1.
Joshua Reynolds
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Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the Grand Style in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect and he was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds and his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, in 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson, as a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardsons An Essay on the Theory of Painting, having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, who had been born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock and he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his fathers death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, while with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, while in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds employment as an assistant for the rest of the artists career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martins Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street and he achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. In 1760 Reynolds moved into a house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works, in the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait, the clothing of Reynolds sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. Lay figures were used to model the clothes and he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780
2.
Samuel Salt
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Samuel Salt was an English lawyer and politician, known also for his connection to the family of author Charles Lamb. The son of John Salt, vicar of Audley, Staffordshire, he was admitted at the Middle Temple in 1741, at the Inner Temple in 1745, in 1782 he was raised to the bench at the Inner Temple, became reader in 1787 and treasurer in 1788. Through the influence of the Eliot family, he was returned to parliament in 1768 for their pocket-boroughs of St Germans and Liskeard and he represented Liskeard during the three parliaments from 1768 to 1784. In politics he was a Whig, breaking with his patron, Salt sat for Aldeburgh in Suffolk from 1784 to 1790. His introduction there is thought to have been through Philip Champion Crespigny. John Lamb, father of Charles Lamb, was Salts clerk for nearly 40 years, Charles was born in Crown Office Row, where Salt owned chambers, and it was the home of the Lamb family until 1792. Salt procured the admission of Charles to Christs Hospital, and through his influence as a governor of the South Sea Company, Charles and his elder brother obtained clerkships under the company. Salt died at his chambers in Crown Office Row, Inner Temple, on 27 July 1792, a shield with his coat-of-arms was placed in the sixteenth panel on the north side of the Inner Temple hall. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Lee, Sidney, ed. Salt
3.
Edward Craggs-Eliot, 1st Baron Eliot
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Edward Craggs-Eliot, 1st Baron Eliot was an English politician and official. He was born to Richard Eliot and Harriot Craggs, the daughter of the Privy Counsellor and Secretary of State, James Craggs and Hester Santlow. In 1742, he matriculated at St Mary Hall, Oxford, during 1747–1748, he travelled in Continental Europe, principally the Dutch Republic, Germany and Switzerland. On 19 November 1748 he succeeded his father, from 1748–1768 he was Member of Parliament for St Germans, Cornwall, the place of his family estate Port Eliot. In succession, he became Member of Parliament for Liskeard, for St Germans, in 1751, Edward was appointed Receiver General of the Duchy of Cornwall. From 1760 until 1776, Edward was one of the eight Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, however, in 1776 he notably voted against the employment of Hessian Troops, and resigned from the Board of Trade and Plantations, and from the government. On 13 January 1784 he raised to the peerage as Baron Eliot, of St Germans in the County of Cornwall, in 1789 he changed his surname from Eliot to Craggs-Eliot, presumably to prevent the extinction of the Craggs surname. However, his children used the surname Eliot. Eliot was an acquaintance of Dr Samuel Johnson and a patron of Sir Joshua Reynolds
4.
Sir Harry Burrard, 1st Baronet, of Lymington
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General Sir Harry Burrard, 1st Baronet was a British soldier who fought in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and in the Peninsular War. Burrard became an ensign in the Coldstream Guards in 1772 and he was promoted lieutenant and captain in 1773, and in 1777 exchanged into the 60th Foot, in order to see service in the American War of Independence. With his regiment he served under Sir William Howe in 1778 and he led the 2nd Brigade during the 1799 Anglo-Russian campaign in Holland, fighting at the battles of Bergen, Egmont and Castricum. In 1780 returned to England on being elected M. P. for Lymington through the influence of his uncle Sir Harry and he served under Lord Cornwallis in America in 1781 and 1782. After peace had been declared he returned to the guards in 1786 as lieutenant and captain in the grenadier guards, with the guards he served in Flanders from 1793 to 1795, and was promoted colonel in 1795, and major-general in 1798. In 1804 he became lieutenant-colonel commanding the 1st Foot Guards, in 1807 he received his first command in the expedition to Copenhagen under Lord Cathcart, when he commanded the 1st Division, and as senior general under Cathcart acted as second in command. He had very little to do in the expedition, yet on his return he was created a baronet, in 1808 he was selected to supersede Sir Arthur Wellesley. He arrived on the coast of Portugal on 19 August, the very next day Sir Hew Dalrymple assumed the chief command, and made the Convention of Cintra, with the full concurrence of both Burrard and Wellesley. All three generals were recalled, and a court of inquiry was appointed to examine their conduct, Burrard succinctly declared the reasons for his course of action on 21 August. The result of the inquiry was to absolve the generals. Burrard never applied for another command, but in 1810 as senior lieutenant-colonel he assumed the command of the Brigade of Guards in London and he died at Calshot Castle near Fawley, Hampshire, on 17 October 1813. He was buried in Lymington churchyard and he was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Charles, an officer who rose to the rank of admiral in the Royal Navy and on whose death in 1870 the baronetcy became extinct. On 20 February 1789 he married Hannah, the daughter of Harry Darby, all the sons served in the army or the navy. Two sons were killed in 1809 one of whom was acting as aide-de-camp to Sir John Moore at the battle of Corunna and he lost a third at the siege of San Sebastian which is said to have caused him to die of a broken heart. He was nicknamed Betty by his troops, the Burrard Inlet was named after his cousin, also named Sir Harry Burrard, by George Vancouver in June 1792. One of Burrards sons was killed at the Battle of Corunna and he appears in Naomi Noviks fifth Temeraire novel, Victory of Eagles. Massie, Alastair W. Burrard, Sir Harry, first baronet, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Stephens, Henry Morse. London, Smith, Elder & Co. p.440, napiers History of the Peninsular War, vol. i. book ii. Memorial written by Sir Hew Dalrymple
5.
Thomas Dummer
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Thomas Dummer was an English Member of Parliament for Newport, Yarmouth, Downton in Wiltshire, Wendover in Buckinghamshire and Lymington in Hampshire. Dummer was the son of Thomas Lee Dummer and he also took his fathers parliamentary seat at Newport. In 1768, he lost his seat to Hans Sloane who was in the patronage of the influential Hans Stanley, in 1769, he became M. P. for nearby Yarmouth. Originally, the election was in favour of William Strode and Jervoise Clarke, in the 1774 election, Dummer stood for election at Downton in Wiltshire. The following year, he was elected to represent Wendover in Buckinghamshire before returning to Hampshire in 1780 as M. P. for Lymington until his death in 1781, in May 1773, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. On his fathers death in 1765, Dummer inherited the estate at Cranbury Park. In 1770, he purchased the City Cross from the Corporation of Winchester, when his workmen arrived to dismantle the cross, they were prevented from doing so by the people of the city, who organised a small riot and they were forced to abandon their task. The agreement with the city was cancelled and Dummer erected a lath and plaster facsimile, the ruins comprise an arch, the base of a pillar, and a scaled-down gateway tower. The rear of the gateway has been made into a keepers lodge, harriet Dummer then married Thomas Chamberlayne, and after his death she married the artist Nathaniel Dance in 1790. Dance, who was later to become Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Bt. was the brother of George Dance, the Family of Dummer of British Origin The families of Dummer
6.
Putney
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Putney is a district in south-west London, England in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is centred 5.1 miles south-west of Charing Cross, the area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. And thus we take leave of Putney, one of the pleasantest of the London suburbs, Putney is an ancient parish which covered 9.11 square kilometres and was until 1889 in the Hundred of Brixton in the county of Surrey. Its area has reduced by the loss of Roehampton to the south-west. In 1855 the parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works and was grouped into the Wandsworth District, in 1889 the area was removed from Surrey and became part of the County of London. The Wandsworth District became the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth in 1900, since 1965 Putney has formed part of the London Borough of Wandsworth in Greater London. The benefice of the remains a perpetual curacy whose patron is the Dean. It has a small chantry chapel removed from the east end of the south aisle, a charitable almshouse for 12 men and women, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was erected by Sir Abraham Dawes, who provided it with an endowment. Putney was also birthplace of Thomas Cromwell, made Earl of Essex by Henry VIII and of Edward Gibbon, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, died at a house on Putney Heath. At that time Putney took on Londons premier role in civil engineering, Putney had a second place of worship, for Independents and Roehampton was in the process of achieving separate parish status. The proprietors of the bridge distributed £31 per annum to watermen, and watermens widows and children, Putney in 1887 covered 9 square kilometres. Putney appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Putelei and it was noted that it did not fall into the category of local jurisdictions known as a manor, but obtained 20 shillings from the ferry or market toll at Putney belonging to the manor of Mortlake. One famous crossing at Putney was that of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529 upon his disgrace in falling out of favour with Henry VIII and on ceasing to be the holder of the Great Seal of England. As he was riding up Putney Hill he was overtaken by one of the royal chamberlains who presented him with a ring as a token of the continuance of his majestys favour. The first permanent bridge between Fulham and Putney was completed in 1729, and was the bridge to be built across the Thames in London. The ferry boat was on the side, however and the waterman. Walpole vowed that a bridge would replace the ferry, the Prince of Wales apparently was often inconvenienced by the ferry when returning from hunting in Richmond park and asked Walpole to use his influence by supporting the bridge. The bridge was a structure and lasted for 150 years
7.
Surrey
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Surrey is a county in the south east of England. It shares borders with Kent to the east, East Sussex to the south-east, West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west and south-west, Surrey County Council sits extraterritorially at Kingston upon Thames, administered as part of Greater London since 1965. With a resident population of 1.1 million, Surrey is the most densely populated and third most populated county in the South East region, after Kent, the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, and parts of Lewisham and Bromley were in Surrey until 1889. The boroughs of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Sutton and Richmond upon Thames south of the River Thames were part of Surrey until 1965, when they too were absorbed into Greater London. In the same year, the county was extended north of the Thames by the addition of Spelthorne, due to this expansion, modern Surrey also borders on the London boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon. It has the highest GDP per capita of any English county, Surrey is divided in two by the chalk ridge of the North Downs, running east-west. To the north of the Downs the land is mostly flat, the geology of this area is dominated by London Clay in the east, Bagshot Sands in the west and alluvial deposits along the rivers. Much of Surrey is in the Metropolitan Green Belt and it contains a good deal of mature woodland. Among its many notable beauty spots are Box Hill, Leith Hill, Frensham Ponds, Newlands Corner and Puttenham & Crooksbury Commons. Surrey is the most wooded county in England, with 22. 4% coverage compared to an average of 11. 8%. Box Hill has the oldest untouched area of woodland in the UK. Surrey also contains Englands principal concentration of lowland heath, on soils in the west of the county. Agriculture not being intensive, there are many commons and access lands, together with a network of footpaths and bridleways including the North Downs Way. Accordingly, Surrey provides much in the way of leisure activities. The highest elevation in Surrey is Leith Hill near Dorking and it is either 293,294 or 295 metres above sea level and is the second highest point in southeastern England after Walbury Hill 297 metres in West Berkshire. Surrey has a population of approximately 1.1 million people and its largest town is Guildford, with a population of 66,773, Woking comes a close second with 62,796. They are followed by Ewell with 39,994 people and Camberley with 30,155, towns of between 25,000 and 30,000 inhabitants are Ashford, Epsom, Farnham, Staines and Redhill. Guildford is the county town, although the county administration was moved to Newington in 1791
8.
British people
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British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies, and their descendants. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era, because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists. Modern Britons are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century, Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse. The British are a diverse, multi-national and multicultural society, with regional accents, expressions. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them, the group included Ireland, which was referred to as Ierne inhabited by the different race of Hiberni, and Britain as insula Albionum, island of the Albions. The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that name derives from a Gaulish description translated as people of the forms. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island, during the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people. At that time, it was the held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the ancient Britons. This notion was supported by such as the Historia Regum Britanniae. Wales and Cornwall, and north, i. e. Cumbria, Strathclyde and this legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of 66% in East Anglia. Oppenheimers opinion is that. by far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia, ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales. The English had been unified under a single state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh. However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood in the 13th century
9.
Whigs (British political party)
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The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, they contested power with their rivals, the Whigs origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute monarchy. The Whigs played a role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and were the standing enemies of the Stuart kings and pretenders. The Whigs took full control of the government in 1715, and remained dominant until King George III, coming to the throne in 1760. The Whig Supremacy was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714, the Whigs thoroughly purged the Tories from all major positions in government, the army, the Church of England, the legal profession, and local offices. The Partys hold on power was so strong and durable, historians call the period from roughly 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, his protégé was Henry Pelham, who led from 1743 to 1754. Both parties were founded on rich politicians, more than on votes, there were elections to the House of Commons. The Whig Party slowly evolved during the 18th century, later 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. The term Whig was originally 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 Wars of the Three Kingdoms to refer derisively to a faction of the Scottish Covenanters who called themselves the Kirk Party. It was then applied to Scottish Presbyterian rebels who were against the Kings Episcopalian order in Scotland, 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 often joked that the first Whig was the Devil, the Whigs, under Lord Shaftesburys leadership, wished to exclude the Duke of York from the throne due to his Catholicism, his favouring of monarchical absolutism and his connections to France. They believed the Duke, if allowed to inherit the throne, would endanger the Protestant religion, liberty, the first Exclusion Bill was supported by a substantial majority on its second reading in May 1679. In response, King Charles prorogued Parliament and then dissolved it and 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, 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 only after 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, without Parliament, the Whigs gradually crumbled, mainly due to the Rye House Plot
10.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
11.
Magdalen College, Oxford
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Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. As of 2014, the college had a financial endowment of £180.8 million. Magdalen stands next to the River Cherwell and has within its grounds a deer park and Addisons Walk. The large, square Magdalen Tower is an Oxford landmark, and it is a tradition, dating to the days of Henry VII, Magdalen College was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor. The founders statutes included provision for a foundation of men and boys. The college received another substantial endowment from the estate of Sir John Fastolf of Caister Castle in Norfolk, another unrelated college named Magdalen Hall adjacent to Magdalen College eventually became part of Hertford College. Magdalens prominence since the mid-20th century owes much to such famous fellows as C. S. Lewis and A. J. P. Taylor, women were first admitted to the college in 1979. In 2015, Magdalen topped Oxfords Norrington Table of college undergraduate examination results, the college has large grounds, close to the city centre. They stretch north and east from the college, and are most of the bounded by Longwall Street, the High Street. This large meadow occupies most of the north west of the grounds, from the New Buildings. During the winter and spring, it is the home of a herd of Fallow Deer and it is possible to view the meadow from the path between New Buildings and Grove Quad, and also from the archway in New Buildings. In the 16th century, long before the introduction of the deer, the grove consisted of gardens, orchards, during the Civil War, it was used to house a regiment of soldiers. At one point in the 19th century it was home to three traction engines belonging to the department of the college. By the 20th century it had become well-wooded with many large trees and this triangular meadow lies to the east of the college, bounded on all sides by the River Cherwell. In the spring, it is filled with the flower Fritillaria meleagris and these flowers grow in very few places, and have been recorded growing in the meadow since around 1785. Once the flowering has finished, the deer are moved in for the summer, in wet winters, some or all of the meadow may flood, as the meadow is lower lying than the surrounding path. All around the edge of the meadow is a tree-lined path and it is a beautiful and tranquil walk, favoured by students, dons, and visitors alike. It also links the college with Holywell Ford, and the Fellows Garden, located to the north east of the Meadow, directly behind the new building of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
12.
Fellow of the Royal Society
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As of 2016, there are around 1600 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members. Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian newspaper as “the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar” with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows, honorary and foreign members are elected annually usually in May, each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRS, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society and Category, Female Fellows of the Royal Society. Every year, Fellows elect up to ten new Foreign Members, like Fellows, Foreign Members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 there are around 165 Foreign Members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS, see Category, Foreign Members of the Royal Society. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson, Melvyn Bragg, Robin Saxby, David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters HonFRS. Others including John Maddox, Patrick Moore and Lisa Jardine were elected as honorary fellows, statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough and John Palmer, prime Ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain, H. H. Asquith were elected under statute 12, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society. The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows, Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination, each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society, who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, the certificate of election includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April, a candidate is elected if he or she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows present and voting. A further maximum of six can be ‘Honorary’, ‘General’ or ‘Royal’ Fellows, nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by sectional committees, each with fifteen members and a chair
13.
South Sea Company
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The South Sea Company was a British joint-stock company founded in 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of national debt. The company was granted a monopoly to trade with South America. At the time it was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession, there was no realistic prospect that trade would take place and the company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. The Bubble Act 1720, which forbade the creation of joint-stock companies without royal charter, was promoted by the South Sea company itself before its collapse. In Great Britain, a number of people were ruined by the share collapse. The founders of the scheme engaged in trading, using their advance knowledge of when national debt was to be consolidated to make large profits from purchasing debt in advance. Huge bribes were given to politicians to support the Acts of Parliament necessary for the scheme, Company money was used to deal in its own shares, and selected individuals purchasing shares were given loans backed by those same shares to spend on purchasing more shares. The expectation of vast wealth from trade with South America was used to encourage the public to purchase shares, the only significant trade that did take place was in slaves, but the company failed to manage this profitably. A parliamentary enquiry was held after the crash to discover its causes, a number of politicians were disgraced, and people found to have profited unlawfully from the company had assets confiscated proportionate to their gains. The company was restructured and continued to operate for more than a century after the Bubble, the headquarters were in Threadneedle Street at the centre of the financial district in London, today the Bank of England has headquarters on Threadneedle Street. At the time of events the Bank of England also was a private company dealing in national debt. In August 1710 Robert Harley was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in a government of commission, the government at this time had become reliant on the Bank of England. This was a privately owned company, chartered 16 years previously, the government had become dissatisfied with the service it was receiving and Harley was actively seeking new ways to improve the national finances. The committee included Harley himself, the two Auditors of the Imprests, whose task was to investigate government spending, Harleys brother Edward, Harleys first concern was to find £300,000 for the next quarters pay for the British army operating in Europe under Marlborough. This was provided by a consortium of Edward Gibbon, George Caswall. The Bank of England had been operating a state lottery on behalf of the government, but this had not been successful in 1710. This too was performing poorly, so Harley granted authority to sell tickets to John Blunt, a director of the Hollow Sword Blade Company, with sales commencing on 3 March 1711, tickets had completely sold out by the 7th. This was the first truly successful English state lottery, marketing was handled by members of the Sword Blade syndicate, Gibbon selling £200,000 of tickets and earning £4,500 commission, and Blunt selling £993,000
14.
Kingston upon Thames
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Kingston upon Thames, also known as Kingston, is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned, Kingston is situated 10 miles southwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Kingston lies approximately 33 feet above sea level, Kingston was part of a large ancient parish in the county of Surrey and the town was an ancient borough, reformed in 1835. It has been the location of Surrey County Hall from 1893, most of the town centre is part of the KT1 postcode area, but some areas north of Kingston railway station have the postcode KT2 instead. The population of the town itself, comprising the four wards of Canbury, Grove, Norbiton, Kingston was called Cyninges tun in 838, Chingestune in 1086, Kingeston in 1164, Kyngeston super Tamisiam in 1321 and Kingestowne upon Thames in 1589. The name means the manor or estate from the Old English words cyning. It belonged to the king in Saxon times and was the earliest royal borough and it was first mentioned in 838 as the site of a meeting between King Egbert of Wessex and Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Kingston lay on the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, until in the tenth century when King Athelstan united both to create the kingdom of England. Probably because of the symbolic location, several tenth-century kings were crowned in Kingston, Æthelstan in 925, Eadred in 946. Other kings who may have been crowned there are Edward the Elder in 902, Edmund in 939, Eadwig in 956, Edgar in about 960 and Edward the Martyr in 975. It was initially used as a block, but in 1850 it was moved to a more dignified place in the market before finally being moved to its current location in the grounds of the guildhall. Well known aviation personalities Sydney Camm, Harry Hawker and Tommy Sopwith were responsible for much of Kingstons achievements in aviation. British Aerospace finally closed its Lower Ham Road factory in 1992, part of the site was redeveloped for housing but the riverside part houses a community centre. The growth and development of Kingston Polytechnic and its transformation into Kingston University has made Kingston a university town, Kingston upon Thames formed an ancient parish in the Kingston hundred of Surrey. The parish of Kingston upon Thames covered an area including Hook, Kew, New Malden, Petersham, Richmond, Surbiton, Thames Ditton. The town of Kingston was granted a charter by King John in 1200, but the oldest one to survive is from 1208, other charters were issued by later kings, including Edward IVs charter that gave the town the status of a borough in 1481. The borough covered a smaller area than the ancient parish, although as new parishes were split off the borough. The borough was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, becoming the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames and it had been known as a Royal borough through custom and the right to the title was confirmed by George V in 1927
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Kingston Grammar School
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Kingston Grammar School is an independent co-educational day school in Kingston upon Thames, south-west London. The school was founded by Royal Charter in 1561 but can trace its roots back to at least the 13th century and it is a registered charity under English law. In 2015 the GCSE results recorded 81. 2% of all grades as A or A*, the Good Schools Guide described the school as An academic school with a modern edge. Notable in the history are the founding and endowing of the Lovekyn Chapel by John and then Edward Lovekyn in 1309-1352. The chapel is used by the school. After the dissolution of the chantries in 1547, the fell to the Crown and was deconsecrated. It, and by now its substantial related endowments, fell to a court favourite and he preserved the chapel so when in 1561 the bailiffs of Kingston petitioned Queen Elizabeth I for a royal grammar school, the building was still usable. The Queen granted the school a Royal Charter in 1561, the school became a direct grant grammar school in 1946 as a result of the Education Act 1944 and became independent in 1978 after the scheme was abolished by the 1974–9 Labour Government. In the same year, the first girls were introduced, KGS celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of its founding charter in 1961 with a visit from Queen Elizabeth II. The schools boathouse is on the Thames at Thames Ditton, Surrey, students may take up rowing beginning in Third Form and participate in local and national regattas, including The National Schools Regatta. The KGS Veterans Boat Club is exclusively for alumni, parents, chantry Chapel to Royal Grammar School, the History of Kingston Grammar School 1299–1999. ISBN 978-0946095360 Official website Profile on the Independent Schools Council website BBC school report
16.
Westminster School
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Westminster School is an English independent day and boarding school located within the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It has the highest Oxford and Cambridge university acceptance rates of any school or college in the world. With origins before the 12th century, the tradition of Westminster probably dates back as far as AD960. Boys are admitted to the Under School at age seven and to the school at age thirteen. The school has around 750 pupils, around a quarter are boarders, most of whom go home at weekends and it is one of the original seven public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868. Charging up to £7,800 per term for day pupils and £11,264 for boarders in 2014/15, Westminster is the 13th most expensive HMC day school and 10th most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK. In 1540, Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in England, including that of the powerful Abbots of Westminster, the Royal College of St. Peter carried on with forty Kings Scholars financed from the royal purse. By this point Westminster School had certainly become a public school, during Mary Is brief reign the Abbey was reinstated as a Roman Catholic monastery, but the school continued. Elizabeth I refounded the School in 1560, with new statutes to select 40 Queens Scholars from boys who had attended the school for a year. Queen Elizabeth frequently visited her scholars, although she never signed the statutes nor endowed her scholarships, Elizabeth I appointed William Camden as headmaster, and he is the only layman known to have held the position until 1937. Regardless of politics, he thrashed Royalist and Puritan boys alike without fear or favour, Busby also took part in Oliver Cromwells funeral procession in 1658, when Robert Uvedale, a Westminster schoolboy, succeeded in snatching the Majesty Scutcheon draped on the coffin. Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration. In 1679, a group of scholars killed a bailiff, ostensibly in defence of the Abbeys traditional right of sanctuary, dr Busby obtained a royal pardon for his scholars from Charles II and added the cost to the school bills. Until the 19th century, the curriculum was made up of Latin and Greek. After the Public Schools Act 1868, in response to the Clarendon Commission on the financial and other malpractices at nine pre-eminent public schools, the school began to approach its modern form. It was legally separated from the Abbey, although the organisations remain close, there followed a scandalous public and parliamentary dispute lasting a further 25 years, to settle the transfer of the properties from the Canons of the Abbey to the School. School statutes have been made by Order in Council of Queen Elizabeth II, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge are ex officio members of the schools governing body. Westminster Under School was formed in 1943 in the school buildings in Westminster
17.
Laurence Echard
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Laurence Echard was a British historian. He was son of the Rev. Thomas Echard or Eachard of Barsham, Suffolk, by his wife, the daughter of Samuel and Dorothy Groome, and was born at Barsham. On 26 May 1687, at the age of seventeen, he was admitted a sizar of Christs College, Cambridge, where he graduated B. A. in 1692 and M. A. in 1695. Echard, having been ordained by John Moore, bishop of Norwich, was presented to the livings of Welton and Elkington, Lincolnshire, for more than twenty years Echard resided in Lincolnshire, chiefly at Louth, and wrote a number of works. On 24 April 1697 he was installed prebendary of Louth in the cathedral of Lincoln, in or about 1722 Echard was presented by George I to the livings of Rendlesham and Sudborne in Suffolk. There he lived in bad health for nearly eight years. He died at Lincoln, while on his way to Scarborough for the benefit of the waters, on 16 August 1730 and he translated Terence, part of Plautus, DOrleans History of the Revolutions in England, and made numerous compilations on history, geography, and the classics. His chief work, however, is his The history of England, from the first entrance of Julius Caesar, Echard married twice, first Jane, daughter of the Rev. Potter of Yorkshire, and secondly Justin, daughter of Robert Wooley of Well, Lincolnshire. There were no children by either marriage, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Cousin, John William. A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, london, J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Echard. Works by Lawrence Echard at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Laurence Echard at Internet Archive
18.
Universal History (Sale et al)
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The Universal History was a 65-volume universal history of the world published in London between 1747 and 1768. Contributors included George Sale, George Psalmanazar, Archibald Bower, George Shelvocke, John Campbell and it was one of the first works to attempt to unify the history of Western Europe with the stories of the worlds other known cultures. III,1989, pp. 614–695 “The English Universal History, publishing, authorship and historiography in a European project ”, John Campbell pubblicista e storico nell’Inghilterra del sec. XVIII, Firenze, Olschki,1990, are dedicated to the sections of the Universal History on the European expansion. An Universal history, from the earliest account of time, compiled from original authors, and illustrated with maps, cuts, notes, &c. With a general index to the whole, London, Printed for T. Osborne 1747–68
19.
Bath, Somerset
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Bath is a city in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England, 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 Aquæ Sulis c. AD60 when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre, the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were made for the properties of water from the springs. Many of the streets and squares were laid out by John Wood, the Elder, and in the 18th century the city became fashionable, 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, publishing and service-oriented industries. Theatres, museums, and other cultural and sporting venues have helped make it a 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, Victoria Art Gallery, Museum of East Asian Art, 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. while TeamBath is the name for all of the University of Bath sports teams. Bath became part of the county of Avon in 1974, and, 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, and the adjacent Bathampton Camp may also have been one. A long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down, 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, and 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, and a complex was built up over the next 300 years. Engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation, in the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted structure that housed the caldarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium. The town was given defensive walls, probably in the 3rd century. After the failure of Roman authority in the first decade of the 5th century, in March 2012 a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins, one of the largest discovered in Britain, was unearthed in an archaeological dig
20.
Commoner (academia)
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A commoner is a student at certain universities in the British Isles who historically pays for their own tuition and commons. Commoners were also known as pensioners at the University of Cambridge, pensioners paid for their own tuition and commons. A fellow‑commoner was a rank of student above pensioners but below noblemen and they paid double the tuition fee and enjoyed more privileges than pensioners, such as commoning with Fellows. As fellow‑commoners had considerable wealth, they were ineligible for scholarships, fellow‑commoners who wore a hat instead of a velvet cap were known as hat fellow‑commoners. They were often sons of nobility but not the eldest, who enjoyed the rank of noblemen, today, a fellow‑commoner at Cambridge is one who enjoys access to the Senior Common Room without a Fellowship. Formerly, there were also fellow-commoners who paid twice the fees but could incept for their degree a year earlier, dined at the High Table and wore velvet collars. Above these were Noblemen who paid four times tuition and were entitled to privileges, including gold. In the University of Oxford, a commoner is a student without a scholarship or exhibition, a gentleman‑commoner at the University of Oxford, equivalent to Cambridges fellow‑commoner, was historically a rank of student above commoners but below noblemen. According to Merriam-Webster, the first known usage of gentleman‑commoner was in 1687, battel Servitor Sizar Bristed, Charles Astor. Five years in an English university
21.
Conyers Middleton
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Conyers Middleton was an English clergyman. Mired in controversy and disputes, and with a reputation as an unbeliever, Middleton was born at Richmond, North Yorkshire in 1683. His mother, Barbara Place was the wife of William Middleton. Conyers Middleton had two brothers and a half-brother, Middleton was educated at The Minster School, York before entering Trinity College, Cambridge in March 1699. He graduated with a BA in 1703 and he was elected a fellow of the college in 1705 and took his MA in 1706 In 1707 he was ordained a deacon, and a priest in 1708. In due course Elizabeth Montagu became a step-grand-daughter, in 1717, he became involved in a dispute with Bentley over the awarding of degrees. George I visited the university, and the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on 32 people, Bentley, as regius professor of divinity, demanded a fee of four guineas from each of the new doctors in addition to the established complimentary broad-piece. Middleton, after some dispute, consented to pay, taking Bentleys written promise to return the money if the claim should be finally disallowed, having vainly applied for a return of the fee, he sued for it as a debt in the vice-chancellors court. After various delays and attempts to make up the quarrel, the vice-chancellor issued a decree for Bentleys arrest, Bentleys refusal to submit to this decree led to further proceedings, and to his degradation from all his degrees by a grace of the senate on 18 October. Middleton claimed the pamphlet as his own, Bentley continued to prosecute the bookseller, Bentley then laid an information against him in the kings bench, based on a passage in the pamphlet about the impossibility of obtaining redress in any proper court of justice in the kingdom. The proceedings were slow, and meanwhile Middleton took advantage of Bentleys proposals for an edition of the New Testament to attack him in a sharp pamphlet, Bentley replied, using terms of gross abuse directed mainly against Colbatch, to whom he chose to attribute the authorship. Bentleys reply was condemned by the Cambridge heads of houses, Colbatch brought an action against him, and Middleton wrote a longer and more temperate rejoinder. When Middletons case was heard in the court of kings bench, friends subscribed towards his expenses, and he obtained the intercession of a highly placed person for a lenient sentence. The chief justice John Pratt advised the two doctors to avoid scandal by a compromise, and Bentley finally accepted an apology, Middleton, however, had to pay his own costs, and expenses of his opponent. The dispute flared up again, to end on a note of bathos, Middleton in 1723 published a plan for the future arrangement of the books, but with swipes at Bentley for retaining some manuscripts in his own house, and on the court of kings bench. Bentley appealed to the court, and on 20 June 1723 Middleton was fined, on his return he renewed his old suit for the four guineas. Bentley did not oppose him, and in February 1726 Middleton at last got back his fee, Middleton stayed in Rome during a great part of 1724 and 1725. Henry Hare, 3rd Baron Coleraine, a collector, was his companion on this journey
22.
Robert Persons
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Robert Persons, later known as Robert Parsons, was an English Jesuit priest. He was a figure in establishing the 16th-century English Mission of the Society of Jesus. Robert Persons was born at Nether Stowey, Somerset to yeoman parents, through the favour of local parson named John Hayward, a former monk, he was educated in 1562 at St. Marys Hall, Oxford. After completing his degrees with distinction, he became a fellow, as a Fellow of Balliol College, Persons clashed with the Master there, Adam Squire, and also the academic and Roman Catholic priest Christopher Bagshaw. On 13 February 1574, he was forced to resign. Through discussion and encouraged by pupillage with Father William Good, SJ, he travelled overseas to become a Jesuit priest at St Pauls, Persons accompanied Edmund Campion on his mission to fellow English Catholics in 1580. The Jesuit General, Everard Mercurian, had been reluctant to involve the Society directly in English ecumenical affairs and he was persuaded by an Italian Jesuit provincial, and later by Superior General Claudio Acquaviva, after William Cardinal Allen had found Mercurian resistant to change in October 1579. Persons fast tracked English recruits to the Jesuits, and planned to set up cooperation with the remaining English secular clergy and he became impatient with Father Goods approach to the situation. Campion was much less of an enthusiast than he was, the mission was immediately compromised as the pope had sent a separate group to the Jesuit mission, to support the Irish rebel, James FitzMaurice FitzGerald. Persons and Campion only learned of this event in Reims while they were en route to England, Campion and Persons crossed separately into England. In June 1580 Thomas Pounde, then in the Marshalsea Prison, Campion and Persons also prepared their own personal statements, to be kept in reserve. The immediate consequence was that Pounde was then transferred to Bishops Stortford Castle, much of the time Persons spent in England was taken up with covert printing, and pamphleteering. He made his view on church papism clear to the local Catholic clergy. The secret printing press needed to be relocated, moving it in early 1581 to Stonor Park, Campion was captured in July of that year, and then Stephen Brinkley, who ran the printing press, was taken captive in August. Quite soon after that date Persons left for France, Allen and Parsons persisted with their demand for another two years, but Jesuit opinion was against further confrontation. Campion was forced into disputation in the Tower of London under adverse conditions, when Persons left England, he was never to return. Persons spent the winter of 1581–82 at Rouen, and embarked on writing projects and he was in close contact with Henry I, Duke of Guise, and through the Duke founded a school for English boys at Eu, on the coast to the north-east. Father William Creighton, SJ was on the way to Scotland and he arrived in January 1582 and was briefed by Persons and the duke
23.
David Mallet (writer)
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David Mallet was a Scottish dramatist. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and went to London in 1723 to work as a private tutor, there he became friendly with Alexander Pope, James Thomson, and other literary figures including Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke. His best-known work was written in the year, William and Margaret. In 1740, he collaborated with Thomson on a masque, Alfred and his other plays and poetry, popular at the time, are largely forgotten, but Bolingbrokes writings were edited and published by Mallet in 1754. Mallet was probably the son of James Malloch of Dunruchan, a well-to-do tenant farmer on Lord Drummonds Perthshire estate, a Roman Catholic. The household suffered during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, Mallet gave his age as 28 in 1733, and was therefore born about 1705. He seems to have been educated at the school of Crieff under John Ker. In 1717 Mallet was acting as janitor in Edinburgh High School, in July 1723 he accepted the post of tutor to the sons of the Duke of Montrose. Leaving the university without a degree, he went in August to London and he lived with the family until 1731, mainly in London and Shawford. In 1726 he received the degree of M. A. from the University of Aberdeen. Early in 1727 he made a tour with his pupils. On 2 November 1733 Mallet, with his pupil, matriculated at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, where he resided fairly regularly till 27 September 1734. On 5 March 1735 he received, at his request, the degree of M. A. from the University of Edinburgh and he was again abroad in 1735. Mallet came into favour with the opposition, and was appointed,27 May 1742, in 1745 he made a tour in Holland. Mallet was rewarded in 1763 by Lord Bute, to whom he had given fulsome praise, with the post of inspector of exchequer-book in the outports of London, a sinecure which he held till his death. In the autumn of the year he joined his wife Lucy in Paris. He died on Sunday,21 April 1765 and was buried on April 27 in St. Georges cemetery, further poems followed, mostly written for John Ker, and in February 1725 he wrote verses on Mira, the Clio of his friend Thomson. On 22 February 1731 Mallet produced his tragedy of Eurydice at Drury Lane and it was acted about thirteen times, and was revived in 1759
24.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
25.
Edmund Burke
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Burke criticized British treatment of the American colonies, including through its taxation policies. Burke is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, in the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals. Subsequently, in the century, he became widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism. Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland, Burke adhered to his fathers faith and remained a practising Anglican throughout his life, unlike his sister Juliana who was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic. Although never denying his Irishness, Burke often described himself as an Englishman, according to the historian J. C. D. Clark, this was in an age before Celtic nationalism sought to make Irishness and Englishness incompatible. As a child he spent time away from the unhealthy air of Dublin with his mothers family in the Blackwater Valley in County Cork. He received his education at a Quaker school in Ballitore, County Kildare, some 67 kilometres from Dublin. He remained in correspondence with his schoolmate from there, Mary Leadbeater, in 1744, Burke started at Trinity College Dublin, a Protestant establishment, which up until 1793, did not permit Catholics to take degrees. The minutes of the meetings of Burkes Club remain in the collection of the Historical Society, Burke graduated from Trinity in 1748. Burkes father wanted him to read Law, and with this in mind he went to London in 1750, after eschewing the Law, he pursued a livelihood through writing. The late Lord Bolingbrokes Letters on the Study and Use of History was published in 1752 and this provoked Burke into writing his first published work, A Vindication of Natural Society, A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind, appearing in Spring 1756. Burke imitated Bolingbrokes style and ideas in a reductio ad absurdum of his arguments for atheistic rationalism, Burke claimed that Bolingbrokes arguments against revealed religion could apply to all social and civil institutions as well. Lord Chesterfield and Bishop Warburton initially thought that the work was genuinely by Bolingbroke rather than a satire, all the reviews of the work were positive, with critics especially appreciative of Burkes quality of writing. Some reviewers failed to notice the ironic nature of the book, a minority of scholars have taken the position that, in fact, Burke did write the Vindication in earnest, later disowning it only for political reasons. It was his only purely philosophical work, and when asked by Sir Joshua Reynolds and French Laurence to expand it thirty years later and it was to be submitted for publication by Christmas 1758. G. M. Young did not value Burkes history and claimed that it was demonstrably a translation from the French. Lord Acton, on commenting on the story that Burke stopped his history because David Hume published his, Burke remained the chief editor of the publication until at least 1789 and there is no evidence that any other writer contributed to it before 1766. On 12 March 1757, Burke married Jane Mary Nugent, daughter of Dr Christopher Nugent and their son Richard was born on 9 February 1758, an elder son, Christopher, died in infancy
26.
Lausanne
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Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
27.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters and he was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. He also contributed to the planning of Weimars botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace and his first major scientific work, the Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788 tour of Italy. During this period, Goethe published his novel, Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808. Goethes comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, Goethes father, Johann Caspar Goethe, lived with his family in a large house in Frankfurt, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, Johann Caspar married Goethes mother, Catharina Elizabeth Textor at Frankfurt on 20 August 1748, when he was 38 and she was 17. All their children, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang and his sister, Cornelia Friederica Christiana and his father and private tutors gave Goethe lessons in all the common subjects of their time, especially languages. Goethe also received lessons in dancing, riding and fencing, Johann Caspar, feeling frustrated in his own ambitions, was determined that his children should have all those advantages that he had not. Although Goethes great passion was drawing, he became interested in literature, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. He also took pleasure in reading works on history and religion. He writes about this period, Goethe became also acquainted with Frankfurt actors, among early literary attempts, he was infatuated with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his Faust and the adventures with whom he would concisely describe in Dichtung und Wahrheit. He adored Caritas Meixner, a wealthy Worms traders daughter and friend of his sister, Goethe studied law at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768. He detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead to attend the lessons of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. In Leipzig, Goethe fell in love with Anna Katharina Schönkopf, in 1770, he anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems. His uncritical admiration for many contemporary poets vanished as he became interested in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, already at this time, Goethe wrote a good deal, but he threw away nearly all of these works, except for the comedy Die Mitschuldigen. The restaurant Auerbachs Keller and its legend of Fausts 1525 barrel ride impressed him so much that Auerbachs Keller became the real place in his closet drama Faust Part One. As his studies did not progress, Goethe was forced to return to Frankfurt at the close of August 1768, Goethe became severely ill in Frankfurt. During the year and a half that followed, because of several relapses, during convalescence, Goethe was nursed by his mother and sister
28.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
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The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary, loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. A revised edition followed in 1787 and it was one of the most important novels of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement in literature. Goethe, twenty-four years old at the time, finished Werther in six weeks of writing in January–March 1774. It instantly put him among the foremost international literary celebrities, towards the end of Goethes life, a personal visit to Weimar became a crucial stage in any young mans Grand Tour of Europe. Most of The Sorrows of Young Werther is presented as a collection of written by Werther. These give an account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim. There he meets Charlotte, a young girl who takes care of her siblings after the death of their mother. Werther falls in love with Charlotte despite knowing beforehand that she is engaged to a man named Albert eleven years her senior, despite the pain it causes him, Werther spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with them both. His sorrow eventually becomes so unsupportable that he is forced to leave Wahlheim for Weimar and he suffers great embarrassment when he forgetfully visits a friend and unexpectedly has to face there the weekly gathering of the entire aristocratic set. He is not tolerated and asked to leave since he is not a nobleman and he then returns to Wahlheim, where he suffers still more than before, partly because Charlotte and Albert are now married. Every day becomes a torturing reminder that Charlotte will never be able to requite his love and she, out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, decides that Werther must not visit her so frequently. He visits her one time, and they are both overcome with emotion after he recites to her a passage of his own Ossians translation. Even before that incident, Werther had hinted at the idea that one member of the love triangle – Charlotte, unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a letter to be found after his death. Charlotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols, Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not die until twelve hours later. He is buried under a tree that he has mentioned frequently in his letters. The funeral is not attended by any clergy, or by Albert or Charlotte, the book ends with an intimation that Charlotte may die of a broken heart. Charlottes life was despaired of, etc and he wrote Werther at the age of twenty-four, and yet this was what all some of his visitors in his old age knew him for
29.
John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield
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John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield was an English politician who came from a Yorkshire family, a branch of which had settled in the Kingdom of Ireland. His grandfather was Isaac Holroyd, a merchant who emigrated to Ireland after the Restoration and his father was Isaac Holroyd, who lived at Dunamore in County Meath. John, the eldest son, first took the name of Baker on inheriting the estates of his uncle, Rev. Jones Baker, in 1768 and added Holroyd on the death of his own father in 1778. On his return he used his wealth to buy in 1769 the country house of Sheffield Place in Sussex from Lord De La Warr. In 1780 he was elected to represent Coventry in the House of Commons, where he was prominent against the anti-Catholic Lord George Gordon, as Irish peerages they did not interrupt his Parliamentary career and he was re-elected for Coventry in 1781 and for Bristol in 1790. His Parliamentary career did end however in 1802, when he was created a Peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Sheffield, in 1816, he was also created Viscount Pevensey and Earl of Sheffield in the Peerage of Ireland. In 1783 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and he was a great authority on farming, and in 1803, he was appointed President of the Board of Agriculture. But he is remembered chiefly as the friend and literary executor of Gibbon, whose Memoirs. He married Abigail Way, daughter of Lewis Way of Richmond, Abigail died in 1793 and he remarried to Lady Anne North, the daughter of the former Prime Minister Lord North on 20 January 1798. The Earl died in 1821 and was buried in the Sheffield family mausoleum attached to the transept of the Church of St Mary and St Andrew, Fletching. When Edward Gibbon died in 1794 whilst visiting the Earl, he too had been buried in the mausoleum as a mark of respect. The Holroyd family are commemorated in the surrounding panels, the Earls son and grandson succeeded in turn as second and third Earls of Sheffield, the latter being a well-known patron of cricket and on whose death the earldom became extinct. 324-331 Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Sheffield, John Baker Holroyd. London, Smith, Elder & Co. Leigh Rayments Peerage Pages
30.
Hugo Grotius
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Hugo Grotius, also known as Huig de Groot or Hugo de Groot, was a Dutch jurist. Along with the works of Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, Grotius laid the foundations for international law. A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was imprisoned for his involvement in the intra-Calvinist disputes of the Dutch Republic and he wrote most of his major works in exile in France. Because of his theological underpinning of free trade, he is considered an economic theologist. Born in Delft during the Dutch Revolt, Hugo was the first child of Jan de Groot, a prodigious learner, Hugo entered the University of Leiden when he was just eleven years old. There he studied some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger. Omnes, & emendati, & Notis, siue Februis Hug, in Holland, Grotius earned an appointment as advocate to The Hague in 1599 and then as official historiographer for the States of Holland in 1601. The Dutch were at war with Spain and Portugal when the merchant ship Santa Catarina. The scandal led to a judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public opinion. It was in this context that representatives of the Company called upon Grotius to draft a polemical defence of the seizure. The result of Grotius efforts in 1604/05 was a long, theory-laden treatise that he provisionally entitled De Indis, Grotius sought to ground his defense of the seizure in terms of the natural principles of justice. In this, he had cast a net much wider than the case at hand, his interest was in the source, the treatise was never published in full during Grotius lifetime, perhaps because the court ruling in favor of the Company preempted the need to garner public support. In The Free Sea Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory, Grotius, by claiming free seas, provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch breaking up of various trade monopolies through its formidable naval power. In 1608 he married Maria van Reigersbergen, with whom he would have eight children and who would be invaluable in helping him and the family to weather the storm to come. The domestic dissension resulting over Arminius professorship was overshadowed by the war with Spain. The new peace would move the focus to the controversy. The controversy expanded when the Remonstrant theologian Conrad Vorstius was appointed to replace Jacobus Arminius as the chair at Leiden. Vorstius was soon seen by Counter-Remonstrants as moving beyond the teachings of Arminius into Socinianism, leading the call for Vorstius removal was theology professor Sibrandus Lubbertus
31.
Samuel von Pufendorf
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FriherreSamuel von Pufendorf was a German jurist, political philosopher, economist, statesman, and historian. His name was just Samuel Pufendorf until he was ennobled in 1684, among his achievements are his commentaries and revisions of the natural law theories of Thomas Hobbes and Hugo Grotius. Pufendorf was familiar to American political writers such as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and his political concepts are part of the cultural background of the American Revolution. Pufendorf is seen as an important precursor of Enlightenment in Germany and he was born at Dorfchemnitz in the Electorate of Saxony. His father Elias Pufendorf from Glauchau was a Lutheran pastor, educated at the ducal school at Grimma, he was sent to study theology at the University of Leipzig. The narrow and dogmatic teaching was repugnant to Pufendorf, and he abandoned it for the study of public law. Under the influence of Weigel, he started to read Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, at this time, Charles was endeavoring to impose an unwanted alliance on Denmark. In the middle of the negotiations he opened hostilities and the Danes turned with anger against his envoys, Coyet succeeded in escaping, but the second minister, Sten Bielke, and the rest of the staff were arrested and thrown into prison. Pufendorf shared this misfortune, and was held in captivity for eight months and he occupied himself in meditating upon what he had read in the works of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes, and mentally constructed a system of universal law. At the end of his captivity, he accompanied his pupils, at Leiden, he was permitted to publish, in 1661, the fruits of his reflections under the title of Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis libri duo. The work was dedicated to Charles Louis, elector palatine, who created for Pufendorf a new chair at the University of Heidelberg and this professorship was first of its kind in the world. Pufendorf married Katharina Elisabeth von Palthen, the widow of a colleague, in 1667 he wrote, with the assent of the elector palatine, a tract De statu imperii germanici liber unus. Published under the cover of a pseudonym at Geneva in 1667, it was supposed to be addressed by a gentleman of Verona, Severinus de Monzambano, to his brother Laelius. Before Pufendorf, Philipp Bogislaw von Chemnitz, publicist and soldier, had written, under the pseudonym of Hippolytus a Lapide, inimical, like Pufendorf, to the Austrian House of Habsburg, Chemnitz had gone so far as to make an appeal to France and Sweden. Pufendorf, on the contrary, rejected all idea of foreign intervention, when Pufendorf went on to criticise a new tax on official documents, he did not get the chair of law and had to leave Heidelberg in 1668. Chances for advancement were few in a Germany that still suffered from the ravages of the Thirty Years War, so Pufendorf went to Sweden where that year he was called to the University of Lund. In 1672 appeared De jure naturae et gentium libri octo, and in 1673 a résumé of it under the title De officio hominis et civis, which, among other topics, gave his analysis of just war theory. In De jure naturae et gentium Pufendorf took up in great measure the theories of Grotius and sought to complete them by means of the doctrines of Hobbes and of his own ideas on jus gentium
32.
John Locke
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John Locke FRS was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the Father of Liberalism. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon and his work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers and his contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness and he postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. This is now known as empiricism, an example of Lockes belief in Empiricism can be seen in his quote, whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire. This shows the ideology of science in his observations in that something must be capable of being tested repeatedly, challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and behaviours of one’s self. Locke was born on 29 August 1632, in a thatched cottage by the church in Wrington, Somerset. He was baptised the same day, soon after Lockes birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, about seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton. In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London under the sponsorship of Alexander Popham, after completing studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford, in the autumn of 1652 at the age of twenty. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen, although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of philosophers, such as René Descartes. Locke was awarded a degree in February 1656 and a masters degree in June 1658. In 1666, he met Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, Cooper was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to become part of his retinue. Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667 moved into Shaftesburys home at Exeter House in London, in London, Locke resumed his medical studies under the tutelage of Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham had an effect on Lockes natural philosophical thinking – an effect that would become evident in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Lockes medical knowledge was put to the test when Shaftesburys liver infection became life-threatening, Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading Shaftesbury to undergo surgery to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life, Shaftesbury, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great influence on Lockes political ideas. Locke became involved in politics when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor in 1672, following Shaftesburys fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time travelling across France as tutor and medical attendant to Caleb Banks
33.
Pierre Bayle
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Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1697. As a forerunner of the Encyclopedists and an advocate of the principle of the toleration of divergent beliefs, Bayle was born at Carla-le-Comte, near Pamiers, Ariège, France. He was educated by his father, a Calvinist minister, and he afterwards entered a Jesuit college at Toulouse, and became a Roman Catholic a month later. After seventeen months, he returned to Calvinism and fled to Geneva, there he became acquainted with the teachings of René Descartes. He returned to France and went to Paris, where for years he worked under the name of Bèle as a tutor for various families. In 1675 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Protestant Academy of Sedan, in 1681 the university at Sedan was suppressed by the government in action against Protestants. Just before that event, Bayle had fled to the Dutch Republic and he taught for many years, but became embroiled in a long internal quarrel in the college. It resulted in Bayle being deprived of his chair in 1693, Bayle remained in Rotterdam until his death on 28 December 1706. He was buried there in the Waalse Kerk, where Jurieu would also be buried, the reputation achieved by this critique stirred the envy of Pierre Jurieu, Bayles Calvinist colleague of both Sedan and Rotterdam, who had written a book on the same subject. Between 1684 and 1687, Bayle published his Nouvelles de la république des lettres, in 1686, Bayle published the first two volumes of Philosophical Commentary, an early plea for toleration in religious matters. This was followed by three and four in 1687 and 1688. In 1690 there appeared a work entitled Avis important aux refugies, which Jurieu attributed to Bayle, in the Dictionary, Bayle expressed his view that much that was considered to be truth was actually just opinion, and that gullibility and stubbornness were prevalent. The Dictionary would remain an important scholarly work for generations after its publication. The remaining years of Bayles life were devoted to miscellaneous writings, in many cases, he was responding to criticisms made of his Dictionary. Voltaire, in the prelude to his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne calls Bayle le plus grand dialecticien qui ait jamais écrit, the Nouvelles de la république des lettres was the first thorough-going attempt to popularise literature, and it was eminently successful. His multi-volume Historical and Critical Dictionary constitutes Bayles masterpiece, in his Dictionnaire historique and critique and Commentaire Philosophique, he advanced arguments for religious toleration. In a word, all the Mischief arises not from Toleration, richard Popkin has advanced the view that Pierre Bayle was a superskeptic who used the Historical and Critical Dictionary as a way of critiquing all prior known theories and philosophies. In Bayles view, humans are incapable of achieving true knowledge
34.
Blaise Pascal
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Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. He was a prodigy who was educated by his father. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method, in 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines. After three years of effort and 50 prototypes, he built 20 finished machines over the following 10 years, following Galileo Galilei and Torricelli, in 1647, he rebutted Aristotles followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascals results caused many disputes before being accepted, in 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism. Following a religious experience in late 1654, he began writing works on philosophy. His two most famous works date from this period, the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées, the set in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits. In that year, he wrote an important treatise on the arithmetical triangle. Between 1658 and 1659 he wrote on the cycloid and its use in calculating the volume of solids, Pascal had poor health, especially after the age of 18, and he died just two months after his 39th birthday. Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, which is in Frances Auvergne region and he lost his mother, Antoinette Begon, at the age of three. His father, Étienne Pascal, who also had an interest in science and mathematics, was a local judge, Pascal had two sisters, the younger Jacqueline and the elder Gilberte. In 1631, five years after the death of his wife, the newly arrived family soon hired Louise Delfault, a maid who eventually became an instrumental member of the family. Étienne, who never remarried, decided that he alone would educate his children, for they all showed extraordinary intellectual ability, the young Pascal showed an amazing aptitude for mathematics and science. Particularly of interest to Pascal was a work of Desargues on conic sections and it states that if a hexagon is inscribed in a circle then the three intersection points of opposite sides lie on a line. Pascals work was so precocious that Descartes was convinced that Pascals father had written it, in France at that time offices and positions could be—and were—bought and sold. In 1631 Étienne sold his position as president of the Cour des Aides for 65,665 livres. The money was invested in a government bond which provided, if not a lavish, then certainly a comfortable income which allowed the Pascal family to move to, but in 1638 Richelieu, desperate for money to carry on the Thirty Years War, defaulted on the governments bonds. Suddenly Étienne Pascals worth had dropped from nearly 66,000 livres to less than 7,300 and it was only when Jacqueline performed well in a childrens play with Richelieu in attendance that Étienne was pardoned
35.
Suzanne Curchod
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Suzanne Curchod was a French-Swiss salonist and writer. She hosted one of the most celebrated salons of the Ancien Régime and she also led the development of the Hospice de Charité, a model small hospital in Paris that still exists today as the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital. She was the wife of French finance minister Jacques Necker, and is referenced in historical documents as Madame Necker. Born in May 1737, Curchod was the daughter of Louis Antoine Curchod, Protestant pastor of the Swiss village of Crassier near Lausanne, the family was of modest means, but Suzanne was well educated, becoming fluent in Latin and showing aptitude for mathematics and science. Her first salon was a group called the Académie des Eaux comprising a circle of Lausanne-based students with Curchod as president. He wished to marry her, but paternal disapproval on both sides, Gibbons own wavering, and Suzannes refusal to leave Switzerland for England thwarted their plans. Gibbon broke off the engagement in 1762, an event that fell in between the deaths of Curchods parents in 1760 and 1763. With the loss of income resulting from the death of her father, Curchod and her mother were very poor. After her mother died, she became a companion to a young French widow, Madame de Vermenoux, at the time, Madame de Vermenoux was being courted by the ambitious Swiss financier Jacques Necker but was uncertain whether she wanted to remarry at all. Within a few months, however, Necker turned his attention to Curchod and they had one child, a daughter named Anne Louise Germaine, the future writer and philosopher now better known as Madame de Staël. He owed much of his success to his wifes salon, where the luminaries of Parisian society gathered to discuss art, literature, Madame Neckers salons were also a meeting place for Swiss expatriates such as Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin and Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand. It was at one of Madame Neckers dinners that a group of men of letters first proposed starting a subscription to pay for a statue of Voltaire by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle and his statue of a nude Voltaire was finished in 1776 and is now in the Louvre. Madame Necker carried on a correspondence with Grimm, Buffon, Thomas, Marmontel. The time commitment involved in running a salon, combined with her husbands dislike of bluestocking authors and her surviving writings are few, a memoir about the establishment of hospitals and some reflections on divorce. She devoted considerable time to ensuring that their daughter Germaine received the very best education possible, the French hospital system during the 18th century was not well standardized and overall lacked good patient care. Hospital conditions were unsatisfactory, especially due to overcrowding, as exemplified by the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, after visiting this hospital, French Encyclopedist Denis Diderot described it this way, The biggest, roomiest, richest and most terrifying of all hospitals. These kinds of conditions prompted discussion of hospital reform among government officials. They called for improvements to the environment and for strategic siting of hospitals to make it easier for families to visit hospital-bound relatives
36.
Louis XVI of France
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Louis XVI, born Louis-Auguste, was the last King of France and Navarre before the French Revolution, during which he was also known as Louis Capet. In 1765, at the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir apparent of Louis XV of France, Louis XVI was guillotined on 21 January 1793. The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas and these included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille, and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics. The French nobility reacted to the reforms with hostility. Louis implemented deregulation of the market, advocated by his liberal minister Turgot. In periods of bad harvests, it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt, from 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime and this led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. In 1789, the storming of the Bastille during riots in Paris marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Louiss indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the tyranny of the Ancien Régime. The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy, Louis XVI was the only King of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Louis-Auguste de France, who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. Out of seven children, he was the son of Louis, the Dauphin of France. His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. A strong and healthy boy, but very shy, Louis-Auguste excelled in his studies and had a taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather, and rough-playing with his brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence. From an early age, Louis-Auguste had been encouraged in another of his hobbies, locksmithing, upon the death of his father, who died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband, and died on 13 March 1767, throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities. His instructors may have also had a hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became
37.
Jacques Necker
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Jacques Necker was a Swiss banker who became a French statesman and finance minister for Louis XVI. He was recalled to service just before the Revolution actually did start. His elder brother was the mathematician Louis Necker, Necker was born in Geneva, at that time an independent republic. His father, Karl Friedrich Necker, was a native of Küstrin in Neumark, after the publication of some works on international law, he was elected a professor of public law at Geneva, of which he became a citizen. Jacques Necker was sent to Paris in 1747 to become a clerk in the bank of Isaac Vernet, in 1762, he became a partner and by 1765, he had become very wealthy through successful financial speculations. Soon, he co-founded the bank of Thellusson, Necker et Compagnie with another Genevese, Thellusson superintended the bank in London, while Necker was managing partner in Paris. Both partners became very rich by means of loans to the French treasury, in 1763, Necker fell in love with Madame de Verménou, the widow of a French officer. But while on a visit to Geneva, Madame de Verménou met Suzanne Curchod, in 1764, Madame de Verménou brought Suzanne to Paris as her companion. There Necker, transferring his love from the widow to the poor Swiss girl. On 22 April 1766, they had a daughter, Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Madame Necker encouraged her husband to try to find himself a public position. After showing his ability in its management, Necker defended the companys autonomy in an able memoir against the attacks of Morellet in 1769. Meanwhile, he loans to the French government and was appointed resident at Paris by the republic of Geneva. In 1773, Necker won the prize of the Académie Française for a defense of state corporatism framed as a eulogy in honor of Louis XIVs minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. In 1775, he published his Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains and his wife now believed he could get into office as a great financier and made him give up his share in the bank, which he transferred to his brother Louis. In June 1777, Necker was made Director-General of Finance – he could not be named controller because of his Protestant faith and his greatest financial measures were his use of loans to help fund the French debt and his use of high interest rates rather than raising taxes. He also advocated loans to finance French involvement in the American Revolution, in 1781, France was suffering financially, and because Necker was Director-General, he was blamed for the rather high debt accrued from the American Revolution. While at court, Necker had made enemies because of his reforming policies. From 1777 to 1781, Necker was essentially in control of all of Frances wealth, near the end of this period, Necker published his most influential work, the Compte rendu au roi
38.
Ferney-Voltaire
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Ferney-Voltaire is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France. It lies between the Jura mountains and the Swiss border and forms part of the area of Geneva. Ferney was first noted in 14th-century Burgundian registers as Fernex, four centuries later, however, Voltaire changed the x to a y due to the excessive number of towns in the region with names ending in x, such as Maconnex, Saconnex, Gex, Versonnex, Ornex. During Voltaires reign over Ferney in the part of the 18th century. Today Ferney is a town with a Saturday market and a large international community, due to the proximity of CERN. It is also home to the Lycée International, Voltaire still presides over Ferney with his statue in the center of town. From 1759 to 1778 Ferney was home to French writer and philosopher Voltaire and his influence on the town was profound. He built the church and founded cottage industries that produced some of the finest potters and watchmakers of modern France. After the French Revolution, the town was renamed Ferney-Voltaire in his honor, in 1759, after having lived in Geneva less than two years, Voltaire purchased the estate of Ferney in France, near the Swiss border. During Voltaires residence, the population of Ferney increased to more than 1,000, Voltaire lived there for the last 20 years of his life before returning to Paris, where he died in 1778. Around 1940 a primary school, the École de Ferney-Voltaire, was established, about 1970 it was renamed École Florian, after the French poet and fabulist Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, whose uncle and guardian, the Marquis de Florian, had married a niece of Voltaire. The school is notable for having had a number of pupils who were children of physicists at CERN. Ferneys main attraction is Voltaires house, built 1758–66, now owned and administered by the Centre des monuments nationaux and it is open to visitors between May and September. The chateau includes the building, with a reconstruction of Voltaires room, a garden with a fine view of the Alps. In the churchs inscription, Deo erexit VOLTAIRE, Voltaires name is written in the largest characters, a few dozen meters from the chateau is another impressive house, built in 1900 by Monsieur Lambert. The house, now owned, had been used to store provisions and wine for the chateau. Every Saturday, a market is held in the street of Ferney. The old road at the centre of the village is a remnant of the time when Voltaire resided at the chateau in Ferney-Voltaire
39.
Portchester Castle
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Portchester Castle is a medieval castle built within a former Roman fort at Portchester to the east of Fareham in the English county of Hampshire. It is located at the end of Portsmouth Harbour. Probably founded in the late 11th century, Portchester was a baronial castle taken under control in 1154. The monarchy controlled the castle for centuries and it was a favoured hunting lodge of King John. It was besieged and captured by the French in 1216 before permanently returning to English control shortly thereafter, occupying a commanding position at the head of Portsmouth Harbour, in the medieval period Portchester was an important port. The castle saw the disembarkation for several campaigns to France led by Englands kings, in anticipation of a French invasion during the first quarter of the 14th century, Edward II spent £1,100 repairing and reinforcing Portchester Castle. A plot to overthrow Henry V was discovered and the culprits apprehended at Portchester, later in its history, the castle was used as a prison. Today Portchester Castle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and a Grade I listed building, the castle has been in the ownership of the Southwick Estate since the 17th century but is managed by English Heritage and open to visitors throughout the year. The Norman church, St. Marys, which stands in the south-east corner of the grounds, the strategic importance of Portchester has been recognised since at least the 3rd century when a Roman fort was established on the site of the later castle. Though it is exactly when the fort was constructed, it is thought that it was built by Marcus Aurelius Carausius on the instructions of emperor Diocletian between 285 and 290. It was one of several built along the British coast in the period to combat raids by pirates. Portchester was probably a base from which the Classis Britannica, the Roman fleet defending Britain and it is the best preserved Roman fort north of the Alps. Although the Roman army retreated from Britain in the early 5th century, it is unlikely that the fort was completely abandoned. A 10th-century hall and tower were discovered within the fort, suggesting it was a residence during the Saxon period. In 904, Portchester came into the possession of King Edward the Elder and it is uncertain when the castle was built, although it was probably in the late 11th century. The form of this castle is uncertain, although Maudit was probably responsible for creating the inner ward in the north-west corner of the fort. At this point it would probably have been defended by a wooden palisade, Maudit died in about 1100, and his property passed onto his son, Robert Maudit. He died in 1120, and a few years later the family came into the hands of William Pont de lArche through marriage to Robert Maudits daughter
40.
Seven Years' War
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The Seven Years War was a war fought between 1754 and 1763, the main conflict occurring in the seven-year period from 1756 to 1763. It involved every European great power of the time except the Ottoman Empire and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain on one side and the Kingdom of France on the other. Meanwhile, in India, the Mughal Empire, with the support of the French, faced with this sudden turn of events, Britain aligned herself with Prussia, in a series of political manoeuvres known as the Diplomatic Revolution. Conflict between Great Britain and France broke out in 1754–1756 when the British attacked disputed French positions in North America, meanwhile, rising power Prussia was struggling with Austria for dominance within and outside the Holy Roman Empire in central Europe. In 1756, the major powers switched partners, realizing that war was imminent, Prussia preemptively struck Saxony and quickly overran it. The result caused uproar across Europe, because of Austrias alliance with France to recapture Silesia, which had been lost in a previous war, Prussia formed an alliance with Britain. Reluctantly, by following the diet, most of the states of the empire joined Austrias cause. The Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states, Sweden, seeking to re-gain Pomerania joined the coalition, seeing its chance when virtually all of Europe opposed Prussia. Spain, bound by the Pacte de Famille, intervened on behalf of France, the Russian Empire was originally aligned with Austria, fearing Prussias ambition on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762. Naples, Sicily, and Savoy, although sided with the Franco-Spanish alliance, like Sweden, Russia concluded a separate peace with Prussia. The war ended with the Treaty of Paris between France, Spain and Great Britain and the Treaty of Hubertusburg between Saxony, Austria and Prussia, in 1763. The Native American tribes were excluded from the settlement, a subsequent conflict, Prussia emerged as a new European great power. Although Austria failed to retrieve the territory of Silesia from Prussia its military prowess was noted by the other powers. The involvement of Portugal, Spain and Sweden did not return them to their status as great powers. France was deprived of many of its colonies and had saddled itself with heavy war debts that its inefficient financial system could barely handle. Spain lost Florida but gained French Louisiana and regained control of its colonies, e. g. Cuba and the Philippines, France and Spain avenged their defeat in 1778 when the American Revolutionary War broke out, with hopes of destroying Britains dominance once and for all. The Seven Years War was perhaps the first true world war, having taken place almost 160 years before World War I and it was characterized in Europe by sieges and the arson of towns as well as open battles with heavy losses
. PMID 10615283. Retrieved 16 August 2012.
"Gibbon, Edward". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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