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Of all the models I've had in progress lately, I've finally managed to finish one! 528 is one bus I've wanted to add to my collection of Nottingham City Transport models for a long time, and since the beginning of this year it's gone from being in WIP purgatory to the finished result.
History of the real 528:
X94 USC was a Scania L94UB with Wright Solar bodywork, new as a demonstrator in 2001. It carried an early version of the Solar bodywork that featured rectangular tail lights without high-level repeaters (before the round LED version became standard) and, unusually for this style of Wright body, gasket glazing. Nottingham City Transport have a habit of buying ex-demonstrators and a liking for all things Scania, so it's no surprise they purchased it. At NCT, it was numbered 528 and ended up being the only rigid Scania L94 in the fleet.
Throughout its time in Nottingham, 528 wore Go2 green line livery (both with and without Go2 route graphics), then through the mid 00s became a Go2 spare bus which is the livery I've got it painted in, it lost its graphics again and was eventually painted in two-tone green Network livery. In 2011 it was sold to Midland Classic in Burton-upon-Trent, where it lasted another ten years before being written off in an accident and scrapped in 2021.
Memorable 528:
As well as it being unique in general, it's always been of particular interest to me, since although I've liked all vehicles since before I can remember, I pretty much attribute 528 as being what really got me interested in buses. Sure, other things like the Lolynes and Excels also played a part, but what really fascinated me was the one time (which I guess was around 2005/6) when 528 rocked up on the 36 instead of the usual orange Excel. I was far too young to know what exactly I was looking at (and rode on) but could still appreciate that there were different sorts of bus, and this sort of bus had a feature I'd never seen on any other; enclosed rear wheels. I kid you not, every time I was taken on a bus journey or into the city centre for the next few years, I kept an eye out for the mythical white bus that had its back wheels covered up! I never saw it again, but the thought of it damn well stuck with me.
I had begun to wonder if I'd dreamt the whole thing up, but at some point years later I learned about what I'd been looking for (and that it was probably green with normal wheel arches for half of the time I was looking), and so 528 is in theory the first bus I ever spotted.
(it may technically be beaten by Excel 556, which shows its fleet number in a drawing I made of a 36 bus, but I don't have definite dates for either)
The Model:
The making of 528 began in 2021 when I got a battered Corgi Solar model in Travel West Midlands livery (the real ones were Volvos, but the model says Scania Solar on the bottom). This model had gasket windows printed in white, so my plan was to simply overpaint them in black and do the body plain white... but seeing as it actually took over two years, things weren't that straightforward. They never are.
First off was the body colour. I've had an issue before where white paint goes discoloured on a model - in particular the other NCT Go2 one I'd done. So I got some white Revell paint instead of the Humbrol, but it was acrylic instead of enamel and dried lumpy. I wound up sanding a fair amount of the acrylic off and going over it with enamel, because if it's going to go discoloured it might as well be discoloured and smooth.
One of the most difficult things turned out to be the windows. The Corgi printing was relatively fragile and flaky, which meant that at first it was easy to get rid of parts I didn't need, like route branding on the windows, by scraping them off with a finger nail. Then I painted dark grey over the white parts, because I thought black would look too much like bonded glazing. What I did do with black, however, was paint the window rubbers around the outline of each window. By the end of it, this looked absolutely horrible and messy. Then I touched it and a load of the paint came away with the factory printing stuck to the inside of it; the paint stuck to the printing stronger then the printing stuck to the plastic. The entirety of the windows were like this, so I scraped it all off (easily) and started over.
Corgi had given the West Midlands model a vile, bright white interior, so I set about painting it grey and picking out the seat cushions in red and bars in red/orange, as they were in real life. Meanwhile, I carefully redid the windows with masking tape, and measured out their width with a template because scraping the original printing away had left the window plastic completely blank. Unfortunately, hundreds of tiny red and white flecks of the old printing stuck themselves all over the model, and many of them are still there because they're nigh impossible to remove.
Missing from the WM model were the little rotating vent things on the roof, so they were added using Milliput. Funnily enough, filling in the rear wheel arches was far easier than I imagined it would be; I cut a thin piece of plasticard to the right shape (so much so it actually held itself in the wheel arch before I even glued it), added the glue to make sure it would stay there, and then a couple of days later smoothed it over with Milliput. The offside went slightly better, but both were surprisingly easy! The rear axle isn't completely straight, so the back wheels don't turn properly with the covers added, but that actually gives it the benefit of having brakes.
One thing that does annoy me, however, is that Corgi slightly messed up the shape of the lower front on these Eclipse/Solar models. They nailed it on the Gemini and articulated ones, but the area where the Wright logo goes is too flat and the entire lower edge doesn't curve under enough. I had several goes at painting the W logo, but due to the inaccurate shape it never quite looked right. If I ever end up with a spare front bumper off a Gemini, I'll make a new one. The final thing to do on 528 was adding the graphic bits, which are paper because I'm not fancy enough for transfers. My printer decided it could no longer do the "every 10 mins, low floor" part as finely as it did the exact same thing for the Omnicity, so that is a little blurred. But the places I expected to struggle actually went okay; I only managed to wreck one Go2 logo while cutting it out!
So there it is, my 528 model, which is the best I'm going to get now that the real one no longer exists! Having said it's complete at the top, I've already noticed three or four things that still need adding of altering, but it'll do for now. After all, you certainly cannot mistake it for anything else.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva meets with Dutch executive Feike Sijbesma at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.
IMF Photo/Crispin Rodwell
3 November 2021
Glasgow, Scotland
Photo ref: COP Wednesday 57.JPG
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde (R) is greeted by President Choummaly Sayasone (L) of Laos March 15, 2016 in Vientiane, Laos. IMF Staff Photo/Stephen Jaffe
Anne Abraham, managing director for Cisco in Malaysia signing the MoU with Sime Darby as Dato' Tunku Putra Badlishah, managing director, Sime Darby Property looks on.
Managed to do a bit, between combining and other farm work!
Next step is to start on the rear of the chassis
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva (second left) speaks with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (third left) and a number of head of states and international organizations leaders while visiting the mangrove tree nursery location in a series of the G20 Summit events at Ngurah Rai Forest Park (Tahura), Denpasar, Bali, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022. Indonesia G20 Media Center/Galih Pradipta/nym/vn/22.
Managed to snap this lovely SL55 AMG, by Mercedes-Benz a few weeks ago. I Simply love the Darkened wheels, reminds me quite a bit of an old WWII Plane for some reason.
Managed to convince my girlfriend to let me shoot her again.
Processed in Lightroom 1.4 and CS3.
Strobist:
- 580EX II in LastoLite Ezybox 60, camera right slightly above model.
- 430EX + Honl 1/4 grid on background.
- 430EX + Honl short snoot high back camera left as hair/rim light.
- Triggered by on camera 580EX II, not fired.
© Leigh Moore, do not use my images without my written permission.
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Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva is greeted by Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti as she arrives for the G20 Finance and Health Ministers’ Meeting at Salon delle Fontane.
IMF Photo/Giuseppe Nucci
29 October 2021
Rome, Italy
Photo ref: G20 - IMF - 29th October HR-46.jpg
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva meets the President of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio during a dinner hosted by the President and First Lady of Sierra Leone Fatima Bio for UNSG’s Transforming Education Summit.
IMF Photo/Kim Haughton
19 September 2022
New York, New York, United States
Photo ref: KH220919111.jpg
A video of Mary taken June 2011. I managed to capture a little of Mary calling, but she stops pretty fast and moves on to give her annoyed squeal.
So sad to think i shall never see or hear her again.
From Taronga's website:
taronga.org.au/news/2015-02-13/vale-mary-mueller%E2%80%99...
Taronga’s primate keepers were very saddened to say goodbye to the Zoo’s much-loved Mueller’s Gibbon, Mary, today.
The undisputed Queen of Taronga, Mary was 57 years old, making her one of the oldest Mueller’s Gibbons in the world.
She’d been experiencing a range of age-related complaints in recent years which, despite the best treatment and care, had begun affecting her movement and quality of life.
Her condition had further declined in recent weeks and, after a thorough health and welfare assessment, keepers and veterinary staff made the difficult decision to put her to sleep.
Mary came to Australia in 1960 as an infant from Borneo and found a home at Taronga.
The grand old primate had many adventures during her long and colourful life. For many years she lived with her companion ‘Robinson’, swinging gracefully about the mighty fig tree on Gibbon Island.
After Robinson passed away in 1986, keepers tried to pair her up with other males, but Mary wasn’t interested. Unlike most primates, Gibbons mate for life.
Mary also liked to call the shots in her relationships with keepers. She enjoyed testing new keepers and was known to lock them in her exhibit by sitting on top of the doorway.
She could also be a sensitive little soul and loved nothing more than a groom and a scratch from keepers.
During a severe storm in 1990, Mary’s Morton Bay fig tree fell over with her still clinging to the branches. Instead of fleeing, Mary ran straight into the arms of her keeper, Paul Davies, grateful to see a friendly face after the ordeal.
Many will remember Mary for her early morning calls, which would echo throughout the zoo and herald the beginning of a new day at Taronga. Those who tried to record this sound usually walked away unsatisfied. Mary seemed to instinctively know what they were trying to do and would instantly go mute.
We hope that Mary’s interactions with staff and visitors contributed to an awareness and appreciation of her endangered species.
She touched the lives of many generations of keepers and visitors and her hauntingly beautiful song will never be forgotten.
Day 13: Wednesday 15th July 2015
Wednesday
All good things come to an end, and for us, it is the start of the long, long trip home. Somehow I manage to sleep until half seven, which means rushing round like a blue-arsed fly, having showers, packing, going down for breakfast and then loading the car. It might not be the best hotel in the world, but with views like those, who really cares? The room was clean, the breakfast good, and there was a well-stocked bar downstairs if you got thirsty.
Perfect.
And so, the open roads, hundreds of miles lay before us, we just have to get through the mad traffic around Edinburgh first. Saying that, it flows quite well, and soon we are heading out towards the coast, the sun is breaking through, life is glorious. The coastline is green and rolling, and at times the road runs right next to the coast, giving views of the rugged shore.
We roar down the A1, through small coastal towns, past factories and nuclear power stations until we come to the border at Berwick.
10 miles south we turn off at drive for the last time to Lindisfarne. This time we did know where the Helleborines were. So, we drive over the causeway and turn off at the parking area. It was a brisk walk to the dune slack: now, I did know that they were in flower, as, I had managed to get the internet to work, and had seen phots posted. And, at the edge of the slack, there were two caged plants.
Now, I have to say, that for most people, travelling the length of the country to see these two larger plants, with two smaller ones on the dune just showing above ground, might sound mad. It does me writing it now. But, it gave me such joy to see these small, rare flowers growing in this one area, despite there seem many over many acres that would also seem perfect. But that is orchids all over.
We walk back to the car with smiles over our faces. Or on mine at least. We had met a couple of good folks last time we were on Lindisfarne, and they told us of another Tyne Helleborines site, where they should be flowering. Only trouble was that the directions were vague. But this site would save us over an hour of travelling to Alston. We shall see.
The sat nav is programmed, and off we go, leaving the island with two hours before the tide would have trapped us. The sun is still shining, and we have Radio 6 on the car radio; it is wonderful. We know the roads by now, and so are cruising down the A1 towards Morpeth where the decent road began again. From there it was 20 minutes along the Tyne Valley to the small village where we hoped we would find the plants.
We park up in the village, and walk along the bed of an old wagonway. No sign of tracks or that there was ever a railway along here. Except it ran level and straight.
Tyne Helleborine Epipactis dunensis We turn off it, follow a path, then head into the woods. No idea of distance, except somewhere along here there were orchids. We follow the riverside path, pass through a sandy area, which seemed perfect, but it was so overgrown, it seemed impossible that they would be here, or at least beside the river. After 15 minutes, we turn round and split up. I take the path beside the river, Jools follows the main path set back.
I lose sight of Jools, but then through the trees I see her red shorts. And the rest of her. Have you seen them, I asked fearing the worse. Yes, she says, just have found a group beside the path. And sure enough there, and many more in the undergrowth were the Tyne Helleborines. Wow, just like that we found them.
Tyne Helleborine Epipactis dunensis The ones beside the path were almost in the sunshine, so made for easy snapping.
Now, we had the two Dunes done, we now just had to re-visit Bishop Middleham once more to see if the Dark Red were open. I hoped they would be.
It was a half hour drive, back along the A1 through Newcastle and Gateshead, coupled with major roadworks, which made for difficult driving, but with the sun out if was pleasant enough. Into County Durham, and off the Great North Road, through some villages, past the huge quarry, through Bishop Middleham and to the disused quarry. Only to find ten cars parked on the narrow road, we just manage to find a space to park, grab our cameras and walk in.
I go straight to the edge of the quarry and look down, once again hoping to see a sea of red from the orchids: I think I see one flowering spike, so I give Jools the thumbs up. She smiles. I hope.
Down the steep steps and onto the floor of the quarry; around there are groups of two of three people looking at the plants and butterflies; they seem to have at least one guide with them. But we know our quarry in the quarry, and so go to where they are thickest. I am stunned to find either spikes not yet in flower, or worse, spikes that have been nibbled by rabbits.
I walk round increasingly desperate: this was supposed to be the slam dunk site: we knew this site, and where the orchids were. In the end we find a handful of flowering spikes, all I have to do now is wait for the sunshine.
Minutes dragged on, maybe 15 minutes, until the big dark cloud above us cleared, and the old quarry was bathed in warm sunshine. I get the shots I wanted, all in glorious sunshine, making the colours of the orchids so vivid.
After chatting with a local man, and showing him the orchids, he then points us to movement on the side of the quarry: a polecat was hunting rabbits and coming out of a rabbit hole and disappearing into another. One more highlight for our trip, but I don’t try to photograph it. It was too far away.
All we have to do now is to drive back down the A1 to a service area just south of Leeds. Not perfect, but £60 for a room is about what we want to pay, so, we set the sat nav for south, and off we go, Jools driving, and us roaring south, the Rav4 eating the miles.
The sun is now fully out, and it is hot so we turn the air con up another notch.
Managed to get up early one morning while on holidays to catch sunrise, in fact this was the only one of the week.
Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Co-Vice Chairman, Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises Ltd addressing at the AfDB's Annual Meetings 2017 - Africa-India Cooperation on Enhancing the High 5 Strategy Marker Session on May 22, 2017, at Mahatma Mandir Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre in Ahmedabad, India.
World Bank Managing Director, Ms Sri Mulyani Indrawati (centre) with St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister, Dr Denzil Douglas (right) and Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma at The World Bank offices in Washington DC on 7 October 2013. Dr Denzil Douglas is Chair of Commonwealth High Level Advocay Mission on Small States' Debt.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in the 2021 Michael Camdessus Central Banking lecture with the Governor of the Bank of Mexico Alejandro Díaz de León from the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
28 July 2021
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH210728008.arw
This is a prescribed burn, carefully managed by Parks Canada staff to remove non-native plant species as the first step in restoring natural prairie. The heat was impressive! More to come tomorrow. Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan.
Don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without explicit permission.
© James R. Page - all rights reserved.
Managed to get my hands on these for you mate.
James Wilkinson
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The Ueno Zoo (恩賜上野動物園 Onshi Ueno Dōbutsuen?) is a zoo, managed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and located in Taito, Tokyo, Japan. It is Japan's oldest and most famous zoo, opened on March 20, 1882. It is a five-minute walk from the Park Exit of Ueno Station, with convenient access from Tokyo's public-transportation network. The Ueno Zoo Monorail, the first monorail in the country, connects the eastern and western parts of the grounds.
The zoo is located within Ueno Park, a large urban park that is home to several museums, a small amusement park, and other attractions.
As of March, 2003, the zoo has 422 species. The Sumatran tiger, and western lowland gorilla head the list of the zoo's population. Ueno has most variety of species on exhibition than any other zoo in Japan.
At some point, redistribution of the animals among Tokyo's other zoos (including Tama Zoo and Inokashira Nature Park) left Ueno without a lion. However, in response to public demand, Ueno borrowed a female from the Yokohama Municipal Zoo
As of 2008, recent animals at the Ueno Zoo included:
Giant panda (Ling Ling, Ueno's only giant panda, died of chronic heart failure on April 30, 2008, leaving Ueno Zoo without a panda for the first time since 1972.)[1] China has agreed to lend a male and female to Ueno[2].
A Lesser panda (also known as the Red Panda)
Other animals have included the Sumatran tiger the Asiatic lion, the Western lowland gorilla, the Polar bear, the Asian elephant, the Reticulated Giraffe. and the White rhinoceros
[edit]Other animals
The zoo is also often home to zebras, Japanese macaques, red-crowned cranes, White-tailed eagles and King Penguins, along with goats, sheep, pigs, ostriches, and rabbits.
The EBRD manages the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund (IIDSF) which supports the development and implementation of key decommissioning and energy sector projects in Lithuania. To assist Lithuania with the decommissioning process, the European Commission together with 14 European governments set up the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund (IIDSF) at the EBRD in 2001.
Lithuania had one nuclear power plant with two units at Ignalina. Both units were Soviet-designed RBMK 1500 reactors.
As part of the EU accession process, Lithuania agreed to the early closure of its reactors: Ignalina unit 1 was shut down at the end of 2004 and unit 2 at the end of 2009.
Dismantling works began in 2010 including mechanical and thermal cutting to reduce secondary waste, to optimise radiation protection.
To date 20% of the total equipment has been dismantled by INPP’s retained personnel. The plant’s preexisting personnel were retained to help in the decommissioning works.
17,000 RBMK spent nuclear fuel rods will be removed from the old Units, secured, and transported 2 kilometers to the newly built Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility.
Construction works at the interim spent fuel storage facility and the solid radioactive waste management facility are complete. The spent fuel storage facility started operating in October 2016 and the radioactive waste facility is expected to be operational in 2017.
Safe storage of spent fuel and the ability to safely handle and store radioactive waste produced during dismantling works, are key prerequisites for future decommissioning activities.
Rebuilding of Lithuania’s Energy Sector
The IIDSF has financed energy sector development projects which are an integral part of the closure of the Ignalina plant.
The control room for Lithuania’s energy sector manages the export of electricity supply to neighboring European countries.
With the decommissioning of Ignalina, Lithuania went from being a net exporter to a net importer of energy. IIDSF helped fund upgrades to plants such as the Elektrenai Power Plant to help fill the supply deficit.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in a call with the G24 and Bank Governors during the 2020 Annual Meetings at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, on October 13, 2020. IMF Photo/ Cory Hancock
I still haven't managed to see a train in the sun at this location, i'm sure it must be cursed. 47593 and 47805 are seen passing working 5Z47 Long Marston to Crewe 21/05/2020
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva is greeted by Amadou Sall, Directeur of Institut Pasteur, and Dr. Cheikh Tidiane Diagne, responsable labovisits, on a visit to Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal.
IMF Photo/Bruno Deméocq
11 December 2021
Dakar, Senegal
Photo ref: DAK_0590.jpg
Managed to see two Common Seals at Sovereign Harbour today. Not at all worried about passing boats in the harbour entrance.
Build your self confidence and skin back to its original state before your acne affliction. Meanwhile, some cases of acne require serious attention from doctors; you can still do your share by following some simple day to day tasks and tips. The article below will provide you with some tips that...
healthwellnessandlifestyle.com/manage-your-acne-troubles-...
Our first visit of 2013 to RSPB Old Moor, the weather and light were not fantastic yesterday but I managed to get a few garden bird shots, this one amongst one of the best.
The average Goldfinch is 12–13 cm long with a wingspan of 21–25 cm and a weight of 14 to 19 grams. The sexes are broadly similar, with a red face, black and white head, warm brown upperparts, white underparts with buff flanks and breast patches, and black and yellow wings. On closer inspection male Goldfinches can often be distinguished by a larger, darker red mask that extends just behind the eye. In females, the red face does not reach the eye. The ivory-coloured bill is long and pointed, and the tail is forked. Goldfinches in breeding condition have a white bill, with a greyish or blackish mark at the tip for the rest of the year. Juveniles have a plain head and a greyer back but are unmistakable due to the yellow wing stripe. Birds in central Asia (caniceps group) have a plain grey head behind the red face, lacking the black and white head pattern of European and western Asian birds.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in the Family Photo at the G20 Compact with Africa with the G20 Investment Summit 2021 at the Federal Chancellery.
IMF Photo/Lena Mucha
27 August 2021
Berlin, Germany
Photo ref: 20210827-DSC_2979.jpg
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde (R) talks with India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley (L) at a reception to kick off the "Advancing Asia, Investing for the Future" conference March 11, 2016 at the Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi, India. The conference will held for 3 days; speakers to include India's Prime Minister Modi. IMF Staff Photo/Stephen Jaffe
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography provides
"Cassel, Sir Ernest Joseph (1852–1921), merchant banker and financier, was born on 3 March 1852 in Cologne, Germany, the youngest of the three children of Jacob Cassel (1802–1875) and Amalia, née Rosenheim (d. 1874). Jacob Cassel had a small banking business, founded by his father, Moses Cassel, which provided a modest but comfortable income. Since at least the late seventeenth century the Cassels had been active in financial affairs in the Rhineland; several of them were advisers or agents for the prince electors. Ernest had a brother, Max Cassel, born in 1848, who died in 1875, and a sister, Wilhelmina Cassel (later Schoenbrunn), to whom he remained close and who managed his household in England in later years. In later life Cassel gave entirely conflicting accounts of the atmosphere of his early home life and the truth is difficult to establish.
Ernest was educated in Cologne until the age of fourteen, when he started work with the banking firm of Eltzbacher. In 1869 he emigrated to Liverpool, where he is said to have arrived with a bag of clothes and a violin, and no evident promise of a job. He soon started work with a firm of German grain-merchants in Liverpool, but a little over a year later he moved to a clerkship with the Anglo-Egyptian Bank in Paris. The outbreak shortly afterwards of the Franco-Prussian War forced him, as a German subject, to return to England, this time to a clerkship at the London merchant bank, Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt, where he was closely associated with Henri Bischoffsheim. This move was probably facilitated by an introduction from the powerful but mysterious European financier Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Cassel was linked with the independent and enterprising businessman until the latter's death in 1896, and he may have modelled his career on Hirsch's.
Early career and marriage
Within a year Cassel, aged only nineteen, had demonstrated his flair by rapidly saving the affairs of a Jewish firm in Constantinople in which Bischoffsheims had an interest. In 1874 he was appointed manager, at an unusually early age, at a salary said to have been £5000 a year, following a series of further highly successful negotiations, especially in connection with South American loans. In addition to his salary he obtained substantial commission from the rescue or liquidation of troublesome ventures on Bischoffsheims' behalf. Such activities gained for him international contacts through whom he became profitably involved on his own account in American and other overseas enterprises. When his father died in 1875, leaving Ernest a half share with his sister of RM 91,286 (£4500), Cassel could afford to settle more than his own half (£3000) upon his sister, who was now divorced, and her two children. When he married in 1878 he was able to put aside capital of £150,000.
In 1878 Cassel married Annette (d. 1881), daughter of Robert Thompson Maxwell, of Croft House, Croft, Darlington, and on the day of his marriage he became a naturalized British subject. His wife died of tuberculosis three years later, to his great grief. They had one daughter, Maud. Mrs Cassel had been converted to Roman Catholicism and by her wish Cassel, never devoutly Jewish, was received into the Roman Catholic church shortly after her death. His devotion to his new religion was never very evident, nor was his conversion widely known until, at his appointment to the privy council in 1902 he chose, to general surprise, to be sworn in on the Catholic Bible. He never remarried and is not known to have had any intimate relationships for the remainder of his life. He was known as a warm and sociable man, devoted to his daughter and to what remained of his family, and he sustained a number of close and lasting friendships. Margot Asquith described him as ‘a man of natural authority … dignified, autocratic and wise; with a power of loving those he cared for’. She added that ‘he had no small talk and disliked gossip’ (Adler, 328). Others who knew him less well described him as kind but cold. He was a very private man who left no intimate record of his life or feelings and destroyed most of his personal papers. After his wife's death his sister and her children, Anna (later Anna Jenkins) and Felix (later knighted, and a prominent barrister and Conservative assistant attorney-general) moved to live with him, and they adopted the name Cassel. First Wilhelmina and then Anna acted as his official hostesses.
Expansion of financial affairs
Thereafter Cassel's main preoccupations, other than his family, were with international finance and entry into high society. He increased his fortune vastly and rapidly through investment in the mining, transportation, and processing of Swedish iron ore (he was responsible for introducing the Gilchrist–Thomas processing technique into Sweden) and in the rapidly expanding American railways. In the early 1880s his association with Bischoffsheims was on a profit-sharing rather than a salaried basis, but he never formally became a partner. In 1884 he left the firm, though he continued to occupy part of their offices until 1898 while working on his own account. He did not join another finance house until 1910, preferring to work independently or to associate in consortia with other financiers for specific projects.
International finance in the fast-growing international economy of the late nineteenth century was risky, requiring a cool head, good contacts, and a shrewd capacity to keep on good terms with powerful people in many countries. At this Cassel was adept. He was known for the sharpness of his dealing and he aroused considerable suspicion, antagonism, and jealousy, though no proof of actual dishonesty was ever disclosed. His great wealth endowed him with a useful capacity for flexibility in his dealings when necessary. In Sweden, for example, he countered the hostility of influential men to the degree of economic power he wielded by allowing Swedish representatives to dominate the board of his company (the Grangesborg-Oxelsund Traffic Company Ltd) and by selling many of its fast-rising shares to Swedish bankers, politicians, and journalists at below the market price, though still at considerable profit. His enemies referred to these tactics as ‘Cassel's greasing system’ (Grunwald, 131). He played an important role in the economic development of Sweden.
At least as important in determining Cassel's great success as any dubious dealing in Sweden and elsewhere was his immense, unremitting capacity for hard work. He was constantly in touch with a multitude of simultaneous transactions, delegating effectively yet never losing control, always available for the key meeting or decision, yet rarely working from his office, constantly travelling among business locations or entertaining contacts. He never neglected to keep in contact with the world of influence wherever it was to be found, whether at the card table, the dinner table, or at Cowes. Also important was his capacity to choose shrewd people to assist him with his affairs or to run specific projects. From 1902 he employed the influential Reginald Brett, Viscount Esher, who was succeeded in 1904 by Sir Sidney Peel. He appointed the talented former public servant Sir Henry Babington-Smith to head the National Bank of Turkey in 1909. They remained close friends and associates and Babington-Smith was an executor of Cassel's will. But the essential ingredients of Cassel's success were his own keen observation and judgement of international and financial affairs, which drew on information from his huge range of contacts worldwide.
From his earliest days with Bischoffsheims, Cassel had been profitably involved with American enterprises, notably the disentanglement of the affairs of the New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio Railway. In the course of such activities he had become a close and lasting friend of Jacob H. Schiff of the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., through whom he became profitably interested on his own account in other American enterprises. One of his first operations after becoming independent of Bischoffsheims was the reorganization of the Louisville and Nashville Railway, which he carried through in conjunction with Kuhn, Loeb and with Wertheim and Gompertz of Amsterdam.
From the late 1880s Cassel's interests expanded into South America. He arranged the finances of the Mexican Central Railway for some time and in 1893 he issued the Mexican government's 6 per cent loan. In 1896 he issued the Uruguay government's 5 per cent loan. To a lesser extent he was also active in China, still concentrating on transport and mining, and also in 1895 issuing a 6 per cent government loan. Between 1890 and 1910 he was also involved in arranging loans for Japan, Egypt, Turkey, and Russia. He took relatively little interest in domestic investment, though he did play a part in financing the building of the London underground from 1894, through participation in the Electric Traction Company. However, this did not prove to be a profitable investment. From 1897 Cassel began a long and more rewarding association with Vickers, Sons & Co., the shipbuilding and armaments firm. He organized their purchase of the Barrow Naval and Shipbuilding Construction Company and of the Maxim Gun and Nordenfelt companies. For some years he underwrote the financial issues for Vickers and its subsidiaries.
Cassel was an early investor in gold and diamond mining in South Africa, and this was an important source of his increasing fortune in the 1890s and 1900s. In 1897 he agreed to finance the Aswan Dam and Asyut barrage on the upper Nile, another successful intervention in an underdeveloped economy. He later moved, also profitably, into financing the development of sugar production and marketing (through the Daira Sanieh Company) and also of railways in Egypt. In 1898 he established the National Bank of Egypt and the Agricultural Bank of Egypt, which played an especially important role in financing agricultural development. So also did the Société Anonyme de Wadi Kom Ombo, which he played a leading role in establishing for the purpose of irrigating the great desert plain from the Nile to Gebel es Silsila. A similar attempt to stimulate the economic development of Morocco by establishing the State Bank of Morocco, which Cassel reluctantly undertook in 1906 at the urging of the British and French governments, was less successful. The National Bank of Turkey, which he established in association with other London bankers at the urging of the Turkish government in 1909 with the aim of expanding British commercial and financial involvement in Turkey (in particular for the development of mineral resources), was also unsuccessful. It proved impossible to defeat the strength of French financial and commercial interests in Turkey.
Characteristically Cassel calmed the potential for opposition in Egypt by winning the friendship of the khedive of Egypt. He arranged for him to meet Cassel's other good friend, King Edward VII, in 1903 and in 1904, and he made him a loan of £500,000 at the low rate of 2.5 per cent, in return for commercial and land concessions. This infuriated the consul-general, Lord Cromer, who had encouraged Cassel's initial ventures in Egypt as a means of increasing British influence, but who had the thankless task of attempting to curb the khedive's expenditure. In 1903 Cassel also donated £341,000 to equip and operate travelling eye hospitals in Egypt. This may have been motivated by a desire to mollify opposition. His motives were probably mixed, as he also gave generously to philanthropic causes in Britain. Whatever the motive, the outcome was a major contribution to combating the ravages of eye diseases such as trachoma in poverty-stricken rural Egypt.
Cassel was suspected of demanding honours in return for services to governments and this was a persistent theme in London society gossip of the time. There is certainly an interesting congruence between his progress through the honours lists of the world and his financial services. He became KCMG in 1899, following his major Egyptian deals, and was sworn of the privy council in 1902, after the accession of Edward VII. He had been the friend and companion of the prince of Wales at racing and cards, and as Edward's financial adviser (in succession to Hirsch) he was reputed to be responsible for the surprising fact that Edward ascended the throne free from debt. He became a commander of the Légion d'honneur and received the British GCVO in 1906, following the establishment of the State Bank of Morocco. He was made GCB in 1909, following his agreement to a Foreign Office request to put a further £500,000 into the ailing Bank of Morocco. His collection of decorations, of which he was immensely proud, came to include: commander, first class, of the royal order of Vasa, Sweden (1900); the grand cordon of the Imperial Ottoman order of the Osmanieh, conferred by the khedive in 1903; the crown of Prussia, first class (1908); the grand cross of the Polar Star, Sweden (1909); the order of the Rising Sun, first class, Japan (1911); and the Red Eagle of Prussia, first class, with brilliants (1913).
High society, politics, and philanthropy
Cassel penetrated the élite with the same determination and with some of the same methods by which he achieved business success. From the time of his marriage he cultivated, at a succession of rented and, later, personally owned country houses, the social and political élites—on the hunting field, with the shooting party, at the racecourse, and at the card table. By the 1890s he was an accepted house-guest of the Devonshires at Chatsworth. He took up hunting despite a certain dislike of horses and his incompetence at riding them. He started to own and breed racehorses in 1889, and continued until 1894 in company with Lord Willoughby de Broke, and thereafter alone. Among the chief stallions owned by him were Cylgad and Hapsburg; among his mares were Gadfly, Sonatura, and Doctrine. He had some successes on the course, though the nearest he came to winning the Derby was to come second with Hapsburg in 1914. It took him thirteen years to achieve election to the Jockey Club, in 1908. The patronage of Edward VII enabled his entry to circles otherwise closed to a largely self-made German Jew, but it could not win him entire acceptance.
Some prominent politicians were more welcoming to Cassel. Both Randolph and Winston Churchill were his good friends, as were the Asquiths. Cassel's own politics appear to have been Conservative, but he was never active in the political world. Like other prominent financiers his advice was sought on financial matters by politicians of both parties and by civil servants. He was described in 1903 by Sir Edward Hamilton, joint permanent secretary at the Treasury, as ‘one of the representative men—Natty Rothschild, John (Lord) Revelstoke (the head of Barings) and Cassel, whom I now regard as my first counsellors’ (Hamilton diaries, BL, Add. MS 48658, 16 Nov 1903). Cassel was consulted by Sir Michael Hicks Beach and by Asquith when they were chancellors of the exchequer. Lloyd George dined with him while he held the office but was more reserved. A certain aloofness towards party politics was one of the keys to Cassel's business success; in 1909, at the height of the budget crisis, when the City was organizing against Lloyd George's proposed taxes, Cassel wrote to his son-in-law, Wilfred Ashley, stressing his ‘absolute loyalty to whatever government I happen to be serving, and if whoever happened to be in power could not be certain of this he would not give me, and I certainly would not wish, his confidence’ (Cassel to Ashley, 18 Aug 1909, Broadlands Archive, Cassel MS, folder X6). He did not sign the City's anti-budget petition, though he did cautiously arrange to shift funds to the United States to avoid the new taxes. He was an early, though anonymous, contributor to the Tariff Reform League. Also in the 1900s he opposed the City's Jewish-led boycott of Russian finance in retaliation for the persecution of the Jews. He argued that negotiation and alliance with Russia were more likely to mute their antisemitism than was a boycott.
Especially in his earlier years Cassel mixed widely in theatrical and artistic circles. Alma-Tadema and Burne-Jones were both grateful for his friendship and patronage. He amassed an impressive collection of old masters, including important works by Van Dyck, Franz Hals, Romney, Raeburn, Reynolds, and Murillo, and he acquired French and English furniture, Renaissance bronzes, Dresden china, Chinese jade, and old English silver. He gave away at least £2 million in charitable donations, including £200,000 in 1902 for the founding of the King Edward VII Sanatorium for Consumption at Fenhurst, near Midhurst, with a further £20,000 in 1913; £10,000 in 1907 to the Imperial College of Science and Technology; in 1909 a half share of £46,000 with Lord Iveagh for founding the Radium Institute; £210,000 in 1911 for setting up the King Edward VII British–German Foundation for the aid of distressed people in Germany; £30,000 for distressed workers in Swedish mines; £50,000 to Hampshire hospitals in memory of his daughter; in 1913 £10,000 to Egyptian hospitals; and £50,000 for the sick and needy of Cologne.
Despite his formal conversion to Roman Catholicism, Cassel still regarded himself as Jewish and devoted a considerable amount of money and effort to the international attempts of wealthy Jews to acquire a national home for Jews fleeing from Russia, a movement in which Hirsch had been prominent. During the First World War, Cassel gave at least £400,000 for medical services and the relief of servicemen's families. In 1919 he donated £500,000 for an educational trust fund which was used to establish a faculty of commerce at the London School of Economics, to support the Workers' Educational Association, to finance scholarships for the technical and commercial education of working men, to promote the study of foreign languages by the establishment of professorships, lectureships, and scholarships, and finally to support the higher education of women. He gave £212,000 for the founding of a hospital at Penhurst, Kent, for functional nervous disorders.
Personal grief, winding down, and death
In 1910–11 Cassel came to a turning point in his life, for a mixture of personal and political reasons. He felt great personal grief at the death of Edward VII, as well as losing much of his social and political influence, to the undisguised and often openly antisemitic glee of certain members of high society. The friendship between Edward and ‘Windsor-Cassel’ was close and strong. The two had met at the racecourse about 1896, possibly introduced by Hirsch, and were friends thereafter. They even looked somewhat alike: substantially built, bearded, and moustached in similar style.
Equally tragically, in 1911 his only daughter died after a long battle with tuberculosis. Cassel devoted much care to her in her last year. In 1901 she had married Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfred Ashley, grandson of the great earl of Shaftesbury and great-grandson of Lady Palmerston, through whom he had inherited Broadlands House in Hampshire. Ashley had been Conservative MP for Blackpool since 1906; he served as minister of transport in 1924–9, and was created Baron Mount Temple of Lee in 1932. He was on friendly terms with Cassel, who provided him with financial advice. After his daughter's death Cassel's affection centred upon his two granddaughters, especially the elder, Edwina.
Having decided to reduce the volume of his activity, in 1910 Cassel became a partner in the merchant bank of S. Japhet & Co., but he kept up independent interests and an office close to his sumptuous new home, Brook House in Park Lane. He had previously lived at 48 Grosvenor Square. Brook House had six marble-lined kitchens; an oak-panelled dining room, designed to seat one hundred in comfort; and the entrance hall was panelled in lapis lazuli alternating with green-veined cream-coloured marble and was described as the ‘giant's lavatory’ by Edwina's friends. Until his death Cassel lived there much of the time. He also had a flat in Paris, a Swiss villa (Villa Cassel, at Riederfurk, in the canton of Valais), another villa in the south of France, a stud farm at Moulton Paddocks, Newmarket, bought in 1899, and three country houses bought between 1912 and 1917. These were the Six Mile Bottom estate, Cambridgeshire, purchased in 1912; Branksome Dene, Bournemouth, bought in 1913; and Upper Hare Park, Cambridgeshire, which he acquired in 1917.
The more general curtailment of Cassel's activities may have been due to anticipation of that great disrupter of international finance, a major war. Certainly his personal investments were safely concentrated in North America by 1914. He was strongly aware of the danger of war with Germany as early as 1908. Between 1908 and 1912 he and the German shipowner Alfred Ballin made secret efforts to bring together German and British political leaders to try to avert conflict. When war came he made one of the largest contributions to the war loan and was a member of the Anglo-French financial mission to the USA in 1915, which resulted in a large American loan. Such activities did not prevent Cassel from suffering constant attack in Britain for his German birth, including an unsuccessful attempt to remove him from the privy council.
Thereafter Cassel confined his attention to a limited amount of American business and to racing and shooting parties with old friends, and he was cared for by Edwina. He died on 21 September 1921, sitting at his desk at Brook House, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery, London, according to Roman Catholic rites. Shortly afterwards Edwina married Lord Louis Mountbatten (Earl Mountbatten of Burma), bringing Broadlands House, which she inherited, into the Mountbatten family. Cassel left an estate worth £7,333,411 gross (with a probate value of £6 million), most of it to his immediate family. He left small items from his art, china, and jade collections to a list of old and valued friends who included the Asquiths, Mr and Mrs Winston Churchill, Lord Birkenhead, Mrs Keppel, Lord Revelstoke, Lord and Lady Reading, and the marchioness of Winchester, as well as some banking friends."
Kensal Green Cemetery, London
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva thanks the IMF Studios crew after recording her curtain raiser speech for the 2021 Annual Meetings at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
3 October 2021
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH211003044.arw
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (R) is greeted by Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga (L) as Kenya's Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta (2nd L) looks on at the Karen Blixen Restaurant March 7, 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya. Strauss-Kahn is on his first leg of a three country visit to Africa. IMF Photograph/Stephen Jaffe
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva meets with Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez in Rome, Italy.
IMF Photo/Giuseppe Nucci
30 October 2021
Rome, Italy
Photo ref: G20 - IMF -30th October - HR-31.jpg
Photo: Sue Stevens
Published in:
Sue Stevens (2001). Practical ophthalmic procedures volume 2 teaching set. London: International Centre for Eye Health www.iceh.org.uk
Community Eye Health Journal Vol. 20 No. 62 JUNE 2007 www.cehjournal.org
Community Eye Health Journal Vol. 20 No. 62 JUNE 2007 www.cehjournal.org
Managing Director of Reliv Australia and New Zealand Sue Stone and Sales Manager for Reliv Australia and New Zealand Bernie Birch welcome Kilisitina Finau and Taylor Ulufonua as the Australian winners of the "Win Your Way" contest.
Managed to attend this beauty pageant at Sunway Pyramid. Since it was a working day, the number of photographers were a few ... but bad lighting was an issue.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in a Panel on Women and Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment in Dakar, Senegal.
IMF Photo/Bruno Deméocq
11 December 2021
Dakar, Senegal
Photo ref: DAK_0780.jpg
This is a stage-managed science lesson being given to the tour group at P'yongyang's massive People's Grand Study Hall. The teacher just kept repeating "앞/되" (front/back) and it was intended to show off the fancy TV monitors. The TVs seem a bit like overkill in that the students aren't seated all that far from the prof. ;-)