signal achievement of Aesthetic Movement design. Popularized in the United States by the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, the Aesthetic Movement stressed the “aesthetic” or artistic in the applied arts and reached its culmination in the design of interior decoration. The preface to In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement gives an indication of general design intent, characterized by visual complexity and profusion of surface ornament:

 

The layering and juxtaposition of many different patterns and the use of a subtle palette of colors... demonstrated a heightened artistic consciousness on the part of the decorator and at the same time demanded a refined sensibility on the part of the visitor. Each object or detail deserved close attention, yet, like a mosaic, the whole became unified when seen from a distance.

 

Baumann Brothers

 

Baumann Brothers was a New York City wholesale and retail furniture manufacturing and home furnishings company established by Albert Baumann (1832-1895) and Ludwig Baumann (1843-1904), Bohemian Jewish immigrants. Albert is said to have begun in 1854 with a cabinet and furniture store on Third Avenue near 34th Street, though he was first listed in a city directory in 1857 as a cabinetmaker with Abraham Baumann. After 1859, he was listed alone (the name often spelled “Bauman”) as a furniture dealer on Delancey Street, Third Avenue, and Grand Street. Ludwig Baumann & Co. was first listed in an 1864 directory as a tea business, then as a grocer on Third Avenue. “Baumann Brothers,” furniture, at 230 Hudson Street (at Broome Street) first appeared in an 1870 directory. A newspaper advertisement of 1872 called the firm “manufacturers of ... fine parlor furniture.” Around 1879, Baumann Brothers moved to 32 West 14th Street, and then in 1881 to 22-24 East 14th Street (aka 21-23 East 13th Street). At that time, Ludwig Baumann resided at 824 Lexington Avenue (East 63rd-64th Streets) and Albert resided next door at No. 826. The Baumanns were members of Congregation Ahawath Chesed (Central Synagogue), 652 Lexington Avenue.

 

The New York Times on September 2, 1881, heralded “the new and attractive store of the Messrs. Baumann Brothers, dealers in artistic furniture and carpets, at Nos. 22 and 24 East Fourteenth-street, [which] was opened to the public yesterday,” and the paper later commented that “connoisseurs of artistic house-furnishing will find it to their advantage to call and inspect the beautiful stock of Paris-made goods at Baumann Brothers’.” The company advertised

 

the largest and most varied stock of fancy, useful, and ornamental cabinet furniture,

 

draperies, carpets, rugs, and mats... Our warehouse presents the appearance of a

 

regular Eastern bazaar, where the public may find everything they want, without having to run from one store to another, and at prices that will commend themselves.

 

By the end of 1883, the firm had expanded into No. 26 and billed itself as “the largest and most complete furnishing establishment in America.” In January 1884, the commitment was made to expand into the entire structure, as noted by the Times:

 

Messrs. Baumann Brothers, the furniture and carpet dealers of East Fourteenth-street, yesterday leased from James McCreery the entire building adjoining their present large store. This will give to the Messrs. Baumann a store with 75 feet front and of a depth of 210 feet, extending through to Thirteenth-street. This accession to their premises will give the firm the largest house in the City devoted to the retail furniture and carpet trade.

 

In 1884, advertisements included “Hungarian Pottery” and bronzes. The range, price, and quality of Baumann Brothers’ wares by 1889 was indicated by the Times:

 

Housefurnishing in this city is every year becoming more of a fine art. It is being divided more and more into specialties, even decoration being subdivided many times, so that it is not alone a relief, but a great convenience, for a person to enter the great store of Baumann Brothers, 22, 24, and 26 East Fourteenth-street, where he may leave orders for a complete furnishing of a home at prices which are remarkably low. The grade of work done in this establishment – for all the furniture sold is made by the firm – is of the highest class. While the drawing room furniture includes all the latest fashions... it is perhaps upon the chamber suits that the firm prides itself most...

 

One furniture historian has noted that it was “one of a number of firms specializing in imitation bamboo furniture, primarily bedroom sets.” A painted sign advertising “BAUMANN BROS/ FURNITURE/ INTERIOR DECORATION/ CARPETS” is still visible on the building’s western wall. The firm’s stables, with space for furniture storage, were located a block away on East 12th Street.

 

Around 1891, Albert Baumann retired from the furniture business (he died 1895) and Ludwig’s son, Sidney J. Baumann, entered Baumann Brothers. Photographs from the 1890s indicate the presence of advertising signage on the roof of their store at 22-26 East 14th Street, to attract attention from Union Square. In 1897, Baumann Brothers left 14th Street and relocated to 258 Sixth Avenue. After Ludwig Baumann’s death in 1904, Baumann Brothers was run by Sidney J. Baumann and David Froehlich, his brother-in-law.

 

Woolworth’s and Other 5-10-and-25-Cent Stores in the Baumann Brothers Building

 

In 1897, the ground story of the Baumann Brothers building was divided into two separate stores. Herman Finkelstein, a wholesale dealer in fancy goods on Canal Street since 1881, operated a 5-and-10-cent store here in 1897-99, until he ran into financial difficulty. For part of 1898, the other store was leased by the Austin-Remsen Co., bicycles, until it, too, had financial problems. From 1900 until 1928, the entire ground story and basement were leased to Frank Winfield Woolworth, for his fourth Manhattan 5-and-10-cent store. Raised on an upstate New York farm, Woolworth (18521919) began working in drygoods in Watertown in 1873, and by 1879 had his own 5-cent store in Utica. Forced to close, he then opened 5-and-10-cent stores in Lancaster (1879) and Scranton (1880), Pennsylvania, that were highly successful. Woolworth established an administrative office in New York City in 1886. His business had reached one million dollars in sales by 1895 at 28 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Delaware, and Virginia. That year, Woolworth opened his first big-city stores, in Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn (532 Fulton Street). In 1896 (the year he moved to New York), the first Woolworth store opened in Manhattan at 259 (now 581) Sixth Avenue in Ladies’ Mile. The company expanded extraordinarily rapidly, with 55 stores by 1900, and 1000 stores by 1918. Woolworth was sole owner of his business until 1905, when it was incorporated as F.W. Woolworth & Co. The Woolworth Building (1910-13, Cass Gilbert), 233 Broadway, became the headquarters of the newly formed F.W. Woolworth Co. and the world’s tallest building.

 

When the Woolworth store in the former Baumann Brothers building on 14th Street opened in June 1900, it attracted a throng of some 25,000 people, occasioning the New-York Daily Tribune to comment that “so great was the crush that... several women fainted, while many others found repairs necessary to their clothing.” It was acclaimed “the largest ten-cent store in the world” and featured a pipe organ for “classical and sentimental music when required.” By this time, Woolworth storefronts had been standardized with red signage and gold lettering. According to a history of Woolworth’s, this was the location of the chain’s first lunchroom in 1910; the “Refreshment Room” was located in the rear of the store. After Woolworth’s vacated the ground story of the Baumann Brothers building in 1928, the space continued in similar usage for another five decades: F. & W. Grand, a 5-10-and-25-cent store (1928-35); and H.L. Green Co. and McCrory, operated by the same company (1935-80).

 

Other Twentieth-Century Tenants of the Baumann Brothers Building

 

By the early twentieth century, the Union Square area changed greatly as the theaters and retail trade had begun moving into midtown. New loft buildings were constructed around Union Square for manufacturing, while older retail loft buildings were used for similar purposes, especially the needle trades. 14th Street, between the square and Seventh Avenue, re-emerged as a popular, though low-end, commercial zone, particularly with the opening of S. Klein’s (1912) and Ohrbach’s (1920s). The New York Times in 1926 noted that “one of the most remarkable changes that have taken place on Fourteenth Street during the past few years is the establishment and growth of the retail shopping centre for women’s wear in and about Union Square.” By 1939, the Federal Writers’ Project’s New York City Guide called 14th Street “perhaps the city’s largest outlet for low-priced women’s merchandise.”

 

The upper stories of the former Baumann Brothers building were leased for over eight decades for show rooms and manufacturing by various firms related to the textile and sporting goods industries. This was the location of Rubens & Meyer, hosiery (1901-14); [Lewis Mark] Hornthal, [Joseph J.] Benjamin & [Simon R.] Riem, wholesale clothing manufacturers (c. 1902-23); Sohn, Oppenheimer & Co., fine trousers (1913-29); [Alex] Marcus & [Alex] Wiesner (later Wiesen), elastic specialties, garters, and girdles (1930-85); Everlast Sporting Goods Manufacturing Co., maker of “Everlast” boxing gloves, and associated firms (1940s-55); Rita Garment Co. (1940s50s); Walco Leather Co. (1963-85), shoe supplies and trimmings; and Bentley Fashions and Neill Scott Originals (1970s-80s).

 

From 1930 to 1963, the building housed a gymnasium and classrooms for the Delehanty Institute, which trained candidates of the Police and Fire Departments; a running track was installed on the roof for the institute in 1941. The building again contained a furniture dealer with Bon Marche, purveyor of stylish inexpensive wares (1955-63), the firm retaining the space afterwards as a warehouse.

 

Later Ownership

 

The northern portion of the lot was transferred in 1922 by Van Beuren family members to Spingler-Van Beuren Estates, Inc. In 1958, this portion was conveyed to 5th and 14th Realties, Inc.; to Sutton Associates, Inc., in 1964; and in 1967 to the Marcus & Wiesen Realty Corp., whose principals were the long-term garter-making tenants in the building. The southern portion of the lot and the building were conveyed in 1902 to the James McCreery Realty Corp., which retained ownership until 1965, when they were acquired by the Marcus & Wiesen Realty Corp. The entire property was sold to Irving and Elliott Sutton in 1979. The building became a condominium in 1999. The upper stories (Lot 1101), acquired at that time by the New School University, are currently in use as an annex to the Parsons School of Design, while the ground story contains a drugstore and several small shops.

 

Description

 

The Baumann Brothers Furniture and Carpets Store is a five-story, timber-and-iron-framed building, with a full cast-iron front facade on 14th Street (75 feet wide), that extends through the block with a rear facade on 13th Street (nearly 83 feet wide) that is clad in brick and stone with a cast-iron ground story. Original windows are two-over-two double-hung wood sash.

 

14th Street Facade: Base The storefront area has been altered a number of times over the years (including 1897, 1900-01, 1912, and 1958); the only remaining historic elements are the cast-iron end (and, probably, middle) pilasters (now partly or fully covered) ornamented with fluting and surmounted by panels with sunflowers. The entablature is covered with non-historic metal cladding. Current storefront conditions, from east to west: 1) a tiny, narrow sidewalk shop, with a rolldown gate, located to the east of the upstairs entrance and under the entrance awning; 2) a non-historic inset entrance to the upper stories (in the location of the historic pedimented entrance) with a metal door with a transom, tile floor, metal-clad walls and ceiling, a rolldown gate, and awning; 3) a non-historic drugstore storefront with plate glass, large signage, western entrance with metal and glass doors and a transom, and a metal sidewalk canopy supported by poles, and rolldown gates 4) a plate-glass storefront with glass door, awning/sign, and rolldown gate; and 5) a plate-glass storefront with glass door, awning/sign, and rolldown gate. Upper Stories The symmetrical eight-bay cast-iron facade is framed by continuous central and end pilasters and by entablatures that cap the middle stories and by the terminating cornice. The second story has rectangular windows each terminated by a decorative, angled fascia; central and end pilasters ornamented with fluting, stylized anthemia, and stylized capitals with swags; half- and quarter-round columns with bases ornamented with strapwork and anthemia and with composite capitals that support stylized pilasters; and a molded entablature ornamented with swags with sunflowers (both ends of the entablature corresponding to the terminations of the second-story end pilasters are missing). The third and fourth stories have flat-arched windows each terminated by a decorative, angled fascia; central and end pilasters ornamented with fluting and panels with sunflowers and stylized foliation; half- and quarter-round columns with bases ornamented with strapwork and anthemia and with composite capitals that support arched impost blocks ornamented with sunflowers; and a denticulated entablature. Two poles with banners have been placed on the third-story entablature. The fourth-story central pilaster was originally terminated by a projecting pediment that is now missing. The fifth story has segmental-arched windows each terminated by a decorative, angled fascia and keystone; central and end pilasters ornamented with rusticated quoins; and half- and quarter-round columns with bases ornamented with strapwork and anthemia and with composite capitals that support pilasters ornamented with incising and bosses. The molded galvanized-iron cornice, above a paneled architrave, is ornamented with modillions and swags with sunflowers. A parapet with end urns originally terminated the cornice; it was removed prior to 1916. Panels with lightbulbs were inserted between the modillions post-1980.

 

13th Street Facade: Base The ground story is framed by ten cast-iron pilasters, each ornamented with rustication, incised panels, and concave stylized “capitals,” that support a molded entablature. The nine bays, from west to east, have: 1) an inset non-historic service entrance with metal doors, surmounted by metal panels (a security camera has been placed on the western cast-iron pilaster); 2) non-historic metal and glass doors with a rolldown gate and canopy, surmounted by windows with metal mesh; 3) brick infill with a small window, surmounted by louvers; 4) brick infill, surmounted by louvers; 5) brick infill with windows, surmounted by louvers; 6) brick infill with windows, and louvers at the base; 7) brick infill with louvers at the base; 8) brick infill with a metal door and concrete steps, surmounted by a covered window with a small louver and metal grate 9) a non-historic entrance with metal and glass doors, transom and side panels, and a sidewalk canopy, surmounted by metal panels.

 

Upper Stories The brick-clad upper stories are pierced by thirteen bays of rectangular windows with flush stone lintels and slightly projecting stone sills, connected by stone stringcourses. Second- and third-story windows are taller than those on the third and fourth stories. Original windows are four-over-four double-hung wood sash; some have one-over-one replacement sash and louvers. Two poles with banners have been placed above the second story. A fire escape is located near the center of the building. The facade is terminated by a molded stone band course and corbeled brick cornice.

 

Roof There is a bulkhead addition with a water tower at the east end, while a brick parapet has been added to the west end.

 

East Wall The exposed east wall, visible from an alley, has been parged. West Wall The mostly exposed west wall, visible from an adjacent courtyard, is clad in brick, sets back 30 feet from 13th Street, has iron star tie-rod plates on the northern edge of that section nearest to 13th Street, and is pierced by windows (some now covered) on the set-back section. A painted sign advertising “BAUMANN BROS/ FURNITURE/ INTERIOR DECORATION/ CARPETS” is still visible at the top of the wall along 13th Street.

 

- From the 2008 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Caedwalla of Wessex

 

In 685 it was invaded by Caedwalla of Wessex. The Jutish king of the Isle of Wight, Arwald, died in action and his nephews were betrayed to Caedwalla, who subsequently died of wounds received in the battle. The two boys were converted to Christianity and immediately executed. Their names are unknown, but are called collectively "St.Arwald"- after their pagan uncle (who died fighting Christianity).

 

The West Saxon invasion was by all accounts prolonged and bloody.

 

St.Bede states that "...After Caedwalla had obtained possession of the kingdom of the Gewissae, he took also the Isle of Wight, which till then was entirely given over to idolatry, and by merciless slaughter, endeavoured to destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and to place their stead people from his own province; binding himself by a vow, though it is said that he was not yet regenerated in Christ, to give the fourth part of the land and of the spoil to the Lord, if he took the Island. He fulfilled this vow by giving the same for the service of the Lord to Bishop Wilfrid..."

 

It is reported in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle that during Caedwalla's attempts to subdue the population he was gravely wounded - wounds from which he would die within a couple of years. Before final subjugation most of the Jutish population of the island were killed and the remnant forced to accept Christianity as their religion and the West Saxon dialect as their language. Bede states that Caedwalla endeavoured to "mercilessly" destroy the population, but that 300 "hides" were given to the Church in the person of St Wilfrid. A "hide" was the amount of land required to support a family, and the Island was rated at 1200 hides. Caedwalla was a Christian sympathiser under the tutelage of St Wilfrid and St Aldhelm and had promised Wilfrid a quarter of the land in return for his assistance in claiming the Wessex throne. Unfortunately for them, the Jutish Islanders were not only heathens, but apostates, and the mass conversion of the Island probably did not occur as smoothly as had been planned.

 

From 685 therefore the island can be considered to have become part of Wessex and following the accession of West Saxon kings as kings of all England then part of England. The island became part of the shire of Hampshire and was divided into hundreds as was the norm.

[edit] The Saxons

 

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells how Wiht-land suffered particularly from Viking predations. Alfred the Great's navy defeated the Danes in 871 after they had "ravaged Devon and the Isle of Wight". During the second wave of Viking attacks in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (975-1014) the Isle of Wight was taken over by the Danes as a base to harry Southern England, referred to as their "frith-stool". The inlet on the west of the River Medina at Werrar Copse seems to have been their main base. In 1002 Ethelred ordered the killing of all the Danes in England in the St. Brice's Day Massacre but the Danish Army remained intact, based on the Isle of Wight. In 1012 Sweyn Forkbeard revenged the Danish defeat. Ethelred was forced to flee England: he spent Christmas on the Isle of Wight en route to refuge in Normandy.

 

The Island again played a critical role in English history as the base for Harold Godwinson and his brothers in their revolt against Edward the Confessor and yet again in 1066, when Tostig Godwinson arrived to collect supplies - but very little other support - en route to his defeat by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Both men had manors on the Isle of Wight - Harold at Kern and Tostig at Nunwell.

[edit] The Norman Conquest

 

In the Domesday book (1086) the Island's name is Wit. The Norman Conquest of 1066 transferred the overall manorial rights of the Island to William FitzOsbern as Lord of the Isle of Wight. Carisbrooke Priory and the fort of Carisbrooke Castle were founded. The Island did not come under full control of the Crown until it was sold by the dying last Norman Lord, Lady Isabella de Fortibus, to Edward I in 1293.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment, with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him.

[edit] Medieval

 

After the Norman Conquest, the title of Lord of the Isle of Wight was created and William Fitz-Osborne who subsequently founded Carisbrooke Priory and the fortifications on what was to become Carisbrooke Castle became the first to hold the title. (It is possible that the site of Carisbrooke Castle had previously been fortified originally by Romans and subsequently by Jutes or Saxons; there still remains a late Saxon burgh, or defensive wall, built to defend the site from Viking raiders.) The Island did not come under the full control of the crown until the Countess Isabella De Fortibus sold it to Edward I in 1293 for six thousand marks.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him. The title of Lord of the Isle of Wight expired in the reign of Henry VII with the title of Governor or Captain being used for sometime thereafter. During the English Civil War King Charles fled to the Isle of Wight believing he would receive sympathy from the governor Robert Hammond. Hammond was appalled, and incarcerated the king in Carisbrooke Castle. Charles was later tried and executed in London.

 

Henry VIII who developed the Royal Navy and its permanent base at Portsmouth, fortifications at Yarmouth, East & West Cowes and Sandown, sometimes re-using stone from dissolved monasteries as building material. Sir Richard Worsley, Captain of the Island at this time, successfully commanded the resistance to the last of the French attacks in 1545. In July 1545; French troops had landed on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight. Their aim was to seize important areas of the island; allowing the French to gain overall control of the Isle of Wight; giving the French a valuable jumping-off point for further operations against the mainland. However, the French advance was decisively defeated, when the local Isle of Wight militia defeated the French troops in the Battle of Bonchurch. Much later on after the Spanish Armada in 1588 the threat of Spanish attacks remained, and the outer fortifications of Carisbrooke Castle were built between 1597 and 1602.

 

In 1587 two Roman Catholic missionaries Anderton and Marsden, originally from Lancashire, but trained in France, were returned to England in disguise on the ferry to Dover, but due to a severe gale landed in Cowes in the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately for them, such was the danger they were in that they loudly prayed to God to "save the first of your seminarians to returm=n to England" which was overheard by fellow passengers who reported them to Governor Carey. They were taken to London for trial, but executed by hanging, drawing and quartering in Cowes, although the exact site is unknown. They were declared "Venerable" by Pope Pius XI.

[edit] Early Modern and Modern

 

Charles I evaded custody under the Army at Hampton Court by riding to Southampton in order to escape to Jersey. However,he and his companion became lost in the New Forest and missed their intended ship, and fled to the Isle of Wight instead. The Governor Colonel Robert Hammond had declared for Parliament and Charles was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Since an extensive bowling green was built for his use this was initially in some comfort, but this was made closer after an abortive escape attempt, when he failed to get through the window to where Royalist sympathisers under John Oglander were waiting with a horse.

 

Charles was approached by the Presbyterian faction of Parliament and concluded the Treaty of Newport, offering him a constitutional monarchy. However Charles had no intention of accepting its restrictions upon Royal power and also concluded the Engagement with the Scots to invade on his behalf. As a result of his perceived faithlessness, the moderate faction at Parliament were discredited and Charles was moved to more prison-like conditions at Hurst Castle and thence to execution on 30 January 1649.

 

Later Cromwell was to use Carisbrooke Castle as a place of imprisonment for Fifth Monarchists opposed to his Protectorate including Thomas Harrison and Christopher Feake.

 

Queen Victoria made the Isle of Wight her home for many years, and as a result it become a major holiday resort for members of European royalty, whose many houses could later claim descent from her through the widely flung marriages of her offspring. During her reign in 1897 the World's first radio station was set up by Marconi at the Needles battery at the western tip of the Island.

 

The famous boat-building firm of J. Samuel White was established on the Island in 1802. Other noteworthy marine manufacturers followed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Saunders-Roe a key manufacturer of the Flying-boats and the world's first hovercraft. The tradition of maritime industry continues on the Island today.

 

In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, a sizeable network of railways was built on the island, notable for its punishing gradients and numerous tunnels, particularly to reach the town of Ventnor. Since the early twentieth century, these lines were often linked to plans for a tunnel under the Solent, an idea still talked of today. Most of the rail network closed between 1956 and 1966, and is now a series of cyclepaths.

 

The first Governor to hold the crown representative title used now of Lord-Lieutenant was Lord Mountbatten of Burma until his murder in 1979. Lord Mottistone was the last Lord Lieutenant to also hold the title Governor (from 1992 to 1995). Since 1995 there has been no Governor appointed and Mr Christopher Bland has been the Lord Lieutenant.

[edit] Caulkheads and other Island terms

 

Historically, inhabitants of the Isle of Wight have been known as Vectensians or Vectians (pronounced Vec-tee-ans). These terms derive from the Latin name for the Island, Vectis. Vectian is a word used more formally to describe certain geological features which are typical of the Island. As with many other small island communities the term Islander has long been used, and is commonly heard today. The term Overner is used for people originating from mainland Great Britain. This is an abbreviated form of Overlander; which is an archaic English term for an outsider still found in a few other places such as parts of Australia.[5]

 

People born on the island are colloquially known as Caulkheads (sometimes erroneously written as it is spoken, Corkheads), a word comparable with the name Cockney for those born in the East End of London. Some argue that the term should only apply those who can also claim they are of established Isle of Wight stock either by proven historical roots or, for example, being third generation inhabitants from both parents' lineage.[6]

 

One theory about the term 'caulkhead' is that it comes from the once prevalent local industry of caulking boats; a process of sealing the seams of wooden boats with oakum. It is said that the shipyard at Bucklers Hard in the New Forest employed labourers from the Isle of Wight , mainly as caulkers, in the building of early warships. Islanders may have been called "Caulkheads" during this time either because they were indeed so employed, or merely as a derisory term for perceived unintelligent labourers from another place. Another more fanciful story is that a group of armoured Island horsemen were chased into the sea by the marauding French, and took refuge on a sandbank when the tide came in, thus appearing to float in the sea despite their heavy armour, hence the name Cork- i.e. Caulk-, -heads When this supposed event happened is not clear, since the Island was frequently attacked in the Middle Ages, however in the last instance in 1546 Sandown Castle was under construction some way offshore and a battle was fought on site, resulting in the French being driven off and this could fit this particular tale.[7] In local folklore it is said that a test can be conducted on a baby by throwing it into the sea from the end of Ryde Pier whereupon a true caulkhead baby will float unharmed. Thankfully there is no record of the test ever being carried out.

[edit] Political History

 

The island's most ancient borough was Newtown on the large natural harbour on the island's north-western coast. A French raid in 1377, that destroyed much of the town as well as other Island settlements, sealed its permanent decline. By the middle of the sixteenth century it was a small settlement long eclipsed by the more easily defended town of Newport. Elizabeth I breathed some life into the town by awarding two parliamentary seats but this ultimately made it one of the most notorious of the Rotten Boroughs. By the time of the Great Reform Act that abolished the seats, it had just fourteen houses and twenty-three voters. The Act also disenfranchised the borough of Yarmouth and replaced the four lost seats with the first MP for the whole Isle of Wight; Newport also retained its two MPs, though these were reduced to one in 1868 and eventually abolished completely in 1885.

 

Often thought of as part of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight was briefly included in that county when the first county councils were created in 1888. However, a "Home Rule" campaign led to a separate county council being established for the Isle of Wight in 1890, and it has remained separate ever since. Like inhabitants of many islands, Islanders are fiercely jealous of their real (or perceived) independence, and confusion over the Island's separate status is a perennial source of friction.

 

It was planned to merge the county back into Hampshire as a district in the 1974 local government reform, but a last minute change led to it retaining its county council. However, since there was no provision made in the Local Government Act 1972 for unitary authorities, the Island had to retain a two-tier structure, with a county council and two boroughs, Medina and South Wight.

 

The borough councils were merged with the county council on April 1, 1995, to form a single unitary authority, the Isle of Wight Council. The only significant present-day administrative link with Hampshire is the police service, the Hampshire Constabulary, which is joint between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

 

From the closing decades of the 20th century onwards, there has been considerable debate on the Island over whether or not a bridge or tunnel should connect the island with mainland England. The Isle of Wight Party campaigned from a positive position, although extensive public debate on the subject revealed a strong body of opinion amongst islanders against such a proposal. In 2002 the Isle of Wight Council debated the issue and made a policy statement against the proposal.

[edit] Autonomy and Political Recognition

 

A number of discussions about the status of the island have taken place over many years, with standpoints from the extreme of wanting full sovereignty for the Isle of Wight, to perhaps the opposite extreme of merging with Hampshire. The pro-independence lobby had a formal voice in the early 1970s with the Vectis National Party. Their main claim was that the sale of the island to the Crown in 1293 was unconstitutional. However, this movement now has little serious support. Since the 1990s the debate has largely taken the form of a campaign to have the Isle of Wight recognized as a distinct region by organizations such as the EU, due to its relative poverty within the south-east of England. One argument in favour of special treatment is that this poverty is not acknowledged by such organizations as it is distorted statistically by retired and wealthy (but less economically active) immigrants from the mainland.

 

In more recent times, the regionalist movement has been represented by the Isle of Wight Party.

[edit] Isle of Wight Disease

 

In 1904 a mysterious illness began to kill honeybee colonies on the island, and had nearly wiped out all hives by 1907 when the disease jumped to the mainland, and decimated beekeeping in the British Isles. Called the Isle of Wight Disease, the cause of the mystery ailment was not identified until 1921 when a tiny parasitic mite, Acarapis woodi was first described by J. Rennie. The mite inhabited the tracheae of individual bees, and greatly shortened their lifespan, causing eventual death of the colony. The disease (now called Acarine Disease) frightened many other nations because of the importance of bees in pollination. Laws against importation of honeybees were passed, but this merely delayed the eventual spread of the parasite to the rest of the world.

[edit] The Isle of Wight Festival

Main article: Isle of Wight Festival

 

A large rock festival took place near Tennyson Down, West Wight in 1970, following two smaller concerts in 1968 and 1969. The 1970 show was notable for being the last public performance by Jimi Hendrix before his death. The festival was revived in 2002 and is now an annual event,[8] with other, smaller musical events of many different genres across the Island becoming associated with it.

 

The first of the modern festivals was a one day affair termed Rock Island,[9] which expanded to two days in 2003,[9] then three days by 2004.[10]

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈvaʃku ðɐ ˈɣɐmɐ]; c. 1460s – 23 December 1524) was a Portuguese explorer. He was the first European to reach India by sea, linking Europe and Asia for the first time by ocean route, as well as the Atlantic and the Indian oceans entirely and definitively, and in this way, the West and the Orient. This was accomplished on his first voyage to India (1497–1499).

 

Da Gama's discovery was significant and opened the way for an age of global imperialism and for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. The route meant that the Portuguese would not need to cross the highly disputed Mediterranean nor the dangerous Arabian Peninsula, and that the whole voyage would be made by sea. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then, far longer than a full voyage around the world by way of the Equator.

 

One century after the discovery, European powers such as England, the Netherlands and France were finally able to challenge and break Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route around Africa, the Indian Ocean and in the Far East, opening a new era of European imperialism in the East.

 

After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Reaching the legendary Indian spice routes unopposed helped the Portuguese Empire improve its economy that, until da Gama's discovery, was based mainly on trading along northern and coastal West Africa. The spices obtained were mostly pepper and cinnamon at first, but soon included other products, all new to Europe and leading to a commercial monopoly for several decades.

 

Da Gama led two of the armadas destined for India, the first and the fourth, which was the largest and made only four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions he was appointed the Governor of India in 1524, under the title of Viceroy, and given the newly created County of Vidigueira in 1519. Vasco da Gama remains a leading figure in the history of exploration to this day. Numerous homages have been made worldwide to celebrate his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour. His first trip to India is widely considered a milestone in world history as it marked the beginning of the first wave of global multiculturalism.

 

EARLY LIFE

Vasco da Gama was born 1460 or 1469 in Sines, on the southwest coast of Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas. Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, consisted of little more than a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, tenanted chiefly by fisherfolk.

 

Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu and went on to rise in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478, and continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.

 

Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ.

 

Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).

 

Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has even been claimed (although dubiously) that he studied under the astrologer and astronomer, Abraham Zacuto.

 

Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who would ascend to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.

 

In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.

 

EXPLORATION BEFORE DA GAMA

From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been crawling down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese crown showed little interest in continuing and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes's captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and slaves. When Gomes's charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.

 

Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury, and saw royal commerce as the key to it. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.

 

By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, these plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt, to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.

 

It remained for an explorer to prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva and to connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route into the Indian Ocean.

 

FIRST VOYAGE

On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than around the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were as naus or newly built for the voyage, possibly a caravel and a supply boat. The four ships were:

The São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m².

 

The São Rafael, whose commander was his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel

The caravel Berrio, slightly smaller than the former two (later renamed São Miguel), commanded by Nicolau Coelho

A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, later lost near the Bay of São Brás, along the east coast of Africa

 

JOURNEY TO THE CAPE

The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than 10,000 kilometres of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.

 

By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had turned back – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.

 

MOZAMBIQUE

Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, da Gama was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler and soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.

 

MOMBASA

In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.

 

MALINDI

Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving at the friendlier port of Malindi on 14 April 1498 – whose leaders were then in conflict with those of Mombasa – and there the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot whose knowledge of the monsoon winds allowed him to bring the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. Also, none of the Portuguese historians of the time mention Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.

 

CALICUT, INDIA

The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Calicut, India, on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleets's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel - four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve almasares, a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey - were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty - preferably in gold - like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force. Nevertheless, da Gama's expedition was successful beyond all reasonable expectation, bringing in cargo that was worth sixty times the cost of the expedition.

 

RETURN

Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns which were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, it had taken da Gama's fleet only 23 days to cross the Indian Ocean; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.

 

Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.

 

Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.

 

The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel, and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island, and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The S. Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama got off at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros)., or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome, and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described Vasco da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.

 

The expedition had exacted a large cost – one ship and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the spices brought back on the remaining two ships were sold at an enormous profit to the crown. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.

 

The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.

 

REWARDS

In December 1499, Vasco da Gama was rewarded by King Manuel I of Portugal with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the very town which his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a rather complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. On the face of it, it should not have been a problem for Jorge de Lencastre, the master of the Order, to endorse the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king's hand, provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle – lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines – an effort which would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.

 

In the meantime, Vasco da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.

 

Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of D. Francisco de Almeida).

 

SECOND VOYAGE

The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada launched in 1500, was placed under the command Pedro Álvares Cabral, with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.

 

Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.

 

Along the way, on the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala, and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold. On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet set about capturing any Arab vessel he came across in Indian waters, most notoriously the Miri, a pilgrim ship from Mecca, whose passengers he massacred in open water. He then appeared before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. While the Zamorin was willing to sign a new treaty, da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the city for nearly two days from the sea shore, severely damaging the unfortified city. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with an insulting note to the Zamorin.

 

The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. But the Zamorin nonetheless refused to submit to Portuguese terms, and even ventured to hire a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada (which da Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor). Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms, half-vassal and half-at-war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels, under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.

 

Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.

 

PILGRIM SHIP INCIDENT

On his second voyage, Vasco da Gama inflicted acts of cruelty upon competing traders and local inhabitants, which sealed his notoriety in India. During his second voyage to Calicut, da Gama intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burnt them to death. They offered their wealth which 'could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more' but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.

 

After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away.

 

INTERLUDE

For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.

 

After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.

 

THIRD VOYAGE AND DEATH

After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of the his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.

 

By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.

 

Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Vasco's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).

 

Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.

 

The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.

 

MARRIAGE AND ISSUE

Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:

- Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.

- Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.

- Dom Paulo da Gama, captain of Malacca in 1533–34, killed in a naval action off Malacca.

- Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca fleet from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.

- Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.

- Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.

- Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.

 

His male line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title went through female line.

 

TITLES, STYLES AND HONOURS

Over his numerous years serving the Portuguese crown, da Gama was rewarded with many different titles, distinctions, and offices:

- Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient – Title as chief of the Portuguese India Armadas

- 2nd Viceroy of India – Title of office as colonial head of Portuguese India

- 1st Count of Vidigueira – Title of Portuguese nobility

 

LEGACY

Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.

 

However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.

 

The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.

 

The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.

 

The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.

 

A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.

 

Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.

 

The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.

 

South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine". He later recorded another version of this song under the name "Colonial Man".

 

Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts a failed assassination attempt on da Gama by an Indian.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Astoria, Queens

 

The Astoria Play Center is one of a group of eleven immense new outdoor swimming pools which were opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner Robert Moses. All were constructed largely with funding provided by the Works Progress Administration, one of the many New Deal agencies created during the 1930s to address the effects of America's Great Depression. Designed to accommodate a total of 49,000 users simultaneously at locations scattered across the entire city, and completed just two and a half years after the LaGuardia administration took office, the new pool complexes gained quick recognition as being among the most remarkable public recreational facilities ever constructed in this country.

 

Many architects, landscape architects, and engineers were hired to execute the pool program and the hundreds of other new construction and rehabilitation projects undertaken between 1934 and 1936 by a newly consolidated Park Department. They were guided by a senior team composed of staff members and consultants who had earlier worked for Moses at various governmental agencies, including the New York State Council of Parks and the Long Island State Park Commission. They included architect Aymar Embury II, landscape architects Gilmore D. Clarke and Allyn R. Jennings, and civil engineers W. Earle Andrews and William H. Latham. Surviving documents also indicate that Robert Moses, himself a long-time swimming enthusiast, gave detailed attention to the designs for the new pool complexes.

 

Opened on July 2, 1936, with a capacity of 6,200 swimmers, and designed mainly by consulting Park Department architect John Matthews Hatton, the Astoria Play Center commands a striking waterfront location in Astoria Park. The vast scale of the pool complex is complemented by that of its setting - the distant vistas westward framed by the monumental forms of the Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges. Embedded into what has now become a densely wooded slope which descends to the water's edge from 19th Street, the play center complex was designed to take full advantage of its surroundings. The entire roof of the bath house structure is used for multi-level viewing terraces. Extensive concrete bleacher sections are located on the western side of the bath house and around the diving pool. They offer far more outdoor seating than is available at the other play centers; perhaps the abundant seating is related to the fact that the final trials for the 1936 Summer Olympics were held here.

 

Like Hatton's later design for the 1939 bath house at Betsy Head, the Astoria Play Center structure makes extensive use of glass block; it forms the lower recessed sections of the locker room walls which are topped by the original metal louver windows. Massive piers laid up in decorative bonds demarcate the bays. Glass block also forms extensive sections of the lateral walls of the entryway: the original Art Moderne style ticket booth and signage are its other significant features. Among the Center's more unusual design elements are the whimsical saucerlike roofs atop the upper portions of the filter house structure on the western side of the swimming pool. The areas adjacent to the pool complex include extensive pathway systems, playing areas, and a striking comfort station designed in a style similar to that of the bath house.

 

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

 

History of the Astoria Park Pool Site

 

The setting for the Astoria Park Pool and Play Center is the sloping, sixty-six acre Astoria Park, located on the east shore of the Hell Gate channel across from Ward's Island in western Queens. The complex has a panoramic view of the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan framed between the towering Triborough Bridge to the south and the majestic Hell Gate Bridge to the north. Long Island City and Astoria became part of greater New York City in the consolidation of 1898. By 1907, the land now occupied by Astoria Park and its surroundings remained occupied by fading, former estates of prominent families and ship captains, who had moved away as industrial and residential developments loomed ever closer. The pace of urbanization picked up after the opening of the Queensborough Bridge in 1909, adding many more factories and houses.

 

Around the turn of the century, sentiment emerged to increase public access to the East River and Hell Gate waterfront. In 1913, the City of New York acquired fifty-six acres of land along the shorefront for what was to become Astoria Park. Originally, named for Mayor William J. Gaynor, who served from 1910 to 1913, the name of the park was soon changed to Astoria Park. According to Parks Department Records, Astoria Park - which was originally equipped with two playgrounds, six tennis courts, three baseball diamonds, a wading pool, bandstand, and comfort station - was the first large park in New York City to provide for organized, rather than passive, recreation.

 

The Hell Gate Bridge, designed by engineer Gustav Lindenthal and architect Henry Hornbostel, was constructed over the northern park of Astoria Park in 1917; its majestic towers forming the park's northern vista. Major improvements to Astoria Park were undertaken in the 1930s under the auspices of the popular mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia and his legendary Park Commissioner, Robert Moses. These changes included the addition of 4.5 acres of parkland under the Triborough Bridge, which was finished in 1936, the same year of the opening of the Astoria Park Pool and Play Center. Engineered by O.H. Ammann and designed by the architect Aymar Embury II, the Triborough Bridge, along with the pool complex, added a sleek modernity to the park. The improvements of the 1930s were made largely by using funds obtained from the Works Progress Administration, one of the many public works programs created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the United States Congress during the Great Depression.

 

Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Moses and the New Deal

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1932 in the middle of the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash in 1929. Roosevelt promised to rebuild confidence in American capitalism and to improve the nation's standard of living by creating the New Deal economic program of unprecedented public spending on social programs and construction projects.

 

New York City had been especially hard hit by the economic downturn, and its citizens, hoping for change, elected Fiorello LaGuardia to the mayoralty of New York City in 1933 under a reform-minded "fusion" ticket. He chose New York State Park Commissioner, Robert Moses, a champion of reform politics, as New York City's new Park Commissioner. The new mayor's success in securing a lion's share of monies made available by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), and Moses' superb management skills and his ability to attract talented designers and engineers to his staff, resulted in profound physical changes in the environment of New York City. The construction and renovation of neighborhood recreation areas, such as pools and play grounds, were some of the most ambitious and successful programs undertaken by Moses with funds largely provided by the WPA.

 

Fiorello H. La Guardia was sworn in as the ninety-ninth mayor of the City of New York in January 1934, as an anti-Tammany Hall reform candidate. A maverick Republican and a five-term congressman from East Harlem, LaGuardia won the 1933 mayoral election on the "Fusion" ticket after losing the 1929 mayoral race on the Republican line. The Fusion Conference Committee at first considered running Robert Moses, another Republican, who was appointed Chairman of the New York State Council of Parks in 1924 by his political mentor, Governor Alfred E. Smith, a Tammany Hall Democrat from New York City. However, the committee decided against Moses because of his association with Smith, and chose LaGuardia instead. At the time, Moses was a popular public figure with a reputation as a progressive, and as the builder of great parks and parkways like Jones Beach and the Northern State Parkway on Long Island.

 

His endorsement of LaGuardia during the campaign was considered instrumental in securing a victory for LaGuardia. Within a week of the election, LaGuardia invited Moses to join his incoming administration as a reward.

 

In the 1920s, Moses was at the forefront of the national recreation movement began in the first decade of the twentieth century, led by such men as President Theodore Roosevelt and the lesser-known George D. Butler of the National Recreation Association. The movement gained momentum after President Calvin Coolidge convened the first National Conference on Outdoor Recreation in 1924.

 

During the1930s Depression, the need to provide for or to improve outdoor recreation, especially in urban areas, became most urgent, and fit into the FDR's New Deal economic programs. Moses accepted the position of Commissioner of Parks in the LaGuardia administration on the condition that the five existing independent Park Departments (one for each borough) would be consolidated into a single department with himself as the sole Commissioner, and that the Park Commissioner's authority also include control of the City's parkways. He also demanded to be appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Triborough Bridge Authority, which was then building the bridge of that name, and that a new agency, the Marine Parkway Authority, which would build a bridge to the Rockaways, be created with himself at the helm.

 

Already in charge of the Long Island State Park Commission, the New York State Council of Parks, the Jones Beach State Park Authority, and the Bethpage State Park Authority, Moses would then be in control of all existing and proposed parks and parkways in the New York metropolitan region, except for areas outside of New York State.

 

Moses began to assess the state of the City's parks and to plan for their future as soon as LaGuardia announced his intention to appoint Moses as Park Commissioner. According to one source: "Immediately after the election he wrote out, on a single piece of paper, a plan for putting 80,000 men to work on 1,700 relief projects." Moses hired a consulting engineer and three assistant engineers to survey every park and parkway in the City. The survey was completed by the time he took office in mid-January 1934.

 

When Moses took over the Park Department, it was already employing 69,000 relief workers funded mainly by the federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA). However, Moses found the men to be ill-equipped and inadequately supervised, and considered many of the construction projects to have been poorly designed. He immediately began to revamp the entire operation of the Park Department and established a Division of Design, located at the Arsenal in Central Park. The staff was to be headed up by experienced professionals drawn mainly from his State agencies. Some of his talented staff of young architects, landscape architects and engineers had worked on the designs for Long Island's highly acclaimed parks, including Jones Beach, which is considered one of Moses' greatest accomplishments.

 

His staff also included a number of well-known and accomplished designers, among them architects Aymar Embury II and John M. Hatton, and the landscape architect and civil engineer Gilmore D. Clarke. Other top members of Moses' staff were the landscape architect Allyn R. Jennings, and civil engineers W. Earle Andrews and William H. Latham.

 

The Department needed to produce plans and blueprints immediately so the growing force of relief workers could be assigned to worthwhile projects as quickly as possible. Within a week, Moses managed to persuade CWA officials to drop some of the regulations governing the hiring of staff and to relax its spending limits on project planning, allowing him to hire 600 architects, engineers and draftsmen at salaries above CWA wage guidelines. By the first of February, they were busily producing designs and blueprints.

 

The Park Department's Division of Design was organized in the following manner: a topographical unit of about 400 surveyors and draftsmen, a landscape architecture unit of about sixty people, an architecture unit made up of sixty architects and draftsmen, and an engineering unit of about fifty. Smaller units included an Arboricultural Department and an Inspection Department. All the work in the Division of Design was under the direct supervision of the Park Engineer, who was aided and advised by a Consulting Architect, a Consulting Landscape Architect, and a Consulting Engineer. All new projects began in the topographical unit, where a complete survey of the land was prepared. It then moved on to the landscaping unit, where the basic concept for the design was developed. Next, the three units: landscape, architecture, and engineering, collaborated to produce the final design and all the necessary construction documents.

 

The Park Engineer and his aides had to approve all of the plans. Moses himself sometimes stepped in to revise or overrule a design, especially on the larger, more visible projects.

 

Moses' superior management ability and political savvy allowed him to move projects along very quickly and to produce concrete results, gaining for him much public admiration. However, his personal demeanor was notoriously stubborn and arrogant, and he sometimes fired people on the spot for no apparent reason.

 

At times, he disregarded the legitimate authority of other governmental agencies. Once, when the Department of Plant and Structures refused to suspend a ferry service that used a terminal in the path of constructing the Triborough Bridge approach road, Moses had his men demolish the terminal while the boat was on the other side of the river. He feuded with President Franklin D. Roosevelt for years, even while Washington was pouring millions of dollars into Moses' own Park Department. His later battles with and subsequent triumphs over community groups opposed to the routing of the Gowanus and the Cross-Bronx Expressways through their neighborhoods are now legendary. Moses was also known to have been insensitive to people of color, and tried to restrict access to many of his recreational facilities, including the pools. He determined that the Colonial Park pool in Harlem would be the only one for minority use. Most of the other pools, including Astoria, were placed in white neighborhoods.

 

The Thomas Jefferson Park pool, located in East Harlem was (LaGuardia's old congressional district) was close to Spanish Harlem where the city's growing Puert Rican population was settling, and also not very far from African-American Harlem. To discourage minority use at the Jefferson Park facility, Moses kept the water heating system turned off, believing that the cold water would not bother Caucasian swimmers, "but would deter any 'colored' people who happened to enter it once from returning." To many he was a master builder; to others he was a spoiled bully; and he seemingly always had his way.

 

In the summer of 1934, however, Robert Moses was a hero. Hundreds of projects, covering virtually every neighborhood in the city, had been completed. Structures were repainted, tennis courts resurfaced, and lawns reseeded. Hundreds of new construction projects were either underway or being designed. Among the projects being drawn up at the time was the Astoria Park Pool.

 

The Designers Behind the Planning of the Astoria Park Pool

 

Aymar Embury II and Gilmore D. Clarke, respectively the Park Department's Consulting Architect and Consulting Landscape Architect, were employed by the City on a part-time basis to oversee designs for park projects under Robert Moses. The head of the Division of Design at the time was the Park Engineer, William H. Latham, who was responsible for the preparation of all plans and specifications within the department. Major design problems were discussed by Embury and Clarke before the preliminary sketches were made under Latham's direction. Completed sketches were subject to approval by the Park Engineer, the General Superintendent, and Commissioner Moses. The consultants would give regular criticism during the preparations of the plans.

 

Aymar Embury II (1880-1966) was born in New York City and studied engineering at Princeton University, where he received a Master of Science degree in 1901. He acquired his architectural training through apprenticeships with three New York firms: George B. Post, Howells and Stokes, and Palmer and Hornbostel. He also worked for Cass Gilbert. In 1905, Embury won both first and second prize in a contest held by the Garden City Company for a modest country house to be built in Garden City, Long Island. This gained for him a reputation as a talented designer, and led to many commissions for country houses in the New York metropolitan area. He subsequently published seven books and several pamphlets, mainly on early American architecture, establishing him as an authority on that subject. By the start of the Great Depression, he was well-known and had received a wide range of commissions all over the east coast of the United States, including college buildings and social clubs, in addition to residences.

 

He designed the Players and Nassau Clubs in Princeton, New Jersey, the Princeton Club in New York City, and the University Club in Washington, D.C.

 

Embury was said to have supervised the design of over six hundred public projects, including Orchard Beach, Bryant Park, the New York City Building at the 1939 World's Fair, the Donnell Branch of the New York Public Library, the Hofstra University Campus, the Central Park and Prospect Park Zoos, Jacob Riis Park, five of the eleven neighborhood pool and play centers, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Triborough Bridge, and many more. His relationship to the planning of the Astoria Pool and Play Center appears to have been limited to his role as the department's consulting architect.

 

Gilmore D. Clarke (1892-1982) was born in New York City and studied landscape architecture and civil engineering at Cornell University, from which he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1913. He served as an engineer in the army during World War I, receiving many citations and decorations, and remained in the Army Reserve Corps until 1939. During the 1920s, he served on several local, state and federal commissions as landscape architect, including the Architectural Advisory Board for the United States Capital, the New York State Council of Parks (which was headed by Robert Moses), and the Westchester County Park Commission, among many others. For his work in Westchester County, which included the Rye Beach Playland, the Saw Mill River Parkway, and the Bronx River Parkway, Clarke was awarded the Gold Medal of Honor in Landscape Architecture from the Architectural League of New York in 1931.

 

By the time of the Great Depression, Clarke was already established as the most popular landscape architect in public works in America.

 

His career advanced during the 1930s. Besides being hired by Robert Moses as the Consulting Landscape Architect to the New York City Park Department, he also became a member of the National Commission on Fine Arts, the New York State Planning Council, and the Board of Design for the 1939 New York World's Fair. In addition to Astoria Park, his work for the Park Department included Bryant Park, Central Park Zoo, City Hall Park, Orchard Beach in the Bronx, and the Henry Hudson Parkway. He taught landscape architecture at Cornell University from 1935 to 1950, serving as dean from 1939 until his retirement in 1950 and wrote several articles for trade periodicals. In 1935, Clarke joined Michael Rapuano, an engineer and landscape architect, establishing the New York civil engineering and landscape architectural firm Clarke & Rapuano, Inc. Clarke was president of the firm from 1962 until his retirement in 1972.

 

Later in his career, Clarke worked as a consultant on the construction of the United Nations Headquarters in New York and became a Trustee for the American Museum of Natural History.

 

Architect John M. Hatton was born c.1886 in Iowa, and first appears in New York City directories in 1915. His professional training remains undetermined, but he practiced architecture in New York City into the late 1940s. In the early 1920s, he formed a partnership with architect Diego DeSuarez (DeSuarez & Hatton), which lasted only a few years. In addition to the Astoria Pool, his other works for the Department of Parks in the 1930s include the Betsy Head Pool in Brooklyn and Pelham Bay Park golf clubhouse. In the 1940s, he was considered an expert in store modernization (lighting, space layout, customer comfort, display, fixtures, and storefronts) and his designs for commercial spaces and storefronts were published in several architectural periodicals. Among his clients was the Stetson Hat Company. He also did work for the New York City Housing Authority in the 1940s.

 

The Design and Construction of the Astoria Park Pool

 

The Astoria Play Center is one of the group of eleven immense new outdoor swimming pools that opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner Robert Moses. All were constructed mainly with funds provided by the WPA. Designed to accommodate a total of 49,000 users simultaneously at locations scattered across the entire city and completed just two-and-a-half years after LaGuardia took office, the new pool complexes completely dwarfed the city's two pre-existing outdoor public pools and gained quick recognition as being among the most remarkable public recreational facilities ever constructed in this country. The city's pool construction program was reported to have been the most expensive in terms of total cost.

 

Robert Moses, an avid swimmer who had a home near the ocean in Babylon, Long Island, was known to have taken a special interest in the design and construction of bathing and swimming facilities, such as Jones Beach, Orchard Beach and Riis Park, as well as the neighborhood swimming pools, including Astoria Pool. As a result of his special attention, along with that of Embury and Clarke, the design and execution of New York City's aquatic facilities in the 1930s were a cut above most other park projects at the time.

 

At the start, the Park Department adopted a list of shared guidelines for the entire pool project in order to enhance the efficiency of the design effort, to unify the operations of each complex, and to meet the various local and federal requirements of the relief programs. For example, each pool complex was to have separate swimming, diving and wading pools, and a large bath house, the locker room sections of which doubled as gymnasiums during non-swimming months. The bath houses, which would serve as the centerpieces of each complex, would be distinctive pavilions that would establish the design motif of each facility. Concrete bleachers at the perimeter of the pools would furnish spectator viewing areas to be augmented at some sites with rooftop promenades and galleries. There would be a minimum width for the decks to provide enough room for sunbathing and circulation. There had to be underwater lighting for night swimming.

 

At least one dimension of each swimming pool would have to be a multiple of fifty five yards to allow swimming competitions to be held at standard distances in either English or metric systems. Plus, the complexes had to share low-cost building materials, principally brick and cast concrete, as required by the federal government.

 

To satisfy federal stipulation on low-cost materials, it appears that the design team for the pools determined that the streamlined and curvilinear forms of the Art Moderne and Modern Classical styles would best meet the low-cost needs and still permit pleasing aesthetics. As a group, the pools were also distinguished by the innovative mechanical systems required to heat, filter, and circulate the vast amounts of water they used. Many of these innovations set new standards for swimming pool construction, such as scum gutters that allowed in enough sunlight to naturally kill off bacteria and a series of footbaths filled with foot cleaning solution through which bathers were forced to pass upon entering the pool areas from the locker rooms.

 

Sited in existing older parks or built on other city-owned land subsequently developed with as parks and playgrounds, the huge pool complexes were provided with landscape settings which included additional recreational areas, connecting pathway systems, and comfort stations. Despite the fact that the basic components were essentially the same and that the WPA required that only the cheapest materials be used, each of these swimming pool complexes is especially notable its distinctive and unique setting, appearance, and character.

 

Although each pool complex has been credited to a particular architect, the designs appear to actually have been collaborative efforts among the army of architects, draftsmen, engineers, and landscape architects employed by the Park Department in the 1930s. In the instance of the Astoria Play Center, the architect John M. Hatton is credited with the design. Plans on file at the Parks Department archives show that Hatton only drew the main façades and certain details of the bath house and bleachers, while Gregory Kiely drew the bath house's minor façades and some additional details. The filter house was done by C.E. Nelson, J.D. McGarr, and Joseph L. Hautman and details such as the clock, signage, lettering, light fixtures, railings, and phone booths by Harry Ahrens and F.J. Svarti.

 

Since the eleven pool facilities shared many common features and specifications that could be repeated at each site, and contained other elements that were similar from complex to complex, these junior designers, having different areas of expertise, apparently moved quickly from project to project. The department produced designs and construction documents simultaneously with great speed so that eleven pools and hundreds of other park projects, including some massive undertakings like Orchard Beach, were completed within a few years. The lead architect for each pool project, who in the case of the Astoria center was John M. Hatton, designed the bath house, which was unique to each site, establishing the motif that guided the design and detailing of the rest of the complex.

 

In October 1934, the Park Department announced the start of excavations and site work for several of the new pools, including Astoria, although the excavation plan for Astoria was not issued until December. The new Astoria Pool was to be located at the site of an existing, smaller wading pool, just to the north of the Triborough Bridge, which was then under construction. The earliest reference to the design of the bath house is in an internal Park Department document from July 1935, which describes a sketch that appears not to have survived. The memorandum also discusses footings for the main pool as having already been poured, as well as the concrete floor for the pipe tunnel and the northeast corner wall of the pool. The cast iron drain and sub-piping had also been laid. The diving pool, however, was still being excavated and no work had yet begun on the wading pool. Plans were still being prepared for the filter house and comfort station.

 

By August 1935, however, the fully developed plans for the façades of the bath house were released as were the landscape and bleacher plans. The filter house plans were completed that November. Revisions continued through 1936. During the period from December 1935 through October 1936, scores of construction and engineering blueprints were completed by the staff, and building continued at a steady pace until late in the year. Enough of the complex was completed for the Astoria Pool to open with much fanfare on July 2, 1936, on the first day of trials for the U.S. Olympic swim team.

 

The year 1936 was known as "the swimming pool year," since ten of the eleven giant neighborhood pools were opened that summer, one per week for ten weeks. Each opening day was a memorable event for its neighborhood. The day-long events featured parades, blessings of the waters, swimming races, diving competitions, appearances by Olympic stars, and performances by swimming clowns. Mayor LaGuardia attended every opening to perform the ribbon cutting. Festivities continued well after dusk with LaGuardia pulling the switch to turn on each pool's spectacular underwater lighting to the "oooohs" of the crowds. The opening ceremony at Astoria Pool was attended by 20,000 people.

 

The completed Astoria Pool complex was widely acclaimed and was featured in American Architect and Architecture (November 1936) and Architectural Forum (August 1937). The use of glass block construction and louvers received special praise. Astoria was the city's largest pool at 54,450 square feet, and the second largest WPA project in Queens after Jacob Riis Park. Harry Hopkins, the WPA administrator, called the Astoria Pool "the finest in the world." It remains the city's largest public pool, and one of the major achievements of the New Deal in New York City.

 

Subsequent History

 

Upon opening, the Astoria Park Pool hosted the swimming, water polo, and diving trials for the United States Olympic Team, preparing for the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics.

 

The events were widely covered in local newspapers, and the Astoria Pool was often referred to instead as the Olympic Tryout Pool in the articles.

 

There were very few alterations in the years immediately after the completion of the pool; mainly systems upgrades and minor repairs were made. However, the original stainless steel sculptures of female athletes that had been produced by the noted sculptor Emil Siebern (1889-1942), who was a pioneer in the medium of stainless steel, had been removed from the pedestals over the west side of the main entryway before 1943 due to deterioration. Also, the surrounding playgrounds were reconstructed in 1946 and new gutters were installed in the pool in 1948. Sometime between 1948 and 1963, a one-story, brick rooftop addition containing concession stands was constructed on the filter house.

 

In the early 1940s, a group of boys from the Astoria neighborhood got together to perform swimming stunts on Wednesday nights at the pool. Known as the Aquazines, they donned costumes and treated audiences to choreographed swimming acts with music, backdrops, props and, sometimes, trained dogs. The routines showcased their talents as swimmers and divers. One of the Aquazines, Whitney Hart, became a professional diver and was later inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame.

 

The Astoria Park Pool was again host to the swimming and diving trials for the United States Olympic Teams in 1964. In preparation for the events, the facility was rehabilitated in 1963, its first comprehensive overhaul since it was opened twenty-seven years earlier. The work included the installation of new light weight concrete decks on the upper and lower promenades, as well as replacement of some window sash, and new paint throughout. The original glass pylons over the main entryway were resurfaced with brick.

 

In 1979-82, the playground to the southwest of the pool was removed and replaced with ball courts and the south comfort station in that area was demolished. Much of Astoria Park itself was reconstructed between 1983 and 1987; the project included the rehabilitation of the comfort station in the north playground and reconstruction of the seawall. In 1991, the main swimming pool was reconstructed, including the replacement of the pool floor, drains, supply islands and gutters; this replacement project was repeated in 1998-99 at which time the pool received a major systems upgrade, including new lights, pumps, piping, electric lines, filter system, showers, and improved chlorination and security systems. Also, an accessibility ramp was installed in the main pool and the supply islands in that pool were removed for safety reasons and replaced with bottom supply inlets.

 

Between 1996 and 2001, the north playground was rebuilt, the comfort station restored, and the park itself was the subject of a large erosion control and re-landscaping project. At this time, some replacement of the curbing and paving on the east entry ramps to the bath house took place, but there were no changes to the configuration of the ramps and walks. Additional minor site work and erosion control projects took place around the pool complex in 2000 to 2004.

 

The Architecture and Site of the Astoria Park Pool and Play Center

 

The New Deal construction projects within New York City, such as the Astoria Park Pool, were a part of a national trend that included similar projects undertaken by various governmental agencies, ranging from the vast Tennessee Valley Authority to small cities and towns. Urban projects built with WPA funding often possessed similar qualities from region to region, partly because the difficult economic climate dictated the use of inexpensive building materials, but also because the programs provided employment opportunities for a generation of young architects and engineers, many of whom were committed to modernism. For example, the bathhouse and waterfront facilities at Aquatic Park in San Francisco are similar in plan and appearance to the public pool and beachfront projects being built at about the same time in New York City.

 

The California facility, with its streamlined, concrete façade and steel-framed windows, bears a striking resemblance to the façade added in 1936 with WPA funds to the bathhouse at Jacob Riis Park in Queens.

 

The original and creative use made of these modest materials by Moses' talented design teams and the careful siting of each project makes every one of them a distinguished, individual design, as much related to their specific environment and needs as to one another.

 

The Astoria Play Center commands a striking waterfront location in Astoria Park. The vast scale of the pool complex is complemented by that of its setting - the distant vistas westward framed by the monumental forms of the Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges. Embedded into a wooded slope which descends to the water's edge from 19th Street, the play-center complex was designed to take full advantage of its surroundings. The entire roof of the bath house structure is used for multi-level viewing terraces. Extensive concrete bleacher sections are located on the western side of the bath house and around the diving pool. They offer far more outdoor seating than is available at the other play centers; perhaps the abundant seating is related to the fact that the United States team trials for the 1936 summer Olympic Games were held there.

 

Like Hatton's later design for the 1939 bath house at Betsy Head Park in Brooklyn, the Astoria Play Center structure makes extensive use of glass block wall construction; it forms the lower recessed sections of the locker room walls which are topped by the original metal louver windows. Massive piers laid up in decorative bonds demarcate the bays. Glass blocks also form the extensive sections of the lateral walls of the entry lobby: the original Art Moderne-style ticket booth and signage are its other significant features. Among the center's more unusual design elements are the whimsical saucer-like roofs atop the filter house on the western side of the complex. In a playground to the northwest of the center is a striking comfort station designed in a style similar to that of the bath house.

 

Description

 

Plan and Circulation. The pool is complex is approached via either one of two stepped ramps leading westward down from 19th Street to a wide plaza located in front of the east façade of the bath house. There are also two ancillary stairways that lead down to the plaza from the pathways which connect the sidewalk along 19th Street to the viewing platforms on the roof of the bath house. The viewing platforms are on two levels connected by steps and provide views of the pools and the west vista, which includes the Hell Gate Channel, the Triborough Bridge, the Hell Gate Bridge, and Wards Island. There are also steps from the lower viewing platforms to the park pathways that surround the pool complex and lead down to the ball courts, playground, lawn and Shore Boulevard. Upon entering the centrally located, open-air lobby from the entry plaza, patrons buy admissions from the freestanding ticket booth and are led to either the men's or women's locker rooms thorough doorways on the sides of the lobby.

 

From the locker rooms, access to the deck areas surrounding the pool is provided by doors on the west façade of the bath house. The three pools are surrounded by wide decks and sun bathing areas. There are additional viewing platforms and a non-original concession stand located atop the filter house on the west side of the complex. Extensive bleacher areas extend across nearly the entire eastern deck and curve around the southern side of the complex near the diving pool, ending at the filter house. There is a smaller bleacher area on the north side near the wading pool. There are also several service entrances leading in from the surrounding park and pathways on all sides of the complex.

 

The Bath House and Rooftop Viewing Platforms. The one-story bath house, which is partially built into the slope of the park, employs a U-shaped plan and is constructed of concrete, Flemish-bond brick (now mostly painted), and glass blocks. Its height varies to accommodate two levels of rooftop viewing platforms. It has a centrally-located open-air lobby, and a series of stairway which connect the viewing platforms to one another, and to the surrounding park pathways. The concrete foundation is stepped on the east side and incorporates steel gratings on the top step.

 

The east façade is fifteen bays with a centrally located main entryway, which opens into an outdoor lobby. At the center of the lobby is a multi-sided ticket booth designed in a nautical motif. The base of the ticket booth consists of terrazzo slabs angled outward toward the countertop, which is protected by a mesh cage. The roof of the booth, which aligns with the multi-side counter below, is supported by steel columns that are set back behind the counter. The roof features two step-backs, the lower one featuring a series of moldings, while the upper one has slotted openings serving to ventilate the booth. The booth is topped by short stack-like motif decorated with large cogs.

 

The floor of the lobby is paved with brick with a bluestone and granite border, while the ceiling consists of the exposed concrete underside of the rooftop viewing terrace and its supportive beams. The original clock is suspended from the westernmost beam. The three bays of each sidewall in the lobby are separated by compound piers clad in decorative brickwork. Each bay contains a set of wood doors, painted black, topped by a decorative steel lintel supporting a large expanse of glass blocks that have decorative aluminum grills at the bottom. The grills at the center bays have applied, deco-style aluminum lettering that denote the men's and women's locker rooms to either side of the lobby. There are also angled deco-style aluminum signs also identifying the men's and women's locker rooms on either side of the lobby. Wrought-iron fences and gates are located on the east and west sides.

 

The entryway is flanked on the west side by massive brick piers which step in toward the lobby and feature full-height expanses of glass blocks. Massive, molded concrete beams span the east and west openings. Parks Department signage has been added to the piers. The remaining bays consist of a series of recessed expanses of glass block walls topped by the original metal and glass louver windows (covered with non- historic mesh grills) and convex, fluted aluminum lintels. One bay is presently boarded up. Massive, projecting piers laid up in decorative brick bonds demarcate the bays. The entire façade is topped by bluestone coping.

 

The north side wing is partially built in the slope of the park, and has only one exposed façade, which faces south, but this façade is only partially exposed due to the slope of the hill. Abutting this façade is a concrete stairway with deco-style steel railings, which leads from the north pathway to the viewing terraces down to the main entrance plaza to the lobby. The side wing's façade has two bays and consists of brick walls and a wide horizontal band of glass blocks (now painted over). The bays are separated by a wide pier that is similar to the piers of the east façade of the bath house. Steel railings are attached to the brick. An original doorway in the pier has been sealed with wood covered with painted aluminum sheets. The south side wing is a mirror-image of the north wing, but its glass blocks have not been painted over. A narrow part of the south wing's brick south façade is exposed due to the slope of the site.

 

Its fenestration, now boarded up, is partially exposed above steel grates. There is also a service entry with a bulkhead at this location.

 

The bath house's seventeen-bay west façade is similar to the east façade, but is lower due to the slope of the site and because its roof accommodates the lower viewing terrace. In addition, the façade has two sets of paired wooden exit doors, painted black, from the men's and women's locker rooms. These doors are set in semicircular coves near the north and south ends of the façade. There are also non-historic security lamps, cameras, and annunciators attached to the bricks near the lobby.

 

The entire roof of the bath house, including the side wings, is paved for use as either viewing platforms or pathways leading to the platforms from the park's paths. The decks are paved with concrete with bluestone borders. All of these publicly-accessible areas are enclosed by deco-style steel railings, which incorporate flagpoles on the east side of the roof. The platforms are connected by concrete steps with historic steel railings. There are two oval, header-brick pylons (now painted) located on either side of the main entryway to the pool; they were originally made of glass blocks and were altered to their present appearance in 1963. On the west side are two lower, multi-sided concrete ventilators, aligned with the glass block expanses in the piers flanking the lobby. They originally also served as the bases for the original metal sculptures of nymphs holding balls that had been removed by 1943. The walls on the lower part of the upper viewing platform are made of brick.

 

The Pools and Deck Areas. The enclosed pool area to the west of the bath house forms an ellipse with its long axis set from north to south. Within this area are located the rectangular swimming pool flanked on either side by semicircular pools for diving on the south and wading on the north. Altogether, the three pools, which are separated by concrete decks, echo the elliptical shape of the enclosure. Concrete bleachers of varying heights line most of the inner sides of the brick perimeter walls of the pool area. These walls are topped by wrought-iron fences. The shallow wading pool has two non-original spray spouts near its center and eleven non-original spray spouts spaced at regular distances along its curved sides. The swimming pool is large expanse of water lined with a concrete gutter. It has a non-historic handicap ramp on the east side.

 

The diving pool, which is no longer in use and presently fenced off, includes at its south end, the pool's original, dramatically curved concrete, multi-level main diving platform. Each of the three platforms is cantilevered above the pool and protected by deco-style copper that match the copper railings that surround the perimeter of the diving pool. The main diving platform is flanked by two similar, but lower, cantilevered diving platforms. Two other low, concrete diving platforms that appear to be later in date are suspended over the pool from the deck on its north side. The deck surrounding the pool has non-historic lampposts, non-original drinking fountains near the bath house, and a flagpole, which is located between the swimming and wading pools. There are two other flagpoles south of the diving pool; they have floodlights attached to them.

 

The Flemish-bond brick perimeter wall (now painted), which is topped by concrete coping and wrought-iron fences, rises in height toward the south end of the site due to the topography. At the north end it is a freestanding wall lined on the inside with low bleachers. There are also service entries consisting of wrought-iron gates flanked by tall, decorative brick posts with cast- concrete coping. At its south and southwest portions, the perimeter wall is tall enough to incorporate service areas beneath the bleacher areas. There are service entrances covered with roll-down steel gates, and windows covered with steel grates and plates in the south part of the wall. Some windows are now sealed with brick. The bleachers also extend below the west façade of the bath house. They are interrupted at the locker room entryway by shallow concrete steps. Steel tube railings protect the bleachers at these locations.

 

There is another flight of concrete steps upon the bleachers in front of the bath house lobby; it has a steel tube hand rail. There are non-historic steel support columns on the southwest portion of bleachers. These are used in the summer to support shade covers.

 

The Filter House. The filter house is the rectangular-in-plan, Flemish bond-brick building (now painted) on the west side of the pool; it includes raised areas at either end containing viewing platforms covered with cast-concrete, saucer-shaped roofs with scalloped edges. Reached via cantilevered, concrete steps, the viewing platforms have concrete floors and are protected with deco-style steel railings. There is also a non- historic brick and concrete concession stand on the lower part of its roof, which is just a few steps above deck level due to changes in the elevation of the site. Thus, the filter house's west façade rises to a full story in height at the center and two full stories at the raised ends beneath the saucers. The east façade of the filter house has brick walls covered with non-original, painted murals. The west façade is seven bays and is articulated in a similar manner as the east and west façades of the bath house.

 

Originally, it had steel casements, but these have been filled in with brick and narrow strips of glass blocks. There are also empty niches lined with painted concrete on the areas of the façade that align with the saucer roofs (The original blueprints specified glass blocks at these locations, which have been removed). These taller sections have coursed brick façades. The north façade is fronted by service ramps and entryways and steel sash at the second story. The south façade of the filter house consists of coursed brick, a service entrance, and security lights and equipment.

 

The Surrounding Park including the Playground, Comfort Station, and Ball Court. The portions of Astoria Park that are part of the landmark site include a series of pathways paved with either blacktop or hexagonal blocks with either concrete or bluestone curbs. Some of these paths predate the pool complex, while others were installed at that time. Some of the paths are stepped, most notably both of the diagonal stepped paths leading from 19th Street down to the main entry plaza on the east side of the bath house. There are circular, concrete-paved areas at the top of both of these ramps that demarcate the locations of original fountains that have long since been removed. The one on the south side has brass letters and segments embedded in the concrete to form a compass. The plaza also has iron tube railings parallel to the main façade.

 

There are also park benches, bollards (both iron and concrete), wrought-iron fences and park lamps at various locations; these appear not to be original features of the park and to post date the construction of the play center. There is a lawn on the east side of the complex which features a granite memorial commemorating the First World War. The memorial was placed in Astoria Park in 1926, and was moved to its present location during construction of the play center. The memorial is flanked by flagpoles. An asphalt-paved ball court to the southwest of the pool complex has non-historic chain link fences surrounding it and non-historic concrete steps. A playground to the northwest to the site, enclosed by non- historic wrought-iron fences, has non-historic play equipment. A Flemish-bond brick comfort station (now painted), built at the same time and in the same style as the pool complex, is located on the south side of the playground.

 

The one-story building is square in plan and features projecting end piers with decorative brickwork, curved wall surfaces near the entrances, incised lettering indicated and girls/boys rooms, glass block wall surfaces, non-historic roof-top weathervane and decorative cast concrete embellishments. There is also non-historic Parks Department signage and security lighting applied to the walls. A brick, curving retaining wall extends westward from the filter house. It is topped by concrete coping and wrought-iron fencing that matches the rest of the complex.

 

- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Edward John Kerling, one of eight Nazi saboteurs who landed by submarine on U.S. shores In June 1942, is shown in a mugshot after his arrest.

 

The Washington Star photo editor re-touched Kerling's shirt on the image on the right and put an X across the image on the left.

 

Kerling was born in Wiesbaden, Germany on June 12, 1909. He joined the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1928.

 

Kerling left Germany later that year settling in New York City. After a time working in a packing house in Manhattan as a shipping clerk, Kerling served as a chauffeur for Eli Culbertson, a bridge expert, in Hicksville, Long Island.

 

On October 31, 1931 he married Marie Sichart. After his marriage Kerling worked as a chauffeur for W. J. Hoggson, a banker in Greenwich, Connecticut. While in Florida, Kerling met Hedwig Engemann, who became his mistress.

 

In 1939 when Germany went to war, Edward Kerling and several friends, including Hermann Neubauer, bought the yacht Lekala. They intended to sail it to Germany. The U.S. Coast Guard, fearing the group might be attempting to supply U-Boats, prohibited the voyage. The boat was sold in Miami.

 

In June 1940, Kerling sailed via passenger ship to Germany. Kerling left his wife and lover behind in the USA. In August, Kerling joined the German Army and was assigned to a listening post in Deauville, France.

 

In April, 1942 he was recruited into the Abwehr where he was assigned to sabotage training at Brandenburg. Kerling was appointed a team leader in Operation Pastorius. Kerling landed on Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida (by U-Boat) in June, 1942.

 

Pastorius was a sabotage mission against the United States during World War Two. After one of the team members from the Long Island group went straight to the FBI, Kerling was arrested in New York City a few days later.

 

He was tried by a military tribunal in July, 1942 and executed on August 8, 1942 in the Washington D.C. district jail by electrocution. Also executed that day were his old friend Hermann Neubauer and teammates Werner Thiel and Herbert Haupt. Two of the Long Island group, Heinrich Heinck and Richard Quirin also died in the electric chair.

 

Kerling’s wife claimed that attempt to retrieve his remains were barred by the U.S. government. Attempts by Kerling’s wife to retrieve his remains were denied by the U.S. government. Similar efforts by the lawyer representing Erna Haupt, Haupt’s mother, were also reportedly rejected.

 

All six of the German agents were all buried in a government potters field for un-claimed bodies. Kerling’s grave was marked by a wooden board numbered 279. In 1982 more permanent grave markers were placed.

Background to Operation Pastorius

 

After the U.S. declared war on Germany following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Nazi leader Adolph Hitler authorized a mission to sabotage the American war effort and attack civilian targets to demoralize the American civilian population inside the United States.

 

Recruited for Operation Pastorius, named for the leader of the first German settlement in America, were eight German residents who had lived in the United States.

 

Two of them, Ernst Burger and Herbert Haupt, were American citizens. The others, George John Dasch, Edward John Kerling, Richard Quirin, Heinrich Harm Heinck, Hermann Otto Neubauer, and Werner Thiel, had worked at various jobs in the United States.

 

All eight were recruited into the Abwehr military intelligence organization and were given three weeks of intensive sabotage training in the German High Command school on an estate at Quenz Lake, near Berlin, Germany. The agents were instructed in the manufacture and use of explosives, incendiaries, primers, and various forms of mechanical, chemical, and electrical delayed timing devices.

 

Their mission was to stage sabotage attacks on American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York; locks on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky; the Horseshoe Curve, a crucial railroad pass near Altoona, Pennsylvania, as well as the Pennsylvania Railroad's repair shops at Altoona; a cryolite plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey.

 

The agents were also instructed to spread a wave of terror by planting explosives on bridges, railroad stations, water facilities, and public places. They were given counterfeit birth certificates, Social Security Cards, draft deferment cards, nearly $175,000 in American money, and driver's licenses, and put aboard two U-boats to land on the east coast of the U.S.

 

Before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, head of the team, left sensitive documents behind on a train, and one of the agents when drunk announced to patrons at a bar in Paris that he was a secret agent.

 

On the night of June 12, 1942, the first submarine to arrive in the U.S., U-202, landed at Amagansett, New York, which is about 100 miles east of New York City, on Long Island, at what today is Atlantic Avenue beach.

 

It was carrying Dasch and three other saboteurs (Burger, Quirin, and Heinck). The team came ashore wearing German Navy uniforms so that if they were captured, they would be classified as prisoners of war rather than spies. They also brought their explosives, primers and incendiaries, and buried them along with their uniforms, and put on civilian clothes to begin an expected two-year campaign in the sabotage of American defense-related production.

 

When Dasch was discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guardsman John C. Cullen, Dasch offered Cullen a $260 bribe. Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter. An armed patrol returned to the site but found only the buried equipment; the Germans had taken the Long Island Rail Road from the Amagansett station into Manhattan, where they checked into a hotel. A massive manhunt was begun.

 

The other four-member German team headed by Kerling landed without incident at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, south of Jacksonville on June 16, 1942. They came on U-584, another submarine. This group came ashore wearing bathing suits but wore German Navy hats. After landing ashore, they threw away their hats, put on civilian clothes, and started their mission by boarding trains to Chicago, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio.

 

The two teams were to meet on July 4 in a hotel in Cincinnati to coordinate their sabotage operations.

 

Dasch called Burger into their upper-story hotel room and opened a window, saying they would talk, and if they disagreed, "only one of us will walk out that door—the other will fly out this window." Dasch told him he had no intention of going through with the mission, hated Nazism, and planned to report the plot to the FBI. Burger agreed to defect to the United States immediately.

 

On June 15, Dasch phoned the New York office of the FBI to explain who he was, but hung up when the agent answering doubted his story. Four days later, he took a train to Washington, DC and walked into FBI headquarters, where he gained the attention of Assistant Director D. M. Ladd by showing him the operation's budget of $84,000 cash.

 

Besides Burger, none of the other German agents knew they were betrayed. Over the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover made no mention that Dasch had turned himself in, and claimed credit for the FBI for cracking the spy ring.

 

Information that Dasch and Burger had exposed the operation was withheld from the public until after World War II was over in order to make it appear to the American public and to Nazi Germany that the FBI was effective in preventing sabotage.

 

Fearful that a civilian court would be too lenient, President Roosevelt issued Executive Proclamation 2561 on July 2, 1942 creating a military tribunal to prosecute the Germans. Placed before a seven-member military commission, the Germans were charged with the following offenses:

 

1) Violating the law of war;

2) Violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy;

3) Violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and

4) Conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.

The trial was held in Assembly Hall #1 on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C. on July 8, 1942.

 

Lawyers for the accused, who included Lauson Stone and Kenneth Royall, attempted to have the case tried in a civilian court but were rebuffed by the United States Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), a case that was later cited as a precedent for the trial by military commission of any unlawful combatant against the United States.

 

The trial for the eight defendants ended on August 1, 1942. Two days later, all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life in prison and Dasch's to 30 years because they had turned themselves in and provided information about the others.

 

The others were executed on August 8, 1942 in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field in the Blue Plains area in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C.

 

In April 1948, U.S. President Harry Truman granted clemency to Dasch and Burger who were deported to the American zone in Germany and required to live in that area or face re-imprisonment.

 

Fourteen other people were charged with aiding the eight saboteurs. They were Walter and Lucille Froehling, Otto and Kate Wergin, Harry and Emma Jaques, Anthony Cramer, Helmut Leiner, Herman Heinrich, Maria Kerling, Hedwig Engemann, Hans Max Haupt and Erna Haupt, and Ernest Kerkhof.

 

Nearly all were held as enemy aliens and several were sentenced to death for treason, but had their convictions reversed on appeal. Some were re-tried on lesser charges. Some never went to trial.

 

--Information partially excerpted from Wikipedia

 

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmPiRmT4

 

The photographer is unknown. The image is believed to be a U.S. government photograph. It is housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.

 

.Ernest Peter Burger, one of eight Nazi saboteurs who landed by submarine on U.S. shores In June 1942, is shown in a full head-to-toe mugshot after his arrest.

 

Burger was born in Augsburg in 1906. He was a machinist by trade who joined the German National Socialist (Nazi) Party at the age of 17.

 

Burger immigrated to America in 1927 and became a U.S. citizen in 1933. He had lived in the United States for some years, even joining the National Guard in 1931.

 

During the Depression, Burger returned to Germany, he rejoined the Nazi Party and became an aide-de-camp to Ernst Roehm, the chief of the Nazi storm troopers. Later, he wrote a paper critical of the Gestapo—a move that earned him seventeen months in a concentration camp.

 

Despite his history as a survivor of a Nazi internment camp and harassment of his wife by Nazi party members, Burger was recruited by the Abwehr, Nazi Germany's intelligence organization.

 

After the U.S. declared war on Germany following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Nazi leader Adolph Hitler authorized a mission to sabotage the American war effort and attack civilian targets to demoralize the American civilian population inside the United States.

 

Recruited for Operation Pastorius, named for the leader of the first German settlement in America, were eight German residents who had lived in the United States.

 

Two of them, Ernst Burger and Herbert Haupt, were American citizens. The others, George John Dasch, Edward John Kerling, Richard Quirin, Heinrich Harm Heinck, Hermann Otto Neubauer, and Werner Thiel, had worked at various jobs in the United States.

 

All eight were recruited into the Abwehr military intelligence organization and were given three weeks of intensive sabotage training in the German High Command school on an estate at Quenz Lake, near Berlin, Germany. The agents were instructed in the manufacture and use of explosives, incendiaries, primers, and various forms of mechanical, chemical, and electrical delayed timing devices.

 

Their mission was to stage sabotage attacks on American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York; locks on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky; the Horseshoe Curve, a crucial railroad pass near Altoona, Pennsylvania, as well as the Pennsylvania Railroad's repair shops at Altoona; a cryolite plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey.

 

The agents were also instructed to spread a wave of terror by planting explosives on bridges, railroad stations, water facilities, and public places. They were given counterfeit birth certificates, Social Security Cards, draft deferment cards, nearly $175,000 in American money, and driver's licenses, and put aboard two U-boats to land on the east coast of the U.S.

 

Before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, head of the team, left sensitive documents behind on a train, and one of the agents when drunk announced to patrons at a bar in Paris that he was a secret agent.

 

On the night of June 12, 1942, the first submarine to arrive in the U.S., U-202, landed at Amagansett, New York, which is about 100 miles east of New York City, on Long Island, at what today is Atlantic Avenue beach.

 

It was carrying Dasch and three other saboteurs (Burger, Quirin, and Heinck). The team came ashore wearing German Navy uniforms so that if they were captured, they would be classified as prisoners of war rather than spies. They also brought their explosives, primers and incendiaries, and buried them along with their uniforms, and put on civilian clothes to begin an expected two-year campaign in the sabotage of American defense-related production.

 

When Dasch was discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guardsman John C. Cullen, Dasch offered Cullen a $260 bribe. Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter. An armed patrol returned to the site but found only the buried equipment; the Germans had taken the Long Island Rail Road from the Amagansett station into Manhattan, where they checked into a hotel. A massive manhunt was begun.

 

The other four-member German team headed by Kerling landed without incident at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, south of Jacksonville on June 16, 1942. They came on U-584, another submarine. This group came ashore wearing bathing suits but wore German Navy hats. After landing ashore, they threw away their hats, put on civilian clothes, and started their mission by boarding trains to Chicago, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio.

 

The two teams were to meet on July 4 in a hotel in Cincinnati to coordinate their sabotage operations.

 

Dasch called Burger into their upper-story hotel room and opened a window, saying they would talk, and if they disagreed, "only one of us will walk out that door—the other will fly out this window." Dasch told him he had no intention of going through with the mission, hated Nazism, and planned to report the plot to the FBI. Burger agreed to defect to the United States immediately.

 

On June 15, Dasch phoned the New York office of the FBI to explain who he was, but hung up when the agent answering doubted his story. Four days later, he took a train to Washington, DC and walked into FBI headquarters, where he gained the attention of Assistant Director D. M. Ladd by showing him the operation's budget of $84,000 cash.

 

Besides Burger, none of the other German agents knew they were betrayed. Over the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover made no mention that Dasch had turned himself in, and claimed credit for the FBI for cracking the spy ring.

 

Information that Dasch and Burger had exposed the operation was withheld from the public until after World War II was over in order to make it appear to the American public and to Nazi Germany that the FBI was effective in preventing sabotage.

 

Fearful that a civilian court would be too lenient, President Roosevelt issued Executive Proclamation 2561 on July 2, 1942 creating a military tribunal to prosecute the Germans. Placed before a seven-member military commission, the Germans were charged with the following offenses:

 

1) Violating the law of war;

2) Violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy;

3) Violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and

4) Conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.

The trial was held in Assembly Hall #1 on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C. on July 8, 1942.

 

Lawyers for the accused, who included Lauson Stone and Kenneth Royall, attempted to have the case tried in a civilian court but were rebuffed by the United States Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), a case that was later cited as a precedent for the trial by military commission of any unlawful combatant against the United States.

 

The trial for the eight defendants ended on August 1, 1942. Two days later, all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life in prison and Dasch's to 30 years because they had turned themselves in and provided information about the others.

 

The others were executed on August 8, 1942 in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field in the Blue Plains area in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C. The site was only indicated with only wooden markers and numbers. In 1982 a grave stone was added to the burial plot.

 

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman granted executive clemency to Dasch and Burger on the condition that they be deported to the American Zone of occupied Germany. They were not welcomed back in Germany, as they were regarded as traitors who had caused the death of their comrades.

 

Although they had reportedly been promised pardons by J. Edgar Hoover in exchange for their cooperation, Burger died in 1975 and Dasch died in 1992 without either man ever receiving them.

 

Fourteen other people were charged with aiding the eight saboteurs. They were Walter and Lucille Froehling, Otto and Kate Wergin, Harry and Emma Jaques, Anthony Cramer, Helmut Leiner, Herman Heinrich, Maria Kerling, Hedwig Engemann, Hans Max Haupt and Erna Haupt, and Ernest Kerkhof.

 

Nearly all were held as enemy aliens and several were sentenced to death for treason, but had their convictions reversed on appeal. Some were re-tried on lesser charges. Some never went trial.

 

--Information partially excerpted from Wikipedia

 

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmPiRmT4

 

The photographer is unknown. The image is believed to be a U.S. government photograph. It is housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.

   

Caedwalla of Wessex

 

In 685 it was invaded by Caedwalla of Wessex. The Jutish king of the Isle of Wight, Arwald, died in action and his nephews were betrayed to Caedwalla, who subsequently died of wounds received in the battle. The two boys were converted to Christianity and immediately executed. Their names are unknown, but are called collectively "St.Arwald"- after their pagan uncle (who died fighting Christianity).

 

The West Saxon invasion was by all accounts prolonged and bloody.

 

St.Bede states that "...After Caedwalla had obtained possession of the kingdom of the Gewissae, he took also the Isle of Wight, which till then was entirely given over to idolatry, and by merciless slaughter, endeavoured to destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and to place their stead people from his own province; binding himself by a vow, though it is said that he was not yet regenerated in Christ, to give the fourth part of the land and of the spoil to the Lord, if he took the Island. He fulfilled this vow by giving the same for the service of the Lord to Bishop Wilfrid..."

 

It is reported in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle that during Caedwalla's attempts to subdue the population he was gravely wounded - wounds from which he would die within a couple of years. Before final subjugation most of the Jutish population of the island were killed and the remnant forced to accept Christianity as their religion and the West Saxon dialect as their language. Bede states that Caedwalla endeavoured to "mercilessly" destroy the population, but that 300 "hides" were given to the Church in the person of St Wilfrid. A "hide" was the amount of land required to support a family, and the Island was rated at 1200 hides. Caedwalla was a Christian sympathiser under the tutelage of St Wilfrid and St Aldhelm and had promised Wilfrid a quarter of the land in return for his assistance in claiming the Wessex throne. Unfortunately for them, the Jutish Islanders were not only heathens, but apostates, and the mass conversion of the Island probably did not occur as smoothly as had been planned.

 

From 685 therefore the island can be considered to have become part of Wessex and following the accession of West Saxon kings as kings of all England then part of England. The island became part of the shire of Hampshire and was divided into hundreds as was the norm.

[edit] The Saxons

 

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells how Wiht-land suffered particularly from Viking predations. Alfred the Great's navy defeated the Danes in 871 after they had "ravaged Devon and the Isle of Wight". During the second wave of Viking attacks in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (975-1014) the Isle of Wight was taken over by the Danes as a base to harry Southern England, referred to as their "frith-stool". The inlet on the west of the River Medina at Werrar Copse seems to have been their main base. In 1002 Ethelred ordered the killing of all the Danes in England in the St. Brice's Day Massacre but the Danish Army remained intact, based on the Isle of Wight. In 1012 Sweyn Forkbeard revenged the Danish defeat. Ethelred was forced to flee England: he spent Christmas on the Isle of Wight en route to refuge in Normandy.

 

The Island again played a critical role in English history as the base for Harold Godwinson and his brothers in their revolt against Edward the Confessor and yet again in 1066, when Tostig Godwinson arrived to collect supplies - but very little other support - en route to his defeat by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Both men had manors on the Isle of Wight - Harold at Kern and Tostig at Nunwell.

[edit] The Norman Conquest

 

In the Domesday book (1086) the Island's name is Wit. The Norman Conquest of 1066 transferred the overall manorial rights of the Island to William FitzOsbern as Lord of the Isle of Wight. Carisbrooke Priory and the fort of Carisbrooke Castle were founded. The Island did not come under full control of the Crown until it was sold by the dying last Norman Lord, Lady Isabella de Fortibus, to Edward I in 1293.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment, with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him.

[edit] Medieval

 

After the Norman Conquest, the title of Lord of the Isle of Wight was created and William Fitz-Osborne who subsequently founded Carisbrooke Priory and the fortifications on what was to become Carisbrooke Castle became the first to hold the title. (It is possible that the site of Carisbrooke Castle had previously been fortified originally by Romans and subsequently by Jutes or Saxons; there still remains a late Saxon burgh, or defensive wall, built to defend the site from Viking raiders.) The Island did not come under the full control of the crown until the Countess Isabella De Fortibus sold it to Edward I in 1293 for six thousand marks.

 

The Lordship thereafter became a Royal appointment with a brief interruption when Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, was crowned King of the Isle of Wight, King Henry VI assisting in person at the ceremony, placing the crown on his head. He died in 1445, aged 22. With no male heir, his regal title expired with him. The title of Lord of the Isle of Wight expired in the reign of Henry VII with the title of Governor or Captain being used for sometime thereafter. During the English Civil War King Charles fled to the Isle of Wight believing he would receive sympathy from the governor Robert Hammond. Hammond was appalled, and incarcerated the king in Carisbrooke Castle. Charles was later tried and executed in London.

 

Henry VIII who developed the Royal Navy and its permanent base at Portsmouth, fortifications at Yarmouth, East & West Cowes and Sandown, sometimes re-using stone from dissolved monasteries as building material. Sir Richard Worsley, Captain of the Island at this time, successfully commanded the resistance to the last of the French attacks in 1545. In July 1545; French troops had landed on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight. Their aim was to seize important areas of the island; allowing the French to gain overall control of the Isle of Wight; giving the French a valuable jumping-off point for further operations against the mainland. However, the French advance was decisively defeated, when the local Isle of Wight militia defeated the French troops in the Battle of Bonchurch. Much later on after the Spanish Armada in 1588 the threat of Spanish attacks remained, and the outer fortifications of Carisbrooke Castle were built between 1597 and 1602.

 

In 1587 two Roman Catholic missionaries Anderton and Marsden, originally from Lancashire, but trained in France, were returned to England in disguise on the ferry to Dover, but due to a severe gale landed in Cowes in the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately for them, such was the danger they were in that they loudly prayed to God to "save the first of your seminarians to returm=n to England" which was overheard by fellow passengers who reported them to Governor Carey. They were taken to London for trial, but executed by hanging, drawing and quartering in Cowes, although the exact site is unknown. They were declared "Venerable" by Pope Pius XI.

[edit] Early Modern and Modern

 

Charles I evaded custody under the Army at Hampton Court by riding to Southampton in order to escape to Jersey. However,he and his companion became lost in the New Forest and missed their intended ship, and fled to the Isle of Wight instead. The Governor Colonel Robert Hammond had declared for Parliament and Charles was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Since an extensive bowling green was built for his use this was initially in some comfort, but this was made closer after an abortive escape attempt, when he failed to get through the window to where Royalist sympathisers under John Oglander were waiting with a horse.

 

Charles was approached by the Presbyterian faction of Parliament and concluded the Treaty of Newport, offering him a constitutional monarchy. However Charles had no intention of accepting its restrictions upon Royal power and also concluded the Engagement with the Scots to invade on his behalf. As a result of his perceived faithlessness, the moderate faction at Parliament were discredited and Charles was moved to more prison-like conditions at Hurst Castle and thence to execution on 30 January 1649.

 

Later Cromwell was to use Carisbrooke Castle as a place of imprisonment for Fifth Monarchists opposed to his Protectorate including Thomas Harrison and Christopher Feake.

 

Queen Victoria made the Isle of Wight her home for many years, and as a result it become a major holiday resort for members of European royalty, whose many houses could later claim descent from her through the widely flung marriages of her offspring. During her reign in 1897 the World's first radio station was set up by Marconi at the Needles battery at the western tip of the Island.

 

The famous boat-building firm of J. Samuel White was established on the Island in 1802. Other noteworthy marine manufacturers followed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Saunders-Roe a key manufacturer of the Flying-boats and the world's first hovercraft. The tradition of maritime industry continues on the Island today.

 

In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, a sizeable network of railways was built on the island, notable for its punishing gradients and numerous tunnels, particularly to reach the town of Ventnor. Since the early twentieth century, these lines were often linked to plans for a tunnel under the Solent, an idea still talked of today. Most of the rail network closed between 1956 and 1966, and is now a series of cyclepaths.

 

The first Governor to hold the crown representative title used now of Lord-Lieutenant was Lord Mountbatten of Burma until his murder in 1979. Lord Mottistone was the last Lord Lieutenant to also hold the title Governor (from 1992 to 1995). Since 1995 there has been no Governor appointed and Mr Christopher Bland has been the Lord Lieutenant.

[edit] Caulkheads and other Island terms

 

Historically, inhabitants of the Isle of Wight have been known as Vectensians or Vectians (pronounced Vec-tee-ans). These terms derive from the Latin name for the Island, Vectis. Vectian is a word used more formally to describe certain geological features which are typical of the Island. As with many other small island communities the term Islander has long been used, and is commonly heard today. The term Overner is used for people originating from mainland Great Britain. This is an abbreviated form of Overlander; which is an archaic English term for an outsider still found in a few other places such as parts of Australia.[5]

 

People born on the island are colloquially known as Caulkheads (sometimes erroneously written as it is spoken, Corkheads), a word comparable with the name Cockney for those born in the East End of London. Some argue that the term should only apply those who can also claim they are of established Isle of Wight stock either by proven historical roots or, for example, being third generation inhabitants from both parents' lineage.[6]

 

One theory about the term 'caulkhead' is that it comes from the once prevalent local industry of caulking boats; a process of sealing the seams of wooden boats with oakum. It is said that the shipyard at Bucklers Hard in the New Forest employed labourers from the Isle of Wight , mainly as caulkers, in the building of early warships. Islanders may have been called "Caulkheads" during this time either because they were indeed so employed, or merely as a derisory term for perceived unintelligent labourers from another place. Another more fanciful story is that a group of armoured Island horsemen were chased into the sea by the marauding French, and took refuge on a sandbank when the tide came in, thus appearing to float in the sea despite their heavy armour, hence the name Cork- i.e. Caulk-, -heads When this supposed event happened is not clear, since the Island was frequently attacked in the Middle Ages, however in the last instance in 1546 Sandown Castle was under construction some way offshore and a battle was fought on site, resulting in the French being driven off and this could fit this particular tale.[7] In local folklore it is said that a test can be conducted on a baby by throwing it into the sea from the end of Ryde Pier whereupon a true caulkhead baby will float unharmed. Thankfully there is no record of the test ever being carried out.

[edit] Political History

 

The island's most ancient borough was Newtown on the large natural harbour on the island's north-western coast. A French raid in 1377, that destroyed much of the town as well as other Island settlements, sealed its permanent decline. By the middle of the sixteenth century it was a small settlement long eclipsed by the more easily defended town of Newport. Elizabeth I breathed some life into the town by awarding two parliamentary seats but this ultimately made it one of the most notorious of the Rotten Boroughs. By the time of the Great Reform Act that abolished the seats, it had just fourteen houses and twenty-three voters. The Act also disenfranchised the borough of Yarmouth and replaced the four lost seats with the first MP for the whole Isle of Wight; Newport also retained its two MPs, though these were reduced to one in 1868 and eventually abolished completely in 1885.

 

Often thought of as part of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight was briefly included in that county when the first county councils were created in 1888. However, a "Home Rule" campaign led to a separate county council being established for the Isle of Wight in 1890, and it has remained separate ever since. Like inhabitants of many islands, Islanders are fiercely jealous of their real (or perceived) independence, and confusion over the Island's separate status is a perennial source of friction.

 

It was planned to merge the county back into Hampshire as a district in the 1974 local government reform, but a last minute change led to it retaining its county council. However, since there was no provision made in the Local Government Act 1972 for unitary authorities, the Island had to retain a two-tier structure, with a county council and two boroughs, Medina and South Wight.

 

The borough councils were merged with the county council on April 1, 1995, to form a single unitary authority, the Isle of Wight Council. The only significant present-day administrative link with Hampshire is the police service, the Hampshire Constabulary, which is joint between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

 

From the closing decades of the 20th century onwards, there has been considerable debate on the Island over whether or not a bridge or tunnel should connect the island with mainland England. The Isle of Wight Party campaigned from a positive position, although extensive public debate on the subject revealed a strong body of opinion amongst islanders against such a proposal. In 2002 the Isle of Wight Council debated the issue and made a policy statement against the proposal.

[edit] Autonomy and Political Recognition

 

A number of discussions about the status of the island have taken place over many years, with standpoints from the extreme of wanting full sovereignty for the Isle of Wight, to perhaps the opposite extreme of merging with Hampshire. The pro-independence lobby had a formal voice in the early 1970s with the Vectis National Party. Their main claim was that the sale of the island to the Crown in 1293 was unconstitutional. However, this movement now has little serious support. Since the 1990s the debate has largely taken the form of a campaign to have the Isle of Wight recognized as a distinct region by organizations such as the EU, due to its relative poverty within the south-east of England. One argument in favour of special treatment is that this poverty is not acknowledged by such organizations as it is distorted statistically by retired and wealthy (but less economically active) immigrants from the mainland.

 

In more recent times, the regionalist movement has been represented by the Isle of Wight Party.

[edit] Isle of Wight Disease

 

In 1904 a mysterious illness began to kill honeybee colonies on the island, and had nearly wiped out all hives by 1907 when the disease jumped to the mainland, and decimated beekeeping in the British Isles. Called the Isle of Wight Disease, the cause of the mystery ailment was not identified until 1921 when a tiny parasitic mite, Acarapis woodi was first described by J. Rennie. The mite inhabited the tracheae of individual bees, and greatly shortened their lifespan, causing eventual death of the colony. The disease (now called Acarine Disease) frightened many other nations because of the importance of bees in pollination. Laws against importation of honeybees were passed, but this merely delayed the eventual spread of the parasite to the rest of the world.

[edit] The Isle of Wight Festival

Main article: Isle of Wight Festival

 

A large rock festival took place near Tennyson Down, West Wight in 1970, following two smaller concerts in 1968 and 1969. The 1970 show was notable for being the last public performance by Jimi Hendrix before his death. The festival was revived in 2002 and is now an annual event,[8] with other, smaller musical events of many different genres across the Island becoming associated with it.

 

The first of the modern festivals was a one day affair termed Rock Island,[9] which expanded to two days in 2003,[9] then three days by 2004.[10]

Iran is planning to execute another protester, Mohammad Ghobadlou, for the crime of protesting. We call on the Western leaders to call out Iran’s regime to halt the execution.

 

#SayNoToHanging #MohammadGhobadlou

Romanian soldiers execute a live-fire drill with rocket-propelled grenades during Exercise Steadfast Defender 21.

 

Steadfast Defender 2021 is a NATO-led exercise involving over 9,000 troops from more than 20 NATO Allies and partners. The objective is to ensure that NATO forces are trained, able to operate together and ready to respond to any threat from any direction.