1.
Andrew Lang
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Andrew Lang was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales, the Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him. On 17 April 1875, he married Leonora Blanche Alleyne, youngest daughter of C. T. Alleyne of Clifton and she was variously credited as author, collaborator, or translator of Langs Color/Rainbow Fairy Books which he edited. He soon made a reputation as one of the most able and versatile writers of the day as a journalist, poet, critic, in 1906, he was elected FBA. He died of angina pectoris at the Tor-na-Coille Hotel in Banchory, Banchory and he was buried in the cathedral precincts at St Andrews. Lang is now known for his publications on folklore, mythology. The interest in folklore was from early life, he read John Ferguson McLennan before coming to Oxford, the earliest of his publications is Custom and Myth. In Myth, Ritual and Religion he explained the irrational elements of mythology as survivals from more primitive forms and his Blue Fairy Book was a beautifully produced and illustrated edition of fairy tales that has become a classic. This was followed by other collections of fairy tales, collectively known as Andrew Langs Fairy Books. In the preface of the Lilac Fairy Book he credits his wife with translating and transcribing most of the stories in the collections, Lang examined the origins of totemism in Social Origins. Lang was one of the founders of psychical research and his writings on anthropology include The Book of Dreams and Ghosts, Magic and Religion. He served as President of the Society for Psychical Research in 1911. He collaborated with S. H. Butcher in a translation of Homers Odyssey. He was a Homeric scholar of conservative views, Langs writings on Scottish history are characterised by a scholarly care for detail, a piquant literary style, and a gift for disentangling complicated questions. He also wrote monographs on The Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart and James VI, the somewhat unfavourable view of John Knox presented in his book John Knox and the Reformation aroused considerable controversy. He gave new information about the career of the Young Pretender in Pickle the Spy, an account of Alestair Ruadh MacDonnell, whom he identified with Pickle. This was followed by The Companions of Pickle and a monograph on Prince Charles Edward, in 1900 he began a History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation. He edited The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, and was responsible for the Life and Letters of JG Lockhart, and The Life, Letters and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh
2.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
3.
Rudyard Kipling
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Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kiplings works of fiction include The Jungle Book, Kim, and many short stories and his poems include Mandalay, Gunga Din, The Gods of the Copybook Headings, The White Mans Burden, and If—. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, Henry James said, Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known. In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on occasions for a knighthood. Kiplings subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age, George Orwell called him a prophet of British imperialism. Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote, is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary, but as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and a recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts. Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865, in Bombay, in the Bombay Presidency of British India, to Alice Kipling, Alice was a vivacious woman about whom Lord Dufferin would say, Dullness and Mrs. Kipling cannot exist in the same room. Lockwood Kipling, a sculptor and pottery designer, was the Principal, John Lockwood and Alice had met in 1863 and courted at Rudyard Lake in Rudyard, Staffordshire, England. They married and moved to India in 1865 and they had been so moved by the beauty of the Rudyard Lake area that when their first child was born they referenced it when naming him. Alices sister Georgiana was married to painter Edward Burne-Jones, and her sister Agnes was married to painter Edward Poynter, Kiplings most famous relative was his first cousin, Stanley Baldwin, who was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times in the 1920s and 1930s. Kiplings birth home on the campus of the J J School of Art in Bombay for many years was used as the Deans residence. Although the cottage bears a plaque stating that this is the site where Kipling was born, the original cottage may have torn down decades ago. Some historians and conservationists are also of the view that the bungalow merely marks a site close to the home of his birth, as the bungalow was built in 1882, Kipling seems to have also said so to the dean when he visited J J School in the 1930s. Kipling was to write of Bombay, According to Bernice M. Murphy, Kipling’s parents considered themselves Anglo-Indians and so too would their son, complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent features in his fiction. So one spoke English, haltingly translated out of the idiom that one thought. Kiplings days of light and darkness in Bombay ended when he was five years old
4.
Repton School
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Repton School is a co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils in Repton, Derbyshire, England. The school has around 660 pupils aged between 13 and 18, of whom 451 are boarders, Repton School taught only boys for its first 400 years, Repton started accepting girls in the sixth form early in the 1970s, and within 20 years became completely coeducational. Relations with the Thackers deteriorated such that, by 1650s, the school, in 1642, the school commenced an action against the Thacker family and in 1652 the family also brought an action against the school which was settled out of court. The atmosphere around the dispute was aggressive and on occasions the Thackers diverted drains into the buildings by constructing dams. In 1670 a wall was built to keep the parties apart, pupil numbers seem to have oscillated between 80 and 200 in the first hundred years, but as the school was free until 1768 it is unclear how teaching was afforded. The headmaster was free to keep, and did keep, cattle in a room within the school in this period. A pupils letter home in 1728 relates to his father that the headmaster, George Fletcher, the school declined in the 1700s and the 1800s. Pupil numbers were below 50 by 1833, and a former pupil recalled after leaving, even more than the paucity of its numbers, was the almost total absence of all those facilities. Football was played upon the gravel, between the Arch, and the broken pillars. No gymnasium, no court, no racquet court. No French, no German, no Music. No chapel, no masters house beyond the Arch, no bridge across the Trent, why did even 50 boys resort to Sir John Ports old School. Although by 1830s some of the reforms of Dr. Thomas Arnold were being implemented at the school, decline was finally arrested by headmaster Steuart Pears, who worked hard to raise the schools status and reputation. In 1884, a chapel was added to the schools buildings, harold Abrahams CBE, the Olympic champion in the Paris Olympics of 1924 in the 100m sprint, depicted in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, joined Repton School in 1914. Recalling his time at the school, Abrahams said he encountered anti-semitism often feeling bullied, in 1907 a gymnasium was added, this building is now listed at grade II. 1,912 former pupils of the served in the First World War. A war memorial was added to the site in 1921. When he died the school wrote that he was perhaps the best poet Repton has had, in the Second World War,188 former members of the school lost their lives serving their country. The school itself struggled before and during the War, the school owed £50,000 and, in 1941, one boarding house was closed in 1938 and a second was closed in 1942. The total number of pupils was 353 on the outbreak of war, the Cross was reopened in 1945 and Latham House in 1947
5.
Clare College, Cambridge
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Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse and it was refounded in 1338 as Clare Hall by an endowment from Elizabeth de Clare. Clare is famous for its choir and for its gardens on the Backs. The current Master is Anthony Grabiner, Baron Grabiner, a British barrister, Clare is consistently one of the most popular Cambridge colleges amongst prospective applicants. As of 2016, it had an endowment of over £106m, the college was founded in 1326 by the universitys Chancellor, Richard Badew, and was originally named University Hall. Providing maintenance for only two fellows, it hit financial hardship. In 1338, the college was refounded as Clare Hall by an endowment from Elizabeth de Clare, a granddaughter of Edward I, the college was known as Clare Hall until 1856, when it changed its name to Clare College. Clares Old Court, a Grade I listed building, frames Kings College Chapel as the border of one of the most celebrated architectural vistas in England. It was built between 1638 and 1715, with an interruption for the English Civil War. The colleges chapel was built in 1763 and designed by Sir James Burrough and its altarpiece is Annunciation by Cipriani. Clare has a bridge over the river which is the oldest of Cambridges current bridges. Fourteen stone balls decorate it, one of which has a missing section, a more likely explanation is that a wedge of stone cemented into the ball as part of a repair job became loose and fell out into the river. Clares bridge connects Old Court to Memorial Court, which was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, a new court, Lerner Court, was opened in January 2008 and was designed by architects van Heyningen and Haward. Clare is known as a liberal and progressive college, in 1972 it became one of the three male Cambridge colleges that led the way in admitting female undergraduates. Clare continues in tradition and has won praise for the transparency of its admissions process. Clare is known as one of the most musical colleges in Cambridge and its choir has performed all over the world. Many Clare students play instruments, and the music society, Clare College Music Society, is well known. Like most Cambridge colleges, Clare allows students to have a piano in their college rooms, as well as popular jazz and comedy nights, Clare is renowned for Clare Ents, a student night held every Friday in term time
6.
Hubert von Herkomer
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Sir Hubert von Herkomer CVO RA was a German born British painter, and also a pioneering film-director and composer. Though a very successful portraitist, especially of men, he is remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor. Hard Times, showing the family of a travelling day-labourer at the side of a road, is one of his best known works. Herkomer was born at Waal, Bavaria and his family was poor and his mother tried to supplement the earnings of his father by giving music lessons. Once his mother gave him a sovereign for some shopping. Lorenz Herkomer, his father and a wood-carver of great ability, left Bavaria in 1851 with his wife and child for the United States, settling in Cleveland, Ohio. They soon returned to Europe and settled in Southampton in 1857, huberts education was slight, He went to school for a month or two, and, falling ill never returned. In a lengthy interview for Chums boys annual in 1896, Herkomer recalled his childhood and we were constantly in want of money. I was always inclined to art, and as a little boy worked principally at my fathers bench, the reputation I gained among my play fellows, however, was as a maker of kites. He also crafted mechanical toys including clowns and wagons to give to his friends and he lived for some time at Southampton and in the school of art there began his art training. An uncle in America commissioned his father to carve the four evangelists in wood, receiving some money his father determined to take Hubert to Munich so that he could study art whilst his father worked on the carving. In Chums, he recalled his trip vividly, Ah, how I remember that first visit to Germany and we crossed to Antwerp in a cattle boat. And never shall I forget the miseries of that voyage, and then there were the railway carriages on the other side. We were compelled to travel fourth-class, in the company of people who were no less filthy than the carriages, I swore a big oath that if ever I had any money I would travel in the most luxurious style possible. I have never forgotten that oath, the pair led a hard life whilst in Munich, but he stated that they were very happy days and his father sat as model for him during that time. In 1866 he entered upon a serious course of study at the South Kensington Schools and, in 1869. He sold his first picture for two guineas but by the time he was twenty-four, he had sold a picture for five hundred pounds. In same year, he began working as an illustrator for the newly founded newspaper The Graphic
7.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
8.
J. M. Barrie
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Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland but moved to London, although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan overshadowed his other work, and is credited with popularising the name Wendy. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents, Barrie was made a baronet by George V on 14 June 1913, and a member of the Order of Merit in the 1922 New Year Honours. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, James Matthew Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus to a conservative Calvinist family. His father David Barrie was a successful weaver. His mother Margaret Ogilvy had assumed her mothers household responsibilities at the age of eight. Barrie was the child of ten, all of whom were schooled in at least the three Rs in preparation for possible professional careers. His siblings were, Alexander, Mary Ann, Jane, Elizabeth, Agnes, David Ogilvy, Sarah, Isabella and he was a small child and drew attention to himself with storytelling. He only grew to 5 ft 3 1⁄2 in, when he was 6 years old, Barries next-older brother David died two days before his 14th birthday in an ice-skating accident. This left his mother devastated, and Barrie tried to fill Davids place in his mothers attentions, even wearing Davids clothes, one time, Barrie entered her room and heard her say, Is that you. I thought it was the boy she was speaking to, wrote Barrie in his biographical account of his mother Margaret Ogilvy and I said in a little lonely voice, No, its no him. Barries mother found comfort in the fact that her son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up. Eventually, Barrie and his mother entertained each other stories of her brief childhood and books such as Robinson Crusoe, works by fellow Scotsman Walter Scott. At the age of 8, Barrie was sent to the Glasgow Academy in the care of his eldest siblings Alexander and Mary Ann, when he was 10, he returned home and continued his education at the Forfar Academy. At 14, he left home for Dumfries Academy, again under the watch of Alexander and he became a voracious reader, and was fond of Penny Dreadfuls and the works of Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. At Dumfries, he and his friends spent time in the garden of Moat Brae house and they formed a drama club, producing his first play Bandelero the Bandit, which provoked a minor controversy following a scathing moral denunciation from a clergyman on the schools governing board. Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author, however, his family attempted to persuade him to choose a profession such as the ministry. With advice from Alexander, he was able to out a compromise, he would attend a university
9.
Peter Pan
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Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. In addition to two works by Barrie, the character has been featured in a variety of media and merchandise. These include a 1953 animated film, a 2003 dramatic/live-action film, a TV series and many other works. J. M. Barrie first used Peter Pan as a character in a section of The Little White Bird, an adult novel where he appears as a seven-day-old baby in the chapter entitled Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. He returned to the character of Peter Pan as the centre of his play entitled Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldnt Grow Up. Barrie later adapted and expanded the story line as a novel, published in 1911 as Peter. Barrie never described Peters appearance in detail, even in his novel, leaving it to the imagination of the reader, in the play, Peters outfit is made of autumn leaves and cobwebs. His name and playing the flute or pipes suggest the mythological character Pan, Barrie mentions in Peter and Wendy that Peter Pan still had all his first teeth. He describes him as a boy with a beautiful smile, clad in skeleton leaves. Traditionally, the character has been played on stage by an adult woman. In the original productions in the UK, Peter Pans costume was a tunic and dark green tights. This costume is exhibited in Barries Birthplace, the similar costume worn by Pauline Chase is displayed in the Museum of London. Early editions of adaptations of the story also depict a red costume but a green costume becomes more usual from the 1920s, and more so later after the release of Disneys animated movie. In the Disney films, Peter wears an outfit consists of a short-sleeved green tunic and tights apparently made of cloth. He has pointed ears, brown eyes and his hair is red. In Hook, the character is played as an adult by Robin Williams, with eyes and dark brown hair, in flashbacks to him in his youth. In this film his ears appear pointed only when he is Peter Pan and his Pan attire resembles the Disney outfit. In the live-action 2003 Peter Pan film, he is portrayed by Jeremy Sumpter and his outfit is made of leaves and vines
10.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse KBE was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy years at Dulwich College. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and his early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. Although most of Wodehouses fiction is set in England, he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. During and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern and he began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his revelations of incompetence and extravagance at Hollywood studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his career reached a new peak. In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons, in 1940 he was prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, the talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in Britain, and a threat of prosecution. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955 and he was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, in Southampton, Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words, after the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career he would produce a novel in three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers, the Wodehouses, who traced their ancestry back to the 13th century, belonged to a collateral branch of the family of the earls of Kimberley. Eleanor Wodehouse was also of ancient aristocratic ancestry and she was visiting one of her sisters in Guildford when Wodehouse was born there prematurely. The boy was baptised at the Church of St Nicolas, Guildford, Wodehouse wrote in 1957, If you ask me to tell you frankly if I like the name Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, I must confess that I do not. I was named after a godfather, and not a thing to show for it, the first name was rapidly elided to Plum, the name by which Wodehouse became known to family and friends. Mother and son sailed for Hong Kong, where for his first two years Wodehouse was raised by a Chinese amah, alongside his elder brothers Peveril and Armine
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