1.
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
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Her Majestys Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises senior politicians, who are present or former members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, the Council also holds the delegated authority to issue Orders of Council, mostly used to regulate certain public institutions. The Council advises the sovereign on the issuing of Royal Charters, which are used to grant special status to incorporated bodies, otherwise, the Privy Councils powers have now been largely replaced by the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The Judicial Committee consists of judges appointed as Privy Counsellors, predominantly Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Privy Council of the United Kingdom was preceded by the Privy Council of Scotland, the key events in the formation of the modern Privy Council are given below, Witenagemot was an early equivalent to the Privy Council of England. During the reigns of the Norman monarchs, the English Crown was advised by a court or curia regis. The body originally concerned itself with advising the sovereign on legislation, administration, later, different bodies assuming distinct functions evolved from the court. The courts of law took over the business of dispensing justice, nevertheless, the Council retained the power to hear legal disputes, either in the first instance or on appeal. Furthermore, laws made by the sovereign on the advice of the Council, powerful sovereigns often used the body to circumvent the Courts and Parliament. During Henry VIIIs reign, the sovereign, on the advice of the Council, was allowed to enact laws by mere proclamation, the legislative pre-eminence of Parliament was not restored until after Henry VIIIs death. Though the royal Council retained legislative and judicial responsibilities, it became an administrative body. The Council consisted of forty members in 1553, but the sovereign relied on a smaller committee, by the end of the English Civil War, the monarchy, House of Lords, and Privy Council had been abolished. The remaining parliamentary chamber, the House of Commons, instituted a Council of State to execute laws, the forty-one members of the Council were elected by the House of Commons, the body was headed by Oliver Cromwell, de facto military dictator of the nation. In 1653, however, Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the Council was reduced to thirteen and twenty-one members, all elected by the Commons. In 1657, the Commons granted Cromwell even greater powers, some of which were reminiscent of those enjoyed by monarchs, the Council became known as the Protectors Privy Council, its members were appointed by the Lord Protector, subject to Parliaments approval. In 1659, shortly before the restoration of the monarchy, the Protectors Council was abolished, Charles II restored the Royal Privy Council, but he, like previous Stuart monarchs, chose to rely on a small group of advisers. Under George I even more power transferred to this committee and it now began to meet in the absence of the sovereign, communicating its decisions to him after the fact. Thus, the British Privy Council, as a whole, ceased to be a body of important confidential advisers to the sovereign and it is closely related to the word private, and derives from the French word privé
2.
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
3.
Frederick North, Lord North
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Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, KG, PC, more often known by his courtesy title, Lord North, which he used from 1752 until 1790, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most of the American War of Independence and he also held a number of other cabinet posts, including Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Norths reputation among historians has swung back and forth and it reached its nadir in the late nineteenth century when he was depicted as a creature of the king and an incompetent who lost the American colonies. In the early twentieth century a revisionism emphasized his strengths in administering the Treasury, handling the House of Commons, Herbert Butterfield, however, argued that his indolence was a barrier to efficient crisis management, he neglected his role in supervising the entire war effort. Lord North was born in London on 13 April 1732, at the house at Albemarle Street, just off Piccadilly. His father, the first Earl, was at the time Lord of the Bedchamber to Prince Frederick, North was descended from the 1st Earl of Sandwich and was related to Samuel Pepys and the 3rd Earl of Bute. He at times had a turbulent relationship with his father Francis North, 1st Earl of Guilford. In his early years the family was not wealthy, though their situation improved in 1735 when his father inherited property from his cousin, fredericks mother, Lady Lucy Montagu, died in 1734. His father remarried, but his stepmother, Elizabeth North, also died in 1745, one of his stepbrothers was Lord Dartmouth, who remained a close friend for life. He was educated at Eton College between 1742 and 1748, and at Trinity College, Oxford where in 1750 he was awarded an MA, after leaving Oxford he travelled in Europe on the Grand Tour with Dartmouth, visiting Leipzig where he studied at the University of Leipzig. He visited Vienna, Milan, and Paris, returning to England in 1753 and he soon developed a reputation as a good administrator and parliamentarian, and was generally liked by his colleagues. In November 1763 he was chosen to speak for the Government concerning radical MP John Wilkes, Wilkes had made a savage attack on both the Prime Minister and the King in his newspaper The North Briton, which many thought libelous. Norths motion that Wilkes be expelled from the House of Commons passed by 273 votes to 111, Wilkes expulsion took place in his absence, as he had already fled to France following a duel. When a government headed by the Whig magnate Lord Rockingham came to power in 1765, North left his post and he turned down an offer by Rockingham to rejoin the government, not wanting to be associated with the Whig grandees that dominated the Ministry. He returned to office when Pitt returned to head a government in 1766. North was appointed Joint Paymaster of the Forces in Pitts ministry, as Pitt was constantly ill, the government was effectively run by the Duke of Grafton, with North as one of its most senior members. In December 1767, he succeeded Charles Townshend as Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the resignation of the secretary of state Henry Seymour Conway in early 1768, North became Leader of the Commons as well. He continued to serve when Pitt was succeeded by Grafton in October, when the Duke of Grafton resigned as Prime Minister, North formed a government on 28 January 1770
4.
William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford
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William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, KG, PC was a British courtier, diplomat and statesman of Anglo-Dutch descent. He occupied senior posts at Madrid and Paris, and served as Secretary of State in both the Northern and Southern Departments. He is credited with the introduction of the Lombardy poplar to England in 1754. He was a friend of such major cultural figures as the actor David Garrick, the novelist Laurence Sterne. George III valued Rochford as his advisor on foreign affairs in the early 1770s. Rochford was the only British secretary of state between 1760 and 1778 who had been a career diplomat, in addition to his work as foreign secretary, he carried a heavy burden of domestic responsibilities in the early 1770s, especially Irish affairs. He was a key member of the North administration in the phase of the American War of Independence. Illness and a scandal forced him from office in November 1775. William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein was born in 1717, the son of Frederick Nassau van Zuylestein, 3rd Earl of Rochford. His ancestry was Anglo-Dutch, descended in a line from William the Silent’s son Frederick Henry. Rochford’s grandfather and great-grandfather both had English wives, ladies-in-waiting at the courts of William II and William III of Orange and his grandfather was a close companion of William III, accompanying him to England in the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9, and later rewarded with the earldom of Rochford. Educated at Eton College as Viscount Tunbridge, Rochford’s school friends included three future secretaries of state, Conway, Halifax and Sandwich, however, he also made a lifelong enemy at Eton of the Prime minister’s son, the influential writer Horace Walpole. Instead of going to university, Rochford was sent to the Academy at Geneva, from Geneva he emerged as fluent in French as he was in Dutch and English, and succeeded his father as 4th Earl of Rochford in 1738 at the age of twenty-one. Rochford was appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to George II in 1739 and he inherited strong Whig principles and was a loyal supporter of the Hanoverian Protestant succession, but also admired Sir Robert Walpole’s peaceful foreign policy. At the time of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion he offered to raise a regiment and he was active in Essex politics in the government’s interest, but he was no orator and made no impression in the House of Lords. He was appointed Vice-Admiral of Essex in 1748, though ambitious for high political office, he avoided the factions and cultivated the King’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, as his patron. Cumberland successfully lobbied for Rochford to be given a diplomatic post at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, Rochford arrived at Turin on 9 September 1749. However, he had agreed to accept an ordinary Envoy’s salary for a period
5.
George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax
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George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, KG PC was a British statesman of the Georgian era. Due to his success in extending American commerce he became known as father of the colonies, President of the Board of Trade 1748–61, he aided the foundation of Nova Scotia,1749, the capital Halifax being named after him. The son of the 1st Earl of Halifax, he was styled Viscount Sunbury until succeeding his father as 2nd Earl of Halifax in 1739. Educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was married in 1741 to Anne Richards, who had inherited a great fortune from Sir Thomas Dunk, whose name Halifax took. After having been an official in the household of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Lord Halifax was made Master of the Buckhounds, and in 1748 he became President of the Board of Trade. While filling this position he helped to found Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, which was named after him, about this time he attempted, unsuccessfully, to become a Secretary of State, but was only allowed to enter the Cabinet in 1757. In March 1761, Halifax was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in 1762, in search of evidence of sedition, he authorised a raid on the home of John Entick, declared unlawful in the case of Entick v. Carrington. He was also responsible for the exclusion of the name of the Kings mother, Augusta, Princess of Wales. Together with his colleagues, Lord Halifax left office in July 1765, returning to the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal under his nephew, Lord North and he had just been restored to his former position of Secretary of State when he died. Like his friends John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, the earliest surviving record of his involvement in the sport comes from 1741 when he led Northamptonshire in a match against Buckinghamshire at Cow Meadow in Northampton. In the same season, Sandwich and Halifax formed the Northamptonshire & Huntingdonshire team which twice defeated Bedfordshire, first at Woburn Park and he left no children, and his titles became extinct on his death. Lord Orford speaks slightingly of Halifax, and says he and his mistress, Halifax was buried in the church of St Mary Magdalene in Horton, Northamptonshire. There is a bust and memorial to him in the transept of Westminster Abbey. There is an obelisk at Chicksands Wood, near Haynes, Bedfordshire, Halifax served as a political patron of the playwright and civil servant Richard Cumberland. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Halifax, George Montagu Dunk. From Commons to Lords, Volume One,1700 to 1750, beaumont, Colonial America and the Earl of Halifax, 1748-1761. Oxford, England, Oxford University Press,2015, media related to George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax at Wikimedia Commons
6.
George Grenville
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George Grenville, PC was a British Whig statesman who rose to the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain. Grenville was born into a political family and first entered Parliament in 1741 as an MP for Buckingham. He emerged as one of Cobhams Cubs, a group of members of Parliament associated with Lord Cobham. In 1754 Grenville became Treasurer of the Navy, a position he held twice until 1761, in October 1761 he chose to stay in government and accepted the new role of Leader of the Commons causing a rift with his brother-in-law and political ally William Pitt who had resigned. Grenville was subsequently made Northern Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty by the new Prime Minister Lord Bute, on 8 April 1763, Lord Bute resigned, and Grenville assumed his position as Prime Minister. His government tried to bring public spending under control and pursued a foreign policy. His best known policy is the Stamp Act, a tax in Great Britain onto the colonies in America. Grenville had increasingly strained relations with his colleagues and the King and in 1765 he was dismissed by George III, for the last five years of his life Grenville led a group of his supporters in opposition and staged a public reconciliation with Pitt. George Grenville was born at Wotton House on 14 October 1712 and he was the second son of Richard Grenville and Hester Temple. He was one of five brothers, all of whom became MPs and his sister Hester Grenville married the leading political figure William Pitt. His elder brother was Richard Grenville, later the 2nd Earl Temple and it was intended by his parents that George Grenville should become a lawyer. Grenville received his education at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford and he entered Parliament in 1741 as one of the two members for Buckingham, and continued to represent that borough for the next twenty-nine years until his death. He was disappointed to be giving up what appeared to be a legal career for the uncertainties of opposition politics. In Parliament he subscribed to the Boy Patriot party, which opposed Sir Robert Walpole, in December 1744 he became a Lord of the Admiralty in the administration of Henry Pelham. He allied himself with his brother Richard and with William Pitt in forcing Pelham to give them promotion by rebelling against his authority, in June 1747, Grenville became a Lord of the Treasury. In 1754 Grenville was made Treasurer of the Navy and Privy Councillor, opposition to European entanglements was a cornerstone of Patriot Whig thinking. He and Pitt joined the opposition, haranguing the Newcastle government, Grenville and Pitt both championed the formation of a British militia to provide additional security rather than the deployment of Hessian mercenaries favoured by the government. As the military situation deteriorated following the loss of Minorca, the government grew increasingly weak until it was forced to resign in Autumn 1756, Pitt then formed a government led by the Duke of Devonshire
7.
Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton
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Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, KG, PC, styled Earl of Euston between 1747 and 1757, was a British Whig statesman of the Georgian era. He is one of a handful of dukes who have served as Prime Minister, however, he struggled to demonstrate an ability to counter increasing challenges to Britains global dominance following the nations victory in the Seven Years War. He was widely attacked for allowing France to annex Corsica, and stepped down in 1770, handing over power to Lord North. He was a son of Lord Augustus FitzRoy, a Captain in the Royal Navy, and Elizabeth Cosby, daughter of Colonel William Cosby, who served as a colonial Governor of New York. His father was the son of the 2nd Duke of Grafton and Lady Henrietta Somerset. He was notably a fourth-generation descendant of King Charles II and the 1st Duchess of Cleveland and his younger brother was the 1st Baron Southampton. From the death of his uncle in 1747, he was styled Earl of Euston as his grandfathers heir apparent, Lord Euston was educated at Newcomes School in Hackney and at Westminster School, made the Grand Tour, and obtained a degree at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. In 1756, he entered Parliament as MP for Boroughbridge, a borough, several months later, he switched constituencies to Bury St Edmunds. However, a later, his grandfather died and he succeeded as 3rd Duke of Grafton. He first became known in politics as an opponent of Lord Bute, in 1765, Grafton was appointed a Privy Counsellor, then, following discussions with William Pitt the Elder, he was appointed Northern Secretary in Lord Rockinghams first government. However, he retired the year, and Pitt formed a ministry in which Grafton was First Lord of the Treasury. Also, in 1768, Grafton became Chancellor of Cambridge University and he became Lord Privy Seal in Lord Norths ministry but resigned in 1775, being in favour of conciliatory action towards the American colonists. In the second Rockingham ministry of 1782, he was again Lord Privy Seal, in later years he was a prominent Unitarian, being one of the early members of the inaugural Essex Street Chapel under Rev. Theophilus Lindsey when founded in 1774. Grafton had associated with a number of liberal Anglican theologians when at Cambridge, devoted time to theological study. In 1773 in the House of Lords he supported a bill to release Anglican clergy from subscribing to all the Thirty Nine Articles and he became an advocate of moral reformation among the upper classes and of liturgical reform. He was author of, Hints Submitted to the Serious Attention of the Clergy, Nobility and Gentry, Serious Reflections of a Rational Christian from 1788-1797. The Grafton Centre Shopping Mall in Cambridge is also named after him, cape Grafton in Far North Queensland was named after him by Lieutenant James Cook during his first voyage of discovery. On 29 January 1756, he married The Hon. Anne Liddell, daughter of Henry Liddell, 4th Baronet Ravensworth and they had three children, Lady Georgiana FitzRoy, who married John Smyth on 4 June 1778
8.
Board of Admiralty
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The Board of Admiralty was established in 1628 when Charles I put the office of Lord High Admiral into commission. This system remained in place until 1832, when the Board of Admiralty became the authority charged with both administrative and operational control of the navy when the Navy Board was abolished. The office of Lord High Admiral was created in around 1400 to take charge of the Royal Navy and it was one of the Great Officers of State. The office could be exercised by an individual, by the Crown directly, in 1679 this was changed, and the number of Commissioners was reduced to seven, who were to receive salaries and need not be members of the Privy Council. The eighteenth century Board of Admiralty usually contained a preponderance of civilians, although there was a naval element and often a sea officer was First Lord. The Lords Commissioners were all active politicians, even the naval members, after 1806 the First Lord was always a civilian and a senior member of the ministry, while the separate post of First Sea Lord was evolved for the senior professional member. Until the absorption of the High Court of Admiralty into the Court of Judicature they nominally retained, as executors of the office of Lord High Admiral, their centuries-old link with that court. When the Navy Board was abolished in 1832 and responsibility for the administration of the Navy passed to the Board of Admiralty. It now consisted of the First Lord of the Admiralty, four Naval Lords, known from 1904 as Sea Lords, and a Civil Lord, with a Parliamentary and a Permanent Secretary. Between 1832 and 1869 following the abolition of Navy Board a number of Civilian Naval Officials were also appointed as members. During the First World War the number of Sea Lords was increased at one time to eight, in 1938 the title of the Board member designated Assistant Chief of Naval Staff was altered to Fifth Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Air Services. For fuller details of Board membership during this period see The Second World War, duties were assigned to each Lord Commissioner by the First Lord and defined in a Minute of the Board, and amended form time to time. The Secretary to the Admiralty to be posted in the room of each Member of the Board, more informally, they were known in short as The Lords of the Admiralty. That, for example, is the term used throughout the well-known Horatio Hornblower series of historical novels. In 2011, currently Queen Elizabeth II bestowed the title of Lord High Admiral on the Duke of Edinburgh. nationalarchives. gov. uk/details/r/C706. © Crown copyright, which is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, London, By His Majestys Statute and Law Printer. Naval Administration, The Constitution, Character, and Functions of the Board of Admiralty, the Admiralty, Reforms and Re-organization, 1868-1892. The Origin and Constitution of the Admiralty and Navy Boards, to which is added an Account of the various Buildings in which the Business of the Navy has been transacted from time to time, London, For Her Majestys Stationary Office
9.
Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke
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Admiral of the Fleet Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke KB, PC was a Royal Navy officer. As captain of the third-rate HMS Berwick he took part in the Battle of Toulon in February 1744 during the War of the Austrian Succession and he also captured six ships of a French squadron in the Bay of Biscay in the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre in October 1747. Hawke went on to achieve a victory over a French fleet at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November 1759 during the Seven Years War and he developed the concept of a Western Squadron, keeping an almost continuous blockade of the French coast throughout the war. Hawke also served as First Lord of the Admiralty for five years between 1766 and 1771, in this post, he was successful in bringing the navys spending under control and also oversaw the mobilisation of the navy during the Falklands Crisis in 1770. Born the only son of a Edward Hawke, a barrister at Lincolns Inn, and Elizabeth Hawke, Hawke benefited from the patronage of Colonel Martin Bladen a Member of Parliament, who was his maternal uncle. Hawke joined the navy as a volunteer in the sixth-rate HMS Seahorse on the North American Station in February 1720 and he did this successfully, although it meant his ship did not take part in the British attack on Porto Bello in November 1739 during the War of Jenkins Ear. Hawke became commanding officer of the third-rate HMS Berwick in June 1743, the fight at Toulon was extremely confused, although Hawke had emerged from it with a degree of credit. Hawkes ship managed to capture the prize of the battle. He was then given command of the second-rate HMS Neptune in August 1745, despite having distinguished himself at Toulon, Hawke had few opportunities over the next three years. However, he was promoted to admiral on 15 July 1747 and appointed Second-in-Command of the Western Squadron. He went on to replace Admiral Peter Warren as the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Squadron, with his flag in the third-rate HMS Devonshire, Hawke then put a great deal of effort into improving the performance of his crews and instilling in them a sense of pride and patriotism. The Western Squadron had been established to keep a watch on the French Channel ports, under a previous commander, Lord Anson, it had successfully contained the French coast and in May 1747 won the First Battle of Cape Finisterre when it attacked a large convoy leaving harbour. The British had received word there was now an incoming convoy arriving from the West Indies. Hawke took his fleet and lay in wait for the arrival of the French, in October 1747, Hawke captured six ships of a French squadron in the Bay of Biscay in the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre. The consequence of this, along with Ansons earlier victory, was to give the British almost total control in the English Channel during the months of the war. It proved ruinous to the French economy, helping the British to secure a peace at the negotiations for the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. For Hawke, however, the arrival of peace brought an end to his opportunities for active service. In December 1747, he was elected as a Member of Parliament for the town of Portsmouth
10.
Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel
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Admiral Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel PC was an officer of the Royal Navy during the Seven Years War and the War of American Independence. During the final years of the conflict he served as First Lord of the Admiralty. A member of a leading Whig aristocratic family, Augustus Keppel was the son of Willem van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle and Anne van Keppel. Augustus Keppel went to sea at the age of ten, and had five years of service to his credit when he was appointed to Centurion. He had a escape from being killed at the capture of Paita. Also on this voyage, he made friends with John Campbell, after their return from the circumnavigation, in 1744, he was promoted to be Commander and post-captain of the 14-gun sloop Wolf. He was actively employed throughout the rest of the War of the Austrian Succession, in 1747 he ran his ship Maidstone ashore near Belleisle while chasing a French vessel, but was honourably acquitted by a court martial, and reappointed to another command. Early in 1749, he was introduced by Lord Edgecombe to Sir Joshua Reynolds, after trying the effect of bullying without success, the Dey made a treaty, and Keppel returned to England in 1751. During the Seven Years War he saw constant service and his ship, Torbay, was the first to get into action in the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759. In March 1761, Keppel transferred to HMS Valiant and was put in command of a squadron to reduce Belle Isle, when Spain joined France in 1762 he was sent as second in command with Sir George Pocock in the British expedition against Cuba which took Havana. His health suffered from the fever which carried off an immense proportion of the soldiers and sailors, the £25,000 of prize money which he received freed him from the unpleasant position of younger son of a family ruined by the extravagance of his father. Promoted to Rear Admiral in October 1762, he became Commander-in-Chief Jamaica Station late in the year and he was a member of the Admiralty Board from July 1765 to November 1766 and was promoted Vice Admiral on 24 October 1770. When the Falkland Island dispute occurred in 1770 he was to have commanded the fleet to be sent against Spain, but a settlement was reached, the most prominent period of his life belongs to the opening years of the American War of Independence. Keppel was a supporter of the Whig connection, led by the Marquess of Rockingham. The Whigs were then excluded from power by George III, as a member of Parliament, in which he had a seat for Windsor from 1761 until 1780, and then for Surrey, Keppel was a Whig partisan, hostile to the Kings Friends. The Whigs believed that the ministers, and in particular Lord Sandwich. When Keppel was appointed to command the Channel Fleet, the fleet prepared against France in 1778. The battle which Keppel fought with the French on 27 July 1778 ended badly, reasons included Keppels own management, but also the failure of Palliser to obey orders
11.
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute
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John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, KG, PC was a Scottish nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain under George III. He was arguably the last important favourite in British politics and he was the first Prime Minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707. A close relative of the Clan Campbell, Bute succeeded to the Earldom of Bute upon the death of his father, James Stuart, 2nd Earl of Bute, in 1723. He was brought up thereafter by his uncles, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, 1st and only Earl of Ilay, Viscount. Bute studied at Eton College and the University of Leiden, Netherlands, on 24 August 1736, he married Mary Wortley Montagu, bringing the large Wortley estates to his family. In 1737, due to the influence of his uncles, he was elected a Scottish representative peer, for the next several years he retired to his estates in Scotland to manage his affairs and indulge his interest in botany. During the Jacobite Rising of 1745, Bute moved to Westminster, London, upon the Princes death in 1751, the education of his son, Prince George, the new Prince of Wales, became a priority and in 1755 Bute was appointed as his tutor. Bute arranged for the Prince and his brother Prince Edward to follow a course of lectures on natural philosophy by the itinerant lecturer Stephen Demainbray. Furthermore, following the death of the Prince Frederick, Bute became close to his widow, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha and it was rumoured that the couple were having an affair, and indeed soon after John Horne published a scandalous pamphlet alluding to a liaison between Bute and the Princess. Rumours of this affair were almost certainly untrue, as Bute was by all indications happily married, in 1780 Bute was elected as the first President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Because of the influence he had over his pupil, Bute expected to quickly to political power following Georges accession to the throne in 1760. It would first be necessary to both the incumbent Prime Minister and arguably the even more powerful Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Re-elected as a Scottish representative peer in 1760, Bute was indeed appointed the de facto Prime Minister, bute’s premiership was notable for the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris which concluded the Seven Years’ War. They therefore charged the colonists for the increased military levels, thus catalysing the resistance to taxes which led to the American Revolution, king George began to see through Bute, and turned against him after being criticised for an official speech which the press recognised as Butes own work. Bute also proposed a controversial Cider tax which produced enormous hostility in cider-producing areas, the journalist John Wilkes published a newspaper called The North Briton, in which both Bute and the Dowager Princess of Wales were savagely satirised. Bute resigned as prime minister shortly afterwards, though he remained in the House of Lords a Scottish representative peer until 1780 and he remained friendly with the Dowager Princess of Wales, but her attempts to reconcile him with George III proved futile. For the remainder of his life, Bute remained at his estate in Hampshire, from there he continued his pursuit of botany and became a major literary and artistic patron. Among his beneficiaries were Samuel Johnson, Tobias Smollett, Robert Adam, William Robertson and he also gave considerably to the Scottish universities
12.
John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont
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John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont PC, FRS was a British politician, political pamphleteer, and genealogist who served as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was the son and heir of John Perceval, 1st Earl of Egmont by his wife Catherine Parker, daughter of Sir Philip Parker and he was baptised at the Palace of Westminster, London. Perceval sat in the Irish House of Commons for Dingle between 1731 and 1749, in April 1748, he was created Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. He served as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1763 to 1766, from 1751 to 1757, he designed and created Enmore Castle at Enmore in Somerset, which received the dismissive mockery of Horace Walpole. His first marriage was on 15 February 1737 to Lady Catherine Cecil, by her he had five sons and two daughters, John Perceval, 3rd Earl of Egmont, eldest son and heir. Cecil Parker Perceval, born 19 Oct.1766 was married to Thomas Wynn, Margaret Perceval and she survived her husband and died at Langley, Buckinghamshire, on 11 June 1784, aged 53. Lord Perceval died 4 December 1770 at Pall Mall, London, Mount Egmont in New Zealand was named after him by James Cook in recognition of his encouragement of Cooks first voyage. Since the 1980s, the mountain has two names, either Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont, to give equal recognition to its Māori. Earl of Egmont This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Egmont. Perceval, John, second earl of Egmont, John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont. Diary of Viscount Percival 1920 access date 3 March 2015 Enmore Castle
13.
Henry Pelham
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Henry Pelham, PC, FRS was a British Whig statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 27 August 1743 until his death. He was the brother of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle. Pelham is generally considered to have been Britains third Prime Minister after Sir Robert Walpole, Pelhams premiership was relatively uneventful in terms of domestic affairs. In foreign affairs, Great Britain fought in several wars, upon Pelhams death, his brother Newcastle took full control of the ministry. He was educated at Westminster School and Hart Hall, Oxford, hertford College, Oxford, the present-day incarnation of Hart Hall, still honours him in the title of its drinking club, the Sir Henry Pelham Gentlemens Sporting Society. As a volunteer he served in Dormers regiment at the Battle of Preston in 1715, spent some time on the Continent, through strong family influence, and the recommendation of Robert Walpole, he was chosen in 1721 as Lord of the Treasury. The following year he was returned for Sussex county, in 1724 he entered the ministry as Secretary at War, but this office he exchanged in 1730 for the more lucrative one of Paymaster of the Forces. He made himself conspicuous by his support of Walpole on the question of the excise and he, Newcastle, and the Prime Minister would often meet at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, where they would draw up much of the countrys policy. These meetings became known as the Norfolk Congress, with Walpole, he served as a founding governor of the popular charity the Foundling Hospital when it opened its doors in 1739. In 1742 a union of parties resulted in the formation of an administration in which Pelham became Prime Minister the following year, Pelham served as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. In November 1744, the Pelhams forced Lord Carteret out of the ministry, Pelham bluntly told the king that either Carteret step down, or the Pelhamites would, thereafter Pelham shared power with his brother, the Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne. Pelham was regarded as the figure, but rank and influence made his brother very powerful in the Cabinet. In spite of an attachment, there were occasional disputes between them, which sometimes led to further difficulties. One of their terms was to insist that the king should have confidence in a ministry. The Augustan era was essential to the development of prime ministerial power as being entirely dependant on a Commons majority, while the king struggled with his headstrong son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, his sons uncertain constitutional position was high in the Leicester House party set. In 1748 Frederick, a Tory, planned to bring down the Pelhamites at an election due the following year. Prime Minister called a poll in 1748 by asking the king to dissolve parliament in 1747. The prince and his father, the king grew to one another with unspeakable animosity
14.
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford
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John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford KG PC FRS was an 18th-century British statesman. He was the son of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford, by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John Howland of Streatham. In the House of Lords he joined the Patriot Whig opposition hostile to the Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, took a prominent part in public business. When Carteret, now Earl Granville, resigned office in November 1744, Bedford became First Lord of the Admiralty in the administration of Henry Pelham, and was made a privy councillor. He was very successful at the admiralty, but was not equally fortunate after he became Secretary of State for the Southern Department in February 1748, Pelham accused him of idleness and he was constantly at variance with his colleague The Duke of Newcastle. Newcastle engineered the dismissal of both of them, by sacking Sandwich in June 1751, Bedford resigned in protest, as Newcastle had calculated, allowing him to replace them with men he considered more loyal personally to him. During his time in the post he was accused of spending far too much time at his country estate playing cricket, Bedford was very keen on cricket. The earliest surviving record of his involvement in the sport comes from 1741 when he hosted Bedfordshire v Northamptonshire & Huntingdonshire at Woburn Park, the combined Northamptonshire & Huntingdonshire team won. Bedford arranged the match with his friends George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax and John Montagu, a few days later, there was a return match at Cow Meadow, Northampton, and the combined team won again. By 1743, Bedford had developed Woburn Cricket Club into a team that was able to compete against London. The team was prominent in 1743 and 1744 but, after that, instigated by his friends, he was active in opposition to the government, becoming the leader of a faction named after him, the Bedford Whigs. After Newcastle’s resignation in November 1756, Bedford became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the new government led by William Pitt and he retained this office after Newcastle, in alliance with Pitt, returned to power in June 1757. His own courtly manners and generosity, and his wife’s good qualities, however, seem to have gained for him some popularity and he oversaw the Irish response to the threatened French invasion in 1759, and the landing of a small French force in northern Ireland. In March 1761 he resigned this office, the cabinet of Bute was divided over the policy to be pursued with regard to the war, but pacific counsels prevailed, and in September 1762 Bedford went to France to treat for peace. He was considerably annoyed because some of the negotiations were conducted through other channels. Resigning his office as Lord Privy Seal soon afterwards, various causes of estrangement arose between Bute and Bedford, and the subsequent relations of the two men were somewhat virulent. The duke refused to take office under George Grenville on Bute’s resignation in April 1763, during his term of office he had opposed a bill to place high import duties on Italian silks. He was consequently assaulted and his London residence attacked by a mob and he took some part in subsequent political intrigues, and although he did not return to office, his friends, with his consent, joined the ministry of the Duke of Grafton in December 1767
15.
George Anson, 1st Baron Anson
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Admiral of the Fleet George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, PC FRS, was a Royal Navy officer. Anson served as an officer during the War of the Spanish Succession. He then undertook a circumnavigation of the globe during the War of Jenkins Ear, Anson commanded the fleet that defeated the French Admiral de la Jonquière at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre during the War of the Austrian Succession. Anson went on to be First Lord of the Admiralty during the Seven Years War and he was born on 23 April 1697, at Shugborough Manor. In February 1712, amid the War of the Spanish Succession, Anson entered the navy at the age of 15 and he served as a volunteer aboard the fourth-rate HMS Ruby, before transferring to the third-rate HMS Monmouth. Promoted to lieutenant on 17 March 1716, he was assigned to the fourth-rate HMS Hampshire in service as part of a Baltic Sea fleet commanded by Admiral John Norris. Anson transferred to the aging fourth-rate HMS Montagu in March 1718 and he then transferred to the second-rate HMS Barfleur, flagship of Admiral George Byng, in October 1719. Anson was promoted to commander in June 1722 and given command of the small 8-gun HMS Weazel, Ansons orders were to suppress smuggling between Britain and Holland, a task he swiftly and effectively performed. After setting off later than planned, Ansons squadron encountered successive disasters, two of his vessels, the fifth-rate HMS Pearl and the fourth-rate HMS Severn, failed to round the Horn and returned home. Meanwhile, the sixth-rate HMS Wager was wrecked off the coast of Chile, the lateness of the season forced him to round Cape Horn in very stormy weather, and the navigating instruments of the time did not allow for exact observations. By the time Anson reached the Juan Fernández Islands in June 1741, in the absence of any effective Spanish force on the coast, he was able to harass the enemy and to sack the small port city of Paita in Peru in November 1741. The steady decrease of his crews by scurvy and the state of his remaining consorts compelled him to collect all the remaining survivors in Centurion. He rested at the island of Tinian, and then made his way to Macao in November 1742, the charts captured with the ship added many islands to the British knowledge of the Pacific, including the Anson Archipelago. Anson took his back to Macao, sold her cargo to the Chinese, kept the specie. Passing a French fleet then patrolling the Channel by means of a thick fog, the prize money earned from the capture of the galleon made Anson a rich man for life and bought him considerable political influence. He initially refused promotion to rear-admiral of the blue, however, Anson was elected Member of Parliament for Hedon in Yorkshire in 1744. He became a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty on the Admiralty board led by the Duke of Bedford in December 1744, Anson commanded the fleet that defeated the Marquis de la Jonquière at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre in May 1747 during the War of the Austrian Succession. His force captured the entire French squadron, four ships of the line and he was elevated to the peerage as Lord Anson, Baron of Soberton, in the County of Southampton on 11 June 1747
16.
Postmaster General of the United Kingdom
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The Postmaster General of the United Kingdom was a Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the system, the Telegraph Act of 1868 established the Postmaster Generals right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs. This would subsequently extend to telecommunications and broadcasting, the office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A replacement public authority governed by a chairman was established under the name of the Post Office, in England, the monarchs letters to his subjects are known to have been carried by relays of couriers as long ago as the 15th century. The earliest mention of Master of the Posts is in the Kings Book of Payments where a payment of £100 was authorised for Tuke as master of the posts in February 1512. Belatedly, in 1517, he was appointed to the office of Governor of the Kings Posts. In 1609 it was decreed that letters could only be carried and delivered by persons authorised by the Postmaster General, in 1657 an Act entitled Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled set up a system for the British Isles and enacted the position of Postmaster General. The Act also reasserted the postal monopoly for letter delivery and for post horses, after the Restoration in 1660, a further Act confirmed this and the post of Postmaster-General, the previous Cromwellian Act being void. 1660 saw the establishment of the General Letter Office, which would become the General Post Office. A similar position evolved in the Kingdom of Scotland prior to the 1707 Act of Union, the office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A new public authority governed by a chairman was established under the name of the Post Office, from 1691 to 1823 there were two Postmasters General, to divide the patronage between the Whigs and Tories. In 1823 the idea of a Whig and a Tory sharing the post was abolished
17.
Wills Hill, 1st Marquess of Downshire
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Wills Hill, 1st Marquess of Downshire PC, known as the Viscount Hillsborough from 1742 to 1751 and as the Earl of Hillsborough from 1751 to 1789, was a British politician of the Georgian era. Best known in North America as the Earl of Hillsborough, he served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1768 to 1772, born at Fairford, Gloucestershire, Wills Hill was the son of Trevor Hill, 1st Viscount Hillsborough and Mary, daughter of Anthony Rowe. Hill, known retrospectively as Downshire, was returned to Parliament for Warwick in 1741 and he succeeded his father as second Viscount Hillsborough in 1742. He was the year appointed Lord Lieutenant of County Down. In 1751 he was created Earl of Hillsborough in the Peerage of Ireland, in 1754 he was made Comptroller of the Household, a post he held until 1756, and appointed a Privy Counsellor. In 1756 he was created Baron Harwich, of Harwich in the County of Essex, in the Peerage of Great Britain, from 1768 to 1772 Hillsborough was Secretary of State for the Colonies and also president of the board of trade. Both in and out of office he opposed all concessions to the American colonists, on his retirement in 1772 he was created Earl of Hillsborough in the Peerage of Great Britain. In 1779 he served as Secretary of State for the Southern Department and he was the last person to serve in this position, because the Secretaries of State were reorganized. In 1789, he was made Marquess of Downshire in the Irish peerage, Lord Downshire married firstly Lady Margaretta, daughter of Robert FitzGerald, 19th Earl of Kildare, in 1747. After her death in 1766 he married secondly Mary Bilson-Legge, 1st Baroness Stawell, daughter of Edward Stawell, 4th Baron Stawell and widow of Henry Bilson-Legge, in 1768. Lord Downshire died on 7 October 1793, aged 75, and was succeeded by his son from his first marriage and his second daughter and last child by his first marriage was Lady Charlotte Hill, wife of John Chetwynd-Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot. In Canada, Hillsborough Bay, on Prince Edward Island, and the village of Hillsborough, New Brunswick, were named in Downshires honour
18.
Henry Carteret, 1st Baron Carteret
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He was hereditary Bailiff of Jersey 1776–1826. He was the son of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Viscount Weymouth by his second wife Louisa Carteret, daughter of John Carteret, 2nd Baron Carteret. He was thus the brother of Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount Weymouth. He was educated at St Johns College, Cambridge, graduating BA, in 1769 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws. In 1761 he was elected for the Herefordshire borough of Weobley, in 1762 his brother sought an office for him, leading to his appointment as Clerk Comptroller of the Green Cloth. He lost this office when the Grenville government fell in 1765, after his brother returned to office as Secretary of State in 1767, Thynne returned to the Royal household as Master of the Household, a post worth over £900 which he held until 1771. He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1770, in 1771, he was given the office of joint Postmaster General, which he held until 1789. This was worth £3000 per year, and he retired from the House of Commons. He gave up the postmastership in 1789, when his brother was created Marquess of Bath and he also succeeded him as Bailiff of Jersey, a post long held by heads of the Carteret family. In 1784 he was created Baron Carteret, of Hawnes, thus reviving his uncles second title, Hawnes Park was modernised and partly rebuilt by Henry Carteret, 1st Baron Carteret, and in 1813 consisted of two quadrangles. He rebuilt the front in about 1785-90, probably to the designs of James Lewis. In 1810 he married his mistress of many years, Eleanor Smart and he died in 1826 and was succeeded as 2nd Baron by his younger nephew Lord George Thynne in accordance with a special remainder in the patent when he was created baron. His simple white marble monument with bust survives in Kilkhampton Church, Cornwall, inscribed. Privy Counsellor, Bailiff of Jersey, Baron Carteret of Hawnes
19.
Chiswick
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Chiswick is a district of west London, England. Most of it is in the London Borough of Hounslow, other parts of the W4 postcode area, including Chiswick Park tube station, Acton Green, and much of Bedford Park are in the London Borough of Ealing. It occupies a meander of the River Thames used for competitive and recreational rowing, the finishing post for the Boat Race is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge. Chiswick was historically the ancient parish of St Nicholas in the county of Middlesex, with an agrarian and it became the Municipal Borough of Brentford and Chiswick in 1932 and has formed part of Greater London since 1965, when it was merged into the London Borough of Hounslow. On a border, the Chiswick or Great West Road Roundabout is the start of the North Circular Road, South Circular Road with the eponymous road flying over this. West of Chiswicks Hogarth Roundabout, the Great West Road from central London converts to the M4 motorway, providing a second mode of transport connection to Heathrow Airport, the Great Chertsey Road runs south-west from the Hogarth Roundabout, becoming the M3 motorway. Historic figures who lived in Chiswick include the poets Alexander Pope, yeats, the Italian revolutionary Ugo Foscolo, the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro and the novelist E. M. Forster. Chiswick was first recorded c.1000 as the Old English Ceswican meaning Cheese Farm, Chiswick grew up as a village around St Nicholas Church from c. The area included three small settlements, the fishing village of Strand-on-the-Green, Little Sutton and Turnham Green on the west road out of London. A decisive skirmish took place on Turnham Green early in the English Civil War, in November 1642, royalist forces under Prince Rupert, marching from Oxford to retake London, were halted by a larger parliamentarian force under the Earl of Essex. The royalists retreated and never threatened the capital. In 1864, John Isaac Thornycroft, founder of the John I, Thornycroft & Company shipbuilding company, established a yard at Church Wharf at the west end of Chiswick Mall. The shipyard built the first naval destroyer, HMS Daring of the Daring class, to cater for the increasing size of warships, Thornycroft moved its shipyard to Southampton in 1909. In 1822, the Royal Horticultural Society leased 33 acres of land in the south of the High Road between what are now Sutton Court Road and Duke’s Avenue. This site was used for its fruit tree collection and its first school of horticulture, the area was reduced to 10 acres in the 1870s, and the lease was terminated when the Society’s garden at Wisley, Surrey, was set up in 1904. Some of the pear trees still grow in the gardens of houses built on the site. The population of Chiswick grew almost tenfold during the 19th century, reaching 29,809 in 1901, suburban building began in Gunnersbury in the 1860s and in Bedford Park, on the borders of Chiswick and Acton, in 1875. During the Second World War, Chiswick was bombed repeatedly, with incendiary and high explosive bombs
20.
England
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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
21.
Martha Ray
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Martha Ray was a British singer of the Georgian era. Her father was a corsetmaker and her mother was a servant in a noble household, good-looking, intelligent, and a talented singer, she came to the attention of many of her fathers patrons. She is best known for her affair with John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich and she lived with him as his mistress from the age of seventeen, while his wife was suffering from mental illness. She gave birth to five children, one of whom was Basil Montagu, during this time, she conducted a successful singing career, for which she became well-known, as well as completed her education with Lord Sandwichs support. Sandwich set Ray up in a residence in Westminster, and gave her a generous allowance, in public, although Sandwich was married, the two acted as husband and wife. During this period, Ray was introduced to a soldier, James Hackman, Hackman became a frequent visitor, and is thought to have proposed marriage to Ray on several instances, but she declined each time. Also by this time, Sandwich was deeply in debt and it is believed that while Sandwich was financially generous to Ray, he did not offer her any long-term financial security, which may have been what led Ray into tolerating Hackmans advances. In 1779, Hackman left the British Army to join the church, however, Hackman was completely infatuated with Ray, becoming increasingly jealous, and continued to pursue her. On 7 April 1779, in the company of friend and fellow singer Caterina Galli. She had been approached by Hackman earlier that evening, but when she declined to tell him where she was going he followed her to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, where he murdered her. Hackman believed that she had another lover, William Hanger, Baron Coleraine. Whether she and Coleraine were involved in an affair has never been established beyond some doubt, Sandwich was devastated by her death. Hackman attempted to shoot himself to death following his murder of her, but only wounded himself, two days after her 14 April burial, Hackman was sentenced to hang, and the sentence was carried out on 19 April in front of a large crowd in Tyburn, London. The events surrounding her murder were used in the popular 1780 novel Love and Madness by Herbert Croft
22.
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
23.
Eton College
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Eton College /iːtən/ is an English independent boarding school for boys in Eton, Berkshire, near Windsor. It educates more than 1,300 pupils, aged 13 to 18 years and it was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as The Kings College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor, making it the 18th oldest Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference school. Eton is one of the seven public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868. Eton has educated 19 British prime ministers and generations of the aristocracy and has referred to as the chief nurse of Englands statesmen. The school is headed by a Provost and Fellows, who appoint the Head Master and it contains 25 boys houses, each headed by a housemaster, selected from the more senior members of the teaching staff, which numbers some 155. Almost all of the pupils go on to universities, about a third of them to Oxford or Cambridge. The Head Master is a member of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference, Eton has a long list of distinguished former pupils. David Cameron was the 19th British prime minister to have attended the school, about 20% of pupils at Eton receive financial support, through a range of bursaries and scholarships. In early 2014, this figure had risen to 263 pupils receiving the equivalent of around 60% of school fee assistance, Eton has been described as the most famous public school in the world, and been referred to as the chief nurse of Englands statesmen. The Good Schools Guide called the school the number one public school, adding that The teaching. The school is a member of the G20 Schools Group, Eton today is a larger school than it has been for much of its history. In 1678, there were 207 boys, in the late 18th century, there were about 300, while today, the total has risen to over 1,300. Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to Kings College, Cambridge. Henry took Winchester College as his model, visiting on many occasions, borrowing its Statutes and removing its Headmaster, when Henry VI founded the school, he granted it a large number of endowments, including much valuable land. He persuaded the then Pope, Eugene IV, to grant him a privilege unparalleled anywhere in England, the school also came into possession of one of Englands Apocalypse manuscripts. Legend has it that Edwards mistress, Jane Shore, intervened on the schools behalf and she was able to save a good part of the school, although the royal bequest and the number of staff were much reduced. Construction of the chapel, originally intended to be slightly over twice as long, only the Quire of the intended building was completed. Etons first Headmaster, William Waynflete, founder of Magdalen College, Oxford and previously Head Master of Winchester College, as the school suffered reduced income while still under construction, the completion and further development of the school has since depended to some extent on wealthy benefactors
24.
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. With around 600 undergraduates,300 graduates, and over 180 fellows, by combined student numbers, it is second to Homerton College, Cambridge. Members of Trinity have won 32 Nobel Prizes out of the 91 won by members of Cambridge University, five Fields Medals in mathematics were won by members of the college and one Abel Prize was won. Other royal family members have studied there without obtaining degrees, including King Edward VII, King George VI, along with Christs, Jesus, Kings and St Johns colleges, it has also provided several of the well known members of the Apostles, an intellectual secret society. In 1848, Trinity hosted the meeting at which Cambridge undergraduates representing private schools such as Westminster drew up the first formal rules of football, Trinitys sister college in Oxford is Christ Church. Like that college, Trinity has been linked with Westminster School since the schools re-foundation in 1560, the college was founded by Henry VIII in 1546, from the merger of two existing colleges, Michaelhouse, and Kings Hall. At the time, Henry had been seizing church lands from abbeys, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, being both religious institutions and quite rich, expected to be next in line. The King duly passed an Act of Parliament that allowed him to any college he wished. The universities used their contacts to plead with his sixth wife, the Queen persuaded her husband not to close them down, but to create a new college. The king did not want to use royal funds, so he combined two colleges and seven hostels to form Trinity. Contrary to popular belief, the lands granted by Henry VIII were not on their own sufficient to ensure Trinitys eventual rise. In its infancy Trinity had owed a great deal to its college of St Johns. Its first four Masters were educated at St Johns, and it took until around 1575 for the two colleges application numbers to draw even, a position in which they have remained since the Civil War. Bentley himself was notorious for the construction of a hugely expensive staircase in the Masters Lodge, most of the Trinitys major buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Thomas Nevile, who became Master of Trinity in 1593, rebuilt and this work included the enlargement and completion of Great Court, and the construction of Neviles Court between Great Court and the river Cam. Neviles Court was completed in the late 17th century when the Wren Library, in the 20th century, Trinity College, St Johns College and Kings College were for decades the main recruiting grounds for the Cambridge Apostles, an elite, intellectual secret society. In 2011, the John Templeton Foundation awarded Trinity Colleges Master, Trinity is the richest Oxbridge college, with a landholding alone worth £800 million. Trinity is sometimes suggested to be the second, third or fourth wealthiest landowner in the UK – after the Crown Estate, the National Trust, in 2005, Trinitys annual rental income from its properties was reported to be in excess of £20 million
25.
Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich
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Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich was born in Burlington House, London, England to Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Sandwich and Lady Ann Boyle. He was styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke from 1672 until his accession to the earldom in 1688, on 8 July 1689 he married Elizabeth Wilmot, daughter of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester and Elizabeth Malet. They had two children, Elizabeth, who died as an infant, and Edward Richard Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, who predeceased his father. From 1704 at the latest the Queen came under pressure to dismiss him. In 1705 however Sandwichs mental illness became so obvious that he was obliged to resign his office, stirnet. com Accessed May 30,2007 thepeerage. com Accessed May 30,2007
26.
Earl of Sandwich
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Earl of Sandwich is a noble title in the Peerage of England, nominally associated with Sandwich, Kent. It was created in 1660 for the prominent naval commander Admiral Sir Edward Montagu and he was made Baron Montagu, of St Neots in the County of Huntingdon, and Viscount Hinchingbrooke, at the same time, also in the Peerage of England. The viscountcy is used as the title by the heir apparent to the earldom. He was succeeded by his son, the second Earl and he briefly represented Dover in the House of Commons and served as Ambassador to Portugal and as Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire. The second Earls great-grandson was The 4th Earl of Sandwich, who was a prominent statesman and served as First Lord of the Admiralty and as Secretary of State for the Northern Department. Lord Sandwich is also remembered for sponsoring the voyages of discovery made by Captain James Cook, R. N. who named the Sandwich Islands in his honour and he was succeeded by his son, the fifth Earl. He sat as Member of Parliament for Brackley and Huntingdonshire and served as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household and his son, the sixth Earl, also represented Huntingdonshire in Parliament. He was succeeded by his son, the seventh Earl and his eldest son, the eighth Earl, represented Huntingdon in the House of Commons as a Conservative and served as Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire. He was succeeded by his nephew, the ninth Earl and he was the son of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Victor Alexander Montagu, second son of the seventh Earl. Lord Sandwich was Member of Parliament for Huntingdon and Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and he disclaimed his peerages in 1964 but never returned to the House of Commons. As of 2017, the titles are held by his eldest son, the eleventh Earl, Lord Sandwich is one of the ninety elected hereditary peers that remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, and sits as a cross-bencher. The family seat is today at Mapperton in Dorset, from the 17th century until the 1960s, the family also owned Hinchingbrooke House in Huntingdonshire, from which the title Viscount Hinchingbrooke was derived. Some historical papers of the family and its Hinchingbrooke estate are held by Cambridgeshire Archives, the heir apparents heir apparent is his son, the Hon. William James Hayman Montagu. London and New York, St Martins Press
27.
Eponymous
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An eponym is a person, place, or thing for whom or for which something is named, or believed to be named. For example, Elizabeth I of England is the eponym of the Elizabethan era, recent usage, especially in the recorded-music industry, also allows eponymous to mean named after its central character or creator. In ancient Greece, the eponymous archon was the highest magistrate in classical Athens, Eponymous archons served a term of one year which took the name of that particular archon. Later historians provided yet another case of eponymy by referring to the period of Fifth-century Athens as The Age of Pericles after its most influential statesman Pericles. In Ptolemaic Egypt, the head priest of the Cult of Alexander, the Hebrew Bible explains the origins of peoples through individuals who bear their name. In most cases, the experiences and behavior of the ancestor is meant to indicate the characteristics of the people who take their name, in ancient Rome, one of the two formal ways of indicating a year was to cite the two annual consuls who served in that year. For example, the year we know as 59 BC would have described as the consulship of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and Gaius Julius Caesar. Under the empire, the consuls would change as often as two months, but only the two consuls at the beginning of the year would lend their names to that year. During the Christian era, itself eponymous, many households used eponymous dating by regnal years. The Roman Catholic Church, however, eventually used the Anno Domini dating scheme based on the birth of Christ on both the public and royalty. Government administrations may become referred to eponymously, such as Kennedys Camelot, British monarchs have become eponymous throughout the English-speaking world for time periods, fashions, etc. Elizabethan, Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian are examples of these, trends Political trends or movements often become eponymous with a government leader. Examples include Jacksonian democracy, Stalinism, Maoism, Obamacare, in intellectual property law an eponym can refer to a generic trademark or brand name, a form of metonymy, such as aspirin, heroin and thermos in the United States. In geography, places and towns can also be given a name through a relationship to an important figure. Peloponnesus, for instance, was said to derive its name from the Greek hero Pelops, in historical times, new towns have often been named after their founders, discoverers, or notable individuals. In science and technology, discoveries and innovations are often named after the discoverer or a figure influential in their advance, examples are Avogadros number, the Diesel engine, meitnerium, Alzheimers disease, and the Apgar score. For a different view of the process see Stiglers law of eponymy, the term is also applied to music, usually with regard to record titles, where it is prevalent and leads to confusion. For example, Bad Companys first album was entitled Bad Company, titled a 1988 compilation album Eponymous
28.
Sandwich
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The sandwich began as a portable finger food in the Western world, though over time it has become prevalent worldwide. Sandwiches are a type of lunch food, taken to work, school. The bread can be plain, or coated with condiments such as mayonnaise or mustard, to enhance its flavour. As well as being homemade, sandwiches are widely sold in restaurants. There are both savoury sandwiches, such as deli sandwiches, and sweet sandwiches, such as a peanut butter. The sandwich is considered to be the namesake of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, the Wall Street Journal has described it as Britains biggest contribution to gastronomy. The modern concept of a sandwich using slices of bread can arguably be traced to 18th-century Europe, flat breads of only slightly varying kinds have long been used to scoop or wrap small amounts of food en route from platter to mouth throughout Western Asia and northern Africa. From Morocco to Ethiopia to India, bread is baked in flat rounds, during the Middle Ages in Europe, thick slabs of coarse and usually stale bread, called trenchers, were used as plates. After a meal, the food-soaked trencher was fed to a dog or to beggars at the tables of the wealthy, initially perceived as food that men shared while gaming and drinking at night, the sandwich slowly began appearing in polite society as a late-night meal among the aristocracy. It was at the time that the European-style sandwich finally began to appear outside of Europe. In the United States, the sandwich was first promoted as a meal at supper. By the early 20th century, as became a staple of the American diet. The first written usage of the English word appeared in Edward Gibbons journal, in longhand and it was named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, an 18th-century English aristocrat. It is said that he ordered his valet to bring him meat tucked between two pieces of bread, and others began to order the same as Sandwich. The rumour in its form appeared in Pierre-Jean Grosleys Londres, translated as A Tour to London in 1772. Before being known as sandwiches, this food combination seems to simply have been known as bread and meat or bread, in the United States, a court in Boston, Massachusetts ruled in 2006 that a sandwich includes at least two slices of bread. In Spain, where the sandwich is borrowed from the English language. It is otherwise known as a bocadillo, similar usage applies in other Spanish-speaking cultures, such as Mexico, where the word torta is also used for a popular variety of roll-type sandwiches
29.
Edward Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke
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Edward Richard Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke was the eldest son of Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Rochester. Hinchingbrookes mother kept his father, who was believed to be insane, much confined. On 12 April 1707, at the age of 14, he married Elizabeth Popham, during this time, Hinchingbrooke was one of the infamous Mohocks, and was arrested for assaulting a watchman in 1712. In 1713, he was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Huntingdon and he became colonel of the 37th Regiment of Foot in 1717. In March 1722, he was named Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and was returned as MP for Huntingdonshire in April, however, he died in October 1722, predeceasing his father. His widow later married Francis Seymour, portraits of Edward Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke at the National Portrait Gallery, London
30.
Grand Tour
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The custom flourished from about 1660, until the advent of large-scale rail transport in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as a rite of passage. With nearly unlimited funds, aristocratic connections and months to roam, they commissioned paintings, perfected their language skills, in addition, it provided the only opportunity to view specific works of art, and possibly the only chance to hear certain music. A Grand Tour could last from months to several years. It was commonly undertaken in the company of a Cicerone, a guide or tutor. The legacy of the Grand Tour lives on to the day and is still evident in works of travel. In essence, the Grand Tour was neither a scholars pilgrimage nor a one, though a pleasurable stay in Venice. Catholic Grand Tourists followed the routes as Protestant Whigs. Pompeo Batoni made a career of painting English milordi posed with graceful ease among Roman antiquities, many continued on to Naples, where they viewed Herculaneum and Pompeii, but few ventured far into southern Italy or Malta, and fewer still to Greece, still under Turkish rule. Rome for many centuries had been the goal of pilgrims, especially during Jubilee when they visited the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome. This is partly because he asked Inigo Jones, not yet established as an architect but already known as a traveller and masque designer. Larger numbers of tourists began their tours after the Peace of Münster in 1648, lasselss introduction listed four areas in which travel furnished an accomplished, consummate Traveller, the intellectual, the social, the ethical, and the political. The idea of travelling for the sake of curiosity and learning was an idea in the 17th century. Thus, one could use up the environment, taking from it all it offers, travel, therefore, was necessary for one to develop the mind and expand knowledge of the world. Consciously adapted for intellectual self-improvement, Gibbon was revisiting the Continent on a larger and more liberal plan, the typical 18th-century sentiment was that of the studious observer travelling through foreign lands reporting his findings on human nature for those unfortunate enough to have stayed home. Recounting ones observations to society at large to increase its welfare was considered an obligation, the Grand Tour offered a liberal education, and the opportunity to acquire things otherwise unavailable at home, lending an air of accomplishment and prestige to the traveller. The trappings of the Grand Tour, especially portraits of the traveller painted in iconic continental settings, became the obligatory emblems of worldliness, gravitas, the less well-off could return with an album of Piranesi etchings. The perhaps in Gibbons opening remark cast a shadow over his resounding statement
31.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
32.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
33.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
34.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
35.
Orientalism
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In particular, Orientalist painting, representing the Middle East, was a genre of Academic art in the 19th century. Orientalism refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident, the East, the word Orient entered the English language as the Middle French orient. In the “Monks Tale”, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “That they conquered many regnes grete / In the orient, with many a fair citee. ”The term “orient” refers to countries east of the Mediterranean Sea and Southern Europe. In Place of Fear, Aneurin Bevan used an expanded denotation of the Orient that comprehended East Asia, “the awakening of the Orient under the impact of Western ideas”. Edward Said said that Orientalism “enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just during colonial times, but also in the present. ”In art history, the term Orientalism refers to the works of the Western artists who specialized in Oriental subjects, produced from their travels in Western Asia, during the 19th century. In that time, artists and scholars were described as Orientalists, especially in France, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the term Orientalist identified a scholar who specialized in the languages and literatures of the Eastern world. Among such scholars is the philologist William Jones, whose studies of Indo-European languages established modern philology, additionally, Hebraism and Jewish studies gained popularity among British and German scholars in the 18th and 19th century. The academic field of Oriental studies, which comprehended the cultures of the Near East, the thesis of Orientalism develops Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, and Michel Foucaults theorisation of discourse to criticise the scholarly tradition of Oriental studies. Said criticised contemporary scholars who perpetuated the tradition of outsider-interpretation of Arabo-Islamic cultures, especially Bernard Lewis, the analyses are of Orientalism in European literature, especially French literature, and do not analyse visual art and Orientalist painting. In that vein, the art historian Linda Nochlin applied Said’s methods of analysis to art. In the academy, the book Orientalism became a text of post-colonial cultural studies. Early architectural use of motifs lifted from the Indian subcontinent is known as Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, one of the earliest examples is the façade of Guildhall, London. The style gained momentum in the west with the publication of views of India by William Hodges, examples of Hindoo architecture are Sezincote House in Gloucestershire, built for a nabob returned from Bengal, and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Venice, the trading partner of the Ottomans, was the earliest centre. Chinoiserie is the term for the fashion for Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success, Early hints of Chinoiserie appeared in the 17th century in nations with active East India companies, England, Denmark, the Netherlands and France. Tin-glazed pottery made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine Ming-era blue, Early ceramic wares made at Meissen and other centers of true porcelain imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and teawares. Pleasure pavilions in Chinese taste appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, Thomas Chippendales mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, ca 1753–70
36.
House of Lords
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The House of Lords of the United Kingdom, referred to ceremonially as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Unlike the elected House of Commons, all members of the House of Lords are appointed, the membership of the House of Lords is drawn from the peerage and is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. The Lords Spiritual are 26 bishops in the established Church of England, of the Lords Temporal, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. However, they include some hereditary peers including four dukes. Very few of these are female since most hereditary peerages can only be inherited by men, while the House of Commons has a defined 650-seat membership, the number of members in the House of Lords is not fixed. There are currently 805 sitting Lords, the House of Lords is the only upper house of any bicameral parliament to be larger than its respective lower house. The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends Bills from the Commons, while it is unable to prevent Bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay Bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the House of Commons that is independent from the electoral process, Bills can be introduced into either the House of Lords or the House of Commons. Members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, the House of Lords has its own support services, separate from the Commons, including the House of Lords Library. The Queens Speech is delivered in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, the House also has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual. This new parliament was, in effect, the continuation of the Parliament of England with the addition of 45 MPs and 16 Peers to represent Scotland, the Parliament of England developed from the Magnum Concilium, the Great Council that advised the King during medieval times. This royal council came to be composed of ecclesiastics, noblemen, the first English Parliament is often considered to be the Model Parliament, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and representatives of the shires and boroughs of it. The power of Parliament grew slowly, fluctuating as the strength of the monarchy grew or declined, for example, during much of the reign of Edward II, the nobility was supreme, the Crown weak, and the shire and borough representatives entirely powerless. In 1569, the authority of Parliament was for the first time recognised not simply by custom or royal charter, further developments occurred during the reign of Edward IIs successor, Edward III. It was during this Kings reign that Parliament clearly separated into two chambers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The authority of Parliament continued to grow, and, during the fifteenth century
37.
War of the Austrian Succession
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The War of the Austrian Succession involved most of the powers of Europe over the question of Maria Theresas succession to the Habsburg Monarchy. The war included King Georges War in British America, the War of Jenkins Ear, the First Carnatic War in India, the Jacobite rising of 1745 in Scotland, and the First and Second Silesian Wars. Austria was supported by Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, the enemies of France, as well as the Kingdom of Sardinia. France and Prussia were allied with the Electorate of Bavaria, the war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, by which Maria Theresa was confirmed as Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary, but Prussia retained control of Silesia. But the peace was soon to be shattered, when Austrias desire to recapture Silesia intertwined with the political changes in Europe. In 1740, after the death of her father, Charles VI, Maria Theresa succeeded him as Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria and Duchess of Parma. The complications involved in a female Habsburg ruler had been long foreseen, problems began when King Frederick II of Prussia violated the Pragmatic Sanction and invaded Silesia on 16 December 1740, using the 1537 Treaty of Brieg as a pretext. For much of the century, France approached its wars in the same way. It would let its colonies defend themselves, or would offer only minimal help, similarly, several long land borders made an effective domestic army imperative for any ruler of France. At the end of the war, France gave back its European conquests, the British—by inclination as well as for pragmatic reasons—had tended to avoid large-scale commitments of troops on the Continent. For the War of the Austrian Succession, the British were allied with Austria, by the time of the Seven Years War, they were allied with its enemy, Prussia. In marked contrast to France, Britain strove to prosecute the war in the colonies once it became involved in the war. The British pursued a strategy of naval blockade and bombardment of enemy ports. They would harass enemy shipping and attack enemy outposts, frequently using colonists from nearby British colonies in the effort and this plan worked better in North America than in Europe, but set the stage for the Seven Years War. Prince Frederick had been only 28 years of age on 31 May 1740 when his father, Frederick William I died, neither Frederick nor his father had ever been fond of Austria and its various snubs against Prussia. Emperor Charles VI had made provision for the succession of his daughter, in support of his invasion of Silesia, Frederick also used a questionable interpretation of a treaty between the Hohenzollerns and the Piasts of Brieg as pretext. In particular, Frederick feared that Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, was preparing to seize Silesia for himself to unite Saxony and Poland. The only recent combat experience of the Prussian Army was their participation in the War of the Polish Succession, accordingly, the Prussian Army had an uninspiring reputation and was counted as one of the many minor armies of the Holy Roman Empire
38.
First Lord of the Admiralty
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The Admiralty Commission was dissolved in 1701, but was reconstituted in 1709 on the death of Prince George of Denmark, who had been appointed Lord High Admiral. The office has held in commission from that time onwards, however. The Board of the Admiralty comprised a number of “Lords Commissioners” headed by a First Lord, from the early 1800s the post was always held by a civilian. In 1832 First Lord Sir James Graham instituted reforms and amalgamated the Board of Admiralty, by the provisions of the Admiralty Act of 1832, two Lords in committee could legalize any action of the Board. In 1868 Prime Minister, William Gladstone appointed Hugh Childers First Lord, however these changes restricted communication between the board members who were affected by these new regulations and the sittings of the Board were discontinued altogether. This situation described was further exacerbated by the disaster of HMS Captain in 1870 a poorly designed new vessel for the navy. However by describing the Lords of the Admiralty as the assistants of the First Lord, in 1931 for the First time since 1709 the First Lord was not a member of the cabinet. M. S. Pinafore, is Sir Joseph Henry Porter, KCB, the counterparts shared a known lack of naval background. It has been suggested the character was drawn on Smiths actual Radical predecessor of 1868–71, the Making of the Modern Admiralty, British Naval Policy-Making, 1805-1927
39.
Admiralty
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The new Admiralty Board meets only twice a year, and the day-to-day running of the Royal Navy is controlled by a Navy Board. It is common for the authorities now in charge of the Royal Navy to be referred to as simply The Admiralty. The title of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom was vested in the monarch from 1964 to 2011, the title was awarded to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh by Queen Elizabeth II on his 90th birthday. There also continues to be a Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom, the office of Admiral of England was created around 1400 although there had already been Admirals of the Northern and Western Seas. In 1546, King Henry VIII established the Council of the Marine, later to become the Navy Board, operational control of the Royal Navy remained the responsibility of the Lord High Admiral, who was one of the nine Great Officers of State. In 1628, Charles I put the office of Lord High Admiral into commission, the office of Lord High Admiral passed a number of times in and out of commission until 1709 after which the office was almost permanently in commission. In 1831, the first Navy Board was abolished as a separate entity, in 1964, the Admiralty along with the War Office and the Air Ministry as separate departments of state were abolished, and re-emerged under one single new Ministry of Defence. Within the expanded Ministry of Defence are the new Admiralty Board which has a separate Navy Board responsible for the running of the Royal Navy. The Army Board and the Air Force Board, each headed by the Secretary of State for Defence, the Board of Admiralty consisted of a number of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. The Lords Commissioners were always a mixture of admirals, known as Naval Lords or Sea Lords and Civil Lords, the quorum of the Board was two commissioners and a secretary. The president of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty, after 1806, the First Lord of the Admiralty was always a civilian while the professional head of the navy came to be known as the First Sea Lord. The first real concerted effort to organise the Admiralty was started by Henry VIII. Between 1860 and 1908 there was no study of strategy and of staff work conducted within the naval service. All the navys talent flowed to the great technical universitys and it was perceived by officials within the Admiralty at this time that the running of war was quite a simple matter for any flag officer who required no formal training. The new War Staff had hardly found its feet and it struggled with the opposition to its existence by senior officers they were categorically opposed to a staff. The deficiencies of the system within this department of state could be seen in the conduct of the Dardanelles campaign, there was no mechanisms in place to answer the big strategic questions in 1914 a Trade Division was created. In 1916, Sir John Jellicoe came to the Admiralty, he organized the staff as following, Chief of War Staff, Operations, Intelligence, Signal Section, Mobilization, Trade. This for the first time gave the naval staff direct representation on the Board, the would direct all operations and movements of the fleet, while the would be responsible for mercantile movements and anti-submarine operations
40.
Edward Vernon
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Admiral Edward Vernon was an English naval officer. Vernon was born in Westminster and went to Westminster School and he joined the Royal Navy in 1700 and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1702. After five years as Lieutenant, he was appointed Captain in 1706 and his first command was the HMS Rye, part of the fleet of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. Vernon had a long and distinguished career, rising to the rank of Admiral after 46 years service and he fought during the War of the Spanish Succession, rising to the rank of post-captain and commanding the West Indies Station. During the War of Jenkins Ear Vernon was a Rear Admiral, in 1739 he was responsible for the capture of Porto Bello, seen as expunging the failure of Admiral Hosier there in a previous conflict. However, an amphibious operation against Cartagena de Indias suffered a severe defeat. Vernon served as MP on three occasions and was out-spoken on naval matters in Parliament, making him a controversial figure, the origin of the name grog for rum diluted with water is attributed to Vernon. He was known for wearing coats made of cloth, earning him the nickname of Old Grog. The use of citrus juice helped to avoid scurvy, mount Vernon, the home of the first American president George Washington, was named after Vernon, since Washingtons elder brother served under Edward Vernon, and gave it his name. Born in Westminster, London, Vernon was the son of James Vernon. Edward had one sibling, James who became British envoy to Denmark and served as a member of parliament. Vernon briefly attended Westminster School, then joined the Royal Navy on 10 May 1700 as a Volunteer per order on board HMS Shrewsbury, in March 1701, he was transferred to HMS Ipswich and three months later, joined HMS Mary. On 16 September 1702, Vernon was promoted Lieutenant and appointed to HMS Lennox serving in the Channel Squadron, the ship was later transferred to the Mediterranean and finally paid off in March 1704. He was then appointed to HMS Barfleur, which at the time was the flagship of Admiral Cloudesley Shovell in the Mediterranean, the ship was present at the capture of Gibraltar and the Battle of Málaga. In December, with Shovell, he transferred to HMS Britannia and was present at the capture of Barcelona in 1705, on 22 January 1706 he was promoted Captain and appointed to HMS Dolphin. However, he was moved ten days later into HMS Rye, with the rest of Shovells fleet, he returned to England, but was fortunate to escape the disaster that befell Shovell’s flagship, HMS Association at the Isles of Scilly. In November, he joined HMS Jersey and in April 1708, in 1710, he successfully broke up a Spanish squadron off Cartagena. At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1712, in March 1715, he was appointed to HMS Assistance, in which he served in the Baltic until 1717 when the ship was paid off
41.
Second Battle of Cape Finisterre (1747)
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The Second Battle of Cape Finisterre was a naval battle which took place on 25 October 1747 during the War of the Austrian Succession. The battle took place in the eastern Atlantic, roughly halfway between Ireland and Cape Finisterre in northwest Spain and it was a decisive British victory that has been described as the most brilliant naval action of the war. It put an end to French naval operations for the remainder of the war, thus eliminating any threat of an invasion of Britain and threatening the very existence of Frances empire overseas. North America was a theatre of the War of the Austrian Succession. Britains Royal Navy had disrupted Frances transatlantic trade in the past, France made a second attempt to reopen the supply routes in October of that year, assembling 252 merchantmen in the Basque Roads off La Rochelle. They would be protected by eight men-of-war from Brest, the British got wind of this huge convoy, and dispatched a squadron of 14 smaller ships from Plymouth on 20 August. Hawke was given the command at the last minute after Sir Peter Warren had fallen ill with scurvy, the French set off on 17th October, and were sighted by Hawkes fleet eight days later at 7am. Hawke approached from leeward while the French sailed close-hauled in a line ahead, instead, Hawke made the signal for a general chase, freeing his captains from the constraints of a formal battle. The British overhauled the French line and enveloped it from rear to van, the Comte de Vaudreuil in Intrépide, first in the French line, turned back to help his admiral, allowing both ships to escape. The French also lost 4000 men, which would prove as devastating as the loss of the ships themselves, the merchants escaped under the protection of the Content 64 and Castor 26, and continued across the Atlantic. However most of them were intercepted and captured in the West Indies by Commodore George Pocock in the winter of 1747-48 and this disaster convinced the French government of its helplessness at sea, and it made no further efforts to fight convoys through the British blockade. This soon brought most of Frances colonies close to starvation particularly in the West Indies, King Louis decided to give back the Netherlands in return for normality in the colonies. The psychological impact of the battles of Cape Finisterre continued into the Seven Years War, as King Louis would prove reluctant to send men and supplies to New France and her other colonies
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sandwich, John Montagu, 4th Earl of". Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
