The London Gazette
The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published. The London Gazette claims to be the oldest surviving English newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the UK, having been first published on 7 November 1665 as The Oxford Gazette; this claim is made by the Stamford Mercury and Berrow's Worcester Journal, because The Gazette is not a conventional newspaper offering general news coverage. It does not have a large circulation. Other official newspapers of the UK government are The Edinburgh Gazette and The Belfast Gazette, apart from reproducing certain materials of nationwide interest published in The London Gazette contain publications specific to Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively. In turn, The London Gazette carries not only notices of UK-wide interest, but those relating to entities or people in England and Wales.
However, certain notices that are only of specific interest to Scotland or Northern Ireland are required to be published in The London Gazette. The London and Belfast Gazettes are published by TSO on behalf of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, they are subject to Crown copyright. The London Gazette is published each weekday, except for bank holidays. Notices for the following, among others, are published: Granting of royal assent to bills of the Parliament of the United Kingdom or of the Scottish Parliament The issuance of writs of election when a vacancy occurs in the House of Commons Appointments to certain public offices Commissions in the Armed Forces and subsequent promotion of officers Corporate and personal insolvency Granting of awards of honours and military medals Changes of names or of coats of arms Royal Proclamations and other DeclarationsHer Majesty's Stationery Office has digitised all issues of the Gazette, these are available online; the official Gazettes are published by The Stationery Office.
The content, apart from insolvency notices, is available in a number of machine-readable formats, including XML and XML/RDFa via Atom feed. The London Gazette was first published as The Oxford Gazette on 7 November 1665. Charles II and the Royal Court had moved to Oxford to escape the Great Plague of London, courtiers were unwilling to touch London newspapers for fear of contagion; the Gazette was "Published by Authority" by Henry Muddiman, its first publication is noted by Samuel Pepys in his diary. The King returned to London as the plague dissipated, the Gazette moved too, with the first issue of The London Gazette being published on 5 February 1666; the Gazette was not a newspaper in the modern sense: it was sent by post to subscribers, not printed for sale to the general public. Her Majesty's Stationery Office took over the publication of the Gazette in 1889. Publication of the Gazette was transferred to the private sector, under government supervision, in the 1990s, when HMSO was sold and renamed The Stationery Office.
In time of war, despatches from the various conflicts are published in The London Gazette. People referred to are said to have been mentioned in despatches; when members of the armed forces are promoted, these promotions are published here, the person is said to have been "gazetted". Being "gazetted" sometimes meant having official notice of one's bankruptcy published, as in the classic ten-line poem comparing the stolid tenant farmer of 1722 to the lavishly spending faux-genteel farmers of 1822: Notices of engagement and marriage were formerly published in the Gazette. Gazettes, modelled on The London Gazette, were issued for most British colonial possessions. History of British newspapers Iris Oifigiúil The Dublin Gazette – in Ireland London Gazette index Official Journal of the European Union List of government gazettes London and Belfast Gazettes official site Great Fire of London 1666 – Facsimile and transcript of London Gazette report
Albert Parker, 3rd Earl of Morley
Albert Edmund Parker, 3rd Earl of Morley PC, DL, JP, styled Viscount Boringdon until 1864, was a British peer and Liberal Liberal Unionist politician. Morley was the son of Edmund Parker, 2nd Earl of Morley, Harriet Sophia, he was educated at Oxford. Morley succeeded his father as third Earl of Morley in 1864 and took his seat on the Liberal benches in the House of Lords, he served under William Ewart Gladstone as a Lord-in-waiting from 1868 to 1874 and as Under-Secretary of State for War from 1880 to 1885. In February 1886 he was admitted to the Privy Council and appointed First Commissioner of Works, a position he only held until April of the same year, he joined the Liberal Unionists. From 1889 to 1905 Morley was a Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords. Apart from his career in national politics Morley was Chairman of Devon County Council and a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Devon, he served as President of the first day of the 1886 Co-operative Congress. Lord Morley married Margaret Holford, eldest daughter of Robert Stayner Holford, in 1876.
They had three sons and a daughter: Edmund Robert Parker, 4th Earl of Morley Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker, 5th Earl of Morley Lady Mary Theresa Parker Hon John Holford Parker, father of John St Aubyn Parker, 6th Earl of MorleyLord Morley died in February 1905, aged 61, was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son, Edmund. Lady Morley died in 1908
Plymouth
Plymouth is a port city situated on the south coast of Devon, England 37 miles south-west of Exeter and 190 miles west-south-west of London. Enclosing the city are the mouths of the river Plym and river Tamar, which are incorporated into Plymouth Sound to form a boundary with Cornwall. Plymouth's early history extends to the Bronze Age; this settlement continued as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until it was surpassed by the more prosperous village of Sutton founded in the ninth century, now called Plymouth. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers departed Plymouth for the New World and established Plymouth Colony, the second English settlement in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War, the town was held by the Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, Plymouth grew as a commercial shipping port, handling imports and passengers from the Americas, exporting local minerals; the neighbouring town of Devonport became a strategic Royal Naval dockyard town.
In 1914 three neighbouring independent towns, viz. the county borough of Plymouth, the county borough of Devonport, the urban district of East Stonehouse were merged to form a single County Borough. The combined town took the name of Plymouth; the city's naval importance led to its being targeted by the German military and destroyed by bombing during World War II, an act known as the Plymouth Blitz. After the war the city centre was rebuilt and subsequent expansion led to the incorporation of Plympton and Plymstock along with other outlying suburbs in 1967; the city is home to 263,100 people, making it the 30th-most populous built-up area in the United Kingdom and the second-largest city in the South West, after Bristol. It is represented nationally by three MPs. Plymouth's economy remains influenced by shipbuilding and seafaring including ferry links to Brittany and Spain, but has tended toward a service-based economy since the 1990s, it has the largest operational naval base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport, is home to the University of Plymouth.
Upper Palaeolithic deposits, including bones of Homo sapiens, have been found in local caves, artefacts dating from the Bronze Age to the Middle Iron Age have been found at Mount Batten, showing that it was one of few principle trading ports of pre Roman Britannia dominating continental trade with Armorica. An unidentified settlement named TAMARI OSTIA is listed in Ptolemy's Geographia and is presumed to be located in the area of the modern city. An ancient promontory fort was located at Rame Head at the mouth of Plymouth Sound with ancient hillforts located at Lyneham Warren to the east, Boringdon Camp and Maristow Camp to the north; the settlement of Plympton, further up the River Plym than the current Plymouth, was an early trading port. As the river silted up in the early 11th century and merchants were forced to settle downriver at the current day Barbican near the river mouth. At the time this village was called meaning south town in Old English; the name Plym Mouth, meaning "mouth of the River Plym" was first mentioned in a Pipe Roll of 1211.
The name Plymouth first replaced Sutton in a charter of King Henry VI in 1440. See Plympton for the derivation of the name Plym. During the Hundred Years' War a French attack burned a manor house and took some prisoners, but failed to get into the town. In 1403 the town was burned by Breton raiders. On 12 November 1439, the English Parliament made Plymouth the first town incorporated. In the late fifteenth century, Plymouth Castle, a "castle quadrate", was constructed close to the area now known as The Barbican; the castle served to protect Sutton Pool, where the fleet was based in Plymouth prior to the establishment of Plymouth Dockyard. In 1512 an Act of Parliament was passed for further fortifying Plymouth. A series of fortifications were built, including defensive walls at the entrance to Sutton Pool. Defences on St Nicholas Island date from this time, a string of six artillery blockhouses were built, including one on Fishers Nose at the south-eastern corner of the Hoe; this location was further strengthened by the building of a fort in 1596.
During the 16th century, locally produced wool was the major export commodity. Plymouth was the home port for successful maritime traders, among them Sir John Hawkins, who led England's first foray into the Atlantic slave trade, as well as Sir Francis Drake, Mayor of Plymouth in 1581 and 1593. According to legend, Drake insisted on completing his game of bowls on the Hoe before engaging the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World from Plymouth, establishing Plymouth Colony – the second English colony in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War Plymouth sided with the Parliamentarians and was besieged for four years by the Royalists; the last major attack by the Royalists was by Sir Richard Grenville leading thousands of soldiers towards Plymouth, but they were defeated by the Plymothians at Freedom Fields Park. The civil war ended as a Parliamentary win, but monarchy was restored by King Charles II in 1660, who imprisoned many of the Parliamentary heroes on Drake's Is
First Commissioner of Works
The First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It took over some of the functions of the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests in 1851 when the portfolio of Crown holdings was divided into the public and the commercial; the position was of cabinet level. The office was renamed Minister of Works and Buildings and First Commissioner of Works in 1940, Minister of Works and Planning in 1942, Minister of Works in 1943 and Minister of Public Buildings and Works in 1962. On 15 October 1970 the Ministry was amalgamated in the Department of the Environment
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, known by his courtesy title Lord John Russell before 1861, was a leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on two occasions during the early Victorian era. Scion of one of the most powerful aristocratic families, his great achievements, says A. J. P. Taylor, were based on his persistent battles in Parliament over the years on behalf of the expansion of liberty. E. L. Woodward, argued that he was too much the abstract theorist, so that:He was more concerned with the removal of obstacles to civil liberty than with the creation of a more reasonable and civilized society, his political theory centred in the revolution of 1688, in the clique of aristocratic families to whom the country owed loyalty in return for something like the charte octroyée of the reform bill. Russell led his Whig party into support for reform; as Prime Minister he was less successful. He headed a government that failed to deal with the Irish Famine, a disaster which saw the loss of a quarter of Ireland's population.
It has been said that his ministry of 1846 to 1852 was the ruin of the Whig party: it never composed a Government again, his ministry of 1865 to 1866 was nearly the ruin of the Liberal Party also. Russell was born small and premature on 18 August 1792 into the highest echelons of the British aristocracy, being the third son of John Russell 6th Duke of Bedford, Georgiana Byng, daughter of George Byng, 4th Viscount Torrington; the Russell family had been one of the principal Whig dynasties in England since the 17th century, were among the richest handful of aristocratic landowning families in the country, but as a younger son of the 6th Duke of Bedford, he was not expected to inherit the family estates. As a younger son of a duke, he bore the courtesy title "Lord John Russell", but he was not a peer in his own right, he was, able to sit in the House of Commons until he was made an earl in 1861 and transferred into the House of Lords. After being withdrawn from Westminster School due to ill health, Russell was educated by tutors.
He attended the University of Edinburgh, 1809 and 1812. Although of small stature—he grew to no more than 5 feet 4-and-three-quarter inches tall—and in poor health, he traveled in Britain and on the continent, held commission as Captain in the Bedfordshire Militia in 1810. During his continental travels, Russell had a 90-minute meeting with Napoleon in December 1814 during the former emperor's exile at Elba. Russell entered the House of Commons as a Whig in 1813; the future reformer gained his seat by virtue of his father, the Duke of Bedford, instructing the 30 or so electors of Tavistock to return him as an MP though at the time Russell was abroad and under age. In 1819, Russell embraced the cause of parliamentary reform, he led the more reformist wing of the Whigs throughout the 1820s; when the Whigs came to power in 1830 in Earl Grey's government, Russell entered the government as Paymaster of the Forces, was soon elevated to the Cabinet. He was one of the principal leaders of the fight for the Reform Act 1832, earning the nickname Finality Jack from his complacently pronouncing the Act a final measure.
In 1834, when the leader of the Commons, Lord Althorp, succeeded to the peerage as Earl Spencer, Russell became the leader of the Whigs in the Commons. This appointment prompted King William IV to terminate Lord Melbourne's government, the last time in British history that a monarch dismissed a prime minister. Russell retained his position for the rest of the decade, until the Whigs fell from power in 1841. In this position, Russell continued to lead the more reformist wing of the Whig party, calling, in particular, for religious freedom, and, as Home Secretary in the late 1830s, played a large role in democratising the government of British cities other than London. During his career in Parliament, Lord John Russell represented the City of London. Taylor emphasises Russell's central role in the expansion of liberty and in leading his Whig party to a commitment to a reform agenda. In 1845, as leader of the Opposition, Russell came out in favour of repeal of the Corn Laws, forcing Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel to follow him.
In December 1845, with the Conservatives split over this issue, Queen Victoria asked Russell to form a government, which he was unable to do since Lord Grey refused to serve with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary. In June the following year the Corn Laws were repealed but only by virtue of Whig support; the same day Peel's Irish Coercion Bill, which the Whigs did not support, was defeated and the Prime Minister resigned. Russell became this time Grey not objecting to Palmerston's appointment. Russell's government secured social reforms such as funding teacher-training and passage of the Factory Act of 1847, which restricted the working hours of women and young persons in textile mills to 10 hours per day, his premiership was frustrated, because of party disunity and infighting, he was unable to secure the success of many of the measures he was interested in passing. Russell was religious in a simple non-dogmatic way and supported the "Broad church" element in the Church of England, he opposed the "Oxford Movement" because its "Tractarian" members were too dogmatic and too close to Romanism.
He supported Broad Churchmen or Latitudinarians by several appointments of liberal churchmen to vacant sees. In 1859 he reversed himself and decided to free non-Anglicans of the duty of paying rates to the local Angl
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster; the full name of the house is the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Owing to shortage of space, its office accommodation extends into Portcullis House; the Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved; the House of Commons of England started to evolve in 14th centuries. It became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland in 1707, assumed the title of "House of Commons of Great Britain and Ireland" after the political union with Ireland at the start of the 19th century; the "United Kingdom" referred to was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1800, became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922.
Accordingly, the House of Commons assumed its current title. Under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power; the Government is responsible to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister stays in office only as long as she or he retains the confidence of a majority of the Commons. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance. By convention, the prime minister is answerable to, must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Thus, whenever the office of prime minister falls vacant, the Sovereign appoints the person who has the support of the House, or, most to command the support of the House—normally the leader of the largest party in the Commons, while the leader of the second-largest party becomes the Leader of the Opposition. Since 1963, by convention, the prime minister is always a member of the House of Commons, rather than the House of Lords.
The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence. Confidence and no confidence motions are phrased explicitly, for instance: "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government." Many other motions were until recent decades considered confidence issues though not explicitly phrased as such: in particular, important bills that were part of the Government's agenda. The annual Budget is still considered a matter of confidence; when a Government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons, the prime minister is obliged either to resign, making way for another MP who can command confidence, or to request the monarch to dissolve Parliament, thereby precipitating a general election. Parliament sits for a maximum term of five years. Subject to that limit, the prime minister could choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament, with the permission of the Monarch. However, since the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, terms are now a fixed five years, an early general election is brought about by a two-thirds majority in favour of a motion for a dissolution, or by a vote of no confidence, not followed within fourteen days by a vote of confidence.
By this second mechanism, the UK's government can change its political composition without an intervening general election. Only four of the eight last Prime Ministers have attained office as the immediate result of a general election; the latter four were Jim Callaghan, John Major, Gordon Brown and the current Prime Minister Theresa May. In such circumstances there may not have been an internal party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim, having no electoral rival. A prime minister will resign after party defeat at an election if unable to lead a coalition, or obtain a confidence and supply arrangement, she or he may resign after a motion of no confidence or for health reasons. In such cases, the premiership goes to, it has become the practice to write the constitution of major UK political parties to provide a set way in which to appoint a new leader. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no fixed mechanism for this, it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the consensus of cabinet ministers.
By convention, ministers are members of the House of House of Lords. A handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they entered Parliament in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Exceptions include Peter Mandelson, appointed Secretary of State for Business and Regulatory Reform in October 2008 before his peerage. Since 1902, all prime ministers have been members of the Commons; the new session of Parliament was delayed to await the outcome of his by-election, which happened
Heir apparent
An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person, first in a line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. An heir presumptive, by contrast, is someone, first in line to inherit a title but who can be displaced by the birth of a more eligible heir. Today these terms most describe heirs to hereditary titles or offices when only inheritable by a single person. Most monarchies refer to the heir apparent of their thrones with the descriptive term of crown prince but these heirs may be accorded with a more specific substantive title, such as Prince of Orange in the Netherlands, Duke of Brabant in Belgium, Prince of Asturias in Spain, or Prince of Wales in the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. In France the title was le Dauphin, in Imperial Russia; the term is used metaphorically to indicate an "anointed" successor to any position of power, e.g. a political or corporate leader. This article describes the term heir apparent in a hereditary system regulated by laws of primogeniture—as opposed to cases where a monarch has a say in naming the heir.
In a hereditary system governed by some form of primogeniture, an heir apparent is identifiable as the person whose position as first in the line of succession to a title or office is secure, regardless of future births. An heir presumptive, by contrast, can always be "bumped down" in the succession by the birth of somebody more related in a legal sense to the current title-holder; the clearest example occurs in the case of a holder of a hereditary title, one that can only be inherited by a single person, with no children. If at any time he were to produce children, they rank ahead of whatever more "distant" relative had been heir presumptive. Many legal systems assume childbirth is always possible regardless of health. In such circumstances a person may be, in a practical sense, the heir apparent but still speaking, heir presumptive. Indeed, when Queen Victoria succeeded her uncle King William IV, the wording of the proclamation gave as a caveat:...saving the rights of any issue of his late Majesty King William IV, which may be born of his late Majesty's consort.
This provided for the possibility that William's wife, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, was pregnant at the moment of his death, since such a posthumous child, regardless of its sex, would have displaced Victoria from the throne. Adelaide was 44 at the time, so pregnancy was possible if unlikely. Daughters may inherit titles that descend according to male-preference primogeniture, but only in default of sons; that is, both female and male offspring have the right to a place somewhere in the order of succession, but when it comes to what that place is, a female will rank behind her brothers regardless of their ages or her age. Thus even an only daughter will not be heir apparent, since at any time a brother might be born who, though younger, would assume that position. Hence, she is an heir presumptive. For example, Queen Elizabeth II was heir presumptive during the reign of her father, King George VI, because at any stage up to his death, George could have fathered a legitimate son. In a system of absolute primogeniture that disregards gender, female heirs apparent occur.
As succession to titles, positions, or offices in the past most favoured males than females, females considered to be an heir apparent were rare. Absolute primogeniture was not practised by any modern monarchy for succession to their thrones until the late twentieth century with Sweden being the first to adopt absolute primogeniture in 1980 and other Western European monarchies following suit. Since the adoption of absolute primogeniture by contemporary Western European monarchies, examples of female heirs apparent include: Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands, Princess Elisabeth of Belgium. Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway is heir apparent to her father, Victoria herself has a female heir apparent in her oldest child, Princess Estelle. Victoria was not heir apparent from birth, but gained the status in 1980 following a change in the Swedish Act of Succession, her younger brother Carl Philip was thus heir apparent for a few months. In 2015, pursuant to the 2011 Perth Agreement, the Commonwealth realms changed the rules of succession to the 16 thrones of Elizabeth II to absolute primogeniture, except for male heirs born before the Perth Agreement.
The effects are not to be felt for many years. But in legal systems that apply male-preference primogeniture, female heirs apparent are by no means impossible: if a male heir apparent dies leaving no sons but at least one daughter the eldest daughter would replace her father as heir apparent to whatever throne or title is concerned, but only when it has become clear that the widow of the deceased is not pregnant; as the representative of her father's line she would assume a place ahead of any more distant relatives. Such a situation has not to date occurred with the British throne.
