1.
Portrait photography
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Portrait photography or portraiture is photography of a person or group of people that captures the personality of a subject by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. A portrait picture might be artistic, or it might be clinical, frequently, portraits are commissioned for special occasions, such as weddings or school events. Portraits can serve many purposes, from usage on a personal Web site to display in the lobby of a business, the style of these early works reflected the technical challenges associated with long exposure times and the painterly aesthetic of the time. Subjects were generally seated against plain backgrounds and lit with the light of an overhead window. Advances in photographic equipment and techniques developed, and gave photographers the ability to capture images with exposure times. When portrait photographs are composed and captured in a studio, the photographer has control over the lighting of the composition of the subject and can adjust direction and intensity of light. There are many ways to light a subjects face, but there are several common lighting plans which are enough to describe. One of the most basic lighting plans is called three-point lighting and this plan uses three lights to fully model the subjects features. The purpose of the Key-Light is to shape to a subject. This relies on the first principle of lighting, white out of a plane. The depth of shadow created by the Main-Light can be controlled with a Fill-Light, in modern photography, the fill-in light is used to control the contrast in the scene and is nearly always placed above the lens axis and is a large light source. As the amount of light is less than the key-light, the acts by lifting the shadows only. The relative intensity of the Key-light to the fill-light is most easily discussed in terms of Stops difference, a 2 Stop reduction in intensity for the Fill-Light would be a typical start point to maintain dimensionality in a portrait shot. Back lights, or accent lighting, serve the purpose of accentuating a subject, typically a back light will separate a subject from a background. Examples would be a light shining onto a subjects hair to add a rim effect or shining onto a background to lift the tones of a background, there can be many accent lights in a shot, another example would be a spotlight on a handbag in a fashion shot. When used for separation, i. e. a hair-light, think in terms of a kiss of moonlight, rather than a strike of lightning, although there are no shoulds in photography and it is up to the photographer to decide on the authorship of their shot. A kicker is a form of accent light, often used to give a backlit edge to a subject on the shadow side of the subject. Butterfly lighting uses only two lights, the key light is placed directly in front of the subject, often above the camera or slightly to one side, and a bit higher than is common for a three-point lighting plan
2.
Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
3.
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
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His term as Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul, the Viceroy Lord Curzon, who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General, in 1914, at the start of the First World War, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. Kitchener died on 5 June 1916 when HMS Hampshire sank west of the Orkney Islands and he was making his way to Russia in order to attend negotiations when the ship struck a German mine. He was one of more than 600 killed on board the ship, Kitchener was born in Ballylongford near Listowel, County Kerry, in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier. His father had recently bought land in Ireland under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after selling his commission. They then moved to Switzerland where the young Kitchener was educated at Montreux, then at the Royal Military Academy, pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War. His father took him back to England after he caught pneumonia after ascending in a balloon to see the French Army of the Loire in action. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871, his service in France had violated British neutrality, and he was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief. He served in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic, Sir Walter Kitchener, had also entered the army, and was Governor of Bermuda from 1908 to 1912. In 1874, at age 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria. Conder and Kitchener’s expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was confined to the area west of the Jordan River. The survey collected data on the topography and toponymy of the area, as well as local flora, the results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener’s contribution in the first three tomes. This survey has had an effect on the Middle East for several reasons, The ordnance survey serves as the basis for the grid system used in the modern maps of Israel. The collection of data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists, the survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For instance, the border between Israel and Lebanon is established at the point in upper Galilee where Conder and Kitchener’s survey stopped. In 1878 having completed the survey of Western Palestine, Kitchener was sent to Cyprus to undertake a survey of newly acquired British protectorate. Then in 1879 he became vice-consul in Anatolia, in 1883 Kitchener became a Freemason. On 4 January 1883 Kitchener was promoted to captain, given the Turkish rank bimbashi, Egypt had recently become a British puppet state, its army led by British officers, although still nominally under the sovereignty of the Khedive and his nominal overlord the Sultan of Turkey
4.
Lord Kitchener Wants You
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Lord Kitchener Wants You was a 1914 advertisement by Alfred Leete which was developed into a recruitment poster. It depicted Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, Kitchener, wearing the cap of a British Field Marshal, stares and points at the viewer calling them to enlist in the British Army against the Central Powers. The image is considered one of the most iconic and enduring images of World War I, a hugely influential image and slogan, it has also inspired imitations in other countries, from the United States to the Soviet Union. Prior to the institution of conscription in 1916, the United Kingdom relied upon volunteers for military service, until the outbreak of the First World War, recruiting posters had not been used in Britain on a regular basis since the Napoleonic Wars. As war loomed in late 1913 the number of advertising contracts expanded to other firms. Seely, then the Secretary of State for War, awarded Sir Hedley Le Bas, Eric Field, Eric Field designed a prototype full-page advertisement with the Coat of Arms of King George V and the phrase Your King and Country Need You. Britain declared war on the German Empire on 4 August 1914, prime Minister of the United Kingdom H. H. Asquith had appointed Kitchener as Secretary of State for War. Kitchener was the first currently serving soldier to hold the post and was given the task of recruiting an army to fight Germany. Unlike some of his contemporaries who expected a short conflict, Kitchener foresaw a much longer war requiring hundreds of thousands of enlistees. In the following months Le Bas formed a committee of ad men to develop further newspaper recruiting advertisements, most of which ran vertically 11 inches. At the time, the magazine had a circulation of 300,000, in response to requests for reproductions, the magazine offered postcard-sized copies for sale. The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee obtained permission to use the design in poster form, a similar poster used the words YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU. Kitchener made his name in the Sudan Campaign, avenging the death of General Gordon with brutality and he became a hero of New Imperialism alongside other widely regarded figures in Britain like Field Marshal Wolseley and Field Marshal Roberts. Kitcheners appearance including his bushy mustache and court dress jacket was reminiscent of romanticized Victorian era styles, Kitchener,6 ft 2 in tall and powerfully built, was for many the personification of military ethos so popular in the present Edwardian era. After the scorched earth tactics and hard-fought victory of the Second Boer War, the fact that Kitcheners name is not used in the poster demonstrates how easily he was visually recognized. David Lubin opines that the image may be one of the earliest successful celebrity endorsements as the practice expanded greatly in the 1920s. Keith Surridge posits that Kitcheners features evoked the harsh, feared militarism of the Germans which bode well for British fortune in the war, Kitchener would not see the end of the war, he died onboard HMS Hampshire in 1916. Leetes drawing of Kitchener was the most famous image used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I and it continues to be considered a masterful piece of wartime propaganda as well as an enduring and iconic image of the war
5.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
6.
Queen Victoria
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Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she adopted the title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne aged 18, after her fathers three brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already a constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments, publicly, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together, after Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era and it was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover and her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen and her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a. m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace and she was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina, Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Dukes eldest brother, George, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarences daughters died as infants. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old, a week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV. The Duke of York died in 1827, when George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive
7.
Fishmonger
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A fishmonger is someone who sells raw fish and seafood. Fishmongers can be wholesalers or retailers, and are trained at selecting and purchasing, handling, gutting, boning, filleting, displaying, merchandising and selling their product, in some countries modern supermarkets are replacing fishmongers who operate in shops or fish markets. The fishmongers guild, one of the earliest guilds, was established in the City of London by a Royal Charter granted by Edward I shortly after he became king in 1272. Partnership with foreigners was forbidden and the sale of fish was tightly controlled to ensure freshness and restrain profit, nevertheless, the guild grew rich and, after Edwards victory over the Scots, was able to make a great show, including one thousand mounted knights. During the reign of Edward II, the power of the fishmongers waned. This was soon rescinded and their wealth increased further so that, during the reign of Edward III, the guild could provide £40 to the war against the French, the guild was then reformed by Great Charter as the Mystery of the Fishmongers of London. They were given a monopoly over the crying and selling of fish, the guild still continues today as one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies. Molly Malone is a character from a popular Irish song about a young fishwife who tragically dies at a young age, charles Fort in his book Lo. Compiles the story of the Mad Fishmonger or St. Fishmonger, St. Fishmonger allegedly caused crabs and periwinkles to fall from the sky. In the English translation of the Asterix series, the village fishmonger is called Unhygienix, in the film The Beach, the Islands chef has only fish as a source of meat, and is named Unhygienix in reference to the Asterix character. In Shakespeares Hamlet, some contend that the word fishmonger was a euphemism for a fleshmonger, or pimp
8.
Jermyn Street
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Jermyn Street is a one-way street in the St Jamess area of the City of Westminster in London, England. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly, gentlemens outfitters Hackett and DAKS are also located on Jermyn Street, as well as shoe- and boot-makers John Lobb and Foster & Son. F. Trumper, and Taylor of Old Bond Street, cigar shop Davidoff, as well as Britains oldest cheese shop, Paxton & Whitfield, trading since 1797. Among the restaurants in the street are the historic Wiltons, the new Fortnum and Mason restaurant -45 Jermyn St, tramp nightclub and the 70-seat Jermyn Street Theatre are also on the street. Jermyn Street was created by and named after Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, as part of his development of the St Jamess area of central London, the street was first recorded as Jarman Streete in the 1667 rate books of St Martins, listing 56 properties. In 1675 there were 108 names listed, floris, a perfumers in the street, has display cabinets acquired directly from the Great Exhibition in 1851. The Gun Tavern was one of the resorts for foreigners of revolutionary tastes during the end of the 18th century. At the Brunswick Hotel, Louis Napoleon took up his residence under the name of Count DArenberg on his escape from captivity in the fortress of Ham. Twentieth-century residents included the 1930s big band singer Al Bowlly, though he did not live there, a statue of Beau Brummell stands on Jermyn Street at its junction with Piccadilly Arcade, as embodying its elegant clothing values. Aleister Crowley lived in No.93 during the Second World War up until 1 April and it was through Crowley that Nancy Cunard resided in a flat in Jermyn Street. Jermyn Street shops traditionally sell shirts and other apparel, such as hats, shoes, shaving brushes, colognes, braces. Many tailors owned or still own the houses along the street,22, Jermyn Street, for instance was once owned by Italian silk merchant Cesare Salvucci and a military tailor who rented rooms out to people such as the banker Theodore Rothschild. Most of the buildings appear in Survey of London in The Parish of St James Westminster Part 1 South of Piccadilly, Volumes 29 and 30, Vol.29, which can be viewed online. Nikolaus Pevsner writes in The Buildings of England of No 97 “ The Mid Victorian shop-front of No 97 is one of the best of its date in the West End” and “No 93 is another good one”
9.
Augustus Egg
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Augustus Leopold Egg RA was a Victorian artist best known for his modern triptych Past and Present, which depicts the breakup of a middle-class Victorian family. Egg was born to Joseph and Ann Egg, and baptised in St Jamess Church, Piccadilly and he had an elder brother, George Hine Egg. His father Joseph Egg was a gunsmith from the distinguished gun making family. Egg was educated in the schools of the Royal Academy, beginning in 1836, Egg was a member of The Clique, a group of artists founded by Richard Dadd and others in the late 1830s. Egg sought to combine popularity with moral and social activism, in line with the work of his friend Charles Dickens. With Dickens he set up the Guild of Literature and Art and he acted the lead role in Not So Bad As We Seem, a play written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton to raise funds for the organisation. His self-portrait in the role is in Hospitalfield House in Arbroath, eggs early paintings were generally illustrations of literary subjects. Like other members of The Clique, he saw himself as a follower of Hogarth and his interest in Hogarthian moral themes is evidenced in his paired paintings The Life and Death of Buckingham, depicting the dissolute life and sordid death of the Restoration rake. Yet his paintings often took a look at their subjects. Unlike most other members of The Clique, Egg also admired the Pre-Raphaelites, he bought work from the young William Holman Hunt and his own triptych, known as Past and Present, was influenced by Hunts work. The two outer scenes depict the separated mother and children a few later, now living in poverty. The paintings use of flashback — the central scene is occurring in the past — has been seen as a precursor of cinema, Egg was also an active organiser of exhibitions, being admired by fellow-artists for his dedication and fair mindedness. He was one of the organisers of the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857 and he was elected to the Royal Academy in 1860. A member of the circle of friends that included Dickens and Wilkie Collins and he participated, as actor and costume designer, in their amateur theatricals, which were often conducted for charitable purposes as noted above. Dickens described Egg as a gentle little fellow, always sweet-tempered, humorous, conscientious, thoroughly good. In a 1953 radio interview, Evelyn Waugh was asked What painters do you admire most and he answered Augustus Egg I’d put among the highest. Edited by William Baker and William Malpas Clarke, London, Palgrave Macmillan,1999, the Dickens Circle, A Narrative of the Novelists Friendships. New York, E. P. Dutton,1919, Art in the Age of Queen Victoria, Treasures from the Royal Academy of Arts Permanent Collection
10.
Regent Street
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Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent and was built under the direction of the architect John Nash, the street runs from Waterloo Place in St Jamess at the southern end, through Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, to All Souls Church. From there Langham Place and Portland Place continue the route to Regents Park, the street was completed in 1825 and was an early example of town planning in England, replacing a number of earlier roads including Swallow Street. Nashs street layout has survived, although all the buildings except All Souls Church have been replaced following reconstruction in the late 19th century. The street is known for its retail stores, including Liberty, Hamleys, Jaeger. The Royal Polytechnic Institution, now the University of Westminster, has based on Regent Street since 1838. Regent Street is approximately 0.8 miles long and begins at a junction with Charles II Street as a continuation of Waterloo Place. It runs north to Piccadilly Circus, where it left before curving round the Quadrant to head north again. It ends at a junction with Cavendish Place and Mortimer Street near the BBC Broadcasting House, with the road ahead being Langham Place, the southern section of the road is one-way northbound and part of the A4, a major road through West London. From Piccadilly Circus northwards, it is numbered A4201, though in common with roads inside the London congestion charging zone, the number does not appear on signs. Nearby tube stations are Charing Cross, Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, the lattermost being one of the busiest underground stations in London, numerous bus routes, such as 6,12, and 13, run along Regent Street. Regent Street was one of the first planned developments of London and it was hoped the road could link Pall Mall and the Haymarket, of which has since declined in quality. A further problem was increased congestion around Charing Cross, which would benefit from road improvements, the street was designed by John Nash, who had been appointed to the Office of Woods and Forests in 1806 and previously served as an adviser to the Prince Regent. He put forward his own plans for the street in 1810 following the death of Fordyce, envisioning broad, architecturally distinguished thoroughfares and public spaces. Nash originally wanted to construct a straight boulevard in the style seen in French cities. The northern section involved demolishing most of the existing Swallow Street, the road was designed to curve east between Oxford Street and Piccadilly so that it did not meet St Jamess Square, and the circuses allowed visual continuity down the street. The central section, known as the Quadrant, was designed for shops appropriated to articles of fashion and taste and it was built with a colonnade made out of cast-iron columns, allowing commuters to walk along the street without having to face bad weather. The road was planned to end outside Carlton House in Pall Mall, Nash insisted that businesses on the new street would be of high-quality, rivalling that of the nearby Bond Street, common trades such as butchers or greengrocers were not allowed
11.
Piccadilly
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Piccadilly is a road in the City of Westminster, London to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earls Court, Heathrow Airport, St Jamess is to the south of the eastern section, while the western section is built up only on the northern side. At just under 1 mile in length, Piccadilly is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London, Piccadilly has been a main road since at least medieval times, and in the middle ages was known as the road to Reading or the way from Colnbrook. Around 1611 or 1612, a Robert Baker acquired land in the area, shortly after purchasing the land, he enclosed it and erected several dwellings, including his home, Pikadilly Hall. Some of the most notable homes in London were built on the northern side of the street during this period, including Clarendon House. Berkeley House, constructed around the time as Clarendon House, was destroyed by a fire in 1733 and rebuilt as Devonshire House in 1737 by William Cavendish. It was later used as the headquarters for the Whig party. Burlington House has since been home to several noted societies, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Geological Society of London, several members of the Rothschild family had mansions at the western end of the street. St Jamess Church was consecrated in 1684 and the area became St James Parish. The Old White Horse Cellar, at No,155, was one of the most famous coaching inns in England by the late-18th century, by which time the street had become a favourable location for booksellers. The Bath Hotel emerged around 1790, and Walsingham House was built in 1887, both the Bath and the Walsingham were purchased and demolished when the prestigious Ritz Hotel was built on the site in 1906. Piccadilly Circus station, at the east end of the street, was designed by Charles Holden and it was the first underground station to have no above-ground premises, the station is only accessible by subways from street level. The clothing store Simpsons was established at 203 -206 Piccadilly by Alec Simpson in 1936, during the 20th century, Piccadilly became known as a place to acquire heroin, and was notorious in the 1960s as the centre of Londons illegal drug trade. Today, Piccadilly is regarded as one of Londons principal shopping streets and its landmarks include the Ritz, Park Lane, Athenaeum and Intercontinental hotels, Fortnum & Mason, the Royal Academy, the RAF Club, Hatchards, the Embassy of Japan and the High Commission of Malta. Piccadilly has inspired works of fiction, including Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest. It is one of a group of squares on the London Monopoly board, the street has been part of a main road for centuries although there is no evidence that it was part of a Roman Road, unlike Oxford Street further north. In the Middle Ages it was known as the road to Reading or the way from Colnbrook, during the Tudor period, relatively settled conditions made expansion beyond Londons city walls a safer venture. Property speculation became an enterprise and developments grew so rapidly that the threat of disease
