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In the Introduction to his book “The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin” Houdini says:
“This book is the natural result of the moulding, dominating influence which the spirit and writing of Robert-Houdin have exerted over my professional career. My interest in conjuring and magic and my enthusiasm for Robert-Houdin came into existence simultaneously. From the moment that I began to study the art, he became my guide and hero. I accepted his writings as my text-book and my gospel. What Blackstone is to the struggling lawyer, Hardee’s “Tactics” to the would-be officer, or Bismark’s life and writings to the coming statesman, Robert-Houdin’s books were to me.
“…When it became necessary for me to take a stage name, and a fellow player, possessing a veneer of culture, told me that if I would add the letter ‘i’ to Houdin’s name, it would mean, in the French language, ‘like Houdin,’ I adopted the suggestion with enthusiasm. I asked nothing more of life than to become in my profession ‘like Robert-Houdin.’”
That is high praise indeed! But the rest of Houdini’s book is not so flattering. It exposes his hero and the source of his name as a thief and fraud. Houdini judges Robert-Houdin harshly after discovering that a number of the effects that he claimed to have invented were not invented by him at all. Houdini uncovered the evidence only after a great deal of research. He even offered a prize of $250 if anybody could name a book that had taken as much time, energy, travel and money, “with such authentic data regarding real magical inventions.” He traced the origins of some effects decades, even a century before Robert-Houdin.
Houdini built a strong case against his former hero. Effects that Robert-Houdin claimed to be his own invention were almost identical to effects invented by earlier magicians. Could he have reasonably believed himself to have created those effects? No one can know for sure. Robert-Houdin didn’t devote anywhere near as much “time, travel, energy and money” as did Houdini in researching the effects, so he may well have believed them to be his own. In any case, Houdini’s book was roundly castigated, especially in France, the home of Robert-Houdin.
Houdini could have avoided the controversy if he had simply called the book the “The History of Magic” instead of “The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin.” It contains a great deal of historical research into the illusions and effects of magic. The effort that went into it was considerable. But, it seems, Houdini wanted the public to know of his disenchantment with his former hero who he, in effect, accuses of stealing and lying.
Houghton Hall was the home of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742.
Houghton was built between 1722 and 1735.
This is the Stable Square at Houghton Hall. Inside is the Soldier Museum, Restaurant, Gift Shop and Stables.
This is the second stables that Sir Robert Walpole built at Houghton, between 1733 and 1735. The external walls are made of the local yellow Snettisham stone and the walls are brick.
The stables replaces an earlier quadrangle built between 1719 and 1721, which was the first of its kind at a country house. But the old one was too close to the house, so Sir Robert Walpole had it demolished, and then started again on a new site further from the house and out of view.
The stables are Grade I listed.
Stables - Houghton Hall - Heritage Gateway
Stable courtyard, known as the Square. C.1730, attributable to William Kent,
but perhaps supervised by Thomas Ripley architect. For Sir Robert Walpole,
later 1st Earl of Orford. Palladian. Largely coursed carstone, some brick
on south and west facades, brick with carstone dressings to interior courtyard.
Smut pantiles and slates, 15 bay east and west and 13 bay north and south
ranges, built around a courtyard. East and west facades have 3 bay centre-
pieces, 6 bay north and south ranges. Single bay angle towers. Centre bay
has raised chamfered rusticated keyed arch, boarded door. 2 flanking bays
having single boarded doors under arches with fixed casement lunette heads.
Each bay has single 2-light casements. Raised chamfered rusticated quoins
to central bay and flanking bay angles. Centre has third storey with Diocletian
window. Flanking bays have lean-to half pediments, clasping central full
pediment, Palladio's Rendentore arrangements. 6 north and south bays have
ground floor blank bays with piers with simple bases and capitals, fixed and
opening casements in arches above. 6 north and south 2-light casements above.
End bay forms angle towers with recessed blank bays with casements in arches,
2-light casements above. Raised and chamfered angle quoins. Octagonal third
storey turrets with round arched oculuses, cornice, and octagonal slated roofs
with large scale acorn finials. 4 roundels on pedestals at parapet level,
a direct Palladio quotation. Whole facade articulated with ground level plinth
first floor platband and eaves modillion cornice. West range has in addition
carved and brick blank arches to ground floor. Coat of arms with swags in
central pediment. Late C17 from earlier house with quarterings of Sir Robert
Walpole's grandfather. 4 stacks to each ridge. North facade has blank arches
with lunettes. Single bay centrepiece with rusticated, keyed open arch, third
floor Diocletian window and pediment. South facade has brick blank arches
to ground floor. 2 stacks to each ridge. Entrance arches have 2 leaf
contemporary iron gates. Courtyard facades: 13 bay east and west, and 9 north
and south, repeat details of outer facades. Brick with carstone plinths,
platbands and modillion cornices and pediments. Contemporary 2 leaf cast iron
gates with speared dog and upper rails fixed against inner north and south
entrances. Interior: ground floor with brick quadripartite vaults. At north
east C18 stalls with oak Doric columns, with roundels marking divisions,
rectangular oak piers supporting vaults. C19 loose boxes. West range largely
converted to garages c.1900. See Isaac Ware Plans, Elevations and Sections
of Houghton. (1735) 1750 edition pls. 33, 34. Mrs Herbert Jones Houghton in
the Brake (Norwich 1878).
Caution sign about not leaving children unattended.
I did see a little girl looking for her dad, holding an ice cream - he did come out eventually - but she was on her own.
Esse esmaltinho eu ganhei da Chantal <3. Ele não tem nome, só número. Não conhecia direito essa marca Cherimoya... como percebe-se pelos caracteres, é fabricado na China.
Sou oriveu de coordenação motora pra esmalte magnético :/ sempre deixo a imagem torta ou tremo a mão e fica tudo borrado. Mesmo assim, crio paciência e insisto em usar pois adoro o efeito, acho tão bonito *_*!
Ele vem com ímã próprio mas não tem apoio pro dedo, então resolvi usar o ímã da China Glaze de mesmo desenho (chevron). Pena que na foto o efeito não ficou muito evidente.
A cor é um cobre com muitos brilhinhos dourados. Mesmo tortinho com a minha falta de coordenação, amei a cor e o efeito. No geral usei duas camadas e em algumas unhas que errei usei três. Passei Seche Vite e ele deu uma encolhida bizarra em algumas unhas O.o
38 old maps of England folded and bound in a leather book.
Most seem to have been printed from copper plates made by
Richard Blome in the 1660s and 1670s. The plates were modified
and Bloom's name was removed from many of the plates before
this set of maps was printed at a later date. Most of the plates
measured 9 x 7-1/2 inches. Book was found in New Jersey, USA.
Please note that I know nothing about old maps. The backs of the
maps was used as a notebook/ledger in 1726. I have posted some
images of the ledger. Some of the names and dates found on these maps are:
Richard Blome
W. Hollar secit
R. P. sculp
Richard Palmer
1667
1670
1671
1672
Right click on the image and select "original" to see a
high resolution image.
Update: This appears to be "England Exactly Described"
published by Thomas Taylor in 1715.
From: www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=thomastayloratlas5210
"Taylor was also responsible for the publication of several
maps including England exactly described [...] in 1715
containing maps of the English counties which had been
issued previously in Speed's Maps Epitomiz'd in
1681 and in other works. "
WILLISON, Sir JOHN STEPHEN, newspaperman, author, and businessman; b. 9 Nov. 1856 near Hills Green, Upper Canada, third child of Stephen Willison, a blacksmith, and Jane Abram; m. first 3 June 1885 Rachel Wood Turner (d. 19 Jan. 1925) in Tiverton, Ont., and they had two sons; m. secondly 10 April 1926 Marjory Jardine Ramsay MacMurchy* in Toronto; d. there 27 May 1927.
After leaving school at 15, John Willison worked as a hired hand in Hills Green and later in the Whitby area near Greenwood, where he impressed the postmaster as “full of ambition.” The Toronto Globe and Liberal politics fascinated him, as did the library of the Greenwood Mechanics’ Institute. In his teens he was the assistant teacher at the local school. He clerked in stores in Stanton and Tiverton, and had his poetry and prose published in newspapers; turning to journalism, he joined the London Advertiser in 1881 before following editor John Cameron* to the Globe in 1883. Willison reported well enough from the Ontario legislature to be promoted in March 1886 to the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa, where he was drawn to the Liberals’ rising Quebec star, Wilfrid Laurier*. They became friends, with a common love of politics and literature. In June 1887 Edward Blake* gave up the Liberal leadership and Willison boldly supported Laurier, forging a powerful alliance. He told Laurier he would perform “any service” to help the party win Ontario. During the explosive Jesuit estates controversy in 1889, although he loathed the Parti National of Quebec premier Honoré Mercier*, which supported the Liberals, he assured Globe readers in a feature article that the Catholic Laurier was “a Liberal in every conviction of his mind.”
As part of a restructuring by Globe president Robert Jaffray*, Willison, with Laurier’s support, replaced Cameron as editor in 1890, though the more experienced, but mercurial, Edward Farrer* took charge of the editorial page. Farrer drew fire during the election of 1891 when the pamphlet he had allegedly written on how Canada could be pressured into union with the United States was leaked to Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald*, who delightedly denounced “veiled treason” at the Globe. Meanwhile, Willison prevented publication of Blake’s condemnation of Laurier’s policy of unrestricted reciprocity until after the election. The Liberals lost (but not disastrously), Farrer departed in July 1892, and Willison’s ascendancy at the Globe was confirmed.
By the mid 1890s he had assembled a gifted staff of expert editorialists and writers, including the pro-labour radical John Lewis, municipal affairs specialist Thomas Stewart Lyon, and economics analyst Samuel Thomas Wood*. In December 1895 Thomas Charles Patteson, a thorough Tory who had edited the Toronto Mail in the 1870s, told Willison that the Globe was “certainly now the best paper . . . ever published in Canada. Temperate in its comment, and vigorous in all departments.” Patteson was sure that “the converts or waverers made by the Globe’s style of comment are ten times as numerous . . . as those made by the old style of polemical writing.” Willison’s reputation would soar during the election of 1896 as the Liberals found safe footing in trade protection and the case for provincial rights in the controversy over Manitoba’s abolition of public funding for Catholic schools [see Thomas Greenway*]. Willison opposed any federal interference. Laurier, worried about Catholic Quebec, complained to him in 1895 about his “altogether . . . too absolute” editorials. Willison responded that Ontario “will destroy any party that attempts arbitrary interference with Manitoba.” When the governing Tories, under the ageing Sir Charles Tupper*, tried to restore Catholic school rights early in 1896, the Globe backed Laurier’s proposal of a negotiated compromise. Electoral victory came in June to the Liberals, who tied the Conservatives in Ontario, and the Globe’s circulation rose to dizzy heights.
Willison increasingly articulated an imperialist nationalism. In 1888 he had told Laurier that he was “strongly Canada first” and he even led the Toronto Young Men’s Liberal Club, of which he was president, to vote for Canadian independence. As editor of the Globe, however, he moved in high intellectual and social circles that were generally imperialist. In his memoirs he would remember that “no one gave me wiser counsel” than Principal George Monro Grant* of Queen’s College in Kingston, who, as the Globe put it, promoted “that habit of thought” which saw Canada as a “factor” in the world as part of the British empire. Willison’s friendship with George Taylor Denison, president of the Canadian branch of the British Empire League, was helped by their shared views on corruption and by the new commercial policy the Liberals had adopted in 1893 – “freer” trade with Britain and the United States. In 1896 American tariff pressures caused Willison to conclude, in a speech to the National Club, that Canada would have to “lean upon our Imperial relationships.” Then came the party’s adroit imperial-preference budget [see William Stevens Fielding] and Laurier’s lionization in the summer of 1897 at the celebration of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. Willison told the Globe from London in October that Canada was “at last the favorite child of the empire,” but a year later he would celebrate the “firmly self-reliant mood” of a nation of destiny. Soon enough, however, imperialism showed its divisive side. In October 1899 war broke out in South Africa between the Boers and Britain. The Globe argued that the dominion’s dispatch of troops would be “a national declaration of Canada’s stake in the British Empire.” Privately Willison told the prime minister that “he would either send troops or go out of office.” A contingent went, and Laurier was attacked as too imperialist in Quebec and as “not British enough” in Ontario.
Willison’s prestige was growing enormously. In March 1900 he was elected president of the Canadian Press Association and in May he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal party: a political history was published in Toronto in 1903. Sometimes brilliant but devoid of critical analysis, it draws upon Hansard and newspapers, and is infused with Willison’s detailed knowledge of Liberalism and flattering admiration. He praises Laurier’s “patient and courageous resistance to the denationalizing tendencies of racialism, sectarianism, and provincialism.” Reviews were commendatory – the Canadian Magazine (Toronto) lauded the study as “the greatest biography yet produced in this country.” In 1903 Willison was elected an officer of the Canadian Society of Authors and three years later Queen’s awarded him an lld.
Party journalism, however, had begun to frustrate him. He was embarrassed in 1897 when his editorial support for the extension of the Canadian Pacific Railway became linked to efforts by Globe proprietors Jaffray and George Albertus Cox* to profit from deals on railway lands in British Columbia. The following year Ontario’s Liberal premier, Arthur Sturgis Hardy*, berated him for his even-handed election coverage. In January 1900 a Globe manifesto called for an independent railway commission, reform of the Senate and the civil service, and a judicial redistribution of seats in the House of Commons, measures that Laurier criticized as “advanced radicalism.” Willison would recall that “as far back as 1897 he said to me ‘I wish the Globe would stop urging reforms. Reforms are for Oppositions. It is the business of governments to stay in office.’” When Liberals attacked him for his fair treatment of the Conservatives in the election of 1900, he exploded in a letter to cabinet minister Clifford Sifton: “Personally I resent the assumption of every Liberal politician that I am his hired man.”
Salvation came in the summer of 1902 when Joseph Wesley Flavelle*, the Toronto pork packer and financier, promised to finance a paper in which Willison could express his views without interference. The Toronto Evening News was secured, and on 28 November Willison left the Globe. His first editorial, which appeared on 19 Jan. 1903, announced “an independent course in politics,” but this goal proved elusive. In March, Willison chastised the Ontario Liberals for bribing an opposition mla to join them, and by early 1905 he had helped hound them from office. Federally the News had supported Conservative leader Robert Laird Borden in 1904 for promoting national ownership as an alternative to Laurier’s private-sector project for a second transcontinental railway. Sectarian controversy broke out the following year when Laurier revealed his plan to entrench Catholic separate-school rights for the new provinces to be carved out of the North-West Territories. Willison wanted full provincial autonomy and he had told Laurier so in June 1904: this “was my position on the Manitoba question and I do not see how it is possible to take any other position with respect to the Territories.” In March 1905 the News denounced the bills creating Alberta and Saskatchewan as “a great betrayal of Liberal principles” and many Liberals agreed, causing the prime minister to compromise. Only religious education within essentially public schools, which had existed under territorial ordinances, was to be tolerated in the new provinces, but Willison was not mollified. He explained to a friend that he had written his book on Laurier largely to celebrate the leader’s “devotion to the federal principle and his resolute resistance to clerical interference in education.” When Laurier had “turned squarely in the other direction,” Willison had been obliged to oppose or “I would have been a joke from one end of the country to the other.”
Days of trouble began for the News as the populist Toronto Daily Star drew even in circulation in 1905 and then surged ahead, draining away much advertising. In 1907 Flavelle put an extra $50,000 into the paper, but financial markets plummeted and he decided he had to sell. Willison could find no other backer. His attacks on William Mackenzie’s Toronto Railway Company and, in the debate over the public ownership of electricity in Ontario [see Sir Adam Beck], his reluctance to abandon private enterprise only brought the News discredit. He talked with Laurier about a return to the Globe but this could not be sorted out. In 1908 Ontario premier James Pliny Whitney* arranged for the purchase of the News by a Tory syndicate led by Francis Cochrane*. Willison would be president and editor, but real control rested with the syndicate. Flavelle’s penny-pinching illusions and then the syndicate’s demand for slavish partisanship undoubtedly contributed to the paper’s weakness and tedious moralizing, along with Willison’s tendency to hope against hope that things would improve. The war too may have reduced the ability of the News to assemble capital. “I cannot go on as I have gone on for twelve years,” Willison told John Dowsley Reid in 1916. “We have wasted tens of thousands of dollars by producing a poor paper.”
Some outlets for independence had continued. Willison was a highly informed speaker on public affairs, and he remained in demand. He was still a correspondent in Canada for the London Morning Post, a position he had been invited to accept in 1905. On the nomination of Governor General Lord Grey* and Laurier, in 1908 he became the Canadian correspondent of the pre-eminent London Times. Willison assured Laurier that he would be abstaining there from utterances bearing “partisan interpretation.”
A great national crisis arose when American-Canadian negotiations led to the sudden announcement in parliament in January 1911 of a comprehensive agreement on reciprocal trade. Willison, who had embraced moderate protection, recorded in the Times on 28 January “an undercurrent of unrest and dissatisfaction in financial and business circles” in Toronto. Within days the News articulated the basic case against the agreement. For markets that were possibly illusory, and which the United States could take away, Canada was to “imperil our whole national experiment” by undercutting its east-west rail and financial networks, transcontinental and cross-Atlantic trade, and British investment. “Practically . . . we commercially annex the Canadian West to the United States,” the News continued, with even the manufacturing sector made hostage. In sum, “we strengthen all the influences towards continentalism and risk the sacrifice both of a young nation and an ancient Empire.” Flavelle would tell Willison that the subsequent opposition merely enlarged upon his points. In February, Willison reached out to his unparalleled network of Liberal friends – he worked mainly with Clifford Sifton and banker Sir Byron Edmund Walker – to put together the “Toronto Eighteen,” a group of prominent businessmen who totally rejected the agreement. Willison then went to Ottawa, accompanied by Zebulon Aiton Lash*, one of the 18, to meet with Sifton and Robert Borden to arrange (as Willison recorded) “a basis of co-operation” with the Conservatives. The reciprocity agreement met with filibuster in the commons, and Laurier called an election for September. Willison and Sifton wrote Borden’s campaign manifesto using Willison’s “parting of the ways” phraseology, and Borden won a majority. In Toronto thousands of revellers surrounded the News building crying “Willison, Willison.” As 1911 closed, his reputation had never been greater; in the New Year’s honours list of 1913 he was awarded a knighthood.
During the early years of Borden’s government, Willison worried that Canada’s hesitations about naval defence and British delays on trade preferences impeded real progress in the reconciliation of national and imperial dreams. During the “naval scare” in 1909, over Germany’s threat to Britain’s supremacy, he had supported bipartisan resolutions for the “speedy” beginning of a Canadian navy, though, like other imperialists, he had wanted a special contribution of two Dreadnoughts for Britain. In late 1912 Borden delayed development of a Canadian navy and proposed three Dreadnoughts, but the Liberal Senate refused. Willison would lament the partisanship on both sides. On British resistance to preference, he noted for the Times in 1913 Canada’s “intense concern,” which he also expressed in the London-based imperialist journal the Round Table.
After the empire went to war in August 1914, Willison became embattled on several fronts. He and the other Canadian members of the Round Table movement [see Edward Joseph Kylie*] insisted that Britain share direction of foreign and defence policy with the matured dominions, thus contradicting the more centralist prescriptions of the movement’s London leader, Lionel George Curtis. In Canada, with military victory in doubt in 1916 and voluntary enlistments lagging, pressure built for a union or coalition government. For months the News pilloried Laurier as a hostage to the Nationalistes in Quebec and strongly advised Borden not to agree to the union idea. But after meeting with him in February 1917, Willison hinted in the News that coalition might be necessary after all. Then, in May, Borden adopted conscription, stirring many English Canadian Liberals, including Ontario leader Newton Wesley Rowell*, to press Laurier to join with Borden. Laurier refused, but Willison, having resigned in June from the News, its financial situation beyond salvation, acted for Borden to help bring Rowell aboard. When western Liberals came too [see Arthur Lewis Watkins Sifton], the coalition was constructed. The Union government then sought a mandate. Willison, with Sir Clifford Sifton, wrote Borden’s election address of 12 November, and he served as chief coordinator of publicity in the campaign that led to a landslide victory in December.
After 1917 Willison mixed achievements and disappointments. Known for his chairmanship in 1914–16 of the Ontario commission on unemployment, in 1918 he was made head of the Ontario Housing Committee, which unsuccessfully urged federal funding. In addition, on the invitation of business leaders, he served as president of the Canadian Reconstruction Association from 1918 to 1922, but he could not bridge the divisions between business, labour, and agrarian interests. As a member in 1920–21 of the Ontario royal commission on university finances, he felt that the new United Farmers government was not inclined to be generous. Willison himself was a trustee of Queen’s University, and a governor of both the University of Toronto and Upper Canada College. At the national level he was at odds in 1918–20 with Borden, who was bent on Canadian autonomy, and in the 1920s with the new Liberal leader, William Lyon Mackenzie King*, who also opposed imperial policies. As an imperialist nationalist, Willison complained to a friend that “those who hold my view seem to have been deserted.” In 1919 his Reminiscences, political and personal was published in Toronto. Rich in opinion on journalism and politics, especially before 1900, the book returns in a final chapter (“Laurier and the empire”) to imperialist musings. “No one who knew Laurier could believe that he was an Imperialist,” Willison stated. He pointed out, however, that the late prime minister had had no quarrel with Britain and noted his work for British preference, his shipment of troops to South Africa, and his belief in Canada’s “obligation for naval defence.” The autobiography was certainly not as current as Willison’s speeches and publications for the Reconstruction Association. Augustus Bridle probably spoke for many when he said in The masques of Ottawa (Toronto, 1921) that Willison should “stop writing Reconstruction bulletins and do something of more value to the country, so that the older enthusiasm of men who used to think he was Canada’s greatest editor may not altogether die.” In 1923 Willison began a biography of Sir George Robert Parkin and in 1925 he added some chapters to his biography of Laurier. A last hurrah was Willisons Monthly, a stylish newsmagazine started that year in Toronto, but with Willison’s death in 1927 there was no time to see what lasting impact it could have under his direction.
Compared with Willison’s public record, personal information on him and his family is slight. He was an avid clubman and lawn bowler, a Prohibitionist, and a Methodist turned Anglican. Beyond journalism, he had business interests in the 1920s as president of the Municipal Bankers’ Corporation Limited, Mortgage, Discount and Finance Limited, and Canadian Rail and Harbour Terminals Limited, as a co-founder with bond-broker Thomas A. Neeley of the financing firm Willison-Neeley Corporation, and as a director of the Western Canada Colonization Association. Willison’s first wife had been a founder of the Toronto Ladies’ Club in 1904, a councillor of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, and a wartime president of the Canadian National Ladies’ Guild for British and Foreign Sailors. Their twin sons both became journalists; one, William Taylor, was killed in France in 1916. Just a year after Willison’s remarriage, to Marjory MacMurchy, a former literary editor at the News and an accomplished writer, he died of cancer at age 70.
Willison had major champions as well as detractors. Many Liberals could never forgive his turn against Laurier. In July 1927 King told his diary that the editor had been “a tory snob in his behaviour, tho’ he had within him qualities that might have made him a truly great man.” Writing in the Dalhousie Review (Halifax), educationist Arthur Hugh Urquhart Colquhoun remembered “a formidable antagonist and a pillar of strength in the storm. So men of all sorts sought his counsel in an emergency, trusting to his balanced judgment, his unique experience and his incorruptible integrity.” Self-educated, very much self-promoting, and widely admired, although he surely faced more criticism, rivalry, and jealousy than uncritical acclaim, Willison rose on the strength of his abilities to become an advocate for major national causes and a close counsellor to Laurier and Borden, astonishingly across the Liberal-Conservative divide and over three decades of rapidly changing conditions, issues, and ideas.
Sir John Willison was one of the most influential English-speaking journalists in Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a pivotal figure in national political shifts in 1896, 1911, and 1917. With his incisive pen and clear reasoning, he raised the Globe to unprecedented prominence. Although he failed to find sustainability for the News as a journalist-centred, independent newspaper, he used it effectively as a vehicle for the expression of his large ideas for 14 years. For two highly eventful decades in British-Canadian relations he interpreted Canada brilliantly for the Times. His history of Laurier and his Reminiscences constituted major literary achievements. In all its facets, his career powerfully touched and expressively reflected the evolution of Canada’s nationhood.
2nd March 1998 - personal letter to me with advice on writing and publishing. Ted Hughes died in October 1998.
This autograph album belonged to Ollie Hubbard. I uploaded 50 of the 100 autographs that I liked the best. I am not sure if Ollie was a boy or a girl. (Ollie short for Oliver or Ollie short for Olivia, Olive, Olwen). The dates range from 1879 to 1889. Most of the names are from Trenton or Princeton, New Jersey. This may be Princeton University. There are references to the following names:
Model School
State Normal School
Trenton College
Princeton College
C. C. C. C.
A complete list of all the names is in the "set" description here.
This autograph album belonged to Ollie Hubbard. I uploaded 50 of the 100 autographs that I liked the best. I am not sure if Ollie was a boy or a girl. (Ollie short for Oliver or Ollie short for Olivia, Olive, Olwen). The dates range from 1879 to 1889. Most of the names are from Trenton or Princeton, New Jersey. This may be Princeton University. There are references to the following names:
Model School
State Normal School
Trenton College
Princeton College
C. C. C. C.
A complete list of all the names is in the "set" description here.
A Fine Replica of an Historic Airliner
On October 4th, 1958, a British Overseas Airline Corporation (BOAC) airliner made a nonstop flight from London to New York. Normally, that would not have been an extraordinary event, except that this aircraft was not like the others that proceeded it. Powered by four Rolls-Royce Avon engines, it was the first jet aircraft to perform this feat, beating Pan American's then brand-new Boeing 707. The aircraft that made this historic flight was G-APDB.
Delta Bravo had a short but interesting career. By 1960, the prestigious London-to-New York route would be taken over by BOAC's own Boeing 707s, which were much closer in capacity and speed to that of other carriers plying the North Atlantic route. The Comet would take over services to the Near and Far East, and Africa. Delta Bravo was leased to Malaysian Airways System for a short while, appearing in that fledgling airline's colorful yellow and black scheme, wearing registration 9M-AOB. She soldiered on at BOAC for a while longer and was put into storage by1964, eclipsed by the much larger Boeing 707 and the brand-new British Vickers VC-10 (and even the more-powerful Comet 4C). Her historic flight, largely forgotten, the aircraft languished for another half decade.
A young British charter operator, Dan-Air London (named after its founders, Davies, And, Newman), was eager to trade its piston-engine aircraft for jets. The stored Comets, gently used, with low mileage and airframe hours, would fit the role just fine. Dan-Air, in 1966, purchased its first examples, the second independent British airline (after British United) to do so. In the interim, Britain's own British European Airways (BEA) retired its Comet 4Bs as more-economical Hawker-Siddely Tridents and BAC-111s came on line. Delta Bravo got her lucky break in 1969 and joined fellow Comets on that airline's European charter services. Dan-Air was the largest operator of the Comet, operating the three main commercial variants (the 4, 4B, and 4C) She flew with Dan-Air until 1974, when the airline started phasing out the noisy, fuel-thirsty Comets for more economical BAC-111s and used early-model Boeing 727s.
Most of Dan-Air's iconic Comets were sold for scrap; three, however, were preserved for posterity. One of these was G-APDB, the subject of our model. The old lady is a proud part of the outstanding collection of the Duxford Imperial War Museum. The aircraft was restored to its original BOAC scheme but later reverted to this, the early Dan-Air scheme.
Now, onto our model. Off the bat, Herpa is to be congratulated for issuing a replica of this extremely important and interesting aircraft. As of this writing, none of the other three surviving Comet 4-series aircraft have been issued in any scale. I am thrilled to have it in my collection! Overall, the shape of the model is well executed, as are the markings. One thing I do not like about Herpa's offerings are the company's use of plastic for the tail surfaces (vertical and horizontal stabilizers). At least, unlike Dragon Wings, the main wings are diecast metal. Many of the early Herpa 1:500-scale offerings were somewhat crude by today's standards. I am glad to say that the company's newer offerings, this one among them, represent a vast improvement in quality, especially in the execution of the landing gear. The gap between the wings and fuselage is somewhat noticeable, but it is not as bad as it appears in the stock photos. The scale of this model, 1:500, is currently manufactured by only two companies; most prefer the larger 1:400 scale. And as of this writing, a new 1:200-scale Dan-Air Comet 4B, in the airline's final scheme, has appeared. The real De Havilland Comet was not a large aircraft, even for its time. As such, this model, in 1:500 scale, is a small bird, at about 2 3/4 inches (68 cm) in length, with a wingspan of about 2 5/8 inches (66 cm). Overall, this is a fine little replica, and she fits in well with my small collection of much-loved airliners in that same scale. If you collect models of important airplanes, especially those that have been preserved, this is a good model to purchase.
I fancy the fullscreen mode of Apple Pages (actually, the fullscreen mode of Word 2011 is even better).
Original Caption: Reflection from Biloxi Lighthouse Secured, 02/1862
U.S. National Archives' Local Identifier: 6037241
Created by: Department of the Treasury. Customs Service. Collection District of New Orleans (Louisiana). (1804 - 1913)
From: Series: Letters Received from the Confederate Treasury Department, compiled 1861 – 1862
Production Date: 02/1861
Persistent URL: arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=6037241
Repository: National Archives at Fort Worth, TX.
Access Restrictions Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted
Helm ab zum Gebet (back). Denkt an unsere Krieger-Waisen, Plettenberg, 21. November 1916.
"Sagt nicht wir haben schon gegeben"
"Unsere Soldaten sagen auch nicht wir haben schon gekämpft"
I have a few old geography school books from the Nineteenth Century, covering about thirty years time. This one had some interesting drawings in the inside cover that looked like Indians and unidentified white guys. Not sure what that one is about with what appears to be a candelabra on his head. It has a stamp identifying it with Bellevue Ohio, a town I have been through several times. Also some names which might be from that area.
We were always told not to write in books but the writing here is the best part of it for me!
This item forms part of the collection of Mrs. Moore, of Rusholme, Manchester. Ada was Mrs. Moore's mother.
Mrs. Moore's maternal great-grandfather born in Birmingham and eloped to Manchester in the 1870's with a girl fifteen years his junior, they married and he started a tailoring business in the Hulme/Moss Side area, (he eventually had three shops). Mrs. Moore's grandmother (1879) and mother (1899) were born in Manchester and lived all their lives in Hulme/Moss Side, Mrs. Moore's grandmother put to work in the shops hand-stitching button-holes on waistcoats. Mrs. Moore's paternal great great-grandfather was `in cotton' in Manchester. Her great great grandfather and grandfather were solicitors. Her father was a regular soldier and was killed in the First World War aged 39. Mrs. Moore and her daughter ran a florist's in Rusholme. Her husband was killed during the Second World War.
This is my office workspace as it's currently working for me, finishing up a paper that I'm writing about a recent trip to Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.
I've written about the trip here on my blog. and there's a flickr collection for the trip here.
This autograph album belonged to Ollie Hubbard. I uploaded 50 of the 100 autographs that I liked the best. I am not sure if Ollie was a boy or a girl. (Ollie short for Oliver or Ollie short for Olivia, Olive, Olwen). The dates range from 1879 to 1889. Most of the names are from Trenton or Princeton, New Jersey. This may be Princeton University. There are references to the following names:
Model School
State Normal School
Trenton College
Princeton College
C. C. C. C.
A complete list of all the names is in the "set" description here.