Sydney's iconic Ferries at work.

Vivid Sydney from North Sydney, Milson's point.

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was published in 1986 by Whiteway Publications Ltd. of Unit 1, Bard Road, London W10. The photography was by Rex Features, and the card, which has a divided back, was printed in England.

 

Prince Andrew, Duke of York

 

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD was born Andrew Albert Christian Edward on the 19th. February 1960.

 

He is a member of the British royal family, and the younger brother of King Charles III and the third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

 

Andrew is eighth in the line of succession to the British throne, and the first person in the line who is not a descendant of the reigning monarch.

 

Andrew served in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot and instructor, and as the captain of a warship. During the Falklands War, he flew on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, casualty evacuation, and Exocet missile decoy.

 

In 1986, he married Sarah Ferguson and was made Duke of York. They have two daughters: Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Their marriage, separation in 1992, and divorce in 1996 attracted extensive media coverage.

 

Andrew served as the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment for 10 years until July 2011.

 

In 2014, the American-Australian campaigner Virginia Giuffre alleged that, as a 17-year-old, she was sex-trafficked to Andrew by the American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

 

Andrew denied any wrongdoing. Following criticism for his association with Epstein, Andrew resigned from public roles in May 2020, and his honorary military affiliations and royal charitable patronages were removed by Queen Elizabeth II in January 2022.

 

He was the defendant in a civil lawsuit over sexual assault filed by Giuffre in the State of New York. The lawsuit was settled out of court in February 2022.

 

Prince Andrew - The Early Years

 

Andrew was born in the Belgian Suite of Buckingham Palace on the 19th. February 1960 at 3:30 p.m. He was baptised in the palace's Music Room on the 8th. April 1960.

 

Andrew was the first child born to a reigning British monarch since Princess Beatrice in 1857. As with his siblings, Charles, Anne, and Edward, Andrew was looked after by a governess, who was responsible for his early education at Buckingham Palace.

 

Andrew was sent to Heatherdown School near Ascot in Berkshire. In September 1973, he entered Gordonstoun, in northern Scotland, which his father and elder brother had also attended.

 

He was nicknamed "the Sniggerer" by his schoolmates at Gordonstoun, because of "his penchant for off-colour jokes, at which he laughed inordinately".

 

While there, he spent six months—from January to June 1977—participating in an exchange programme to Lakefield College School in Canada. He left Gordonstoun in July two years later with A-levels in English, History, and Economics.

 

Prince Andrew's Military Service

 

Royal Navy Service

 

The Royal Household announced in November 1978 that Andrew would join the Royal Navy the following year.

 

In December, he underwent various sporting tests and examinations at the Aircrew Selection Centre at RAF Biggin Hill, along with further tests and interviews at HMS Daedalus, and interviews at the Admiralty Interview Board, HMS Sultan.

 

During March and April 1979, he was enrolled at the Royal Naval College Flight, undergoing pilot training, until he was accepted as a trainee helicopter pilot and signed on for 12 years from the 11th. May 1979.

 

On the 1st. September 1979, Andrew was appointed as a midshipman, and entered Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.

 

During 1979 Andrew also completed the Royal Marines All Arms Commando Course for which he received his Green Beret. He was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant on the 1st. September 1981, and appointed to the Trained Strength on the 22nd. October.

 

After passing out from Dartmouth, Andrew went on to elementary flying training with the Royal Air Force at RAF Leeming, and later, basic flying training with the navy at HMS Seahawk, where he learned to fly the Gazelle helicopter.

 

After being awarded his wings, Andrew moved on to more advanced training on the Sea King helicopter, and conducted operational flying training until 1982. He joined carrier-based squadron, 820 Naval Air Squadron, serving aboard the aircraft carrier, HMS Invincible.

 

The Falklands War

 

On the 2nd. April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, leading to the Falklands War.

 

Invincible was one of the two operational aircraft carriers available at the time, and, as such, was to play a major role in the Royal Navy task force assembled to sail south to retake the islands.

 

Andrew's place on board and the possibility of the Queen's son being killed in action made the British government apprehensive, and the cabinet desired that Prince Andrew be moved to a desk job for the duration of the conflict.

 

The Queen, though, insisted that her son be allowed to remain with his ship. Prince Andrew remained on board Invincible to serve as a Sea King helicopter co-pilot, flying on missions that included anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare.

 

Andrew's other roles included acting as an Exocet missile decoy, casualty evacuation, transport, and search and air rescue. He witnessed the Argentinian attack on the SS Atlantic Conveyor.

 

At the end of the war, Invincible returned to Portsmouth, where Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip joined other families of the crew in welcoming the vessel home.

 

The Argentine military government reportedly planned, but did not attempt, to assassinate Andrew on Mustique in July 1982.

 

Though he had brief assignments to HMS Illustrious, RNAS Culdrose, and the Joint Services School of Intelligence, Prince Andrew remained with Invincible until 1983. Commander Nigel Ward's memoir, Sea Harrier Over the Falklands, described Prince Andrew as:

 

"An excellent pilot and a

very promising officer."

 

Prince Andrew's Career as a Naval Officer

 

In late 1983, Andrew transferred to RNAS Portland, and was trained to fly the Lynx helicopter. On the 1st. February 1984 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, whereupon Queen Elizabeth II appointed him as her personal aide-de-camp.

 

Prince Andrew served aboard HMS Brazen as a flight pilot until 1986, including deployment to the Mediterranean Sea as part of Standing NRF Maritime Group 2.

 

On the 23rd. October 1986, the Duke of York (as he was by then) transferred to the General List, enrolled in a four-month helicopter warfare instructor's course at RNAS Yeovilton, and, upon graduation, served from February 1987 to April 1988 as a helicopter warfare officer in 702 Naval Air Squadron, RNAS Portland.

 

He also served on HMS Edinburgh as an officer of the watch and Assistant Navigating Officer until 1989, including a six-month deployment to the Far East as part of Exercise Outback 88.

 

The Duke of York served as flight commander and pilot of the Lynx HAS3 on HMS Campbeltown from 1989 to 1991. He also acted as Force Aviation Officer to Standing NRF Maritime Group 1 while Campbeltown was flagship of the NATO force in the North Atlantic from 1990 to 1991.

 

Andrew passed the squadron command examination on the 16th. July 1991, attended the Staff College, Camberley the following year, and completed the Army Staff course. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Commander on the 1st. February 1992, and passed the ship command examination on the 12th. March 1992.

 

From 1993 to 1994, Prince Andrew commanded the Hunt-class minehunter HMS Cottesmore.

 

From 1995 to 1996, Andrew was posted as Senior Pilot of 815 Naval Air Squadron, at the time the largest flying unit in the Fleet Air Arm. His main responsibility was to supervise flying standards and to guarantee an effective operational capability.

 

He was promoted to Commander on the 27th. April 1999, finishing his active naval career at the Ministry of Defence in 2001, as an officer of the Diplomatic Directorate of the Naval Staff.

 

In July 2001, Andrew was retired from the Active List of the Navy. Three years later, he was made an Honorary Captain. On the 19th. February 2010, his 50th. birthday, he was promoted to Rear Admiral.

 

Five years later, he was promoted to Vice Admiral.

 

Andrew ceased using his honorary military titles in January 2022. The action came after more than 150 Royal Navy, RAF and Army veterans signed a letter, requesting that Queen Elizabeth II remove his honorary military appointments in the light of his involvement in a sexual assault civil case.

 

However it was reported that he would still retain his service rank of Vice Admiral.

 

Prince Andrew's Personal Life

 

Personal Interests

 

Andrew is a keen golfer, and has had a low single-figure handicap. He was captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews between 2003 and 2004—during the club's 250th. anniversary season.

 

He was also patron of a number of royal golf clubs, and had been elected as an honorary member of many others. In 2004, he was criticised by Labour Co-op MP Ian Davidson, who in a letter to the NAO questioned Andrew's decision to fly to St. Andrews on RAF aircraft for two golfing trips.

 

Andrew resigned his honorary membership of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews when the Queen removed royal patronages at several golf clubs. His honorary membership of the Royal Dornoch Golf Club was revoked in the following month.

 

Andrew is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, the senior maritime City livery company.

 

Prince Andrew's Relationship with Koo Stark

 

Andrew met the American photographer and actress Koo Stark in February 1981, before his active service in the Falklands War. In October 1982, they took a holiday together on the island of Mustique.

 

Tina Brown said that Stark was Andrew's only serious love interest. In 1983, they split up under pressure from press, paparazzi, and palace.

 

In 1997, Andrew became godfather to Stark's daughter. When Andrew was facing accusations in 2015 over his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, Koo came to his defence.

 

Prince Andrew's Marriage to Sarah Ferguson

 

Andrew had known Sarah Ferguson since childhood; they had met occasionally at polo matches, and became re-acquainted with each other at Royal Ascot in 1985.

 

Andrew married Sarah at Westminster Abbey on the 23rd. July 1986. On the same day, Queen Elizabeth II created him Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, and Baron Killyleagh.

 

The couple appeared to have a happy marriage and had two daughters together, Beatrice and Eugenie, presenting a united outward appearance during the late 1980's. His wife's personal qualities were seen as refreshing in the context of the formal protocol surrounding the royal family.

 

However, Andrew's frequent travel due to his military career, as well as relentless, often critical, media attention focused on the Duchess of York, led to fractures in the marriage.

 

On the 19th. March 1992, the couple announced plans to separate, and did so in an amicable way. Some months later, pictures appeared in the tabloid media of the Duchess in intimate association with John Bryan, her financial advisor at the time, which effectively ended any hopes of a reconciliation between Andrew and Sarah.

 

The marriage ended in divorce on the 30th. May 1996. The Duke of York spoke fondly of his former wife:

 

"We have managed to work together

to bring our children up in a way that

few others have been able to, and I

am extremely grateful to be able to

do that."

 

The couple agreed to share custody of their two daughters, and the family continued to live at Sunninghill Park (built near Windsor Great Park for the couple in 1990) until Andrew moved to the Royal Lodge in 2004.

 

In 2007, Sarah moved into Dolphin House in Englefield Green, less than a mile from the Royal Lodge. In 2008, a fire at Dolphin House resulted in Sarah moving into Royal Lodge, again sharing a house with Andrew.

 

Andrew's lease of Royal Lodge is for 75 years, with the Crown Estate as landlord, at a cost of a single £1 million premium and a commitment to spend £7.5 million on refurbishment.

 

In May 2010, Sarah was filmed by a News of the World reporter saying Andrew had agreed that if she were to receive £500,000, he would meet the donor and pass on useful top-level business contacts.

 

She was filmed receiving, in cash, $40,000 as a down payment. The paper said that Andrew did not know of the situation. In July 2011, Sarah stated that her multi-million pound debts had been cleared due to the intervention of her former husband, whom she compared to a "knight on a white charger".

 

Prince Andrews' Activities and Charitable Work

 

The Duke was patron of the Middle East Association (MEA), the UK's premier organisation for promoting trade and good relations with the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Iran.

 

Since his role as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment ended, Andrew continued to support UK enterprise without a special role.

 

Robert Jobson said he did this work well and wrote:

 

"He is particularly passionate when dealing

with young start-up entrepreneurs and

bringing them together with successful

businesses at networking and showcasing

events.

Andrew is direct and to the point, and his

methods seem to work".

 

The Duke was also patron of Fight for Sight, a charity dedicated to research into the prevention and treatment of blindness and eye disease, and was a member of the Scout Association.

 

He toured Canada frequently to undertake duties related to his Canadian military role. Rick Peters, the former Commanding Officer of the Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada stated that Prince Andrew was "very well informed on Canadian military methods".

 

While touring India as a part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Andrew became interested in the work of Women's Interlink Foundation (WIF), a charity which helps women acquire skills to earn income.

 

He and his family later initiated Key to Freedom, a project which tries to "find a route to market for products made by WIF".

 

On the 3rd. September 2012, Andrew was among a team of 40 people who abseiled down The Shard (tallest building in Europe) to raise money for educational charities.

 

In 2013, it was announced that Andrew was becoming the patron of London Metropolitan University and the University of Huddersfield. In July 2015, he was installed as Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield.

 

In recognition of Andrew's promotion of entrepreneurship he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Hughes Hall in the University of Cambridge on the 1st. May 2018.

 

He became the patron of the charity Attend in 2003, and was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Royal United Services Institute.

 

In 2014, Andrew founded the Pitch@Palace initiative to support entrepreneurs with the amplification and acceleration of their business ideas. Entrepreneurs selected for Pitch@Palace Bootcamp are officially invited by Andrew to attend St. James Palace in order to pitch their ideas and to be connected with potential investors, mentors and business contacts.

 

The Duke also founded The Prince Andrew Charitable Trust which aimed to support young people in different areas such as education and training.

 

He also founded a number of awards including Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA), a programme to develop the digital and enterprise skills, the Duke of York Award for Technical Education, given to talented young people in technical education, and the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Award, which recognised talents of young people in entrepreneurship.

 

The Duke of York lent his support to organisations that focus on science and technology by becoming the patron of Catalyst Inc and TeenTech.

 

In 2014, Andrew visited Geneva, Switzerland, to promote British science at CERN's 60th. anniversary celebrations. In May 2018, he visited China and opened the Pitch@Palace China Bootcamp 2.0 at Peking University.

 

In March 2019, Andrew took over the patronage of the Outward Bound Trust from his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, serving up until his own resignation in November 2019. The charity tries to instil leadership qualities among young people.

 

In May 2019, it was announced that Andrew had succeeded Lord Carrington as patron of the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust.

 

On 13 January 2022, it was announced that his royal patronages had been handed back to the Queen to be distributed among other members of the royal family.

 

Prince Andrew's Health

 

On the 2nd. June 2022, Andrew tested positive for COVID-19, and it was announced that he would not be present at the Platinum Jubilee National Service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral on the 3rd. June.

 

Allegations of Sexual Abuse

 

Andrew was friends with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2008. BBC News reported in March 2011 that the friendship was producing "a steady stream of criticism", and that there were calls for him to step down from his role as trade envoy.

 

Andrew was also criticised in the media after his former wife, Sarah, disclosed that he helped arrange for Epstein to pay off £15,000 of her debts.

 

Andrew had been photographed in December 2010 strolling with Epstein in Central Park during a visit to New York City. In July 2011, Andrew's role as trade envoy was terminated, and he reportedly cut all ties with Epstein.

 

On the 30th. December 2014, a Florida court filing on behalf of lawyers Edwards and Cassell alleged that Andrew was one of several prominent figures, including lawyer Alan Dershowitz and "a former prime minister", to have participated in sexual activities with a minor later identified as Virginia Giuffre (then known by her maiden name Virginia Roberts), who was allegedly trafficked by Epstein.

 

An affidavit from Giuffre was included in an earlier lawsuit from 2008 accusing the US Justice Department of violating the Crime Victims' Rights Act during Epstein's first criminal case by not allowing several of his victims to challenge his plea deal; Andrew was otherwise not a party to the lawsuit.

 

In January 2015, there was renewed media and public pressure for Buckingham Palace to explain Andrew's connection with Epstein. Buckingham Palace stated that:

 

"Any suggestion of impropriety with

underage minors is categorically

untrue."

 

The denial was later repeated.

 

Requests from Giuffre's lawyers for a statement from Andrew about the allegations, under oath, were returned unanswered.

 

Dershowitz denied the allegations in Giuffre's statement and sought disbarment of the lawyers filing the suit. Edwards and Cassell sued Dershowitz for defamation in January 2015; he countersued.

 

The two parties settled in 2016 for an undisclosed financial sum. Epstein sued Edwards for civil racketeering, but later dropped his suit; Edwards countersued for malicious prosecution with the result that Epstein issued a public apology to the lawyer in December 2018.

 

Giuffre asserted that she had sex with Andrew on three occasions, including a trip to London in 2001 when she was 17, and later in New York and on Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

 

She alleged Epstein paid her $15,000 after she had sex with Andrew in London. Flight logs show Andrew and Giuffre were in the places where she alleged their meetings took place.

 

Andrew was also photographed with his arm around Giuffre's waist with an Epstein associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in the background. Andrew's supporters have repeatedly said the photo is fake and edited.

 

Giuffre stated that she was pressured to have sex with Andrew and "wouldn't have dared object" as Epstein, through contacts, could have her "killed or abducted".

 

On the 7th. April 2015, Judge Kenneth Marra ruled that:

 

"The sex allegations made against

Andrew in court papers filed in Florida

must be struck from the public record".

 

Marra made no ruling as to whether claims by Giuffre are true or false, specifically stating that she may later give evidence when the case comes to court. Giuffre stated that she would not "be bullied back into silence".

 

Tuan "John" Alessi, who was Epstein's butler, stated in a deposition he filed for Giuffre's 2016 defamation case against Maxwell that Andrew's hitherto unremarked visits to the Epstein house in Palm Beach were more frequent than previously thought. He maintained that Andrew "spent weeks with us" and received "daily massages".

 

In August 2019, court documents for a defamation case between Giuffre and Maxwell revealed that a second girl, Johanna Sjoberg, gave evidence alleging that Andrew had placed his hand on her breast while in Epstein's mansion posing for a photo with his Spitting Image puppet.

 

Later that month, Andrew released a statement that said:

 

"At no stage during the limited time I

spent with Epstein did I see, witness

or suspect any behaviour of the sort

that subsequently led to his arrest

and conviction."

 

Andrew did however express regret for meeting him in 2010 after Epstein had already pleaded guilty to sex crimes for the first time.

 

At the end of August 2019, The New Republic published a September 2013 email exchange between John Brockman and Evgeny Morozov, in which Brockman mentioned seeing a British man nicknamed "Andy" receive a foot massage from two Russian women at Epstein's New York residence in 2010. He had realised that:

 

"The recipient of Irina's foot massage

was His Royal Highness, Prince Andrew,

the Duke of York".

 

In July 2020, Caroline Kaufman, an alleged victim of Epstein, said in a federal lawsuit that she had seen Andrew at Epstein's New York mansion in December 2010.

 

In November 2021 Lawrence Visoski, Epstein's pilot, testified in court during Ghislaine Maxwell's trial that Prince Andrew flew in Epstein's private plane along with other prominent individuals, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and John Glenn.

 

Visoski stated he did not notice any sexual activity or wrongdoing on the plane.

 

Similarly, Andrew's name was recorded on the 12th. May 2001 by Epstein's pilot David Rodgers in his logbook, and he testified that Andrew flew three times with Epstein and Giuffre in 2001.

 

The following month a picture of Epstein and Maxwell, sitting at a cabin on the Queen's Balmoral estate, around 1999, at the invitation of Andrew, was shown to the jury to establish their status as partners.

 

On the 5th. January 2022, Virginia Giuffre's former boyfriend, Anthony Figueroa, said on Good Morning Britain that Giuffre told him Epstein would take her to meet Prince Andrew. He said:

 

"She called me when she was on the trip

and she was talking about she knew what

they wanted her to do and she was really

nervous and scared because she didn't

know how to react to it".

 

He alleged the meeting had taken place in London. In a court filing, Andrew's lawyers had previously referred to a statement by Figueroa's sister, Crystal Figueroa, who alleged that in her bid to find victims for Epstein, Giuffre had asked her:

 

"Do you know any girls

who are kind of slutty?"

 

The same month, Carolyn Andriano, who as a 14-year-old was introduced by Giuffre to Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and was a prosecution witness in Maxwell's trial, said in an interview with the Daily Mail that then 17-year-old Giuffre told her in 2001 that she had slept with Prince Andrew. She stated:

 

"Giuffre said, 'I got to sleep with him'.

She didn't seem upset about it. She

thought it was pretty cool."

 

In an ITV documentary, former royal protection officer Paul Page, who was convicted and given a six year sentence following a £3 million property investment scam in 2009, recounted Maxwell's frequent visits to Buckingham Palace, and suggested the two might have had an intimate relationship, while Lady Victoria Hervey added that Andrew was present at social occasions held by Maxwell.

 

The Duke of York's name and contact numbers for Buckingham Palace, Sunninghill Park, Wood Farm and Balmoral also appeared in Maxwell and Epstein's 'Little Black Book', a list of contacts of the duo's powerful and famous friends.

 

In February 2022, The Daily Telegraph published a photograph of Andrew along with Maxwell giving a tour of Buckingham Palace to Andrew's guests Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey, with a member of the tour party describing Maxwell as:

 

"The one who led us into

Buckingham Palace".

 

Tina Brown, a journalist who edited Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The Daily Beast, maintains Epstein described Andrew behind his back as an idiot, but found him useful. Brown stated:

 

"Epstein confided to a friend that he used

to fly Andrew to obscure foreign markets,

where governments were obliged to

receive him, and Epstein went along as

HRH's investment adviser.

With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could

negotiate deals with these (often) shady

players".

 

In October 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was interviewed by a documentary filmmaker while serving her sentence in prison, and when asked about her relationship with Andrew, Maxwell stated that:

 

"I feel bad for him, but I accept our

friendship could not survive my

conviction.

He is paying such a price for the

association.

I consider him a dear friend. I care

about him."

 

She also stated that she now believed the photograph showing her together with Andrew and Virginia Giuffre was not "a true image," and added that in an email to her lawyer in 2015 she was trying to confirm that she recognised her own house, but the whole image cannot be authentic as "the original has never been produced".

 

The Newsnight Interview

 

In November 2019, the BBC's Newsnight arranged an interview between Andrew and presenter Emily Maitlis in which he recounted his friendship with Epstein for the first time.

 

In the interview, Prince Andrew says he met Epstein in 1999 through Maxwell; this contradicts comments made by Andrew's private secretary in 2011, who said the two met in "the early 1990's".

 

The Duke also said he did not regret his friendship with Epstein, saying:

 

"The people that I met and the opportunities

that I was given to learn, either by him or

because of him, were actually very useful".

 

In the interview, Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre on the 10th. March 2001, as she had accused, because he had been at home with his daughters after attending a party at PizzaExpress in Woking with his elder daughter Beatrice.

 

Prince Andrew also added that Giuffre's claims about dancing with him at a club in London while he was sweaty were false due to him temporarily losing the ability to sweat after an "adrenaline overdose" during the Falklands War.

 

However, according to physicians consulted by The Times, an adrenaline overdose typically causes excessive sweating in humans.

 

Andrew also said that he does not drink, despite Giuffre's account of him providing alcohol for them both. Accounts from other people have supported his statement that he does not drink.

 

Andrew said that he had stayed in Epstein's mansion for three days in 2010, after Epstein's conviction for sex offences against a minor, describing the location as "a convenient place to stay".

 

The Duke said that he met Epstein for the sole purpose of breaking off any future relationship with him. He also said that he would be willing to testify under oath regarding his associations with Epstein.

 

In the 2019 BBC interview, Andrew told Newsnight that his association with Epstein was derived from his long-standing friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of colluding in Epstein's sexual abuse.

 

In July 2022 it was announced that a film would be made of the preparations for the interview and the interview itself. Shooting was planned to start in November 2022. According to Deadline, Scoop is being written by Peter Moffat.

 

The Civil Lawsuit

 

In August 2021, Virginia Giuffre sued Prince Andrew in the federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing him of "sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress."

 

The lawsuit was filed under New York's Child Victims Act, legislation extending the statute of limitations where the plaintiff had been under 18 at the time, 17 in Giuffre's case.

 

On the 29th. October 2021, Andrew's lawyers filed a response, stating that:

 

"Our client unequivocally denies

Giuffre's false allegations".

 

On the 12th. January 2022, Judge Kaplan rejected Andrew's attempts to dismiss the case, allowing the sexual abuse lawsuit to proceed.

 

In February 2022, the case was settled out of court, with Andrew making a donation to Giuffre's charity for victims of abuse.

 

The Guardian reported that:

 

"The Queen's decision to strip Andrew

of his royal patronages, honorary military

titles and any official use of his HRH title,

still stands firm."

 

Criminal proceedings in the United States over Virginia Giuffre's claims are still possible but are now unlikely, as Virginia Giuffre died by her own hand on the 24th. April 2025 at a farm in the Neergabby area outside of Perth, Australia, where she had lived for the previous several years.

 

Repercussions

 

The 2019 Newsnight interview was believed by Maitlis and Newsnight to have been approved by the Queen, although "palace insiders" speaking to The Sunday Telegraph disputed this. One of Prince Andrew's official advisors resigned just prior to the interview being aired.

 

Although Andrew was pleased with the outcome of the interview – reportedly giving Maitlis and the Newsnight team a tour of Buckingham Palace – it received negative reactions from both the media and the public, both in and outside of the UK.

 

The interview was described as a "car crash", "nuclear explosion level bad", and the worst public relations crisis for the royal family since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

 

Experts and those with ties to Buckingham Palace said that the interview, its fallout and the abrupt suspension of Andrew's royal duties were unprecedented.

 

On the 18th. November 2019, accountancy firm KPMG announced it would not be renewing its sponsorship of Prince Andrew's entrepreneurial scheme Pitch@Palace, and on the 19th. November Standard Chartered also withdrew its support.

 

Also on the 19th. November 2019, the Students' Union of the University of Huddersfield passed a motion to lobby Andrew to resign as its chancellor, as London Metropolitan University was considering Andrew's role as its patron.

 

On the 20th. November 2019, a statement from Buckingham Palace announced that Andrew was suspending his public duties "for the foreseeable future".

 

The decision, made with the consent of the Queen, was accompanied by the insistence that Andrew sympathised with Epstein's victims. Other working royals took his commitments over in the short term.

 

On the 21st. November, Andrew relinquished his role as chancellor of the University of Huddersfield. Three days later, the palace confirmed that Andrew was to step down from all 230 of his patronages, although he expressed a wish to have some sort of public role at some future time.

 

On the 16th. January 2020, it was reported that the Home Office was recommending "a major downgrade of security" for Andrew, which would put an end to his "round-the-clock armed police protection".

 

It was later reported that he had been allowed to keep his £300,000-a-year security and the recommendation would be reviewed again in the future.

 

On the 28th. January 2020, US Attorney Geoffrey Berman stated that Prince Andrew had provided "zero co-operation" with federal prosecutors and the FBI regarding the ongoing investigations, despite his initial promise in the Newsnight interview when he said he was willing to help the authorities.

 

Buckingham Palace did not comment on the issue, though sources close to Andrew said that he "hasn't been approached" by US authorities and investigators, and his legal team announced that he had offered to be a witness "on at least three occasions" but had been refused by the Department of Justice.

 

The US authorities denied being approached by Andrew for an interview, and labeled his statements as:

 

"A way to falsely portray himself to

the public as eager and willing to

cooperate".

 

Spencer Kuvin, who represented nine of Epstein's victims, said Andrew could be arrested if he ever returns to the United States, saying:

 

"It is highly unlikely an extradition

would ever occur, so the Prince

would have to be here in the US

and be arrested while he's here."

 

In March 2020, Andrew hired crisis-management expert Mark Gallagher, who had helped high-profile clients falsely accused in Operation Midland.

 

In April 2020, it was reported that the Duke of York Young Champions Trophy would not be played anymore, after all activities carried out by the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust were stopped.

 

In May 2020, it was reported that the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust was under investigation by the Charity Commission regarding some regulatory issues about £350,000 of payments to his former private secretary Amanda Thirsk.

 

According to The Times, senior personnel in the navy and army considered Andrew to be an embarrassment for the military, and believed he should be stripped of his military roles.

 

In May 2020 it was announced that Andrew would permanently resign from all public roles over his Epstein ties.

 

In June 2020, it became known that Andrew is a person of interest in a criminal investigation in the United States, and that the United States had filed a mutual legal assistance request to British authorities in order to question Andrew.

 

Newsweek reported that a majority of British citizens believe Andrew should be stripped of his titles and extradited to the United States. Following the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell in July 2020, Andrew cancelled a planned trip to Spain, reportedly due to fears that he might be arrested and extradited to the United States.

 

In August 2020, anti-child trafficking protesters chanting "Paedophile! Paedophile!" referencing Andrew gathered outside Buckingham Palace, and videos of the protest went viral.

 

In August 2021, royal biographer Penny Junor maintained Prince Andrew's reputation with the public was damaged beyond repair.

 

It was reported in August 2021 that American authorities were pessimistic about being able to interview Andrew.

 

In January 2022, Andrew's social media accounts were deleted, his page on the royal family's website was rewritten in the past tense, and his military affiliations and patronages were removed to put an emphasis on his departure from public life.

 

He also stopped using the style His Royal Highness (HRH) though it was not formally removed. In the same month, York Racecourse announced that it would rename the Duke of York Stakes.

 

Prince Andrew High School in Nova Scotia, which had announced two years earlier that it was considering a name change because the name "no longer reflects the values of the community", stated that it would have a new name at the next academic year.

 

In February 2022, Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Assembly decided not to fly a union flag for Andrew's birthday. In the same month, the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council announced that they would hold a debate in June 2022 regarding a motion to rename Prince Andrew Way in Carrickfergus.

 

On the 27th. April 2022 York City Council unanimously voted to remove Andrew's Freedom of the City. Rachael Maskell, York Central MP, said Andrew was the "first to ever have their freedom removed".

 

There have also been calls to remove the Duke of York title.

 

In March 2022, Andrew made his first official appearance in months, helping the Queen to walk into Westminster Abbey for a memorial service for his father, the Duke of Edinburgh. There was a mixed reaction by commentators to his presence, with some saying that:

 

"It would send the wrong message to

victims of sexual abuse about how

powerful men are able to absolve

themselves from their conduct."

 

Others argued that his appearance was required "as a son, in memory of his father".

 

In June 2022, The Telegraph reported that Andrew had asked the Queen to be reinstated as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, to use his HRH (His Royal Highness) title and to be allowed to appear at official events due to his position as a 'prince of the blood'.

 

In the same month, he took part in private aspects of the Garter Day ceremony, including lunch and investiture of new members, but was excluded from the public procession following an intervention by his brother Charles and his nephew William that banned him from appearing anywhere the public could see him.

 

Andrew's name featured on one of the lists, showing that this was a last-minute decision.

 

In June 2022 Rachael Maskell MP introduced a 'Removal of Titles' bill in the House of Commons. If passed, this bill would enable Andrew to be stripped of his Duke of York title and other titles. Maskell maintains that 80% of York citizens want Andrew to lose all connection with their city.

 

The proposed bill would also enable other people considered unworthy to lose their titles. The bill is due to get its second reading on the 9th. December 2022.

 

In August 2022, it was reported that the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures had assessed the security threat against Andrew and concluded that he should keep his taxpayer-funded police bodyguards, at an annual cost estimated to be between £500,000 and £3 million.

 

In early 2021 there were at least two trespassing incidents reported at his Windsor property, and in December he was verbally abused by a woman as he was driving his car.

 

Following the death of the Queen on the 8th. September 2022, Andrew appeared in civilian clothing at various ceremonial events. As he walked behind his mother's coffin in a funeral procession in Edinburgh on the 12th. September, a 22-year-old man shouted "Andrew, you're a sick old man".

The heckler was arrested and charged with committing a breach of the peace.

 

Andrew wore military uniform for a 15-minute vigil by the Queen's coffin at Westminster Hall on the 16th. September. Lawyer Spencer Kuvin, who represented nine of Epstein's victims, was critical of Andrew's public role in the lead-up to the funeral, and stated that:

 

"He is attempting now to see if he

can rehabilitate his image in the public."

 

New York lawyer Mariann Wang, who represented up to 12 Epstein's victims described Andrew's public profile as "quite outrageous. She went on to say:

 

"It is harmful for any survivor of trauma

to see an abuser or their enablers

continue to reap the benefits of privilege,

status and power."

 

Controversies and Other Incidents

 

Prince Andrew as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment

 

From 2001 until July 2011, Andrew worked with UK Trade & Investment, part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as the United Kingdom's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment.

 

The post, previously held by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, involved representing and promoting the UK at various trade fairs and conferences around the world.

 

Andrew's suitability for the role was challenged in the House of Commons by Shadow Justice Minister Chris Bryant in February 2011, at the time of the 2011 Libyan civil war, on the grounds that he was:

 

"Not only a very close friend of

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, but also a

close friend of the convicted

Libyan gun smuggler Tarek

Kaituni".

 

Further problems arose as he hosted a lunch for Sakher El Materi, a member of the corrupt Tunisian regime, at the Palace around the time of the Tunisian Revolution.

 

Andrew also formed a friendship with Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan who has been criticised for corruption and for abuses of human rights by Amnesty International, and visited him both during and after his tenure as the UK trade envoy.

 

As of November 2014, Andrew had met Aliyev on 12 separate occasions.

 

Andrew did not receive a salary from the UK Trade & Investment for his role as Special Representative, but he went on expenses-paid delegations, and was alleged to have occasionally used trips paid for by the government for his personal leisure, which earned him the nickname "Airmiles Andy" by the press.

 

On the 8th. March 2011, The Daily Telegraph reported:

 

"In 2010, the Prince spent £620,000

as a trade envoy, including £154,000

on hotels, food and hospitality and

£465,000 on travel."

 

The controversies, together with his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, made him step down from the role in 2011.

 

In November 2020, and following reviews of emails, internal documents, and unreported regulatory filings, as well as interviews with 10 former bank insiders, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Andrew using his royal cachet and role as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment for helping David Rowland and his private bank, Banque Havilland, with securing deals with clients around the world.

 

The Rowland family are among the investment advisers to Andrew, and he was present for the official opening ceremony of their bank in July 2009.

 

Alleged Comments on Corruption and Kazakhstan

 

As the United Kingdom's Special Trade Representative, Andrew travelled the world to promote British businesses.

 

It was revealed in the United States diplomatic cables leak that Andrew had been reported on by Tatiana Gfoeller, the United States Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, discussing bribery in Kyrgyzstan and the investigation into the Al-Yamamah arms deal.

 

She explained:

 

"The Duke was referencing an investigation,

subsequently closed, into alleged kickbacks

a senior Saudi royal had received in exchange

for the multi-year, lucrative BAE Systems

contract to provide equipment and training to

Saudi security forces."

 

The dispatch continued:

 

"His mother's subjects seated around the

table roared their approval. He then went

on to 'these (expletive) journalists, especially

from the National Guardian [sic], who poke

their noses everywhere' and (presumably)

make it harder for British businessmen to

do business. The crowd practically clapped!"

 

In May 2008, he attended a goose-hunt in Kazakhstan with President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

 

In 2010, it was revealed that the President's billionaire son-in-law Timur Kulibayev paid Andrew's representatives £15 million – £3 million over the asking price – via offshore companies, for Andrew's Surrey mansion, Sunninghill Park.

 

Kulibayev frequently appears in US dispatches as one of the men who have accumulated millions in gas-rich Kazakhstan. It was later revealed that Andrew's office tried to get a crown estate property close to Kensington Palace for Kulibayev at that time.

 

In May 2012, it was reported that Swiss and Italian police investigating "a network of personal and business relationships" allegedly used for "international corruption" were looking at the activities of Enviro Pacific Investments which charges "multi-million pound fees" to energy companies wishing to deal with Kazakhstan.

 

The trust is believed to have paid £6 million towards the purchase of Sunninghill which now appears derelict. In response, a Palace spokesman said:

 

"This was a private sale between

two trusts. There was never any

impropriety on the part of The Duke

of York".

 

Libby Purves wrote in The Times in January 2015:

 

"Prince Andrew dazzles easily when

confronted with immense wealth and

apparent power.

He has fallen for 'friendships' with bad,

corrupt and clever men, not only in the

US but in Libya, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,

Tunisia, wherever."

 

In May 2016, a fresh controversy broke out when the Daily Mail alleged that Andrew had brokered a deal to assist a Greek and Swiss consortium in securing a £385 million contract to build water and sewerage networks in two of Kazakhstan's largest cities, while working as British trade envoy, and had stood to gain a £4 million payment in commission.

 

The newspaper published an email from Andrew to Kazakh oligarch Kenges Rakishev, (who had allegedly brokered the sale of the Prince's Berkshire mansion Sunninghill Park), and said that Rakishev had arranged meetings for the consortium.

 

After initially saying the email was a forgery, Buckingham Palace sought to block its publication as a privacy breach. The Palace denied the allegation that Andrew had acted as a "fixer," calling the article "untrue, defamatory and a breach of the editor's code of conduct".

 

A former Foreign Office minister, MP Chris Bryant stated:

 

"When I was at the Foreign Office, it was

very difficult to see in whose interests he

[Andrew] was acting. He doesn't exactly

add lustre to the Royal diadem".

 

Arms Sales

 

In March 2011, Kaye Stearman of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade told Channel 4 News that CAAT sees Prince Andrew as part of a bigger problem:

 

"He is the front man for UKTI. Our concerns

are not just Prince Andrew, it's the whole

UKTI set up.

They see arms as just another commodity,

but it has completely disproportionate

resources. At the London office of UKTI the

arms sector has more staff than all the

others put together.

We are concerned that Prince Andrew is

used to sell arms, and where you sell arms

it is likely to be to despotic regimes.

He is the cheerleader in chief for the arms

industry, shaking hands and paving the way

for the salesmen."

 

In January 2014, Prince Andrew took part in a delegation to Bahrain, a close ally of the United Kingdom. Spokesman for CAAT, Andrew Smith said:

 

"We are calling on Prince Andrew and the

UK government to stop selling arms to Bahrain.

By endorsing the Bahraini dictatorship, Prince

Andrew is giving his implicit support to their

oppressive practices.

When our government sells arms, it is giving

moral and practical support to an illegitimate

and authoritarian regime and directly supporting

their systematic crackdown on opposition groups.

We shouldn't allow our international image to be

used as a PR tool for the violent and oppressive

dictatorship in Bahrain."

 

Andrew Smith has also said:

 

"The prince has consistently used his position

to promote arms sales and boost some of the

most unpleasant governments in the world, his

arms sales haven't just given military support to

corrupt and repressive regimes. They've lent

those regimes political and international

legitimacy."

 

Reactions to Prince Andrew's Election to the Royal Society

 

Andrew's election to the Royal Society prompted "Britain's leading scientists" to "revolt" due to Andrew's lack of scientific background, with some noting he had only a secondary school level of education.

 

In an op-ed in The Sunday Times, pharmacologist, Humboldt Prize recipient, and Fellow of the Royal Society, David Colquhoun opined, in references to Andrew's qualifications, that:

 

"If I wanted a tip for the winner of

the 14.30 at Newmarket, I'd ask a

royal. For most other questions,

I wouldn't."

 

Allegations of Racist Language

 

Rohan Silva, a former Downing Street aide, claimed that, when they met in 2012, Andrew had commented:

 

"Well, if you'll pardon the expression,

that really is the nigger in the woodpile."

 

Former home secretary Jacqui Smith also claims that Andrew made a racist comment about Arabs during a state dinner for the Saudi royal family in 2007.

 

Buckingham Palace denied that Andrew had used racist language on either occasion.

 

Allegations of Ramming Gates in Windsor Great Park

 

In March 2016, Republic CEO Graham Smith filed a formal report to the police, requesting an investigation into allegations that Andrew had damaged sensor-operated gates in Windsor Great Park by forcing them open in his Range Rover to avoid going an extra mile on his way home.

 

The Thames Valley Police dismissed the reports due to lack of details.

 

Treatment of Reporters, Servants and Others

 

During his four-day Southern California tour in 1984, Andrew squirted paint onto American and British journalists and photographers who were reporting on the tour, after which he told Los Angeles county supervisor Kenneth Hahn, "I enjoyed that".

 

The incident damaged the clothes and equipment of reporters and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner submitted a $1,200 bill to the British consulate asking for financial compensation.

 

The Guardian wrote in 2022:

 

"His brusque manner with servants

is well-documented. A senior footman

once told a reporter who worked

undercover at Buckingham Palace that

on waking the prince, 'the response can

easily be "f*** off" as good morning'."

 

Former royal protection officer Paul Page said, in an ITV documentary, that:

 

"Andrew maintained a collection of

50 or 60 stuffed toys, and if they

weren't put back in the right order

by the maids, he would shout and

scream and become verbally abusive."

 

Page later stated in the documentary 'Prince Andrew: Banished' that different women would visit Andrew every day, and when one was denied entry into his residence by the security, Andrew allegedly called one of the officers a "fat, lardy-ass c**t" over the phone.

 

The Duke's former maid, Charlotte Briggs, also recalled setting up the teddy bears on his bed, and told The Sun that when she was bitten by his Norfolk Terrier in 1996, he only laughed and "wasn't bothered".

 

She said that she was reduced to tears by Andrew for not properly closing the heavy curtains in his office, and added that his behaviour was in contrast to that of his brothers Charles and Edward who "weren't anything like him" and his father Philip whom she described as "so nice and gentlemanly".

 

Massage therapist Emma Gruenbaum said Andrew regularly overstepped the mark, making creepy sexual comments when she came to give him a massage. Gruenbaum maintained Andrew talked continually about sex during the first massage, and wanted to know when she last had sex. Gruenbaum said Andrew arranged regular massages for roughly two months, and she believed requests for massages stopped when he realised he would not get more.

 

Finance and Debt Problems

 

It is unclear how Andrew finances his luxury lifestyle; in 2021 The Guardian wrote:

 

"With little in the way of visible support,

questions over how Andrew has been

able to fund his lifestyle have rarely been

answered. In the past he has appeared

to live the jetset life of a multimillionaire,

with holidays aboard luxury yachts,

regular golfing sojourns and ski trips to

exclusive resorts."

 

The Duke of York received a £249,000 annuity from the Queen.

 

In the twelve-month period up to April 2004, he spent £325,000 on flights, and his trade missions as special representative for UKTI cost £75,000 in 2003.

 

The Sunday Times reported in July 2008 that for "the Duke of York's public role,... he last year received £436,000 to cover his expenses".

 

He has a Royal Navy pension of £20,000.

 

The Duke is also a keen skier, and in 2014 bought a skiing chalet in Verbier, Switzerland, for £13 million jointly with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.

 

In May 2020, it was reported that they were in a legal dispute over the mortgage. To purchase the chalet, they secured a loan of £13.25 million, and were expected to pay £5 million in cash instalments which, after applying interests, amounted to £6.8 million.

 

Despite claims that the Queen would help pay the debt, a spokesperson for Andrew confirmed that:

 

"The Queen will not be

stepping in to settle the

debt".

 

The Times reported in September 2021 that Andrew and Sarah had reached a legal agreement with the property's previous owner and would sell the house.

 

The owner agreed to receive £3.4 million, half of the amount that she was owed, as she had been under the impression that Andrew and Sarah were dealing with financial troubles. The money from selling the property is reportedly to be used to pay Andrew's legal expenses over the civil lawsuit as well.

 

In June 2022 it was reported in Le Temps, a Swiss newspaper, that the sale of the chalet has been frozen because of a £1.6 million debt that Andrew owes to unnamed people.

 

Law professor Nicolas Jeandin told Le Temps:

 

"A sale is in principle impossible,

except with the agreement of the

creditor."

 

In 2021 Bloomberg News reported that a firm connected to David Rowland had been paying off Andrew's debts. In November 2017, Andrew borrowed £250,000 from Banque Havilland, adding to an existing £1.25 million loan that had been "extended or increased 10 times" since 2015.

 

Documents showed that while the "credibility of the applicant" had been questioned, he was given the loan in an attempt to "further business potential with the Royal Family".

 

11 days later and in December 2017, £1.5 million was transferred from an account at Albany Reserves, which was controlled by the Rowland family, to Andrew's account at Banque Havilland, paying off the loan that was due in March 2018.

 

Liberal Democrat politician and staunch republican Norman Baker stated:

 

"This demonstrates yet again that

significant questions need to be

asked about Prince Andrew's

business dealings and his

association with some dubious

characters."

 

Several months after Andrew's controversial 2019 Newsnight interview, his private office established the Urramoor Trust, which owned both Lincelles Unlimited (established 2020) and Urramoor Ltd. (established 2013), and according to The Times was set up to support his family.

 

Lincelles was voluntarily wound up in 2022. Andrew was described as a "settlor but not a beneficiary", and did not own either of the companies, though Companies House listed him and his private banker of 20 years Harry Keogh as people with "significant control".

 

In March 2022 it was reported that on the 15th. November 2019 the wife of the jailed former Turkish politician İlhan İşbilen transferred £750,000 to Andrew in the belief that it would help her secure a passport.

 

The Duke repaid the money 16 months later after being contacted by Mrs İşbilen's lawyers. The Telegraph reported that the money sent to Andrew's account had been described to the bankers "as a wedding gift" for his eldest daughter, Beatrice, though the court documents did not include any suggestions that the princess was aware of the transactions.

 

Mrs İşbilen alleges that a further £350,000 payment was made to Andrew through businessman Selman Turk, who Mrs İşbilen is suing for fraud. Turk had been awarded the People's Choice Award for his business Heyman AI at a Pitch@Palace event held at St. James's Palace days before the £750,000 payment was made by Mrs İşbilen.

 

Even though he won the award through a public vote online and an audience vote on the night of the ceremony, there were concerns raised with a senior member of the royal household that Turk was "gaming the system" and should not have won as "he may have used bots – autonomous internet programs – to boost his vote".

 

Libyan-born convicted gun smuggler, Tarek Kaituni introduced Andrew to Selman Turk in May or June 2019 and held later meetings on at least two occasions. Kaituni, for whom Andrew allegedly lobbied a British company, had reportedly gifted Princess Beatrice with an £18,000 gold and diamond necklace for her 21st. birthday in 2009, and was invited to Princess Eugenie's wedding in 2018.

 

Titles, Styles, Honours and Arms

 

19th. February 1960 – 23rd. July 1986: His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew

 

23rd. July 1986 – present: His Royal Highness The Duke of York

 

As of September 2022, Andrew is eighth in the line of succession to the British throne. On rare occasions, he is known by his secondary titles of Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh, in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

 

In 2019, Inverness residents started a campaign to strip him of that title, stating that "it is inappropriate that Prince Andrew is associated with our beautiful city", in light of his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

 

Similar pleas have been made by people affiliated with the village of Killyleagh and the city of York regarding his titles of Baron Killyleagh and Duke of York, with Labour Co-op MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, stating that she would look for ways to make Andrew give up his ducal title if he did not voluntarily relinquish it.

 

In January 2022, it was reported that, while Andrew retains the style of His Royal Highness, he would no longer use it in a public capacity.

 

In April 2022, several York councillors called for Andrew to lose the title Duke of York. Also in 2022, there was a renewed petition to strip him of the Earl of Inverness title.

 

-- Relinquishing of Titles

 

On the 17th. October 2025, following discussions with King Charles, Andrew agreed to cease using his titles of the Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh, and his honours, including his knighthoods as a Royal Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter and a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order.

 

Andrew publicly stated:

 

"We have concluded the continued accusations

about me distract from the work of His Majesty

and the Royal Family."

 

Andrew was to remain a prince following the interactions with his older brother, but will cease to be the Duke of York, a title received from his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth.

 

Prince Andrew has been under increasing pressure over his links with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and has faced a series of scandals - in the statement he reiterates:

 

"I vigorously deny the accusations

against me."

 

Andrew's former wife will be known as Sarah Ferguson and no longer Duchess of York, but their daughters will continue to have the title of Princess.

 

Sean Coughlan of the BBC commented in relation to the latest development:

 

"Andrew might be seen as having to jump before he

was pushed, as the Palace had seemed increasingly

exasperated at the scandals that kept swirling around

him."

 

On the 30th. October 2025, Buckingham Palace announced that Charles III had started the "formal process" to remove his brother's style, titles, and honours. Andrew's name was removed from the Roll of the Peerage the same day.

 

Although this did not revoke Andrew's peerages, it meant that he was no longer entitled to any place in the orders of precedence derived from them, and would cease to be addressed or referred to by any title derived from his peerages in official documents. Letters patent were issued on the 3rd. November officially removing Andrew of the style "Royal Highness" and title "Prince".

 

Andrew will henceforth be known as Andrew Albert Christian Edward Mountbatten Windsor.

Note: this photo was published in a Jul 2009 Squidoo blog titled "A Beginners Guide to How to Throw a Frisbee." It was also published as an illustration in an Aug 2009 Mahalo blog titled "Ultimate Frisbee," at www-dot-mahalo-dot-com-slash-ultimate-dash-frisbee. It was also published in an Apr 6, 2010 blog titled "It’s Senioritis Season."

 

************************

 

Most people think of frisbee as a casual form of relaxation between two people, or perhaps an alternative to throwing a stick for your dog to run and fetch. But apparently it can be a serious competitive sport, too, as I discovered when I wandered past two uniformed teams playing a "serious" game of frisbee on a grass field the size of a soccer field. (After uploading these photos, I was informed by a Twitter friend that they were playing "Ultimate Frisbee," which is played by competitive club teams in colleges across the country. Who knew?)

 

True, the uniforms consisted merely of a colored shirt, to distinguish the yellow team from the blue team; there were no helmets, hats, knee pads, or other forms of protection. It wasn't needed, because there was little or no physical contact between the players; they merely tossed the frisbee to other members of their team as they raced from one end of the field to the other.

 

All of this took place in Riverside Park, near a broad sidewalk that runs along the Hudson River, beneath an elevated section of the West Side Highway. This is located near 72nd Street, and many other New Yorkers ignored the frisbee while they lined up to take freely-provided kayaks out into the river for a quick paddle, or while they enjoyed lunch and a snack at an outdoor restaurant just to the south of the frisbee field.

 

But the frisbee players ignored all of this, and continued dashing to and fro. I snapped a few hundred images during the course of an hour, and ended up with this set of 30 "keepers" ...

Published by Propriedade da Companhia Editora Americana, Brazil 1925

 

You can also find me on Instagram: tekapa_pictures

...

 

#Frankfurt#Germany#City#urban#cityphotography#urbanphotography#cityexplorer#exploringthecity#urbanexplorer#street#streetphotography#streetshot#blackandwhitephotography#blackandwhite#bw#bnw#blacknwhite#blackandwhitephoto#bwlover#bwlovers#tekapapics

   

Published on Instagram: @kamerafrau83

published via Free Download Minecraft ift.tt/1KcLWNG

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was published prior to 1995 by City Merchandise of 68, 34th. Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. The card has a divided back.

 

The photography was by Alan Schein.

 

On the back of the card is printed:

 

'Manhattan and Brooklyn

Bridges. New York.'

 

NYC - The World Trade Center 1973 - 2001

 

The original World Trade Center was a large complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks.

 

At the time of their completion, the Twin Towers—the original 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower), at 1,368 feet (417 m); and 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower), at 1,362 feet (415.1 m)—were the tallest buildings in the world.

 

Other buildings in the complex included the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC. The complex contained 13,400,000 square feet (1,240,000 m2) of office space. That's a lot of space - 308 acres.

 

The core complex was built between 1966 and 1975, at a cost of $400 million (equivalent to $2.27 billion in 2018).

 

During its existence, the World Trade Center experienced several major incidents, including a fire on the 13th. February 1975, a bombing on the 26th. February 1993, and a bank robbery on the 14th. January 1998.

 

In 1998, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey decided to privatize it by leasing the buildings to a private company to manage. It awarded the lease to Silverstein Properties in July 2001.

 

The 9/11 Attacks

 

On the morning of the 11th. September 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the Twin Towers within minutes of each other; two hours later, both towers collapsed. The attacks killed 2,606 people in the towers and their vicinity, as well as all 157 on board the two aircraft.

 

Falling debris from the towers, combined with fires that the debris initiated in several surrounding buildings, led to the partial or complete collapse of all the buildings in the complex, and caused catastrophic damage to ten other large structures in the surrounding area.

 

Subsequent Developments

 

The clean-up and recovery process at the World Trade Center site took eight months, during which the remains of the other buildings were demolished.

 

A new World Trade Center complex is being built (2020) with six new skyscrapers and several other buildings, many of which are complete. A memorial and museum to those killed in the attacks, a new rapid transit hub, and an elevated park have been opened.

 

One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 1,776 feet (541 m) and the lead building for the new complex, was completed in May 2013, and opened in November 2014.

 

During its existence prior to 2001, the World Trade Center was an icon of New York City. It had a major role in popular culture, and according to one estimate was depicted in 472 films. Following the World Trade Center's destruction, mentions of the complex were altered or deleted, and several dozen "memorial films" were created.

 

For details of the earlier 1993 bomb attack on the WTC, please search for the tag 79CMP42

 

Economic Effects of the September 11 Attacks

 

The September 11 attacks in 2001 were followed by initial shocks causing global stock markets to drop sharply. The attacks themselves resulted in approximately $40 billion in insurance losses, making it one of the largest insured events ever.

 

-- Financial markets

 

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the opening of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was delayed after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower, and trading for the day was canceled after the second plane crashed into the South Tower.

 

The NASDAQ also canceled trading. The New York Stock Exchange Building was then evacuated as well as nearly all banks and financial institutions on Wall Street and in many cities across the country.

 

The London Stock Exchange and other stock exchanges around the world were also closed down and evacuated in fear of follow-up terrorist attacks.

 

The New York Stock Exchange remained closed until the following Monday. This was only the third time in history that the NYSE experienced prolonged closure, the first time being during the early months of the Great War, and the second in March 1933 during the Great Depression.

 

Trading on the United States bond market also ceased; the leading government bond trader, Cantor Fitzgerald, was based in the World Trade Center. The New York Mercantile Exchange was also closed for a week after the attacks.

 

The Federal Reserve issued a statement, saying:

 

"We are open and operating. The

discount window is available to

meet liquidity needs."

 

The Federal Reserve added $100 billion in liquidity per day during the three days following the attack in order to help avert a financial crisis.

 

Gold prices spiked upwards, from $215.50 to $287 an ounce in London trading. Oil prices also spiked upwards. Gas prices in the United States also briefly shot up, though the spike in prices lasted only about one week.

 

Currency trading continued, with the United States dollar falling sharply against the Euro, British pound, and Japanese yen.

 

The next day, European stock markets fell sharply, including declines of 4.6% in Spain, 8.5% in Germany, and 5.7% on the London Stock Exchange.

 

Stocks in the Latin American markets also plunged, with a 9.2% drop in Brazil, 5.2% drop in Argentina, and 5.6% decline in Mexico, before trading was halted.

 

-- Effect on Economic Sectors

 

In international and domestic markets, stocks of companies in some sectors were hit particularly hard. Travel and entertainment stocks fell, while communications, pharmaceutical and military/defense stocks rose. Online travel agencies particularly suffered, as they cater to leisure travel.

 

-- Insurance Consequences of the Attacks

 

Insurance losses due to 9/11 were more than one and a half times greater than what was previously the largest disaster (Hurricane Andrew) in terms of losses.

 

The losses included business interruption ($11.0 billion), property ($9.6 billion), liability ($7.5 billion), workers compensation ($1.8 billion), and others ($2.5 billion).

 

The firms with the largest losses included Berkshire Hathaway, Lloyd's, Swiss Re, and Munich Re, all of which are reinsurers, with more than $2 billion in losses for each.

 

Shares of major reinsurers, including Swiss Re and Baloise Insurance Group dropped by more than 10%, while shares of Swiss Life dropped 7.8%.

 

Although the insurance industry held reserves that covered the 9/11 attacks, insurance companies were reluctant to continue providing coverage for future terrorist attacks. Only a few insurers continue to offer such coverage.

 

-- Consequences for Airlines and Aviation

 

Flights were grounded in various places across the United States and Canada that did not necessarily have operational support in place, such as dedicated ground crews.

 

A large number of transatlantic flights landed in Gander, Newfoundland and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the logistics handled by Transport Canada in Operation Yellow Ribbon.

 

In order to help with the immediate needs of victims' families, United Airlines and American Airlines both provided initial payments of $25,000. The airlines were also required to refund ticket purchases for anyone unable to fly.

 

The 9/11 attacks compounded financial troubles that the airline industry was already experiencing before the attacks. Share prices of airlines and airplane manufacturers plummeted after the attacks.

 

Midway Airlines, already on the brink of bankruptcy, shut down operations almost immediately afterward. Swissair, unable to make payments to creditors on its large debt was grounded on the 2nd. October 2001 and later liquidated.

 

Other airlines were threatened with bankruptcy, and tens of thousands of layoffs were announced in the week following the attacks. To help the industry, the federal government provided an aid package, including $10 billion in loan guarantees, along with $5 billion for short-term assistance.

 

The reduction in air travel demand caused by the attack is also seen as a contributory reason for the retirement of the only supersonic aircraft in service at the time, Concorde.

 

-- Effects of the Attacks on Tourism

 

Tourism in New York City plummeted, causing massive losses in a sector that employed 280,000 people and generated $25 billion per year.

 

In the week following the attack, hotel occupancy fell below 40%, and 3,000 employees were laid off.

 

Tourism, hotel occupancy, and air travel also fell drastically across the nation. The reluctance to fly may have been due to increased fear of a repeat attack. Suzanne Thompson, Professor of Psychology at Pomona College, conducted interviews with 501 people who were not direct victims of 9/11.

 

From this, she concluded that:

 

"Most participants felt more distress

(65%) and a stronger fear of flying

(55%) immediately after the event

than they did before the attacks."

 

-- Effects on Security

 

Since the 9/11 attacks, substantial resources have been put in place in the US towards improving security, in the areas of homeland security, national defense, and in the private sector.

 

-- Effects on New York City

 

In New York City, approximately 430,000 jobs were lost, and there were $2.8 billion in lost wages over the three months following the 9/11 attacks. The economic effects were mainly focused on the city's export economy sectors.

 

The GDP for New York City was estimated to have declined by $30.3 billion over the final three months of 2001 and all of 2002.

 

The Federal government provided $11.2 billion in immediate assistance to the Government of New York City in September 2001, and $10.5 billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs.

 

The 9/11 attacks also had great impact on small businesses in Lower Manhattan, located near the World Trade Center. Approximately 18,000 small businesses were destroyed or displaced after the attacks.

 

The Small Business Administration provided loans as assistance, while Community Development Block Grants and Economic Injury Disaster Loans were used by the Federal Government to provide assistance to small business affected by the 9/11 attacks.

 

-- Other Effects of the Attacks

 

The September 11 attacks also led directly to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, as well as additional homeland security spending.

 

The attacks were also cited as a rationale for the Iraq war.

 

The cost of the two wars so far has surpassed $6 trillion.

 

More on 9/11 below.

 

Brooklyn Bridge

 

The Brooklyn Bridge (behind Manhattan Bridge in the photograph) is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge. Opened on the 24th. May 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River.

 

It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its opening, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m).

 

The bridge was designed by John A. Roebling. The project's chief engineer, his son Washington Roebling, contributed further design work, assisted by the latter's wife, Emily Warren Roebling.

 

Construction started in 1870, with the Tammany Hall-controlled New York Bridge Company overseeing construction, although numerous controversies and the novelty of the design prolonged the project over thirteen years.

 

Since opening, the Brooklyn Bridge has undergone several reconfigurations, having carried horse-drawn vehicles and elevated railway lines until 1950.

 

To alleviate increasing traffic flows, additional bridges and tunnels were built across the East River.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge is the southernmost of the four toll-free vehicular bridges connecting Manhattan Island and Long Island, with the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, and the Queensboro Bridge to the north. Only passenger vehicles and pedestrian and bicycle traffic are permitted.

 

A major tourist attraction since its opening, the Brooklyn Bridge has become an icon of New York City. Over the years, the bridge has been used as the location for various stunts and performances, as well as several crimes and attacks.

 

Following gradual deterioration, the Brooklyn Bridge has been renovated several times, including in the 1950's, 1980's, and 2010's.

 

Description of Brooklyn Bridge

 

The Brooklyn Bridge, an early example of a steel-wire suspension bridge, uses a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge design, with both vertical and diagonal suspender cables.

 

Its stone towers are neo-Gothic, with characteristic pointed arches. The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT), which maintains the bridge, says that its original paint scheme was "Brooklyn Bridge Tan" and "Silver", although a writer for The New York Post states that it was originally entirely "Rawlins Red".

 

The Deck of the Brooklyn Bridge

 

To provide sufficient clearance for shipping in the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge incorporates long approach viaducts on either end to raise it from low ground on both shores.

 

Including approaches, the Brooklyn Bridge is a total of 6,016 feet (1,834 m) long. The main span between the two suspension towers is 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) long, and 85 feet (26 m) wide.

 

The bridge elongates and contracts between the extremes of temperature from 14 to 16 inches. Navigational clearance is 127 ft (38.7 m) above mean high water. A 1909 Engineering Magazine article said that, at the center of the span, the height could fluctuate by more than 9 feet (2.7 m) due to temperature and traffic loads.

 

At the time of construction, engineers had not yet discovered the aerodynamics of bridge construction, and bridge designs were not tested in wind tunnels.

 

It was coincidental that the open truss structure supporting the deck is, by its nature, subject to fewer aerodynamic problems. This is because John Roebling designed the Brooklyn Bridge's truss system to be six to eight times stronger than he thought it needed to be.

 

However, due to a supplier's fraudulent substitution of inferior-quality cable in the initial construction, the bridge was reappraised at the time as being only four times as strong as necessary.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge can hold a total load of 18,700 short tons, a design consideration from when it originally carried heavier elevated trains.

 

An elevated pedestrian-only promenade runs in between the two roadways and 18 feet (5.5 m) above them. The path is 10 to 17 feet (3.0 to 5.2 m) wide. The iron railings were produced by Janes & Kirtland, a Bronx iron foundry that also made the United States Capitol dome and the Bow Bridge in Central Park.

 

The Cables of Brooklyn Bridge

 

The Brooklyn Bridge contains four main cables, which descend from the tops of the suspension towers and support the deck. Each main cable measures 15.75 inches (40.0 cm) in diameter, and contains 5,282 parallel, galvanized steel wires wrapped closely together. These wires are bundled in 19 individual strands, with 278 wires to a strand.

 

This was the first use of bundling in a suspension bridge, and took several months for workers to tie together. Since the 2000's, the main cables have also supported a series of 24-watt LED lighting fixtures, referred to as "necklace lights" due to their shape.

 

1,520 galvanized steel wire suspender cables hang downward from the main cables.

 

Brooklyn Bridge Anchorages

 

Each side of the bridge contains an anchorage for the main cables. The anchorages are limestone structures located slightly inland, measuring 129 by 119 feet (39 by 36 m) at the base and 117 by 104 feet (36 by 32 m) at the top.

 

Each anchorage weighs 60,000 short tons. The Manhattan anchorage rests on a foundation of bedrock, while the Brooklyn anchorage rests on clay.

 

The anchorages contain numerous passageways and compartments. Starting in 1876, in order to fund the bridge's maintenance, the New York City government made the large vaults under the bridge's Manhattan anchorage available for rent, and they were in constant use during the early 20th. century.

 

The vaults were used to store wine, as they maintained a consistent 60 °F (16 °C) temperature due to a lack of air circulation. The Manhattan vault was called the "Blue Grotto" because of a shrine to the Virgin Mary next to an opening at the entrance.

 

The vaults were closed for public use in the late 1910's and 1920's during the Great War and Prohibition, but were reopened thereafter.

 

When New York magazine visited one of the cellars in 1978, it discovered a fading inscription on a wall reading:

 

"Who loveth not wine, women and song,

he remaineth a fool his whole life long."

 

Leaks found within the vault's spaces necessitated repairs during the late 1980's and early 1990's. By the late 1990's, the chambers were being used to store maintenance equipment.

 

The Towers of the Brooklyn Bridge

 

The bridge's two suspension towers are 278 feet (85 m) tall, with a footprint of 140 by 59 feet (43 by 18 m) at the high water line.

 

They are built of limestone, granite, and Rosendale cement. The limestone was quarried at the Clark Quarry in Essex County, New York. The granite blocks were quarried and shaped on Vinalhaven Island, Maine, under a contract with the Bodwell Granite Company, and delivered from Maine to New York by schooner.

 

The Manhattan tower contains 46,945 cubic yards (35,892 m3) of masonry, while the Brooklyn tower has 38,214 cubic yards (29,217 m3) of masonry.

 

Each tower contains a pair of Gothic Revival pointed arches, through which the roadways run. The arch openings are 117 feet (36 m) tall and 33.75 feet (10.29 m) wide.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge Caissons

 

The towers rest on underwater caissons made of southern yellow pine. Both caissons contain interior spaces that were used by construction workers. The Manhattan side's caisson is slightly larger, measuring 172 by 102 feet (52 by 31 m) and located 78.5 feet (23.9 m) below high water, while the Brooklyn side's caisson measures 168 by 102 feet (51 by 31 m) and is located 44.5 feet (13.6 m) below high water.

 

The caissons were designed to hold at least the weight of the towers which would exert a pressure of 5 short tons per square foot when fully built, but the caissons were over-engineered for safety.

 

During an accident on the Brooklyn side, when air pressure was lost and the partially-built towers dropped full-force down, the caisson sustained an estimated pressure of 23 short tons per square foot with only minor damage. Most of the timber used in the bridge's construction, including in the caissons, came from mills at Gascoigne Bluff on St. Simons Island, Georgia.

 

The Brooklyn side's caisson, which was built first, originally had a height of 9.5 feet (2.9 m) and a ceiling composed of five layers of timber, each layer 1 foot (0.30 m) tall. Ten more layers of timber were later added atop the ceiling, and the entire caisson was wrapped in tin and wood for further protection against flooding.

 

The thickness of the caisson's sides was 8 feet (2.4 m) at both the bottom and the top. The caisson had six chambers: two each for dredging, supply shafts, and airlocks.

 

The caisson on the Manhattan side was slightly different because it had to be installed at a greater depth. To protect against the increased air pressure at that depth, the Manhattan caisson had 22 layers of timber on its roof, seven more than its Brooklyn counterpart had. The Manhattan caisson also had fifty 4-inch (10 cm)-diameter pipes for sand removal, a fireproof iron-boilerplate interior, and different airlocks and communication systems.

 

History of the Brooklyn Bridge

 

Proposals for a bridge between the then-separate cities of Brooklyn and New York had been suggested as early as 1800. At the time, the only travel between the two cities was by a number of ferry lines.

 

Engineers presented various designs, such as chain or link bridges, though these were never built because of the difficulties of constructing a high enough fixed-span bridge across the extremely busy East River.

 

There were also proposals for tunnels under the East River, but these were considered prohibitively expensive. The current Brooklyn Bridge was conceived by German immigrant John Augustus Roebling in 1852.

 

He had previously designed and constructed shorter suspension bridges, such as Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, and the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky.

 

In February 1867, the New York State Senate passed a bill that allowed the construction of a suspension bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

 

Two months later, the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Company was incorporated. There were twenty trustees in total: eight each appointed by the mayors of New York and Brooklyn, as well as the mayors of each city and the auditor and comptroller of Brooklyn.

 

The company was tasked with constructing what was then known as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge. Alternatively, the span was just referred to as the "Brooklyn Bridge", a name originating in a 25th. January 1867 letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

 

The act of incorporation, which became law on the 16th. April 1867, authorized the cities of New York (now Manhattan) and Brooklyn to subscribe to $5 million in capital stock, which would fund the bridge's construction.

 

Roebling was subsequently named as the main engineer of the work, and by September 1867, he had presented a master plan of a bridge that would be longer and taller than any suspension bridge previously built.

 

It would incorporate roadways and elevated rail tracks, whose tolls and fares would provide the means to pay for the bridge's construction. It would also include a raised promenade that served as a leisurely pathway.

 

The proposal received much acclaim in both cities, and residents predicted that the New York and Brooklyn Bridge's opening would have as much of an impact as the Suez Canal, the first transatlantic telegraph cable, or the first transcontinental railroad.

 

By early 1869, however, some individuals started to criticize the project, saying either that the bridge was too expensive, or that the construction process was too difficult.

 

To allay concerns about the design of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, Roebling set up a "Bridge Party" in March 1869, where he invited engineers and members of U.S. Congress to see his other spans. Following the bridge party in April, Roebling and several engineers conducted final surveys.

 

During these surveys, it was determined that the main span would have to be raised from 130 to 135 feet (40 to 41 m), requiring several changes to the overall design.

 

In June 1869, while conducting these surveys, Roebling sustained a crush injury to his foot when a ferry pinned it against a piling. After amputation of his crushed toes, he developed a tetanus infection that left him incapacitated and resulted in his death the following month.

 

Washington Roebling, John Roebling's 32-year-old son, was then hired to fill his father's role. When the younger Roebling was hired, Tammany Hall leader William M. Tweed also became involved in the bridge's construction because, as a major landowner in New York City, he had an interest in the project's completion.

 

The New York and Brooklyn Bridge Company - later known simply as the New York Bridge Company - was actually overseen by Tammany Hall, and it approved Roebling's plans and designated him as chief engineer of the project.

 

Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge

 

The Caissons

 

Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began on the 2nd. January 2, 1870. The first work entailed the construction of two caissons, upon which the suspension towers would be built.

 

A caisson is a large watertight chamber, open at the bottom, from which the water is kept out by air pressure and in which construction work may be carried out under water.

 

The Brooklyn side's caisson was built at the Webb & Bell shipyard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and was launched into the river on the 19th. March 1870. Compressed air was pumped into the caisson, and workers entered the space to dig the sediment until it sank to the bedrock. As one sixteen-year-old from Ireland, Frank Harris, described the fearful experience:

 

"The six of us were working naked to the waist

in the small iron chamber with the temperature

of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

In five minutes the sweat was pouring from us,

and all the while we were standing in icy water

that was only kept from rising by the terrific

pressure. No wonder the headaches were

blinding."

 

Once the caisson had reached the desired depth, it was to be filled in with vertical brick piers and concrete. However, due to the unexpectedly high concentration of large boulders on the riverbed, the Brooklyn caisson took several months to sink to the desired depth.

 

Furthermore, in December 1870, its timber roof caught fire, delaying construction further. The "Great Blowout", as the fire was called, delayed construction for several months, since the holes in the caisson had to be repaired.

 

On the 6th. March 1871, the repairs were finished, and the caisson had reached its final depth of 44.5 feet (13.6 m); it was filled with concrete five days later. Overall, about 264 individuals were estimated to have worked in the caisson every day, but because of high worker turnover, the final total was thought to be about 2,500 men.

 

In spite of this, only a few workers were paralyzed. At its final depth, the caisson's air pressure was 21 pounds per square inch. Normal air pressure is 14.7 psi.

 

The Manhattan side's caisson was the next structure to be built. To ensure that it would not catch fire like its counterpart had, the Manhattan caisson was lined with fireproof plate iron.

 

It was launched from Webb & Bell's shipyard on the 11th. May 1871, and maneuvered into place that September.

 

Due to the extreme underwater air pressure inside the much deeper Manhattan caisson, many workers became sick with "the bends" - decompression sickness - during this work, despite the incorporation of airlocks (which were believed to help with decompression sickness at the time).

 

This condition was unknown at the time, and was first called "caisson disease" by the project physician, Andrew Smith. Between the 25th. January and the 31st. May 1872, Smith treated 110 cases of decompression sickness, while three workers died from the condition.

 

When iron probes underneath the Manhattan caisson found the bedrock to be even deeper than expected, Washington Roebling halted construction due to the increased risk of decompression sickness.

 

After the Manhattan caisson reached a depth of 78.5 feet (23.9 m) with an air pressure of 35 pounds per square inch, Washington deemed the sandy subsoil overlying the bedrock 30 feet (9.1 m) beneath to be sufficiently firm, and subsequently infilled the caisson with concrete in July 1872.

 

Washington Roebling himself suffered a paralyzing injury as a result of caisson disease shortly after ground was broken for the Brooklyn tower foundation.

 

His debilitating condition left him unable to supervise the construction in person, so he designed the caissons and other equipment from his apartment, directing the completion of the bridge through a telescope in his bedroom.

 

His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, not only provided written communications between her husband and the engineers on site, but also understood mathematics, calculations of catenary curves, strengths of materials, bridge specifications, and the intricacies of cable construction.

 

She spent the next 11 years helping supervise the bridge's construction, taking over much of the chief engineer's duties, including day-to-day supervision and project management.

 

The Towers of the Brooklyn Bridge

 

After the caissons were completed, piers were constructed on top of each of them upon which masonry towers would be built. The towers' construction was a complex process that took four years.

 

Since the masonry blocks were heavy, the builders transported them to the base of the towers using a pulley system with a continuous 1.5-inch (3.8 cm)-diameter steel wire rope, operated by steam engines at ground level.

 

The blocks were then carried up on a timber track alongside each tower and maneuvered into the proper position using a derrick atop the towers. The blocks sometimes vibrated the ropes because of their weight, but only once did a block fall.

 

Construction of the suspension towers started in mid-1872, and by the time work was halted for the winter in late 1872, parts of each tower had already been built. By mid-1873, there was substantial progress on the towers' construction.

 

The arches of the Brooklyn tower were completed by August 1874. The tower was substantially finished by December 1874, with the erection of saddle plates for the main cables at the top of the tower.

 

The last stone on the Brooklyn tower was raised in June 1875, and the Manhattan tower was completed in July 1876.

 

The work was dangerous: by 1876, three workers had died having fallen from the towers, while nine other workers were killed in other accidents.

 

By 1875, while the towers were being constructed, the project had depleted its original $5 million budget. Two bridge commissioners, one each from Brooklyn and Manhattan, petitioned New York state lawmakers to allot another $8 million for construction. Legislators authorized the money on condition that the cities would buy the stock of Brooklyn Bridge's private stockholders.

 

Work proceeded concurrently on the anchorages on each side. The Brooklyn anchorage broke ground in January 1873 and was substantially completed by August 1875.

 

The Manhattan anchorage was built in less time. Having started in May 1875, it was mostly completed by July 1876. The anchorages could not be fully completed until the main cables were spun, at which point another 6 feet (1.8 m) would be added to the height of each 80-foot (24 m) anchorage.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge Cables

 

The first temporary wire was stretched between the towers on the 15th. August 1876, using chrome steel provided by the Chrome Steel Company of Brooklyn. The wire was then stretched back across the river, and the two ends were spliced to form a traveler, a lengthy loop of wire connecting the towers, which was driven by a 30 horsepower (22 kW) steam hoisting engine at ground level.

 

The wire was one of two that were used to create a temporary footbridge for workers while cable spinning was ongoing. The next step was to send an engineer across the completed traveler wire in a boatswain's chair slung from the wire, to ensure it was safe enough.

 

The bridge's master mechanic, E. F. Farrington, was volunteered for this task, and an estimated crowd of 10,000 people on both shores watched him cross.

 

A second traveler wire was then stretched across the span. The temporary footbridge, located some 60 feet (18 m) above the elevation of the future deck, was completed in February 1877.

 

By December 1876, a steel contract for the permanent cables still had not been awarded. There was disagreement over whether the bridge's cables should use the as-yet-untested Bessemer steel, or the well-proven crucible steel.

 

Until a permanent contract was awarded, the builders ordered 30 short tons of wire in the interim, 10 tons each from three companies, including Washington Roebling's own steel mill in Brooklyn.

 

In the end, it was decided to use number 8 Birmingham gauge (approximately 4 mm or 0.165 inches in diameter) crucible steel, and a request for bids was distributed, to which eight companies responded.

 

In January 1877, a contract for crucible steel was awarded to J. Lloyd Haigh, who was associated with bridge trustee Abram Hewitt, whom Roebling distrusted.

 

The spinning of the wires required the manufacture of large coils of it which were galvanized but not oiled when they left the factory. The coils were delivered to a yard near the Brooklyn anchorage. There they were dipped in linseed oil, hoisted to the top of the anchorage, dried out and spliced into a single wire, and finally coated with red zinc for further galvanizing.

 

There were thirty-two drums at the anchorage yard, eight for each of the four main cables. Each drum had a capacity of 60,000 feet (18,000 m) of wire. The first experimental wire for the main cables was stretched between the towers on the 29th. May 29 1877, and spinning began two weeks later.

 

All four main cables had been strung by that July. During that time, the temporary footbridge was unofficially opened to members of the public, who could receive a visitor's pass; by August 1877 several thousand visitors from around the world had used the footbridge. The visitor passes ceased that September after a visitor had an epileptic seizure and nearly fell off.

 

As the wires were being spun, work also commenced on the demolition of buildings on either side of the river for the Brooklyn Bridge's approaches; this work was mostly complete by September 1877. The following month, initial contracts were awarded for the suspender wires, which would hang down from the main cables and support the deck. By May 1878, the main cables were more than two-thirds complete.

 

However, the following month, one of the wires slipped, killing two people and injuring three others. In 1877, Hewitt wrote a letter urging against the use of Bessemer steel in the bridge's construction. Bids had been submitted for both crucible steel and Bessemer steel; John A. Roebling's Sons submitted the lowest bid for Bessemer steel, but at Hewitt's direction, the contract was awarded to Haigh.

 

A subsequent investigation discovered that Haigh had substituted inferior quality wire in the cables. Of eighty rings of wire that were tested, only five met standards, and it was estimated that Haigh had earned $300,000 from the deception.

 

At this point, it was too late to replace the cables that had already been constructed. Roebling determined that the poorer wire would leave the bridge only four times as strong as necessary, rather than six to eight times as strong. The inferior-quality wire was allowed to remain, and 150 extra wires were added to each cable.

 

To avoid public controversy, Haigh was not fired, but instead was required to personally pay for higher-quality wire. The contract for the remaining wire was awarded to the John A. Roebling's Sons, and by the 5th. October 1878, the last of the main cables' wires went over the river.

 

After the suspender wires had been placed, workers began erecting steel crossbeams to support the roadway as part of the bridge's overall superstructure. Construction on the bridge's superstructure started in March 1879, but, as with the cables, the trustees initially disagreed on whether the steel superstructure should be made of Bessemer or crucible steel.

 

That July, the trustees decided to award a contract for 500 short tons of Bessemer steel to the Edgemoor Iron Works, based in Philadelphia. The trustees later ordered another 500 short tons of Bessemer steel. However, by February 1880 the steel deliveries had not started.

 

That October, the bridge trustees questioned Edgemoor's president about the delay in steel deliveries. Despite Edgemoor's assurances that the contract would be fulfilled, the deliveries still had not been completed by November 1881.

 

Brooklyn mayor Seth Low, who became part of the board of trustees in 1882, became the chairman of a committee tasked to investigate Edgemoor's failure to fulfill the contract. When questioned, Edgemoor's president stated that the delays were the fault of another contractor, the Cambria Iron Company, who were manufacturing the eyebars for the bridge trusses.

 

Further complicating the situation, Washington Roebling had failed to appear at the trustees' meeting in June 1882, since he had gone to Newport, Rhode Island. After the news media discovered this, most of the newspapers called for Roebling to be fired as chief engineer, except for the Daily State Gazette of Trenton, New Jersey, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

 

Some of the longstanding trustees were willing to vouch for Roebling, since construction progress on the Brooklyn Bridge was still ongoing. However, Roebling's behavior was considered suspect among the younger trustees who had joined the board more recently.

 

Construction progress on the bridge itself was submitted in formal monthly reports to the mayors of New York and Brooklyn. For example, the August 1882 report noted that the month's progress included 114 intermediate cords erected within a week, as well as 72 diagonal stays, 60 posts, and numerous floor beams, bridging trusses, and stay bars.

 

By early 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was considered mostly completed and was projected to open that June. Contracts for bridge lighting were awarded by February 1883, and a toll scheme was approved that March.

 

Opposition to the Bridge

 

There was substantial opposition to the bridge's construction from shipbuilders and merchants located to the north, who argued that the bridge would not provide sufficient clearance underneath for ships.

 

In May 1876, these groups, led by Abraham Miller, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court against the cities of New York and Brooklyn.

 

In 1879, an Assembly Sub-Committee on Commerce and Navigation began an investigation into the Brooklyn Bridge. A seaman who had been hired to determine the height of the span, testified to the committee about the difficulties that ship masters would experience in bringing their ships under the bridge when it was completed.

 

Another witness, Edward Wellman Serrell, a civil engineer, said that the calculations of the bridge's assumed strength were incorrect.

 

However the Supreme Court decided in 1883 that the Brooklyn Bridge was a lawful structure.

 

The Opening of the Brooklyn Bridge

 

The Brooklyn Bridge was opened for use on the 24th. May 1883. Thousands of people attended the opening ceremony, and many ships were present in the East River for the occasion. Officially, Emily Warren Roebling was the first to cross the bridge.

 

The bridge opening was also attended by U.S. president Chester A. Arthur and New York mayor Franklin Edson, who crossed the bridge and shook hands with Brooklyn mayor Seth Low at the Brooklyn end. Abram Hewitt gave the principal address:

 

"It is not the work of any one man or of any one

age. It is the result of the study, of the experience,

and of the knowledge of many men in many ages.

It is not merely a creation; it is a growth. It stands

before us today as the sum and epitome of human

knowledge; as the very heir of the ages; as the

latest glory of centuries of patient observation,

profound study and accumulated skill, gained,

step by step, in the never-ending struggle of man

to subdue the forces of nature to his control and use."

 

Although Washington Roebling was unable to attend the ceremony (and rarely visited the site again), he held a celebratory banquet at his house on the day of the bridge opening.

 

Further festivity included a performance by a band, gunfire from ships, and a fireworks display. On that first day, a total of 1,800 vehicles and 150,300 people crossed the span.

 

Less than a week after the Brooklyn Bridge opened, ferry crews reported a sharp drop in patronage, while the bridge's toll operators were processing over a hundred people a minute. However, cross-river ferries continued to operate until 1942.

 

The bridge had cost US$15.5 million in 1883 dollars (about US$436,232,000 in 2021) to build, of which Brooklyn paid two-thirds. The bonds to fund the construction were not paid off until 1956.

 

An estimated 27 men died during the bridge's construction. Until the construction of the nearby Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, the Brooklyn Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world, 20% longer than any built previously.

 

At the time of opening, the Brooklyn Bridge was not complete; the proposed public transit across the bridge was still being tested, while the Brooklyn approach was being completed.

 

On the 30th. May 1883, six days after the opening, a woman falling down a stairway at the Brooklyn approach caused a stampede which resulted in at least twelve people being crushed and killed.

 

In subsequent lawsuits, the Brooklyn Bridge Company was acquitted of negligence. However, the company did install emergency phone boxes and additional railings, and the trustees approved a fireproofing plan for the bridge.

 

Public transit service began with the opening of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Railway, a cable car service, on the 25th. September 1883.

 

On the 17th. May 1884, one of P. T. Barnum's most famous attractions, Jumbo the elephant, led a parade of 21 elephants over the Brooklyn Bridge. This helped to lessen doubts about the bridge's stability while also promoting Barnum's circus.

 

Brooklyn Bridge in the Late 19th. & Early 20th. Centuries

 

Movement across the Brooklyn Bridge increased in the years after it opened; a million people paid to cross in the first six months. The bridge carried 8.5 million people in 1884, its first full year of operation; this number doubled to 17 million in 1885, and again to 34 million in 1889.

 

Many of these people were cable car passengers. Additionally, about 4.5 million pedestrians a year were crossing the bridge for free by 1892.

 

The first proposal to make changes to the bridge was sent in only two and a half years after it opened; Linda Gilbert suggested glass steam-powered elevators and an observatory be added to the bridge and a fee charged for use, which would in part fund the bridge's upkeep and in part fund her prison reform charity.

 

This proposal was considered, but not acted upon. Numerous other proposals were made during the first fifty years of the bridge's life.

 

Trolley tracks were added in the center lanes of both roadways in 1898, allowing trolleys to use the bridge as well.

 

Concerns about the Brooklyn Bridge's safety were raised during the turn of the century. In 1898, traffic backups due to a dead horse caused one of the truss cords to buckle.

 

There were more significant worries after twelve suspender cables snapped in 1901, although a thorough investigation found no other defects.

 

After the 1901 incident, five inspectors were hired to examine the bridge each day, a service that cost $250,000 a year.

 

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, which operated routes across the Brooklyn Bridge, issued a notice in 1905 saying that the bridge had reached its transit capacity.

 

Although a second deck for the Brooklyn Bridge was proposed, it was thought to be infeasible because doing so would overload the bridge's structural capacity.

 

Though tolls had been instituted for carriages and cable-car customers since the bridge's opening, pedestrians were spared from the tolls originally. However, by the first decade of the 20th. century, pedestrians were also paying tolls.

 

However tolls on all four bridges across the East River - the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as the Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro bridges to the north - were abolished in July 1911 as part of a populist policy initiative headed by New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor.

 

Ostensibly in an attempt to reduce traffic on nearby city streets, Grover Whalen, the commissioner of Plant and Structures, banned motor vehicles from the Brooklyn Bridge in 1922. The real reason for the ban was an incident the same year where two cables slipped due to high traffic loads.

 

Both Whalen and Roebling called for the renovation of the Brooklyn Bridge and the construction of a parallel bridge, although the parallel bridge was never built.

 

Brooklyn Bridge in Mid- to late 20th. Century

 

Upgrades to the Bridge

 

The first major upgrade to the Brooklyn Bridge commenced in 1948, when a contract for redesigning the roadways was awarded to David B. Steinman. The renovation was expected to double the capacity of the bridge's roadways to nearly 6,000 cars per hour, at a projected cost of $7 million.

 

The renovation included the demolition of both the elevated and the trolley tracks on the roadways and the widening of each roadway from two to three lanes, as well as the construction of a new steel-and-concrete floor.

 

In addition, new ramps were added to Adams Street, Cadman Plaza, and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) on the Brooklyn side, and to Park Row on the Manhattan side. The trolley tracks closed in March 1950 to allow for the widening work to occur.

 

During the construction project, one roadway at a time was closed, allowing reduced traffic flows to cross the bridge in one direction only. The widened south roadway was completed in May 1951, followed by the north roadway in October 1953. In addition, defensive barriers were added to the bridge as a safeguard against sabotage.

 

The restoration was finished in May 1954 with the completion of the reconstructed elevated promenade.

 

While the rebuilding of the span was ongoing, a fallout shelter was constructed beneath the Manhattan approach in anticipation of the Cold War. The abandoned space in one of the masonry arches was stocked with emergency survival supplies for a potential nuclear attack by the Soviet Union; these supplies were still in place half a century later.

 

A repainting of the bridge was announced in advance of its 90th. anniversary.

 

Deterioration and Late-20th. Century Repair

 

The Brooklyn Bridge gradually deteriorated due to age and neglect. While it had 200 full-time dedicated maintenance workers before World War II, that number had dropped to five by the late 20th. century, and the city as a whole only had 160 bridge maintenance workers.

 

In 1974, heavy vehicles such as vans and buses were banned from the bridge to prevent further erosion of the concrete roadway. A report in The New York Times four years later noted that the cables were visibly fraying, and that the pedestrian promenade had holes in it.

 

The city began planning to replace all the Brooklyn Bridge's cables at a cost of $115 million, as part of a larger project to renovate all four toll-free East River spans.

 

By 1980, the Brooklyn Bridge was in such dire condition that it faced imminent closure. In some places, half of the strands in the cables were broken.

 

In June 1981, two of the diagonal stay cables snapped, seriously injuring a pedestrian who later died. Subsequently, the anchorages were found to have developed rust, and an emergency cable repair was necessitated less than a month later after another cable developed slack.

 

Following the incident, the city accelerated the timetable of its proposed cable replacement, and it commenced a $153 million rehabilitation of the Brooklyn Bridge in advance of the 100th anniversary.

 

As part of the project, the bridge's original suspender cables installed by J. Lloyd Haigh were replaced by Bethlehem Steel in 1986, marking the cables' first replacement since construction. In a smaller project, the bridge was floodlit at night, starting in 1982 to highlight its architectural features.

 

Additional problems persisted, and in 1993, high levels of lead were discovered near the bridge's towers. Further emergency repairs were undertaken in mid-1999 after small concrete shards began falling from the bridge into the East River. The concrete deck had been installed during the 1950's renovations, and had a lifespan of about 60 years.

 

Brooklyn Bridge in the 21st. Century

 

The Park Row exit from the bridge's westbound lanes was closed as a safety measure after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the nearby World Trade Center. That section of Park Row was closed since it ran right underneath 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the New York City Police Department.

 

In early 2003, to save money on electricity, the bridge's "necklace lights" were turned off at night. They were turned back on later that year after several private entities made donations to fund the lights.

 

After the 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, public attention focused on the condition of bridges across the U.S. The New York Times reported that the Brooklyn Bridge approach ramps had received a "poor" rating during an inspection in 2007.

 

However, a NYCDOT spokesman said that the poor rating did not indicate a dangerous state but rather implied it required renovation. In 2010, the NYCDOT began renovating the approaches and deck, as well as repainting the suspension span.

 

Work included widening two approach ramps from one to two lanes by re-striping a new prefabricated ramp; seismic retrofitting; replacement of rusted railings and safety barriers; and road deck resurfacing. The work necessitated detours for four years.

 

At the time, the project was scheduled to be completed in 2014, but completion was later delayed to 2015, then again to 2017. The project's cost also increased from $508 million in 2010 to $811 million in 2016.

 

In August 2016, after the renovation had been completed, the NYCDOT announced that it would conduct a seven-month, $370,000 study to verify if the bridge could support a heavier upper deck that consisted of an expanded bicycle and pedestrian path.

 

As of 2016, about 10,000 pedestrians and 3,500 cyclists used the pathway on an average weekday. Work on the pedestrian entrance on the Brooklyn side was underway by 2017.

 

The NYCDOT also indicated in 2016 that it planned to reinforce the Brooklyn Bridge's foundations to prevent it from sinking, as well as repair the masonry arches on the approach ramps, which had been damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

 

In July 2018, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a further renovation of the Brooklyn Bridge's suspension towers and approach ramps. That December, the federal government gave the city $25 million in funding, which would contribute to a $337 million rehabilitation of the bridge approaches and the suspension towers. Work started in late 2019 and was scheduled to be completed in 2023.

 

Usage of the Brooklyn Bridge

 

Horse-drawn carriages have been allowed to use the Brooklyn Bridge's roadways since its opening. Originally, each of the two roadways carried two lanes of a different direction of traffic. The lanes were relatively narrow at only 8 feet (2.4 m) wide. In 1922, motor vehicles were banned from the bridge, while horse-drawn carriages were restricted from the Manhattan Bridge. Thereafter, the only vehicles allowed on the Brooklyn Bridge were horse-drawn.

 

By 1950, the main roadway carried six lanes of automobile traffic, three in each direction. It was then reduced to five lanes with the addition of a two-way bike lane on the Manhattan-bound side in 2021.

 

Because of the roadway's height (11 ft (3.4 m)) and weight (6,000 lb (2,700 kg)) restrictions, commercial vehicles and buses are prohibited from using the Brooklyn Bridge.

 

The weight restrictions prohibit heavy passenger vehicles such as pickup trucks and SUVs from using the bridge, though this is not often enforced in practice.

 

Formerly, rail traffic operated on the Brooklyn Bridge as well. Cable cars and elevated railroads used the bridge until 1944, while trolleys ran until 1950.

 

A cable car service began operating on the 25th. September 1883; it ran on the inner lanes of the bridge, between terminals at the Manhattan and Brooklyn ends.

 

Since Washington Roebling believed that steam locomotives would put excessive loads upon the structure of the Brooklyn Bridge, the cable car line was designed as a steam/cable-hauled hybrid.

 

They were powered from a generating station under the Brooklyn approach. The cable cars could not only regulate their speed on the 3.75% upward and downward approaches, but also maintain a constant interval between each other. There were 24 cable cars in total.

 

Initially, the service ran with single-car trains, but patronage soon grew so much that by October 1883, two-car trains were in use. The line carried three million people in the first six months, nine million in 1884, and nearly 20 million in 1885.

 

Patronage continued to increase, and in 1888, the tracks were lengthened and even more cars were constructed to allow for four-car cable car trains. Electric wires for the trolleys were added by 1895, allowing for the potential future decommissioning of the steam/cable system.

 

The terminals were rebuilt once more in July 1895, and, following the implementation of new electric cars in late 1896, the steam engines were dismantled and sold.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge Walkway

 

The Brooklyn Bridge has an elevated promenade open to pedestrians in the center of the bridge, located 18 feet (5.5 m) above the automobile lanes.

 

The path is generally 10 to 17 feet (3.0 to 5.2 m) wide, though this is constrained by obstacles such as protruding cables, benches, and stairways, which create "pinch points" at certain locations. The path narrows to 10 feet (3.0 m) at the locations where the main cables descend to the level of the promenade.

 

Further exacerbating the situation, these "pinch points" are some of the most popular places to take pictures. As a result, in 2016, the NYCDOT announced that it planned to double the promenade's width.

 

On the 14th. September 2021, the DOT closed off the inner-most car lane on the Manhattan-bound side with protective barriers and fencing to create a new bike path. Cyclists are now prohibited from the upper pedestrian lane.

 

Emergency Use of Brooklyn Bridge

 

While the bridge has always permitted the passage of pedestrians, the promenade facilitates movement when other means of crossing the East River have become unavailable.

 

During transit strikes by the Transport Workers Union in 1980 and 2005, people commuting to work used the bridge; they were joined by Mayors Ed Koch and Michael Bloomberg, who crossed as a gesture to the affected public.

 

Pedestrians also walked across the bridge as an alternative to suspended subway services following the 1965, 1977, and 2003 blackouts, and after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

 

During the 2003 blackouts, many crossing the bridge reported a swaying motion. The higher-than-usual pedestrian load caused this swaying, which was amplified by the tendency of pedestrians to synchronize their footfalls with a sway.

 

Several engineers expressed concern about how this would affect the bridge, although others noted that the bridge did withstand the event and that the redundancies in its design - the inclusion of the three support systems (suspension system, diagonal stay system, and stiffening truss) - make it probably the best secured bridge against such movements going out of control.

 

In designing the bridge, John Roebling had stated that the bridge would sag but not fall, even if one of these structural systems were to fail altogether.

 

Stunts Associated With Brooklyn Bridge

 

There have been several notable jumpers from the Brooklyn Bridge:

 

-- The first person was Robert Emmet Odlum, brother of women's rights activist Charlotte Odlum Smith, on the 19th. May 1885. He struck the water at an angle, and died shortly afterwards from internal injuries.

 

-- Steve Brodie supposedly dropped from underneath the bridge in July 1886 and was briefly arrested for it, although there is some doubt about whether he actually jumped.

 

-- Larry Donovan made a slightly higher jump from the railing a month afterward.

 

Other notable events have taken place on or near the bridge:

 

-- In 1919, Giorgio Pessi piloted what was then one of the world's largest airplanes, the Caproni Ca.5, under the bridge.

 

-- At 9:00 a.m. on the 19th. May 1977, artist Jack Bashkow climbed one of the towers for 'Bridging', which was termed a "media sculpture" by the performance group Art Corporation of America Inc.

 

Seven artists climbed the largest bridges connected to Manhattan in order to:

 

"Replace violence and fear

in mass media for one day".

 

When each of the artists had reached the tops of the bridges, they ignited bright-yellow flares at the same moment, resulting in rush hour traffic disruption, media attention, and the arrest of the climbers, though the charges were later dropped.

 

Called "The first social-sculpture to use mass-media as art” by conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, the event was on the cover of the New York Post, it received international attention, and received ABC Eyewitness News' 1977 Best News of the Year award.

 

John Halpern documented the incident in the film 'Bridging' (1977)

 

-- Halpern attempted another "Bridging" "social sculpture" in 1979, when he planted a radio receiver, gunpowder and fireworks in a bucket atop one of the Brooklyn Bridge towers.

 

The piece was later discovered by police, leading to his arrest for possessing a bomb.

 

-- In 1993, bridge jumper Thierry Devaux illegally performed eight acrobatic bungee jumps above the East River close to the Brooklyn tower.

 

-- On the 1st. October 2011, more than 700 protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement were arrested while attempting to march across the bridge on the roadway.

 

Protesters disputed the police account of the event, and claimed that the arrests were the result of being trapped on the bridge by the NYPD. The majority of the arrests were subsequently dismissed.

 

-- On the 22nd. July 2014, the two American flags on the flagpoles atop each tower were found to have been replaced by bleached-white American flags.

 

Initially, cannabis activism was suspected as a motive, but on the 12th. August 2014, two Berlin artists claimed responsibility for hoisting the two white flags, having switched the original flags with their replicas.

 

The artists said that the flags were meant to celebrate the beauty of public space and the anniversary of the death of German-born John Roebling, and they denied that it was an anti-American statement.

 

Brooklyn Bridge as a Suicide Spot

 

The first person to jump from the bridge with the intention of suicide was Francis McCarey in 1892.

 

A lesser-known early jumper was James Duffy of County Cavan, Ireland, who on the 15th. April 1895 asked several men to watch him jump from the bridge. Duffy jumped and was not seen again.

 

Additionally, the cartoonist Otto Eppers jumped and survived in 1910, and was then tried and acquitted for attempted suicide.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge has since developed a reputation as a suicide bridge due to the number of jumpers who do so intending to kill themselves, though exact statistics are difficult to find.

 

Crimes and Terrorism Associated With Brooklyn Bridge

 

-- In 1979, police disarmed a stick of dynamite placed under the Brooklyn approach, and an artist in Manhattan was later arrested for the act.

 

-- On the 1st. March 1994, Lebanese-born Rashid Baz opened fire on a van carrying members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish Movement, striking 16-year-old student Ari Halberstam and three others traveling on the bridge.

 

Halberstam died five days later from his wounds, and Baz was later convicted of murder. He was apparently acting out of revenge for the Hebron massacre of Palestinian Muslims a few days prior to the incident.

 

After initially classifying the killing as one committed out of road rage, the Justice Department reclassified the case in 2000 as a terrorist attack.

 

The entrance ramp to the bridge on the Manhattan side was subsequently dedicated as the Ari Halberstam Memorial Ramp.

 

-- In 2003, truck driver Lyman Faris was sentenced to 20 years in prison for providing material support to Al-Qaeda, after an earlier plot to destroy the bridge by cutting through its support wires with blowtorches was thwarted.

 

Brooklyn Bridge Anniversary Celebrations

 

-- The 50th.-anniversary celebrations on the 24th. May 1933 included a ceremony featuring an airplane show, ships, and fireworks, as well as a banquet.

 

-- During the centennial celebrations on the 24th. May 1983, President Ronald Reagan led a cavalcade of cars across the bridge.

 

A flotilla of ships visited the harbor, officials held parades, and Grucci Fireworks held a fireworks display that evening.

 

For the centennial, the Brooklyn Museum exhibited a selection of the original drawings made for the bridge.

 

Culture

 

The Brooklyn Bridge has had an impact on idiomatic American English. For example, references to "Selling the Brooklyn Bridge" abound in American culture, sometimes as examples of rural gullibility, but more often in connection with an idea that strains credulity.

 

George C. Parker and William McCloundy were two early 20th.-century con men who may have perpetrated this scam successfully on unwitting tourists, although the author of 'The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History' wrote:

 

"No evidence exists that the bridge

has ever been sold to a 'gullible

outlander'".

 

However, anyone taken in by fraudsters is hardly likely to publicize the fact.

 

A popular tradition on Brooklyn Bridge is for couples to inscribe a date and their initials onto a padlock, attach it to the bridge, and throw the key into the water as a sign of their love.

 

The practice of attaching 'love locks' to the bridge is officially illegal in New York City, and in theory the NYPD can give violators a $100 fine.

 

NYCDOT workers periodically remove the love locks from the bridge at a cost of $100,000 per year.

 

Brooklyn Bridge in the Media

 

The bridge is often featured in wide shots of the New York City skyline in television and film, and has been depicted in numerous works of art.

 

Fictional works have used the Brooklyn Bridge as a setting; for instance, the dedication of a portion of the bridge, and the bridge itself, were key components in the 2001 film Kate & Leopold.

 

Furthermore, the Brooklyn Bridge has also served as an icon of America, with mentions in numerous songs, books, and poems.

 

Among the most notable of these works is that of American Modernist poet Hart Crane, who used the Brooklyn Bridge as a central metaphor and organizing structure for his second book of poetry, 'The Bridge' (1930).

 

The Brooklyn Bridge has also been lauded for its architecture. One of the first positive reviews was "The Bridge as a Monument", a Harper's Weekly piece written by architecture critic Montgomery Schuyler and published a week after the bridge's opening.

 

In the piece, Schuyler wrote:

 

"It so happens that the work which is likely to be

our most durable monument, and to convey some

knowledge of us to the most remote posterity, is a

work of bare utility; not a shrine, not a fortress, not

a palace, but a bridge."

 

Architecture critic Lewis Mumford cited the piece as the impetus for serious architectural criticism in the U.S. He wrote that in the 1920's the bridge was a source of joy and inspiration in his childhood, and that it was a profound influence in his adolescence.

 

Later critics regarded the Brooklyn Bridge as a work of art, as opposed to an engineering feat or a means of transport.

 

Not all critics appreciated the bridge, however. Henry James, writing in the early 20th. century, cited the bridge as an ominous symbol of the city's transformation into a "steel-souled machine room".

 

The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge is detailed in numerous media sources, including David McCullough's 1972 book 'The Great Bridge', and Ken Burns's 1981 documentary 'Brooklyn Bridge'.

 

It is also described in 'Seven Wonders of the Industrial World', a BBC docudrama series with an accompanying book, as well as in 'Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling, The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge', a biography published in 2017.

Published in The Southport Visiter newspaper.

Mid-November in Hesketh Park, Southport

Modess advertisement published in the November 1954 issue of Family Circle magazine.

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was published by the Photochrom Co. Ltd. The card, which has a divided back, was printed in Great Britain.

 

The aircraft in the photograph was a British four-engined 39-seat biplane airliner designed and built by Short Brothers at the request of Imperial Airways. Two of them were ordered in 1933, 'Scylla' (G-ACJJ) and 'Syrinx' (G-ACJK).

 

Scylla, which is in the photograph, first flew for Imperial Airways on the 26th. March 1934.

 

Imperial Airways used the Scylla for scheduled flights from London to Paris and other European cities. Both aircraft served with Imperial Airways until its merger into BOAC in 1939, when both were taken out of service the following year, Scylla after being wrecked and Syrinx being scrapped.

 

The Photochrom Co. Ltd.

 

The Photochrom Co. Ltd. of London and Royal Tunbridge Wells originally produced Christmas cards before becoming a major publisher and printer of tourist albums, guide books, and postcards.

 

These mainly captured worldwide views as real photos, or were printed in black & white, monochrome, and color.

 

They also published many advertising, comic, silhouette, novelty, panoramic, and notable artist-signed cards in named series as well. The huge number of titles that Photochrom produced may well exceed 40,000.

 

In 1896 they took over Fussli’s London office established three years earlier, and began publishing similar photo-chromolithographic postcards after securing the exclusive English licence for the Swiss photochrom process.

 

This technique was used to produce a great number of view-cards of both England and Europe. While they captured the same fine details as the Swiss prints, their colours were much softer and reduced.

 

Apart from their better known photochroms, they produced their Celesque series of view-cards printed in tricolor.

 

One of the largest unnamed series that Photochrom produced was of view-cards printed in brown rotogravure. Many of these cards were simply hand coloured with a dominant red and blue, which gives these cards a distinct appearance. They are similar to cards produced in their Photogravure and Velvet Finish Series.

 

Photochrom postcard series include:

 

-- Night Series - Line block halftone over a blue tint depicting London.

-- Carbofoto Series - Black & white real photo cards.

-- Sepiatone Series - Sepia real photo cards.

-- Grano Series - View-cards printed in black & white.

-- Exclusive Photo-Color Series - View-cards printed in colour.

-- Duotype Process Series - View-cards printed in two tones.

 

Croydon Airport

 

Croydon Airport was the UK's major and only international airport during the interwar period. Located in Croydon, South London, it opened in 1920, built in a Neoclassical style.

 

It was developed as Britain's main airport, handling more cargo, mail, and passengers than any other UK airport at the time. Innovations at the site included the world's first air traffic control and the first airport terminal.

 

During World War II the airport was named RAF Croydon as its role changed to that of a fighter airfield during the Battle of Britain; and in 1943 RAF Transport Command was founded at the site, which used the airport to transport thousands of troops into and out of Europe.

 

After the Second World War, its role returned to civil aviation, but the role of London's primary international airport passed to London Heathrow Airport. Croydon Airport closed in 1959. It had been known under eight different names while it was active.

 

In 1978, the terminal building and Gate Lodge were granted protection as Grade II listed buildings. In May 2017, Historic England raised the status of the terminal building to Grade II*. Owing to disrepair, the Gate Lodge is now classified as Heritage at Risk by Historic England.

 

The Origins of Croydon Airport

 

In December 1915, Beddington Aerodrome was established - one of a number of small airfields around London that were created for protection against Zeppelin airship raids during the Great War. In January 1916, the first two aircraft, B.E 2C's, arrived at the aerodrome as part of Home Defence.

 

Waddon Aerodrome opened in 1918 as part of the adjoining National Aircraft Factory No. 1, to serve aircraft test flights. The two airfields were on each side of Plough Lane.

 

Beddington Aerodrome became a large Reserve Aircraft and Training aerodrome for the Royal Flying Corps. At the end of the Great War the aerodrome was retained, becoming an important training airfield for the newly formed Royal Air Force.

 

During 1919, Prince Albert (later George VI) gained his 'wings' here with No. 29 Training Squadron, the first member of the Royal Family to learn to fly. His elder brother, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), also received flying training with No. 29 Training Squadron at Beddington during 1919.

 

The two aerodromes were combined following the end of the Great War to become Croydon Aerodrome, the gateway for all international flights to and from London. The new aerodrome opened on the 29th. March 1920, replacing the temporary civil aerodrome at a Cavalry ground on Hounslow Heath.

 

Plough Lane remained a public road crossing the site, and road traffic was halted when necessary, first by a man with a red flag and later by a gate. The aerodrome stimulated a growth in regular scheduled flights carrying passengers, mail and freight, the first destinations being Paris, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Two flights daily from Paris were scheduled for ease of communication with London during the Paris Peace Conference. In 1923, flights to Berlin Tempelhof Airport began.

 

Penshurst Airfield was an alternative destination for airliners when Croydon was closed on account of fog. One such diversion was on the 24th. September 1921, when a de Havilland DH.18 aircraft was diverted to Penshurst. This situation lasted until Penshurst closed on the 28th. July 1936.

 

Innovation

 

Croydon was the first airport in the world to introduce air traffic control, a control tower, and radio position-fixing procedures.

 

The aerodrome control tower (visible in the photograph) was designed with windows on all four sides. It provided basic traffic, weather and location information to pilots.

 

The 'Mayday' distress call was also first established at Croydon.

 

Croydon Airport also had the world's first airport hotel.

 

Imperial Airways

 

On the formation of Britain's first national airline, Imperial Airways, on the 31st. March 1924, Croydon became the new airline's operating base. Imperial Airways was the British Government's chosen instrument to develop connections with the U.K.'s extensive overseas interests.

 

It was therefore from Croydon that Great Britain first developed its European and long-haul routes to India, Africa, the Middle and Far East, Asia, Africa and Australia (in conjunction with Qantas).

 

The Crash of the Imperial Airways de Havilland

 

Following the Imperial Airways de Havilland DH.34 crash, Great Britain's first major civil aviation accident, conditions at Croydon came under criticism from the public inquiry that investigated the causes.

 

The crash occurred on the 24th. December 1924. The aircraft took off from Croydon Airport on a scheduled international passenger flight to Le Bourget Airport, Paris. Witnesses described the aircraft as flying low over Purley before nosediving to the ground and overturning. The crash was followed by an explosion and fire.

 

The crash site was 1 1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) from Croydon Airport, at Castle Hill, Purley, where the Kingsdown housing estate was then under construction. Attempts to rescue the pilot and the seven passengers were made, but the intensity of the fire made this task impossible. A witness stated that he thought the accident was unsurvivable.

 

It was only after the local fire brigade had extinguished the fire that the bodies of the victims could be extricated from the wreckage. The accident was the first fatal accident suffered by Imperial Airways.

 

A memorial plaque and cross were placed at Kingsdown Avenue. They are still there to this day.

 

The inquiry was Great Britain's first into an aviation accident. It led to an Act of Parliament, the Croydon Aerodrome Extension Act 1925.

 

The Expansion of Croydon Airport

 

The 1925 Act led to large-scale expansion, redevelopment and construction of an improved new airport between 1926 and 1928, with a new complex of buildings being constructed alongside Purley Way, including the first purpose-designed airport terminal and air traffic control tower, the world's first airport hotel, and extensive hangars.

 

The development cost £267,000 (£16.2 million in today's prices). Plough Lane was closed permanently to let heavier airliners land and depart safely. The airport's terminal building and control tower were completed in 1928, and the old wooden air traffic control and customs building demolished. The new buildings and layout began operations on the 20th. January 1928, and were officially opened on the 2nd. May 1928 by Lady Maud Hoare.

 

Notable Flights

 

Croydon was where regular international passenger services began, initially using converted wartime bombers, and the Croydon - Le Bourget route soon became the busiest in the world.

 

Amy Johnson took off from Croydon on the 5th. May 1930 for her record-breaking flight to Australia.

 

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh arrived in the Spirit of St. Louis, to be greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of over 100,000 people.

 

Winston Churchill also took flying lessons at the airport.

 

On the morning of the 11th. July 1936, Major Hugh Pollard and Cecil Bebb left Croydon Airport for the Canary Islands in a de Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft, where they picked up General Francisco Franco, taking him to Spanish Morocco and thereby helping to trigger the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

 

The airport also hosted a much-publicised visit by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, leader of the National Socialist Women's League (NS-Frauenschaft) and rumoured to be a spy; historians have speculated that she landed in Britain to cultivate German spies living here, in the run-up to WWII.

 

BOAC

 

In March 1937 British Airways Ltd. operated from Croydon, moving to Heston Aerodrome in May 1938. Imperial Airways, serving routes in the British Empire, and British Airways Ltd, serving European routes, were merged in 1939 to become the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).

 

Croydon Airport in WWII

 

When the Second World War started in September 1939, Croydon Airport was closed to civil aviation, but played a vital role as a fighter station during the Battle of Britain. No. 92 Squadron flew Supermarine Spitfires from RAF Croydon during the early part of the Second World War and the Battle of Britain.

 

On the 15th. August 1940, Croydon Airport was attacked during the first major air raid on the London area. At around 6.20 pm, 22 fighter-bombers mounted a final raid of the day, intended for RAF Kenley nearby, but attacked Croydon (four miles further north) in error.

 

The armoury was destroyed, the civilian airport terminal building was badly damaged, and a hangar was damaged by cannon fire and blast. Another hangar and about forty training aircraft in it went up in flames.

 

Six airfield personnel died (four airmen from No. 111 Squadron, an officer of No. 1 Squadron RCAF, and a female telephonist from Station HQ). Factories next to Croydon Airport took the worst of the bombing. The British NSF factory (making electrical components) was almost entirely destroyed, and the Bourjois perfume factory was gutted.

 

The Rollason Aircraft factory also received bomb hits and accounted for many of the 62 civilians (including five women) killed and 192 injured. Eight of the attacking aircraft were shot down by the Hurricanes of 32 and 111 Squadrons.

 

Croydon became the base of RAF Transport Command in 1944.

 

Post-War Developments and Final Closure

 

Following the end of the war, it was realised that post-war airliners and cargo aircraft would be larger, and that air traffic would intensify. The urban spread of south London and the growth of surrounding villages had enclosed Croydon Airport and left it little room for expansion. Heathrow was therefore designated as London's airport.

 

Croydon returned to civil control in February 1946. Northolt opened to airlines soon after that, cutting Croydon's traffic, but the September 1946 ABC Guide shows 218 departures a week to Belfast, Dublin, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Jersey, Guernsey, and several continental airports. A year later there were only 56 departures a week, mostly BEA de Havilland Dragon Rapides that weeks later left Croydon for good.

 

It was decided in 1952 that the airport would eventually be closed, as Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire and Northolt Aerodrome in Middlesex could accommodate European flights during the 1950's.

 

The last scheduled flight from Croydon departed at 6:15pm on the 30th. September 1959. The airfield officially closed at 10:20pm.

 

On the 27th. September 2009, to mark the 50th. anniversary of the closing of the airport, eleven light aircraft, including eight biplanes, staged a flypast. A gold laurel leaf tribute was laid in the control tower to mark the anniversary.

 

Croydon Airport Today

 

Much of the site has been built over, but some of the airport buildings near Purley Way are still visible, clearly identifiable as to their former purpose. The former terminal building is called Airport House, and the former control tower houses a visitors' centre.

 

A de Havilland Heron (a small propeller-driven British airliner of the 1950's) is displayed on the forecourt outside Airport House, mounted on struts. The Heron is painted to represent an aircraft of Morton Air Services which flew the last passenger flight from Croydon on the 30th. September 1959. A memorial to those lost in the Battle of Britain stands slightly to the south.

 

Although Croydon Airport has long ceased operation, the two cut ends of Plough Lane have never been reunited, but the area between has been developed instead into parkland, playing fields, and the Roundshaw residential estate with its roads aptly named after aviators and aircraft.

 

All that remains of the runways is a small area of tarmac about 400 feet (120 m) long in Roundshaw Park just west of Purley Way, which is a remnant of the WNW-ESE runway due south of the control buildings. The area is used primarily by walkers, model aircraft enthusiasts, locals playing football and the Croydon Pirates baseball team.

 

The church on the Roundshaw estate has a cross on its outside wall that was made from the cut down propeller of a Spitfire based at Croydon during the Second World War.

 

In recognition of the historical significance of the aerodrome, two local schools (Waddon Infants School and Duppas Junior School) merged in September 2010 and became The Aerodrome School.

 

The Airport Buildings

 

The Aerodrome Hotel and the terminal building including its grand booking hall were built in the neo-classical geometrical design typical of the early 20th. Century. A further item that would have caught the eye of visitor and traveller alike was the time zone tower (now lost) in the booking hall with its dials depicting the times in different parts of the world.

 

The Airport Hotel survives (2020) as the independent Hallmark Hotel.

 

Events and Celebrities Associated With the Airport

 

- 1919 - Winston Churchill took extensive flying lessons at Croydon, and was nearly killed during a crash at take-off in 1919.

 

- 1925 - Alan Cobham flew from Croydon to Cape Town and back in 1925-6.

 

- 1927 - Charles Lindbergh flew into Croydon in 1927 shortly after completing the first solo trans-Atlantic flight.

 

- 1928 - Mary Bailey flew solo from Croydon to Cape Town.

 

- 1928 - Mary, Lady Heath was the first pilot to fly a small open-cockpit aircraft from Cape Town to Croydon Aerodrome on the 18th. May.

 

- 1928 - Bert Hinkler made the first flight from Croydon to Darwin, Australia.

 

- 1928 - Charles Kingsford Smith beat Hinkler's record.

 

- 1929 - Armstrong Whitworth flew an Argosy from Croydon to Paris, and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford met Countess Mountbatten of Burma.

 

- 1930 - Aspy Engineer and R. N. Chawla were the first Indians to fly from Karachi to Croydon and shortly after, Engineer flew from Croydon to Karachi solo and within the specified one month time frame to win the Aga Khan competition.

 

- 1930 - Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly from Croydon to Australia, later to return to Croydon to a jubilant welcome. Amy left Croydon on the 5th. May with a few people to see her off. She returned from Australia to be greeted by crowds of thousands.

 

- 1934 - Tom Campbell Black and C. W. A. Scott won the MacRobertson London to Melbourne Air Race.

 

Literary References to Croydon Airport

 

Croydon Airport features heavily in two detective novels, Freeman Wills Crofts' 'The 12.30 from Croydon' (1934) and Agatha Christie's 'Death in the Clouds' (1935).

 

It is also mentioned in Evelyn Waugh's 'Labels: A Mediterranean Journey' (1930), Elizabeth Bowen's 'To the North' (1932) and Winston Churchill's 'Thoughts and Adventures' (1932).

 

W. H. Auden, in his Letter to Lord Byron (1937), lists 'Croydon Aerodrome' as one of the locations visited by a modern-day Don Juan.

 

Accidents and Incidents Associated With Croydon Airport

 

- On the 15th. March 1923, a Farman F.60 Goliath F-AEIE of Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes overran the runway on landing and collided with a building. The aircraft was later repaired and returned to service.

 

- On the 22nd. January 1924, a Goliath F-GEAO of Air Union was destroyed by fire following an accident when landing.

 

- On the 24th. December 1924, an Imperial Airways de Havilland DH.34 G-EBBX crashed and caught fire shortly after take-off from Croydon, killing the pilot and all seven passengers.

 

-- On the 24th. July 1928, Alfred Loewenstein, a Belgian financier and one of the wealthiest people in the world at the time, was killed when he fell out of his privately owned Fokker airliner at an altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 m). Flying from Croydon Airport to Brussels, he is believed to have opened the wrong cabin door before plunging out into space over the English Channel. Suicide was suspected, although it was probably just an unfortunate error - he was last seen by the six other passengers walking to the rear of the aircraft to use the bathroom. However he stepped through the door opposite the bathroom. His body was found on a beach in France eight days later.

 

More on Loewenstein and his disappearance below.

 

- On the 6th. November 1929, the Deutsche Lufthansa Junkers G 24bi Oberschlesien (registration D-903) crashed after striking trees on a hill in Morden Park, Surrey, while attempting to return to Croydon in thick fog after taking off for a flight to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Three of the four crew members and four of the five passengers died.

 

- On the 19th. May 1934, a Wibault 280 of Air France crash-landed on a cricket pitch adjacent to Croydon Airport as a result of running out of fuel. Only one of the ten people on board was injured.

 

- On the 31st. May 1934 an Air France aircraft carrying newspapers to Paris crashed after hitting the mast of an aircraft radio navigation beacon that had been erected off the end of the white-line take-off path, killing the two crew. (...On the face of it, a pretty silly place to erect a navigation beacon.)

 

- On the 6th. March 1935, in the Croydon Airport robbery, £21,000 worth of gold bullion was stolen. Three men were charged, although only one was sentenced. The gold was never found.

 

- On the 9th. December 1936, a KLM Douglas DC-2 crashed on take-off at Croydon Airport on a flight to Amsterdam. The accident killed 15 out of the 17 on the DC-2, including Juan de la Cierva and Arvid Lindman. Juan de la Cierva was the Spanish inventor of the autogyro.

 

- On the 25th. January 1947, a Spencer Airways Douglas Dakota failed to get airborne on a flight to Rhodesia. The aircraft struck another parked and empty aircraft, killing 11 passengers and the pilot.

 

Further Accidents and Incidents of Imperial Airways

 

(a) Fatal Accidents

 

- On the 13th. July 1928, a Vickers Vulcan G-EBLB crashed at Purley during a test flight, killing four of the six people on board. As a result of the crash, Imperial Airways stopped the flying of staff (so called joy rides) during test flights.

 

- On the 17th. June 1929, a Handley Page W.10 G-EBMT ditched in the English Channel following engine failure whilst on a flight from Croydon to Paris with the loss of seven lives.

 

- On the 6th. September 1929, a de Havilland Hercules G-EBMZ crashed and burned on landing at Jask, Iran in the dark due to the pilot misjudging the altitude and stalling the aircraft, killing three of the five individuals on board.

 

- On the 26th. October 1929, a Short G-AADN force-landed off La Spezia, Italy in poor weather; the flying boat sank in the night during attempts to tow it to shore, killing all seven on board.

 

- On the 30th. October 1930, a Handley Page W.8g G-EBIX struck high ground in fog at Boulogne, France, killing three of the six individuals on board.

 

- On the 28th. March 1933, an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy G-AACI crashed at Diksmuide, Belgium following an in-flight fire. This is suspected to be the first-ever case of sabotage in the air. All fifteen people on board were killed.

 

- On the 30th. December 1933, an Avro Ten G-ABLU collided with a radio mast at Ruysselede, Belgium and crashed. All ten people on board were killed.

 

- On the 31st. December 1935, a Short G-AASJ crashed off Alexandria, Egypt when all four engines failed on approach, possibly due to fuel starvation; twelve of the 13 on board drowned when the flying boat sank.

 

- On the 22nd. August 1936, a Short G-ABFA sank at Mirabello Bay, Crete after a heavy landing, killing two of the 11 on board.

 

- On the 24th. March 1937, a Short G-ADVA crashed in the Beaujolois Mountains near Ouroux, France following a navigation error, killing five.

 

- On the 1st. October 1937, a Short G-ADVC crashed on landing in Phaleron Bay, Greece due to poor visibility, killing two of 15 on board.

 

- On the 5th. December 1937, a Short G-ADUZ crashed on take-off from Brindisi, Italy due to incorrect flap settings, killing two.

 

- On the 27th. July 1938, an Armstrong Whitworth G-ABTG flew into a hillside near Kisumu, Kenya shortly after take-off, killing all four on board.

 

- On the 27th. November 1938, a Short G-AETW crashed in Lake Habbaniyah, Iraq in bad weather after the pilot descended to maintain visual contact with the ground following spatial disorientation, killing all four crew.

 

- On the 21st. January 1939, a Short G-ADUU ditched in the Atlantic 285 mi off New York due to carburettor icing and loss of engine power; three drowned while ten survivors were picked up by the tanker Esso Baytown. Thereafter Imperial Airways and Pan-American trans-oceanic flying boats had the upper surfaces of the wings painted with orange high visibility markings.

 

- On the 1st. May 1939, a Short G-ADVD crashed in the Lumbo lagoon while attempting to land at Lumbo Airport, killing two of the six individuals on board.

 

- On the 1st. March 1940, a Handley Page H.P.42 G-AAGX disappeared over the Gulf of Oman with eight on board; no wreckage, cargo or occupants were ever found. The cause of the crash remains unknown, but fuel starvation, a bird strike damaging a propeller and causing an engine or wing to separate, an in-flight breakup or multiple engine failure were theorised. Two months after the crash, the H.P.42 was withdrawn from passenger operations. It was also recommended that all commercial aircraft used in long flights over water be equipped with personal and group life saving gear; this would later become standard throughout the airline industry.

 

The 18 fatal Imperial Airways accidents listed above (including the 1924 Purley crash) produce a death toll of 101 fatalities, which is relatively modest by today's standards - the years between 1924 and 1940 produced an average of only 6.3 deaths per year.

 

This is due at least in part to the fact that modern aircraft have a much larger capacity and transport vastly more passengers, resulting in many more fatalities per crash; the Imperial Airlines fatal crashes recorded above produced an average of only 5.6 deaths per flight.

 

(b) Non-Fatal Accidents of Imperial Airways

 

- On the 21st. October 1926, a Handley Page W.10 G-EBMS ditched in the English Channel 18 nautical miles (33 km) off the English coast after an engine failed. All 12 people on board were rescued by FV Invicta.

 

- On the 19th. April 1931, a de Havilland DH.66 with registration G-EBMW was damaged beyond repair in a forced landing following fuel starvation at Surabaya.

 

- On the 8th. August 1931, a Handley Page H.P.42 G-AAGX was operating a scheduled passenger flight from Croydon to Paris when an engine failed and debris forced a second engine to be shut down. A forced landing at Five Oak Green, Kent resulted in extensive damage, although no injuries occurred. The aircraft was dismantled and trucked to Croydon to be rebuilt.

 

- On the 9th. November 1935, a Short G-ABFB caught fire and burned out during refuelling in Brindisi Harbor; the refuelling crew were able to jump clear of the burning aircraft and survived.

 

- On the 29th. September 1936, an Armstrong Whitworth G-ABTK burned out in a hangar fire at Delhi, India.

 

- On the 31st. May 1937, a Handley Page H.P.45 G-AAXE was destroyed in a hangar fire at Karachi, India.

 

- On the 3rd. December 1938, a de Havilland G-ADCN burned out at Bangkok.

 

- On the 12th. March 1939, a Short S.23 Empire Flying Boat G-ADUY was damaged beyond repair at Tandjong, Batavia, Netherlands East Indies. It struck a submerged object while taxiing. The aircraft beached, but proved to be damaged beyond repair by immersion and mishandling during salvage. The aircraft was dismantled and shipped to England, but not returned to service.

 

- On the 7th. November 1939, a Handley Page H.P.42 G-AXXD was written off following a forced landing at a golf course at Tiverton, Devon.

 

- On the 19th. March 1940, a Handley Page H.P.45 G-AAXC and H.P.42 G-AAUD were both written off after being blown over in high winds while parked at Whitchurch Airport.

Snowdonia, or Eryri is a mountainous region and national park in North Wales. It contains all 15 mountains in Wales over 3000 feet high, including the country's highest, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), which is 1,085 metres (3,560 ft) tall. These peaks are all part of the Snowdon, Glyderau, and Carneddau ranges in the north of the region. The shorter Moelwynion and Moel Hebog ranges lie immediately to the south.

 

The national park has an area of 823 square miles (2,130 km2) (the fourth-largest in the UK), and covers most of central and southern Gwynedd and the western part of Conwy County Borough. This is much larger than the area traditionally considered Snowdonia, and in addition to the five ranges above includes the Rhinogydd, Cadair Idris, and Aran ranges and the Dyfi Hills. It also includes most of the coast between Porthmadog and Aberdyfi. The park was the first of the three national parks of Wales to be designated, in October 1951, and the third in the UK after the Peak District and Lake District, which were established in April and May 1951 respectively. The park received 3.89 million visitors in 2015.

 

The name Snowdon means 'snow hill' and is derived from the Old English elements snāw and dūn, the latter meaning 'hill'. Snowdonia is simply taken from the name of the mountain.

 

The origins of Eryri are less clear. Two popular interpretations are that the name is related to eryr, 'eagle', and that it means 'highlands' and is related to the Latin oriri ('to rise'). Although eryri is not any direct form of the word eryr in the meaning 'eagle', it is a plural form of eryr in the meaning 'upland'.

 

Before the boundaries of the national park were designated, "Snowdonia" was generally used to refer to a smaller upland area of northern Gwynedd centred on the Snowdon massif. The national park covers an area more than twice that size, extending south into the Meirionnydd area.

 

This difference is apparent in books published before 1951. In George Borrow's 1907 Wild Wales he states that "Snowdon or Eryri is no single hill, but a mountainous region, the loftiest part of which is called Y Wyddfa", making a distinction between the summit of the mountain and the surrounding massif. The Mountains of Snowdonia by H. Carr & G. Lister (1925) defines "Eryri" as "composed of the two cantrefs of Arfon and Arllechwedd, and the two commotes of Nant Conwy and Eifionydd", which corresponds to Caernarfonshire with the exception of southwest Llŷn and the Creuddyn Peninsula. In Snowdonia: The National Park of North Wales (1949), F. J. North states that "When the Committee delineated provisional boundaries, they included areas some distance beyond Snowdonia proper".

 

Snowdonia National Park, also known as Eryri National Park in English and Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri in Welsh, was established in October 1951. It was the third national park in the United Kingdom, following the Peak District and Lake District in April and May of the same year. It covers 827 square miles (2,140 km2) in the counties of Gwynedd and Conwy, and has 37 miles (60 km) of coastline.

 

The park is governed by the Snowdonia National Park Authority, which has 18 members: 9 appointed by Gwynedd, 3 by Conwy, and 6 by the Welsh Government to represent the national interest. The authority's main offices are at Penrhyndeudraeth.

 

The park authority used Snowdonia and Snowdon when referring to the national park and mountain in English until February 2023, when it resolved to primarily use the Welsh names, Eryri and Yr Wyddfa. There will be a transitional period of approximately two years in which the authority will continue to use the English names in parentheses — for example "Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon)" — where the context requires.

 

Unlike national parks in other countries, national parks in the UK are made up of both public and private lands under a central planning authority. The makeup of land ownership in the national park is as follows:

 

More than 26,000 people live within the park, of whom 58.6% could speak Welsh in 2011. While most of the land is either open or mountainous land, there is a significant amount of agricultural activity within the park.

 

The national park does not include the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, which forms a unique non-designated enclave within the park boundaries. The town was deliberately excluded from the park when it was established because of its slate quarrying industry. The boundaries of the Peak District National Park exclude the town of Buxton and its adjacent limestone quarries for a similar reason.

 

The geology of Snowdonia is key to the area's character. Glaciation during a succession of ice ages, has carved from a heavily faulted and folded succession of sedimentary and igneous rocks, a distinctive rocky landscape. The last ice age ended only just over 11,500 years ago, leaving a legacy of features attractive to visitors but which have also played a part in the development of geological science and continue to provide a focus for educational visits. Visiting Cwm Idwal in 1841 Charles Darwin realised that the landscape was the product of glaciation. The bedrock dates largely from the Cambrian and Ordovician periods with intrusions of Ordovician and Silurian age associated with the Caledonian Orogeny. There are smaller areas of Silurian age sedimentary rocks in the south and northeast and of Cenozoic era strata on the Cardigan Bay coast though the latter are concealed by more recent deposits. Low grade metamorphism of Cambrian and Ordovician mudstones has resulted in the slates, the extraction of which once formed the mainstay of the area's economy.

 

The principal ranges of the traditional Snowdonia are the Snowdon massif itself, the Glyderau, the Carneddau, the Moelwynion and the Moel Hebog range. All of Wales' 3000ft mountains are to be found within the first three of these massifs and are most popular with visitors. To their south within the wider national park are the Rhinogydd and the Cadair Idris and Aran Fawddwy ranges. Besides these well-defined areas are a host of mountains which are less readily grouped though various guidebook writers have assigned them into groups such as the 'Arenigs', the 'Tarrens' and the 'Dyfi hills'.

 

Snowdon's summit at 1085 metres (3560 feet) is the highest in Wales and the highest in Britain south of the Scottish Highlands. At 905 metres (2970 feet) Aran Fawddwy is the highest in Wales outside of northern Snowdonia; Cadair Idris, at 893 metres (2930 feet), is next in line.

 

Rivers draining the area empty directly into Cardigan Bay are typically short and steep. From north to south they include the Glaslyn and Dwyryd which share a common estuary, the Mawddach and its tributaries the Wnion and the Eden, the smaller Dysynni and on the park's southern margin the Dyfi. A series of rivers drain to the north coast. Largest of these is the Conwy on the park's eastern margin which along with the Ogwen drains into Conwy Bay. Further west the Seiont and Gwyrfai empty into the western end of the Menai Strait. A part of the east of the national park is within the upper Dee (Dyfrydwy) catchment and includes Bala Lake, the largest natural waterbody in Wales. A fuller list of the rivers and tributaries within the area is found at List of rivers of Wales.

 

There are few natural waterbodies of any size in Wales; Snowdonia is home to most. Besides Bala Lake, a few lakes occupy glacial troughs including Llyn Padarn and Llyn Peris at Llanberis and Tal-y-llyn Lake south of Cadair Idris. Llyn Dinas, Llyn Gwynant, and Llyn Cwellyn to the south and west of Snowdon feature in this category as do Llyn Cowlyd and Llyn Ogwen on the margins of the Carneddau. There are numerous small lakes occupying glacial cirques owing to the former intensity of glacial action in Snowdonia. Known generically as tarns, examples include Llyn Llydaw, Glaslyn and Llyn Du'r Arddu on Snowdon, Llyn Idwal within the Glyderau and Llyn Cau on Cadair Idris.

 

There are two large wholly man-made bodies of water in the area, Llyn Celyn and Llyn Trawsfynydd whilst numerous of the natural lakes have had their levels artificially raised to different degrees. Marchlyn Mawr reservoir and Ffestiniog Power Station's Llyn Stwlan are two cases where natural tarns have been dammed as part of pumped storage hydro-electric schemes. A fuller list of the lakes within the area is found at List of lakes of Wales. In 2023, the park standardised its Welsh language lake names, to be also used in English.

 

The national park meets the Irish Sea coast within Cardigan Bay between the Dovey estuary in the south and the Dwyryd estuary. The larger part of that frontage is characterised by dune systems, the largest of which are Morfa Dyffryn and Morfa Harlech. These two locations have two of the largest sand/shingle spits in Wales. The major indentations of the Dovey, the Mawddach and Dwyryd estuaries, have large expanses of intertidal sands and coastal marsh which are especially important for wildlife: see #Natural history. The northern tip of the national park extends to the north coast of Wales at Penmaen-bach Point, west of Conwy, where precipitous cliffs have led to the road and railway negotiating the spot in tunnels.

 

There are only three towns within the park boundary, though there are several more immediately beyond it. Dolgellau is the most populous followed by Bala on the eastern boundary and then Harlech overlooking Tremadog Bay. More populous than these is the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, which is within an exclave, that is to say it is surrounded by the national park but excluded from it, whilst the towns of Tywyn and Barmouth on the Cardigan Bay coast are within coastal exclaves. Llanrwst in the east, Machynlleth in the south and Porthmadog and Penrhyndeudraeth in the west are immediately beyond the boundary but still identified with the park; indeed the last of these hosts the headquarters of the Snowdonia National Park Authority. Similarly the local economies of the towns of Conwy, Bethesda, and Llanberis in the north are inseparably linked to the national park as they provide multiple visitor services. The lower terminus of the Snowdon Mountain Railway is at Llanberis. Though adjacent to it, Llanfairfechan and Penmaenmawr are less obviously linked to the park.

 

There are numerous smaller settlements within the national park: prominent amongst these are the eastern 'gateway' village of Betws-y-Coed, Aberdyfi on the Dovey (Dyfi) estuary and the small village of Beddgelert each of which attract large numbers of visitors. Other sizeable villages are Llanuwchllyn at the southwest end of Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid), Dyffryn Ardudwy, Corris, Trawsfynydd, Llanbedr, Trefriw and Dolwyddelan.

 

Six primary routes serve Snowdonia, the busiest of which is the A55, a dual carriageway which runs along the north coast and provides strategic road access to the northern part of the national park. The most important north–south route within the park is the A470 running from the A55 south past Betws-y-Coed to Blaenau Ffestiniog to Dolgellau. It exits the park a few miles to the southeast near Mallwyd. From Dolgellau, the A494 runs to Bala whilst the A487 connects with Machynlleth. The A487 loops around the northwest of the park from Bangor via Caernarfon to Porthmadog before turning in land to meet the A470 east of Maentwrog. The A5 was built as a mail coach road by Thomas Telford between London and Holyhead; it enters the park near Pentrefoelas and leaves it near Bethesda. Other A class roads provide more local links; the A493 down the Dovey valley from Machynlleth and up the coast to Tywyn then back up the Mawddach valley to Dolgellau, the A496 from Dolgellau down the north side of the Mawddach to Barmouth then north up the coast via Harlech to Maentwrog. The A4212 connecting Bala with Trawsfynydd is relatively modern having been laid out in the 1960s in connection with the construction of Llyn Celyn. Three further roads thread their often twisting and narrow way through the northern mountains; A4085 links Penrhyndeudraeth with Caernarfon, the A4086 links Capel Curig with Caernarfon via Llanberis and the A498 links Tremadog with the A4086 at Pen-y-Gwryd. Other roads of note include that from Llanuwchllyn up Cwm Cynllwyd to Dinas Mawddwy via the 545 metre (1788') high pass of Bwlch y Groes, the second highest tarmacked public road in Wales and the minor road running northwest and west from Llanuwchllyn towards Bronaber via the 531 metre (1742') high pass of Bwlch Pen-feidiog.

 

The double track North Wales Coast Line passes along the northern boundary of the park between Conwy and Bangor briefly entering it at Penmaen-bach Point where it is in tunnel. Stations serve the communities of Conwy, Penmaenmawr, Llanfairfechan and Bangor. The single-track Conwy Valley Line runs south from Llandudno Junction, entering the park north of Betws-y-coed which is served by a station then west up the Lledr valley by way of further stations at Pont-y-pant, Dolwyddelan and Roman Bridge. After passing through a tunnel the passenger line now terminates at Blaenau Ffestiniog railway station. Prior to 1961 the route continued as the Bala and Ffestiniog Railway via Trawsfynydd to Bala joining another former route along the Dee valley which ran southwest via Dolgellau to join the still extant coastal Cambrian Line south of Barmouth. The Pwllheli branch of the Cambrian Line splits from the Aberystwyth branch at Dovey Junction and continues via stations at Aberdovey, Tywyn, Tonfanau, Llwyngwril, Fairbourne and Morfa Mawddach to Barmouth where it crosses the Mawddach estuary by the Grade II* listed wooden Barmouth Bridge, a structure which also provides for walkers and cyclists. Further stations serve Llanaber, Tal-y-bont, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Llanbedr, Pensarn and Llandanwg before reaching Harlech. Tygwyn, Talsarnau and Llandecwyn stations are the last before the line exits the park as it crosses the Dwyryd estuary via Pont Briwet and turns westwards bound for Pwllheli via Penrhyndeudraeth, Porthmadog and Criccieth.

 

Many sections of dismantled railway are now used by walking and cycling routes and are described elsewhere. The Bala Lake Railway is a heritage railway which has been established along a section of the former mainline route between Bala and Llanuwchllyn. Other heritage railways occupy sections of former mineral lines, often narrow gauge and are described in a separate section.

 

The national park is served by a growing bus network, branded Sherpa'r Wyddfa (formerly Snowdon Sherpa). Together with the TrawsCymru network of buses this provides a car-free option to tourists and locals wishing to travel across the National Park.

 

The network was relaunched in July 2022 with a new brand, Sherpa'r Wyddfa, to reflect the National Park's new push for the promotion of Welsh place names. As such the publicity and websites for the newly branded service only use these Welsh names, even for English language users.

 

Snowdonia is one of the wettest parts of the United Kingdom; Crib Goch in Snowdonia is the wettest spot in the United Kingdom, with an average rainfall of 4,473 millimetres (176.1 in) a year over the 30-year period prior to the mid-2000s. (There is a rainfall gauge at 713 metres, 2340' on the slopes below Crib Goch.)

 

The earliest evidence for human occupation of the area dates from around 4000–3000 BCE with extensive traces of prehistoric field systems evident in the landscape. Within these are traces of irregular enclosures and hut circles. There are burial chambers of Neolithic and Bronze Age such as Bryn Cader Faner and Iron Age hillforts such as Bryn y Castell near Ffestiniog.

 

The region was finally conquered by the Romans by AD 77–78. Remains of Roman marching camps and practice camps are evident. There was a Roman fort and amphitheatre at Tomen y Mur. Roads are known to have connected with Segontium (Caernarfon) and Deva Victrix (Chester) and include the northern reaches of Sarn Helen.

 

There are numerous memorial stones of Early Christian affinity dating from the post-Roman period. The post-Roman hillfort of Dinas Emrys also dates to this time. Churches were introduced to the region in the 5th and 6th centuries. Llywelyn the Great and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had various stone castles constructed to protect their borders and trade routes. Edward I built several castles around the margins including those at Harlech and Conwy for military and administrative reasons. Most are now protected within a World Heritage Site. Some of Snowdonia's many stone walls date back to this period too. In the Middle Ages, the title Prince of Wales and Lord of Snowdonia (Tywysog Cymru ac Arglwydd Eryri) was used by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd; his grandfather Llywelyn Fawr used the title Prince of north Wales and Lord of Snowdonia.

 

The 18th century saw the start of industrial exploitation of the area's resources, assisted by the appearance in the late part of the century of turnpike trusts making it more accessible. The engineer Thomas Telford left a legacy of road and railway construction in and around Snowdonia. A new harbour at Porthmadog linked to slate quarries at Ffestiniog via a narrow gauge railway. At its peak in the 19th century the slate industry employed around 12,000 men. A further 1000 were employed in stone quarrying at Graiglwyd and Penmaenmawr. Mining for copper, iron and gold was undertaken during the 18th and 19th centuries, leaving a legacy of mine and mill ruins today. Ruins of the gold industry are found at Cefn Coch on the Dolmelynllyn estate.

 

The Snowdonia Society is a registered charity formed in 1967; it is a voluntary group of people with an interest in the area and its protection.

 

Amory Lovins led the successful 1970s opposition to stop Rio Tinto digging up the area for a massive mine.

 

The park's entire coastline is a Special Area of Conservation, which runs from the Llŷn Peninsula down the mid-Wales coast, the latter containing valuable sand dune systems.

 

The park's natural forests are of the mixed deciduous type, the commonest tree being the Welsh oak. Birch, ash, mountain-ash and hazel are also common. The park also contains some large (planted) coniferous forested areas such as Gwydir Forest near Betws-y-Coed, although some areas, once harvested, are now increasingly being allowed to regrow naturally.

 

Northern Snowdonia is the only place in Britain where the Snowdon lily (Gagea serotina), an arctic–alpine plant, is found and the only place in the world where the Snowdonia hawkweed Hieracium snowdoniense grows.

 

One of the major problems facing the park in recent years has been the growth of Rhododendron ponticum. This fast-growing invasive species has a tendency to take over and stifle native species. It can form massive towering growths and has a companion fungus that grows on its roots producing toxins that are poisonous to any local flora and fauna for a seven-year period after the Rhododendron infestations have been eradicated. As a result, there are a number of desolate landscapes.

 

Mammals in the park include otters, polecats, feral goats, and pine martens. Birds include raven, red-billed chough, peregrine, osprey, merlin and the red kite. The rainbow-coloured Snowdon beetle (Chrysolina cerealis) is only found in northern Snowdonia.

 

Snowdonia has a particularly high number of protected sites in respect of its diverse ecology; nearly 20% of its total area is protected by UK and European law. Half of that area was set aside by the government under the European Habitats Directive as a Special Area of Conservation. There are a large number of Sites of special scientific interest (or 'SSSIs'), designated both for fauna and flora but also in some cases for geology. Nineteen of these sites are managed as national nature reserves by Natural Resources Wales. The park also contains twelve Special Areas of Conservation (or 'SACs'), three Special Protection Areas (or 'SPAs') and three Ramsar sites. Some are wholly within the park boundaries, others straddle it to various degrees.

 

There are numerous SSSIs within the park, the most extensive of which are Snowdonia, Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt, Morfa Harlech, Rhinog, Berwyn, Cadair Idris, Llyn Tegid, Aber Mawddach / Mawddach Estuary, Dyfi, Morfa Dyffryn, Moel Hebog, Coedydd Dyffryn Ffestiniog and Coedydd Nanmor.

 

The following NNRs are either wholly or partly within the park: Allt y Benglog, Y Berwyn (in multiple parts), Cader Idris, Ceunant Llennyrch, Coed Camlyn, Coed Cymerau, Coed Dolgarrog, Coed Ganllwyd, Coed Gorswen, Coed Tremadog, Coedydd Aber, Coedydd Maentwrog (in 2 parts), Coed y Rhygen, Cwm Glas Crafnant, Cwm Idwal, Hafod Garregog, Morfa Harlech, Rhinog and Snowdon.

 

The twelve SACs are as follows: Snowdonia SAC which covers much of the Carneddau, Glyderau, and the Snowdon massif, Afon Gwyrfai a Llyn Cwellyn, Corsydd Eifionydd / Eifionydd Fens (north of Garndolbenmaen), the Coedydd Derw a Safleoedd Ystlumod Meirion / Meirionydd Oakwoods and Bat Sites - a series of sites between Tremadog, Trawsfynydd, and Ffestiniog and Beddgelert and extending up the Gwynant. It also includes many of the oakwoods of the Mawddach and its tributaries. Afon Eden – Cors Goch Trawsfynydd, Rhinog, Cadair Idris (in 2 parts), Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt, River Dee and Afon Dyfrdwy a Llyn Tegid (Wales), Mwyngloddiau Fforest Gwydir / Gwydyr Forest Mines (north of Betws-y-Coed) and a part of the Berwyn a Mynyddoedd De Clwyd / Berwyn and South Clwyd Mountains SAC. The Pen Llyn a'r Sarnau / Lleyn Peninsula and the Sarnau SAC covers the entire Cardigan Bay coastline of the park and the sea area and extends above the high water mark at Morfa Harlech, Mochras and around the Dovey and Mawddach estuaries.

 

The three SPAs are Dovey Estuary / Aber Dyfi (of which a part is within the park), Berwyn (of which a part is within the park) and Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt.

 

The three designated Ramsar sites are the Dyfi Biosphere (Cors Fochno and Dyfi), Cwm Idwal and Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake).

 

The area's economy was traditionally centred upon farming and from the early 19th century increasingly on mining and quarrying. Tourism has become an increasingly significant part of Snowdonia's economy during the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

The extensive farming of sheep remains central to Snowdonia's farming economy.

 

Significant sections of the park were afforested during the 20th century for timber production. Major conifer plantations include Dyfi Forest, Coed y Brenin Forest between Dolgellau and Trawsfynydd, Penllyn Forest south of Bala, Beddgelert Forest and Gwydyr (or Gwydir) Forest near Betws-y-Coed which is managed as a forest park by Natural Resources Wales.

 

The region was once the most important producer of slate in the world. Some production continues but at a much reduced level from its peak. The park boundaries are drawn such that much of the landscape affected by slate quarrying and mining lies immediately outside of the designated area.

 

Construction of a nuclear power station beside Llyn Trawsfynydd began in 1959 with the first power produced in 1965. The site was operational until 1991 though it continues as an employer during its decommissioning phase. Pumped storage hydroelectric schemes are in operation at Llanberis and Ffestiniog.

 

Research indicates that there were 3.67 million visitors to Snowdonia National Park in 2013, with approximately 9.74 million tourist days spent in the park during that year. Total tourist expenditure was £433.6 million in 2013.

 

Many of the hikers in the area concentrate on Snowdon itself. It is regarded as a fine mountain, but at times gets very crowded; in addition the Snowdon Mountain Railway runs to the summit.

 

The other high mountains with their boulder-strewn summits as well as Tryfan, one of the few mountains in the UK south of Scotland whose ascent needs hands as well as feet are also very popular. However, there are also some spectacular walks in Snowdonia on the lower mountains, and they tend to be relatively unfrequented. Among hikers' favourites are Y Garn (east of Llanberis) along the ridge to Elidir Fawr; Mynydd Tal-y-Mignedd (west of Snowdon) along the Nantlle Ridge to Mynydd Drws-y-Coed; Moelwyn Mawr (west of Blaenau Ffestiniog); and Pen Llithrig y Wrach north of Capel Curig. Further south are Y Llethr in the Rhinogydd, and Cadair Idris near Dolgellau.

 

The park has 1,479 miles (2,380 km) of public footpaths, 164 miles (264 km) of public bridleways, and 46 miles (74 km) of other public rights of way. A large part of the park is also covered by right to roam laws.

 

The Wales Coast Path runs within the park between Machynlleth and Penrhyndeudraeth, save for short sections of coast in the vicinity of Tywyn and Barmouth which are excluded from the park. It touches the park boundary again at Penmaen-bach Point on the north coast. An inland alternative exists between Llanfairfechan and Conwy, wholly within the park. The North Wales Path, which predates the WCP, enters the park north of Bethesda and follows a route broadly parallel to the north coast visiting Aber Falls and the Sychnant Pass before exiting the park on the descent from Conwy Mountain. The Cambrian Way is a long-distance trail between Cardiff and Conwy that stays almost entirely within the national park from Mallwyd northwards. It was officially recognised in 2019, and is now depicted on Ordnance Survey maps.

 

The use of the English names for the area has been divisive, with an increase in protests against their use since 2020; these led to the national park authority deciding to use Welsh names as far as legally possible in November 2022. An early example of pressure to deprecate Snowdon and Snowdonia was a 2003 campaign by Cymuned, inspired by campaigns to refer to Ayers Rock as Uluru and Mount Everest as Qomolangma.

 

In 2020 an e-petition calling for the removal of the English names was put forward to the Senedd, but rejected as responsibility lies with the national park authority. In 2021 an e-petition on the same topic attracted more than 5,300 signatures and was presented to the national park authority.

 

On 28 April 2021 Gwynedd councillor John Pughe Roberts put forward a motion to use the Welsh names exclusively, calling this a "question of respect for the Welsh language". The motion was not considered and delayed, as the national park authority already appointed a "Welsh Place Names Task and Finish Group" to investigate the issue. The park authority however cannot compel other bodies and/or individuals to stop using the English names, with the proposals facing some criticism.

 

In May 2021, following the dismissal of the motion, YouGov conducted a poll on Snowdon's name. 60% of Welsh adults supported the English name Snowdon, compared to 30% wanting the Welsh name Yr Wyddfa. Separating by language, 59% of Welsh speakers preferred the Welsh name, but 37% of these still wanted Snowdon to be used as well. 69% of non-Welsh speakers firmly supported Snowdon as the Mountain's name. The proposals to rename Snowdon are usually accompanied with proposals to rename Snowdonia.

 

On 16 November 2022, Members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority committee voted to use the Welsh names Yr Wyddfa and Eryri to refer to the mountain and the national park, rather than the English names, in materials produced by the authority. The national park authority described the decision as "decisive action" and the authority's head of culture heritage stated that Welsh place names were part of the area's "special qualities" and that other public bodies, English-language press and filming companies have used the Welsh-language names. Before the decision the park had already prioritised the Welsh names by using them first and giving the English names in parentheses. The name "Snowdonia" cannot be abandoned entirely, as it is set in law and so must be used in statutory documents. The authority announced a review of the authority's branding in 2023 to adapt to the new approach to Welsh place names.

 

Gwynedd is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The city of Bangor is the largest settlement, and the administrative centre is Caernarfon. The preserved county of Gwynedd, which is used for ceremonial purposes, includes the Isle of Anglesey.

 

Gwynedd is the second largest county in Wales but sparsely populated, with an area of 979 square miles (2,540 km2) and a population of 117,400. After Bangor (18,322), the largest settlements are Caernarfon (9,852), Bethesda (4,735), and Pwllheli (4,076). The county has the highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 64.4%, and is considered a heartland of the language.

 

The geography of Gwynedd is mountainous, with a long coastline to the west. Much of the county is covered by Snowdonia National Park (Eryri), which contains Wales's highest mountain, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa; 3,560 feet, 1,090 m). To the west, the Llŷn Peninsula is flatter and renowned for its scenic coastline, part of which is protected by the Llŷn AONB. Gwynedd also contains several of Wales's largest lakes and reservoirs, including the largest, Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid).

 

The area which is now the county has played a prominent part in the history of Wales. It formed part of the core of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the native Principality of Wales, which under the House of Aberffraw remained independent from the Kingdom of England until Edward I's conquest between 1277 and 1283. Edward built the castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, which form part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage Site. During the Industrial Revolution the slate industry rapidly developed; in the late nineteenth century the neighbouring Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarries were the largest in the world, and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is now a World Heritage Site. Gwynedd covers the majority of the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.

 

In the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant 'collection of tribes' – the same root as the Irish fine, meaning 'tribe'. Further, a connection is recognised between the name and the Irish Féni, an early ethnonym for the Irish themselves, related to fían, 'company of hunting and fighting men, company of warriors under a leader'. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə ('strive, hope, wish') is the Indo-European stem. The Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a memorial stone from c. AD 500 which reads: Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis ('Here lies Cantiorix, citizen of Gwynedd'). The name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974.

 

Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It covered the entirety of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, and all of Merionethshire apart from Edeirnion Rural District (which went to Clwyd); and also a few parishes of Denbighshire: Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan.

 

The county was divided into five districts: Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey.

 

The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the 1974 county (and the five districts) on 1 April 1996, and its area was divided: the Isle of Anglesey became an independent unitary authority, and Aberconwy (which included the former Denbighshire parishes) passed to the new Conwy County Borough. The remainder of the county was constituted as a principal area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire, as it covers most of the areas of those two historic counties. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996. The present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, but Arfon, Dwyfor and Meirionnydd remain as area committees.

 

The pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. In 2003, the boundary with Clwyd was adjusted to match the modern local government boundary, so that the preserved county now covers the two local government areas of Gwynedd and Anglesey. Conwy county borough is now entirely within Clwyd.

 

A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire forces. A further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. In one proposal for local government reform in Wales, Gwynedd had been proposed as a name for a local authority covering all of north Wales, but the scheme as enacted divided this area between Gwynedd and Clwyd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police.

 

The Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park fell entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd, and was run as a department of Gwynedd County Council. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, and the park's administration separated from the Gwynedd council. Gwynedd Council still appoints nine of the eighteen members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority; Conwy County Borough Council appoints three; and the Welsh Government appoints the remaining six.

 

There has been considerable inwards migration to Gwynedd, particularly from England. According to the 2021 census, 66.6% of residents had been born in Wales whilst 27.1% were born in England.

 

The county has a mixed economy. An important part of the economy is based on tourism: many visitors are attracted by the many beaches and the mountains. A significant part of the county lies within the Snowdonia National Park, which extends from the north coast down to the district of Meirionnydd in the south. But tourism provides seasonal employment and thus there is a shortage of jobs in the winter.

 

Agriculture is less important than in the past, especially in terms of the number of people who earn their living on the land, but it remains an important element of the economy.

 

The most important of the traditional industries is the slate industry, but these days only a small percentage of workers earn their living in the slate quarries.

 

Industries which have developed more recently include TV and sound studios: the record company Sain has its HQ in the county.

 

The education sector is also very important for the local economy, including Bangor University and Further Education colleges, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Coleg Menai, both now part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai.

 

The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.

Gwynedd has the highest proportion of people in Wales who can speak Welsh. According to the 2021 census, 64.4% of the population aged three and over stated that they could speak Welsh,[7] while 64.4% noted that they could speak Welsh in the 2011 census.

 

It is estimated that 83% of the county's Welsh-speakers are fluent, the highest percentage of all counties in Wales.[9] The age group with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd were those between ages 5–15, of whom 92.3% stated that they could speak Welsh in 2011.

 

The proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd declined between 1991 and 2001,[10] from 72.1% to 68.7%, even though the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales as a whole increased during that decade to 20.5%.

 

The Annual Population Survey estimated that as of March 2023, 77.0% of those in Gwynedd aged three years and above could speak Welsh.

 

Notable people

Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer; originated the Welsh Harlequin duck in Criccieth

Sir Dave Brailsford (born 1964), cycling coach; grew up in Deiniolen, near Caernarfon

Duffy (born 1984), singer, songwriter and actress; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Edward II of England (1284–1327), born in Caernarfon Castle

Elin Fflur (born 1984), singer-songwriter, TV and radio presenter; went to Bangor University

Bryn Fôn (born 1954), actor and singer-songwriter; born in Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire.

Wayne Hennessey (born 1987), football goalkeeper with 108 caps for Wales; born in Bangor, Gwynedd

John Jones (c. 1530 – 1598), a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest and martyr; born at Clynnog

Sir Love Jones-Parry, 1st Baronet (1832–1891), landowner and politician, co-founder of the Y Wladfa settlement in Patagonia

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), archaeologist, army officer and inspiration for Lawrence of Arabia, born in Tremadog

David Lloyd George (1863–1945), statesman and Prime Minister; lived in Llanystumdwy from infancy

Sasha (born 1969), disc jockey, born in Bangor, Gwynedd

Sir Bryn Terfel (born 1965), bass-baritone opera and concert singer from Pant Glas

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect of Portmeirion

Owain Fôn Williams, (born 1987), footballer with 443 club caps; born and raised in Penygroes, Gwynedd.

Hedd Wyn (1887–1917), poet from the village of Trawsfynydd; killed in WWI

Rocks in the water form small islands.

published on Photo Vogue Italia: www.vogue.it/en/photovogue/Portfolio/142d1b25-83a5-4f38-8...

Night life in a big city

Note: for reasons I don't understand at all, this photo was published as an illustration in an undated (Feb 2010) Squidoo blog titled "Barely Balanced."

 

Moving into 2014, the photo was published in an equally strange context, in a "Team Wedding" blog titled "‘Shacking-Up’ Before Getting Married."

 

Note: A large percentage of my "landscape" photos (including the ones in this set) are now copyright-protected, and are not available for downloads and free use. You can view them here in Flickr, but if you would like prints, enlargements, framed copies, and other variations, please visit my SmugMug "NYC HDR" gallery by clicking here.

 

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With the frigid weather these past couple of weeks, and with the sun way far south on the horizon, we've had some spectacular sunsets here in New York City. Unfortunately, they only last for a few minutes; you're either out there, ready to photograph, or you're not. If I were leading the life of sloth and leisure that I'd prefer, then I'd set aside an hour each afternoon, and just watch the progress of the sun and sky; but it doesn't usually work that way. Instead, I'm usually in my office, staring at boring, work-related trivia on my computer screen, and my wife yells at me from the kitchen, "... wow, that's a really great sunset tonight!"

 

On this particular occasion, it was not only bone-chilling cold outside, it was also quite blustery. I'm not talking about a few modest puffs of wind from time to time, but a steady (frigid) blast punctuated by gusts almost strong enough to knock me over. Meanwhile, the light was changing rapidly; and while I had brought my camera with me when I scampered out onto our 21st-floor balcony to get a better look at the sky, I had not brought my tripod.

 

Indeed, the light was fading so quickly that I figured I had only one chance to capture the scene. In the few seconds that it took to adjust the camera settings to capture a 5-shot HDR image, my fingers had become almost numb. I could see that I would need a fairly high ISO setting to ensure a fast enough shutter speed to allow a hand-held shot; and then I balanced the camera on the balcony railing and pressed the shutter speed, and waited to hear five consecutive "clack" sounds of the shutter.

 

Unfortunately, a huge gust of wind hit me at just that moment -- and it almost made me lose my grip on the camera. Rattled, I let go of the camera's shutter button after only four "clacks" -- so this is a four-image HDR shot, instead of the five I intended. Also, because of the high ISO setting, there's a fair amount of noise in the resulting image. I did my best to improve it with a plug-in program called "Noise Ninja," but it's barely adequate.

 

Normally, my reaction to a situation like this would be to shrug and delete all of the images; after all, tomorrow is another day, and there's a sunset every single day. But even on the non-cloudy days, we often have one boring sunset after another ... so it could be weeks before I'll see anything like this again. To make matters worse, I'll be out of town next week; and by the time I get back, the sun may have shifted, the temperature will (hopefully!) be warmer, and consequently the colors may be different.

 

So ... I've decided to keep the image. You may not like it, and you're welcome to stick out your tongue and make rude noises at it. Meanwhile, I'll just add it to my collection of sunset photos. Some are better than others -- but I'm a sucker for sunsets, so just about anything will do...

 

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Note: This is one of 12 photos that I've culled from several thousand that I took in 2009, for possible presentation at a Jan 2010 class I'm taking at the International Center of Photography (ICP), called "On Seeing What's Right In Front of You." The photos already exist in various other Flickr sets -- often just one or two out of a group of hundreds of related images -- and I've just pulled them together for this occasion.

 

In the spirit of the ICP class title, all of these photos were taken "right in front" of where I live -- i.e., within a hundred feet of my apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

 

The photos are organized as 6 separate pairs -- each pair illustrating a specific situation, close to home, where I had a particular motivation or strategy for taking photos. This particular photo illustrates the principles that you may have lots of potential shots "right in front of you," but they may last only a moment -- so you have to be prepared to grab your camera, and take advantage of the moment. Case in point: winter sunsets in NYC, which can be spectacular, but which only last a moment.

British postcard. in the Picturegoer Series, London Films, no. 1049. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for Sanders of the River (Zoltan Korda, 1935).

 

Paul Robeson (1898-1976) was a handsome, eloquent, and highly charismatic actor and singer, who became one of the foremost interpreters of Eugene O'Neill's plays and one of the most treasured names in song during the first half of the twentieth century. With his powerful bass singing voice, Robeson made an evergreen of the song 'Old Man River'. He starred in The Emperor Jones (1933), the first film to feature an African American in a starring role. At the height of his popularity in the 1930s, Robeson became a major box office attraction in British films. In the USA, he courted disdain and public controversy for most of his career as a staunch Cold War-era advocate for human rights, as well as his very vocal support for Joseph Stalin and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. While the backlash of his civil rights activities and left-wing ideology left him embittered and practically ruined his career, he remains today a durable symbol of racial pride and consciousness.

 

Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1898. His siblings were William, Benjamin, Reeve, and Marian Robeson. Their father, William Drew Robeson, was a humble Presbyterian minister and former slave. In 1900, a disagreement between William and white financial supporters of the Witherspoon church arose with apparent racial undertones. William, who had the support of his entirely black congregation, resigned in 1901. The loss of his position forced him to work menial jobs. The young, impressionable Paul grew up singing spirituals in his father's church. He was only six when he and his four siblings, William, Benjamin, Reeve, Marian, lost their mother, Maria Louisa Bustill, a schoolteacher. She was nearly blind and died in a stove fire accident at home. His father then raised the family singlehandedly. Paul was a natural athlete and the tall, strapping high school fullback had no trouble earning a scholarship to prestigious Rutgers University in 1915. At the age of 17, he became only the third member of his race to be admitted at the time. He excelled in football, baseball, basketball, and track, and field, and was the class valedictorian. In his speech, he was already preaching idealism. Paul subsequently played professional football to earn money while attending Columbia University's law school, and also took part in amateur dramatics. During this time he met and married Eslanda Cardozo Goode in 1921. She eventually became his personal assistant. Following graduation, he obtained work at a New York law firm, but quit when a stenographer refused to copy a memo, telling him, "I never take diction from a n*****." His wife persuaded him to play Simon in Ridgely Torrence's 'Simon the Cyrenian' at the Harlem YMCA in 1921. This was followed by his Broadway debut the following year as Jim in Mary Hoyt Wiborg's play 'Taboo', a drama set in Africa, which also went to London. As a result, he was asked to join the Provincetown Players, a Greenwich Village theatre group that included in its membership playwright Eugene O'Neill. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "O'Neill personally asked Paul to star in his plays 'All God's Chillun Got Wings' and 'The Emperor Jones' in 1924. The reaction from both critics and audiences alike was electrifying...an actor was born." In 1925, he sang the first concert recital consisting solely of black spirituals, at the Greenwich Village Theatre in New York. That year, he also made his film debut starring in Body and Soul (Oscar Micheaux, 1925). Gary Brumburgh: "a rather murky melodrama that nevertheless was ahead of its time in its depictions of black characters. Although Robeson played a scurrilous, corrupt clergyman who takes advantage of his own people, his dynamic personality managed to shine through." Radio and recordings helped spread his name across foreign waters. His resonant bass was a major highlight in the London production of Jerome Kern's and Oscar Hammerstein II's 'Show Boat'. The role of Joe, the deckhand, was written for him, but because of schedule conflicts and Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s delay in putting on the show, he had been unable to star in the first stage production but played the role in London five months later. His rendition of "Ol' Man River" became the benchmark for all future performers of the song. In 1928, he made the second-ever recording of 'Ol' Man River'. (Bing Crosby did the first). Show Boat continued for 350 performances. At the time no U.S. company would hire Robeson and so, he remained in London to play the role of William Shakespeare's 'Othello' in 1930. Paul caused a slight stir by co-starring opposite a white actress, Peggy Ashcroft, who played Desdemona. After his wife Essie discovered Robeson had been having an affair with Ashcroft, she decided to seek a divorce and they split up. Around this time Robeson starred in the film Borderline (Kenneth MacPherson, 1930), a silent film that dealt strongly with racial themes. Stephen Bourne at BFI Screen-on-Line: "Black characters in American cinema of the period rarely moved beyond Al Jolson in blackface, or the dim-witted buffoons played by comedy actors like Stepin Fetchit. For the ambitious Robeson, there were hardly any opportunities to play challenging roles." In 1931, he returned to the stage in the O'Neill play 'The Hairy Ape'. The following year he appeared in a Broadway revival of 'Show Boat' again as Joe, to critical and popular acclaim. In the same production, Helen Morgan repeated her original 1927 performance as the half-caste role of Julie, but the white actress Tess Gardella played the role of Queenie in her customary blackface opposite Robeson. In 1932, Ashcroft and Robeson's relationship ended. Robeson and Essie reconciled, although their relationship was scarred permanently.

 

Throughout the 1930s, Paul Robeson spent most of his time singing and performing in England. He also was given the opportunity to recapture two of his greatest stage successes on film: The Emperor Jones (Dudley Murphy, 1933) and Show Boat (James Whale, 1936), with Irene Dunne, Helen Morgan, and Hattie McDaniel. His performance of 'Old Man River' in this film version of Show Boat became legendary, both for its quality and for Robeson’s purposeful changing of the lyrics "I'm tired of livin' and 'feared of dyin’" to the more activist "I must keep fightin' until I'm dying". In Britain, he played Bosambo in Sanders of the River (Zoltan Korda, 1935), which he felt would render a realistic view of colonial African culture. It made Robeson an international film star. Stephen Bourne: "When Robeson became a major star in British films in the mid-1930s, he negotiated for roles that projected a positive image of a black man, roles that broke away from one-dimensional and offensive racial stereotypes. But he often found himself in conflict with an industry that glorified the British Empire and colonialism. This was certainly the case with his first commercial film, Sanders of the River (d. Zoltan Korda, 1935), one of a cycle of imperial adventures produced by Alexander Korda for London Films."Robeson also appeared in such British films as Song of Freedom (J. Elder Wills, 1936), King Solomon's Mines (Robert Stevenson, Geoffrey Barkas, 1937), Jericho (Thornton Freeland, 1937), and The Proud Valley (Pen Tennyson, 1940), set in a Welsh coal-mining town. After returning to America, Robeson played a sharecropper in a segment of the Hollywood movie Tales of Manhattan (Julien Duvivier, 1942) but, after the film was released, he was criticised for perpetuating a racist stereotype. Robeson agreed with his critics and volunteered to join protestors outside cinemas where the film was being shown. He said he wouldn't make any more films until there were better roles for blacks. During the 1930s he gravitated strongly towards economics and politics with a burgeoning interest in social activism. In 1934 he made the first of several trips to the Soviet Union and outwardly extolled the Soviet way of life and his belief that it lacked racial bias, despite the Holodomor and the later Rootless Cosmopolitan Campaign. He was a popular figure in Wales where he became personally involved in their civil rights affairs, notably the Welsh miners. Developing a marked leftist ideology, he continued to criticize the blatant discrimination he found so prevalent in America. In 1939, he premiered Earl Robinson’s multi-ethnic cantata 'Ballad for Americans' on CBS radio, which he would eventually perform in twenty-five languages. In addition to his creative work, Robeson used his personal prominence to push for social and political reform. He supported the Spanish partisans against Franco’s fascist Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, raised funds for refugees from Hitler’s Germany well before such activities were fashionable, and organized a coalition that challenged President Truman to support an anti-lynching law in 1945. The 1940s was a mixture of performance triumphs and poignant, political upheavals. While his title run in the musical drama 'John Henry' (1940), was short-lived, he earned widespread acclaim for his Broadway 'Othello' in 1943 opposite José Ferrer as Iago and Uta Hagen as Desdemona. This production is still the longest-running non-musical production of a Shakespeare play ever to be staged in the United States, due almost entirely to Robeson's enormous popularity. He appeared in a World War II-era U.S. Government War Department propaganda film, Easy to Get, aimed at combating the spread of venereal diseases among black soldiers. In the film, Robeson appears at the end in his capacity as a celebrity football star and singer to advise viewers to stay "clean". By this time, however, Robeson was being reviled by much of white America for his outspoken civil rights speeches against segregation and lynchings, particularly in the South. A founder of the Progressive Party, an independent political party, his outdoor concerts sometimes ignited violence and he was now a full-blown target for "Red Menace" agitators. In 1946, he denied under oath being a member of the Communist Party but steadfastly refused to refute the accusations under subsequent probes. His continued support for the Soviet Union became even more controversial after Stalin publicly turned against Israel in November 1948. As a result, his passport was withdrawn and he became engaged in legal battles for nearly a decade in order to retrieve it. Adding fuel to the fire was his only son's (Paul Jr.) marriage to a white woman in 1949 and his being awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952. He was unable to receive it until 1958 when his passport was returned to him.

 

Paul Robeson was essentially blacklisted, and tainted press statements continued to hound him. He began performing less and less in America. Despite his growing scorn towards America, he never gave up his American citizenship although the anguish of it all led to a couple of suicide attempts, nervous breakdowns, and a dependency on drugs. Europe was a different story. The people continued to hold him in high regard as an artist above reproach. He had a command of about 20 languages and wound up giving his last acting performance in Tony Richardson's production of 'Othello' at Stratford-on-Avon in 1959. Although he did give a few interviews on television, he never played any dramatic or musical roles in that medium. In 1960, in what was his final concert performance in Great Britain, Robeson sang to raise money for the Movement for Colonial Freedom at the Royal Festival Hall. In October 1960, Robeson embarked on a two-month concert tour of Australia and New Zealand with Essie. While in Sydney, he became the first major artist to perform at the construction site of the future Sydney Opera House. Back in London, Robeson expressed a desire to return to the United States and participate in the civil rights movement, while his wife argued that he would be unsafe there and "unable to make any money" due to government harassment. His health suddenly took a turn for the worse and he finally returned to the United States in 1963. His poet/wife Eslanda Robeson died of cancer two years later. Double pneumonia and a kidney blockage in 1965 nearly killed Robeson too. Robeson moved in with his son's family in New York City. He remained in poor health for pretty much the rest of his life. His last years were spent in Harlem at his sister's house in near-total isolation, denying all interviews and public correspondence. At a Carnegie Hall tribute to mark his 75th birthday in 1973, he was unable to attend, but a taped message from him was played that said: "Though I have not been able to be active for several years, I want you to know that I am the same Paul, dedicated as ever to the worldwide cause of humanity for freedom, peace, and brotherhood." In 1976, Paul Robeson died at age 77 of complications from a stroke. He was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Among his many honours: he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995; he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998; was honored with a postage stamp during the 'Black Heritage' series, and both a Cultural Center at Penn State University and a high school in Brooklyn bear his name. In 1995 his autobiography 'Here I Stand' was published in England in 1958. His son, Paul Robeson Jr., also chronicled a book about his father, 'Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist's Journey' in 2001. When appearing before HUAC, the Committee asked him why he didn't relocate to Russia. He replied: "Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay right here and have a part of it just like you."

 

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Stephen Bourne (BFI Screen-on-Line), Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. (AllMusic), Find A Grave, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

"Delaware Beach Life" -- July 2014 cover!

I was lucky to have another of my images published in the Spring 2014 Digital Photo Magazine.

The raven princess was published in the new issue of ADQ :-)

Found "in the wild" in the www ...

 

The original photo.

Arsène Lupin is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created by French writer Maurice Leblanc.

 

Lupin was featured in 20 novels and 28 short stories by Leblanc, with the short stories collected into book form for a total of 24 books. The first story, "L'Arrestation d'Arsène Lupin", was published in the magazine Je sais tout on 15 July 1905.

The character has also appeared in a number of books from other writers as well as numerous film, television , stage play, and comic book adaptations.

 

Arsene Lupin Contre Herlock Sholmes

Aside from the Arsène Lupin stories written by Maurice Leblanc (1864–1941) himself, five authorized sequels were written in the 1970s by the celebrated mystery writing team of Boileau-Narcejac.

 

The character of Lupin was first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazine Je sais tout, starting in No. 6, dated 15 July 1905. He was originally called Arsène Lopin, until a local politician of the same name protested, resulting in the name change.

 

Arsène Lupin is a literary descendant of Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail's Rocambole. Like him, he is often a force for good, while operating on the wrong side of the law. Those whom Lupin defeats, always with his characteristic Gallic style and panache, are worse villains than he. Lupin shares distinct similarities with E. W. Hornung's archetypal gentleman thief A. J. Raffles who first appeared in The Amateur Cracksman in 1899, but both creations can be said to anticipate and have inspired later characters such as Louis Joseph Vance's The Lone Wolf and Leslie Charteris's The Saint.

 

The character of Arsène Lupin might also have been based by Leblanc on French anarchist Marius Jacob, whose trial made headlines in March 1905, but Leblanc had also read Octave Mirbeau's Les 21 jours d'un neurasthénique (1901), which features a gentleman thief named Arthur Lebeau, and had seen Mirbeau's comedy Scrupules (1902), whose main character is a gentleman thief.

 

The official last book of the series, The Billions of Arsene Lupin, was published without the ninth chapter "The Safe" ("IX. Les coffres-forts"), and even the published book was withdrawn at Leblanc's son's request. However, in 2002, by the efforts of some Lupinians and Korean translator Sung Gwi-Su, the missing part was restored and the complete final collection of Arsene Lupin happened to be published first in Korea, from Kkachi Publishing House.

 

Arsène Lupin and Sherlock Holmes

 

Leblanc introduced Sherlock Holmes to Lupin in the short story "Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late" in Je sais tout No. 17, 15 June 1906. In it, Holmes meets a young Lupin for the first time. After legal objections from Conan Doyle, the name was changed to "Herlock Sholmes" when the story was collected in book form in Volume 1.

 

Sholmes returned in two more stories collected in Volume 2, "Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes", and then in a guest-starring role in the battle for the secret of the Hollow Needle in L'Aiguille creuse. Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes was published in the United States in 1910 under the title "The Blonde Lady" which used the name "Holmlock Shears" for Sherlock Holmes, and "Wilson" for Watson.

 

In 813, Lupin manages to solve a riddle that Herlock Sholmes was unable to figure out.

 

Sherlock Holmes, this time with his real name and accompanied by familiar characters such as Watson and Lestrade (all copyright protection having long expired), also confronted Arsène Lupin in the 2008 PC 3D adventure game Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin. In this game Holmes (and occasionally others) are attempting to stop Lupin from stealing five British valuable items. Lupin wants to steal the items in order to humiliate Britain, but he also admires Holmes and thus challenges him to try to stop him.

 

In a novella "The Prisoner of the Tower, or A Short But Beautiful Journey of Three Wise Men" by Boris Akunin published in 2008 in Russia as the conclusion of "Jade Rosary Beads" book, Sherlock Holmes and Erast Fandorin oppose Arsène Lupin on December 31, 1899.

 

Fantasy elements

 

Several Arsène Lupin novels contain some interesting fantasy elements: a radioactive 'god-stone' that cures people and causes mutations is the object of an epic battle in L’Île aux trente cercueils; the secret of the Fountain of Youth, a mineral water source hidden beneath a lake in the Auvergne, is the goal sought by the protagonists in La Demoiselle aux yeux verts; finally, in La Comtesse de Cagliostro, Lupin's arch-enemy and lover is none other than Joséphine Balsamo, the alleged granddaughter of Cagliostro himself.

 

Bibliography

1.Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar (Arsène Lupin, gentleman cambrioleur, 1907 coll., 9 stories) (AKA Exploits of Arsène Lupin, Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin)

2.Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes (Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmès, 1908 coll., 2 stories) (AKA The Blonde Lady)

3.The Hollow Needle (L'Aiguille creuse, 1909)

4.813 (813, 1910)

5.The Crystal Stopper (Le Bouchon de cristal, 1912)

6.The Confessions of Arsene Lupin (Les Confidences d'Arsène Lupin, 1913 coll., 9 stories)

7.The Shell Shard (L'Éclat d'obus, 1916) (AKA: Woman of Mystery) Not originally part of the Arsène Lupin series, Lupin was written into the story in the 1923 edition.

8.The Golden Triangle (Le Triangle d'or, 1918) (AKA: The Return of Arsène Lupin)

9.The Island of Thirty Coffins (L’Île aux trente cercueils, 1919) (AKA: The Secret of Sarek)

10.The Teeth of The Tiger (Les Dents du tigre, 1921)

11.The Eight Strokes of The Clock (Les Huit Coups de l'horloge, 1923 coll., 8 stories)

12.The Countess of Cagliostro (La Comtesse de Cagliostro, 1924) (AKA: Memoirs of Arsene Lupin)

13.The Damsel With Green Eyes (La Demoiselle aux yeux verts, 1927) (AKA: The Girl With the Green Eyes, Arsène Lupin, Super Sleuth)

14.The Overcoat of Arsène Lupin (Le Pardessus d'Arsène Lupin, published in English in 1926) First published in 1924 in France as Dent d'Hercule Petitgris. Altered into a Lupin story and published in English as The Overcoat of Arsène Lupin in 1926 in The Popular Magazine.

15.The Man with the Goatskin (L'Homme à la peau de bique (1927)

16.The Barnett & Co. Agency (L'Agence Barnett et Cie., 1928 coll., 8 stories) (AKA: Jim Barnett Intervenes, Arsène Lupin Intervenes)

17.The Mysterious Mansion (La Demeure mystérieuse, 1929) (AKA: The Melamare Mystery)

18.The Mystery of The Green Ruby (La Barre-y-va, 1930)

19.The Emerald Cabochon (Le Cabochon d'émeraude (1930)

20.The Woman With Two Smiles (La Femme aux deux sourires, 1933) (AKA: The Double Smile)

21.Victor of the Vice Squad (Victor de la Brigade mondaine, 1933) (AKA: The Return of Arsene Lupin)

22.The Revenge of The Countess of Cagliostro (La Cagliostro se venge, 1935)

23.The Billions of Arsène Lupin (Les Milliards d'Arsène Lupin, 1939)

24.The Last Love of Arsene Lupin (Le Dernier Amour d'Arsène Lupin, 2012)

 

Other material by LeBlanc

1.Arsène Lupin (Arsène Lupin (pièce de théâtre) Originally a 4-part play written by Maurice LeBlanc and Francis de Croisset, it was subsequently novelized by LeBlanc and published in 1909. It was then translated into English by Edgar Jepson and published in 1909 by Doubleday as "Arsene Lupin: By Maurice LeBlanc & Edgar Jepson"

 

By other writers

Boileau-Narcejac1.Le Secret d’Eunerville (1973)

2.La Poudrière (1974)

3.Le Second visage d’Arsène Lupin (1975)

4.La Justice d’Arsène Lupin (1977)

5.Le Serment d’Arsène Lupin (1979)

 

Notable pastiches

The Adventure of Mona Lisa by Carolyn Wells in The Century (January, 1912)

Sure Way to Catch Every Criminal. Ha! Ha! by Carolyn Wells in The Century (July, 1912)

The Adventure of the Clothes-Line by Carolyn Wells in The Century (May, 1915)

The Silver Hair Crime (= Clue?) by Nick Carter in New Magnet Library No. 1282 (1930)

Aristide Dupin who appears in Union Jack Nos. 1481, 1483, 1489, 1493 and 1498 (1932) in the Sexton Blake collection by Gwyn Evans

La Clé est sous le paillasson by Marcel Aymé (1934)

Gaspard Zemba who appears in The Shadow Magazine (December 1, 1935) by Walter B. Gibson

Arsène Lupin vs. Colonel Linnaus by Anthony Boucher in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Vo. 5, No. 19 (1944)

L’Affaire Oliveira by Thomas Narcejac in Confidences dans ma nuit (1946)

Le Gentleman en Noir by Claude Ferny (c. 1950) (two novels)

International Investigators, Inc. by Edward G. Ashton in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (February 1952)

Le Secret des rois de France ou La Véritable identité d’Arsène Lupin by Valère Catogan (1955)

In Compartment 813 by Arthur Porges in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (June 1966)

Arsène Lupin, gentleman de la nuit by Jean-Claude Lamy (1983)

Auguste Lupa in Son of Holmes (1986) and Rasputin’s Revenge (1987) by John Lescroart

Various stories in the Tales of the Shadowmen anthology series, ed. by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press (2005-ongoing)

Arsène Lupin is also referred to as the grandfather of Lupin III in the Japanese manga series of the same name. He appears in chapter 37 of the series.

Arsène Lupin and Sherlock Holmes have been the basis for the popular Japanese manga series Detective Conan. Kaitou Kid (originating from Magic Kaito) resembles and represents Lupin, while Conan Edogawa resembles and represents Sherlock Holmes.

In the Adventure of The Doraemons, the robot cat The Mysterious Thief Dorapent resembles Lupin.

A funny animal pastiche of Arsène Lupin is Arpin Lusène, of the Scrooge McDuck Universe.

Případ Grendwal (A Grendwal Case), a play by Pavel Dostál, Czech playwright and Minister of Culture

Tuxedo Mask from the popular Japanese manga and anime series Sailor Moon, also resembles Arsène Lupin.

Arsène Lupin et le mystère d'Arsonval by Michel Zink

Qui fait peur à Virginia Woolf ? (... Élémentaire mon cher Lupin !) by Gabriel Thoveron

Crimes parfaits by Christian Poslaniec

La Dent de Jane by Daniel Salmon (2001)

Les Lupins de Vincent by Caroline Cayol et Didier Cayol (2006)

Code Lupin by Michel Bussi (2006)

L'Église creuse by Patrick Genevaux (2009) (short story)

The Many Faces of Arsène Lupin collection of short stories edited by Jean-Marc Lofficier & Randy Lofficier (Black Coat Press, 2012)

 

Other Reading

Dorothée, Danseuse de Corde (1923) (The Secret Tomb) an eponymous heroine solves one of Arsène Lupin's four fabulous secrets.

 

Films

Arsène Lupin 2004 movie posterThe Gentleman Burglar (B&W., US, 1908) with William Ranows (Lupin).

Arsène Lupin (B&W., 1914) with Georges Tréville (Lupin).

Arsène Lupin (B&W., UK, 1915) with Gerald Ames (Lupin).

The Gentleman Burglar (B&W., US, 1915) with William Stowell (Lupin).

Arsène Lupin (B&W., US, 1917) with Earle Williams (Lupin).

The Teeth of the Tiger (B&W., US, 1919) with David Powell (Lupin).

813 (B&W., US, 1920) with Wedgewood Nowell (Lupin) and Wallace Beery.

Les Dernières aventures d'Arsène Lupin (B&W., France/Hungary, 1921).

813 - Rupimono (B&W., Japan, 1923) with Minami Mitsuaki (Lupin).

Arsène Lupin (B&W., US, 1932) with John Barrymore (Lupin).[1]

Arsène Lupin, Détective (B&W., 1937) with Jules Berry (Lupin).

Arsène Lupin Returns (B&W., US, 1938) with Melvyn Douglas (Lupin).

Enter Arsène Lupin (B&W., US, 1944) with Charles Korvin (Lupin).

Arsenio Lupin (B&W., Mexico, 1945) with R. Pereda (Lupin).

Nanatsu-no Houseki (B&W., Japan, 1950) with Keiji Sada (Lupin).

Tora no-Kiba (B&W., Japan, 1951) with Ken Uehara (Lupin).

Kao-no Nai Otoko (B&W., Japan, 1955) with Eiji Okada (Lupin).

Les Aventures d'Arsène Lupin (col., 1957) with Robert Lamoureux (Lupin).

Signé Arsène Lupin (B&W., 1959) with Robert Lamoureux (Lupin).

Arsène Lupin contre Arsène Lupin (B&W., 1962) with Jean-Pierre Cassel and Jean-Claude Brialy (Lupins).

Arsène Lupin (col., 2004) with Romain Duris (Lupin).

Lupin no Kiganjo (col., Japan, 2011) with Kōichi Yamadera (Lupin).

 

Television

Arsène Lupin, 26 60-minute episodes (1971, 1973–1974) with Georges Descrières (Lupin), Arsène Lupin at the Internet Movie Database.

L'Île aux trente cercueils, six 60-minute episodes (1979) (the character of Lupin, who only appears at the end of the novel, was removed entirely).

Arsène Lupin joue et perd, six 52-minute episodes (1980) loosely based on 813 with Jean-Claude Brialy (Lupin).

Le Retour d'Arsène Lupin, twelve 90-minute episodes (1989–1990) and Les Nouveaux Exploits d'Arsène Lupin, eight 90-minute episodes (1995–1996) with François Dunoyer (Lupin).

Lupin (Philippine TV series), Philippines (2007) with Richard Gutierrez (Lupin).

 

Stage

Arsène Lupin by Francis de Croisset and Maurice Leblanc. Four-act play first performed on October 28, 1908, at the Athenée in Paris.

Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmès by Victor Darlay & Henri de Gorsse. Four-act play first performed on October 10, 1910, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. (American edition ISBN 1-932983-16-3)

Le Retour d'Arsène Lupin by Francis de Croisset and Maurice Leblanc. One-act play first performed on September 16, 1911, at the Théâtre de la Cigale in Paris.

Arsène Lupin, Banquier by Yves Mirande & Albert Willemetz, libretto by Marcel Lattès. Three-act operetta, first performed on May 7, 1930, at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiennes in Paris.

A/L The Youth of Phantom Thief Lupin by Yoshimasa Saitou . Takarazuka Revue performance, 2007, starring Yūga Yamato and Hana Hizuki.

Rupan －ARSÈNE LUPIN－ by Haruhiko Masatsuka . Takarazuka Revue performance, 2013, starring Masaki Ryū and Reika Manaki (after Le Dernier Amour d'Arsène Lupin)

 

Comics and animation

Les Exploits d'Arsène Lupin aka Night Hood, produced by Cinar & France-Animation, 26 episodes for 24 min. in (1996)

Lupin III, the grandson of Arsène Lupin, a character created by Monkey Punch for a series of manga, anime television shows, movies and OVA's based in Japan and around the world. Because Monkey Punch did not seek permission to use the character from the Leblanc estate, the character was renamed in the early English adaptations and also had to be renamed when the anime series was broadcast on French TV.

Soul Eater episode 3, the introduction of Death The Kid and the Thompson Sisters initially depicts them chasing the demonic form of Arsène Lupin so that the sisters could claim and devour his soul. When Death The Kid begins panicking about the lack of symmetry with the sisters and their appearances, Lupin escapes down a manhole and is not seen for the rest of the episode.

Hidan no Aria episode 4, Riko Mine reveals that she is a descendant of Arsène Lupin after she hijacked the airplane that Aria took. She also reveals Aria's identity as the descendant of Sherlock Holmes.

The exploits of Arsène Lupin inspired an entire Phantom Thief (Kaitō) sub-genre of Japanese media.

Kaito Kid from the manga series Magic Kaito and Detective Conan is often compared to Arsene Lupin. Lupin is also highlighted in volume 4 of the Detective Conan manga's edition of "Gosho Aoyama's Mystery Library", a section of the graphic novels (usually the last page) where the author introduces a different detective (or in this case, a villain/detective) from literature.

Meimi Haneoka, who "transforms" into Kaitō Saint Tail heavily inspired by Arsene Lupin, a thief with acrobatic and magician skills, from Saint Tail (by Megumi Tachikawa)

Chizuko "Chiko" Mikamo, from The Daughter of Twenty Faces.

There is also an ongoing manga adaptation of Arsene Lupin first published in 2011, from Gundam artist Takashi Morita.

 

Comics

Arsene Lupin, as he appeared in volume 4 of Case ClosedArsène Lupin, written by Georges Cheylard, art by Bourdin. Daily strip published in France-Soir in 1948-49.

Arsène Lupin, written & drawn by Jacques Blondeau. 575 daily strips published in Le Parisien Libéré from 1956-58.

Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmès: La Dame blonde, written by Joëlle Gilles, art by Gilles & B. Cado, published by the authors, 1983.

Arsène Lupin, written by André-Paul Duchateau, artist Géron, published by C. Lefrancq. 1.Le Bouchon de cristal (1989)

2.813 — La Double Vie d'Arsène Lupin (1990)

3.813 — Les Trois crimes d'Arsène Lupin (1991)

4.La Demoiselle aux yeux verts (1992)

5.L'Aiguille creuse (1994)

 

Arpin Lusène is featured as a character in the Donald Duck & Co stories The Black Knight (1997), Attaaaaaack! (2000) and The Black Knight GLORPS again! (2004) by Don Rosa.

In Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Lupin is featured as a member of Les Hommes Mysterieux, the French analogue of Britain's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

 

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 36.222+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on May 18th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1225230357 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,301st frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of six metres, at 09:28am on Thursday 5th September 2019 off Cordova Bay road on the shoreline of Mt Douglas Beach in Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 24mm Shutter speed 1/15s Aperture f/16.0 iso80 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Hand held with Nikon VR Vibration reduction enabled. Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.6 (2 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 29m 48.45s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 19m 58.45s

ALTITUDE: 6.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 91.6MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 37.70MB

    

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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Published in the first issue of Solstice Magazine! You can purchase a physical and digital copy over at www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/961224?__r=595737 See our images on pages 80-89!

 

See more on my website at: www.tomsimmonds.com | www.tomsimmonds.com/analoguebox

 

And in my blog: clickedbytom.tumblr.com/post/125553101104/concrete | thomascolesimmondsphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/conc...

 

Model: Jade Lindo at Oxygen Model Management

Make-up: Izzy Cammareri

Stylist: Lauren Segal

Designer: Frida Hoffman

Photography: Thomas Cole Simmonds Photography

 

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The portrait of Romanian Countess Anna de Noailles, Princess Bassaraba Brancovan is one of the iconic paintings of the 20th century by the Basque painter Ignacio Zuloaga.

Anna de NoaIles biography is the object of a new Anthology published as an E-Book under the title:

"Blouse Roumaine - the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women"

 

Presented and Selected by Constantin ROMAN

 

Anthology E-BOOK (11BM)

 

DISTRIBUTION: Online with credit card

 

COST: $ 54.99, £34.99 (ca Euros 35.50)

 

LINK: www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

 

CONTENTS:

 

2,250,000 words,

 

over 1,000 pages,

 

ca 160 illustrations in text

 

160 critical biographies,

 

58 social categories/professions,

 

600 quotations (mostly translated into English for the first time),

 

circa 3,000 bibliographical references (including URLs and credits)

 

6 Indexes (alphabetical, by profession, timeline, quotation Index, place

 

index and name index)

 

AUTHOR: Constantin Roman is a Scholar with a Doctorate from Cambridge and a Member of the Society of Authors (London). He is an International Adviser, Guest Speaker, Professor Honoris Causa and Commander of the Order of Merit.

  

INDEX BY PROSFESSION: 58 CATEGORIES by Call, Profession or Social Status

 

Academics (22), Actresses (9), Anti-Communist Fighters (14), Architects/Interior Designers (2), Art Critics (9), Artist Book Binders (1), Ballerinas (6), Charity Workers/Benefactors (20), Communist Public Figures (2), Courtesans (3), Designers (2), Diplomats (4), Essayists (11), Ethnographers (6), Exiles & First-generation Romanians born abroad (87), Explorers (1), Feminists (12), Folk Singers (1), Gymnasts, Dressage Riders (2), Historians (5), Honorary Romanian Women (15), Illustrators (3), Journalists (13), Lawyers (4), Librarians (3), Linguists (2), Literary Critics (1), Media (15), Medical Doctors/Nurses (5), Memoir Writers (16), Missionaries and Nuns (4), Mountainéers (2), Museographers (1), Musical Instruments Makers (1), Novelists (24), Opera Singers (16), Painters (14), Peasant Farmers (6), Philosophers and Philosophy Graduates (4), Pianists (6), Pilots (4), Playwrights (5), Poets (29), Political Prisoners (30), Politicians (5), Revolutionaries (2), Royals and Aristocrats (34), Scientists (8), Sculptors (4), Slave (1), Socialites/Hostesses (20), Spouses/Relations of Public Figures (51), Spies (2), Tapestry Weavers (4), Translators (25), Unknown Illustrious (6), Violinists (4), Workers (3)

 

NOTE:

Most of the above 160 Romanian women, in the best tradition of versatility, are true polymaths and therefore nearly each one of them falls in more than just one category, often three or more. This explains why adding the numbers of the 57 individual categories bears no relation to the actual total of the above 160 women included in Blouse Roumaine.

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LIST OF 160 CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES (each supported by Quotations and Bibliography)

 

AA *Gabriela Adamesteanu *Florenta Albu *Nina Arbore *Elena Arnàutoiu *Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnàutoiu, *Laurentia Arnàutoiu *Mariea Plop - Arnàutoiu *Ana Aslan *Lady Elizabeth Asquith Bibescu

 

BB *Lauren Bacall *Lady Florence Baker *Zoe Bàlàceanu *Ecaterina Bàlàcioiu-Lovinescu *Victorine de Bellio *Pss. Marta Bibescu *Adriana Bittel *Maria Prodan Bjørnson *Ana Blandiana *Yvonne Blondel *Lola Bobescu *Smaranda Bràescu *Elena Bràtianu *Élise Bràtianu *Ioana Bràtianu *Elena Bràtianu- Racottà *Letitzia Bucur

 

CC *Anne-Marie Callimachi *Georgeta Cancicov *Madeleine Cancicov *Pss. Alexandra Cantacuzino *Pss.Maria Cantacuzino (Madame Puvis de Chavannes) *Pss. Maruca Cantacuzino-Enesco* Pss. Catherine Caradja *Elena Caragiani-Stoenescu *Marta Caraion-Blanc, *Nina Cassian, *Otilia Cazimir *Elena Ceausescu *Maria Cebotari *Ioana Celibidache *Hélène Chrissoveloni (Mme Paul Morand)*Alice Cocea *Irina Codreanu *Lizica Codreanu *Alina Cojocaru *Nadia Comàneci *Denisa Comànescu *Lena Constante *Silvia Constantinescu *Doina Cornea *Hortense Cornu *Viorica Cortez*Otilia Cosmutzà *Sandra Cotovu *Ileana Cotrubas *Carmen-Daniela Cràsnaru *Mioara Cremene *Florica Cristoforeanu *Pss. Elena Cuza

 

DD *Hariclea Darclée *Cella Delavrancea *Alina Diaconú *Varinca Diaconú *Anca Diamandy *Marie Ana Dràgescu *Rodica Dràghincescu *Bucura Dumbravà *Natalia Dumitrescu

 

EE *Micaela Eleutheriade *Queen Elisabeth of Romania (‘Carmen Sylva’) *Alexandra Enescu *Mica Ertegün

 

FF *Lizi Florescu, *Maria Forescu *Nicoleta Franck *Aurora Fúlgida

 

GG *Angela Gheorghiu *Pss Grigore Ghica *Pss. Georges Ghika (Liane de Pougy) *Veturia Goga *Maria Golescu *Nadia Gray *Olga Greceanu *Pss. Helen of Greece *Nicole Valéry-Grossu *Carmen Groza

 

HH *Virginia Andreescu Haret *Clara Haskil *Lucia Hossu-Longin

 

II *Pss. Ileana of Romania *Ana Ipàtescu *Marie-France Ionesco *Dora d’Istria *Rodica Iulian

 

JJ *Doina Jela *Lucretia Jurj

 

KK *Mite Kremnitz

 

LL *Marie-Jeanne Lecca *Madeleine Lipatti *Monica Lovinescu *Elena Lupescu

 

MM *Maria Mailat *Ileana Màlàncioiu *Ionela Manolesco *Lilly Marcou *Silvia Marcovici *Queen Marie of Romania *Ioana A. Marin *Ioana Meitani *Gabriela Melinescu *Veronica Micle *Nelly Miricioiu *Herta Müller *Alina Mungiu-Pippidi *Agnes Kelly Murgoci

 

NN *Mabel Nandris *Anita Nandris-Cudla *Lucia Negoità *Mariana Nicolesco *Countess Anna de Noailles *Ana Novac

 

OO *Helen O’Brien *Oana Orlea

 

PP *Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu *Milita Pàtrascu *Ana Pauker *Marta Petreu *Cornelia Pillat *Magdalena Popa *Elvira Popescu

 

RR *Ruxandra Racovitzà *Elisabeta Rizea *Eugenia Roman *Stella Roman *Queen Ana de România, *Pss. Margarita de România *Maria Rosetti *Elisabeth Roudinesco

 

SS *Annie Samuelli *Sylvia Sidney *Henriette-Yvonne Stahl *Countess Leopold Starszensky *Elena Stefoi *Pss. Marina Stirbey *Sanda Stolojan *Cecilia Cutzescu-Storck

 

TT *Maria Tànase *Aretia Tàtàrescu *Monica Theodorescu *Elena Theodorini

 

UU *Viorica Ursuleac

 

VV *Elena Vàcàrescu *Leontina Vàduva *Ana Velescu *Marioara Ventura *Anca Visdei *Wanda Sachelarie Vladimirescu *Alice Steriade Voinescu

 

WW *Sabina Wurmbrand

 

ZZ *Virginia Zeani

  

Published by La Selva, Brazil

 

Artist Jayme Cortez

 

Hres triptych published in

. Y Sin Embargo Magazine 22 - cap it all/off

. Ms Use 3 - Cyber-sex

 

___________________________________

Outlining a Theory of General Creativity . .

. . on a 'Pataphysical projectory

 

Entropy ≥ Memory ● Creativity ²

___________________________________

 

The mecanosphere draws out and actualises configurations which exist amongst an infinity of others in fields of virtuality. Existential machines are at the same level as being in its intrinsic multiplicity. (...) They are to themselves their own material of semiotic expression. Existence, as a deterritorialisation process, is a specific inter-machinic operation which superimposes itself on the promotion of singularised existential intensities. (...) Existence is not dialectical, not representable. It is hardly livable!

 

(...) The machines of desire, the machines of aesthetic creation, just as scientific machines constantly modify our cosmic frontiers. As such, they hold an eminent place within assemblages of subjectivation, themselves called to relieve our old social machines which are incapable of keeping up the efflorescence of machinic revolutions that shatter our epoch from all sides. Rather than adopting a reticent attitude with respect to the immense machinic revolution sweeping the planet (at the risk of destroying it) or of clinging traditional value systems, pretending to re-establish transcendence, the movement of progress, or if one prefers, the movement of process, will endeavour to reconcile values and machines.

 

(...) The machinic systems position themselves in a rhizome of interdependence, situating each actual machinic stasis at the conjunction of a passed filiation and a Phylum of future mutations. All value systems - religious, aesthetic, scientific, ecosophical, ... - install themselves at this machinic interface between the required actualised and the virtual possibilist. (...) Thus a double enunciation: finite, territorialised and incorporeal, infinite.

 

(...) To the sterile opposition between use-value and exchange-value will here be relinquished in favour of an axiological complexion including all machinic modalities of valorisation: the values of desire, aesthetic values, ecological values, economic values, etc. (...) Economic law, like juridical law, must be deducted from the ensemble of Universes of value, for whose collapse it continually strives. Its reconstruction, on the scaterred debris of planned economies and neoliberalism and according to new ethico-political finalities (ecosophy) calls for, in contradistinction, an untiring renewal of the consistency of machinic assemblages of valorisation.

 

( Félix Guattari - Chaosmosis - 1992 )

 

___________________________________

rectO-persO | E ≥ m.C² | co~errAnce | TiLt

The Blue Plaque commemorating Captain George Manby on his former home, now 'Manby House', 86 High Road, Gorleston, Norfolk.

 

George William Manby, Fellow of the Royal Society, was born in the village of Denver on the edge of the Norfolk Fens. His parents were Captain Matthew Pepper Manby (1735-1774), lord of the manor of Wood Hall in Hilgay, a former soldier and aide-de-camp to Lord Townshend and barrack-master of Limerick at his death and Mary Woodcock (1741-1783).

Manby went to school at Downham Market followed by the Free Grammar School in King's Lynn.

He volunteered to fight in the American War of Independence, aged 17, but was rejected because of his youth and his small size. Instead, he entered the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. He is listed as one of the Artillery cadets on 31st. March 1784. On 21st. April 1788 he obtained a commission as a Lieutenant in the Cambridgeshire Militia where he gained the rank of Captain. He left the regiment in the Spring of 1793.

He married Jane Preston in December, 1793 the only daughter of Rev. Dr. Preston JP, of Waldingfield and Rougham and inherited his wife's family's estates. He left her in 1801 after being shot by her lover Captain Pogson of the East India Company and moved to Clifton, Bristol. There, he published several books, including The History and Antiquities of St David's (1801), Sketches of the History and Natural Beauties of Clifton (1802), and A Guide from Clifton to the Counties of Monmouth, Glamorgan, etc. (1802). In 1803, his pamphlet An Englishman's Reflexions on the Author of the Present Disturbances, on Napoleon's plans to invade England, came to the attention of the Secretary of War, Robert Hobart, 4th. Earl of Buckinghamshire, who was impressed and recommended Manby to be appointed as Barrack-Master at Great Yarmouth in September, 1803.

On 18th. February 1807, as a helpless onlooker, he witnessed a Royal Navy ship, HMS Snipe carrying French prisoners run aground 50 yards off Gorleston beach during a storm. Several other vessels were wrecked along the Norfolk and Suffolk coast that day and according to some accounts a total of 214 people drowned, including French prisoners of war, women and children. The figure of '67 brave men' for the Snipe was quoted in the House of Commons in June 1808. Following this tragedy, Manby experimented with mortars, and so invented the Manby Mortar, later to be used with the breeches buoy, that fired a thin rope from shore into the rigging of a ship in distress. A strong rope, attached to the thin one, could be pulled aboard the ship. His successful invention supposedly followed an experiment as a youth in 1783, when he shot a mortar carrying a line over Downham church.

Manby carried out a successful demonstration of his apparatus before the Suffolk Humane Society and a very large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen at Lowestoft, on the 26th. August and 10th. September 1807, on the former John Rous, 1st. Earl of Stradbroke, their President was present.

Sergeant, later Lieutenant, John Bell, Royal Artillery had in 1791 successfully demonstrated the use of a mortar to throw a line to shore and use it to float men to the shore, he had also suggested that these be held in ports to throw a line to a ship, he was awarded 50 Guineas by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Another earlier, similar design to Manby's invention had been made in the late 18th. century by the French agronomist and inventor Jacques Joseph Ducarne de Blangy. Manby's invention was independently arrived at, and there is no suggestion that he copied de Blangy's idea.

In 1808 the crew of a brig were rescued at Gt. Yarmouth by the use of Manby's device fired from a gun carriage and supervised by Manby.

The following is from page two of the The Ipswich Journal, 27th. February 1808.

"Captain G. Manby's invention of throwing a rope to a ship stranded on a lee shore, for the purpose of saving the crew, proved the certainty of its never-failing success on the Elizabeth of Plymouth, that was wrecked on the beach at Yarmouth in the tremendous gale of the 12th. instant, the master, who is part owner, making so grateful an affidavit before the Mayor of that place, he expressed a desire to see the experiment tried, which took place on Monday last, in the presence of Vice Admiral Douglas, several officers of the navy, the merchants, and many persons from different parts of the coast, the wind was blowing very fresh on shore, and the spot chosen 130 yards from a stranded brig, with all her emblems of distress flying. A galloper carriage, drawn by one horse, brought, with considerable expedition, every requisite for the service, a 5 1/2 inch royal mortar being dismounted, a 1 1/4 inch rope (having a 24 pounder shot appended to it) was staked in its front, about 2 feet from the shot the rope passed through a collar of leather, effectually preventing its burning, being projected by one pound of powder, more than 100 yards over the vessel, part of the rope fell upon the rigging, the persons on board returning a rope by the one sent, hauled off a stout rope, with a smaller one rove through a tailed block, the larger being made fast to the foot of the main top mast, the other end to a long, gun tackle, secured to three iron-shod stakes, driven triangularly in the ground, the tackle being bowsed, kept the rope sufficiently tight, and by persons easing off the fall, as the ship rolled, prevented danger to the rope, or to what it was lashed being carried away; the tailed block was made fast under the large rope, and each end of the small rope to the extremities of a ham-mock, extended by a stretcher of wood, (fitted up like the pole of a tent, for the convenience of a carriage), having gudgeons with forelock pins, through which was rove the great rope. By the assistance of one person from the shore, the hammock travelled to and fro, bringing all the people who were assembled in the main top, one by one, in perfect ease and safety, a service that can always be performed, when it is impossible for any boat to give the least assistance and be done when persons are initiated in the several uses, in a quarter an hour. Every person present testified their highest approbation, and several gave certificates that had a similar system and apparatus been placed at Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Winterton and Happisbro', on the 18th. February 1807 (on which distressing day the idea first suggested itself to the inventor), more than 100 persons would have been saved. It is most earnestly to be hoped it will be generally adopted, being a circumstance of such magnitude to this country, and deeply interesting to the world at large".

 

Manby was one of those to receive an honorary award at the Annual Festival of the Royal Humane Society in the May following the rescue. In June 1808 Manby received a gold medal from The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, via the hands of Henry Howard, 13th. Duke of Norfolk, for forming a communication with ships by means of a rope thrown over the vessel from a mortar gun on the shore. In August 1808 Manby received a medallion from the Suffolk Humane Society. Following the awards he later made a demonstration to the armed forces of the use of his apparatus. The following is from page 3 of the Sun (London), 7th. October 1808.

"SHIPWRECKED MARINERS.

On Tuesday last a most interesting and highly important experiment was made at Woolwich, by Captain MANBY, of Yarmouth, on a Vessel at anchor in the Thames, upwards of 100 yards from the shore, before a Committee of General Officers of Artillery, Commissioner CUNNINGHAM, Admiral LOSACK and several Officers of the Royal Navy, for the purpose of effecting a communication with a Ship stranded on a lee shore, and to bring the crew in perfect safety from the wreck. A rope was projected from a Royal Mortar across the Ship supposed to be stranded, by which was hauled on board by the crew a large rope, to be made fast to the mast-head, and kept at a proper degree of tension for a cot to travel on it, by a tackle purchase, that likewise admitted of the vessel's rolling : at the same time was sent to the ship a tailed block, with a small rope rove through it; each end of the small rope was made fast to the ends of the cot, that conveyed it to the Ship, and brought a person in perfect safety to the shore. The whole service was performed in a quarter of an hour, to the utmost gratification and highest approbation of every one present, particularly several eminent naval characters, who were heard to congratulate and express their warmest encomiums to the inventor for his very ingenious and laudable contrivance".

 

The device was successfully used in rescues by Sea Fencibles from Great Yarmouth and Winterton in 1810.

The Official Copy of a Report from the Committee of Field Officers of Artillery, containing an Account of the Experiments made at Woolwich on the 18th. and 20th. May 1811 alluded to the work of Lieutenant Bell, RA and his successful demonstration of a mortar to shoot a line in 1791.

Manby's invention was officially adopted in 1814, and a series of mortar stations were established around the coast. It was estimated that by the time of his death nearly 1,000 persons had been rescued from stranded ships by means of his apparatus.

Manby also built an 'unsinkable' boat. The first test indeed proved it to be floating when mostly filled with water, however, the seamen (who disliked Manby) rocked the boat back and forth, so that it eventually turned over. The boatmen depended on the cargo left over from shipwrecks, and may have thought Manby's mortar a threat to their livelihood.

The property that Manby owned in Yarmouth Denes was advertised in an auction notice in 1812 as he was leaving Yarmouth.

In February 1813 Manby gave a lecture to the Highland Society of Edinburgh followed by a demonstration on Bruntsfield links, Edinburgh. The gun was fired by use of a chemical to set off the charge, to overcome the problems caused by gunpowder getting damp in the storm conditions, often experienced when carrying out rescues.

In 1813 Manby invented the 'Extincteur', the first portable pressurised fire extinguisher. This consisted of a copper vessel of 3 gallons of pearl ash (potassium carbonate) solution contained within compressed air. He also invented a device intended to save people who had fallen through ice.

In July 1813 Manby's profile was increased when his portrait featured in the European Magazine.

On Friday 30th. August 1816 a committee of the Board of Ordnance and Lords of the Admiralty observed a demonstration of Manby's fire extinguisher and other equipment.

On 10th. March 1818 he married Sophia Gooch, daughter of Sir Thomas Gooch, 4th. Baronet.

In 1821 he sailed to Greenland with William Scoresby, for the purpose of testing a new type of harpoon for whaling, based on the same principles as his mortar. However, his device was sabotaged by the whalers. He published his account in 1822 as 'Journal of a Voyage to Greenland', containing observations on the flora and fauna of the Arctic regions as well as the practice of whale hunting. As a result of that voyage, Manby espoused three ideas: 1 - that there might still be Norse survivors in the so-called ‘Lost Colony’ in East Greenland, 2 - that Britain should claim the area of East Greenland north of the area claimed by Denmark, 3 - and that this area should be developed as a penal colony.

In June 1823 a House of Commons committee of supply voted Manby £2,000 for his lifesaving apparatus.

Manby was present at the London Tavern on 4th. March 1824 for the foundation of the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later to become the RNLI. He was one of the first five persons to receive their gold medal in 1825. Manby is considered by some to be a true founder of the RNLI.

In 1825 the King of Sweden (via the mayor of Gt. Yarmouth) presented Manby with a splendid medallion in token of his Majesty's approbation of the Captain's humane merit, and inventions. In 1828 the King of Denmark (via his consul) presented Manby with a gold medal "accompanied with a letter, communicating His Majesty's gracious approbation of his philanthopic and arduous exertions in saving the crews of shipwrecked vessels."

On 4th. August 1830 he attended court and presented King William IV with a Treatise on the Preservation of Mariners from Stranded Vessels, and the Prevention of Shipwreck, with a Statement of the number of subjects of different nations saved by that plan, by Sir Robert Peel.

Manby was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1831 in recognition of his many accomplishments.

Manby was the first to advocate a national fire brigade. In April 1838 Charles Wood, aged 17, a drummer in the 1st. Battalion Grenadier Guards was killed by a fall caused by a faulty component when carrying out a trial of Manby's apparatus for fire rescues from buildings. Manby received a silver medal from the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire in May 1838.

In March 1842, Manby received a belated Queen Victoria Gold Coronation Medal.

In October 1843 Sophia died. When Manby retired his post as Barrack-master was terminated and he was required to moved out of his accommodation. Manby, obsessed with Nelson, later turned his home 'Pedestal House' into a Nelson museum filled with memorabilia, even having an internal wall knocked down to create a Nelson Gallery, and living in the basement.

A letter to the local paper in 1845 describes Manby as a Freeman of Yarmouth.

Following a meeting chaired by Yarmouth's mayor in 1849, Manby's apparatus was exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and was awarded a medal.

In 1852 it was reported Manby had donated part of his collection, the 'Nelson Cabinet' to King's Lynn museum.

Queen Victoria presented Manby with the sum of £100 from the Royal Bounty Fund in December 1852.

Ten days short of his eighty-nine birthday, Manby died on 18th. November 1854 at his home in Gorleston and he was buried at All Saints church in Hilgay on the 24th. A plaque in the church reads;

IN THE CHURCHYARD NEAR THIS SPOT REST THE BONES OF GEORGE WILLIAM MANBY CAPTAIN. F.R.S. A NAME TO BE REMEMBERED AS LONG AS THERE CAN BE A STRANDED SHIP. HE DIED NOV'R 18. 1854, AGED 88 years. OUT OF HIS EIGHT BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE LARGE MARBLE STONE ALSO RECORDED THE DEATHS OF MARY JANE AUGUST 3rd 1772 AGED 10 YEARS. JOHN MAY 20th 1783 AGED 10 YEARS, AND OF TWO INFANTS.

An inscription underneath reads 'The public should have paid this tribute.

The contents of Pedestal House were auctioned on Tuesday 19th. December 1854. Pedestal House and the 'Manby Crest' public house were auctioned on 28th. May 1855 at the Star Inn.

 

Awards

No.1 - Queen's Gold Coronation Medal "as a mark of the sense she entertains of the usefulness of his inventions in the Preservation of Lives from Shipwreck."

No.2 - A gold medal from Charles X, King of the French, 1828.

No.3 - Gold medal from William, King of the Netherlands, 1830. No.4 - Gold medal from Frederick, King of Denmark.

No.5 - Gold medal from Charles. XIV, King of Sweden and Norway.

No.6 - Gold medal from the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, (London), voted 15th Dec. 1830.

No.7 - Gold medal from the Society of Arts, Adelphi, London. No.8 - Gold medal from the Highland Society of Scotland

No.9 - Silver medal from the Royal Humane Society, London. No.10 - Silver medal from the Suffolk Humane Society.

No.11 - Silver medal from the Norfolk Association for saving Lives from Shipwreck, 1824.

No.12 - Silver medal from the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire.

 

A lifeboat at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France was named the Captain George Manby. The Lifeboat was presented to the Society Humaine by the City of Boulogne.

The Hilgay village sign features a Manby Mortar.

Denver Historical Society had a Blue Plaque erected on the property he was born in, 'Easthall Manor', Sluice Road, Denver.

His former home, now two houses called 'Manby House' (No. 86) and 'Ahoy' (No. 87) High Road, Gorleston are now Grade: II listed buildings.

 

Published by Thorpe & Porter, United Kingdom 1952

Published in deFUZE Magazine - www.defuzemag.co.uk/into-the-rough-defuze-magazine/

 

See behind the scenes over on my blog here: clickedbytom.tumblr.com/post/116580929519/in-the-rough | thomascolesimmondsphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/in-r...

 

See more on my website at: www.tomsimmonds.com/intherough | www.tomsimmonds.com/portfolio | www.tomsimmonds.com/book2

 

Model: Keziah LK Zeisser at Oxygen Model Management

Make-up/Hair: Izzy Cammareri

Styling: Shirly Piperno

Designers: Nitsan Alter, Mary Eleini, Felipe Hiroshi Goto, Sabina Söderberg

Photography/Post Processing: Thomas Cole Simmonds Photography

 

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© Thomas Cole Simmonds. All rights reserved. My images may not be used without my permission.

 

My Website: www.tomsimmonds.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/ThomasColeSimmonds

Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/tomsimmonds/

Twitter: twitter.com/tom_simmonds

Tumblr: tomsimmonds.tumblr.com/ | clickedbytom.tumblr.com/

Blogger: thomascolesimmondsphotography.blogspot.com/

published by Nieves

FEB2015

nieves.ch/catalogue/jeffrey.html

 

Published in Fashion Bite

 

model: maha

hair & makeup: sabs

photography: fayyaz ahmed

  

Published on ArlNow www.arlnow.com/2018/10/12/arlnow-weekend-discussion-158/

Photo reportage published in:

 

clicrevista.wix.com/clic#!reportaje04/c1lhh

Published by DC in 1966. Cover art by Jack Sparling (Eclipso) and Bernard Bailey (Prince Ra-Man).

Published

I'm excited to finally share that I've been published in Moda Magazine this semester! You can view my photos here: modamadison.com/2016/12/13/fall-2016-print-issue-submerge/

This is the first of a series of around 18 images, combining road and rail subjects, that will be published throughout 2026. All have been produced without AI but some compromises have been made, such as the simplified representation of restraining chains (or lack of on some images). A big challenge has been finding locomotives photographed from the necessary low view point or, in many cases, adjusting the perpective of subjects that were photographed from different view points. This Mercedes-Benz Actros is based on an actual vehicle operated by GCS Johnson Ltd, which will appear in that operator’s livery later in the series. The locomotive in this case is Class 47 diesel No 47004 (originally D1524) which, I believe, survives awaiting overhaul at the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Railway in North Yorkshire. I offer no explanation for its road movement by Scottish heavier haulage specialist McFadyens, other than that I like the company’s livery (20-Jan-26).

 

All rights reserved. Not to be posted on Facebook or anywhere else without my prior written permission. Comments on this image are welcome here but for everything else, please send a Flickr mail. Further information about my Flickr images can be found here:

www.flickr.com/photos/northernblue109/6046035749/in/set-7....