EAST CHINA SEA (July 31, 2020) Sailors connect fueling lines to the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) from the dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE-3) during a replenishment-at-sea. Shiloh is forward-deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Isaac Maxwell)

Salem, located at the mouth of the Naumkeag river at the site of an ancient Native American village and trading center, was first settled by Europeans in 1626, when a company of fishermen from Cape Ann led by Roger Conant arrived.

 

Conant's leadership had provided the stability to survive the first two years, but he was immediately replaced by John Endecott, one of the new arrivals, by order of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Conant graciously stepped aside and was granted 200 acres (0.81 km2) of land in compensation.

 

These "New Planters" and the "Old Planters" agreed to cooperate, in large part due to the diplomacy of Conant and Endicott. In recognition of this peaceful transition to the new government, the name of the settlement was changed to Salem, a hellenized form of the word for "peace" in Arabic سلام (salaam) and Hebrew שלום (shalom).

 

In 1628, Endecott ordered that the Great ("Governor's") House be moved from Cape Ann, reassembling on what is now Washington Street north of Church Street. When Higginson arrived in Salem, he wrote that "we found a faire house newly built for the Governor" which was remarkable for being two stories high. A year later, the Massachusetts Bay Charter was issued creating the Massachusetts Bay Colony with Matthew Craddock as its governor in London and Endecott as its governor in the colony. John Winthrop was elected Governor in late 1629, and arrived with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, beginning the Great Migration.

 

In 1639, Endecott's was one of the signatures on the building contract for enlarging the meeting house in Town House Square for the First Church in Salem. This document remains part of the town records at City Hall. He was active in the affairs of the town throughout his life. Samuel Skelton was the first pastor of the First Church of Salem, which is the original Puritan church in North America. Endecott already had a close relationship with Skelton, having been converted by him, and Endecott considered him as his spiritual father.

 

Title page of A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft by John Hale (Boston, 1702)

 

Roger Conant died in 1679, at the age of 87; a large statue commemorating him stands overlooking Salem Common. Salem originally included much of the North Shore, including Marblehead. Most of the accused in the Salem witch trials lived in nearby "Salem Village", now known as Danvers, although a few lived on the outskirts of Salem. Salem Village also included Peabody and parts of present-day Beverly. Middleton, Topsfield, Wenham and Manchester-by-the-Sea were once parts of Salem.

 

William Hathorne was a prosperous businessman in early Salem and became one of its leading citizens of the early colonial period. He led troops to victory in King Philip's War, served as a magistrate on the highest court, and was chosen as the first speaker of the House of Deputies. He was a zealous advocate of the personal rights of freemen against royal emissaries and agents.

 

Puritans had come to Massachusetts to obtain religious freedom for themselves, but had no particular interest in establishing a haven for other faiths. The laws were harsh, with punishments that included fines, deprivation of property, banishment or imprisonment.

 

One of the most widely known aspects of Salem is its history of witchcraft allegations, which in many popular accounts started with Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, and their friends playing with a Venus glass and egg. Salem is also significant in legal history as the site of the Dorthy Talbye trial, where a mentally ill woman was hanged for murdering her daughter, because at the time Massachusetts made no distinction between insanity and criminal behavior. The story of the girls in Salem experimenting with fortune-telling is, however, apocryphal.

 

William Hathorne's son, Judge John Hathorne, came to prominence in the late 17th century. People generally believed witchcraft to be real. Nothing caused more fear in the Puritan community than people who appeared to be possessed by demons, and witchcraft was a serious felony. Judge Hathorne is the best known of the witch trial judges, and he became known as the "Hanging Judge" for sentencing witches to death.

 

In 17th century colonial North America, the supernatural was part of everyday life, for there was a strong belief that Satan was present and active on Earth. This concept emerged in Europe around the fifteenth century and spread to North America when it was colonized. Witchcraft was then used by peasants, who invoked particular charms for farming and agriculture. Over time, the idea of white magic transformed into dark magic and became associated with demons and evil spirits. From 1560 to 1670, witchcraft persecutions became common as superstitions became associated with the devil. In "Against Modern Sadducism" (1668), Joseph Glanvill claimed that he could prove the existence of witches and ghosts of the supernatural realm. Glanvill wrote about the "denial of the bodily resurrection, and the [supernatural] spirits".[5] In his treatise, he claimed that ingenious men should believe in witches and apparitions; if they doubted the reality of spirits, they not only denied demons, but also the almighty God. Glanvill wanted to prove that the supernatural could not be denied; those who did deny apparitions were considered heretics for it also disproved their beliefs in angels.[6] Works by men such as Glanvill and Cotton Mather tried to prove to humanity that "demons were alive",[7] which played on the fears of individuals who believed that demons were active among them on Earth.

 

Men and women in Salem believed that all the misfortunes were attributed to the work of the devil; when things like infant death, crop failures or friction among the congregation occurred, the supernatural was blamed. Because of the unusual size of the outbreak of witchcraft accusations, various aspects of the historical context of this episode have been considered as specific contributing factors.

 

For this week's 52F assignment, the theme was “egg.’ Unfortunately, I couldn't meet the deadline due to time constraints, so I chose a straightforward setup: I placed an egg on a mirror, securing it with mounting putty for added stability. I experimented with light painting, trying out various styles, but ultimately settled on a clean, minimal design that used red, white, and blue accents for a simple yet effective look.

 

#52Frames_egg

PACIFIC OCEAN (Dec. 16, 2019) Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Ian Sarreal directs an MH-60S Sea Hawk from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 during flight operations aboard the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10). Gabrielle Giffords is on a rotational deployment to the Indo-Pacific region, conducting operations, exercises and port visits throughout the region and working hull-to-hull with allied and partner navies to provide maritime security and stability, key pillars of a free and open Indo-Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Damon Grosvenor/Released)

CORAL SEA (July 19, 2021) Marines assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) stand by in the USS New Orleans (LPD 18) well deck in preparation for combat rubber raiding craft operations as part of Talisman Sabre 2021 (TS21). TS21 is a large-scale, bilateral military exercise conducted biennially across Northern Australia designed to enhance the U.S.-Australia alliance, which is an anchor of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. Exercises like this provide effective and intense training to ensure our forces are capable, interoperable, responsive, and combat-ready. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Desmond Parks)

Machine and objective: Canon EOS 450D, Sigma 18-200mm DC OS, Canon Speedlite 430EX II

Locale: España, Sevilla, (en mi terraza).

Photographer: todoUNtipo

 

Velocidad: 1/200s

ISO: 400

Apertura: f8,0

Focal: 96mm

 

Please View On Black Por favor

 

Cuando la vida te presente razones para llorar, demuéstrale que tienes mil y una razones para reír.

 

When life hands you this reason to mourn, show him you have a thousand and one reasons to laugh.

  

…Cuando en la vida nos sale algo doblado, torcido o simplemente no nos sale, tenemos que serenarnos, calmarnos y ver las posibles soluciones, si no está en nuestras manos solo tenemos que tener paciencia y ver las soluciones desde otro ángulo, si lo está, solo tenemos que saber como y cuando lo podemos solucionar, es cuestión de paciencia y calma.

(F. Martínez Ledesma).

 

Como lo único que veo últimamente por todos los lados son gotas, pues apunto otra en la lista, y espero el buen tiempo ansioso.

 

Dedicada a todos vosotros por seguir ahí, hoy me sumo a la dedicatoria ya que estoy “mu” feliz porque mis pruebas médicas han salido de arte ;)

  

Coldplay - Clocks

  

…Nunca me han interesado ni el poder ni la fortuna lo que admiro son las flores que crecen en la basura…

 

Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved.

 

Stability

desert; stone; nature; relax; background; zen; sky; balance; way; tranquil; group; rock; pebble; concept; sun; stability; focus; color; selective; hot; rough; infinity; perspective; objects; natural; meditative; travel; weather; relaxation; peaceful; peace; symbol; sunny; spirituality; tradition; beautiful; mountains; canary; islans; surface; blocks; texture; backgrounds; park; landscape; adventure; high; terrain; outdoors; granite; geology; trail; silent; route;

Stability while riding is fair, but event weight distribution is key between the bike and panniers, particularly as all the weight is behind the rear axle.. If one side is heavier than the other, it can induce some wobble in the bars when hitting bumps. When it's dead even, there is little affect on handling

SANTA RITA, Guam (April 21, 2022) Rear Adm. Benjamin Nicholson, commander, Joint Region Marianas, is welcomed aboard Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship JS Suzutsuki (DD 117), alongside Capt. Takeshima Hiroaki commander of Escort Division 8, and Cmdr. Iwamori Yuhi commanding officer of JS Suzutsuki (DD 117), at U.S. Naval Base Guam. The leaders reaffirmed the value of continued bilateral engagements and the importance of the U.S.-Japan Alliance in maintaining peace, stability and security in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photos by Rey Rabara)

58/365

 

Shot some cool stuff today. My Facebook page celebrates its first birthday tomorrow, you should go visit. I'm thinking about doing a give away or something.

 

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Le Mans 2015

 

Battling for headline space well ahead of the race is Nissan with a radical front-engined front-wheel-drive Ben Bowlby-designed GTR-LM prototype. With all the publicity, Nissan has brought everyone along for the ride as they develop their car, but things don’t quite go smoothly. The unconventional chassis layout, non-existent hybrid half of the drivetrain, and handling dynamics unlike any other LMP ever put on the grid leave the team drowning deep down at the bottom of very steep learning curve.

 

Audi field a revised third-generation R18. The nose is cut away to the bare minimum in an effort to flow the most air through the front wing and a more powerful hybrid system bumps the car up to the 4mj class.

 

Toyota’s TS040 appears largely unchanged, though under the bodywork the team have been busy optimizing and revising. After winning the 2014 WEC Championship and Pole qualifying at Le Mans, expectations are high for 2015 but the team finds themselves well off the pace and struggling to figure out why.

 

On the other hand, Porsche have got their game dialed. With a season of tight racing with Audi and Toyota under their belts and are all-in with a three-car effort and a star lineup of drivers. The lighter and more powerful 919s are blisteringly fast on the straights, with ballistic acceleration. Porsche set new qualifying speed records. However, what Porsche gains, Audi claws back in the curves with stability and handling. Overall, their performance averages out to be nearly identical.

 

Rebellion have a new engine partner for the R-One, now using an AER twin-turbo V6. The team continues to do well in the “Light” privateer LMP1 class, and qualify ahead of the Nissan GTRs.

 

Kolles return to the top class after several years in LMP2 with Lotus-badged Lolas and a new chassis developed as a Lotus T128. Modified for the LMP1 class, the car is now called byKolles CLM P1/01. Financial and engineering issues haunt the team.

 

The race was essentially Audi vs Porsche as Toyota was somehow down and off the pace. Each Audi team was dealt a series of challenges that set them back a little at a time. A nasty guardrail-destroying tangle with a slow-moving pack of cars saw the #8 Audi of Loic Duval surely knocked out of the race. Limped back to the pits and after a quick stop for repairs in the garage, Duval was back out in the field. Early in the morning, #7’s rear bodywork disintegrated requiring a garage stop for repairs. Then #9 fell off the pace late in the race with a faltering hybrid system and a succession of stops. The junior Porsche team of Bamber, Tandy and off-for-the-weekend Force India F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg kept out of trouble and kept the pace up for the win.

 

Follow along as I retrace the important and interesting prototypes of the Le Mans “LMP” era and the story of Audi's legacy. #legolemans

I have fix the narrow toe away and now it look more fit in overall design. Thank LuSim for the feedback. The hips area are redesign with double racket joint for more stability after a trial out with prototype torso. The mini figure stand along the leg show the perspective. The ideal height would be PG scale. Hopefully :)

Broken Hill Mine and town. The Barrier Ranges were discovered by Captain Charles Sturt in 1844 but it was not until 1876 that silver was discovered at Thackaringa near Silverton by Paddy Green the storekeeper of Menindee. Sturt had taken samples of mineral rocks back to the SA governor in 1844 but they were lost! The silver rush at Thackaringa not begin until 1880. At that time the NSW government sent a police officer and magistrate to Silverton. In 1883 Silverton was surveyed as a town and its own silver rush began. A year later it had a population of 1,745 with 3,000 near the town. There were dozens of silver mines and mining companies within thirty miles of Silverton. Then in September 1883 Charles Rasp an employee of the Mount Gipps sheep station saw a part of the ranges that looked promising for minerals so with other employees James Poole and David James he pegged off the Broken Hill mining lease as it looked like almost pure tin. Once aware of this mining claim George McCulloch, the leaseholder of Mount Gipps, held a meeting of all his station men. The seven men formed a syndicate pegging 7 more mining leases in the ranges covering all that is now Broken Hill. The syndicate was: Rasp boundary rider, McCulloch station leaseholder, George Urquhart sheep overseer, George Lind station bookkeeper, Philip Charley station hand, David James contractor and James Poole offsider of James. Within a year others took out the North Broken Hill blocks and others the South blocks. Early returns were poor and the lodes not rich but all lodes showed both silver and lead. By the end of 1884 chloride ores of lead and galena ores of silver and lead and some zinc were being mined. The first smelters were built at the mine. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was floated in August 1885. Only four of the original group of seven in the Broken Hill Mining Company were in the new BHP Company. The shares that were sold from the old syndicate for around £110 were worth one million pounds six years later! The new company offered 1,600 shares at £20 each in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. New shafts showed the lode went down almost vertically and was over 20 feet thick in places. The head office of BHP was located in Melbourne and the town of Broken Hill emerged around the BHP mines. Within days of the share release some shares were foolishly being sold for £13 a share. But in the first two months of operation the big mine produced over £44,000 worth of silver and lead. The first share dividend was given out three months after the company was formed! The first Broken Hill Post Office opened in 1885 as Silverton town and mines declined. The BHP mine shafts were over 200 feet by January 1886. By April BHP shares were worth £47 each. The BHP smelters opened in May 1886. In the next four months £67,000 worth of ore was obtained. By the end of 1886 shareholders had received over £4 for their initial share price of £20. The completion of the Peterborough to Silverton to Broken Hill railway set up BHP for more production in 1887. Original shareholders were going to be wealthy for at least the next 100 years or more. But the BHP mine was not the only mine- the other main ones were the South, Central, British, Block 14 and Block 10 mines. In 1888 BHP £20 shares reached £417 and their mine produced over £900,000 worth of ores including tin. In 1888 BHP was paying a regular dividend of £2 per share. In its first six years to 1891 BHP paid out £3,320,000 in dividends and produced over £7,000,000 worth of minerals. In its first four years BHP spent £175,000 on land, buildings, its smelters and machinery. By 1906 BHP had paid nearly £12,000,000 in dividends. By 1908 BHP employed 4,850 men and they were just one of several major companies in Broken Hill. BHP miners received a minimum of 10 shillings per eight hour shift in 1908. Three shower and bath rooms able to accommodate 500 men each were provided for those ending a shift. A major decision made by BHP in its early years was to end its smelting in Broken Hill in 1892 as there was not enough water there. Instead BHP developed their smelters at Port Pirie and railed the ores to that city from 1890 onwards. The British Broken Hill Company had established a smelter at Port Pirie in 1889 and BHP took this over and enlarged it. Eventually the smelters at Port Pirie smelted for five major Broken Hill mining companies. SA salt was required for the smelting of zinc in the Pirie smelters.

 

By the end of 1888 Broken Hill was the third biggest city in NSW after Sydney and Newcastle. It had a population of over 10,000 people by the beginning of 1889 but in April 1886 there had been only 34 inhabitants! The first building there was the mine manager’s house for the Day Dream mine in 1885. The town was surveyed in April 1886. The first church as the Wesleyan Methodist church built in 1885. The Customs House was an important early structure levying goods from South Australia but mainly collecting revenue from ores produced. The first hotel, the Bonanza was licensed October 1885. More followed. Hotels, houses and hovels had been built all over Broken Hill by the end of 1888 and in 1908 there were 61 hotels in Broken Hill. The town was declared a municipality in 1888. By 1890 many stone shops and offices in Argent Street had been completed and the town had a population of 26,000 by 1891. But progress had not been smooth. Strikes had closed mining operations for short periods, a major fire had destroyed wooden buildings in Argent Street in 1888, a water famine was experienced in 1892 and a bigger strike occurred in 1892 and in 1893 several banks had failed as depression and crisis hit all of Australia. The first of many serious mine accidents occurred in 1895 when nine men were killed and many wounded followed by another accident killing three men in 1897. But early in the 20th century the city was well endowed with churches, halls and government buildings. In 1905 there were wooden Anglican, Salvation Army, Baptist, Congregational and four wooden Methodist churches in the town. There were also three stone Methodist Churches, the stone Catholic Church (now the Cathedral), the stone Presbyterian Church in Lane Street and a stone Anglican Church in Railway Town. The Town Hall was built in 1891 as was the current Post Office. The Courthouse was finished in 1889 and the Police Station was built in 1890. The first Trades Hall was built in 1898.

 

Broken Hill in the 20th Century. By the early 20th century Broken Hill had 35,000 residents which was an all-time peak for the city. Some significant things occurred between 1900 and 1930. From 1902 to 1926 steam powered trams ran along Argent Street. Minor city centres developed in Railway Town and in South Broken Hill with shops, churches halls etc. An eastern railway reached the city in 1919 but it was only a spur line from Menindee with no other connections and a small timber station was built in Sulphide Street. The great western line from Sydney had reached Parkes in 1893. It was extended to Condobolin in 1898. It reached Menindee in 1927 thus completing a line from Broken Hill to Sydney. The world famous Silver City Comet train, the first air conditioned train in the British Empire, began service in 1937. It operated to and from Parkes connecting to a Sydney train. It ceased in 1989. When the service closed local residents protested and since 1993 they have had a once a week Outback Explorer train from Parkes to Broken Hill connecting to Sydney. In 1970 the new standard gauge line from Sydney to Perth opened & the Indian Pacific now calls into Broken Hill twice a week on its transcontinental services.

 

With a half dozen mining companies dominating the city and with the mining industry being heavily unionised Broken Hill has had a number of significant strikes and lock outs by the mine owners. In the 1880s miners went on strike to ensure only unionised miners were employed. Later all workers in the city had to be in unions or black listing was applied even to shopkeepers and small businesses. One of the worst mining strikes was in 1909 when miners were locked out for five months if they did not accept BHP’s offer a reduction of 12.5% of their wages. Scab works were ostracised sometimes violently. The strike put considerable stress on miners, their families and businesses in the town. This was followed by the worst strike in 1919/1920 when miners struck for 18 months. Earlier strikes during WWI tried to reduce the 48 hour week to a 40 hour week and to improve conditions. But between 1910 and 1919 a total of 141 miners and been killed at work; temperatures deep in shafts were often around 110 degrees Fahrenheit and wages were static. As metal prices worldwide dropped the mining companies tried to reduce wages. The workers wanted a wage increase, better safety and a 30 hour working week and compensation for industrial diseases and injuries. Thus the strike began. Cooperative depots were established by the unions to provide bread, butter, potatoes and onions to the families. In 1920 when metal prices began to rise again the mining companies were more prepared to negotiate. The companies accepted a 40 hour week for miners and 44 hours work for surface workers and miners suffering from tuberculosis or lead poisoning were to be compensated. Finally a ruling by the NSW Industrial Commission settled the dispute. During the strikes the unions bands and musicians would lead hundreds of picketers to the mine gates. The dissatisfaction with wages and conditions fostered some radicalism with Communists and other radicals joining the ranks of the miners. In 1923 all the town’s unions united in the Barrier Industrial Council led by Paddy O’Neill until 1948.

 

One of the most radical men to lead the miners was NSW Member of Parliament Percy Brookfield. He began as a Labor MP in 1917 but left the party in 1919 as they were not radical enough. He was a strong supporter of the Industrial Workers of the World movement and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. In 1920 he contested the Broken Hill seat as a member of the Industrial Socialist Labor party and won. His support of the Bolsheviks probably led to a mentally unstable Russian émigré Koorman Tomayeff attacking him on the Riverton Railway Station platform on 22 March 1921 at the refreshment rooms. When the gunman started firing at passengers a local policeman drew out his revolver but it jammed. Brookfield ran towards Tomayeff with the gun but he was shot and wounded. Brookfield wrestled Tomayeff to the ground saving other passengers from gun fire. Brookfield died the next day of his wounds and over 40 shots were fired by Tomayeff. Several other passengers were wounded and one died. Tomayeff was not tried but certified insane and died in 1948 in a mental hospital in Adelaide. This was the first political assassination in Australia. Brookfield was buried in Broken Hill cemetery with a large publicly funded memorial obelisk.

 

Broken Hill was the site of the first and only WWI attack on Australian soil on New Year’s Day 1915. But was it also a Muslim terrorist attack and not just a war attack? The Manchester Unity lodge was holding its annual New Year’s Day picnic and a loaded train with 1,200 men, women and children all in open ore trucks was leaving the town for a picnic site along the Silverton Tram railway. The open desert scrub meant the passengers were sitting ducks. Not far out of town two “Afghans”, probably from the Kyber Pass area of India (now Pakistan) opened fire on the train as part of jihad called for by the leader of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Mehmed V and religious leader Shakyha-al-Islam as Turkey was at war with Britain and France from 5th November 1914.The jihad was issued on 14th November 1914. Gool Mohamed and Mulla Abdulla fired 20 to 30 shots. Eleven people were hit - four died with two shot on the train and two more nearby and seven were wounded. People tried to jump off the train to escape the slaughter. The two attackers headed to some rocky outcrops at White’s Reserve about a mile away. Police and militia gathered and headed there for a show down at what was sensationally entitled the “Battle of Broken Hill“ in a 1981 film. After an hour and a half of shooting the rocky hideout were stormed. Mulla Abdulla was dead and Gool Mohamed had 16 wounds and died shortly afterwards on his way to Broken Hill hospital. The two attackers were quickly buried. Their former residence in the Camel Camp was burned to the ground as was the German Club in the city as residents believed the Germans had urged the cameleers to attack. Germany and Turkey were allies. The newspapers referred to the two as Turks as they were fighting for Turkey. In Adelaide a Muslin flag was torn down from the Little Gilbert Street Mosque. Gool Mohamed supposedly left a note in Urdu at the rocky outcrop saying he was fighting for Turkey. The rifles, Koran and Turkish flag which the two used are now in the Police and Justice Museum of Sydney. At the site of the attack an ore train carriage marks the spot and a replica of an ice cream cart is nearby. Gool Mohamed was born in Pakistan and came to the outback as a cameleer. Around 1900 he travelled to Turkey to fight in the Turkish army. He returned to Broken Hill and sold ice cream from a cart. He had worked in the mines for some time so he had to be a unionist at that time. Mulla Abdulla was the Iman and the halal butcher for the Camel Camp residents and he had arrived in Broken Hill in 1898. Although their mosque was in the town the cameleers were not welcomed in the town as residents as they lived with their camels. Their houses were in a camp a couple of kilometres out of the city. Three days after the attack eleven suspect enemy aliens were removed from Broken Hill (six Austrians, four Germans and one Turk) and taken to the internment camp on Torrens Island in Adelaide. The Prime Minister Billy Hughes used the attack as motivation for the internment of enemy aliens during the WWI. Less than four months after the attack Australian troops were fighting the Turks at Anzac Cove.

 

Historical Walk in Broken Hill by Denis.

1. Corner of Argent and Chloride streets. Post Office. Red brick. Built 1891. Architect the Colonial Architect James Barnet. It is dominated by the square tower with the mansard roof which is on the corner with a veranda.

2. On the diagonal corner is Wendts Chambers with classical Greek triangular pediments along roof line and two projecting triangular pediment headed sections. It was built in 1892 by Wendts jewellers of Adelaide for they used Broken Hill silver in their work. They leased sections of the building including to the Commonwealth Bank from 1914.

3. Old Town Hall next to PO. Foundation stone 1890 laid by Sir Henry Parkes Premier of NSW. Opened 1891. Very ornate stone building with double veranda and projecting porch and balcony.

4. Opposite Town Hall is a fine granite commercial building the Pirie Building erected in 1891. In grey stone with classical style with symmetry – triangular pediments over end double rectangular windows and another over the double central rounded windows. The architects Withall and Wells also designed the Town hall opposite.

5. Next to Town Hall is old Police station. Red brick with arched veranda and built in 1890.Cell block at its rear.

6. Next door is the Art Deco/Federation style Technical College built in 1900 to 1901. Now a TAFE College. Two government architects including Walter Liberty Vernon. Note central air vent and wooden cupola so necessary in this climate with no air conditioning!

7. Next is the fine Courthouse. Architect was James Barnet the Colonial Architect. Built in 1889 in stuccoed brick. Triangular pediment in middle of façade contains the NSW state emblem. Double veranda posts add to this sense of stability and power.

8. Opposite the Courthouse are Carrington Chambers one of the oldest building in Broken Hill. Built in simple style in 1888 with Dutch gable style pediment and decorative corner stones above windows.

9. Soldiers’ War Memorial by Courthouse. The statue of a soldier with a grenade was unveiled in 1925.By C. Gilbert.

10. Across the corner with massive bulk & cast iron balcony lace work is the 3 storey Palace Hotel with unusual peaked roof structures on the two corners. Built primarily in red brick in 1889. Now known for its role in the film Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Go inside to see the amazing painted murals over the stair case walls and ceilings.

11. Next door to the Palace Hotel in the former Bank of South Australia. Built in 1889 but during the bank collapse 1893 the building became the AMP. Built in classical style with pilasters and rectangular windows with no decoration. Great symmetry and balance. Triangular pediments over the street doors. It still has the AMP logo statue across the roof line although it is now a medical clinic.

12. Opposite the AMP is the Barrier Social Democratic Club. This was a union controlled town as most people were employed in the silver, lead and zinc mines but this organisation was formed to promote socialism. It was formed in 1903 and the building erected 1904. Return to the Palace Hotel and turn northwards to the left.

13. On the next corner right is the Trades Hall. Behind it is the original simple Trades Hall which covered unionist in the mines, the railways and government service etc. It was built in 1898 on land donated by the NSW government. The elaborate corner building was erected between 1898 and 1905. A stone building with cement rendered quoins, corner door, rounded windows, and French mansard roof etc. Turn left here.

14. Opposite the City of Broken Hill Centre (look for the busts of the group of eight who were the founders of B.H.P Proprietary) is the Barrier Daily Newspaper Building. The paper started in 1908 but the building dates from earlier. The unionist newspaper the Barrier Truth was established in 1898 and moved to this building a few years later. It was much later taken over by the Barrier Daily.

15. The next building on the right is the former Sulphide Street Railway Station which was the terminus of the Silver Tramway Company track. It is now a Migration Museum and railway museum and two other museums. Across the roundabout is the Information Centre. Turn left or northwards from this corner by the former railway station.

16. Turn right at the next roundabout so you are going around the railway museums. In the next street you see the Broken Hill Ice and Produce Company. Turn left at the next intersection and go north along Sulphide Street with Sturt Park on your right. On the next corner is the impressive Wesleyan Methodist Church now the Uniting Church. Architect was Frederick Dancker from Adelaide and built in 1888. It is heritage listed. Behind it is the stone church hall built in 1885. Used 1988 for the Pro Hart carpet advert. The walk ends here or you can continue up the hill.

17. At the next street Wolfram Street turn left and a few buildings along is the former Broken Hill Jewish synagogue. It is the most isolated Jewish synagogue in the world. Opened 1911 and closed 1962. It was restored 1990 and turned into a museum. Note the Hebrew on the façade. Retrace your steps to Sulphide Street and turn left up hill.

18. You will be rewarded up the hill with an amazing castle style stone cottage on the right beyond Sturt Park. It was built around 1890 with castellations. Used as the Towers Hospital of Nurse Robertson from 1890 to 1909. The historic government hospital was built in 1889 in another location. Sturt Park was created in 1895 but only named in honour of Captain Charles Sturt in 1944 – the centenary of his explorations in the Broken Hill region. It has a memorial to the bandsmen of the sinking Titanic of 1912.

19. 141 Sulphide Street is the North Broken Hill mine bachelors’ quarters building.

20 - 24. Still in Sulphide Street is the Catholic Cathedral situated on the hill with a panoramic view of Broken Hill. Opposite the Cathedral is the former orphanage now part of the catholic primary school. It was established in 1895. Behind the Cathedral up the hill is the impressive St Joseph’s Convent. The best views of the Convent are from the Catholic School car park in Lane Street. The convent was built in 1889. Opposite with the sloping stone wall is Bishop’s House. The Diocese of Wilcannia was established in 1887 and the first Catholic Church in Broken Hill opened in 1887. The current cathedral opened in 1905.The original stone and tin church behind the Bishop’s house is the 1887 Catholic Church best seen from Mica Street.

 

The previous shot was handheld, I set up the tripod to give me more stability and she/he turned around to see what I was doing.

Snowy Day, cold, sheltering on my balcony. I have increased the sugar content slightly in her/his feeder.

Must attribute with link to: www.ptpioneer.com

Image of a girl working out Outside In a park doing dumbbell military presses while sitting on a stability ball.

EAST CHINA SEA (Aug. 5, 2020) An MH-60S Seahawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 25 conducts underway replenishment training with the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6). America, flagship of the America Expeditionary Strike Group, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to maintain security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Matthew Cavenaile)

Temple of Apollo, Island of Ortygia, Siracusa, Sicily, Italy.

 

The Doric Temple of Apollo in Syracuse is the oldest Greek temple in Sicily, the second oldest Greek temple in the world. It was built by Greek colonists in VII-VI century. B.C. and included six and seventeen columns on both sides, of which only two are still upright, as well as a part of the epistyle and other columns on the same side and on the eastern front. The West base has been restored. The columns were almost 8 feet high with capital and the top finish of the temple was made of clay The peculiarity of those columns is their proximity, as the building criteria of a so ancient period suggested not to distance them too much, in order to preserve the stability of the building. On one of the steps of the east side is engraved an inscription containing a dedication to Apollo under the name of the architect, a very unusual case for a greek temple.

 

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamish_Museum

 

Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.

 

The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of industrial revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.

 

The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums. It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.

 

History

Genesis

In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.

 

Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.

 

In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.

 

Establishment and expansion

In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.

 

The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.

 

In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.

 

With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.

 

At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993.[8] Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage, followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.

 

In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.

 

Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011)[28] band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.

 

Remaking Beamish

A major development, named 'Remaking Beamish', was approved by Durham County Council in April 2016, with £10.7m having been raised from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3.3m from other sources.

 

As of September 2022, new exhibits as part of this project have included a quilter's cottage, a welfare hall, 1950s terrace, recreation park, bus depot, and 1950s farm (all discussed in the relevant sections of this article). The coming years will see replicas of aged miners' homes from South Shields, a cinema from Ryhope, and social housing will feature a block of four relocated Airey houses, prefabricated concrete homes originally designed by Sir Edwin Airey, which previously stood in Kibblesworth. Then-recently vacated and due for demolition, they were instead offered to the museum by The Gateshead Housing Company and accepted in 2012.

 

Museum site

The approximately 350-acre (1.4 km2) current site, once belonging to the Eden and Shafto families, is a basin-shaped steep-sided valley with woodland areas, a river, some level ground and a south-facing aspect.

 

Visitors enter the site through an entrance arch formed by a steam hammer, across a former opencast mining site and through a converted stable block (from Greencroft, near Lanchester, County Durham).

 

Visitors can navigate the site via assorted marked footpaths, including adjacent (or near to) the entire tramway oval. According to the museum, it takes 20 minutes to walk at a relaxed pace from the entrance to the town. The tramway oval serves as both an exhibit and as a free means of transport around the site for visitors, with stops at the entrance (south), Home Farm (west), Pockerley (east) and the Town (north). Visitors can also use the museum's buses as a free form of transport between various parts of the museum. Although visitors can also ride on the Town railway and Pockerley Waggonway, these do not form part of the site's transport system (as they start and finish from the same platforms).

 

Governance

Beamish was the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of county councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) The museum is now operated as a registered charity, but continues to receive support from local authorities - Durham County Council, Sunderland City Council, Gateshead Council, South Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Council. The supporting Friends of Beamish organisation was established in 1968. Frank Atkinson retired as director in 1987. The museum has been 96% self-funding for some years (mainly from admission charges).

 

Sections of the museum

1913

The town area, officially opened in 1985, depicts chiefly Victorian buildings in an evolved urban setting of 1913.

 

Tramway

The Beamish Tramway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, with four passing loops. The line makes a circuit of the museum site forming an important element of the visitor transportation system.

 

The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973, with the whole circle in operation by 1993.[8] It represents the era of electric powered trams, which were being introduced to meet the needs of growing towns and cities across the North East from the late 1890s, replacing earlier horse drawn systems.

 

Bakery

Presented as Joseph Herron, Baker & Confectioner, the bakery was opened in 2013 and features working ovens which produce food for sale to visitors. A two-storey curved building, only the ground floor is used as the exhibit. A bakery has been included to represent the new businesses which sprang up to cater for the growing middle classes - the ovens being of the modern electric type which were growing in use. The building was sourced from Anfield Plain (which had a bakery trading as Joseph Herron), and was moved to Beamish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The frontage features a stained glass from a baker's shop in South Shields. It also uses fittings from Stockton-on-Tees.

 

Motor garage

Presented as Beamish Motor & Cycle Works, the motor garage opened in 1994. Reflecting the custom nature of the early motor trade, where only one in 232 people owned a car in 1913, the shop features a showroom to the front (not accessible to visitors), with a garage area to the rear, accessed via the adjacent archway. The works is a replica of a typical garage of the era. Much of the museum's car, motorcycle and bicycle collection, both working and static, is stored in the garage. The frontage has two storeys, but the upper floor is only a small mezzanine and is not used as part of the display.

 

Department Store

Presented as the Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, (but more commonly referred to as the Anfield Plain Co-op Store) this department store opened in 1984, and was relocated to Beamish from Annfield Plain in County Durham. The Annfield Plain co-operative society was originally established in 1870, with the museum store stocking various products from the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established 1863. A two-storey building, the ground floor comprises the three departments - grocery, drapery and hardware; the upper floor is taken up by the tea rooms (accessed from Redman Park via a ramp to the rear). Most of the items are for display only, but a small amount of goods are sold to visitors. The store features an operational cash carrier system, of the Lamson Cash Ball design - common in many large stores of the era, but especially essential to Co-ops, where customer's dividends had to be logged.

 

Ravensworth Terrace

Ravensworth Terrace is a row of terraced houses, presented as the premises and living areas of various professionals. Representing the expanding housing stock of the era, it was relocated from its original site on Bensham Bank, having been built for professionals and tradesmen between 1830 and 1845. Original former residents included painter John Wilson Carmichael and Gateshead mayor Alexander Gillies. Originally featuring 25 homes, the terrace was to be demolished when the museum saved it in the 1970s, reconstructing six of them on the Town site between 1980 and 1985. They are two storey buildings, with most featuring display rooms on both floors - originally the houses would have also housed a servant in the attic. The front gardens are presented in a mix of the formal style, and the natural style that was becoming increasingly popular.

 

No. 2 is presented as the home of Miss Florence Smith, a music teacher, with old fashioned mid-Victorian furnishings as if inherited from her parents. No. 3 & 4 is presented as the practice and home respectively (with a knocked through door) of dentist J. Jones - the exterior nameplate having come from the surgery of Mr. J. Jones in Hartlepool. Representing the state of dental health at the time, it features both a check-up room and surgery for extraction, and a technicians room for creating dentures - a common practice at the time being the giving to daughters a set on their 21st birthday, to save any future husband the cost at a later date. His home is presented as more modern than No.2, furnished in the Edwardian style the modern day utilities of an enamelled bathroom with flushing toilet, a controllable heat kitchen range and gas cooker. No. 5 is presented as a solicitor's office, based on that of Robert Spence Watson, a Quaker from Newcastle. Reflecting the trade of the era, downstairs is laid out as the partner's or principal office, and the general or clerk's office in the rear. Included is a set of books sourced from ER Hanby Holmes, who practised in Barnard Castle.

 

Pub

Presented as The Sun Inn, the pub opened in the town in 1985. It had originally stood in Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, and was donated to the museum by its final owners, the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Originally a "one-up one down" cottage, the earliest ownership has been traced to James Thompson, on 21 January 1806. Known as The Tiger Inn until the 1850s, from 1857 to 1899 under the ownership of the Leng family, it flourished under the patronage of miners from Newton Cap and other collieries. Latterly run by Elsie Edes, it came under brewery ownership in the 20th Century when bought by S&N antecedent, James Deuchar Ltd. The pub is fully operational, and features both a front and back bar, the two stories above not being part of the exhibit. The interior decoration features the stuffed racing greyhound Jake's Bonny Mary, which won nine trophies before being put on display in The Gerry in White le Head near Tantobie.

 

Town stables

Reflecting the reliance on horses for a variety of transport needs in the era, the town features a centrally located stables, situated behind the sweet shop, with its courtyard being accessed from the archway next to the pub. It is presented as a typical jobmaster's yard, with stables and a tack room in the building on its north side. A small, brick built open air, carriage shed is sited on the back of the printworks building. On the east side of the courtyard is a much larger metal shed (utilising iron roof trusses from Fleetwood), arranged mainly as carriage storage, but with a blacksmith's shop in the corner. The building on the west side of the yard is not part of any display. The interior fittings for the harness room came from Callaly Caste. Many of the horses and horse-drawn vehicles used by the museum are housed in the stables and sheds.

 

Printer, stationer and newspaper branch office

Presented as the Beamish Branch Office of the Northern Daily Mail and the Sunderland Daily Echo, the two storey replica building was built in the mid-1980s and represents the trade practices of the era. Downstairs, on the right, is the branch office, where newspapers would be sold directly and distributed to local newsagents and street vendors, and where orders for advertising copy would be taken. Supplementing it is a stationer's shop on the left hand side, with both display items and a small number of gift items on public sale. Upstairs is a jobbing printers workshop, which would not produce the newspapers, but would instead print leaflets, posters and office stationery. Split into a composing area and a print shop, the shop itself has a number of presses - a Columbian built in 1837 by Clymer and Dixon, an Albion dating back to 1863, an Arab Platen of c. 1900, and a Wharfedale flat bed press, built by Dawson & Son in around 1870. Much of the machinery was sourced from the print works of Jack Ascough's of Barnard Castle. Many of the posters seen around the museum are printed in the works, with the operation of the machinery being part of the display.

 

Sweet shop

Presented as Jubilee Confectioners, the two storey sweet shop opened in 1994 and is meant to represent the typical family run shops of the era, with living quarters above the shop (the second storey not being part of the display). To the front of the ground floor is a shop, where traditional sweets and chocolate (which was still relatively expensive at the time) are sold to visitors, while in the rear of the ground floor is a manufacturing area where visitors can view the techniques of the time (accessed via the arched walkway on the side of the building). The sweet rollers were sourced from a variety of shops and factories.

 

Bank

Presented as a branch of Barclays Bank (Barclay & Company Ltd) using period currency, the bank opened in 1999. It represents the trend of the era when regional banks were being acquired and merged into national banks such as Barclays, formed in 1896. Built to a three-storey design typical of the era, and featuring bricks in the upper storeys sourced from Park House, Gateshead, the Swedish imperial red shade used on the ground floor frontage is intended to represent stability and security. On the ground floor are windows for bank tellers, plus the bank manager's office. Included in a basement level are two vaults. The upper two storeys are not part of the display. It features components sourced from Southport and Gateshead

 

Masonic Hall

The Masonic Hall opened in 2006, and features the frontage from a former masonic hall sited in Park Terrace, Sunderland. Reflecting the popularity of the masons in North East England, as well as the main hall, which takes up the full height of the structure, in a small two story arrangement to the front of the hall is also a Robing Room and the Tyler's Room on the ground floor, and a Museum Room upstairs, featuring display cabinets of masonic regalia donated from various lodges. Upstairs is also a class room, with large stained glass window.

 

Chemist and photographer

Presented as W Smith's Chemist and JR & D Edis Photographers, a two-storey building housing both a chemist and photographers shops under one roof opened on 7 May 2016 and represents the growing popularity of photography in the era, with shops often growing out of or alongside chemists, who had the necessary supplies for developing photographs. The chemist features a dispensary, and equipment from various shops including John Walker, inventor of the friction match. The photographers features a studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken. The corner building is based on a real building on Elvet Bridge in Durham City, opposite the Durham Marriot Hotel (the Royal County), although the second storey is not part of the display. The chemist also sells aerated water (an early form of carbonated soft drinks) to visitors, sold in marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles (although made to a modern design to prevent the safety issue that saw the original bottles banned). Aerated waters grew in popularity in the era, due to the need for a safe alternative to water, and the temperance movement - being sold in chemists due to the perception they were healthy in the same way mineral waters were.

 

Costing around £600,000 and begun on 18 August 2014, the building's brickwork and timber was built by the museum's own staff and apprentices, using Georgian bricks salvaged from demolition works to widen the A1. Unlike previous buildings built on the site, the museum had to replicate rather than relocate this one due to the fact that fewer buildings are being demolished compared to the 1970s, and in any case it was deemed unlikely one could be found to fit the curved shape of the plot. The studio is named after a real business run by John Reed Edis and his daughter Daisy. Mr Edis, originally at 27 Sherburn Road, Durham, in 1895, then 52 Saddler Street from 1897. The museum collection features several photographs, signs and equipment from the Edis studio. The name for the chemist is a reference to the business run by William Smith, who relocated to Silver Street, near the original building, in 1902. According to records, the original Edis company had been supplied by chemicals from the original (and still extant) Smith business.

 

Redman Park

Redman Park is a small lawned space with flower borders, opposite Ravensworth Terrace. Its centrepiece is a Victorian bandstand sourced from Saltwell Park, where it stood on an island in the middle of a lake. It represents the recognised need of the time for areas where people could relax away from the growing industrial landscape.

 

Other

Included in the Town are drinking fountains and other period examples of street furniture. In between the bank and the sweet shop is a combined tram and bus waiting room and public convenience.

 

Unbuilt

When construction of the Town began, the projected town plan incorporated a market square and buildings including a gas works, fire station, ice cream parlour (originally the Central Cafe at Consett), a cast iron bus station from Durham City, school, public baths and a fish and chip shop.

 

Railway station

East of the Town is the Railway Station, depicting a typical small passenger and goods facility operated by the main railway company in the region at the time, the North Eastern Railway (NER). A short running line extends west in a cutting around the north side of the Town itself, with trains visible from the windows of the stables. It runs for a distance of 1⁄4 mile - the line used to connect to the colliery sidings until 1993 when it was lifted between the town and the colliery so that the tram line could be extended. During 2009 the running line was relaid so that passenger rides could recommence from the station during 2010.

 

Rowley station

Representing passenger services is Rowley Station, a station building on a single platform, opened in 1976, having been relocated to the museum from the village of Rowley near Consett, just a few miles from Beamish.

 

The original Rowley railway station was opened in 1845 (as Cold Rowley, renamed Rowley in 1868) by the NER antecedent, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, consisting of just a platform. Under NER ownership, as a result of increasing use, in 1873 the station building was added. As demand declined, passenger service was withdrawn in 1939, followed by the goods service in 1966. Trains continued to use the line for another three years before it closed, the track being lifted in 1970. Although in a state of disrepair, the museum acquired the building, dismantling it in 1972, being officially unveiled in its new location by railway campaigner and poet, Sir John Betjeman.

 

The station building is presented as an Edwardian station, lit by oil lamp, having never been connected to gas or electricity supplies in its lifetime. It features both an open waiting area and a visitor accessible waiting room (western half), and a booking and ticket office (eastern half), with the latter only visible from a small viewing entrance. Adorning the waiting room is a large tiled NER route map.

 

Signal box

The signal box dates from 1896, and was relocated from Carr House East near Consett. It features assorted signalling equipment, basic furnishings for the signaller, and a lever frame, controlling the stations numerous points, interlocks and semaphore signals. The frame is not an operational part of the railway, the points being hand operated using track side levers. Visitors can only view the interior from a small area inside the door.

 

Goods shed

The goods shed is originally from Alnwick. The goods area represents how general cargo would have been moved on the railway, and for onward transport. The goods shed features a covered platform where road vehicles (wagons and carriages) can be loaded with the items unloaded from railway vans. The shed sits on a triangular platform serving two sidings, with a platform mounted hand-crane, which would have been used for transhipment activity (transfer of goods from one wagon to another, only being stored for a short time on the platform, if at all).

 

Coal yard

The coal yard represents how coal would have been distributed from incoming trains to local merchants - it features a coal drop which unloads railway wagons into road going wagons below. At the road entrance to the yard is a weighbridge (with office) and coal merchant's office - both being appropriately furnished with display items, but only viewable from outside.

 

The coal drop was sourced from West Boldon, and would have been a common sight on smaller stations. The weighbridge came from Glanton, while the coal office is from Hexham.

 

Bridges and level crossing

The station is equipped with two footbridges, a wrought iron example to the east having come from Howden-le-Wear, and a cast iron example to the west sourced from Dunston. Next to the western bridge, a roadway from the coal yard is presented as crossing the tracks via a gated level crossing (although in reality the road goes nowhere on the north side).

 

Waggon and Iron Works

Dominating the station is the large building externally presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works, estd 1857. In reality this is the Regional Museums Store (see below), although attached to the north side of the store are two covered sidings (not accessible to visitors), used to service and store the locomotives and stock used on the railway.

 

Other

A corrugated iron hut adjacent to the 'iron works' is presented as belonging to the local council, and houses associated road vehicles, wagons and other items.

 

Fairground

Adjacent to the station is an events field and fairground with a set of Frederick Savage built steam powered Gallopers dating from 1893.

 

Colliery

Presented as Beamish Colliery (owned by James Joicey & Co., and managed by William Severs), the colliery represents the coal mining industry which dominated the North East for generations - the museum site is in the former Durham coalfield, where 165,246 men and boys worked in 304 mines in 1913. By the time period represented by Beamish's 1900s era, the industry was booming - production in the Great Northern Coalfield had peaked in 1913, and miners were relatively well paid (double that of agriculture, the next largest employer), but the work was dangerous. Children could be employed from age 12 (the school leaving age), but could not go underground until 14.

 

Deep mine

Reconstructed pitworks buildings showing winding gear

Dominating the colliery site are the above ground structures of a deep (i.e. vertical shaft) mine - the brick built Winding Engine House, and the red painted wooden Heapstead. These were relocated to the museum (which never had its own vertical shaft), the winding house coming from Beamish Chophill Colliery, and the Heapstead from Ravensworth Park Mine in Gateshead. The winding engine and its enclosing house are both listed.

 

The winding engine was the source of power for hauling miners, equipment and coal up and down the shaft in a cage, the top of the shaft being in the adjacent heapstead, which encloses the frame holding the wheel around which the hoist cable travels. Inside the Heapstead, tubs of coal from the shaft were weighed on a weighbridge, then tipped onto jigging screens, which sifted the solid lumps from small particles and dust - these were then sent along the picking belt, where pickers, often women, elderly or disabled people or young boys (i.e. workers incapable of mining), would separate out unwanted stone, wood and rubbish. Finally, the coal was tipped onto waiting railway wagons below, while the unwanted waste sent to the adjacent heap by an external conveyor.

 

Chophill Colliery was closed by the National Coal Board in 1962, but the winding engine and tower were left in place. When the site was later leased, Beamish founder Frank Atkinson intervened to have both spot listed to prevent their demolition. After a protracted and difficult process to gain the necessary permissions to move a listed structure, the tower and engine were eventually relocated to the museum, work being completed in 1976. The winding engine itself is the only surviving example of the type which was once common, and was still in use at Chophill upon its closure. It was built in 1855 by J&G Joicey of Newcastle, to an 1800 design by Phineas Crowther.

 

Inside the winding engine house, supplementing the winding engine is a smaller jack engine, housed in the rear. These were used to lift heavy equipment, and in deep mines, act as a relief winding engine.

 

Outdoors, next to the Heapstead, is a sinking engine, mounted on red bricks. Brought to the museum from Silksworth Colliery in 1971, it was built by Burlington's of Sunderland in 1868 and is the sole surviving example of its kind. Sinking engines were used for the construction of shafts, after which the winding engine would become the source of hoist power. It is believed the Silksworth engine was retained because it was powerful enough to serve as a backup winding engine, and could be used to lift heavy equipment (i.e. the same role as the jack engine inside the winding house).

 

Drift mine

The Mahogany Drift Mine is original to Beamish, having opened in 1855 and after closing, was brought back into use in 1921 to transport coal from Beamish Park Drift to Beamish Cophill Colliery. It opened as a museum display in 1979. Included in the display is the winding engine and a short section of trackway used to transport tubs of coal to the surface, and a mine office. Visitor access into the mine shaft is by guided tour.

 

Lamp cabin

The Lamp Cabin opened in 2009, and is a recreation of a typical design used in collieries to house safety lamps, a necessary piece of equipment for miners although were not required in the Mahogany Drift Mine, due to it being gas-free. The building is split into two main rooms; in one half, the lamp cabin interior is recreated, with a collection of lamps on shelves, and the system of safety tokens used to track which miners were underground. Included in the display is a 1927 Hailwood and Ackroyd lamp-cleaning machine sourced from Morrison Busty Colliery in Annfield Plain. In the second room is an educational display, i.e., not a period interior.

 

Colliery railways

The colliery features both a standard gauge railway, representing how coal was transported to its onward destination, and narrow-gauge typically used by Edwardian collieries for internal purposes. The standard gauge railway is laid out to serve the deep mine - wagons being loaded by dropping coal from the heapstead - and runs out of the yard to sidings laid out along the northern-edge of the Pit Village.

 

The standard gauge railway has two engine sheds in the colliery yard, the smaller brick, wood and metal structure being an operational building; the larger brick-built structure is presented as Beamish Engine Works, a reconstruction of an engine shed formerly at Beamish 2nd Pit. Used for locomotive and stock storage, it is a long, single track shed featuring a servicing pit for part of its length. Visitors can walk along the full length in a segregated corridor. A third engine shed in brick (lower half) and corrugated iron has been constructed at the southern end of the yard, on the other side of the heapstead to the other two sheds, and is used for both narrow and standard gauge vehicles (on one road), although it is not connected to either system - instead being fed by low-loaders and used for long-term storage only.

 

The narrow gauge railway is serviced by a corrugate iron engine shed, and is being expanded to eventually encompass several sidings.

 

There are a number of industrial steam locomotives (including rare examples by Stephen Lewin from Seaham and Black, Hawthorn & Co) and many chaldron wagons, the region's traditional type of colliery railway rolling stock, which became a symbol of Beamish Museum. The locomotive Coffee Pot No 1 is often in steam during the summer.

 

Other

On the south eastern corner of the colliery site is the Power House, brought to the museum from Houghton Colliery. These were used to store explosives.

 

Pit Village

Alongside the colliery is the pit village, representing life in the mining communities that grew alongside coal production sites in the North East, many having come into existence solely because of the industry, such as Seaham Harbour, West Hartlepool, Esh Winning and Bedlington.

 

Miner's Cottages

The row of six miner's cottages in Francis Street represent the tied-housing provided by colliery owners to mine workers. Relocated to the museum in 1976, they were originally built in the 1860s in Hetton-le-Hole by Hetton Coal Company. They feature the common layout of a single-storey with a kitchen to the rear, the main room of the house, and parlour to the front, rarely used (although it was common for both rooms to be used for sleeping, with disguised folding "dess" beds common), and with children sleeping in attic spaces upstairs. In front are long gardens, used for food production, with associated sheds. An outdoor toilet and coal bunker were in the rear yards, and beyond the cobbled back lane to their rear are assorted sheds used for cultivation, repairs and hobbies. Chalkboard slates attached to the rear wall were used by the occupier to tell the mine's "knocker up" when they wished to be woken for their next shift.

 

No.2 is presented as a Methodist family's home, featuring good quality "Pitman's mahogany" furniture; No.3 is presented as occupied by a second generation well off Irish Catholic immigrant family featuring many items of value (so they could be readily sold off in times of need) and an early 1890s range; No.3 is presented as more impoverished than the others with just a simple convector style Newcastle oven, being inhabited by a miner's widow allowed to remain as her son is also a miner, and supplementing her income doing laundry and making/mending for other families. All the cottages feature examples of the folk art objects typical of mining communities. Also included in the row is an office for the miner's paymaster.[11] In the rear alleyway of the cottages is a communal bread oven, which were commonplace until miner's cottages gradually obtained their own kitchen ranges. They were used to bake traditional breads such as the Stottie, as well as sweet items, such as tea cakes. With no extant examples, the museum's oven had to be created from photographs and oral history.

 

School

The school opened in 1992, and represents the typical board school in the educational system of the era (the stone built single storey structure being inscribed with the foundation date of 1891, Beamish School Board), by which time attendance at a state approved school was compulsory, but the leaving age was 12, and lessons featured learning by rote and corporal punishment. The building originally stood in East Stanley, having been set up by the local school board, and would have numbered around 150 pupils. Having been donated by Durham County Council, the museum now has a special relationship with the primary school that replaced it. With separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls at either end, the main building is split into three class rooms (all accessible to visitors), connected by a corridor along the rear. To the rear is a red brick bike shed, and in the playground visitors can play traditional games of the era.

 

Chapel

Pit Hill Chapel opened in 1990, and represents the Wesleyan Methodist tradition which was growing in North East England, with the chapels used for both religious worship and as community venues, which continue in its role in the museum display. Opened in the 1850s, it originally stood not far from its present site, having been built in what would eventually become Beamish village, near the museum entrance. A stained glass window of The Light of The World by William Holman Hunt came from a chapel in Bedlington. A two handled Love Feast Mug dates from 1868, and came from a chapel in Shildon Colliery. On the eastern wall, above the elevated altar area, is an angled plain white surface used for magic lantern shows, generated using a replica of the double-lensed acetylene gas powered lanterns of the period, mounted in the aisle of the main seating area. Off the western end of the hall is the vestry, featuring a small library and communion sets from Trimdon Colliery and Catchgate.

 

Fish bar

Presented as Davey's Fried Fish & Chip Potato Restaurant, the fish and chip shop opened in 2011, and represents the typical style of shop found in the era as they were becoming rapidly popular in the region - the brick built Victorian style fryery would most often have previously been used for another trade, and the attached corrugated iron hut serves as a saloon with tables and benches, where customers would eat and socialise. Featuring coal fired ranges using beef-dripping, the shop is named in honour of the last coal fired shop in Tyneside, in Winlaton Mill, and which closed in 2007. Latterly run by brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy, it had been established by their grandfather in 1937. The serving counter and one of the shop's three fryers, a 1934 Nuttal, came from the original Davy shop. The other two fryers are a 1920s Mabbott used near Chester until the 1960s, and a GW Atkinson New Castle Range, donated from a shop in Prudhoe in 1973. The latter is one of only two known late Victorian examples to survive. The decorative wall tiles in the fryery came to the museum in 1979 from Cowes Fish and Game Shop in Berwick upon Tweed. The shop also features both an early electric and hand-powered potato rumblers (cleaners), and a gas powered chip chopper built around 1900. Built behind the chapel, the fryery is arranged so the counter faces the rear, stretching the full length of the building. Outside is a brick built row of outdoor toilets. Supplementing the fish bar is the restored Berriman's mobile chip van, used in Spennymoor until the early 1970s.

 

Band hall

The Hetton Silver Band Hall opened in 2013, and features displays reflecting the role colliery bands played in mining life. Built in 1912, it was relocated from its original location in South Market Street, Hetton-le-Hole, where it was used by the Hetton Silver Band, founded in 1887. They built the hall using prize money from a music competition, and the band decided to donate the hall to the museum after they merged with Broughtons Brass Band of South Hetton (to form the Durham Miners' Association Brass Band). It is believed to be the only purpose built band hall in the region. The structure consists of the main hall, plus a small kitchen to the rear; as part of the museum it is still used for performances.

 

Pit pony stables

The Pit Pony Stables were built in 2013/14, and house the museum's pit ponies. They replace a wooden stable a few metres away in the field opposite the school (the wooden structure remaining). It represents the sort of stables that were used in drift mines (ponies in deep mines living their whole lives underground), pit ponies having been in use in the north east as late as 1994, in Ellington Colliery. The structure is a recreation of an original building that stood at Rickless Drift Mine, between High Spen and Greenside; it was built using a yellow brick that was common across the Durham coalfield.

 

Other

Doubling as one of the museum's refreshment buildings, Sinker's Bait Cabin represents the temporary structures that would have served as living quarters, canteens and drying areas for sinkers, the itinerant workforce that would dig new vertical mine shafts.

 

Representing other traditional past-times, the village fields include a quoits pitch, with another refreshment hut alongside it, resembling a wooden clubhouse.

 

In one of the fields in the village stands the Cupola, a small round flat topped brick built tower; such structures were commonly placed on top of disused or ventilation shafts, also used as an emergency exit from the upper seams.

 

The Georgian North (1825)

A late Georgian landscape based around the original Pockerley farm represents the period of change in the region as transport links were improved and as agriculture changed as machinery and field management developed, and breeding stock was improved. It became part of the museum in 1990, having latterly been occupied by a tenant farmer, and was opened as an exhibit in 1995. The hill top position suggests the site was the location of an Iron Age fort - the first recorded mention of a dwelling is in the 1183 Buke of Boldon (the region's equivalent of the Domesday Book). The name Pockerley has Saxon origins - "Pock" or "Pokor" meaning "pimple of bag-like" hill, and "Ley" meaning woodland clearing.

 

The surrounding farmlands have been returned to a post-enclosure landscape with ridge and furrow topography, divided into smaller fields by traditional riven oak fencing. The land is worked and grazed by traditional methods and breeds.

 

Pockerley Old Hall

The estate of Pockerley Old Hall is presented as that of a well off tenant farmer, in a position to take advantage of the agricultural advances of the era. The hall itself consists of the Old House, which is adjoined (but not connected to) the New House, both south facing two storey sandstone built buildings, the Old House also having a small north–south aligned extension. Roof timbers in the sandstone built Old House have been dated to the 1440s, but the lower storey (the undercroft) may be from even earlier. The New House dates to the late 1700s, and replaced a medieval manor house to the east of the Old House as the main farm house - once replaced itself, the Old House is believed to have been let to the farm manager. Visitors can access all rooms in the New and Old House, except the north–south extension which is now a toilet block. Displays include traditional cooking, such as the drying of oatcakes over a wooden rack (flake) over the fireplace in the Old House.

 

Inside the New House the downstairs consists of a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen (scullery) with pantry. It also includes a living room, although as the main room of the house, most meals would have been eaten in the main kitchen, equipped with an early range, boiler and hot air oven. Upstairs is a main bedroom and a second bedroom for children; to the rear (i.e. the colder, north side), are bedrooms for a servant and the servant lad respectively. Above the kitchen (for transferred warmth) is a grain and fleece store, with attached bacon loft, a narrow space behind the wall where bacon or hams, usually salted first, would be hung to be smoked by the kitchen fire (entering through a small door in the chimney).

 

Presented as having sparse and more old fashioned furnishings, the Old House is presented as being occupied in the upper story only, consisting of a main room used as the kitchen, bedroom and for washing, with the only other rooms being an adjoining second bedroom and an overhanging toilet. The main bed is an oak box bed dating to 1712, obtained from Star House in Baldersdale in 1962. Originally a defensive house in its own right, the lower level of the Old House is an undercroft, or vaulted basement chamber, with 1.5 metre thick walls - in times of attack the original tenant family would have retreated here with their valuables, although in its later use as the farm managers house, it is now presented as a storage and work room, housing a large wooden cheese press.[68] More children would have slept in the attic of the Old House (not accessible as a display).

 

To the front of the hall is a terraced garden featuring an ornamental garden with herbs and flowers, a vegetable garden, and an orchard, all laid out and planted according to the designs of William Falla of Gateshead, who had the largest nursery in Britain from 1804 to 1830.

 

The buildings to the east of the hall, across a north–south track, are the original farmstead buildings dating from around 1800. These include stables and a cart shed arranged around a fold yard. The horses and carts on display are typical of North Eastern farms of the era, Fells or Dales ponies and Cleveland Bay horses, and two wheeled long carts for hilly terrain (as opposed to four wheel carts).

 

Pockerley Waggonway

The Pockerley Waggonway opened in 2001, and represents the year 1825, as the year the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. Waggonways had appeared around 1600, and by the 1800s were common in mining areas - prior to 1800 they had been either horse or gravity powered, before the invention of steam engines (initially used as static winding engines), and later mobile steam locomotives.

 

Housing the locomotives and rolling stock is the Great Shed, which opened in 2001 and is based on Timothy Hackworth's erecting shop, Shildon railway works, and incorporating some material from Robert Stephenson and Company's Newcastle works. Visitors can walk around the locomotives in the shed, and when in steam, can take rides to the end of the track and back in the line's assorted rolling stock - situated next to the Great Shed is a single platform for passenger use. In the corner of the main shed is a corner office, presented as a locomotive designer's office (only visible to visitors through windows). Off the pedestrian entrance in the southern side is a room presented as the engine crew's break room. Atop the Great Shed is a weather vane depicting a waggonway train approaching a cow, a reference to a famous quote by George Stephenson when asked by parliament in 1825 what would happen in such an eventuality - "very awkward indeed - for the coo!".

 

At the far end of the waggonway is the (fictional) coal mine Pockerley Gin Pit, which the waggonway notionally exists to serve. The pit head features a horse powered wooden whim gin, which was the method used before steam engines for hauling men and material up and down mineshafts - coal was carried in corves (wicker baskets), while miners held onto the rope with their foot in an attached loop.

 

Wooden waggonway

Following creation of the Pockerley Waggonway, the museum went back a chapter in railway history to create a horse-worked wooden waggonway.

 

St Helen's Church

St Helen's Church represents a typical type of country church found in North Yorkshire, and was relocated from its original site in Eston, North Yorkshire. It is the oldest and most complex building moved to the museum. It opened in November 2015, but will not be consecrated as this would place restrictions on what could be done with the building under church law.

 

The church had existed on its original site since around 1100. As the congregation grew, it was replaced by two nearby churches, and latterly became a cemetery chapel. After closing in 1985, it fell into disrepair and by 1996 was burnt out and vandalised leading to the decision by the local authority in 1998 to demolish it. Working to a deadline of a threatened demolition within six months, the building was deconstructed and moved to Beamish, reconstruction being authorised in 2011, with the exterior build completed by 2012.

 

While the structure was found to contain some stones from the 1100 era, the building itself however dates from three distinct building phases - the chancel on the east end dates from around 1450, while the nave, which was built at the same time, was modernised in 1822 in the Churchwarden style, adding a vestry. The bell tower dates from the late 1600s - one of the two bells is a rare dated Tudor example. Gargoyles, originally hidden in the walls and believed to have been pranks by the original builders, have been made visible in the reconstruction.

 

Restored to its 1822 condition, the interior has been furnished with Georgian box pews sourced from a church in Somerset. Visitors can access all parts except the bell tower. The nave includes a small gallery level, at the tower end, while the chancel includes a church office.

 

Joe the Quilter's Cottage

The most recent addition to the area opened to the public in 2018 is a recreation of a heather-thatched cottage which features stones from the Georgian quilter Joseph Hedley's original home in Northumberland. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig by Beamish. His original cottage was demolished in 1872 and has been carefully recreated with the help of a drawing on a postcard. The exhibit tells the story of quilting and the growth of cottage industries in the early 1800s. Within there is often a volunteer or member of staff not only telling the story of how Joe was murdered in 1826, a crime that remains unsolved to this day, but also giving visitors the opportunity to learn more and even have a go at quilting.

 

Other

A pack pony track passes through the scene - pack horses having been the mode of transport for all manner of heavy goods where no waggonway exists, being also able to reach places where carriages and wagons could not access. Beside the waggonway is a gibbet.

 

Farm (1940s)

Presented as Home Farm, this represents the role of North East farms as part of the British Home Front during World War II, depicting life indoors, and outside on the land. Much of the farmstead is original, and opened as a museum display in 1983. The farm is laid out across a north–south public road; to the west is the farmhouse and most of the farm buildings, while on the east side are a pair of cottages, the British Kitchen, an outdoor toilet ("netty"), a bull field, duck pond and large shed.

 

The farm complex was rebuilt in the mid-19th century as a model farm incorporating a horse mill and a steam-powered threshing mill. It was not presented as a 1940s farm until early 2014.

 

The farmhouse is presented as having been modernised, following the installation of electric power and an Aga cooker in the scullery, although the main kitchen still has the typical coal-fired black range. Lino flooring allowed quicker cleaning times, while a radio set allowed the family to keep up to date with wartime news. An office next to the kitchen would have served both as the administration centre for the wartime farm, and as a local Home Guard office. Outside the farmhouse is an improvised Home Guard pillbox fashioned from half an egg-ended steam boiler, relocated from its original position near Durham.

 

The farm is equipped with three tractors which would have all seen service during the war: a Case, a Fordson N and a 1924 Fordson F. The farm also features horse-drawn traps, reflecting the effect wartime rationing of petrol would have had on car use. The farming equipment in the cart and machinery sheds reflects the transition of the time from horse-drawn to tractor-pulled implements, with some older equipment put back into use due to the war, as well as a large Foster thresher, vital for cereal crops, and built specifically for the war effort, sold at the Newcastle Show. Although the wartime focus was on crops, the farm also features breeds of sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry that would have been typical for the time. The farm also has a portable steam engine, not in use, but presented as having been left out for collection as part of a wartime scrap metal drive.

 

The cottages would have housed farm labourers, but are presented as having new uses for the war: Orchard Cottage housing a family of evacuees, and Garden Cottage serving as a billet for members of the Women's Land Army (Land Girls). Orchard Cottage is named for an orchard next to it, which also contains an Anderson shelter, reconstructed from partial pieces of ones recovered from around the region. Orchard Cottage, which has both front and back kitchens, is presented as having an up to date blue enameled kitchen range, with hot water supplied from a coke stove, as well as a modern accessible bathroom. Orchard Cottage is also used to stage recreations of wartime activities for schools, elderly groups and those living with dementia. Garden Cottage is sparsely furnished with a mix of items, reflecting the few possessions Land Girls were able to take with them, although unusually the cottage is depicted with a bathroom, and electricity (due to proximity to a colliery).

 

The British Kitchen is both a display and one of the museum's catering facilities; it represents an installation of one of the wartime British Restaurants, complete with propaganda posters and a suitably patriotic menu.

 

Town (1950s)

As part of the Remaking Beamish project, with significant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum is creating a 1950s town. Opened in July 2019, the Welfare Hall is an exact replica of the Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre which was built in 1957 near Bishop Auckland. Visitors can 'take part in activities including dancing, crafts, Meccano, beetle drive, keep fit and amateur dramatics' while also taking a look at the National Health Service exhibition on display, recreating the environment of an NHS clinic. A recreation and play park, named Coronation Park was opened in May 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.

 

The museum's first 1950s terrace opened in February 2022. This included a fish and chip shop from Middleton St George, a cafe, a replica of Norman Cornish's home, and a hairdressers. Future developments opposite the existing 1950s terrace will see a recreation of The Grand Cinema, from Ryhope, in Sunderland, and toy and electricians shops. Also underdevelopment are a 1950s bowling green and pavilion, police houses and aged miner's cottages. Also under construction are semi-detached houses; for this exhibit, a competition was held to recreate a particular home at Beamish, which was won by a family from Sunderland.

 

As well as the town, a 1950s Northern bus depot has been opened on the western side of the museum – the purpose of this is to provide additional capacity for bus, trolleybus and tram storage once the planned trolleybus extension and the new area are completed, providing extra capacity and meeting the need for modified routing.

 

Spain's Field Farm

In March 2022, the museum opened Spain's Field Farm. It had stood for centuries at Eastgate in Weardale, and was moved to Beamish stone-by-stone. It is exhibited as it would have been in the 1950s.

 

1820s Expansion

In the area surrounding the current Pockerley Old Hall and Steam Wagon Way more development is on the way. The first of these was planned to be a Georgian Coaching Inn that would be the museum's first venture into overnight accommodation. However following the COVID-19 pandemic this was abandoned, in favour of self-catering accommodation in existing cottages.

 

There are also plans for 1820s industries including a blacksmith's forge and a pottery.

 

Museum stores

There are two stores on the museum site, used to house donated objects. In contrast to the traditional rotation practice used in museums where items are exchanged regularly between store and display, it is Beamish policy that most of their exhibits are to be in use and on display - those items that must be stored are to be used in the museum's future developments.

 

Open Store

Housed in the Regional Resource Centre, the Open Store is accessible to visitors. Objects are housed on racks along one wall, while the bulk of items are in a rolling archive, with one set of shelves opened, with perspex across their fronts to permit viewing without touching.

 

Regional Museums Store

The real purposes of the building presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works next to Rowley Station is as the Regional Museums Store, completed in 2002, which Beamish shares with Tyne and Wear Museums. This houses, amongst other things, a large marine diesel engine by William Doxford & Sons of Pallion, Sunderland (1977); and several boats including the Tyne wherry (a traditional local type of lighter) Elswick No. 2 (1930). The store is only open at selected times, and for special tours which can be arranged through the museum; however, a number of viewing windows have been provided for use at other times.

 

Transport collection

Main article: Beamish Museum transport collection

The museum contains much of transport interest, and the size of its site makes good internal transportation for visitors and staff purposes a necessity.

 

The collection contains a variety of historical vehicles for road, rail and tramways. In addition there are some modern working replicas to enhance the various scenes in the museum.

 

Agriculture

The museum's two farms help to preserve traditional northcountry and in some cases rare livestock breeds such as Durham Shorthorn Cattle; Clydesdale and Cleveland Bay working horses; Dales ponies; Teeswater sheep; Saddleback pigs; and poultry.

 

Regional heritage

Other large exhibits collected by the museum include a tracked steam shovel, and a coal drop from Seaham Harbour.

 

In 2001 a new-build Regional Resource Centre (accessible to visitors by appointment) opened on the site to provide accommodation for the museum's core collections of smaller items. These include over 300,000 historic photographs, printed books and ephemera, and oral history recordings. The object collections cover the museum's specialities. These include quilts; "clippy mats" (rag rugs); Trade union banners; floor cloth; advertising (including archives from United Biscuits and Rowntree's); locally made pottery; folk art; and occupational costume. Much of the collection is viewable online and the arts of quilting, rug making and cookery in the local traditions are demonstrated at the museum.

 

Filming location

The site has been used as the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly Catherine Cookson dramas, produced by Tyne Tees Television, and the final episode and the feature film version of Downton Abbey. Some of the children's television series Supergran was shot here.

 

Visitor numbers

On its opening day the museum set a record by attracting a two-hour queue. Visitor numbers rose rapidly to around 450,000 p.a. during the first decade of opening to the public, with the millionth visitor arriving in 1978.

 

Awards

Museum of the Year1986

European Museum of the Year Award1987

Living Museum of the Year2002

Large Visitor Attraction of the YearNorth East England Tourism awards2014 & 2015

Large Visitor Attraction of the Year (bronze)VisitEngland awards2016

It was designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997 as a museum with outstanding collections.

 

Critical responses

In responding to criticism that it trades on nostalgia the museum is unapologetic. A former director has written: "As individuals and communities we have a deep need and desire to understand ourselves in time."

 

According to the BBC writing in its 40th anniversary year, Beamish was a mould-breaking museum that became a great success due to its collection policy, and what sets it apart from other museums is the use of costumed people to impart knowledge to visitors, rather than labels or interpretive panels (although some such panels do exist on the site), which means it "engages the visitor with history in a unique way".

 

Legacy

Beamish was influential on the Black Country Living Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town and, in the view of museologist Kenneth Hudson, more widely in the museum community and is a significant educational resource locally. It can also demonstrate its benefit to the contemporary local economy.

 

The unselective collecting policy has created a lasting bond between museum and community.

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Location

Breath of Nature, Serena Falls

Panel: Monetary policy instruments and financial stability

Markus Brunnermeier, Professor, Princeton University

Lucrezia Reichlin, Professor, London Business School

Hyun Song Shin, Economic Adviser and Head of Research, Bank for International Settlements

Chair: Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank

 

© Bernd Hartung / European Central Bank

PHILIPPINE SEA (Oct 19, 2022) Chief Gunner’s Mate David Stevens, from Westerville, Ohio, gives training on an M2HB .50-caliber machine gun during a crew-served weapons qualification aboard amphibious assault carrier USS Tripoli (LHA 7). Tripoli is operating in U.S. 7th Fleet to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and maintain stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Austyn Riley)

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When defenses against the most immediate forms of mental disturbance have been raised, the assimilation of the principles of "right conduct" arouses in the mind an "intimate, unalloyed joy" joined with the stability and sureness of one who feels himself in a state of "justice." For which we are given the simile of a lawfully crowned king who knows that his enemies are routed and that there is no threat of any kind to his sovereignty. We have also acquired the strengthened "neutrality" or "sidereality" of the mind that, thanks to the fourfold contemplation, has further freed itself and is now at the center of all its experience, both internal and external. At this point we undertake the really cathartic action whose aim is to neutralize, by degrees, any possibility of "combustion" and of self-abandonment to the multiple variety of "contacts."

 

Contacts wound; contacts consume by exciting the fire that burns the body and the mind, which nourishes the samsaric stem and prostrates the higher principle. "The fool, struck by force, perishes; the wise man, when struck, does not tremble," he remains intact, remains unshakable, remains elusive; we must become like the wise man. It is a question, then, of dealing a blow at the transcendental "desire" that lurks in the visual and other senses, in the khandha (the groups of the personality), in the elements, and which is corruption, disease, suppuration. All this must naturally take place, not on the psychological or moral plane, but on the existential and metaphysical one. The beginning of the process of alteration lies in the senses, which are likened to so many "wounds." (…) In order to "bandage the wounds" and neutralize the infection provoked by contacts, we must ensure that "the internal sight, the internal smelling, the internal hearing, the internal tasting, the internal touching, the internal thinking are not distracted," that is to say, that we are present in the sixfold seat of the senses in such a way that we can immediately prevent any self-relaxation, self-attachment, self-intoxication, any luring of ourselves by enjoyment. There will be, then, no further building of combinations, at first in the fundamental stem of the will, and then in the five stems of the personality." This is the essence of the new work of catharsis.

 

This work is based on what is known as the "watch over the doors of the senses," for which the canonical formula is: "Upon perceiving a form with the eye, the ascetic conceives no inclination, no interest. Since craving and aversion and damaging and harmful thoughts soon overcome the man who lives with the eye unguarded, he remains vigilant, he guards the eye, he remains vigilant over the eye." Upon hearing a sound with the ear, upon smelling an odor with the nose, upon tasting a flavor with the tongue, upon touching a contact with the body, upon representing to himself a mental state with the mind, he conceives no inclination, he conceives no interest. Since craving and aversion and damaging and harmful thoughts soon overcome the man who lives with his mind unguarded, he remains vigilant, he guards the mind, he remains vigilant over the mind." To fail in this vigilance at some point is to suffer the fate of the tortoise: when the tortoise unthinkingly put out one of its limbs a jackal seized it by that limb and carried it off to its ruin.

 

In this matter then, we have to come to grips with the samsaric entity with which we are associated and that constitutes our double, composed of thirst. A continually tightening circle closes round it. It is effectively likened to an enemy who, knowing that he cannot openly defeat his adversary, gets himself employed by him as a servant and gains his confidence so that he may then defeat him by treachery: this is the part that the illusory "I," created by identification, plays in us until the time of initiation into the doctrine of the Ariya.

 

That the discipline of the watch over the senses or binding the wounds leads to a higher liberation is shown by the simile of the man who has at a crossroads a thoroughbred team and can guide them wherever he pleases. The man who does not know or who forgets this practice is dominated by forms, sounds, smells, tastes, contacts, and thoughts, instead of being their master.

 

In another way this discipline can also he summed up by the word silentium: "to gird oneself with silence," silence in the technical and initiatory sense. Impressions are arrested at the periphery, at the limit of the senses. Between them and the "I" there is now a distance, a zone of "silence." We thus become endowed with that form of silence that consists of not pronouncing either the exterior word or the interior word, and this in turn implies not hearing, not seeing, not imagining. This theme has also been expressed in a popular form. It is, in fact, the deeper, hidden significance of the well-known statuette of the three sacred monkeys, one with the ears closed, one with the mouth closed, and one with the eyes closed: speak not, hear not, see not. And we may here also recall the curious hermetical formula: "Who has ears, let him open them [in the sense of a close watch on every impression], who has a mouth, let him keep it shut [in the sense of the aforesaid silence, of calm, intangible 'neutrality']."

 

It is thus that the conditions for further liberation and then for awakening the extrasamsāric principle are consolidated.

 

As the natural counterpart of the watch on the doors of the senses, a world of disintoxication is carried out within the zone that is now isolated, in order to eliminate or reduce those internal smoldering embers of agitation and self-identification that may be made to burst into life by external contacts. This is what is known as the removal of the five nīvarana, a term that means a "dross," a "hindrance," or an "impediment." The five nīvarana are: desire (kāmacchanda); hate or anger (vyāpāda); slothful idleness (thīna-middha); pride and impatience (uddhacca- kukkucca); doubtful uncertainty (vicikicchā).

 

The action of these five hindrances is clearly indicated by the following similes: it is like trying to look at one's reflection in water wherein all kinds of colors are mixed (desire), or in boiling water (hate and anger), or in water full of mud and moss (slothful idleness), or in water agitated by the wind (pride and impatience), or finally, in dark and murky water (doubt). Removal is effected by direct action of the mind on the mind, together with accurate and calm self-examination. The discipline is described in the texts in the following manner.

 

The ascetic finds a solitary place and begins to meditate. A well-known yoga position is counseled: sit with legs crossed and body straight upright. This traditional Indo-Aryan position is, however, only suitable if one is so accustomed to it that it is quite natural and requires no special effort and does not produce fatigue. In general, the position recommended for this, as for other contemplations, must be one of equilibrium, which does not have to be changed; it must have a kind of symbolical meaning of self-awareness and it must not demand efforts that would distract the mind.

 

It is fundamentally a more advanced development of the states already induced by sīla or "right conduct." The aim here is obviously to bring us to a deeper zone by means of the strengthened power of internal vision that we have gained through the preceding disciplines. It is a matter of attacking, to some degree, the sankhara, that is to say, the innate and congenital tendencies that come, in part, from the extra-individual heredity that we have assumed.

 

Here, too, the purity achieved at certain moments comes to be developed until it has almost attained a state of permanency. This is how we must understand what is known as the "threefold watch": "by day, walking and sitting, turn the mind away from disturbing things; in the first watch of the night, walking and sitting, turn the mind away from disturbing things; in the middle watch of the night, lie down on the right side, like the lion, one foot on the other, bringing to mind the hour of waking; in the last watch of the night, after arising, walking or sitting, turn the mind away from disturbing things."

 

This is a kind of continuous examination of consciousness. The yama, the watches of the night that are recognized in this discipline consist, according to the Buddhist tradition, of four hours each; the first runs from six until ten in the evening, the second from ten until two in the morning, the third from two to six in the morning. Thus, strictly speaking, the period of true sleep or of the state that in the common man would correspond to sleep is restricted to four hours only, from ten in the evening until two in the morning. In this we must not see an "ascetic" discipline in the Western sense of mortification: on the contrary, it is natural that in advancing along the road of illumination the need for sleep is considerably reduced, and this reduction produces no ill effect. Here, too, a unilateral "authoritarian" intervention would only serve to create states of fatigue and inattention unfavorable for spiritual life by day.

 

With attentive care of the "wounds" and with action taken against the hindrances or impediments, the zone of "silence" is strengthened, and a gradual interior increase of the extrasamsāric quality takes place therein; this increase should he aided by illuminated effort and it is related to the aforesaid "seven awakenings". These "awakenings" are the positive counterpart of the cathartic or prophylactic action, that is to say, they are a "defence against intoxication produced by action." The canonical formula is: "[The ascetic] rightly causes the awakening of mindfulness derived from detachment, derived from dispassion, derived from cessation [of the flux], ending in renunciation, he causes the awakening of investigation -of inflexible energy- of enthusiasm -of calm- of concentration -of equanimity, of these awakenings derived from detachment, derived from dispassion, derived from cessation, ending in renunciation."

 

Various interpretations of the place of these awakenings in the whole development are, nevertheless, possible. Their sense as a whole, indeed, reflects that of the four jhānas, of the contemplation that is to be performed in complete detachment from external experience. Here, however, we may understand them on a more relative plane, as a kind of transfiguration and liberation of faculties that are already pervaded by the element of bodhi, whence the expression bojjhanga. It must be realized that we are not dealing with a simple schematic enu¬meration, but rather with a series in which the meditation whereby they are appre¬hended should pursue an intimate causal linking of the single terms so that we are naturally led on from one to the next, and so that in the one we see the integration and resolution of its predecessors. Thus, we must first achieve nondistracted medita¬tion: then we must awaken the state of "mindfulness," fix it in the mind, develop it, master it, and see how this state leads to the second awakening and passes into "investigation," which may find support in some element of the doctrine; this inves¬tigation, when developed, fixed, extended, and mastered must lead on to the awak¬ening of "inflexible energy," whose perfect conquest should herald a state of spe¬cial, purified "enthusiasm," of purified joy. By further developing the meditation, we should realize that this enthusiasm, this joy, awakened and perfectly developed in a body that is becoming calm, in a mind that is becoming calm, will become resolved and liberated in the next awakening, which is that of "calm." When calm has been developed, extended, fixed, and mastered, "concentration" awakens; this, in its turn, when completely developed, becomes established and shines forth in the "equanimity" that is the seventh awakening.

 

These form a series of landmarks in meditation that is concerned with realization and they are connected by an inherent continuity. Through these, one is led in another way to the confirmation of what was already becoming established in the satipatthāna, the fourfold contemplation of detachment, that is to say, one is led to that impassibility that is qualified as "pure, clear, ductile, flexible, resplendent," but which has nothing to do-it should be noted-with the indifference of a blunt mind, with the indifference "of a fool, of an ignorant man, of an inexpert common man." For our part, we think it opportune to add that the state in question must on no account be confused with apathy, and that it develops together with a feeling of purified intellectualized and heroic joy, although this may at first seem difficult to understand. The Bhagavadgītā says: "When the mind, lamed by ascesis, becomes quiet; when [the ascetic], seeing the self in the self, rejoices in himself, knows that boundless joy which, transcending the senses, can only be ap¬prehended by the intellect and, when fixed in it, does not stir from the truth ... he knows that this detachment from union with pain is called yoga." At the same time, Buddhism speaks of a pleasure that is "like dung" when compared to that based on detachment, calm, and illumination (thus two kinds of joy are considered and contrasted. the one bound to life in the world, to mania, to enjoyment, the other to ascesis or to ultramundane states of detachment and of freedom from mania; and it is said that the second is the higher joy. "Extinction is the greatest joy.")

 

Furthermore, such sequences as these are frequent: "In the ascetic joy arises; this joy makes him blissful; being blissful, his body becomes calm: with the body calmed, serenity arises; in this serenity the mind comes to rest, becomes concentrated"; this is a preparation for the four jhāna. This is another sequence that has the character of a connected series, developing in an upward sense, not unlike that which, through the twelve nidana, led us downward to samsāric existence. The point of departure of this new series is, in fact, the state of suffering, of agitation, of contingency, which corresponds to the last nidāna of the descending path. Beyond it, there is the state of confidence; this leads to purified joy; then follows serenity, which gives place to bliss, passing on to equanimity - the term used here literally means also to vanish, to cease being in a place: it is a question of detached equilibrium. In this text the supreme realization has behind it a linked series in which special states of liberated joy play a particular part: a kind of joy that Plato contrasted with all mixed and conditioned forms of joy or of pleasure.

 

Let us quote another text that represents the state at which we may reckon to have arrived at this point of our exposition: „Concentration which knows neither increase nor decrease, which is not based on wearisome subjugation, which, because of its detached nature is constant, because of its constancy is full of bliss, because of its bliss cannot be destroyed — such concentration has suprene wisdom as its result.”

 

This should destroy the idea that the path of awakening is arid and desolate, that it kills all joy, that it offers only renunciation and destruction. That everyone whose furthest horizon is still within the effective, samsarically conditioned world should have this idea is quite natural but is of very little account.

 

A text reminds us that only an Awakened One can comprehend the Awakened One. An expressive simile demonstrates this: two companions leave a city together and reach a rock that one of them climbs. He says to the other: "I see from up here a wonderful view of gardens, woods, fields, and lakes," but the other retorts: "It is impossible, it is inadmissible, friend, that from up there you can see all that." Then the companion standing on the rock comes down, takes the other by the arm, makes him climb up on the rock and. after he has recovered his breath, asks him: "What do you then see, friend, standing on the rock?" The other replies: "I see a wonderful view of gardens, woods, fields, and lakes." "And your previous opinion?" "While I was obstructed by this great rock, I could not see what is now visible." It concludes: it is impossible that what is knowable, discernible, capable of achievement, capable of realization through detachment can be known, discerned, achieved, realized by one who lives among desires and who is consumed by desires." Quite apart from the higher "sidereal" principle. the Buddhist also knows the kind of joy that is contentedness, rejoicing, jubilation, enthusiasm, exultation, transport of the spirit and that, among others, is considered as "a factor of the great awakening”.

 

[Countering those who believe that the Buddhist road is one of desolation and aridity, Louis de La Vallée-Poussin most opportunely writes: “We must, rather, recognise that India is difficult when it comes to being and bliss; that as she puts being beyond existence, so she puts bliss beyond sensation.”]

 

--------

Julius Evola: The Doctrine of Awakening - Part II., Chapter 4. - Sidereal Awareness: The Wounds Close (excerpt)

 

L2.05W0.82H1.14M120 • Cₓ0.2 • 0.5MW, 3,156Nm @12kHz, η>99%

EVBM18kg Li₂O₂ 40M୧ 720MJ • 679kph • 0-100kph→0.5s 5.665g₀

 

If you rode the rest of your life and really became the best that you could be, you would never ride like l ride.

 

S.S. LaBeouf in W.O. Stone 2010: WS: Money never sleeps.

 

Cfr. notes (1-18) over the above image.

 

NOTES

 

1. Windscreen-integrated MR-HUD + 3D holographic dashboard. 2. C-ABS, AWTVS, s-ϑ-v sensors on front & rear wheels. 3. Öhlins FGR300 Carbon ⌀60×S130 mm AS front fork. 4. 355mm T5 CCTi front brake vented discs. 5. Brembo GP5 front brake 4-piston fixed calipers. 6. 220mm T5 CCTi rear brake vented disc @ dx side. 7. Brembo GP5 rear brake 2-piston fixed caliper @ dx side. 8. BST GP Tek front + rear wheels (1.7+2.4 Kg). 9. 120/60ZR17 front tire. 10. 200/55ZR17 rear tire. 11. 525 17/46 drive chain. 12. 66.4° steering head angle. 13. 200° front/rear cameras. 14. Öhlins Carbon BDB50 S117mm AS rear shock absorber. 15. AWARHD. 16. M winglets provide 160N @300kph. 17. ϑ°ₘₐₓ 70°. 18. Lateral battery packs with the additional function of gyroscopic stabilizers.

 

Pₘₐₓ = Fₓ v = 2⁻¹ Cₓ A ρ vₘₐₓ³ → vₘₐₓ = ∛(2Pₘₐₓ Cₓ⁻¹ A⁻¹ ρ⁻¹) ≅ 678.6 km/h (A, frontal area ≅ 0.5 m²). Actual performance would depend on various factors, including aerodynamics, traction, and mechanical limitations. In this simplified model, v primarily depends on P and Cₓ rather than on M, and vₘₐₓ remains the same even with a slightly higher OAM.

 

REFERENCES

 

D.A. Vincenzi & al. 2024: Human factors in simulation & training.

M. Ghafarian & al. 2023: Dynamic Vehicular Motion Simulators.

B. González-Arcos & P.J. Gamez-Montero 2023: MotoGP airflow redirectors.

K. Wiński & A. Piechna 2022: Sport motorcycle CFD.

E. Frœse & al. 1985: Le parc (Street Hawk OST).

D. Byrne & al. 1983: This must be the place.

K. Gamble & al. 1973: For the love of money.

 

ÆM · EGP 2019 · 無限 神電八 2019 TT0 · LS218 2013 · ZM DSR-BF

BMW ÆM 2017 · DUCATI V21L · MOTOROiD 2017 · I/MI-B · TF · SA

 

Stark Varg SM 2025

PHILIPPINE SEA (Sept. 19, 2020) Seaman Hau Tran, from Killeen, Texas, walks the well deck of the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18) searching for foreign object debris before the ship conducts amphibious operations. New Orleans, part of Expeditionary Strike Group Seven (ESG 7), along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kelby Sanders)

The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976. Although no longer being purchased by the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are being built for export customers. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation,[6] which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.

 

The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for good visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system that helps to make it an agile aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment. The F-16's official name is "Fighting Falcon", but "Viper" is commonly used by its pilots and crews, because of a perceived resemblance to a viper snake as well as to the fictional Colonial Viper starfighter from the television program Battlestar Galactica which aired at the time the F-16 entered service.

 

In addition to active duty in the U.S. Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command, and Air National Guard units, the aircraft is also used by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team, and as an adversary/aggressor aircraft by the United States Navy. The F-16 has also been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations. As of 2015, it was the world's most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service.

PHILIPPINE SEA (JUNE 21, 2016) An F/18F Super Hornet from the Diamondbacks of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 102 conducts a fly over above the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62). Chancellorsville is on patrol with the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo illustration by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Andrew Schneider/Released)

Mugbil Al-Thukair was likely photographed in his bedchamber at his house in Manama, sitting on a prayer rug with a pious wistful countenance in a dapper embroidered silk Jubbah (open coat) and an ornate Cashmere Ghutra Shawl (headdress) fastened with the obsolete thick Najdi Agal (headband), the distinctive formal attire once worn by wealthy Arab merchants and tribal chieftains in Central Arabia and the northern Arabian Gulf in the early twentieth century as Al-Thukair supposedly was facing a Victorian colonial Anglo-Indian Raj four-poster teak wood bed (palang) surrounded by all the trappings of wealth typifying the lifestyle of a Gulf-rich pearl merchant and his household at the time, such as the open Indian teak wood wardrobe cabinet with an inside mirrored door on the left where a visible Cashmere Ghutra Shawl hangs from an open wardrobe drawer, a Victorian glass-shaded gas lamp in the right corner next to a pendulum clock in the back of a reclining wooden cane chair with its vertically striped cushion and several sitting chairs stacked high with books together with a variety of Persian rugs and carpets strewn across the floor during Jacques Cartier's second extended visit to Bahrain (from the 14th to the 26th of March 1912) the focal point of his Arabian Gulf pearl purchasing trip on Thursday, the 16th of March, 1912.

 

(Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair was born in 1844 in the rural town of Unaizah in the Al-Qassim region in northern Najd, Central Arabia as Al-Qassim has always been considered the agricultural heartland of the Arabian Peninsula known since pre-Islamic times as the "Alimental Basket" or granary of Arabia for its abundant agricultural assets into a prestigious erudite family of merchants widespread across Arabia and the Fertile Crescent with a trading history that could be traced back to the early eighteenth century from a young age Al-Thukair was endowed with natural business acumen combined with deep intellectual and literary interests following in the footsteps of generations of his family's enterprising male offspring which drove him first in 1867 at the tender age of 23 to the prosperous port town of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast of Arabia with its bustling market and cosmopolitan outlook the obvious first choice for any ambitious young man from the hinterlands of Arabia mainly Najd in those days where he began to establish himself as a budding young merchant at the same time exploring any potential business opportunities in the port cities and towns of the Near East (Middle East) and those in the neighbouring Indian subcontinent principally in the newly British-founded port city of Bombay (Mumbai), the quickly burgeoning commercial hub on the Arabian Sea, the main western gateway to India and the key gathering place for Arab merchants and their families from Arabia in the subcontinent forming a dynamic expatriate Arab community that would continue to exist from the mid-nineteenth century until India's independence from Britain in 1947 Bombay also provided a good head start for scores of young merchants from the Arabian Peninsula at the time some of whom became well-known household business names across the region most notably Alireza of Jeddah, Alghanim, Al-Kharafi and Alshaya of Kuwait among others, spurring young Al-Thukair to learn Hindi, the pre-oil seafaring age's business lingua franca in the Arabian Peninsula since the majority of Arabia's trade passed through Indian entrepôts and in due course he became proficient in the essential business language, the thriving port city of Basra in southern Iraq was yet another desirable alternative business opportunity for Al-Thukair, a familiar business destination for his family for many decades and a second adopted domicile for several family members as Iraq's only maritime gateway to the rest of the world often visited by him in the early to mid-1870s while en route to Iraq's only port on the Arabian Gulf his ship would stop at Bahrain one of the three major ports of Arabia in the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century (the other two were Aden and Jeddah) allowing him during the few hours interval between passengers and cargo disembarkation and embarkation to wander around the town of Manama the cosmopolitan commercial hub on the main island of the Bahraini archipelago examining closely along the way Manama's ethnically diverse purveyors of bountiful goods from all over the world meanwhile assessing the business possibilities of the Bahraini market especially its booming pearl trade prompting him to dabble in the lucrative commodity with great success as part of his general trading business interests and after spending ten years in the coastal town of Jeddah now as a seasoned well-established general merchant Bahrain beckoned as the centre of the pearl trade in the Arabian Gulf and beyond a pioneering position consolidated by possessing in its northern waters the richest pearl oyster beds in the Gulf renowned worldwide for producing the finest quality pearls for their iridescent lustre, size and variety of colours making it the place of choice for anyone wishing to try his luck in the pearl business back then which was the mainstay of the Arabian Gulf economy prior to the discovery of oil similarly sundry of his Central Arabian Najdi merchant counterparts from the austere Arabian inland such as Algosaibi, Al-Ajaji, Al-Qadi and Al-Bassam were lured to Bahrain by the country's newfound political stability following the accession of the young, astute and literarily inclined Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa (1848-1932) to the throne in 1869 ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity after decades of turmoil and instability as reflected in the renewed confidence and heightened profitability prospects of the Bahraini pearl market driven by increasing international demand particularly in the West for high-quality natural pearls from the Arabian Gulf as rapidly soaring demand propelled pearl prices to unprecedented heights against such a heady backdrop Al-Thukair decided in 1877 at the age of 33 to relocate to Bahrain with his immediate family consisting of his wife and two young sons Abdullatif and Abdulmuhsin, a decision that would change his life forever Bahrain with its lush date palm groves and freshwater springs proved to be more suitable to his agrarian temperament than arid Jeddah though comparable to its vibrant multicultural and multi-ethnic society as it was the closest thing to a second home for the mature aspiring and assiduous merchant after his beloved birthplace of Unaizah within a matter of years after arriving in the small island country he managed to become a leading pearl merchant and a highly esteemed public figure well-known for his philanthropic disposition, honest dealings, impeccable integrity and intellectual prowess so much so that he was dubbed "The Pride of Merchants" by the Bahraini business community he also took on the role of honorary chairman of the Manama business community and the titular head of the Najdi diaspora in Bahrain as a natural progression of his tremendous entrepreneurial successes and admirable character traits due to this exalted social position and the large network of highly influential personages he cultivated throughout the region Al-Thukair became increasingly sought-after as an arbiter of disputes including those of a political nature in Bahrain and elsewhere in the region but among the scattered instances of his arbitration cases in the declassified annual Gulf reports from the British Archives, the following case from the latter stage of his life in Bahrain is one of the most striking examples of his high-level arbitrations when a family of illustrious clerics and judges resorted to his fair arbitration at the request of Ibrahim one of the two younger brothers of Bahrain's highest religious Muslim authority for nearly half a century the eminent cleric and unofficial supreme judge Sheikh Qasim Al Mehza (1847-1941) dubbed the "chief judge" unanimously by adherents of both Sunni and Shiite cross-sectarian Muslim denominations of Bahraini society for his scholarly knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence to intercede between the two younger siblings one of whom Ahmed was a highly respected cleric in his own right the first Bahraini graduate of the Al-Azhar of Cairo in 1887 and ironically their elder brother the highly learned cleric and judge Sheikh Qasim, here is the next slightly edited citation from the British Gulf residency report of 1912 concerning local Bahraini affairs from 1st to 30th September, exact date unspecified (A difference over the ownership of a plot of land and a shop recently arose between Sheikh Qasim Bin Mehza and his two brothers Ahmed and Ibrahim and the two parties were not on speaking terms. At the request of Ibrahim, Sheikh Mugbil and Yusuf Kanoo intervened and succeeded in arranging a comprise) correspondingly he was acting as an unpaid adviser, interlocutor and mediator to some of the Arabian Peninsula's rulers as attested by one of the earliest documented references to Al-Thukair in the British Archives in late 1888 and early 1889 where he was linked to a series of accounts dealing with the recurring violent hostilities between the neighbouring Sheikhdoms of Qatar and Abu Dhabi in which he acted as a go-between on behalf of Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) the first British-recognised Qatari ruler independent of Bahraini suzerainty and founder of the Al-Thani ruling dynasty to help broker a peaceful settlement between the two parties and other key players in the conflict including the Al Rasheed the then rulers of Arabia's northern region of Ha'il and their Ottoman backers both of whom intervened on behalf of the Qatari side, from early in his middle age Al-Thukair earned recognition as an ethical impartial figure and a reliable confidant to several rulers in the Arabian Gulf as demonstrated in numerous instances in this mini-biography, the following two edited extracts are part of a comprehensive report on the latter stage of the long-drawn fitful hostilities between Qatar and Abu Dhabi covering the period from March 1888 to June 1890 compiled by the British Gulf residency in Bushehr Persia (Iran) on the bloody conflict which involved lengthy correspondence between the British political agent in Bahrain and his superior the political resident in Bushehr where Al-Thukair is frequently mentioned, a conflict that started as a random mid-sea raid by Qatari corsairs on an Abu Dhabi-owned pearl fishing vessel in Qatari waters killing the entire crew presumably around the year 1880 setting off a prolonged and fierce enmity between Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan (r. 1855-1909) ruler of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) ruler of Qatar spiralling into a cycle of uncontrollable atrocious carnage and depredation reprisals manifested in the thrice sacking of the Qatari capital Doha with the final attack claiming the life of Sheikh Qasim's son Ali and multiple raids on the sedentary communities in Abu Dhabi's western region of Al Dhafra and other towns between 1880 and 1892 the first extract is a full-text letter while the second consists of the last two paragraphs of a longer more detailed letter the first of which is as follows (No. 10, dated the 20th January 1889. From-The Residency Agent, Bahrain. To-The Political Resident, Arabian Gulf. After compliments. I beg to send herewith a copy of a letter sent by Qasim Bin Thani (ruler of Qatar) to the Chief (ruler) of Bahrain with a special messenger who has also brought a number of other letters giving welcome tidings to Muhammad Bin Abdulwahab (Al-Faihani), Mugbil (Al-Thukair) and (Abdulrahman) Bin Aidan; and mentioning the number of people who were slain out of the inhabitants of Liwa (the Al Dhafra region is centred on the large Liwa Oasis in Abu Dhabi's westernmost domain); viz., 520 persons; and that they took from them large booty and numerous camels and that Sheikh Qasim returned safely with his army. I hear from reports that Sheikh Qasim lost 8 men killed. Others say 48, others again 110. But as yet there is no correct report as since the arrival of this messenger no one has come from Qatar owing to heavy "shemall" (northern gusty) winds. It is stated that Sheikh Qasim has not yet reached Al-Bidda (Doha). I hear that Isa Bin Ziyab a cousin of Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa (Al Nahyan) has arrived in Bahrain from Abu Dhabi and interviewed the Chief (ruler of Bahrain). According to what he says there are not so many people at Liwa and that Sheikh Zayed had not received any report of Sheikh Qasim's proceedings from Qatar to Liwa or any other place. I shall make further reports when I receive any fresh news) the second extract is as follows (No. 52, dated the 28th of March 1889. From-The Residency Agent, Bahrain. To-The Political Resident, Arabian Gulf. I have seen a letter from Qasim (ruler of Qatar) to Mugbil (Al-Thukair) in which the writer says that he is prepared to meet Zayed (ruler of Abu Dhabi) and that he is not afraid of his advance; on the contrary that he will himself march out to attack Zayed in case the latter should not advance against him. In that letter he also wishes Mugbil to believe that Ibn Rasheed (ruler of Ha'il in northern Arabia) will not fail to fulfil his promise. The date of this letter is 17th March. It is apparent that Qasim wrote that letter before the arrival of Nafi (Ibn Rasheed messenger) My own opinion is that if the news about Zayed's advance be true and also that if Qasim be supported by the Turkish soldiers, Zayed's forces will have hard work before them; for Qasim is regardless of expense and the Turkish soldiers are greedy as is known. Their number at Al-Bidda (Doha) is 250) the previous references were among several in this special report to Al-Thukair's top-level intermediation in this particular bloody conflict a small sample of his early political intermediation in regional affairs that would last until he unwillingly left his second adopted homeland Bahrain in mid-1917 but in connection with his frequent interactions with the rulers of the Arabian Peninsula the most significant of those were Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa (r. 1869-1932) of Bahrain, Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) of Qatar and Abdulaziz Ibn Saud (r. 1902-1953) ruler of Najd and its dependencies who was styled as such from the 13th of January 1902 onwards after the subtle young industrious scion of the House of Saud succeeded in recapturing the ancestral seat of power of his forefathers, the then small town of Riyadh from the bellicose Ottoman-backed Al Rasheed ruling clan of the northern Arabian region of Ha'il in an audacious dawn attack, the future king of what would become the sprawling Kingdom of Saudi Arabia perceptibly in the course of time Al-Thukair became such a revered sage that the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa asked him to be one of the signatories of a solemn pledge of allegiance deed to his eldest surviving son the 24-year-old newly appointed crown prince and future ruler Sheikh Hamad (r. 1932-1942) on 8th October 1896 following the untimely death of his eldest son and heir apparent Salman near Riyadh in Najd Central Arabia three years earlier on his exhausting and perilous land journey home from the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca during the formal investiture ceremony for the crown prince an honour reserved for only a select few high-ranking merchants from the highest echelons of the Bahraini business community who were recognised as pillars of society outside the ranks of senior members of the ruling family, tribal chieftains and the clergy amongst whom were Hussain Bin Salman Matar (1817-1911) and Ahmed Bin Muhammed Kanoo (1835-1905) as for Al-Thukair's aforementioned special relationship with Ibn Saud the marriage of his niece Lulwa the daughter of his brother Yahya to Ibn Saud solidified that relationship enabling him to negotiate on behalf of Ibn Saud a favourable agreement with the Ottomans on the withdrawal of their garrison from the Al-Hasa Oasis and its environs in eastern Arabia which would later become part of Saudi Arabia's eastern province as Ibn Saud was poised to take control of the oasis in mid-1914 soon before the outbreak of World War One given that by the year 1890 more than a decade after his arrival in Bahrain Al-Thukair had begun to pursue in earnest his profound and ardent passion for spreading knowledge and learning an indelible lifelong characteristic of his initially by starting a literary salon at his house in Manama similar to that of his friend, the classical poet and intellectual Sheikh Ibrahim bin Muhammad Al Khalifa who was the first cousin of the ruler of Bahrain and to the literary salons of several educated and well-travelled merchants and ruling family members in both Manama and Muharraq, the latter was Bahrain's political capital from 1810 to 1923 however the literary salon of Al-Thukair was rather different from its local counterparts in that it was more educationally oriented than the others by allocating a well-furnished spacious room in his house as a permanent location for the salon equipped with a relatively sizable varied library whose contents were kept in its wall alcoves as it was the antecedent of his most ambitious cultural and educational project ever the "Bahrain Literary Society" twenty-three years later since those literary salons (clubs) collectively played a discernible educational role as they were haunts for the knowledge-hungry local literate young men prior to the establishment of formal education following the end of the First World War furthermore Sheikh Ibrahim requested Al-Thukair to be the principal supplier of Arabic periodicals in Bahrain by making use of his network of regional business agents to acquire popular newspapers and magazines from the Levant and Egypt, therefore he took it upon himself to supply all of the needs for published materials of other literary salons as a courtesy moving in the same vein he also vigorously sponsored the publication of seminal literary and theological works from the Arab Islamic mediaeval heritage along with non-formal charity schooling and public libraries well-stocked with diverse books and respected periodicals largely from the Levant and Egypt (such as Al-Muqtataf, Al-Mu'ayyad, Al-Hilal, Al-Manar and others) in both Bahrain and his birthplace of Unaizah in addition to his educational and cultural dissemination efforts he was acutely sensitive to the daily hardships of ordinary impoverished and marginalised people as evidenced by the next edited excerpt from the 1910 British Gulf residency report (Almas, Negro the Confidential Adviser of Sheikh Isa (ruler of Bahrain) died on 11th January and was replaced by Ali Bin Abdullah (Al-Obaidli) on the advice of Ali Bin Abdullah, Sheikh Isa called upon house owners to produce the sanads (Arabic singular title deed: سند, Romanised English plural: sanads) in virtue of which they held their property on their failing to do so they were evicted and no consideration was paid to the period of possession, Sheikh Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair protested to Sheikh Isa against this measure as it pressed hardly on the poor the protest had the desired effect and the Sheikh (ruler) promised to refrain from such actions in the future) the abrogation of the ruler's decree in the past incident is the definitive indication of the unflinching deference accorded to Al-Thukair by everyone who came into contact with him from those in power to the ordinary man in the street he was also involved in a wide range of philanthropic activities that were not confined to the conventional charity act of almsgiving since he was a practical man who took a number of practical steps to assuage human suffering in any way he could defying common human prejudices among his various practical philanthropic contributions in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf was the commissioning of a water well next to his house in Manama around the year 1900 akin to the undertakings of prominent fellow local pearl merchants Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944) and Muhammad Bin Rashid Bin Hindi (1850-1934) of Muharraq who attempted to alleviate some of the freshwater supply predicament that plagued Bahrain's urban dwellers predominantly those of Manama and Muharraq the two main densely populated towns in the small island nation at the turn of the twentieth century where the majority of the population had difficulty securing their daily domestic supply of freshwater owing to the lack of potable drinking water infrastructure in Bahrain and much of the Near East as in other parts of the globe including some of the underdeveloped regions of the Western world in the early part of the twentieth century despite the fact that Bahrain had abundant freshwater resources unlike some of its Arab Gulf neighbours a small example of the central socioeconomic roles that rich mercantile elites played throughout Arab polities in the Arabian Gulf before the discovery of oil and the subsequent establishment of the modern welfare state Al-Thukair also tended to the spiritual needs of the inhabitants of his neighbourhood in Manama at roughly the same time he commissioned the water well he financed the renovation of an old dilapidated bijou Mosque in the vicinity of his house dating back to the late seventeen hundreds placing a nearby shop he owned as a charitable endowment for the Mosque which the locals of the area after him affectionately called Mugbil Mosque even though he was not its original builder he was also instrumental in locally funding the construction of Bahrain's second hospital after the opening of the "American Mission Hospital" in Manama on 26th January 1903 at the request of the British to fulfil their envisaged "Victoria Memorial Hospital" between 1902 and its formal opening on 9th November 1906 to commemorate the late Queen Victoria (defunct since 1948) situated in the Ras Rumman area in Manama south of the British political agency (present-day British Embassy) by rallying other leading merchants to contribute to this vital medical project as Bahrain was in desperate need of a quarantine medical facility to combat the rampant spread of recurring deadly epidemics specifically plague, cholera and typhus as reported in the British Gulf residency report of 1902 this is a slightly edited excerpt from the detailed report dated 23rd August 1902 by J. C. Gaskin, Esq, Assistant Political Agent, Bahrain where Gaskin was delegated by his superiors in the British Indian government the task of securing funds for the proposed hospital locally by taking the pulse of the local mercantile elite through cosying up to rich merchants chief among them Al-Thukair to enlist their financial assistance in building the hospital, stated as follows (I would venture to report that since the receipt of your communication I have spoken on the subject to some of the leading native merchants and from their replies to me I got the impression that they would give liberal donations towards the hospital: and subsequently Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair the leading Bahraini merchant called on me and offered to subscribe R1,000. (One thousand rupees) Haji Mugbil's handsome offer will influence the native merchants who usually follow his lead) in recognition of his role in securing local funding for the hospital British colonial authorities invited Al-Thukair along with other donors to the hospital opening ceremony, the following edited excerpt from the British Gulf residency report for the year 1906-1907 formulated by the British political agent in Bahrain Captain F. B. Prideaux sheds light on the event (on the 9th November 1906 advantage was taken of the presence of the Political Resident (Major P. Z. Cox) in the Arabian Gulf to hold a public meeting for the opening of the Victoria Memorial Charitable Hospital nearly all the contributors to the Rs. 21,000 which the construction had cost were present on the occasion as were also the Chief (ruler) of Bahrain and his sons after the Resident had delivered a short extempore speech, the leading Arab merchant Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair read a reply expressing gratitude to the British Government for their interest in and protection of Bahrain and wishing long life to the Ruler Sheikh Isa Bin Ali) for some the antagonistic stance of Al-Thukair towards the British as expounded in detail further in the text seemed contradictory as he gladly collaborated with them in their efforts to secure funding for the construction of the said hospital in tandem with their other measures to improve public sanitation and hygiene to help curb the spread of virulent diseases in Bahrain's two major towns Manama and Muharraq as he saw his sporadic cooperation with the advanced British in a different light as he would endorse any attempt to better the lives of ordinary Bahrainis even if it meant occasionally cooperating with a foreign colonial power he vehemently opposed in that sense he was a modern practical man, it could not be denied that the least tangible of his philanthropic efforts but perhaps the most life-changing for those affected by it was the hidden assistance he rendered in paying off the debts of struggling insolvent merchants in Bahrain and across the Arabian Gulf with a special priority given to his own debtors who either had their debts temporarily reprieved or cancelled altogether as in this revealing slightly edited citation from the 1913 British Gulf residency report asserting the regional scope of his business interests dated 5th of May 1913 stating as follows (Sheikh Qasim Bin Thani (ruler) of Qatar has asked Yusuf Kanoo to use his influence with Sheikh Mugbil Al-Thukair in bringing about an amiable settlement between the latter and his Qatar debtors who are unable to pay their debts on account of the dullness of the pearl market) second only to Bahrain's preeminent pearl merchant of all time dubbed by the Bahraini people "Father of orphans and protector of widows" for his unequalled altruism and magnanimity Salman Bin Hussain Matar, yet his most important legacy was the founding in mid-1913 of the first officially recognised Literary Society in Bahrain as touched upon earlier located in close proximity to the American Mission Bible Bookshop in Manama on what is now Sheikh Isa Al Kabeer (Isa the Great) Avenue in its own special-purpose premises inaugurated under his patronage and with the full endorsement of the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa and the moral support of a number of local literary figures and dignitaries led by Bahrain's foremost literary figure in the early twentieth century the acclaimed classical poet Sheikh Ibrahim Bin Muhammad Al Khalifa (1850-1933) in conjunction with Al-Thukair's younger and trusted energetic friend, the influential comprador merchant and shrewd entrepreneur founder and sole owner of Bahrain's first Western-style Bank in 1890 a true man of the world the maverick Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945) this society was not merely an ordinary Literary Society but a modern educational institution in the true sense of the word a wellspring of radiance for the Bahraini people at the time comprising an extensive library, a school for teaching Arabic, English, mathematics and Islamic theology and a lecture hall ably managed by the gifted 33-year-old Al-Azhar graduate educator Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Mana (1882-1965) who would become the first chairman of the Directorate of Knowledge (Ministry of Education) in the newly-established Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the future judge and Grand Mufti (jurisconsult) of Qatar handpicked by Al-Thukair to undertake the onerous task of transforming this institution into a beacon of enlightenment and forward-thinking in a short period of time one of the many cultural contributions of the educated and enlightened Bahraini business elite who were at the vanguard of modernity and progress in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century through their previously mentioned literary salons but also through their lesser-known but no less important financing of numerous free of charge non-formal local schooling initiatives as those were among the earliest semi-modern organised educational institutions to tackle the prevalent illiteracy in Bahrain other than the existing traditional Quranic schools strikingly among the several non-formal schools of the time one stood out as the first female-founded charity school in Bahrain and most likely the entire Gulf established on the island of Muharraq the former capital of Bahrain in 1887 by the noblewoman and philanthropist heiress Sheikha Saida Bint Bishr (1834-1892) who defied all expectations of traditional domestic roles for women in the highly patriarchal society of late-nineteenth-century Bahrain by allocating the revenue of a date palm orchard she owned in Manama as an endowment for the school eponymously named after her nevertheless some of the independent charity schools date back to the early part of the nineteenth century since the earliest recorded charity school in Bahrain was that of Sheikh Isa Bin Rashid in Muharraq in 1829 an eminent cleric of the Island of Muharraq predating the reign of Sheikh Isa by forty years however this proliferation of educational initiatives noticeably in the last third of the nineteenth century was the fruit of the long-lasting stability of Sheikh Isa's reign the role of the Bahraini business elite was not limited to just paving the way for the establishment of modern education but also was directly involved in the development of Western-influenced formal education leading to the opening of the first elementary school for boys in Muharraq in 1919 followed by another for girls in 1928 also in Muharraq with a nine-year gap where some of the senior members of the said elite (such as Matar, Algosaibi, Al-Zayani and Fakhro) served on the first governmental educational regulatory body in the modern history of the country the education supervisory committee (the forerunner of the Ministry of Education) which oversaw the development of the nascent government's educational system chaired by Sheikh Abdullah (1883-1966) the youngest son of the ruler of Bahrain in the honorary position of minister of education, the first and only local state official to hold such a position under British colonial rule in Bahrain this exception was made due to the high status of its occupant considering he was the son of the ruler since the office of a minister was a symbol of sovereignty in an independent sovereign state which was not the case with Bahrain an office he would continue to occupy until his death in 1966 the education committee continued as the main financial backer of education in Bahrain by financing the construction of schools across the country since its formation in 1919 until the mid-1930s when the Bahraini government became financially self-sufficient per to stable oil export revenues lastly allowing the government to replenish its empty coffers and permanently resolving the protracted financial problems that had beset the Bahraini government for decades rendering it a thing of the past simultaneously with the establishment of formal education in 1919 another milestone was the creation of the first partially elected municipal councils in both Manama and Muharraq which were dominated by elected and appointed senior members of the Bahraini business elite who played a crucial role in sponsoring a number of infrastructure projects in the country including the Manama port project in 1919 as in the pre-oil era throughout the Gulf as the 1920s and 1930s saw the gradual emergence of the modern Bahraini bureaucratic centralised state with enhanced good governance replacing the obsolete centuries-old mediaeval fiefdom system an inexorable obstacle to human development in the rapidly industrialised world of the early twentieth century, it would be misleading not to mention the facilitating quintessential role of Britain in bringing those reforms to fruition represented by the four most influential British colonial administrators and officers in the British colonial history of Bahrain whose contributions to the establishment of modern Bahrain could not be ignored or underestimated under any circumstances serving consecutively one after the other starting with the delicate and focal preliminary task of the wily Arabist and orientalist military commander and intelligence officer Captain N. N. E. Bray (1885-1962) as a political agent in Bahrain from November 1918 to June 1919 with clear directives to "seek the amelioration of the internal government by indirect and pacific means and by gaining the confidence and trust of the Sheikh (ruler)" followed by Major H. R. P. Dickson (1881-1959) with a brief yet extremely productive tenure from 1919 to 1920 before serving as a political agent in Kuwait from 1929 to 1936 then succeeded by the demoted from Colonel to Major for his recklessly violent behaviour in post-World War One Iraq, inadvertently responsible for single-handedly igniting the first spark of what would become "The Iraqi revolt against the British" also known as the 1920 Iraqi Revolt or the Great Iraqi Revolution, the disgraced Anglo-Irish Clive Kirkpatrick Daly (1888-1966) and his divisive and controversial tenure in office from 1921 to 1926 and finally Charles D. Belgrave (1894-1969) who served as an administrator and financial adviser to the ruler of Bahrain in the newly created office of "Adviser" intended to eclipse the unpopular position of the political agent which had been stigmatised by its association with Daly's heavy-handed colonial rule, Belgrave's long tenure from 1926 to 1957 is seen by historians as a consolidation of the modernising reforms of his predecessors particularly Daly, whom Belgrave held in high regard; these reforms evidently gained more momentum with the steady flow of oil revenues following the discovery of the essential commodity in 1932 as all four carefully chosen highly competent and hardy tricenarian Arabist officers were assigned by the British Government with specific instructions to introduce all required administrative reforms at their own discretion in line with the broader British regional strategy of placating the growing social discontent among the disenfranchised lower classes by redressing the pressing multigenerational injustices in Bahraini society specifically in the semi-feudal systems of pearl fishing indentured workers and agricultural farmers coordinating their reforms with the financial and moral support of the cooperative Bahraini business elite under such circumstances the first batch of reforms in education, municipal and fiscal sectors was implemented almost immediately after Bray's assisting initiative by Dickson, whereas customs, judiciary, police and land reforms fell to the authoritarian Daly while Belgrave is credited with creating several new government departments including the "Directorate of Religious Endowments" in 1927 his first significant reform after assuming office as a financial adviser to stem the chronic unfettered corruption of some of the local clergy whom the Bahraini government entrusted to administer religious endowments (waqf) without any supervision or legal accountability followed by the slow process of his decades-long vital initiative to establish modern public utility infrastructure and grids for electricity, water and telephone services, a process which began effectively in 1928 and continued until the early 1960s he was also instrumental in securing the concession that led to the discovery of oil in 1932 but his everlasting achievement was the founding of the "Minors Funds Directorate" in 1932 to protect the inheritance rights of orphans and widows, a life-changing cross-sectarian institution in the service of the Bahraini people operating without interruption since its inception, the first governmental institution of its kind in Bahrain and Belgrave's most enduring legacy however Belgrave faced fierce and persistent opposition from deeply conservative reactionary and corrupt elements within the Sunni and Shiite cross-sectarian main religious composition of Bahrain who sought to obfuscate and obstruct the introduction of such a governmental institution as those elements had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, deeming such a move as tantamount to heresy but Belgrave's dedication and perseverance prevailed in the end, sadly for many Bahrainis this remarkable feat of his remains a little-known historical fact the upcoming excerpt is one of numerous recurring instances in Belgrave's diary on this motion from 20th February 1931 until it was ratified on 15th January 1932 by the deputy ruler Sheikh Hamad less than a year before his accession to the throne on 9th December after being put forward for public debate by the government involving the wonted religious and mercantile elites of Bahraini society as alluded to earlier illustrating the great lengths Belgrave went to for the creation of this totally new governmental regulatory body with no precedent at least in Bahrain (Sunday 17th Jan 1932 Called on Yusuf Kanoo in the morning and discussed with him the question of the Proclamation which we are issuing ordering all wills to be registered with the Government and no persons to administer estates without getting permission from Government. It will to a certain extent safeguard the rights of widows and orphans who at present are being robbed wholesale) but the timing of the urgency in implementing the reforms cannot be overlooked as it coincided with the execution on the ground of the 1916 secret Sykes-Picot agreement on dividing the legacy of the vanquished Ottoman Empire between the two main World War One victorious powers, Britain and France giving birth to the ubiquitous British coined term "Middle East" recognising the fact that the Hejaz, the western region of the Arabian Peninsula where the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located was once under direct Ottoman rule and that the Peninsula as a whole was and is still considered an extension of Iraq and the Levant in addition to achieving sustainable political stability in the Gulf as the advanced western Arabian frontier of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent the jewel in the crown of the British Empire in the final analysis the seemingly avowed altruistic goals of the reforms in Bahrain were part of the colonial "grafting process" reform assimilation policy of Britain through tactfully transplanting British hegemonic ideas into the newly formed Middle East as in other parts of the British Empire in contrast to its fellow draconian and pompous French to ensure the long-term strategic interests of Britain in the aftermath of World War One, thus everything the British undertook was to this end, Al-Thukair was concerned not only with the spread of modern learning and science but also with the introduction of modern technology in the region as he was either the first or second local to own a motor car in Bahrain in 1908 ten years before the supposed official arrival of the first motor vehicle in the country as recorded in the travel diary of international jeweller Jacques Cartier of the iconic Parisian Cartier jewellery house during his second visit to Bahrain in March 1912 among his numerous noble deeds was the utilisation of his high social status as a business doyen, arbiter of disputes and man of letters both locally and regionally in mustering financial and moral support for the Libyan resistance in the wake of the Kingdom of Italy's bloody invasion of Ottoman Libya in October of 1911 and Mussolini's subsequent genocidal fascist settler colonial regime of this vast sparsely populated North African Arab desert nation where Al-Thukair successfully raised twenty thousand rupees in relief aid donations in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf with the valuable collaboration of the motivated cleric and merchant Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani (1863-1925) who travelled to Lengeh (an Arab coastal town in modern-day Iran) and Dubai as part of a Gulf-wide fundraising campaign for the embattled Libyans of Tripoli to be forwarded after the end of the subscription on the steamship SS. "Patiala" on 8th July 1912 to the Ottoman Red Crescent Society in the Iraqi city of Basra to be sent from there via Egypt to Tripoli, Libya as stated in the following are slightly edited excerpts from the 1912 British Gulf residency report concerning the Turco-Italian war and domestic and regional reactions to it from February and July respectively the first describes Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani's tireless zeal for collecting donations for the Libyan cause while the second describes Al-Thukair's delivery of those donations, it was clearly a collaborative effort rather than a single individual endeavour however this is not meant to diminish the efforts of Al-Thukair as he was either the driving force behind all of those initiatives or an integral member of the majority of them the first excerpt is as follows (The Arabs of Muharraq incited by an influential Mullah Sheikh Abdulwahab (Al-Zayani) have opened a subscription list for The Red Crescent Society in order to help it in bringing succour to the wounded in Tripoli. So far about Rs. 5,000 have been collected. This sum will be largely increased if the Arabs of Manama, Budaiya and Hidd join in as they have promised to do. The same Mullah is stated to have paid visits to Lengeh and Dubai about a month ago. At Lengeh he succeeded in collecting some 5,000 rupees but met with no success at Dubai where the people were sceptical as to the probability of the money ever reaching its ostensible destination) while the second as with the first shows the British meticulous documentation of the conclusion of the initiative (Sheikh Mugbil Al-Thukair forwarded on the 8th of July per SS. "Patiala" the sum of Rs. 20,000 being the total amount of subscription raised in Bahrain for the Red Crescent Society to Basra for transmission to Tripoli via Egypt) leading to the incensing of the British colonial authorities in Bahrain against him he also played a significant role in the Bahraini relief campaign to provide financial aid to the displaced Muslim refugees of the Balkan war precipitated by the raging Turco-Italian War over Ottoman Libya the "Balkan League" was formed in 1912 under the auspices of the Russians with the aim of putting an end to the Ottoman presence in the Balkans once and for all resulting in the ethnic genocide of nearly one and a half million Balkan Muslims with more than four hundred thousand refugees fleeing to Anatolia as news of the harrowing atrocities reached Bahrain cleric and pearl merchant Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani referred to earlier one of Bahrain's most revered national figures in the early twentieth century the leader of the first Bahraini independence movement from Britain at the turn of the twentieth century set up a fundraising refugee relief committee with the full backing of the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa who launched the donation fundraiser with the generous sum of ten thousand rupees appointing Al-Thukair as secretary-treasurer of the committee who rose to the occasion by exerting immense efforts to garner financial aid for the displaced Muslim refugees by exhorting the Bahraini populace to donate to their stranded Muslim brethren through his eloquent oratorical motivational skills, thus by the end of the fundraising the accumulated amount had risen to well over a hundred and four thousand rupees a sizable sum for a tiny country the size of Bahrain in the early twentieth century Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani and Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo were entrusted by the committee with the task of faithfully delivering the donations to the representative of the Ottoman Governor of Iraq in the Iraqi port city of Basra on 28th December 1912 according to the 1912 report of the British political agency in Bushehr compiled by a number of political agents in the region including Captain D. L. R. Lorimer and Major A. P. Trevor both of whom served in Bahrain the following edited excerpt is part of Major Trevor's section of this thorough report written after he succeeded Lorimer as Political Agent in Bahrain on 1st November 1912 (The subscription raised by the Arabs of Bahrain for the Turkish Red Crescent Society having reached the handsome figure of Rs. 1,04,100 the amount was taken to Basra by SS. "Bahrain" (of the Arab Steamers, Limited) on 28th December by Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani and Yusuf Kanoo for despatch to the Sultan. Yusuf Kanoo stated that it was their intention to land at Bushehr and send a telegram to the Sultan stating the amount of the sum raised for the Red Crescent Fund and mentioning that it had been subscribed by the Sheikhs and people of Bahrain for the sick and wounded. The object of this telegram of course was to prevent hanky-panky on the part of the Wali (Ottoman Governor) of Basra) it should be pointed out that Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani was exiled to the Indian port city of Bombay by the British colonial authorities in Bahrain in 1923 along with several of his comrades in the Bahraini independence movement where he died and was laid to rest there in less than two years in 1925 on a similar note an oblique account related to a letter dated 11th April of the same year sent by an anonymous Indian Muslim leader requesting Al-Thukair to organise an unspecified cause relief aid campaign for the Muslims of an unnamed Indian province was included in the 1913 report of the British political agency in Bahrain demonstrating the widely acclaimed reputation he achieved through the efficacy of his fundraising campaigns however by the middle of the Great War Al-Thukair had suffered considerable losses in his pearl business wrought in part by the dire effects of war particularly on the luxury goods market but mainly attributed to British interventions aimed at undermining his business interests primarily in Bahrain as some Bahraini historical researchers concluded as a consequence of his active role in supporting the Libyan resistance movement against Italian colonialism as previously stated, needless to say from the British point of view the uncompromising character of Al-Thukair and his unequivocal stance against Western colonialism in all its forms constituted a threat to British colonial economic hegemony in the region that needed to be addressed decisively by thwarting any attempt to achieve any form of economic independence no matter how insignificant or trivial it might seem as in Al-Thukair's participation as a founding major shareholder with a five percent stake alongside several wealthy pearl merchants from Bahrain and Kuwait together with the rulers of the said countries and those of Qatar and Oman, led and chaired by the regionally famous Kuwaiti pearl merchant Jassim Bin Muhammad Al-Ibrahim (1869-1956) with the leading Bahraini pearl merchant Muhammad Bin Abdulwahab Al-Mishari (1864-1922) in the position of general manager in establishing the first truly regional Arab shareholding firm and the first fully Arab-owned ocean liner shipping company in the Arabian Gulf on 30th April 1911 "The Arab Steamers, Limited" marking a turning point in the modern history of the Gulf by putting up for the first time a medium-sized fleet of Western-built passenger steamships the next edited extract from the 1912 report of the British Gulf residency in the Persian (Iranian) coastal city of Bushehr gives an inkling of the size of the company's fleet (The Arab Steamers, Limited-This company started a service to the Arabian Gulf in July 1911 and during the past year, 18 of their steamers have called at Lengeh outwards from Bombay while 10 steamers called on the return journey from Basra) one must note that the fleet included the passenger and cargo ship "Tynesider" renamed "Faris" in early 1912 on which the Parisian jeweller Jacques Cartier (1884-1941) sailed the same year to India and the Arabian Gulf; the company's board had also named the prior mentioned respected Bahraini banker and merchant Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo as its agent in Bahrain since he was friends with most of the board members incidentally it was Yusuf Kanoo's first shipping agency in 1911, thus starting his shipping agency business which would become the posthumous cornerstone of the eponymous regional multinational Y.B.A. Kanoo conglomerate in the emerging post-Second World War Arabian Gulf oil rental economy, the following excerpt from the 1912 report of the British Gulf residency describes the sense of jubilation and pride of the Bahraini people at the arrival of the first passenger steamship of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" to bear the name Bahrain on its maiden voyage (SS. Bahrain a new acquisition of the Arab company, arrived at Bahrain on 1st March, fully dressed with flags. It was explained that the decoration was in honour of the first visit of the ship to its name-place. The name is a source of great delight to the local Arabs) apart from the legitimate premise of economic independence the real reason for the establishment of this firm was a response to the monopolistic exploitative practises and racially discriminatory colonial policies of the "British India Steam Navigation Company" (B.I.) against non-European passengers in general and Arabs in particular as attested by the exorbitant ticket prices of Arab travellers not to mention the additional cargo charges exacted on Arab-owned goods exacerbating the whole situation by barring affluent Arab first-class passengers from eating in the dining rooms and halls of its ships rightfully regarded as a disparaging and demeaning hierarchical colonial policy that posed an egregious affront to human dignity irrespective of race, colour, ethnicity or creed commonly practised by Western colonial powers of divesting non-white peoples of their humanity in order to legitimise their subjugation, unfortunately the fate of this pioneering highly successful company was tragically sealed unceremoniously in 1915 when it was sold to the "Bombay & Persia Steam Navigation Company" (The Mogul Line) as a direct result of insurmountable British pressure after less than five years of operation a pressure that began by dissuading Gulf Arab rulers from investing in such a venture while the company was still in formation under the usual infantilising colonial mendacious pretenses of catastrophic financial losses and no practical feasibility for themselves and their peoples whether in the near or distant future but their spurious discouraging attempts were in vain with the British-owned (B.I.) resorting to an all-out price war immediately after the start of the company's operations all these flagrantly malicious actions by the British helped stoke the flames of Arab patriotic sentiments to the fullest against them in the Gulf by causing Gulf Arabs and Iraqis to travel almost exclusively on the ships of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" still the company managed to command a substantial sale price total of three-quarters of a million British Indian silver rupees exactly threefold the paid-in capital from just over four years earlier given the geopolitical situation of the Great War adverse international economic conditions, sending the fragile pearl-based mono-cultural economies of the Gulf into a tailspin along with wartime restrictions on sea travel to compound matters further, the British Admiralty requisitioned one of the company's vessels, the passenger and cargo ship SS. "Budrie" formerly the SS. "Golconda" for the war effort where it ended up being scuttled as a blockship at Scapa Flow in northern Scotland on 3rd October 1915 a clear testament to the enormous success that this ill-fated company enjoyed in its short-lived existence, the following excerpt is from a thoroughly detailed report on the trade movement of Oman by Major S. G. Knox the British consul in Muscat, Oman and its de facto ruler dated 13th April 1912 on sea trade and shipping movement in and out of the country, refers to the effect of the launching of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" on freight shipping rates (The British India Company who have got the contract for the carriage of mails from and to India provide one weekly fast mail service up and down and 1 fortnightly coasting slow mail service both ways. The vessels of the Arab Steamers, Limited have also maintained a weekly service. In consequence of the weekly service maintained by the Arab Steamers, the freights to India, etc., were greatly reduced during the year and those for United States of America enhanced) the doomed fate of this company became a cautionary tale for anyone attempting to challenge British colonial economic hegemony in the region with its impact lingering for decades until the defining watershed historical moment of Britain's future role as a global power in the outcome of the 1956 Suez crisis (known as the "tripartite aggression" in the Arab world), laying bare the stark realities of the new bipolar world order and signalling the beginning of the end of British imperial presence in the Middle East incrementally superseded by American influence in all aspects nevertheless on the positive side racial discrimination, unwarranted prices and mistreatment of Arabs and non-Europeans on British passenger ships came to an end as the British realised though belatedly that such discriminatory practises could impinge on their long-term economic interests in the region epitomising British pragmatism at its finest one of the most contributing factors to the British Imperial enterprise's resounding successes over the centuries in comparison to its other European counterparts and finally culminating in the straw that broke the camel's back, Al-Thukair's staunch allegiance to the sworn enemy of Great Britain in the region the Ottoman Turks on the eve of World War One demonstrably embodied itself in his spearheading of a very large Gulf-wide fundraising campaign rivalling or even exceeding his previous ones to raise financial aid for the Ottomans with a special emphasis on enlisting the financial assistance of Arabian Gulf heads of state, leading merchants and clerics, achieving resounding success under the watchful eye of the British colonial authorities in the region confirmed by a concise reference in the British Archives to the recently deceased ruler of Qatar Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani who died on 17th July 1913 in relation to the worrying antagonistic fundraising activities of Al-Thukair the British in anticipation of the looming global conflagration of World War One (as it would be known in the West as the Great War or perhaps more idealistically as "the war to end war" the paradoxical catchphrase created by prolific English author H. G. Wells) as an inevitable conclusion in light of the fraught international situation of the escalating crisis in Europe among the newly allied powers of Britain, France and Russia since the turn of the twentieth century in the face of rising militaristic and economic power of Germany as the leader of the Central Powers alongside the Austro-Hungarians and the beleaguered Ottomans in the same previously referred to 1913 report of the British Gulf residency stated as follows (Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani has sent 25 thousand rupees to Sheikh Mugbil and Yusuf Kanoo here with instructions to send the amount to Basra. It is the subscription of the Qatar people for the Turkish relief) a war of the kind that the ailing Ottoman Empire dubbed "The Sick Man of Europe" in the West would be playing its definitive role in deciding the future of the Middle East after four centuries of imperial dominance just as war-weary Britain would be playing itself forty years later in the face of the growing new American influence in the region in the aftermath of the Second World War though in a peaceful conciliatory mode as should be the norm between close strategic partners ultimately Al-Thukair's relentless and far-reaching fervour on all fronts caught up with him forcing the venerable septuagenarian merchant to reluctantly relinquish his most rewarding and cherished achievement the "Bahrain Literary Society" resulting in its permanent closure in 1917 due to the unfortunate fact that he was the sole benefactor of this progressive institution having spared no expense on his beloved creation during its fruitful albeit brief existence followed soon thereafter by the selling of nearly all of his assets in Bahrain starting in early 1917 with virtually all his properties in Manama including his commercial buildings and four houses to his friend and equal in character and exalted social stature the prominent pearl merchant Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944) and ending with his most prized possession his huge date palm orchard named "Tinar" on the outskirts of Manama near the historic Al-Khamis Mosque which he sold to his fellow countryman and successor in heading the Najdi community of Bahrain and Ibn Saud's local representative the notable pearl merchant Abdulaziz Bin Hassan Algosaibi (1876-1953) shortly before his final departure to his birthplace Unaizah where he would die six years later in 1923 at the age of 79 this is undoubtedly the clearest manifestation of his unwavering loyalty to his Central Arabian Najdi roots in spite of making Bahrain his home in every sense for forty years however some of his descendants chose to remain in Bahrain namely his Bahraini-born youngest son Abdulrahman who spent the best part of his life moving back and forth between Bahrain and the birthplace of his ancestors Unaizah and whose descendants still live in Bahrain remarkably those last few years of his life were not spent idly on the contrary notwithstanding his financial woes Al-Thukair rose above it all by erecting a charity school complex with free lodging for teachers in his beloved hometown of Unaizah he also funded the publication of two classical Islamic theological works to be distributed gratuitously among its literate residents as a last token of gratitude to the place that played a pivotal role in shaping his formative years the ultimate proof of his noble unfaltering and magnanimous nature in the face of overwhelming vicissitudes of fortune in other words for Al-Thukair moral agency and altruism took precedence over expediency, personal gain and selfish interest this idealised narrative might be viewed by some with incredulity however the veracity of the preceding lofty portrait of Al-Thukair was corroborated by an independent foreign source free of any cultural affiliation to the region found in the travel diary of the young French jeweller Jacques Cartier who painted a more poignant portrait of him than even some of his local and regional contemporaries devoid of duplicity and guile (such values and principles as some commentators suggested were detrimental to Al-Thukair's business activities of course from a pragmatic and unscrupulous perspective) as expected at the death announcement of Al-Thukair at dawn on the 13th of May 1923 in his then small sleepy rural hometown of Unaizah thousands of mourners of all genders and walks of life thronged to join the sombre funeral procession of one of Unaizah's most illustrious natives while paying their respects to the family of this pious and benevolent man the least honour they could afford for someone who gave so much to his people as word of his passing spread beyond Unaizah, cables and letters of condolence started to pour in from regional potentates, political leaders, notables and leading merchants from around the Arabian Peninsula he was also mourned and deservedly eulogised in Iraqi, Levantine and Egyptian journals and periodicals by clerics, writers and intellectuals from the Gulf to Iraq and all the way to Egypt some of whom were personal friends such as the loyal Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Mana (1882-1965) the published author, judge and future Grand Mufti of Qatar and at one time the semi-adopted son and business assistant of Al-Thukair who wrote a heart-wrenching eloquently effusive obituary for Al-Thukair titled "The Death of a Great Man and Famous Philanthropist" in the respected Egyptian Magazine Al-Manar on 9th June 1923 less than a month after his death the unique closeness of Al-Mana to Al-Thukair in all respects including their shared birthplace meant he was a key link between Al-Thukair and all of his friends in the region another personal friend was Sheikh Muhammad Saleh Khonji (1880-1967) the esteemed Bahraini multi-talented cleric, poet, writer, intellectual, historian, administrator and educator the second Bahraini to graduate from the reputable Al-Azhar Islamic University of Cairo, Egypt in 1902 a worthy member of the 1919 prestigious education supervisory committee and a regular patron of the "Bahrain Literary Society" the brainchild of Al-Thukair before and after its official inauguration in 1913 a prolific correspondent with Sheikh Muhammad Rasheed Rida the owner of Al-Manar Magazine in Cairo who also happened to be an epistolary friend of Al-Thukair as noted further down in the text curiously enough Khonji's upcoming literal translated description of Al-Thukair was the least ornate of his contemporaries written in a plain stoic and sparse style displaying the typical ascetic attributes of his writings (Mugbil was a well-educated big merchant who had correspondence through his business agents in India, East Africa, Arab countries and Europe may God Almighty rest his soul) Al-Thukair also formed abiding epistolary friendships throughout his adult life which began as a means to quench his lifelong thirst for intellectual knowledge by forming long-standing literary correspondents that evolved into genuine epistolary friendships as in the case of Mahmud Shukri Al-Alusi (1856-1924) the revered multidiscipline Iraqi Islamic thinker, linguist, historian and reformer editor-in-chief of the first Iraqi periodical the renowned weekly newspaper Al-Zawra'a and once professor and mentor to Al-Mana during his student days in Baghdad however there is strong evidence that the friendship of Al-Alusi and Al-Thukair was not solely epistolary as it was perfectly possible for both gentlemen to meet several times during Al-Thukair's numerous business trips to Iraq particularly in the 1890s there was also occasional specific correspondence between the two concerning the latter's generous and varied assistance to Al-Alusi including the forwarding of several batches of books each containing hundreds of copies of a newly printed first edition of an Islamic theological work by Al-Alusi printed and shipped to Iraq from India one batch at a time at Al-Thukair's expense in addition to financial assistance this was the main topic of a series of letters between the two parties dating back to the year 1893 but for the sake of historical accuracy some of the batches in question were consigned by the ruler of Qatar Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani to be delivered to Al-Alusi by Al-Thukair a trusted friend of the ruler as was the case with other Arabian Gulf rulers mentioned earlier the other distinguished epistolary friend of his was Sheikh Muhammad Rasheed Rida (1865-1935) the eminent Levantine-Egyptian Islamic theologian reformer, Quranic exegete, author and journalist founder and owner of Al-Manar Magazine in Cairo, Egypt to whom he regularly wrote seeking his scholarly counsel on Islamic jurisprudence issues who was alerted to the demise of Al-Thukair by their mutual friend Al-Mana, eliciting a brief yet meaningful obituary by Rida in his own Al-Manar Magazine; the following text is a literal translation of the obituary (we beseech thee Almighty God to bless the life of our mourning brother the just judge of Qatar and to bestow his mercy and blessings upon our departed brother and to unite us with him {In an Assembly of Truth, in the Presence of a Sovereign Omnipotent} (The Moon Surah (chapter) "verse 55" Quran) and to mitigate the grief of his family and offspring and to guide them in following his righteous path) the first impression of this final example of his lasting correspondence is that it was arguably the only one of his consequential epistolary friendships that remained exclusively epistolary since there is no record of any meeting between Al-Thukair and Rida that had ever occurred since their first correspondence at the end of the nineteenth century until the death of Al-Thukair a premise reinforced by an excessive degree of formality and reserved mutual respect a constant feature mirrored in their writings for each other over the years these are the most noteworthy examples to name a few of the monumental veneration that Al-Thukair received upon his death, an explicit attestation of the high standing that he enjoyed at all levels)

The full test train formation was - 43102 + 44090 + 42317 + 12140 + 44101 + 43159. The reason for the tests was the ride and stability trials of the prototype SIG (BT41) bogies, that would eventually be fitted to the MkIV coaches.

 

The picture is at Darlington 31st October 1987 when initial tests up to 125 mile/h were carried out. The following day 1st November 1987 saw test running between York and Darlington, taking speed up in 5 mile/h steps above 125 mile/h to confirm the stability up to 145 mile/h. In fact during one run the speed attained was slightly higher, and we achieved what became a diesel speed record of 148 mile/h over a measured mile on a southbound run between Darlington and York, with an absolute maximum recorded of 148.5 mile/h just south of Northallerton.

 

Read more in my RAIL VEHICLE TESTING book - ISBN-9781999935603, about the preparations and tests associated with the SIG BT41 (MkIV Coach) bogies during which the World Diesel Speed record was achieved. 148 mile/h over the measured mile and 148.5 mile/h maximum, on the 1st Nov 1987.

© Dave Bower - Rail Vehicle Testing

  

OKINAWA, Japan (Aug. 27, 2020) Landing Craft, Air Cushion 10, center, assigned to Naval Beach Unit 7, arrives at White Beach from the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42). Germantown, part of America Expeditionary Strike Group, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit team, is operating in the 7th Fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners, and serves as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Taylor DiMartino)

.

ON APRIL 10 1978, at the age of twenty-four Judy Cameron became the first female Air Canada pilot.

 

Gosh, it was a risky move. The only other “big player” airline to consider the similar venture of a female pilot, was American Airlines. Quietly, Air Canada had reviewed NASA’s conclusions with regard to “emotional stability” and female astronauts.

 

NASA had discovered and documented their results. Women were just as calm, just as logical, and just as disciplined as men at the helm. The ancient Canadian airline was sold—they would go with Judy.

 

But this IS the alternate universe we live in, the one, you know, where Air Canada Flight 621 crashed in Castlemore, ON on this day, July 5, 1970, killing all 109 passengers and crew.

 

One of those Air Canada stewardesses that perished that awful day was a Denise Goulet and had she NOT died, I believe Denise—not Judy—would have been Air Canada’s first female pilot.

 

Judy Cameron decidedly took to flying even after a joker-pilot took her up on her first flight, did some spins, stalled his airplane (a Cessna 150) and then pretended he had to do a forced landing…because well, the airplane was now in trouble (component failure or he faked an inability to restart his engine) and to save their lives—they must land immediately!

 

Judy was scared as hell during the whole flight!

 

However, when the traumatic flight was over and she was safely on the ground Judy immediately knew…she just had to get her pilot’s license.

 

Judy took five years to rack up the necessary flying hours and flight experience…on various aircraft (including multi-engine ones) to even be considered as a pilot for any airline. By 1978 she had accumulated the flying experience that Air Canada couldn’t overlook—so she was indeed hired, and history was made. Air Canada had its first female pilot.

 

In contrast, Air Canada stewardess, Denise Goulet, by age twenty-two already had many parachute jumps under her belt. Her first jump was at age seventeen. And while she had been a stewardess for just shy of three years, she had disclosed to family and friends that she too had committed to getting her pilot’s licence. And fam and friends knew once Denise set her sights on a goal—she would achieve it.

 

That said, Denise had one huge advantage over Judy.

 

Denise’s father, Henri-Paul Goulet, was already a commercial pilot! Qualified not just on airplanes, but helos (helicopters) as well. Not many pilots had this dual certification then, or now.

 

You can bet that once Denise had gotten her private pilot’s licence, her pilot dad would have pulled out all the stops. Commercial pilot's license next…then her multi-engine rating and experience on multiple aircraft. Certainly, on jets. Maybe even helicopters.

 

Assuming the same career timeline—Denise would have been qualified and been commercial pilot status ready—early, by 1975. Three years before Judy.

 

By 1978, Denice would have been twenty-nine with far greater flight experience, and the chronologically more mature pilot.

 

Also, again, it cannot be understated how much attention, flying experience, and extra help Denise would have received through her father. A huge advantage…over and above any advantage Judy actually got.

 

Think of Walter and Wayne Gretzky, and you’ll start to understand the Henri-Paul and Denise Goulet connection.

 

Alas, it was not to be.

 

On July 5th, 1970 that fateful day, a call from Air Canada came into the Goulet residence at around 10 am.

 

That call would be answered by Denise’s eleven-year-old sister, Louise Goulet who was there at home, alone with her mother, Pauline (nee Roux). And, moments after Louise handed the phone over to her mother…their world came crashing in.

 

Simultaneously, Denise’s brother Andre who had borrowed Luke Gruninger’s Mustang to pick up Denise at the Los Angeles airport (LAX) waited for her flight to arrive. The trio was going to spend time together visiting California, seeing the younger generation sites. In August, Pauline and Denise were going to tour California together.

 

As Andre waited at the airport, it was finally announced that Flight 621 had crashed in Canada—with no survivors.

 

What most folks don’t really get about Air Canada’s Flight 621 crash IS that it was the Canadian parallel or equivalent newsworthy event to the JFK assassination in America!

 

That’s right.

 

Ask anyone in the USA what they were doing when they got the news that their much-loved president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had been assassinated.

 

They’ll tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing—and then they'll recall their immediate grief from that very news!

 

Well, I’ve talked with many, many, folks about the Air Canada DC-8 “stretch” crash in Woodbridge then (Brampton now).

 

The first recollections these people comment on is usually that it was a Sunday morning. Or, that it was such a beautiful day outside. Next, they'll recall exactly what they were doing at the moment they learned the shocking news of the Toronto area air disaster.

 

Usually, that news came over the radio, since everyone listened to the radio back then, at least in the background. And then there was a personal sorrow and a realization of their inability to help in any way. But their hearts and prayers were with the victim's families.

 

So many lives lost and no survivors! And so close to Toronto. And then the inevitable question—how did this crash happen?

 

That’s what this Air Canada plane crash meant to Canadians at the time. It was a sad and riveting moment for the entire nation.

 

From Patricia Harding,

 

“Denise and I trained together as Air Canada Flight Attendants in Montreal. She was a lovely person. I was in Vancouver on a stopover when we heard the news of the crash. We were grief-stricken and so traumatized that we were unable to work our flight back home. We had to stay in Vancouver and were flown home a couple of days later. The flight crew were all known to us and were like family. We were young and had so many dreams for the future. I have never forgotten and I will carry her memory with me always.”

 

From Nancy Holloway Gunson,

 

"I was working a C. P. Air flight that fateful day from Vancouver to Montreal. Before take off, we didn't receive any newspapers to hand out to passengers (these were the days when newspapers published 3 times a day and Vancouver was also 3 hours behind Toronto's time) and I remember asking a ground crew member why, and he told that there weren't any. I thought that that was very odd. Little did I realize that the crash was front page news.

 

It was later in the day as we descended into Toronto, and because my 'fifth position seat' was 'sold', that I sat behind the captain for landing. As we circled, the captain pointed out the smoking rubble on the ground. It was then I found out about the crash. I could just as easily have been on that flight because I was accepted to Air Canada's F.A. training course and a day later, I found out that I was also accepted to CP Air. Because CP Air's training was in Vancouver, I decided that CP Air was for me.

 

My heart aches for those who perished. Denise Goulet was a beautiful young woman."

 

Look at the picture above of Denise Goulet.

 

If ever there was someone full of hope and promise it was Denise.

 

Her Air Canada stewardess picture is courtesy of Denise’s younger sister, Louise who answered the fateful call from Air Canada on that day.

 

And sadly, but truly, Denise is standing in front of an Air Canada DC-8 just like the one she perished in.

  

From the Walsingham poem,

 

“But true love is a durable fire,

In the mind ever burning.

Never sick, never old, never dead,

From itself never turning.”

 

Sir Walter Ralegh

 

Check here, on July 5, 2020, after 7 pm:

www.flickr.com/photos/78215847@N00/albums/721576246894922...

 

ADD A CONDOLENCE to the FLIGHT 621 FAMILIES, or a LOVED ONE from FLIGHT 621, or a MEMORY of a PERSONAL EVENT related to the crash…at the City of Brampton's permanent Flight 621 site…SEE: www.brampton.ca/EN/City-Hall/Protocol-Office/Brampton-Rem...

  

REST IN PEACE passengers and crew of Flight 621:

 

Adams, Celine Fradette

Adams, Pierre J

Beaudin, Gaetan

Belanger, Mrs.

Belanger, Jacques

Belanger, Jean

Belanger, Roland

Belanger, Rosanne

Benson, Helen

Benson, Leonard

Benson, Mary

Benson, Richard

Bertrand, Ginette

Boosamra, Lynn

Boulanger, Guy

Bradshaw, Dollie

Cedilot, Robert J

Chapdeleine, Jeannine

Chapdeleine, Joanne

Chapdeleine, Mario

Charent, Jean Maurice

Clarke, Devona Olivia

Cote, Francine

Daoust, Yolande

Desmarais, Brigitte

Desmarais, G

Dicaire, Alice (Marie)

Dicaire, Gilles

Dicaire, Linda

Dicaire, Luke

Dicaire, Mark

Dion, Suzanne

Dore, Jacqueline

Earle, Lewella

Earle, Linda

Filippone, Francesco

Filippone, Linda

Filippone, Marie

Gee, Bernard

Goulet, Denise M

Grenier, Madeleine

Growse, Diana Cicely

Growse, Jane

Growse, Roger

Hamilton, Karen E

Hamilton, Peter Cameron

Herrmann, Ronald Alvin

Hill, Harry Gordon

Holiday, Claude

Houston, Irene Margaret

Houston, Wesley

Jakobsen, Vagn Aage

Labonte, Gilles

Leclaire, Marie Rose

Leclaire, Oscar

Leduc, Henri W

Lepage, Claudette

Mailhiot, Claire Gagnon

Mailhiot, Gerald Bernard

Maitz, Gustave

Maitz, Karoline

McKettrick, Winnifred

McTague, John

Medizza, Carla

Mohammed, Dolly

Molino, Antonio

Molino, Michael (Michel)

Moore, Frederick T

Partridge, Andrea

Partridge, Carnie (Carnis) Ann

Partridge, Cyril Wayne

Phillips, Kenneth William

Poirier, Rita

Raymond, Gilles

Raymond, Martial

Robert, Aline

Robert, Georges E

Robidoux, Lionel

Rowland, Donald

Silverberg, Marci

Silverberg, Merle

Silverberg, Steven

Simon, Istvan

Simon, Mark

Smith, Dwight Lee

St. Laurent, Blanche

Stepping, Glenn Thomas

Sultan, Celia

Sultan, Jerald. M

Sultan, Robert. L

Szpakowicz, Borys

Szpakowicz, Serge

Tielens, Carmen

Tielens, Frederick

Tournovits, George

Tournovits, Soula (Athanasia)

Weinberg, Carla

Weinberg, Rita

Weinberg, Wendy

Whittingham, Jennifer

Whittingham, John

Whittingham, Reginald

Whybro, Mary Baker

Wieczorek, Hildegund

Witmer, Edgar

Wong, Ngar-Quon

Wong, Suzie

Wong, Wong (Mansing)

Woodward, Dallas J

 

© 2019 Paul Cardin - Friends of Flight 621

  

(to be refined further at a later date)

DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 24JAN14 - Philipp M. Hildebrand (L), Vice-Chairman, BlackRock, United Kingdom and Mario Draghi (R), President, European Central Bank, Frankfurt discuss during the session 'The Path from Crisis to Stability' at the Annual Meeting 2014 of the World Economic Forum at the congress centre in Davos, January 24, 2014.

 

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/swiss-image.ch/Photo Remy Steinegger

n° 57 of 100

Chassis n° ZA9H12EAYYSF76077

 

Bonhams

Les Grandes Marques du Monde à Paris

The Grand Palais Éphémère

Place Joffre

Parijs - Paris

Frankrijk - France

February 2023

 

Estimated : € 2.300.000 - 2.700.000

Unsold

 

"It's a car with its own personality – or rather its own split personality. Beyond refinement and ease of use is a demon with one eye open waiting for its turn, a car that is scintillatingly fast and hugely demanding, a car that can thrill and terrify in equal measure, a supercar in every sense of the word." – evo.

 

One of the more fascinating aspects of the modern motoring scene is the recent emergence of the small independent supercar manufacturer, many of which have gone from relative obscurity to the status of household names in just a few short years, usually on the back of a product range offering hitherto almost unimaginable levels of performance. Whereas at one time established manufacturers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and Aston Martin only had one another to worry about, they now have to contend with the likes of Koenigsegg, De Tomaso and, of course, Pagani.

 

Succeeding the Zonda, Pagani's latest offering is the Huayra, a mid-engined coupé hailed by Top Gear magazine as 'Hypercar of the Year 2012'. Horacio Pagani was no newcomer to the world of automotive engineering when he built the first Zonda in 1999, for the Argentine-born industrial design graduate had been working with Lamborghini since the mid-1980s, developing the Countach and Diablo road cars and assisting with the Italian manufacturer's Formula 1 engine programme. The Zonda C12 debuted in coupé form at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show, its maker freely acknowledging that its styling had been inspired by the Mercedes-Benz Group C 'Silver Arrow' sports-racers. Mercedes-Benz's influence was more than just skin deep, for the German firm's AMG performance division was responsible for the Zonda's 6.0-litre V12 engine, which was mounted longitudinally amidships in the predominantly carbon fibre body tub. With some 408 horsepower on tap, the C12 was always going to be quick, but performance figures of 0-60mph in 4.2 seconds and 0-100 in 8.2 were simply staggering plus, of course, that all important 200mph (or thereabouts) top speed.

 

Seemingly small from the outside yet endowed with a comfortable cabin, the C12 provided the basis for a host of derivatives, which emerged from Pagani's factory at San Cesario sul Panaro near Modena (where else?) in strictly limited numbers over the next 11 years.

 

Its successor, the Huayra - named after a wind god of the South American Quechua people - made its public debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2011. Once again, AMG provided the engine, on this occasion a twin-turbocharged 6.0-litre V12 producing a mighty 620bhp and a titanic 737lb/ft of torque. A mind-boggling top speed of around 238mph (383km/h) was claimed for the Huayra, with the 0-60mph dash accomplished in a neck-snapping 2.8 seconds. Power reaches the road via a transversely-mounted Xtrac seven-speed sequential semi-automatic transmission, while the stupendous performance is kept in check by Brembo carbon ceramic disc brakes featuring four-pot callipers all round. It is worthwhile noting the Horacio Pagani chose to stick with a conventional single clutch rather than the more complex and heavier twin-clutch technology favoured by some rivals, reasoning that the considerable saving in weight would result in a better balanced car.

 

The most significant difference between the Huayra and its Zonda predecessor is the former's use of active aerodynamic aids. These consist of variable front ride height and moveable spoilers at front and rear, their deployment being managed by a dedicated control unit to minimise drag or maximise downforce as required. Under hard braking, the rear spoiler flaps function as an air brake, the front ride height being increased at the same time to counteract weight transfer to the front wheels and thus maintain stability. Cleverly, this system is also used to limit body roll when cornering by raising the 'inside' flaps to generate increased down force on that side only. As had been the case with the Zonda, an open roadster and various limited edition variants followed.

 

Testing a Huayra in 2013, evo magazine found that even before the ignition key had been turned, the experience of just sitting in the cockpit was almost overwhelming. 'Inside a leather, carbonfibre and aluminium cocoon of obsession, every detail agonised over and beautifully thought out, every material used sympathetically and expertly integrated into this stunning sculpture. The driving position is superb.' Needless to say, the driving experience did not disappoint: 'the engine is just phenomenally powerful and when it's delivering the full 737lb/ft of torque, it scrambles your brain. This is the sort of performance that doesn't dull even with prolonged exposure'.

 

Pagani's agreement with AMG limited the supply of engines to 100 units, restricting production to only 100 cars, thus guaranteeing the Huayra's instant exclusivity and future collectible status.

 

Number '57' of the 100 Huayra Roadsters built, this car was delivered new to Denmark and registered in July 2020. The car had been ordered and specified by a Danish car collector, who took delivery but never drove it. He then sold the car to another Danish collector, in whose hands it has covered fewer than 800 kilometres.

It's the first shot I post here from my vacation with my darling in Karlovy Vary [Carlsbad] , it's a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately 130 km (80.78 miles) west of Prague. It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370. It is historically famous for its hot springs (13 main springs, about 300 smaller springs, and the warm-water Teplá River).

 

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Canon 50D

Canon 50mm f1.8II

  

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OKINAWA, Japan (Jan. 18, 2021) A landing craft air cushion assigned to Navy Beach Unit 7 delivers a Marine M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, to the well deck of amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18). New Orleans, part of the America Amphibious Ready Group, along with the 31st MEU, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kelby Sanders)

Build your own cute New Hashima hoverbike, free instructions on Rebrickable:

 

reb.li/m/206333

 

This 24-part model (inc. Minifigure) will cost ~£6 on BrickLink.

 

Thank you for all the love shown to my OG design last month. I’ve made one minor stability change, so everything is now fully secure and swooshable!

 

My cyberpunk hoverbike and other secret things will be on display at Bricktastic Manchester (22-23 February), buy your tickets now at bricktastic.org!

 

Copyright © Stewart Lamb Cromar 2025. All rights reserved.

 

Daytime image by Takatoshikun from Pixabay

Nighttime image by djedj from Pixabay

PHILIPPINE SEA (Aug. 20, 2021) A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II fighter aircraft attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA 211), embarked on the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) prepares for takeoff from amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) during flight operations between the Royal Navy and USS America. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit is operating aboard ships of America Expeditionary Strike Group in the 7th fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Malik Lewis)

PACIFIC OCEAN (Aug. 19, 2020) Seaman Yawo Afodagni, from Silver Spring, Md., directs the approach of Landing Craft, Utility 1666, from Navy Beach Unit (NBU) 7 into the well deck of the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18). New Orleans, part of the America Expeditionary Strike Group, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners, and serves as a ready response force to defend security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kelby Sanders)

PHILIPPINE SEA (Sept. 16, 2016) The forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52), receives fuel from the Military Sealift Command (MSC) fleet replenishment oiler Walter S. Diehl (T-AO 193) during an underway-replenishment as a part of Valiant Shield 2016. Valiant Shield is a biennial, U.S. only, field-training exercise with a focus on integration of joint training among U.S. forces. This is the sixth exercise in the Valiant Shield series that began in 2006. Barry is on patrol with Carrier Strike Group Five (CSG 5) in the Philippine Sea supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kevin V. Cunningham/Released)

No stability can be forever without care. At some point a stable link will break.

There was no ABS, no traction control, no electro-hydraulic paddle shifting, and no stability control. With a 201 mph top speed and 0 to 60 mph in less than four seconds, no one was disappointed with the F40. Ferrari proposed only a limited run of 400 or so F40s, but the model's reception was overwhelming and the run kept growing until 1,315 were built by the time production ended in 1991.

The F40 was a simple machine that, like the greatest Ferraris of the past, relied upon its engine for its performance. Suspension and layout were conventional, and there were no serious attempts to employ cutting-edge technology. The F40 was good, sound, basic design, with a superb twin-turbocharged engine, aerodynamics heavily weighted toward downforce and stability, and generous use of lightweight composite materials. The chassis was - like the 125 built 40 years before - based on two large-diameter steel tubes. They were joined and stiffened by light, compound structures, to be sure, but the basic form was as rudimentary as the ones welded together in the Gilberto shops a generation before.

Competition was not in Ferrari's original plan for the F40, but Daniel Marin, managing director of French Ferrari importer Charles Pozzi SA, took the initiative and authorized Michelotto, the famed Padova Ferrari service centre, to construct a series of F40 LMs for racing under IMSA rules in the U.S. Just 19 were built.

These were followed by five official F40 GT's, also built by Michelotto to regulations for the Italian Supercar Championship and, as F50 GTE's, in the mid-'90s BPR GT series. The BPR Organization adopted air-restrictor regulations to handicap engine output and overall performance, but the lessons learned in the earlier competition F40s were applied to the limits of the rules in building the F40 GT's for these series. These few F40 GT's were much more highly developed race cars that were lighter, had better aerodynamics and sophisticated flat-floor ground effects, full ball-jointed suspensions, quick-fill fuel systems, wider wheels and tires, lower ride heights and other improvements that made them the most sophisticated of all the F40-based race cars, and potentially the fastest when relieved of their air-restrictor trumpets.

The GT programme was adopted by many owners independently and as a result a number of cars were privately converted (from a standard road car) over the years and successfully raced in various championships throughout the world. Such was the effectiveness of the basic design of the F40 that cars were seen out racing at a competitive level right through until the late 90's, when the cars were by then some ten years old! A remarkable feat.

This F40 was supplied new to Italy, being manufactured in 1989 and delivered in 1990 as a standard Non Cat & Non Adjust example. Some years later the car found its way to Japan where it was uprated and it is believed it raced in the Japanese GT series. More recently the car found its way back to Europe and has been subjected to a beautiful restoration at which time the car was repainted, had all four corners stripped and rebuilt, a full engine inspection and service, and an interior retrim.

As such, today the car is UK road registered and presented in superb concours condition throughout but importantly in its "GT" specification. This includes, lightweight clam shells front & rear, lightweight lower rear valence, "LM" style headlights & front clam shell with added radiator extraction ducts, "LM style sill Nasa duct, fully adjustable waste gate, revised engine management, big brakes & wheels, digital race dash, electric passenger window, fully adjustable suspension and "LM" venturi ducts & rear wing.

The car represents a fabulous potential track day assault weapon or even an F40 for the road with a bit more flare! For Enzo Ferrari's 40th anniversary as a constructor under his own name, he gave his design team a very simple instruction: 'Build a car to be the best in the world.' Time has shown that they complied. [DK Engineering web site]

 

DK Engineering Showcase Day 2015

Must attribute with link to: www.ptpioneer.com

TRX Stability ball exercise

The Pyramid/Tesla Energy Connection

 

Nikola Tesla regarded the Earth as one of the plates of a capacitor, the ionosphere forming the other plate. Recent measurements have shown that the voltage gradient between the two is 400,000 volts. With this principle, he said he was able, through his invention, to provide free energy to anyone, inexhaustible in quantity, anywhere on earth. That is why he had built a first prototype, the Wardenclyffe Tower, in which was to apply his famous pyramid effect. What is it exactly?

"The lines of force of the electric charge additioned to the fields from the sun act on the walls of a pyramid.The magnetic equipotentials show a high magnetic density in the summit. The voltage of the electric field increases of 100 V per meter. The terrestrial negative field reaches its maximum value at the summit of the pyramid; at the top of the pyramid of Giza, the voltage is 14,600 V. This pyramid is itself a capacitor, it accumulates an electrical charge. If an excess load is added, a discharge occurs at the top, and, as we know currently, that top was adorned with a solid gold capstone, an excellent conductor."Tesla wanted his tower to be high to increase the voltage at the top. He wanted to create an artificial lightning in the tower. In the discharge tube of a natural flash , the temperature rises to 30 000 ° C. Tesla did not want to manage such high temperatures because it is a waste of energy. Tesla's Wardenclyffe tower would have used a transformer to produce a high voltage, which would have generated, instead of a natural lightning, a "discharge of high energetic ion abundance".To accentuate the pyramid effect, he had imagined to give the tower the octagonal shape of a pyramid topped by a half sphere. Why octogonal? Tesla does not explain, but when we read his memoirs, we understand that he sensed a scientific discipline that did not yet exist, geobiology, and the theory of waves of forms. From the perspective of traditional physics, the fact that the tower is octagonal is insignificant. It could be square or have an infinite number of faces, that is conic. "In all cases the voltage would have been the same, its shape just gave it stability." This raises two objections. The octagonal shape is not a guarantee of stability comparing to the square shape. If he was really looking for stability, a hyperbolic rise, like that of the Eiffel Tower, would have been better suited. The octagonal shape has very special wave characteristics, it is possible that this pure genius sensed it without being able to theorize it.As for the square shape of the pyramids, the engineer Gustave Eiffel has chosen it for his tower, precisely because it is a guarantee of stability, as the four legs and the widening elevation. Built in 1889, our national tower was already fairly well known to be his model. As Wardenclyffe Tower, the Eiffel Tower has a pyramid effect which makes it pick at the top, even without a storm, a DC current. Its lightning rod "makes" thus some electricity that goes down in a cable to be delivered to the earth.This waste is not limited to the Eiffel Tower. All roofs and metal frames make the same production, stupidly given to the earth. The Vril energy is free, it is its biggest flaw in a world of profit. The fact that it is completely environmentally friendly and inexhaustible has no interest for the capital. The fact that it is beneficial for both the human mind and the health of people, animals and plants thanks to the virtues of water of lightning, has even much less interest for profiteers. Unfortunately, Tesla was never able to finish his tower. He did not have the opportunity to carry out the planned experiments on Long Island that sought to bring rain in the deserts. Others before him had managed that. We know that Egypt has not always been desertic. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that "Egypt is a gift of the Nile." But it was in the 5th century BC. Since then, its climate has not changed much, and yet it has not always been so. The predynastic Egypt was rather a gift of the pyramids... "In the pre-dynastic period, the Egyptian climate is much less arid than it is nowadays. Large areas of Egypt are covered with savanna and traversed by herds of ungulates. The foliage and wildlife then are much more prolific and the Nile region is home to large populations of waterfowl. Hunting is a common activity for the Egyptians and it is also during this period that many animals are domesticated for the first time."

 

www.apparentlyapparel.com/news/the-pyramid-energy-tesla-c...

 

"....If we could produce electric effects of the required quality, this whole planet and the conditions of existence on it could be transformed. The sun raises the water of the oceans and winds drive it to distant regions where it remains in state of most delicate balance. If it were in our power to upset it when and wherever desired, this mighty life-sustaining stream could be at will controlled. We could irrigate arid deserts, create lakes and rivers and provide motive power in unlimited amount. This would be the most efficient way of harnesing the sun to the uses of man......" ( Nikola Tesla, June 1919 )

 

Nikola Tesla, inventor of alternating current motors, did the basic research for constructing electromagnetic field lift-and-drive aircraft/space craft. From 1891 to 1893, he gave a set of lectures and demonstrations to groups of electrical engineers. As part of each show, Tesla stood in the middle of the stage, using his 6' 6" height, with an assistant on either side, each 7 feet away. All 3 men wore thick cork or rubber shoe soles to avoid being electrically grounded. Each assistant held a wire, part of a high voltage, low current circuit. When Tesla raised his arms to each side, violet colored electricity jumped harmlessly across the gaps between the men. At high voltage and frequency in this arrangement, electricity flows over a surface, even the skin, rather than into it. This is a basic circuit which could be used by aircraft / spacecraft.

 

The hull is best made double, of thin, machinable, slightly flexible ceramic. This becomes a good electrical insulator, has no fire danger, resists any damaging effects of severe heat and cold, and has the hardness of armor, besides being easy for magnetic fields to pass through.

 

The inner hull is covered on it's outside by wedge shaped thin metal sheets of copper or aluminum, bonded to the ceramic. Each sheet is 3 to 4 feet wide at the horizontal rim of the hull and tapers to a few inches wide at the top of the hull for the top set of metal sheets, or at the bottom for the bottom set of sheets. Each sheet is separated on either side from the next sheet by 1 or 2 inches of uncovered ceramic hull. The top set of sheets and bottom set of sheets are separated by about 6 inches of uncovered ceramic hull around the horizontal rim of the hull.

 

The outer hull protects these sheets from being short-circuited by wind blown metal foil (Air Force radar confusing chaff), heavy rain or concentrations of gasoline or kerosene fumes. If unshielded, fuel fumes could be electrostatically attracted to the hull sheets, burn and form carbon deposits across the insulating gaps between the sheets, causing a short-circuit. The space, the outer hull with a slight negative charge, would absorb hits from micrometeorites and cosmic rays (protons moving at near the speed of light). Any danger of this type that doesn't already have a negative electric charge would get a negative charge in hitting the outer hull, and be repelled by the metal sheets before it could hit the inner hull. This wouldn't work well on a very big meteor, I might add.

 

The hull can be made in a variety of shapes; sphere, football, disc, or streamlined rectangle or triangle, as long as these metal sheets, "are of considerable area and arranged along ideal enveloping surfaces of very large radii of curvature," p. 85. "My Inventions", by Nikola Tesla.

 

The power plant for this machine can be a nuclear fission or fusion reactor for long range and long-term use to run a steam engine, which turns the generators. A short range machine can use a hydrogen oxygen fuel cell to run a low-voltage motor to turn the generators, occasionally recharging by hovering next to high voltage power lines and using antennas mounted on the outer hull to take in the electricity. The short-range machine can also have electricity beamed to it from a generating plan on a long-range aircraft / spacecraft or on the ground.

 

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 24, 1987, Vol 109, No. 328, "The Forever Plane" by Geoffrey Rowan, p. D1, D7.)

("Popular Science", Vol 232, No. 1, Jan. 1988, "Secret of Perpetual Flight? Beam Power Plane," by Arthur Fisher, p. 62-65, 106)

One standard for the generators is to have the same number of magnets as field coils. Tesla's preferred design was a thin disc holding 480 magnets with 480 field coils wired in series surrounding it in close tolerance. At 50 revolutions per minute, it produces 19,400 cycles per second.

 

The electricity is fed into a number of large capacitors, one for each metal sheet. An automatic switch, adjustable in timing by the pilot, closes, and as the electricity jumps across the switch, back and forth, it raises it's own frequency; a switch being used for each capacitor.

 

The electricity goes into a Tesla transformer; again, one transformer for each capacitor. In an oil tank to insulate the windings and for cooling, and supported internally by wood, or plastic, pipe and fittings, each Tesla transformer looks like a short wider pipe that is moved along a longer, narrower pipe by an insulated non-electric cable handle. The short pipe, the primary, is 6 to 10 windings (loops) of wire connected in series to the long pipe. The secondary is 460 to 600 windings, at the low voltage and frequency end.

 

The insulated non-electric cable handle is used through a set of automatic controls to move the primary coil to various places on the secondary coil. This is the frequency control. The secondary coil has a low frequency and voltage end and a maximum voltage and frequency end. The greater the frequency the electricity, the more it pushes against the earth's electrostatic and electromagnetic fields.

 

The electricity comes out of the transformer at the high voltage end and goes by wire through the ceramic hull to the wide end of the metal sheet. The electricity jumps out on and flows over the metal sheet, giving off a very strong electromagnetic field, controlled by the transformer. At the narrow end of the metal sheet, most of the high-voltage push having been given off; the electricity goes back by wire through the hull to a circuit breaker box (emergency shut off), then to the other side of the generators.

 

In bright sunlight, the aircraft / spacecraft may seem surrounded by hot air, a slight magnetic distortion of the light. In semi-darkness and night, the metal sheets glow, even through the thin ceramic outer hull, with different colors. The visible light is a by-product of the electricity flowing over the metal sheets, according to the frequencies used.

 

Descending, landing or just starting to lift from the ground, the transformer primaries are near the secondary weak ends and therefore, the bottom set of sheets glow a misty red. Red may also appear at the front of the machine when it is moving forward fast, lessening resistance up front. Orange appears for slow speed. Orange-yellow is for airplane-type speeds. Green and blue are for higher speeds. With a capacitor addition, making it oversized for the circuit, the blue becomes bright white, like a searchlight, with possible risk of damaging the metal sheets involved. The highest visible frequency is violet, like Tesla's stage demonstrations, used for the highest speed along with the bright white. The colors are nearly coherent, of a single frequency, like a laser.

 

A machine built with a set of super conducting magnets would simplify and reduce electricity needs from a vehicle's transformer circuits to the point of flying along efficiently and hovering with little electricity.

 

When Tesla was developing arc lights to run on alternating current, there was a bothersome high-pitched whine, whistle, or buzz, due to the electrodes rapidly heating and cooling. Tesla put this noise in the ultrasonic range with the special transformer already mentioned. The aircraft / spacecraft gives off such noises when working at low frequencies.

 

Timing is important in the operation of this machine. For every 3 metal sheets, when the middle one is briefly turned off, the sheet on either side is energized, giving off the magnetic field. The next instant, the middle sheet is energized, while the sheet on either side is briefly turned off. There is a time delay in the capacitors recharging themselves, so at any time, half of all the metal sheets are energized and the other half are recharging, alternating all around the inner hull. This balances the machine, giving it very good stability. This balance is less when fewer of the circuits are in use.

 

Fairly close, the aircraft / spacecraft produces heating of persons and objects on the ground; but by hovering over an area at low altitude for maybe 5 or 10 minutes, the machine also produces a column of very cold air down to the ground. As air molecules get into the strong magnetic fields that the machine is transmitting out, the air molecules become polarized and from lines, or strings, of air molecules. The normal movement of the air is stopped, and there is suddenly a lot more room for air molecules in this area, so more air pours in. This expansion and the lack of normal air motion make the area intensely cold.

 

This is also the reason that the aircraft / spacecraft can fly at supersonic speeds without making sonic booms. As air flows over the hull, top and bottom, the air molecules form lines as they go through the magnetic fields of the metal sheet circuits. As the air molecules are left behind, they keep their line arrangements for a short time; long enough to cancel out the sonic boom shock waves.

 

Outside the earth's magnetic field, another propulsion system must be used, which relies on the first. You may have read of particle accelerators, or cyclotrons, or atomsmashers. A particle accelerator is a circular loop of pipe that, in cross-section, is oval. In a physics laboratory, most of the air in it is pumped out. The pipe loop is given a static electric charge; a small amount of hydrogen or other gas is given the same electric charge so the particles won't stick to the pipe. A set of electromagnets all around the pipe loop turn on and off, one after the other, pushing with one magnetic pole and pulling with the next, until those gas particles are racing around the pipe loop at nearly the speed of light. Centrifugal force makes the particles speed closer to the outside edge of the pipe loop, still within the pipe. The particles break down into electrons, or light and other wavelengths, protons or cosmic rays, and neutrons if more than hydrogen is put in the accelerator.

 

At least 2 particle accelerators are used to balance each other and counter each other's tendency to make the craft spin. Otherwise, the machine would tend to want to start spinning, following the direction of the force being applied to the particles. The accelerators push in opposite directions.

 

As the pilot and crew travel in space, outside the magnetic field of a world, water from a tank is electrically separated into oxygen and hydrogen. Waste carbon dioxide that isn't used for the onboard garden, and hydrogen (helium if the machine is using a fusion reactor) is slowly, constantly fed into the inside curves of both accelerators.

 

The high-speed particles go out through straight lengths of pipe, charged like the loops and in speeding out into space, push the machine along. Doors control which pips the particles leave from. This allows very long-range acceleration and later deceleration at normal (earth) gravity. This avoids the severe problems of weightlessness, including lowered physical abilities of the crew.

 

It is possible to use straight-line particle accelerators, even as few as one per machine, but these don't seem as able to get the best machine speed for the least amount of particles pushed out.

 

Using a constant acceleration of 32.2 feet per second per second provides earth normal gravity in deep space and only 2 gravities of stress in leaving the earth's gravity field. It takes, not counting air resistance, 18 minutes, 58.9521636 seconds to reach the 25,000 miles per hour speed to leave the earth's gravity field. It takes about 354 days, 12 hours, 53 minutes and 40 seconds (about) to reach the speed of light - 672,487,072.7 miles per hour. It takes the same distance to decelerate as it does to speed up, but this cuts down the time delay that one would have in conventional chemical rocketry enormously, for a long journey.

 

A set of super conducting magnets can be charged by metal sheet circuits, within limits, to whatever frequency is needed and will continue to transmit that magnetic field frequency almost indefinitely.

 

A short-wave radio can be used to find the exact frequencies that an aircraft / spacecraft is using, for each of the colors it may show whole a color television can show the same overall color frequency that the nearby, but not extremely close, craft is using This is limited, as a machine traveling at the speed of a jet airliner may broadcast in a frequency range usually used for radar sets.

 

The craft circuits override lower frequency, lower voltage electric circuits within and near their electromagnetic fields. One source briefly mentioned a 1941 incident, where a short-wave radio was used to override automobile ignition systems, up to 3 miles away. When the short-wave radio was turned off, the cars could work again. How many UFO encounters have been reported in which automobile ignition systems have suddenly stopped?

 

I figure that things would not be at all pleasant for drivers of modern cars with computer controlled engine and ignition systems. Computer circuitry is sensitive to small changes in voltage and a temporary wrong-way voltage surge may wipe the computer memory out. It could mean that a number of drivers would suddenly be stranded with their cars not working should such a craft fly low over a busy highway. Only diesel engines, already warmed up, and Stanley Steamer type steam engine cares are able to continue working in a strong electromagnetic field. In May, 1988, it was reported that the U.S. Army had lost 5 Blackhawk helicopters and 22 crewmen in crashes caused by ordinary commercial radio broadcasting overriding the computer control circuits of those helicopters. Certainly, computer circuits for this aircraft / spacecraft can and must be designed to overcome this weakness.

 

One construction arrangement for this craft to avoid such interference is for the metal sheet circuits to be more sharply tuned. Quartz or other crystals can be used in capacitors; in a very large number of low-powered, single frequency circuits, or as part of a frequency control for the metal sheet circuits.

 

The aircraft / spacecraft easily overrides lower frequency and lower voltage electric circuits up to a 6 mile wide circle around it, but the effect is usually not tuned for such a drastic show. It can be used for fire fighting: by hovering at a medium-low height at low frequency, it forms a double negative pole magnet of itself and the ground, the sides being a rotation of positive magnetic pole.

 

It polarizes the column of air in this field. The air becomes icy cold. If it wouldn't put the fire out, it would slow it down.

 

Tesla went broke in the early 1900's building a combination radio and electric power broadcasting station. The theory and experiments were correct but the financiers didn't want peace and prosperity for all.

 

The Japanese physicist who developed super conducting material with strong magnetism allows for a simplified construction of the aircraft / spacecraft. Blocks of this material can be used in place of the inner hull metal sheets. By putting electricity in each block, the pilot can control the strength of the magnetic field it gives off and can reduce the field strength by draining some of the electric charge. This allows the same amount of work to be done with vastly less electricity used to do it.

 

It is surprising that Jonathan Swift, in his "Gulliver's Travels", 1726, third book, "A Voyage to Laputa", described an imagined magnetic flying island that comes close to being what a large super conducting aircraft / spacecraft can be build as, using little or no electric power to hover and mover around.

 

www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/02files/Tesla_Saucer.html

 

Before our study group, Summerville, South Carolina #2, made a trip to A.R.E headquarters in Virginia Beach, Va., in April, 2009, Jerry Ingle, set into motion an ideal that generated a monumental synchronicity. For years, Jerry, a long-time member of our group, had been interested in Nikola Tesla. He saw many parallels between his talents and those of Edgar Cayce and hoped to somehow connect them. As a psychic, Edgar Cayce had been consulted by engineers about their inventions. Cayce was willing to help as long as it would ultimately be of service to humanity. While there are suggestions that both Thomas Edison and his former associate, Nikola Tesla, consulted Cayce separately; there is no documentation in the A.R.E. archives.

 

Nikola Tesla was an electrical engineer who invented the alternating current Niagara power system that made Edison's direct current obsolete. He sold Westinghouse 40 patents that broke the General Electric monopoly. In 1893 he demonstrated the use of wireless radio control with a torpedo-like boat. He invented wireless transmission of electricity, an electric car that ran by tapping into the electricity of the Earth, the microwave, and the TV remote control, just to name a few. A court recently ruled that while Marconi had been given credit for the invention of the radio and made a fortune on it, Tesla was the true inventor.

 

Tesla was concerned with harnessing nature to meet the needs of humankind and foresaw the end of World War I as a synthesis of history, philosophy, and science,. He had the amazing ability to construct a machine in his mind and then, by operating the device in his mind, make improvements to the design. He could develop and perfect his inventions by drawing only upon the creative forces, without actually touching anything material. Just as the Cayce readings suggest, "Mind is the builder, physical is the result."

 

Another inventor that Edgar Cayce met was a man named Marion L. Stansell. During World War I, while stationed in France, Stansell had a near death experience with a vision. During the experience, a "spirit guide" escorted him to another dimension where he was given a formula for a mechanical device. He was told that this device would save the planet from environmental destruction in the next millennium.

 

On February 1, 1928, Edgar Cayce gave a reading which confirmed that Stansell was able to see the blueprints for a revolutionary type of motor in his dreams and visions. According to the readings, the motor was designed in the spirit realm by De Witt Clinton, deceased governor of New York, who in his last incarnation was the force behind the development of the Erie Canal.

 

Stansell needed the assistance of Edgar Cayce to relay precise technical information from Clinton in the spirit realm to Stansell and a team of like-minded entrepreneurs in the material world. The Stansell motor readings were conducted over a two-year period. One could speculate that Mr. Cayce did the same for Nikola Tesla, and that these readings were a continuation of that work, but if so, there is no record of it.

 

Jerry believed that there was a deep connection between the work of Cayce and Tesla and their interest in the connection between electricity and psychic phenomena. At A.R.E., Jerry found his way to the vault, where the Cayce records are kept, hoping to discover a way to get these plans into the hands of present-day inventors.

 

There, he and an A.R.E. volunteer named Harry talked excitedly for some time about Tesla. Suddenly, a man came to the door of the vault. "Does anybody know if there was ever a connection between Edgar Cayce and Nikola Tesla?"

 

"Here is the guy who can tell you," said Harry as he pointed toward Jerry. Jerry turned to face Nikola Lonchar — the President of Nikola Tesla's Inventors Club, a man who was dedicated to locating and preserving Tesla's work. The organization was made up of scientists who wanted to be sure Tesla's work was not lost! This was the first visit to A.R.E. by anyone from the Tesla organization.

 

Jerry was able to supply the visitor with the information he needed. The two sat in the lobby of the A.R.E. Visitor Center, oblivious to their surroundings, talking about an interest that held them both captive. Jerry was invited to speak at the next Nikola Tesla Inventors conference.

 

Nikola Lonchar was at A.R.E. for only one day. During this small window of time, he and Jerry had converged at the same place, at the same time, both equipped with a desire to be of service to Cayce, to Tesla, and to humanity. That's synchronicity in motion.

 

www.edgarcayce.org/about-us/blog/blog-posts/synchronicity...