Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. It is on the east coast of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, at the mouth of the River Liffey, is bordered on the south by the Wicklow Mountains, it has an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the Dublin Region, as of 2016, was 1,347,359, the population of the Greater Dublin area was 1,904,806. There is archaeological debate regarding where Dublin was established by the Gaels in or before the 7th century AD. Expanded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin, the city became Ireland's principal settlement following the Norman invasion; the city expanded from the 17th century and was the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800. Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State renamed Ireland. Dublin is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts and industry; as of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha −", which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world.
The name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, from dubh meaning "black, dark", lind "pool", referring to a dark tidal pool. This tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, Irish rhymes from County Dublin show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn; the original pronunciation is preserved in the names for the city in other languages such as Old English Difelin, Old Norse Dyflin, modern Icelandic Dyflinn and modern Manx Divlyn as well as Welsh Dulyn. Other localities in Ireland bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin and Difflin. Scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b, rendering Duḃlinn or Duiḃlinn; those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh, part of Loch Linnhe.
It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, from which Dyflin took its name. Beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements; the Viking settlement of about 841, a Gaelic settlement, Áth Cliath further up river, at the present day Father Mathew Bridge, at the bottom of Church Street. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning "town of the hurdled ford", is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a place name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street occupied by Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church. There are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Anglicised as Hurlford; the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times, but the writings of Ptolemy in about AD 140 provide the earliest reference to a settlement there.
He called it Eblana polis. Dublin celebrated its'official' millennium in 1988, meaning the Irish government recognised 988 as the year in which the city was settled and that this first settlement would become the city of Dublin, it is now thought the Viking settlement of about 841 was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, from which Dyflin took its name. Beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements which became the modern Dublin; the subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay. The Dubhlinn was a pool on the lowest stretch of the Poddle, used to moor ships; this pool was fully infilled during the early 18th century, as the city grew. The Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library within Dublin Castle. Táin Bó Cuailgne refers to Dublind rissa ratter Áth Cliath, meaning "Dublin, called Ath Cliath". Dublin was established as a Viking settlement in the 10th century and, despite a number of attacks by the native Irish, it remained under Viking control until the Norman invasion of Ireland was launched from Wales in 1169.
It was upon the death of Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn in early 1166 that Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, King of Connacht, proceeded to Dublin and was inaugurated King of Ireland without opposition. According to some historians, part of the city's early economic growth is attributed to a trade in slaves. Slavery in Ireland and Dublin reached its pinnacle in the 10th centuries. Prisoners from slave raids and kidnappings, which captured men and children, brought revenue to the Gaelic Irish Sea raiders, as well as to the Vikings who had initiated the practice; the victims came from Wales, England and beyond. The King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, after his exile by Ruaidhrí, enlisted the help of Strongbow, the Earl of Pembroke, to conquer Dublin. Following Mac Murrough's death, Strongbow declared himself King of Leinster after gaining control of the city. In response to Strongbow's successful invasion, King Henry II of England affirmed his ultimate sovereignty by mou
Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire
Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire, styled Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1834 and 1858 and Marquess of Hartington between 1858 and 1891, was a British statesman. He has the distinction of having served as leader of three political parties: as Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons and as of the Liberal Unionist Party and of the Unionists in the House of Lords, he declined to become Prime Minister on three occasions, not because he was not a serious politician but because the circumstances were never right. Devonshire was the eldest son of William Cavendish, 2nd Earl of Burlington, who succeeded his cousin as Duke of Devonshire in 1858, Lady Blanche Cavendish. Lord Frederick Cavendish and Lord Edward Cavendish were his younger brothers, he was educated at Trinity College, where he graduated as MA in 1854, having taken a Second in the Mathematical Tripos. He was made honorary LLD in 1862, as DCL at Oxford University in 1878. In life he continued his interests in education as Chancellor of his old university from 1892, of Manchester University from 1907 until his death.
He was Lord Rector of Edinburgh University from 1877 to 1880. After joining the special mission to Russia for Alexander II's accession, Cavendish entered Parliament in the 1857 general election, when he was returned for North Lancashire as a Liberal. Between 1863 and 1874 Hartington held various Government posts, including Civil Lord of the Admiralty and Under-Secretary of State for War under Palmerston and Earl Russell. In the 1868 general election he lost his seat; the next year he re-entered the Commons. In 1870 Hartington reluctantly accepted the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in Gladstone's first government. In 1875 — the year following the Liberal defeat at the General Election — he succeeded William Ewart Gladstone as Leader of the Liberal opposition in the House of Commons after the other serious contender, W. E. Forster, had indicated that he was not interested in the post; the following year, Gladstone returned to active political life in the campaign against Turkey's Bulgarian Atrocities.
The relative political fortunes of Gladstone and Hartington fluctuated — Gladstone was not popular at the time of Benjamin Disraeli's triumph at the Congress of Berlin, but the Midlothian Campaigns of 1879–80 marked him out as the Liberals' foremost public campaigner. In 1880, after Disraeli's government lost the general election, Hartington was invited by the Queen to form a government, but declined — as did the Earl Granville, Liberal Leader in the House of Lords — after William Ewart Gladstone made it clear that he would not serve under anybody else. Hartington chose instead to serve in Gladstone's Second government as Secretary of State for India and Secretary of State for War. In 1884 he was instrumental in persuading Gladstone to send a mission to Khartoum for the relief of General Gordon, which arrived two days too late to save him. A considerable number of the Conservative party long held him chiefly responsible for the "betrayal of Gordon." His lethargic manner, apart from his position as war minister, helped to associate him in their minds with a disaster which emphasized the fact that the government acted "too late".
Hartington became uneasy with Gladstone's Irish policies after the murder of his younger brother Lord Frederick Cavendish in Phoenix Park. After being elected in December 1885 for the newly created Rossendale Division of Lancashire, he broke with Gladstone altogether, he declined to serve in Gladstone's third government, formed after Gladstone came out in favour of Irish Home Rule, after opposing the First Home Rule Bill became the leader of the Liberal Unionists. After the general election of 1886 Hartington declined to become Prime Minister, preferring instead to hold the balance of power in the House of Commons and give support from the back benches to the second Conservative government of Lord Salisbury. Early in 1887, after the resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill, Salisbury offered to step down and serve in a government under Hartington, who now declined the premiership for the third time. Instead the Liberal Unionist George Goschen accepted the Exchequer in Churchill's place. Having succeeded as Duke of Devonshire in 1891 and entered the House of Lords where, in 1893, he formally moved for the rejection of the Second Home Rule Bill.
Devonshire joined Salisbury's third government in 1895 as Lord President of the Council. Devonshire was not asked to become Prime Minister when Lord Salisbury retired in favour of his nephew Arthur Balfour in 1902, he resigned from the government in 1903, from the Liberal Unionist Association the following spring, in protest at Joseph Chamberlain's Tariff Reform scheme. Devonshire said of Chamberlain's proposals: I venture to express the opinion that will find among the projects and plans which he will be called upon to discuss none containing a more Socialistic principle than that, embodied in his own scheme, whether it can properly be described as a scheme of protection or not, is a scheme under
Whigs (British political party)
The Whigs were a political faction and a political party in the parliaments of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, they contested power with the Tories; the Whigs' origin lay in constitutional opposition to absolute monarchy. The Whigs played a central role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and were the standing enemies of the Stuart kings and pretenders, who were Roman Catholic; the Whigs took full control of the government in 1715 and remained dominant until King George III, coming to the throne in 1760, allowed Tories back in. The Whig Supremacy was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714 and the failed Jacobite rising of 1715 by Tory rebels; the Whigs purged the Tories from all major positions in government, the army, the Church of England, the legal profession and local offices. The Party's hold on power was so strong and durable, historians call the period from 1714 to 1783 the age of the Whig Oligarchy; the first great leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government through the period 1721–1742 and whose protégé Henry Pelham led from 1743 to 1754.
Both parties began as loose groupings or tendencies, but became quite formal by 1784 with the ascension of Charles James Fox as the leader of a reconstituted Whig Party, arrayed against the governing party of the new Tories under William Pitt the Younger. Both parties were founded on rich politicians more than on popular votes, there were elections to the House of Commons, but a small number of men controlled most of the voters; the Whig Party evolved during the 18th century. The Whig tendency supported the great aristocratic families, the Protestant Hanoverian succession and toleration for nonconformist Protestants, while some Tories supported the exiled Stuart royal family's claim to the throne and all Tories supported the established Church of England and the gentry. On, the Whigs drew support from the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories drew support from the landed interests and the royal family. However, by the first half of the 19th century the Whig political programme came to encompass not only the supremacy of parliament over the monarch and support for free trade, but Catholic emancipation, the abolition of slavery and expansion of the franchise.
The 19th century Whig support for Catholic emancipation was a complete reversal of the party's historic anti-Catholic position at its late 17th century origin. The term "Whig" was short for "whiggamor", a term meaning "cattle driver" used to describe western Scots who came to Leith for corn. In the reign of Charles I the term was used during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms to refer derisively to a radical faction of the Scottish Covenanters who called themselves the "Kirk Party", it was applied to Scottish Presbyterian rebels who were against the King's Episcopalian order in Scotland. The term "Whig" entered English political discourse during the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678–1681 when there was controversy about whether or not King Charles II's brother, should be allowed to succeed to the throne on Charles's death. "Whig" was a term of abuse applied to those who wanted to exclude James on the grounds that he was a Roman Catholic. The fervent Tory Samuel Johnson joked that "the first Whig was the Devil".
Under Lord Shaftesbury's leadership, the Whigs in the Parliament of England wished to exclude the Duke of York from the throne due to his Roman Catholicism, his favouring of monarchical absolutism, his connections to France. They believed the heir presumptive, if allowed to inherit the throne, would endanger the Protestant religion and property; the first Exclusion Bill was supported by a substantial majority on its second reading in May 1679. In response, King Charles prorogued Parliament and dissolved it, but the subsequent elections in August and September saw the Whigs' strength increase; this new parliament did not meet for thirteen months, because Charles wanted to give passions a chance to die down. When it met in October 1680, an Exclusion Bill was introduced and passed in the Commons without major resistance, but was rejected in the Lords. Charles dissolved Parliament in January 1681, but the Whigs did not suffer serious losses in the ensuing election; the next Parliament first met in March at Oxford, but Charles dissolved it after only a few days, when he made an appeal to the country against the Whigs and determined to rule without Parliament.
In February, Charles had made a deal with the French King Louis XIV, who promised to support him against the Whigs. Without Parliament, the Whigs crumbled due to government repression following the discovery of the Rye House Plot; the Whig peers, the Earl of Melville, the Earl of Leven, Lord Shaftesbury, Charles II's illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth, being implicated, fled to and regrouped in the United Provinces. Algernon Sidney, Sir Thomas Armstrong and William Russell, Lord Russell, were executed for treason; the Earl of Essex committed suicide in the Tower of London over his arrest for treason, whilst Lord Grey of Werke escaped from the Tower. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Queen Mary II and King William III governed with both Whigs and Tories, despite the fact that many of the Tories still supported the deposed Roman Catholic James II. William saw that the Tories were friendlier to royal authority than the Whigs and he employed both groups in his government, his early ministry was Tory, but the government came to be dominated by the so-called Junto Whig
Patrick Pearse
Patrick Henry Pearse was an Irish teacher, poet, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Following his execution along with fifteen others, Pearse came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion. Pearse, his brother Willie, his sisters Margaret and Mary Brigid were born at 27 Great Brunswick Street, the street, named after them today, it was here that their father, James Pearse, established a stonemasonry business in the 1850s, a business which flourished and provided the Pearses with a comfortable middle-class upbringing. Pearse's father was a mason and monumental sculptor, a Unitarian from Birmingham in England, his mother, Margaret Brady, was from Dublin, her father's family from County Meath were native Irish speakers. She was James' second wife. Pearse's maternal grandfather Patrick was a supporter of the 1848 Young Ireland movement, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Pearse recalls attending a ballad singer perform republican songs, afterwords he went around looking for armed men ready to fight, he found none and declared sadly to his grandfather that "the fenians are all dead".
His maternal grand-uncle, James Savage, fought in the American Civil War. The Irish-speaking influence of Pearse's grand-aunt Margaret, together with his schooling at the CBS Westland Row, instilled in him an early love for the Irish language and culture. Pearse grew up surrounded by books, his father had had little formal education, but was self-educated. He recalls that at the age of ten he prayed to God, promising him he would dedicate his life to Irish freedom. Pearse's early heroes were ancient Gaelic folk heroes such as Cúchulainn, though in his 30s he began to take a strong interest in the leaders of past republican movements, such as the United Irishmen Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. Pearse soon became involved in the Gaelic revival. In 1896, at the age of 16, he joined the Gaelic League, in 1903, at the age of 23, he became editor of its newspaper An Claidheamh Soluis. In 1900, Pearse was awarded a B. A. in Modern Languages by the Royal University of Ireland, for which he had studied for two years and for one at University College Dublin.
In the same year, he was enrolled as a Barrister-at-Law at the King's Inns. Pearse was called to the bar in 1901. In 1905, Pearse represented Neil McBride, a poet and songwriter from Feymore, Donegal, fined for having his name displayed in "illegible" writing on his donkey cart; the appeal was heard before the Court of King's Bench in Dublin. It was Pearse's only court appearance as a barrister; the case was lost but it became a symbol of the struggle for Irish independence. In his 27 June 1905 An Claidheamh Soluis column, Pearse wrote of the decision, "...it was in effect decided that Irish is a foreign language on the same level with Yiddish." As a cultural nationalist educated by the Irish Christian Brothers, like his younger brother Willie, Pearse believed that language was intrinsic to the identity of a nation. The Irish school system, he believed, raised Ireland's youth to be good Englishmen or obedient Irishmen, an alternative was needed, thus for him and other language revivalists saving the Irish language from extinction was a cultural priority of the utmost importance.
The key to saving the language, would be a sympathetic education system. To show the way he started his own bilingual school for boys, St. Enda's School in Cullenswood House in Ranelagh, a suburb of County Dublin, in 1908; the pupils were taught in both English. Cullenswood House is now the home of a Gaelscoil, Lios na nÓg. Two years St. Enda's School moved to The Hermitage in Rathfarnham, County Dublin, now home to the Pearse Museum. With the aid of Thomas MacDonagh, Pearse's younger brother Willie Pearse, their mother and both Margaret and Mary Brigid Pearse, along with other academics, it soon proved a successful experiment. Pearse did all he planned, took students on field trips to the Gaeltacht in the West of Ireland. Pearse's restless idealism led him in search of an more idyllic home for his school, he found it in the Hermitage, Rathfarnham, to which he moved St Enda's in 1910. Pearse was involved in the foundation of St Ita's school for girls, a school with aims similar to those of St Enda's.
However, the new home, while splendidly located in an 18th-century house surrounded by a park and woodlands, caused financial difficulties that brought Pearse to disaster. He strove continually to keep ahead of his debts. In February 1914, he went on a fund-raising trip to the United States, where he met John Devoy and Joseph McGarrity both of whom were impressed by his fervour and supported him in raising sufficient money to secure the continued existence of the school. In April 1912 John Redmond leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which held the balance of power in the House of Commons committed the government of the United Kingdom to introducing an Irish Home Rule Bill. Pearse gave the Bill a qualified welcome, he was one of four speakers, including Redmond, Joseph Devlin MP, leader of the Northern Nationalists, Eoin MacNeill a prominent Gaelic Leaguer, who addressed a large Home Rule Rally in Dublin at the end of March 1912. Speaking in Irish, Pearse said he thought that "a good measure can
Bath, Somerset
Bath is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Somerset, known for its Roman-built baths. In 2011, the population was 88,859. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, 97 miles west of London and 11 miles south-east of Bristol; the city became a World Heritage site in 1987. The city became a spa with the Latin name Aquae Sulis c. 60 AD when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, although hot springs were known before then. Bath Abbey became a religious centre. In the 17th century, claims were made for the curative properties of water from the springs, Bath became popular as a spa town in the Georgian era. Georgian architecture, crafted from Bath stone, includes the Royal Crescent, Pump Room and Assembly Rooms where Beau Nash presided over the city's social life from 1705 until his death in 1761. Many of the streets and squares were laid out by John Wood, the Elder, in the 18th century the city became fashionable and the population grew. Jane Austen lived in Bath in the early 19th century.
Further building was undertaken in the 19th century and following the Bath Blitz in World War II. The city has software and service-oriented industries. Theatres and other cultural and sporting venues have helped make it a major centre for tourism, with more than one million staying visitors and 3.8 million day visitors to the city each year. There are several museums including the Museum of Bath Architecture, the Victoria Art Gallery, the Museum of East Asian Art, the Herschel Museum of Astronomy and the Holburne Museum; the city has two universities – the University of Bath and Bath Spa University – with Bath College providing further education. Sporting clubs include Bath Rugby and Bath City F. C.. Bath became part of the county of Avon in 1974, following Avon's abolition in 1996, has been the principal centre of Bath and North East Somerset; the hills in the locality such as Bathampton Down saw human activity from the Mesolithic period. Several Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century.
Solsbury Hill overlooking the current city was an Iron Age hill fort, the adjacent Bathampton Camp may have been one. A long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down. Archaeological evidence shows that the site of the Roman baths' main spring may have been treated as a shrine by the Britons, was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva. Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the sacred spring by archaeologists; the tablets were written in Latin, cursed people whom the writers felt had wronged them. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he might write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the goddess. A temple was constructed in AD 60–70, a bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years. Engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation, surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead.
In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted structure that housed the caldarium and frigidarium. The town was given defensive walls in the 3rd century. After the failure of Roman authority in the first decade of the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were lost as a result of rising water levels and silting. In March 2012 a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins, one of the largest discovered in Britain, was unearthed in an archaeological dig; the coins, believed to date from the 3rd century, were found about 150 m from the Roman baths. Bath may have been the site of the Battle of Badon, in which King Arthur is said to have defeated the Anglo-Saxons; the town was captured by the West Saxons in 577 after the Battle of Deorham. A monastery was founded at an early date – reputedly by Saint David although more in 675 by Osric, King of the Hwicce using the walled area as its precinct. Nennius, a 9th-century historian, mentions a "Hot Lake" in the land of the Hwicce along the River Severn, adds "It is surrounded by a wall, made of brick and stone, men may go there to bathe at any time, every man can have the kind of bath he likes.
If he wants, it will be a cold bath. Bede described hot baths in the geographical introduction to the Ecclesiastical History in terms similar to those of Nennius. King Offa of Mercia gained control of the monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, dedicated to St. Peter. According to the Victorian churchman Edward Churton, during the Anglo-Saxon era Bath was known as Acemannesceastre, or'aching men's city', on account of the reputation these springs had for healing the sick. By the 9th century the old Roman street pattern was lost and Bath was a royal possession. King Alfred laid out the town afresh. In the Burghal Hidage, Bath is recorded as a burh and is described as having walls of 1,375 yards and was allocated 1000 men for defence. During the reign of Edward the Elder coins were minted in Bath based on a design from the Winchester mint but with'BAD' on the obverse relating to the Anglo-Saxon name for the town, Baðum, Baðan or Baðon, meaning "at the baths", this was the
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a British politician, army officer, writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War, again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as a Member of Parliament. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, for most of his career he was a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but from 1904 to 1924 was instead a member of the Liberal Party. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. Joining the British Army, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War, the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected an MP in 1900 as a Conservative, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, championing prison reform and workers' social security.
During the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign. In 1917, he returned to government under David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, was subsequently Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air Secretary of State for the Colonies. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move seen as creating deflationary pressure on the UK economy. Out of office during the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat from Nazi Germany. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty before replacing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1940. Churchill oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against Germany and the Axis powers, resulting in victory in 1945, his wartime leadership was praised, although acts like the Bombing of Dresden and his wartime response to the Bengal famine generated controversy.
After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an "iron curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. Re-elected Prime Minister in 1951, his second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising, Korean War, a UK-backed Iranian coup. Domestically his government developed a nuclear weapon. In declining health, Churchill resigned as prime minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he was given a state funeral. Considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending liberal democracy from the spread of fascism. Praised as a social reformer and writer, among his many awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature. Conversely, his imperialist views and comments on race, as well as his sanctioning of human rights abuses in the suppression of anti-imperialist movements seeking independence from the British Empire, have generated considerable controversy.
Churchill was born at the family's ancestral home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, on 30 November 1874, at which time the United Kingdom was the dominant world power. A direct descendant of the Dukes of Marlborough, his family were among the highest levels of the British aristocracy, thus he was born into the country's governing elite, his paternal grandfather, John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, had been a Member of Parliament for ten years, a member of the Conservative Party who served in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. His own father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had been elected Conservative MP for Woodstock in 1873, his mother, Jennie Churchill, was from an American family whose substantial wealth derived from finance. The couple had met in August 1873, were engaged three days marrying at the British Embassy in Paris in April 1874; the couple lived beyond their income and were in debt. In 1876 John Spencer-Churchill was appointed Viceroy of Ireland, with Randolph as his private secretary, resulting in the Churchill family's relocation to Dublin, when the entirety of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.
It was here that Jennie's second son, was born in 1880. Throughout much of the 1880s Randolph and Jennie were estranged, during which she had many suitors. Churchill had no relationship with his father, his relationship with Jack would be warm, they were close at various points in their lives. In Dublin, he was educated in reading and mathematics by a governess, while he and his brother were cared for by their nanny, Elizabeth Everest. Churchill was devoted to her and nicknamed her "Woomany". Visits home were to Connaught Place in L
Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain was a British statesman, first a radical Liberal after opposing home rule for Ireland, a Liberal Unionist, served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the Conservatives. He split both major British parties in the course of his career. Chamberlain made his career in Birmingham, first as a manufacturer of screws and as a notable mayor of the city, he was a radical Liberal Party member and an opponent of the Elementary Education Act 1870. As a self-made businessman, he had contempt for the aristocracy, he entered the House of Commons at 39 years of age late in life compared to politicians from more privileged backgrounds. Rising to power through his influence with the Liberal grassroots organisation, he served as President of the Board of Trade in Gladstone's Second Government. At the time, Chamberlain was notable for his attacks on the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury, in the 1885 general election he proposed the "Unauthorised Programme", not enacted, of benefits for newly enfranchised agricultural labourers, including the slogan promising "three acres and a cow".
Chamberlain resigned from Gladstone's Third Government in 1886 in opposition to Irish Home Rule. He helped to engineer a Liberal Party split and became a Liberal Unionist, a party which included a bloc of MPs based in and around Birmingham. From the 1895 general election the Liberal Unionists were in coalition with the Conservative Party, under Chamberlain's former opponent Lord Salisbury. In that government Chamberlain promoted the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897, he served as Secretary of State for the Colonies, promoting a variety of schemes to build up the Empire in Asia and the West Indies. He had major responsibility for causing the Second Boer War in South Africa and was the government minister most responsible for the war effort, he became a dominant figure in the Unionist Government's re-election at the "Khaki Election" in 1900. In 1903, he resigned from the Cabinet to campaign for tariff reform, he obtained the support of most Unionist MPs for this stance, but the Unionists suffered a landslide defeat at the 1906 general election.
Shortly after public celebrations of his 70th birthday in Birmingham, he was disabled by a stroke, ending his public career. Despite never becoming Prime Minister, he was one of the most important British politicians of his day, as well as a renowned orator and municipal reformer. Historian David Nicholls notes that his personality was not attractive: he was arrogant and ruthless and much hated, he never succeeded in his grand ambitions. However, he was a proficient grassroots organizer of democratic instincts, played the central role in winning the Second Boer War, he is most famous for setting the agenda of British colonial, foreign and municipal policies, for splitting both major political parties. Chamberlain was born in Camberwell to Caroline Harben, daughter of Henry Harben, Joseph, a successful shoe manufacturer, his younger brother was Richard Chamberlain also a Liberal politician. He was educated at University College School 1850–1852, excelling academically and gaining prizes in French and mathematics.
The elder Chamberlain was not able to provide advanced education for all his children, at the age of 16 Joseph was apprenticed to the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers and worked for the family business making quality leather shoes. At 18 he joined his uncle's screw-making business, Nettlefolds of Birmingham, in which his father had invested; the company became known as Nettlefold and Chamberlain when Chamberlain became a partner with Joseph Nettlefold. During the business's most prosperous period, it produced two-thirds of all metal screws made in England, by the time of Chamberlain's retirement from business in 1874 it was exporting worldwide. Chamberlain married Harriet Kenrick, the daughter of Archibald Kenrick, in July 1861, their daughter Beatrice Mary Chamberlain was born in May 1862. Harriet, who had had a premonition that she would die in childbirth, became ill two days after the birth of their son Joseph Austen in October 1863, died three days later. Chamberlain devoted himself to business, while bringing up Beatrice and Austen with the Kenrick parents-in-law.
In 1868, Chamberlain married for the second time, to Harriet's cousin, Florence Kenrick, daughter of Timothy Kenrick. Chamberlain and Florence had four children: the future Prime Minister Arthur Neville in 1869, Ida in 1870, Hilda in 1871 and Ethel in 1873. On 13 February 1875, Florence gave birth to their fifth child, but she and the child died within a day. In 1888 Chamberlain married for the third time in Washington, D. C, his bride was Mary Crowninshield Endicott, daughter of the US Secretary of War, William Crowninshield Endicott. They had no children, but she eased his acceptance into upper-class society in the second half of his career. Chamberlain became involved in Liberal politics, influenced by the strong radical and liberal traditions among Birmingham shoemakers and the long tradition of social action in Chamberlain's Unitarian church. There was pressure to redistribute parliamentary seats to cities and to enfranchise a greater proportion of urban men. In 1866, Earl Russell's Liberal administration submitted a Reform Bill to create 400,000 new voters, but the Bill was opposed by the "Adullamite" Liberals for disrupting the social order, criticised by Radicals for not conceding the secret ballot or household suffrage.
The Bill was defeated and the government fell. Chamberla
