1.
Allan Ramsay (artist)
–
Allan Ramsay was a prominent Scottish portrait-painter. Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and he later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill and his only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of Alexander Bayne of Rires, Anne died on 4 February 1743, giving birth to their 3rd child, none of their children reached adulthood. One of his pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick. He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage and his two surviving sisters, but told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100. Three children survived from their long and happy marriage, Amelia, Charlotte, Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754 to 1757 together in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites. He earned income painting Grand Tourists portraits and this and other trips to Italy involved more literary and antiquarian research than art. After their return, Ramsay in 1761 was appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principal Painter in Ordinary to George III and he gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits. His health was shattered by a dislocation of the right arm. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time and he left a series of 50 royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken and he died at Dover on 10 August 1784. The portrait of his wife shows the influence of French art. The large collection of his sketches in the possession of the Royal Scottish Academy, Ramsay has paintings in the collection of a few British institutions including the National Gallery in London, Sheffield, Derby Art Gallery, Glasgow Museum and Newstead Abbey. Valdes suggests that copies of paintings were sent to the colonies to be used by abolitionists as a de facto support for their cause. Most historians question whether the 13th-century ancestor, referred to in various places as a Moor and Berber, was black African. In any event, they contend that the connection, nine and 15 generations removed, was too distant to consider Charlotte black in any cultural way, as her other ancestors were all European
2.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
–
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the collections of portraits, all of which are of. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Collection, the gallery reopened on 1 December 2011 after being closed since April 2009 for the first comprehensive refurbishment in its history, which was carried out by Page\Park Architects. The founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, formed a collection of Scottish portraits in the late 18th century, eventually John Ritchie Findlay stepped in and paid for the entire building, costing £50,000. The museum was established in 1882, before its new building was completed, the famous collection of portraits housed in the Vasari Corridor in Florence remains only accessible to the public on a limited basis. The work generally restores the gallery spaces to their layout, with areas set aside for education, the shop & café. In total the Portrait Gallery has 60% more gallery space after the changes, the cost of the refurbishment was £17.6 million. The museums collection totals some 3,000 paintings and sculptures,25,000 prints and drawings, in the 16th century most painted portraits are of royalty or the more important nobility, the oldest work in the collection is a portrait of James IV of Scotland from 1507. The gallery holds several works by Bronckhorst and his successor, Adrian Vanson, the first significant native Scot to be a portrait painter, George Jamesone only once got the chance to paint his monarch, when Charles I visited Edinburgh in 1633. The collection includes two Jamesone self-portraits and portraits of the Scottish aristocracy, as well as some imagined portraits of heroes of Scotlands past. There are three portraits by Jamesones talented pupil John Michael Wright and ten aristocratic portraits by Sir John Baptist Medina, also wearing tartan is Flora MacDonald, painted by Richard Wilson in London after her arrest for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape after the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. The museum owns the iconic portrait of Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth and his subjects include Adam Smith, James Beattie and Robert Adam. The later 19th century in Scotland had no such dominant figures, but many fine artists, and saw the beginning of photography
3.
Edinburgh
–
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 local government council areas. Located in Lothian on the Firth of Forths southern shore, it is Scotlands second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The 2014 official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh,492,680 for the authority area. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament and it is the largest financial centre in the UK after London. Historically part of Midlothian, the city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, was placed 17th in the QS World University Rankings in 2013 and 2014. The city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe. The citys historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdoms second most popular tourist destination after London, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, Edinburghs Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. It appears to derive from the place name Eidyn mentioned in the Old Welsh epic poem Y Gododdin, the poem names Din Eidyn as a hill fort in the territory of the Gododdin. The Celtic element din was dropped and replaced by the Old English burh, the first documentary evidence of the medieval burgh is a royal charter, c. 1124–1127, by King David I granting a toft in burgo meo de Edenesburg to the Priory of Dunfermline. In modern Gaelic, the city is called Dùn Èideann, the earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp site dated to c.8500 BC. Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have found on Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat, Craiglockhart Hill. When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, at some point before the 7th century AD, the Gododdin, who were presumably descendants of the Votadini, built the hill fort of Din Eidyn or Etin. Although its location has not been identified, it likely they would have chosen a commanding position like the Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat. In 638, the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria and it thenceforth remained under their jurisdiction. The royal burgh was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown, in 1638, King Charles Is attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In the 17th century, Edinburghs boundaries were defined by the citys defensive town walls
4.
Ballencrieff, East Lothian
–
Ballencrieff is a rural community in East Lothian, Scotland. It is located between the towns of Aberlady, Drem, Haddington and Longniddry and is approximately 20 miles from Edinburgh, the name comes from the Scottish Gaelic Baile na Craoibhe meaning Tree town. The village comprises typical rural housing, and some industry, including commercial pork farming, nearby Ballencrieff Castle was built in 1507. The nearby Ballencrief roundabout, on the commuter route between North Berwick and Edinburgh, has a reputation as an accident blackspot. List of places in East Lothian Ballencrieff Rare Breed Pigs Ballencrieff Castle for sale in 2006
5.
Scotland
–
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
6.
Battle, East Sussex
–
Battle is a small town and civil parish in the local government district of Rother in East Sussex, England. It lies 55 miles south-south-east of London,32 miles east of Brighton and 24 miles east of Lewes, also nearby are Hastings to the south-east and Bexhill-on-Sea to the south. It was the site of the Battle of Hastings, where William, Duke of Normandy and it is situated in the heart in the designated High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The parish population was 6,048 according to the 2001 census and it has two senior schools, Claverham Community College and Battle Abbey. Battle Abbey was founded to commemorate the battle, and dedicated in 1095, the high altar of the Abbey church was reputedly on the spot where Harold died. The Abbey gateway is still the dominant feature of the end of the main street. The remaining cloisters, part of the west range, were leased to Battle Abbey School shortly after World War I, the abbey at Battle has been known for centuries as Battle Abbey. It and the church were initially dedicated to St Martin. The town of Battle was gradually built around the Abbey, in the mid-18th century, the town supported five watchmakers in the High Street. Today, Battle is known as a tourist destination, the local Battel Bonfire Boyes is claimed to be the oldest of the Sussex Bonfire Societies. The importance of Bonfire Night in Battle is that it is located in the wooded Weald of Sussex, most of the area was heavily wooded, which provided oak and other timbers for Navy shipyards, power for making cannons, cannonballs and gunpowder. Battle was the birthplace in 1799 of Eliza Acton, author of the pioneering Modern Cookery for Private Families This continued to sell well for the rest of the century. Its lists of ingredients, cooking times and other provided an model for the cookery section of the best-selling Mrs Beetons Book of Household Management. Battle was a refuge in World War I, and tunnels still exist, leading from various fields, however, they are deemed unsafe and are now closed. The first gunpowder mill in Battle was built in 1676 when John Hammond was granted permission to build a mill on land owned by the Abbey, a gunpowder works was located in Powdermill Lane – the remains of which have been converted into a hotel. In 1722 Daniel Defoe described the town as being remarkable for little now, but for making the finest gun-powder, Battle is governed at the lowest level by Battle Town Council, consisting of 17 elected councillors who meet on the third Tuesday of each month. The council is responsible for lighting, allotments and recreational areas. It provides a voice to the district and county councils
7.
England
–
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
8.
Kingdom of Great Britain
–
The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain, was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800. It did not include Ireland, which remained a separate realm, the unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government that was based in Westminster. Also after the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the early years of the unified kingdom were marked by Jacobite risings which ended in defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. On 1 January 1801, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom, the name Britain descends from the Latin name for the island of Great Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons via the Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Edward IV of Englands daughter Cecily and James III of Scotlands son James. The Treaty of Union and the subsequent Acts of Union state that England and Scotland were to be United into one Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain. However, both the Acts and the Treaty also refer numerous times to the United Kingdom and the longer form, other publications refer to the country as the United Kingdom after 1707 as well. The websites of the UK parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the BBC, additionally, the term United Kingdom was found in informal use during the 18th century to describe the state. The new state created in 1707 included the island of Great Britain, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, both in existence from the 9th century, were separate states until 1707. However, they had come into a union in 1603. Each of the three kingdoms maintained its own parliament and laws and this disposition changed dramatically when the Acts of Union 1707 came into force, with a single unified Crown of Great Britain and a single unified parliament. Ireland remained formally separate, with its own parliament, until the Acts of Union 1800, legislative power was vested in the Parliament of Great Britain, which replaced both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. In practice it was a continuation of the English parliament, sitting at the location in Westminster. Newly created peers in the Peerage of Great Britain were given the right to sit in the Lords. Despite the end of a parliament for Scotland, it retained its own laws. As a result of Poynings Law of 1495, the Parliament of Ireland was subordinate to the Parliament of England, the Act was repealed by the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782. The same year, the Irish constitution of 1782 produced a period of legislative freedom, the 18th century saw England, and after 1707 Great Britain, rise to become the worlds dominant colonial power, with France its main rival on the imperial stage
Kingdom of Great Britain
British Army
Chichester, Henry Manners (1894). "Murray, James (1725-1794)". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 39. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Chichester, Henry Manners (1894). "