View allAll Photos Tagged extempore
A random, 'non-rational', 'non-linear', extempore collage done in a Dada-ist vein meant to undermine and scuttle the impulse to 'snap' images into easy interpretation ... that is, into a quickly discernible packaged meaning.
A kind of 'antiphonal' response to the new high-tech platforms of the current time that rely entirely on linear input. Sure, looks really great but how much chance, accident and intuition goes into it? There's a place, but not all the place.
Title derived from the text elements that were 'automatically' typed in.
Created April 28, 2023.
Zoom in for an immersive view.
In "The Kreative People" group's collage challenge.
www.flickr.com/groups/1752359@N21/discuss/721577219187541...
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Music Link: "I Zimbra" - Talking Heads/David Byrne. Originally on the Talking Heads album "Fear of Music" and here performed by Byrne and the "American Utopia" band of 2018. Byrne's spoken introduction really lays the groundwork.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kx03MYsKDY
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© 2023, Richard S Warner. All Rights Reserved. This image may not be used or copied or posted to another website in any form whatsoever without express permission of the creator of this work, with whom the sole copyright resides.
New LISP shop, inspired by my 2 fave beaches, Brighton Beach in the UK and Kovalam beach in Kerala. View from the lighthouse (built by ExTempore) is quite cool! Bit obsessed with the lighthouse, tbh!
The church of the Holy Trinity is located in the centre of Piraeus overlooking the port.It stands imposing on the junction of EthnikisAntistaseos and V. Georgios Street, two busy main roads.The first church of the Holy Trinity was founded in 1839, but it was entirely destroyed in 1944.
It was replaced by an extempore small church to accommodate the believers, which stood there for 12 years.Eventually, after the claims of the plot by the municipality and the objections of the Archaeological Association due to the findings, the temple was founded again in 1956 and was inaugurated 8 years later, while the construction works of the church were still in progress.Its architecture and the iconographies are particularly interesting.
The support of the dome makes it visible from every spot of the church, while the figures of the iconographies are characterized by intense humane features, inspired by the Macedonian and Cretan school.
« The church of the Holy Trinity is located in the centre of Piraeus overlooking the port.It stands imposing on the junction of EthnikisAntistaseos and V. Georgios Street, two busy main roads.The first church of the Holy Trinity was founded in 1839, but it was entirely destroyed in 1944.It was replaced by an extempore small church to accommodate the believers, which stood there for 12 years.
Eventually, after the claims of the plot by the municipality and the objections of the Archaeological Association due to the findings, the temple was founded again in 1956 and was inaugurated 8 years later, while the construction works of the church were still in progress.
Its architecture and the iconographies are particularly interesting:The support of the dome makes it visible from every spot of the church, while the figures of the iconographies are characterized by intense humane features, inspired by the Macedonian and Cretan school. »
Copyright © wondergreece.gr
Adrian Claudiu Sana started the group in 1999. At the time, it consisted of him and his female counterpart, Ramona Barta.
Akcent's single "Kylie" has risen to the top of several European music charts. "Kylie" also became a moderate hit in the U.S., charting well on the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart. Their debut Romanian album In culori was released in Romania in 2002 on January 10, which had the hit single "Ti-am promis".
Their English debut album French Kiss with Kylie was released in Europe in 2006 on August 23 and include their 2 European smash hits: "Kylie" and "Jokero". Their song French kiss (the English version of 9 mai) is a cover of "Extemporal la dirigentie" by Stela Enache (a Romanian singer that was highly acclaimed in the 80s and whose song "Ani de Liceu" with her husband is still a hit among teenagers).
In April 2008 Marius Nedelcu left the band. Soon after Marius left, the three boys called in Corneliu Ulici, a former member of another Romanian group called Bliss. However, in September 2009, after 9 months, Corneliu Ulici left the band to dedicate his time to his acting career.
In 2009 the band released a new album, Fara Lacrimi. Two songs from the album, "Stay With Me" and "That's My Name," have become massive hits on radio stations in Romania as well as in number of other countries including: Greece, Armenia, Russia, Poland, Turkey, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Egypt, Pakistan, Ukraine, India, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Lebanon, Albania,and Bangladesh.
A quantum keep
home from home
safe from harm
an eye-catching ideal
with no discourteous qualm
needing no tags
free from comment
within it's own world
left in rural peace
so no societal ills may be hurled
just let it be
don't try to alter
or shape what's already extant
this is already a world
unto which lives the life so contemplant
now it can be seen
an extemporal refuelling
before inflationary leaks
record a 9-year high
stagnating within weeks
I wish to part
with so much of life's otiosioty
returning to my roots
oscillating between then and now
settling where it best suits
every individual's prerogative
that equal measure of life
a broader outlook in solace
verdant thoughts unenclosed
now free and able to retrace
the heart of generations linked
by a foot within the step of passing
taking the very hand of guidance
through glades and combe's
like a play upon the brood's furtherance
thank Heaven's for the premorse of yesterday
allowing the present to continue it's retrace
of kith and kin and where it's been
the rock of spirit is a well-weathered sacrament
for looking-back allows the next step to be better seen.
by anglia24 (in the steps of my forebears)
12h50: 07/06/2008
©2008anglia24
die Gartenmöbel von Extremis überstehen auch einen strengen Winter und sind dabei - wie das Bild zeigt - auch noch dekorativ
The church of the Holy Trinity is located in the centre of Piraeus overlooking the port.It stands imposing on the junction of EthnikisAntistaseos and V. Georgios Street, two busy main roads.The first church of the Holy Trinity was founded in 1839, but it was entirely destroyed in 1944.It was replaced by an extempore small church to accommodate the believers, which stood there for 12 years.Eventually, after the claims of the plot by the municipality and the objections of the Archaeological Association due to the findings, the temple was founded again in 1956 and was inaugurated 8 years later, while the construction works of the church were still in progress.Its architecture and the iconographies are particularly interesting:The support of the dome makes it visible from every spot of the church, while the figures of the iconographies are characterized by intense humane features, inspired by the Macedonian and Cretan school. - Copyright © wondergreece.gr
To make music from inner representation and own creativity; that is, in short, the creed of organist and church musician [Sietze de Vries, 1973]
Enjoy his artistry in today's Pipedreams episode:
Pipedreams Live! on the Anton Heiller Memorial Organ/Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, TN (Encore of #0903) #2231:
www.pipedreams.org/episode/2022/08/01/pipedreams-live-in-...
PROGRAM
Hour One
SIETZE de VRIES: Fantasy, Du meine Seele singe’ –Sietze de Vries (1724 Vater-2000 Edskes/St. Petrikirche, Melle, Germany) Edskes Orgelbau 2.2000
*DIETERICH BUXTEHUDE: Praeludium in C, BuxWV 137
*De VRIES: Improvisations on Psalm 98, New Songs of Celebration Render
De VRIES: Variations on Psalm 26 –Sietze de Vries (1655 Schnyder/Muri Abbey, Switzerland) Edskes Orgelbau 2.2000
*De VRIES: Versets on Psalm 42, Comfort, comfort ye my people
Hour Two
KENNETH JENNINGS: With a voice of singing. JAVIER BUSTO: Pater noster. MOSES HOGAN: We shall walk through the valley in peace –I Cantori/Gennevieve Brown-Kibble, director
J. S. BACH: 6 Chorale-preludes (Herr Christ, der einge Gottessohn, S. 601; Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, S. 626; Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, S. 635; Das alte Jahr vergangen ist, S. 614; In dulci jubilo, S. 608), fr Orgelbüchlein –August Humer (1986 Brombaugh/Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, TN) Extempore 47881
PHILIP GLASS: Mad Rush –Donald Joyce (1986 Brombaugh/Collegedale, TN) Catalyst CD-61825
*De VRIES: Solo Improvisation in the Style of Buxtehude on Themes by Edvard Grieg
*De VRIES: Improvisations on Hyfrodol (Alleluia! Sing to Jesus)
Went to see the white waters at Kukkolankoski, this was a extempore trip so i didn't have my DSLR with me
Mugbil Al-Thukair was likely photographed in his bedchamber at his house in Manama, sitting on a prayer rug with a pious wistful countenance in a dapper embroidered silk Jubbah (open coat) and an ornate Cashmere Ghutra Shawl (headdress) fastened with the obsolete thick Najdi Agal (headband) these were some of the distinctive formal attire worn by wealthy Arab merchants and tribal chieftains in Central Arabia and the northern Arabian Gulf in the early twentieth century as Al-Thukair supposedly was facing a Victorian colonial Anglo-Indian Raj four-poster teakwood bed surrounded by all the trappings of wealth typifying the lifestyle of a Gulf-rich pearl merchant and his household at the time, such as the open Indian teakwood wardrobe cabinet with an inside mirrored door on the left where a visible Cashmere Ghutra Shawl hangs from an open wardrobe drawer, a Victorian glass-shaded gas lamp in the right corner next to a pendulum clock in the back of a reclining wooden cane chair with its vertically striped cushion and several sitting chairs stacked high with books together with a variety of Persian rugs and carpets strewn across the floor during Jacques Cartier's second extended visit to Bahrain (from the 14th to the 26th of March 1912) the focal point of his Arabian Gulf pearl purchasing trip on Thursday, the 16th of March, 1912.
(Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair was born in 1844 in the rural town of Unaizah in the Al-Qassim region in northern Najd, Central Arabia as Al-Qassim has always been considered the agricultural heartland of the Arabian Peninsula known since pre-Islamic times as the "Alimental Basket" or granary of Arabia for its abundant agricultural assets into a prestigious erudite family of merchants widespread across Arabia and the Fertile Crescent with a trading history that could be traced back to the early eighteenth century from a young age Al-Thukair was endowed with natural business acumen combined with deep intellectual and literary interests following in the footsteps of generations of his family's enterprising male offspring which drove him first in 1867 at the tender age of 23 to the prosperous port town of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast of Arabia with its bustling market and cosmopolitan outlook the obvious first choice for any ambitious young man from the hinterlands of Arabia mainly Najd in those days where he started to establish himself as a budding young merchant at the same time exploring any available business opportunities in the port cities and towns of the Near East (Middle East) and those in the neighbouring Indian subcontinent principally in the newly British-founded port city of Bombay (Mumbai), the quickly burgeoning commercial hub on the Arabian Sea, the main western gateway to India and the key gathering place for Arab merchants and their families from Arabia in the subcontinent forming a dynamic expatriate Arab community that would continue to exist from the mid-nineteenth century until India's independence from Britain in 1947 Bombay also provided a good head start for scores of young Arabian Peninsula merchants at the time some of whom went on to become well-known household business names across the region most notably Alireza of Jeddah, Alghanim, Al-Kharafi and Alshaya of Kuwait among others, spurring young Al-Thukair to learn Hindi, the pre-oil seafaring age's business lingua franca in the Arabian Peninsula since the majority of Arabia's trade passed through Indian entrepôts and in due course he became proficient in the essential business language, the port city of Basra in southern Iraq was yet another desirable alternative business opportunity for Al-Thukair, a familiar business destination for his family for many decades and a second adopted domicile for several family members as Iraq's gateway to the rest of the world, frequently visited by him in the early to mid-1870s while en route to Iraq's only port on the Arabian Gulf his ship would stop at Bahrain one of the three major ports of the Arabian Peninsula in the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries (the other two were Aden and Jeddah) allowing him during the few hours interval between passengers and cargo disembarkation and embarkation to wander around the town of Manama the cosmopolitan commercial hub on the main island of the Bahraini archipelago examining closely along the way Manama's ethnically diverse purveyors of bountiful goods from all over the world meanwhile assessing the business possibilities of the Bahraini market especially its booming pearl trade prompting him to dabble in the lucrative commodity with great success as part of his general trading business interests and after spending ten years in the coastal town of Jeddah now as a seasoned well-established general merchant Bahrain beckoned as the centre of the pearl trade in the Arabian Gulf and beyond a pioneering position consolidated by possessing in its northern waters the richest pearl oyster beds in the Gulf renowned worldwide for producing the finest quality pearls for their iridescent lustre, size and variety of colours making it the place of choice for anyone wishing to try his luck in the pearl business back then which was the mainstay of the Arabian Gulf economy prior to the discovery of oil similarly sundry of his Central Arabian Najdi merchant counterparts from the austere Arabian inland such as Algosaibi, Al-Ajaji, Al-Qadi and Al-Bassam were lured to Bahrain by the country's newfound political stability following the accession of the young, astute and literarily inclined Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa (1848-1932) to the throne in 1869 ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity after decades of turmoil and instability as reflected in the renewed confidence and heightened profitability prospects of the Bahraini pearl market driven by increasing international demand particularly in the West for high-quality natural pearls from the Arabian Gulf as rapidly soaring demand propelled pearl prices to unprecedented heights against such a heady backdrop Al-Thukair decided in 1877 at the age of 33 to relocate to Bahrain with his immediate family consisting of his wife and two young sons Abdullatif and Abdulmuhsin, a decision that would change his life forever Bahrain with its lush date palm groves and freshwater springs proved to be more suitable to his agrarian temperament than arid Jeddah though comparable to its vibrant multicultural and multi-ethnic society as it was the closest thing to a second home for the mature aspiring assiduous merchant after his beloved birthplace of Unaizah within a matter of years after arriving in the small island country he managed to become a leading pearl merchant and a highly esteemed public figure well-known for his philanthropic disposition, honest dealings, impeccable integrity and intellectual prowess so much so that he was dubbed "The Pride of Merchants" by the Bahraini business community he also took on the role of honorary chairman of the Manama business community and titular head of the Najdi diaspora community in Bahrain as a natural progression of his tremendous entrepreneurial successes and admirable character traits due to this exalted social status and the extensive network of highly influential personages he cultivated throughout the region Al-Thukair became increasingly sought-after as an arbiter of disputes including those of a political nature in Bahrain and elsewhere in the region but among the many scattered instances of his arbitration cases in the declassified annual Gulf reports from the British Archives, the following case from the latter stage of his life in Bahrain is one of the most striking examples of his high-level arbitrations where a family of illustrious clerics and judges resorted to his conscientious arbitration when asked by Ibrahim one of the two younger brothers of Bahrain's highest religious Muslim authority for nearly half a century the eminent cleric and unofficial supreme judge Sheikh Qasim Al Mehza (1847-1941) dubbed the "chief judge" unanimously by adherents of both Sunni and Shiite cross-sectarian Muslim denominations of Bahraini society for his scholarly knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence to intercede between the two younger siblings one of whom Ahmed was a highly respected cleric in his own right the first Bahraini graduate of the Al-Azhar of Cairo in 1887 and ironically their elder brother the highly learned cleric and judge Sheikh Qasim, here is the next slightly edited citation from the British Gulf residency report of 1912 concerning local Bahraini affairs from 1st to 30th September, exact date unspecified (A difference over the ownership of a plot of land and a shop recently arose between Sheikh Qasim Bin Mehza and his two brothers Ahmed and Ibrahim and the two parties were not on speaking terms. At the request of Ibrahim, Sheikh Mugbil and Yusuf Kanoo intervened and succeeded in arranging a comprise) correspondingly he was acting as an unpaid adviser, interlocutor and mediator to some of the Arabian Peninsula's rulers as attested by one of the earliest documented references to Al-Thukair in the British Archives in late 1888 and early 1889 where he was linked to a series of accounts dealing with the recurring violent hostilities between the neighbouring Sheikhdoms of Qatar and Abu Dhabi in which he acted as a go-between on behalf of Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) the first British-recognised Qatari ruler independent of Bahraini suzerainty and founder of the Al-Thani ruling dynasty to help broker a peaceful settlement between the two parties and other key players in the conflict including the Al Rasheed the then rulers of Arabia's northern region of Ha'il and their Ottoman backers both of whom intervened on behalf of the Qatari side, from early on as a middle-aged man Al-Thukair had established himself as an ethical impartial figure and a reliable confidant to the majority of the rulers in the Arabian Gulf as demonstrated in numerous instances in this mini-biography of the man, the following two edited extracts are part of a comprehensive report on the latter stage of the long-drawn fitful hostilities between Qatar and Abu Dhabi covering the period from March 1888 to June 1890 by the British Gulf residency in Bushehr Persia (Iran) on the bloody conflict which involved lengthy correspondence between the British political agent in Bahrain and his superior the political resident in Bushehr where Al-Thukair is frequently mentioned, a conflict that began as a random mid-sea raid by Qatari corsairs on an Abu Dhabi-owned pearl fishing vessel in Qatari waters killing all of its crew presumably around the year 1880 escalating into a prolonged fierce enmity between Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan (r. 1855-1909) ruler of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) ruler of Qatar spiralling into uncontrollable atrocious carnage and depredation reprisals manifested in the thrice sacking of the Qatari capital Doha during the third of which Qatar ruler's son Ali was killed and the multiple sackings of the sedentary communities of Abu Dhabi's western region of Al Dhafra and other towns between 1880 and 1892 the first extract is a full-text letter while the second consists of the last two paragraphs of a longer letter the first of which is as follows (No. 10, dated the 20th January 1889. From-The Residency Agent, Bahrain. To-The Political Resident, Arabian Gulf. After compliments. I beg to send herewith a copy of a letter sent by Qasim Bin Thani (ruler of Qatar) to the Chief (ruler) of Bahrain with a special messenger who has also brought a number of other letters giving welcome tidings to Muhammad Bin Abdulwahab (Al-Faihani), Mugbil (Al-Thukair) and (Abdulrahman) Bin Aidan; and mentioning the number of people who were slain out of the inhabitants of Liwa (the Al Dhafra region is centred on the large Liwa Oasis in Abu Dhabi's westernmost domain); viz., 520 persons; and that they took from them large booty and numerous camels and that Sheikh Qasim returned safely with his army. I hear from reports that Sheikh Qasim lost 8 men killed. Others say 48, others again 110. But as yet there is no correct report as since the arrival of this messenger no one has come from Qatar owing to heavy "shemall" (northern gusty) winds. It is stated that Sheikh Qasim has not yet reached Al-Bidda (Doha). I hear that Isa Bin Ziyab a cousin of Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa (Al Nahyan) has arrived in Bahrain from Abu Dhabi and interviewed the Chief (ruler of Bahrain). According to what he says there are not so many people at Liwa and that Sheikh Zayed had not received any report of Sheikh Qasim's proceedings from Qatar to Liwa or any other place. I shall make further reports when I receive any fresh news) the second extract is as follows (No. 52, dated the 28th of March 1889. From-The Residency Agent, Bahrain. To-The Political Resident, Arabian Gulf. I have seen a letter from Qasim (ruler of Qatar) to Mugbil (Al-Thukair) in which the writer says that he is prepared to meet Zayed (ruler of Abu Dhabi) and that he is not afraid of his advance; on the contrary that he will himself march out to attack Zayed in case the latter should not advance against him. In that letter he also wishes Mugbil to believe that Ibn Rasheed (ruler of Ha'il in northern Arabia) will not fail to fulfil his promise. The date of this letter is 17th March. It is apparent that Qasim wrote that letter before the arrival of Nafi (Ibn Rasheed messenger) My own opinion is that if the news about Zayed's advance be true and also that if Qasim be supported by the Turkish soldiers, Zayed's forces will have hard work before them; for Qasim is regardless of expense and the Turkish soldiers are greedy as is known. Their number at Al-Bidda (Doha) is 250) the previous references were among several in this special report to Al-Thukair's top-level intermediation in this particular bloody conflict a small sample of his early political intermediation in regional affairs that would last until he unwillingly left his second adopted homeland Bahrain in mid-1917 but in connection with his frequent interactions with the rulers of the Arabian Peninsula the most significant of those were Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa (r. 1869-1932) of Bahrain, Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) of Qatar and Abdulaziz Ibn Saud (r. 1902-1953) ruler of Najd and its dependencies who was styled as such from the 13th of January 1902 onwards after the subtle young industrious scion of the House of Saud succeeded in recapturing the ancestral seat of power of his forefathers, the then small town of Riyadh from the bellicose Ottoman-backed Al Rasheed ruling clan of the northern Arabian region of Ha'il in an audacious dawn attack, the future king of what would become the sprawling Kingdom of Saudi Arabia perceptibly in the course of time Al-Thukair became such a revered sage that the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa asked him to be one of the signatories of a solemn pledge of allegiance deed to his eldest surviving son the 24-year-old newly appointed heir apparent to the throne and future ruler Sheikh Hamad (r. 1932-1942) on 8th October 1896 following the untimely death of his eldest son and heir apparent Salman near Riyadh in Najd Central Arabia three years earlier on his exhausting perilous long land journey home from the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca during the formal investiture ceremony for the crown prince an honour reserved for only a select few high-ranking merchants from the highest echelons of the Bahraini business community who were recognised as pillars of society outside the ranks of senior members of the ruling family, tribal chieftains and clergy leaders amongst whom were Hussain Bin Salman Matar (1817-1911) and Ahmed Bin Muhammed Kanoo (1835-1905) as for Al-Thukair's aforementioned special relationship with Ibn Saud the marriage of his niece Lulwa the daughter of his brother Yahya to Ibn Saud solidified that relationship enabling him to negotiate on behalf of Ibn Saud a favourable agreement with the Ottomans on the withdrawal of their garrison from the Al-Hasa Oasis and its environs in eastern Arabia which would become part of the future eastern province of Saudi Arabia as Ibn Saud was poised to take control of the oasis in mid-1914 soon before the outbreak of World War One by the year 1890 Al-Thukair began to pursue in earnest his profound and ardent passion for spreading knowledge and learning which would become an indelible lifelong characteristic of his initially by starting a literary salon at his house in Manama similar to that of his friend and first cousin of the ruler of Bahrain classical poet and intellectual Sheikh Ibrahim Bin Muhammad Al Khalifa's literary salon in Muharraq and those of several educated and well-travelled merchants and ruling family members in both Manama and Muharraq Bahrain's former political capital from 1810 to 1923 however the literary salon of Al-Thukair was rather different from its local counterparts in that it was more educationally oriented than the others by allocating a well-furnished spacious room in his house as a permanent location for the salon equipped with a relatively sizable varied library whose contents were kept in its wall alcoves as it was the antecedent of his most ambitious cultural and educational project ever the "Bahrain Literary Society" twenty-three years later it must be acknowledged that those literary salons (clubs) collectively played a discernible educational role as they were haunts for the knowledge-hungry local literate young men prior to the establishment of formal education following the end of the First World War furthermore Sheikh Ibrahim requested Al-Thukair to be the principal supplier of Arabic periodicals in Bahrain by making use of his network of regional business agents to acquire popular newspapers and magazines from the Levant and Egypt, therefore he took it upon himself to supply all of the needs for published materials of other literary salons as a courtesy moving in the same direction he also vigorously sponsored the publication of seminal literary and theological works from the Arab Islamic mediaeval heritage as well as non-formal charity schooling and public libraries well-stocked with a wide range of books and respected periodicals largely from the Levant and Egypt (such as Al-Muqtataf, Al-Mu'ayyad, Al-Hilal, Al-Manar and so on) in both Bahrain and his birthplace Unaizah in addition to his educational and cultural dissemination efforts he was acutely sensitive to the daily hardships of ordinary impoverished and marginalised people as evidenced by the next edited excerpt from the 1910 British Gulf residency report (Almas, Negro the Confidential Adviser of Sheikh Isa (ruler of Bahrain) died on 11th January and was replaced by Ali Bin Abdullah (Al-Obaidli) on the advice of Ali Bin Abdullah, Sheikh Isa called upon house owners to produce the sanads (Arabic singular title deed: سند, Romanised English plural: sanads) in virtue of which they held their property on their failing to do so they were evicted and no consideration was paid to the period of possession, Sheikh Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair protested to Sheikh Isa against this measure as it pressed hardly on the poor the protest had the desired effect and the Sheikh (ruler) promised to refrain from such actions in the future) the rescinding of the ruler's decree in the past incident is the definitive indication of the unflinching deference accorded to Al-Thukair by everyone who came into contact with him from those in power to the ordinary man in the street he was also involved in a wide range of philanthropic activities that were not confined to the conventional charity act of almsgiving since he was a practical man who took a number of practical steps to assuage human suffering in any way he could defying common human prejudices among his various practical philanthropic contributions in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf was the commissioning of a water well next to his house in Manama around the year 1900 akin to the undertakings of prominent fellow local pearl merchants Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944) and Muhammad Bin Rashid Bin Hindi (1850-1934) of Muharraq who attempted to alleviate some of the freshwater supply predicament that plagued Bahrain's urban dwellers predominantly those of Manama and Muharraq the two main densely populated towns in the small island nation at the turn of the twentieth century where the majority of the population had difficulty securing their daily domestic supply of freshwater owing to the lack of potable drinking water infrastructure in Bahrain and much of the Near East as in many other parts of the globe including some of the underdeveloped regions of the Western world in the early part of the twentieth century despite the fact that Bahrain had abundant freshwater resources unlike some of its Arab Gulf neighbours a small example of the central socioeconomic roles that rich mercantile elites played throughout Arab polities in the Arabian Gulf before the discovery of oil and the subsequent establishment of the modern welfare state Al-Thukair also tended to the spiritual needs of the inhabitants of his neighbourhood in Manama at roughly the same time he commissioned the water well he financed the renovation of an old dilapidated bijou Mosque within the vicinity of his house dating back to the late seventeen hundreds placing a nearby shop he owned as a charitable endowment for the Mosque which the locals of the area after him affectionately called Mugbil Mosque even though he was not its original builder he was also instrumental in locally funding the construction of Bahrain's second hospital after the opening of the "American Mission Hospital" in Manama on 26th January 1903 at the request of the British to fulfil their envisaged "Victoria Memorial Hospital" between 1902 and its formal opening on 9th November 1906 to commemorate the late Queen Victoria (defunct since 1948) situated in the Ras Rumman area in Manama south of the British political agency (present-day British Embassy) by rallying other leading merchants to contribute to this vital medical project as Bahrain was in desperate need of a quarantine medical facility to combat the rampant spread of recurring deadly epidemics specifically plague, cholera and typhus as reported in the British Gulf residency report of 1902 this is a slightly edited excerpt from the detailed report dated 23rd August 1902 by J. C. Gaskin, Esq, Assistant Political Agent, Bahrain where Gaskin was delegated by his superiors in the British Indian government the task of securing funds for the proposed hospital locally by taking the pulse of the local mercantile elite through cosying up to rich local merchants chief among them Al-Thukair to enlist their financial assistance in building the hospital, stated as follows (I would venture to report that since the receipt of your communication I have spoken on the subject to some of the leading native merchants and from their replies to me I got the impression that they would give liberal donations towards the hospital: and subsequently Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair the leading Bahraini merchant called on me and offered to subscribe R1,000. (One thousand rupees) Haji Mugbil's handsome offer will influence the native merchants who usually follow his lead) in recognition of his role in securing local funding for the hospital British colonial authorities invited Al-Thukair along with other donors to the hospital opening ceremony, the following edited excerpt from the British Gulf residency report for the year 1906-1907 formulated by the British political agent in Bahrain Captain F. B. Prideaux sheds light on the event (on the 9th November 1906 advantage was taken of the presence of the Political Resident (Major P. Z. Cox) in the Arabian Gulf to hold a public meeting for the opening of the Victoria Memorial Charitable Hospital nearly all the contributors to the Rs. 21,000 which the construction had cost were present on the occasion as were also the Chief (ruler) of Bahrain and his sons after the Resident had delivered a short extempore speech, the leading Arab merchant Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair read a reply expressing gratitude to the British Government for their interest in and protection of Bahrain and wishing long life to the Ruler Sheikh Isa Bin Ali) for some the antagonistic stance of Al-Thukair towards the British as expounded in detail further in the text seemed contradictory as he gladly collaborated with them in their efforts to secure funding for the construction of the said hospital in tandem with their other measures to improve public sanitation and hygiene to help curb the spread of virulent diseases in Bahrain's two major towns Manama and Muharraq as he saw his sporadic cooperation with the advanced British in a different light as he would endorse any attempt to better the lives of ordinary Bahrainis even if it meant occasionally cooperating with a foreign colonial power he vehemently opposed in that sense he was a modern practical man, it could not be denied that the least tangible of his philanthropic efforts but perhaps the most life-changing for those affected by it was the hidden assistance he rendered in paying off the debts of struggling insolvent merchants in Bahrain and across the Arabian Gulf with a special priority given to his own debtors who either had their debts temporarily reprieved or cancelled altogether as in this revealing slightly edited citation from the 1913 British Gulf residency report asserting the regional scope of his business interests dated 5th of May 1913 stating as follows (Sheikh Qasim Bin Thani (ruler) of Qatar has asked Yusuf Kanoo to use his influence with Sheikh Mugbil Al-Thukair in bringing about an amiable settlement between the latter and his Qatar debtors who are unable to pay their debts on account of the dullness of the pearl market) surpassed only by Bahrain's preeminent pearl merchant of all time dubbed by the Bahraini people "Father of orphans and protector of widows" for his unequalled altruism and magnanimity Salman Bin Hussain Matar, yet his most important legacy was the founding in mid-1913 of the first officially recognised Literary Society in Bahrain as touched upon earlier located in close proximity to the American Mission Bible Bookshop in Manama on what is now Sheikh Isa Al Kabeer (Isa the Great) Avenue in its own special-purpose premises inaugurated under his patronage and with the full endorsement of the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa and the moral support of a number of local literary figures and dignitaries led by Bahrain's foremost literary figure in the early twentieth century the acclaimed classical poet Sheikh Ibrahim Bin Muhammad Al Khalifa (1850-1933) in conjunction with Al-Thukair's younger and trusted energetic friend, the influential comprador merchant and shrewd entrepreneur founder and sole owner of Bahrain's first Western-style Bank in 1890 a true man of the world the maverick Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945) this society was not merely an ordinary Literary Society but a modern educational institution in the true sense of the word a wellspring of radiance for the Bahraini people at the time comprising a comprehensive library, a school for teaching Arabic, English, mathematics and Islamic theology and a lecture hall ably managed by the gifted 33-year-old Al-Azhar graduate educator Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Mana (1882-1965) who would become the first chairman of the Directorate of Knowledge (Ministry of Education) in the newly established Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the future judge and Grand Mufti (jurisconsult) of Qatar handpicked by Al-Thukair to undertake the onerous task of transforming this institution into a beacon of enlightenment and forward-thinking in a short period of time one of the many cultural contributions of the educated and enlightened Bahraini business elite who were at the vanguard of modernity and progress in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through their previously mentioned literary salons and also through their lesser-known but no less important financing of numerous free of charge non-formal local schooling initiatives as those were among the earliest semi-modern organised educational institutions to tackle the prevalent illiteracy in Bahrain other than the existing traditional Quranic schools strikingly among the several non-formal schools of the time one stood out as the first female-founded charity school in Bahrain and most likely the entire Gulf established on the island of Muharraq the former capital of Bahrain in 1887 by the noblewoman and philanthropist heiress Sheikha Saida Bint Bishr (1834-1892) who defied all expectations of traditional domestic roles for women in the highly patriarchal society of late-nineteenth-century Bahrain by allocating the revenue of a date palm orchard she owned in Manama as an endowment for the school eponymously named after her nevertheless some of the independent charity schools date back to the early part of the nineteenth century since the earliest recorded charity school in Bahrain was that of Sheikh Isa Bin Rashid in Muharraq in 1829 an eminent cleric of the Island of Muharraq predating the reign of Sheikh Isa by forty years however this proliferation of educational initiatives noticeably in the last third of the nineteenth century was the fruit of the long-lasting stability of Sheikh Isa's reign the role of the Bahraini business elite was not limited to just paving the way for the establishment of modern education but also was directly involved in the development of Western-influenced formal education leading to the opening of the first elementary school for boys in Muharraq in 1919 followed by another for girls in 1928 also in Muharraq with a nine-year gap where some of the senior members of the said elite (such as Matar, Algosaibi, Al-Zayani and Fakhro) served on the first governmental educational regulatory body in the modern history of the country the education supervisory committee (the forerunner of the Ministry of Education) which oversaw the development of the nascent government's educational system chaired by Sheikh Abdullah (1883-1966) the youngest son of the ruler of Bahrain in the honorary position of minister of education, the first and only local state official to hold such a position under British colonial rule in Bahrain this exception was made due to the high status of its occupant considering he was the son of the ruler since the office of a minister was a symbol of sovereignty in an independent sovereign state which was not the case with Bahrain an office he would continue to occupy until his death in 1966 the education committee continued as the main financial backer of education in Bahrain by financing the construction of schools across the country since its formation in 1919 until the mid-1930s when the Bahraini government became financially self-sufficient as a result of stable oil export revenues lastly allowing the government to replenish its empty coffers permanently resolving the protracted financial problems that had beset the Bahraini government for many decades rendering it a thing of the past simultaneously with the establishment of formal education in 1919 another milestone was the creation of the first partially elected municipal councils in both Manama and Muharraq which were dominated by elected and appointed senior members of the Bahraini business elite who played a crucial role in sponsoring a number of infrastructure projects in the country including the Manama port project in 1919 as happened in the pre-oil era throughout the Gulf as the 1920s and 1930s saw the gradual emergence of the modern Bahraini bureaucratic centralised state and good governance replacing the existing centuries-old obsolete mediaeval fiefdom system an inexorable obstacle to human development in its entirety anywhere in the world of the early twentieth-century industrial age, it would be misleading not to mention the facilitating quintessential role of Britain in bringing those reforms to fruition as represented by the four most influential British colonial administrators and officers in the British colonial history of Bahrain whose contributions to the establishment of modern Bahrain could not be ignored or underestimated under any circumstances serving consecutively one after the other starting with the delicate and focal preliminary task of the wily Arabist and orientalist military commander and intelligence officer Captain N. N. E. Bray (1885-1962) as a political agent in Bahrain from November 1918 to June 1919 with clear directives to "seek the amelioration of the internal government by indirect and pacific means and by gaining the confidence and trust of the Sheikh" ruler," followed by Major H. R. P. Dickson (1881-1959) with a brief yet extremely productive tenure from 1919 to 1920 he would also serve as a political agent in Kuwait from 1929 to 1936 then his disgraced successor, demoted from Colonel to Major for his recklessly violent behaviour in post-World War One Iraq, inadvertently responsible for single-handedly igniting the first spark of what would become "The Iraqi revolt against the British" also known as the 1920 Iraqi Revolt or the Great Iraqi Revolution, the Anglo-Irish Clive Kirkpatrick Daly (1888-1966) with his divisive and controversial tenure from 1921 to 1926 and finally Charles D. Belgrave (1894-1969) who served as an administrator and financial adviser to the ruler of Bahrain in the newly created office of the "Adviser" to purposefully overshadow the increasingly unpopular post of the political agent for its association with Daly's heavy-handed colonial rule, Belgrave's long tenure from 1926 to 1957 is seen by historians as a consolidation of the modernising reforms of his predecessors particularly Daly, whom Belgrave held in high esteem where the reforms gained more momentum following the steady flow of oil revenues after the discovery of the essential commodity in 1932 as all four carefully selected highly competent Arabist hardy tricenarian officers were assigned by the British Government with specific instructions to introduce all required administrative reforms based on their own discretion in line with the broader British regional strategy of placating the growing social discontent among the disenfranchised lower classes by redressing the pressing multigenerational injustices in Bahraini society specifically in the semi-feudal systems of pearl fishing indentured workers and agricultural farmers coordinating their reforms with the financial and moral support of the cooperative Bahraini business elite under such circumstances the first batch of reforms in education, municipal and fiscal sectors was implemented almost immediately after Bray's assisting initiative by Dickson, whereas customs, judiciary, police and land reform fell to the authoritarian Daly while Belgrave is credited with creating several new government departments including the "Directorate of Religious Endowments" in 1927 his first significant reform after assuming office as a financial adviser to stem the chronic unfettered corruption of some of the local clergy whom the government entrusted to administer religious endowments (waqf) without any supervision or legal accountability followed by the slow process of his decades-long vital initiative to develop modern public utility infrastructure for electricity, water and telephone service which commenced effectively in early 1928 he was also instrumental in securing the oil concession that led to the discovery of oil in 1932 but his everlasting achievement was the founding of the "Minors Funds Directorate" in 1932 to protect the inheritance rights of orphans and widows, a life-changing cross-sectarian institution in the service of the Bahraini people operating without interruption since its inception the first governmental institution of its kind in Bahrain and Belgrave's most enduring legacy however Belgrave faced fierce and persistent opposition from deeply conservative reactionary and corrupt elements within the Sunni and Shiite cross-sectarian main religious composition of Bahrain who sought to obfuscate and obstruct the introduction of such a governmental institution as those elements had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, deeming such a move as tantamount to heresy but Belgrave's dedication and perseverance prevailed in the end, sadly for many Bahrainis this remarkable feat of his remains a little-known historical fact the upcoming excerpt is one of numerous recurring instances in Belgrave's diary on this motion from 20th February 1931 until it was ratified on 15th January 1932 by the deputy ruler Sheikh Hamad less than a year before his accession to the throne on 9th December after being put forward for public debate by the government involving the wonted religious and mercantile elites of Bahraini society as alluded to earlier illustrating the great lengths Belgrave went to for the creation of this totally new governmental regulatory body with no precedent at least in Bahrain (Sunday 17th Jan 1932 Called on Yusuf Kanoo in the morning and discussed with him the question of the Proclamation which we are issuing ordering all wills to be registered with the Government and no persons to administer estates without getting permission from Government. It will to a certain extent safeguard the rights of widows and orphans who at present are being robbed wholesale) but the timing of the urgency in implementing the reforms cannot be overlooked as it coincided with the execution on the ground of the 1916 secret Sykes-Picot agreement on dividing the legacy of the vanquished Ottoman Empire between the two main World War One victorious powers, Britain and France giving birth to the ubiquitous British coined term "Middle East" recognising the fact that the Hejaz western region of the Arabian Peninsula where the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located was under direct Ottoman rule and the Peninsula as a whole was and still is an extension of Iraq and the Levant in addition to achieving sustainable political stability in the Gulf as the advanced western Arabian frontier of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent the jewel in the crown of the British Empire in the final analysis, the seemingly avowed altruistic goals of the reforms in Bahrain were part of the colonial "grafting process" reform assimilation policy of Britain through tactfully transplanting British hegemonic ideas into the newly formed Middle East as in other parts of the British Empire in contrast to its fellow draconian and pompous French to ensure the long-term strategic interests of Britain in the aftermath of World War One, thus everything the British undertook was to this end, Al-Thukair was concerned not only with the spread of modern learning and science but also with the introduction of modern technology in the region as he was either the first or second local to own a motor car in Bahrain in 1908 ten years before the supposed official arrival of the first motor vehicle in the country as depicted in the travel diary of international jeweller Jacques Cartier of the iconic Parisian Cartier jewellery house during his second visit to Bahrain in March 1912 moreover it is worth mentioning that among his numerous noble deeds was the utilisation of his high social status as a business doyen, arbiter of disputes and man of letters both locally and regionally in mustering financial and moral support for the Libyan resistance in the wake of the Italian invasion of Ottoman Libya in October of 1911 and Mussolini's subsequent genocidal fascist regime settler colonialism of this vast sparsely populated semidesert North African Arab nation where Al-Thukair successfully raised twenty thousand rupees in relief aid donations in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf with the effective collaboration of the motivated cleric and merchant Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani (1863-1925) who travelled to Lengeh (an Arab coastal town in modern-day Iran) and Dubai as part of a Gulf-wide fundraising campaign for the embattled Libyans of Tripoli to be forwarded after the end of the subscription on the steamship SS. "Patiala" on 8th July 1912 to the Ottoman Red Crescent Society in the Iraqi city of Basra to be sent from there via Egypt to Tripoli, Libya as stated in the following are slightly edited excerpts from the 1912 British Gulf residency report concerning the Turco-Italian war and local and regional reactions to it from February and July respectively the first describes Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani's tireless zeal for collecting donations for the Libyan cause while the second describes Al-Thukair's delivery of those donations, it was clearly a collaborative effort rather than a single individual endeavour however this is not meant to diminish the efforts of Al-Thukair as he was either the driving force behind all of those initiatives or an integral member of the majority of them the first excerpt is as follows (The Arabs of Muharraq incited by an influential Mullah Sheikh Abdulwahab (Al-Zayani) have opened a subscription list for The Red Crescent Society in order to help it in bringing succour to the wounded in Tripoli. So far about Rs. 5,000 have been collected. This sum will be largely increased if the Arabs of Manama, Budaiya and Hidd join in as they have promised to do. The same Mullah is stated to have paid visits to Lengeh and Dubai about a month ago. At Lengeh he succeeded in collecting some 5,000 rupees but met with no success at Dubai where the people were sceptical as to the probability of the money ever reaching its ostensible destination) while the second as with the first shows the British meticulous documentation of the conclusion of the initiative (Sheikh Mugbil Al-Thukair forwarded on the 8th of July per SS. "Patiala" the sum of Rs. 20,000 being the total amount of subscription raised in Bahrain for the Red Crescent Society to Basra for transmission to Tripoli via Egypt) leading to the incensing of the British colonial authorities in Bahrain against him he also played a significant role in the Bahraini relief campaign to provide financial aid to the displaced Muslim refugees of the Balkan war precipitated by the raging Turco-Italian War over Ottoman Libya the "Balkan League" was formed in 1912 under the auspices of the Russians with the aim of putting an end to the Ottoman presence in the Balkans once and for all resulting in the ethnic genocide of nearly one and a half million Balkan Muslims with more than four hundred thousand refugees fleeing to Anatolia as news of the harrowing atrocities reached Bahrain cleric and pearl merchant Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani referred to earlier one of Bahrain's most revered national figures in the early twentieth century the leader of the first Bahraini independence movement from Britain at the turn of the twentieth century set up a fundraising refugee relief committee with the full backing of the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa who launched the donation fundraiser with the generous sum of ten thousand rupees appointing Al-Thukair as secretary-treasurer of the committee who rose to the occasion by exerting immense efforts to garner financial aid for the displaced Muslim refugees by exhorting the Bahraini populace to donate to their stranded Muslim brethren through his eloquent oratorical motivational skills, thus by the end of the fundraising the accumulated amount had risen to well over a hundred and four thousand rupees a sizable sum for a tiny country the size of Bahrain in the early twentieth century Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani and Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo were entrusted by the committee with the task of faithfully delivering the donations to the representative of the Ottoman Governor of Iraq in the Iraqi port city of Basra on 28th December 1912 according to the 1912 report of the British political agency in Bushehr compiled by a number of political agents in the region including Captain D. L. R. Lorimer and Major A. P. Trevor both of whom served in Bahrain the following edited excerpt is part of Major Trevor's section of this thorough report who succeeded Lorimar from the 1st of November 1912 as political agent in Bahrain (The subscription raised by the Arabs of Bahrain for the Turkish Red Crescent Society having reached the handsome figure of Rs. 1,04,100 the amount was taken to Basra by SS. "Bahrain" (of the Arab Steamers, Limited) on 28th December by Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani and Yusuf Kanoo for despatch to the Sultan. Yusuf Kanoo stated that it was their intention to land at Bushehr and send a telegram to the Sultan stating the amount of the sum raised for the Red Crescent Fund and mentioning that it had been subscribed by the Sheikhs and people of Bahrain for the sick and wounded. The object of this telegram of course was to prevent hanky-panky on the part of the Wali (Ottoman Governor) of Basra) it should be pointed out that Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani was exiled to the Indian port city of Bombay by the British colonial authorities in Bahrain in 1923 along with several of his comrades in the Bahraini independence movement where he died and was buried in less than two years in 1925 on a similar note an oblique account related to a letter dated 11th April of the same year sent by an anonymous Indian Muslim leader requesting Al-Thukair to organise an unspecified cause relief aid campaign for the Muslims of an unnamed Indian province was included in the 1913 report of the British political agency in Bahrain demonstrating the widely acclaimed reputation he achieved through the efficacy of his fundraising campaigns however by the middle of the Great War Al-Thukair had suffered considerable losses in his pearl business wrought in part by the dire effects of war particularly on the luxury goods market but mainly attributed to British interventions aimed at undermining his business interests primarily in Bahrain as some Bahraini historical researchers concluded as a consequence of his active role in supporting the Libyan resistance movement against Italian colonialism as previously stated, needless to say from the British point of view the uncompromising character of Al-Thukair and his unequivocal stance against Western colonialism in all of its forms constituted a threat to British colonial economic hegemony in the region that needed to be addressed decisively by thwarting any attempt to achieve any form of economic independence no matter how insignificant or trivial it might seem as in Al-Thukair's participation as a founding major shareholder with a five percent stake with a number of other wealthy pearl merchants from Bahrain and Kuwait together with the rulers of the said countries and those of Qatar and Oman led and chaired by the regionally famous Kuwaiti pearl merchant Jassim Bin Muhammad Al-Ibrahim (1869-1956) and his fellow leading Bahraini pearl merchant Muhammad Bin Abdulwahab Al-Mishari (1864-1922) in the position of general manager in establishing the first truly regional Arab shareholding firm and the first fully Arab-owned ocean liner shipping company in the Arabian Gulf on 30th April 1911 "The Arab Steamers, Limited" made up for the first time in the modern history of the Gulf of a medium-sized fleet of Western-built passenger steamships the moderately edited following extract from the 1912 report of the British Gulf residency in the Persian (Iranian) coastal city of Bushehr gives an inkling of the size of the company's fleet (The Arab Steamers, Limited-This company started a service to the Arabian Gulf in July 1911 and during the past year, 18 of their steamers have called at Lengeh outwards from Bombay while 10 steamers called on the return journey from Basra) it should be noted that the fleet included the passenger and cargo ship "Tynesider" renamed "Faris" in early 1912 on which the Parisian jeweller Jacques Cartier (1884-1941) travelled to India and the Arabian Gulf the same year as the company's board named the previously mentioned respected Bahraini banker and merchant Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo as its agent in Bahrain since he was friends with most of the board members incidentally it was Yusuf Kanoo's first shipping agency in 1911, thus launching his shipping agency business which would become the posthumous cornerstone of the eponymous regional multinational Y.B.A. Kanoo conglomerate in the post-World War Two Arabian Gulf oil economy, the following excerpt from the 1912 report of the British Gulf residency describes the sense of jubilation and pride of the Bahraini people at the arrival of the first passenger steamship of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" to bear the name Bahrain on its maiden voyage (SS. Bahrain a new acquisition of the Arab company, arrived at Bahrain on 1st March, fully dressed with flags. It was explained that the decoration was in honour of the first visit of the ship to its name-place. The name is a source of great delight to the local Arabs) apart from the legitimate premise of economic independence the real reason for the establishment of this firm was a response to the monopolistic exploitative practises and racially discriminatory colonial policies of the "British India Steam Navigation Company" (B.I.) against non-European passengers in general and Arabs in particular as attested by the exorbitant ticket prices of Arab travellers not to mention the additional cargo charges exacted on Arab-owned goods exacerbating the whole situation by barring affluent Arab first-class passengers from eating in the dining rooms and halls of its ships rightfully regarded as a disparaging and demeaning hierarchical colonial policy that posed an egregious affront to human dignity irrespective of race, colour, ethnicity or creed commonly practised by Western colonial powers of divesting non-white peoples of their humanity in order to legitimise their subjugation on the other hand unfortunately the fate of this pioneering highly successful company was tragically sealed unceremoniously in 1915 when it was sold to the "Bombay & Persia Steam Navigation Company" (The Mogul Line) as a direct result of insurmountable British pressure after less than five years of operation a pressure that began by dissuading Gulf Arab rulers from investing in such a venture while the company was still in formation under the usual infantilising colonial mendacious pretenses of catastrophic financial losses and no practical feasibility for themselves and their peoples whether in the near or distant future but their spurious discouraging attempts were in vain with the British-owned (B.I.) resorting to an all-out price war immediately after the start of the company's operations all these flagrantly malicious actions by the British helped stoke the flames of Arab patriotic sentiments to the fullest against them in the Gulf by causing Gulf Arabs including Iraqis to travel almost exclusively on the ships of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" still the company managed to command the substantial sum of three-quarters of a million British Indian silver rupees as a sale price exactly threefold the paid-in capital just over four years earlier given the geopolitical situation of the Great War adverse international economic conditions, sending the pearl-based mono-cultural economies of the Gulf into a tailspin along with wartime restrictions on sea travel, to compound matters further, the British Admiralty requisitioned one of the company's vessels, the passenger and cargo ship SS. "Budrie" originally named SS. "Golconda" for the war effort where it ended up being scuttled as a blockship at Scapa Flow in northern Scotland on 3rd October 1915 a clear testament to the enormous success that this ill-fated company enjoyed in its short-lived existence, the following excerpt is from a thoroughly detailed report on the trade movement of Oman by Major S. G. Knox the British consul in Muscat, Oman and its de facto ruler dated 13th April 1912 on sea trade and shipping movement in and out of the country, refers to the effect of the launching of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" on freight shipping rates (The British India Company who have got the contract for the carriage of mails from and to India provide one weekly fast mail service up and down and 1 fortnightly coasting slow mail service both ways. The vessels of the Arab Steamers, Limited have also maintained a weekly service. In consequence of the weekly service maintained by the Arab Steamers, the freights to India, etc., were greatly reduced during the year and those for United States of America enhanced) the doomed fate of this company became a cautionary tale for anyone attempting to challenge British colonial economic hegemony in the region for many decades to come until the defining watershed historical moment of Britain's future role as a global power in the outcome of the new harsh bipolar world order realities of the 1956 Suez crisis (known as the "tripartite aggression" in the Arab world) marking the beginning of the end of the British imperial presence in the Middle East incrementally superseded by American influence in all aspects nevertheless on the positive side racial discrimination, unwarranted prices and mistreatment of Arabs and non-Europeans on British passenger ships came to an end as the British realised though belatedly that such discriminatory practises could impinge on their long-term economic interests in the region epitomising British pragmatism at its finest one of the most contributing factors to the British Imperial enterprise's resounding successes over the centuries in comparison to its other European counterparts and finally culminating in the straw that broke the camel's back Al-Thukair's staunch allegiance to the sworn enemy of Great Britain in the region the Ottoman Turks on the eve of World War One demonstrably embodied itself in his spearheading of a very large Gulf-wide fundraising campaign comparable to, if not larger than his previous ones to raise financial aid for the Ottomans with a special emphasis on enlisting the financial assistance of Arabian Gulf heads of state, leading merchants and clerics where it attained a resounding success under the watchful eye of the British colonial authorities in the region confirmed by a concise reference in the British Archives to the recently deceased ruler of Qatar Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani who died on 17th July 1913 in relation to the worrying antagonistic fundraising activities of Al-Thukair the British in anticipation of the looming global conflagration of World War One (as it would be known in the West as the Great War or perhaps more idealistically as "the war to end war" the paradoxical catchphrase created by prolific English author H. G. Wells) as an inevitable conclusion in light of the fraught international situation of the escalating crisis in Europe among the newly allied powers of Britain, France and Russia since the turn of the twentieth century in the face of rising militaristic and economic power of Germany as leader of the central powers mainly the Austro-Hungarians and the beleaguered Ottomans in the same previously referred to 1913 report of the British Gulf residency stated as follows (Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani has sent 25 thousand rupees to Sheikh Mugbil and Yusuf Kanoo here with instructions to send the amount to Basra. It is the subscription of the Qatar people for the Turkish relief) a war of the kind that the ailing Ottoman Empire dubbed "The Sick Man of Europe" in the West would be playing its definitive role in deciding the future of the Middle East after four centuries of imperial dominance just as war-weary Britain would be playing itself forty years later in the face of the growing new American influence in the region in the aftermath of the Second World War though in a peaceful conciliatory mode as should be the norm between close strategic partners ultimately Al-Thukair's relentless and far-reaching fervour on all fronts caught up with him forcing the venerable septuagenarian merchant to reluctantly relinquish his most rewarding and cherished achievement the "Bahrain Literary Society" resulting in its permanent closure in 1917 due to the unfortunate fact that he was the sole benefactor of this progressive institution where he spared no expense on his beloved creation during its fruitful albeit brief existence followed soon thereafter by the selling of almost all of his assets in Bahrain starting with the sale of virtually all his Manama properties including his commercial buildings and four houses in early 1917 to his friend and equal in character and exalted social stature prominent pearl merchant Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944) and ending with his most prized possession his huge date palm orchard named "Tinar" on the outskirts of Manama near the historic Al-Khamis Mosque which he sold to his fellow countryman and successor in heading the Najdi community of Bahrain and Ibn Saud's representative notable pearl merchant Abdulaziz Bin Hassan Algosaibi (1876-1953) shortly before his final departure to his birthplace Unaizah where he would die less than six years later in 1923 at the age of 79 this is undoubtedly the clearest manifestation of his unwavering loyalty to his Central Arabian Najdi roots in spite of making Bahrain his home in every sense for forty years however some of his descendants chose to remain in Bahrain namely his Bahraini-born youngest son Abdulrahman who spent the best part of his life moving back and forth between Bahrain and the birthplace of his ancestors Unaizah and whose descendants still live in Bahrain remarkably those last few years of his life were not spent idly on the contrary notwithstanding his financial woes Al-Thukair rose above it all by erecting a charity school complex with free lodging for teachers in his beloved hometown of Unaizah he also funded the publication of two classical Islamic theological works to be distributed gratuitously among its literate residents as a last token of gratitude to the place that played a pivotal role in shaping his formative years the ultimate proof of his noble unfaltering magnanimous nature in the face of overwhelming vicissitudes of fortune in other words for Al-Thukair moral agency and altruism took precedence over expediency, personal gain and selfish interest this idealised narrative might be viewed by some with incredulity however the veracity of the preceding portrait of Al-Thukair was corroborated by an independent foreign source free of any cultural affiliation to the region represented in the travel diary of the young French jeweller Jacques Cartier who painted a more poignant portrait of him than even some of his local and regional contemporaries devoid of duplicity and guile (such values and principles as some commentators suggested were detrimental to Al-Thukair's business activities of course from a pragmatic unscrupulous perspective) as expected at the death announcement of Al-Thukair at dawn on the 13th of May 1923 in his then small sleepy rural hometown of Unaizah thousands of mourners of all genders and walks of life thronged to join the sombre funeral procession of one of Unaizah's most illustrious natives while paying their respects to the family of this noble pious benevolent man the least honour they could afford for someone who gave so much to his people as word of his passing spread beyond Unaizah, cables and letters of condolence started to pour in from regional potentates, political leaders, notables and leading merchants from around the Arabian Peninsula he was also mourned and deservedly eulogised in Iraqi, Levantine and Egyptian journals and periodicals by clerics, writers and intellectuals from the Gulf to Iraq and all the way to Egypt some of whom were personal friends such as the loyal Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Mana (1882-1965) the published author, judge and future Grand Mufti of Qatar and at one time the semi-adopted son and business assistant of Al-Thukair who wrote a heart-wrenching eloquently effusive obituary for Al-Thukair titled "The death of a great man and a famous philanthropist" in the respected Egyptian Magazine Al-Manar on 9th June 1923 less than a month after his death the unique closeness of Al-Mana to Al-Thukair in all respects including their shared birthplace allowed him to serve as a key link between Al-Thukair and all of his regional friends another personal friend was Sheikh Muhammad Saleh Khonji (1880-1967) the esteemed Bahraini multi-talented cleric, poet, writer, intellectual, historian, administrator and educator the second Bahraini to graduate from the reputable Al-Azhar Islamic University of Cairo, Egypt in 1902 a worthy member of the 1919 prestigious education supervisory committee and a regular patron of the "Bahrain Literary Society" the brainchild of Al-Thukair before and after its official inauguration in 1913 a prolific correspondent with Sheikh Muhammad Rasheed Rida the owner of Al-Manar Magazine in Cairo who also happened to be an epistolary friend of Al-Thukair as noted further down in the text curiously enough Khonji's upcoming literal translated description of Al-Thukair was the least ornate of his contemporaries written in a plain stoic unrhetorical spare style displaying the typical ascetic attributes of his writings (Mugbil was a well-educated big merchant who had correspondence through his many agents in India, East Africa, Arab countries and Europe may God Almighty rest his soul) Al-Thukair also formed abiding epistolary friendships throughout his adult life which began as a means to quench his lifelong thirst for intellectual knowledge by forming long-standing literary correspondents that evolved into genuine epistolary friendships as in the case of Mahmud Shukri Al-Alusi (1856-1924) the revered multidiscipline Iraqi Islamic thinker, linguist, historian and reformer editor-in-chief of the first Iraqi periodical the renowned weekly newspaper Al-Zawra'a and once professor and mentor to Al-Mana during his student days in Baghdad however there is strong evidence that the friendship of Al-Alusi and Al-Thukair was not solely epistolary as it was perfectly possible for both gentlemen to meet several times during Al-Thukair's numerous business trips to Iraq particularly in the 1890s there was also occasional specific correspondence between the two concerning the latter's generous and varied assistance to Al-Alusi including the forwarding of several batches of books each containing hundreds of copies of a newly printed first edition of an Islamic theological work by Al-Alusi printed and shipped to Iraq from India one batch at a time at Al-Thukair's expense in addition to financial assistance this was the main topic of a series of letters between the two parties dating back to the year 1893 but for the sake of historical accuracy some of the batches in question were consigned by the ruler of Qatar Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani to be delivered to Al-Alusi by Al-Thukair a trusted friend of the ruler as was the case with other Arabian Gulf rulers mentioned earlier the other distinguished epistolary friend of his was Sheikh Muhammad Rasheed Rida (1865-1935) the eminent Levantine-Egyptian Islamic theologian reformer, Quranic exegete, author and journalist founder and owner of Al-Manar Magazine in Cairo, Egypt to whom he regularly wrote seeking his scholarly counsel on Islamic jurisprudence issues who was alerted to the demise of Al-Thukair by their mutual friend Al-Mana, eliciting a brief yet meaningful obituary by Rida in his own Al-Manar Magazine; the following text is a literal translation of the obituary (we beseech thee Almighty God to bless the life of our mourning brother the just judge of Qatar and to bestow his mercy and blessings upon our departed brother and to unite us with him {In an Assembly of Truth, in the Presence of a Sovereign Omnipotent} (The Moon Surah (chapter) "verse 55" Quran) and to mitigate the grief of his family and offspring and to guide them in following his righteous path) the first impression of this final example of his lasting correspondence is that it was arguably the only one of his consequential epistolary friendships that remained exclusively epistolary since there is no record of any meeting between Al-Thukair and Rida that had ever occurred since their first correspondence at the end of the nineteenth century until the death of Al-Thukair a premise reinforced by an excessive degree of formality and reserved mutual respect a constant feature mirrored in their writings for each other over the years these are the most noteworthy examples to name a few of the monumental veneration that Al-Thukair received upon his death, an explicit attestation of the high standing that he enjoyed at all levels)
A not so planned photoshoot, this is some of the photos from "Could we do a photoshoot?" and answer "brb - 5min".
A not so planned photoshoot, this is some of the photos from "Could we do a photoshoot?" and answer "brb - 5min".
A not so planned photoshoot, this is some of the photos from "Could we do a photoshoot?" and answer "brb - 5min".
“Did you get her?”, asked my fellow smartphone photographer, whose cologne was, let's say, quite interesting. Here is the story that precedes this question.
Bears are crowd magnets. Especially in national parks, where folks announce bear sightings to each other via a silent code that even the rookie tourist understands… traffic jam! Jammed up in one such incident recently, Rishabh and I soon realized that we were in the company of a momma bear and her two little teddies that were out doing their thing in the woods. She was a cinnamon colored black bear who was clearly proud of her cubs. My fellow tourists had their shooting equipment out, which included smartphones and iPads. Mine were a bit heavier. Before going on this trip, I had invested in a second 5D Mark IV body for my long lens, because... 1) I can see the future and anticipated this bear encounter ahead of time, and 2) swapping lenses in the field is a royal pain in the unroyal place. So, when the moment came, my shooting set-up was bearable and I was ready.
Or, was I?
Like my fellow photographers, I too was out of our car and busy mob-negotiating shooting perimeters with park rangers, who had arrived out of nowhere. Count on it, rangers understand the above-mentioned silent code of bear-sighting only too well and show up in every bear-party. We were supposed to be 100 yards away from our bears, but were pushing 80. The woods in front of us was dense and initial shots returned unbearable bear images. Too many branches, too little light and most irritating of all, a ton of camera shake. Due to the extempore nature of the exercise, I did not have the time to set up my tripod and was shooting hand-held. This was not a problem for the first ten minutes, but then the combined weight of the Mark IV body plus the 100-400 lens plus the 1.4X convertor (~4.5 pounds) tired my resolve and muscles. In the meantime, the bear was progressing towards us at a 'lightening' pace of one yard/minute (plus minus a few yards) filling only 5-10% of my frame at 560mm. After about 50 such frontal fruitless mugshots, I was already tired but had nothing to take back home. Yet.
Then it happened!
Sniffing something from our direction (must be my fellow iPhone photographer’s tasteless cologne), our momma bear made an abrupt 90 degree turn, now sauntering parallel to us at about 70 yards from our enforced perimeter. This development provided a new opportunity of viewing the whole bear instead of its frontal mugshot. Additionally, I also spotted a harebell-filled clearing in the dense pine jungle that was in the direct path of our subject. I knew, another few yards later she would be right in the middle of that glade. Steadying my tired muscles – as a fallen soldier does before firing off last few rounds – I aimed for the opening in the pine wood and clicked off a few shots as Ms. Cinnamon tripped my frame.
“Did you get her?”, my fellow smartphone photographer with the odd cologne asked.
Hurriedly reviewing those last few tired shots, I stopped at the above displayed frame and nodded with a tired smile, “Yes Sir, I think, I did! ”
PS: This image was finalized with thoughtful inputs from Sandra Herber. Thank you, Sandra!
This photo is really extempore thing. Me and model will go out because it looks nice when its snowing first time in this autmn and shooting took time about 10 min and post-prosessing take same 10 min. It takes about 1 hour when i get this idea to final picture.
Location: The “Whipping Post”, Great Gate, Staffordshire, England, UK
Date of Photograph: pm 18 October 2007
OS Grid Reference: SK055400
Co-ordinates: 52:57:30N 1:55:06W
Elevation: 140.2 meters
English Criminal Law used to differentiate between Felonies, serious crimes like murder or arson that attracted transportation or capital sentences; and Misdemeanors, less serious property thefts or adulteries that invoked fines or corporal punishment. The latter was intended to be painful and humiliating but was not allowed to “endanger life or limb” and usually involved flogging the back with a cat to produce superficial laceration.
Whipping, specifically flogging, was abolished in England in 1964, but had been in decline for two hundred years and widely deprecated as a barbarous archaism, even in the 1780’s. All whipping of females was illegalised in 1820 and it is difficult to find evidence of the public flogging of males beyond the 1830’s.
Accordingly, the ubiquitous stocks and whipping posts of English villages are mostly fraudulent: The results of a baleful Victorian fashion for things Gothick and Olde-Worlde. Authentic punishments were usually extempore and so were their instruments. Regarded as shameful for both perpetrator and victim, English corporal punishment was usually unrecorded and never awarded the symbolic value it possessed in the German-speaking lands.
Nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey maps fail to show this expensive-looking “whipping post” at the dozy hamlet of Great Gate, publess and with a population of about fifty. Modern OS maps mark it as “whipping post” in Blackletter.
It is a sturdy sandstone obelisk that shows some signs of vertical fluting and tentative borings as if it is an old plague stone, an interpretation that could be substantiated by its liminal position, but its true origin is probably more prosaic.
Close inspection discloses an iron shackle whose hinge is actually at ground level above a kind of ashlar plinth concealed below windfall leaves. When I touched this restraint it fell open with a hyaline chime and I thought “low-grade puddled iron”. This substance was manufactured between 1784 and 1974. The upper shackle had broken away with a brittle fracture and it had been fastened into its socket in the stone with a grout of barely-corroded molten lead, typical of local gate-hangers’ work circa 1880 to 1930. None of this puts the post definitely into the fraud category, but equally none is suggestive of the hand-wrought fibrous iron workmanship using easily available local wood and ironstone, that you would expect of a pre-1850 date.
But the big problem is the position of the shackles: Either the victim would have to lie prone with his ankles manacled, or crouched on the plinth with his shoulder to the pillar. Whichever, it would be impossible to strike him an effective stripe, even if you groveled on the ground with him.
Notable is the little barn across the road on the right of the picture. It has one of the finest roofs I have seen anywhere. The walling is very good too though showing its age and some fine iron straps have redundantly reinforced it from inception. The roadward oaken door with iron hanger bolts is very costly and the whole ensemble is much too high-class for a small Staffordshire barn.
Adjacent to these features, but out of view, is a sandstone ashlar integrated school and master’s house of 1853. Were the barn and “whipping post” fashioned of its surplus materials, at the expense of some national charity or local aristocrat?
Monday.
And time has came to leave Causeway House. A sad moment. We have enjoyed our stay, slept well, relaxed and seen some great things.
I have one final coffee, before the packing begins, and we manage to fitit all in the car, with room for us to spare. Jools programs the sat nave to Rosslyn, the sat nave tells us our route, and we are off. It decides we should go via Carlisle and then up the motorway, which would have been OK were it not for the pouring rain, but then I guess all roads would have been horrible to drive on. Along the A69, round Carlisle and up the M6 to Scotland. But, as we crossed the border, the rain began to ease, and we thought we sensed some brightness overhead.
We took the scenic route alongside the trackbed of the old Waverly Line, through green valley, past the source of the River Tweed, over passes and down the other side. It is a beautiful route, even in list drizzle and mist, but after a while we began to wish for some straighter roads.
We stop at a greasy spoon some 20 minutes shy of Rosslyn, I have square sausage in a bun, Jools has bacon. And we still have six days of holiday left.
It is some 11 years since I was last at Rosslyn, back then Da Vinci Code fever had only just begun; but now it is a world famous place, and with ample parking. And nine of your Scottish pounds to get in! And only once we paid did we see the sign informing all that photography was banned inside. For £9, a small, if bonkers, church?
We looked round, I took some exterior shots, and we left, leaving visitors of all nations behind.
Thanks to my good friend, John, our next port of call was Linlithgow, where the Scottish Stewart Royal family had their home, and Mary, Queen of Scots was born. He recommended we go, and who I am I to argue with John?
The rain threatened again, but stayed dry, at least for a while. Round the Edniburg by-pass towards Glasgow, and there were the signs, all simple. Into the town, and then the road to the palace was closed, and there were no alternative signs.
We drove up and down the high street, all the long term parking was full, until just as we were about to give up, we see signs for another, a little further out, and so do find a place to park.
It was a 5 minute walk to the centre of town, past the bowls centre, Tesco and the railway station. We were hungry, and there was a fine looking Italian place just there, should we go in? I think we should.
It is very nice, we have Insalata Caprese again, and some bread. And some olives. All is nice, so we are not tempted by the desserts. Well, we are but resist.
The rain had begun to fall again as we walked to the old palace, up the cobbled street and through the ornamental gateway: the parish church is on the right, so we go in and once again are delighted. But the most stunning aspect is a modern south window, which is just spectacular and takes my breath away.
The castle next door is mostly complete, except for the roof, which in the steady rain would have been nice. But we get in for free, our favourite price, and have the place almost to ourselves. I follow a spiral staircase up, and end up at the top of one of the towers, with views across the castle and rooftops of the town behind.
---------------------------------------------------------
"St Michael is kinde to strangers". So runs the motto of the Ancient and Royal Burgh of Linlithgow. St Michael is the patron saint of the town and, in the form of the ancient church of that name, he still stands guard above its inhabitants, both residents and strangers alike.
Although it is undoubtedly of earlier origin the first mention of "the great church of Linlithgow" is in a charter of 1138 in which King David I gifted it "with all its chapels, lands and other rights" to the Cathedral of St Andrews.
On 22nd May 1242, the Church of St Michael of Linlithgow was consecrated by David de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews. Whether he was hallowing a new building or rededicating an established House of God, is not certain. What is clear is that the ancient kirk has for centuries been recognised as a place of worship and as an historical memorial without equal in Scotland.
In 1301 King Edward I of England arrived and requisitioned the Church as a garrison storehouse in which to house the war provisions required for his fortified palisade or "Peel".
After the Scottish Victory at Bannockburn, and the recapture of the Linlithgow fortifications, St Michael’s stood in need of considerable restoration.
Whatever reconstruction work was done in the 14th century was not long-lived as, in 1424, a great fire occurred which caused massive damage to the church and neighbouring palace.
Over the next 115 years St Michael’s was largely rebuilt although many of the old stones were incorporated in the new construction. Several local strategies were enforced to finance the rebuilding of the Kirk. Taxes were imposed on ale and leather and the money from fines for chimney or overpricing at the market also swelled the church coffers.
ll the Stewart kings from James I to V donated revenue to St Michael’s "kirk werk" and not until 1540 was the church’s completion celebrated with the granting of a new royal charter and, with it, the right to appoint a town Provost. The man chosen was Henry Forrest of Magdalenes who had himself been active in the "kirk werk" and had personally ensured that the masons received their "drinksilver". They certainly earned it for under their expert hands emerged the beautiful Medieval church we have today. First the nave and transepts were transformed; then the chancel and the apse. Outside, twenty niches were filled with carvings of saints and, inside, each of the 8 bays was graced with an altar, attended by a staff of chantry priests. The solid, square tower was furnished with a magnificent stone crown, topped with a weathervane, bearing the favourite emblem of King James III. The church was further adorned with the erection of a beautiful oak roof bearing the arms of George Crichton, vicar of St Michael’s and later Bishop of Dunkeld. The ecclesiastical masterpiece which resulted was much favoured as a place of worship by the Scottish monarchs, most notably Mary Queen of Scots who was born in Linlithgow Palace on December 8th 1542 and was baptised in St Michael’s church.
The font which carried the holy water used to baptise the royal baby did not survive for many years longer. In 1559 the Protestant Lords of the Congregation arrive to obliterate all traces of the Roman Catholic religion from the Church. They smashed the holy water stoop along with the statues and altars. Occasionally fragments of this orgy of destruction are found in and around the church.
The first Protestant minister of St Michael’s was Patrick Kinloquy and his parish kirk was equipped with new galleries (including those for the town magistrates and the monarch) and a stone pulpit on the north side of the chancel. The town did try to uphold its obligations to its church and considerable money was spent on equipping it as a fitting House of God. However the church was also to be used for other purposes. In 1620 part of it served as a wood store while in 1645 it became for a brief time the University of Edinburgh when the students and professors escaped to Linlithgow form the plague-stricken capital.
The year 1646 saw the arrival of the roundhead troops of Oliver Cromwell. St Michael’s found itself incorporated in the general defences of the town with horses stabled in the nave and soldiers billeted in the triforium. By the time the Cromwellian army left Linlithgow the church had deteriorated and the heritors estimated that £1000 Scots was required to repair the roof and windows.
The 18th century church of Linlithgow followed the general Scottish pattern. It was dominated by the minister and his Kirk Session who rigorously guarded the community’s moral life and enforced fines for any breach of church discipline. The money collected was used to help the poor of the parish. The church was equipped with a repentance stool, on which any wrongdoer had to sit in full view of the congregation, and a set of jougs at the church door to chain up by the neck anyone guilty of repeated transgressions. The Kirk Session minutes are full of references to such moral lapses: drunkenness, adultery, whistling, working or washing clothes on the Lord's Day or not "keeping elders’ hours". A typical church service lasted up to four hours. A sand-glass was attached to the ministers pulpit in order to ensure that he spoke (extempore, for all notes were frowned upon) for at least two hours. Singing was led by the precentor and was unaccompanied as music in the church was frowned on and an organ was referred to scathingly as a "kist o’ whistles".
In 1768 a storm damaged the steeple and blew down the weather cock and in 1773 the "old bell" cracked and had to be recast at Three Bells Foundry at Whitechapel.
In 1808 there was a panic when it was discovered that the old ceiling beams were rotten at the ends and that the "crazy roof" was about to collapse. In 1812, the 16th century "Crichton" ceiling was removed and replaced with a plaster one, partly due to the fact that oak was unavailable due to the shipbuilding demands of the Napoleonic War. The interior was also remodelled: a "restoration" generally regarded now as an act of colossal vandalism, especially the removal of the old dividing arch between chancel and nave and the whitewashing of the walls.
It was a grim church which emerged in the early 19th century and they were grim times. On February 19th 1819 a Linlithgow Mortsafe Society was established to hire out a huge metal cage which was placed over a recent grave to deter the grave robbers from "resurrecting" the body and selling it to the anatomy lecturers in Edinburgh. In addition, a watchman’s hut was erected in 1823 against the south wall of the churchyard and a watch of three men was appointed to prevent any "nocturnal activities".
In 1820 there occurred one of the most unfortunate episodes in the history of the church. A report concluded that the old stone crown was in danger of collapse. Despite the reluctance of the town and the church authorities there was no denying the fact that something had to be done. Local tradesmen all agreed that the crown was too heavy for the tower. It was reluctantly decided that the only course was demolition and, in the summer of 1821, the old crown was removed.
In 1885 the splendid centre window of the apse was fitted out with stained glass in memory of Charles Wyville Thomson, the locally born oceanic explorer who died in 1882. It features a fleet of ships such as that which accompanied the explorer on his charting of the world’s oceans in HMS Challenger from 1872-76.
In 1992 the Society of Friends of St. Michael's Church celebrated the church's 750th anniversary with the installation of a new stained glass window in the St. Katherine's Aisle. The window, created by Crear McCartney is designed around the theme of Pentecost.
I found this AFX-9000 photo in Daniel Xu's photostream and folded it extemporally :)
It's an improvised design so the quality is bad, I guess.. :(
Monday.
And time has came to leave Causeway House. A sad moment. We have enjoyed our stay, slept well, relaxed and seen some great things.
I have one final coffee, before the packing begins, and we manage to fitit all in the car, with room for us to spare. Jools programs the sat nave to Rosslyn, the sat nave tells us our route, and we are off. It decides we should go via Carlisle and then up the motorway, which would have been OK were it not for the pouring rain, but then I guess all roads would have been horrible to drive on. Along the A69, round Carlisle and up the M6 to Scotland. But, as we crossed the border, the rain began to ease, and we thought we sensed some brightness overhead.
We took the scenic route alongside the trackbed of the old Waverly Line, through green valley, past the source of the River Tweed, over passes and down the other side. It is a beautiful route, even in list drizzle and mist, but after a while we began to wish for some straighter roads.
We stop at a greasy spoon some 20 minutes shy of Rosslyn, I have square sausage in a bun, Jools has bacon. And we still have six days of holiday left.
It is some 11 years since I was last at Rosslyn, back then Da Vinci Code fever had only just begun; but now it is a world famous place, and with ample parking. And nine of your Scottish pounds to get in! And only once we paid did we see the sign informing all that photography was banned inside. For £9, a small, if bonkers, church?
We looked round, I took some exterior shots, and we left, leaving visitors of all nations behind.
Thanks to my good friend, John, our next port of call was Linlithgow, where the Scottish Stewart Royal family had their home, and Mary, Queen of Scots was born. He recommended we go, and who I am I to argue with John?
The rain threatened again, but stayed dry, at least for a while. Round the Edniburg by-pass towards Glasgow, and there were the signs, all simple. Into the town, and then the road to the palace was closed, and there were no alternative signs.
We drove up and down the high street, all the long term parking was full, until just as we were about to give up, we see signs for another, a little further out, and so do find a place to park.
It was a 5 minute walk to the centre of town, past the bowls centre, Tesco and the railway station. We were hungry, and there was a fine looking Italian place just there, should we go in? I think we should.
It is very nice, we have Insalata Caprese again, and some bread. And some olives. All is nice, so we are not tempted by the desserts. Well, we are but resist.
The rain had begun to fall again as we walked to the old palace, up the cobbled street and through the ornamental gateway: the parish church is on the right, so we go in and once again are delighted. But the most stunning aspect is a modern south window, which is just spectacular and takes my breath away.
The castle next door is mostly complete, except for the roof, which in the steady rain would have been nice. But we get in for free, our favourite price, and have the place almost to ourselves. I follow a spiral staircase up, and end up at the top of one of the towers, with views across the castle and rooftops of the town behind.
---------------------------------------------------------
"St Michael is kinde to strangers". So runs the motto of the Ancient and Royal Burgh of Linlithgow. St Michael is the patron saint of the town and, in the form of the ancient church of that name, he still stands guard above its inhabitants, both residents and strangers alike.
Although it is undoubtedly of earlier origin the first mention of "the great church of Linlithgow" is in a charter of 1138 in which King David I gifted it "with all its chapels, lands and other rights" to the Cathedral of St Andrews.
On 22nd May 1242, the Church of St Michael of Linlithgow was consecrated by David de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews. Whether he was hallowing a new building or rededicating an established House of God, is not certain. What is clear is that the ancient kirk has for centuries been recognised as a place of worship and as an historical memorial without equal in Scotland.
In 1301 King Edward I of England arrived and requisitioned the Church as a garrison storehouse in which to house the war provisions required for his fortified palisade or "Peel".
After the Scottish Victory at Bannockburn, and the recapture of the Linlithgow fortifications, St Michael’s stood in need of considerable restoration.
Whatever reconstruction work was done in the 14th century was not long-lived as, in 1424, a great fire occurred which caused massive damage to the church and neighbouring palace.
Over the next 115 years St Michael’s was largely rebuilt although many of the old stones were incorporated in the new construction. Several local strategies were enforced to finance the rebuilding of the Kirk. Taxes were imposed on ale and leather and the money from fines for chimney or overpricing at the market also swelled the church coffers.
ll the Stewart kings from James I to V donated revenue to St Michael’s "kirk werk" and not until 1540 was the church’s completion celebrated with the granting of a new royal charter and, with it, the right to appoint a town Provost. The man chosen was Henry Forrest of Magdalenes who had himself been active in the "kirk werk" and had personally ensured that the masons received their "drinksilver". They certainly earned it for under their expert hands emerged the beautiful Medieval church we have today. First the nave and transepts were transformed; then the chancel and the apse. Outside, twenty niches were filled with carvings of saints and, inside, each of the 8 bays was graced with an altar, attended by a staff of chantry priests. The solid, square tower was furnished with a magnificent stone crown, topped with a weathervane, bearing the favourite emblem of King James III. The church was further adorned with the erection of a beautiful oak roof bearing the arms of George Crichton, vicar of St Michael’s and later Bishop of Dunkeld. The ecclesiastical masterpiece which resulted was much favoured as a place of worship by the Scottish monarchs, most notably Mary Queen of Scots who was born in Linlithgow Palace on December 8th 1542 and was baptised in St Michael’s church.
The font which carried the holy water used to baptise the royal baby did not survive for many years longer. In 1559 the Protestant Lords of the Congregation arrive to obliterate all traces of the Roman Catholic religion from the Church. They smashed the holy water stoop along with the statues and altars. Occasionally fragments of this orgy of destruction are found in and around the church.
The first Protestant minister of St Michael’s was Patrick Kinloquy and his parish kirk was equipped with new galleries (including those for the town magistrates and the monarch) and a stone pulpit on the north side of the chancel. The town did try to uphold its obligations to its church and considerable money was spent on equipping it as a fitting House of God. However the church was also to be used for other purposes. In 1620 part of it served as a wood store while in 1645 it became for a brief time the University of Edinburgh when the students and professors escaped to Linlithgow form the plague-stricken capital.
The year 1646 saw the arrival of the roundhead troops of Oliver Cromwell. St Michael’s found itself incorporated in the general defences of the town with horses stabled in the nave and soldiers billeted in the triforium. By the time the Cromwellian army left Linlithgow the church had deteriorated and the heritors estimated that £1000 Scots was required to repair the roof and windows.
The 18th century church of Linlithgow followed the general Scottish pattern. It was dominated by the minister and his Kirk Session who rigorously guarded the community’s moral life and enforced fines for any breach of church discipline. The money collected was used to help the poor of the parish. The church was equipped with a repentance stool, on which any wrongdoer had to sit in full view of the congregation, and a set of jougs at the church door to chain up by the neck anyone guilty of repeated transgressions. The Kirk Session minutes are full of references to such moral lapses: drunkenness, adultery, whistling, working or washing clothes on the Lord's Day or not "keeping elders’ hours". A typical church service lasted up to four hours. A sand-glass was attached to the ministers pulpit in order to ensure that he spoke (extempore, for all notes were frowned upon) for at least two hours. Singing was led by the precentor and was unaccompanied as music in the church was frowned on and an organ was referred to scathingly as a "kist o’ whistles".
In 1768 a storm damaged the steeple and blew down the weather cock and in 1773 the "old bell" cracked and had to be recast at Three Bells Foundry at Whitechapel.
In 1808 there was a panic when it was discovered that the old ceiling beams were rotten at the ends and that the "crazy roof" was about to collapse. In 1812, the 16th century "Crichton" ceiling was removed and replaced with a plaster one, partly due to the fact that oak was unavailable due to the shipbuilding demands of the Napoleonic War. The interior was also remodelled: a "restoration" generally regarded now as an act of colossal vandalism, especially the removal of the old dividing arch between chancel and nave and the whitewashing of the walls.
It was a grim church which emerged in the early 19th century and they were grim times. On February 19th 1819 a Linlithgow Mortsafe Society was established to hire out a huge metal cage which was placed over a recent grave to deter the grave robbers from "resurrecting" the body and selling it to the anatomy lecturers in Edinburgh. In addition, a watchman’s hut was erected in 1823 against the south wall of the churchyard and a watch of three men was appointed to prevent any "nocturnal activities".
In 1820 there occurred one of the most unfortunate episodes in the history of the church. A report concluded that the old stone crown was in danger of collapse. Despite the reluctance of the town and the church authorities there was no denying the fact that something had to be done. Local tradesmen all agreed that the crown was too heavy for the tower. It was reluctantly decided that the only course was demolition and, in the summer of 1821, the old crown was removed.
In 1885 the splendid centre window of the apse was fitted out with stained glass in memory of Charles Wyville Thomson, the locally born oceanic explorer who died in 1882. It features a fleet of ships such as that which accompanied the explorer on his charting of the world’s oceans in HMS Challenger from 1872-76.
In 1992 the Society of Friends of St. Michael's Church celebrated the church's 750th anniversary with the installation of a new stained glass window in the St. Katherine's Aisle. The window, created by Crear McCartney is designed around the theme of Pentecost.