1.
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
2.
General Post Office
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The General Post Office was officially established in England in 1660 by Charles II and it eventually grew to combine the functions of state postal system and telecommunications carrier. Similar General Post Offices were established across the British Empire, in 1969 the GPO was abolished and the assets transferred to The Post Office, changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation. For the more recent history of the system in the United Kingdom, see the article Royal Mail. Originally, the GPO was a monopoly covering the despatch of items from a sender to a specific receiver. The postal service was known as the Royal Mail because it was built on the system for royal. In 1661 the office of Postmaster General was created to oversee the GPO, the GPO created a network of post offices where senders could submit items. All post was transferred from the post office of origination to distribution points called sorting stations, initially it was the recipient of the post who paid the fee, and he had the right to refuse to accept the item if he did not wish to pay. The charge was based on the distance the item had been carried so the GPO had to keep an account for each item. The first general post office in London opened in 1643, just 8 years after King Charles I legalised use of the posts for private correspondence. It was probably on Cloak Lane near Dowgate Hill, coffee houses in the City such as Lloyds and Garraways organised private transport of mail among their patrons. The Royal Mail moved its headquarters to Lombard Street in the City in 1678 to better curtail such practices, when the Central London Railway was built in 1900 its nearby station was named Post Office. Smirkes building was felt to be too small by this time, however, in 1912, the former GPO East was demolished, the current headquarters of BT, a post World War II building, occupies the site of the old Telegraph Office. The theory was used to state control of the mail service into every form of electronic communication possible on the basis that every sender used some form of distribution service. These distribution services were considered in law as forms of electronic post offices and this applied to telegraph and telephone switching stations. In the mid 19th century several private companies were established in the UK. The responsibility for the electric telegraphs was officially transferred to the GPO on Friday,4 February 1870, overseas telegraphs did not fall within the monopoly. The private telegraph companies that existed were bought out. The new combined telegraph service had 1,058 telegraph offices in towns,6,830,812 telegrams were transmitted in 1869 producing revenue of £550,000
3.
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
4.
Rowland Hill
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Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his solution of prepayment, facilitating the safe, speedy. Hill later served as a government postal official, and he is credited with originating the basic concepts of the modern postal service. Hill was born in Blackwell Street, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, rowlands father, Thomas Wright Hill, was an innovator in education and politics, including among his friends Joseph Priestley, Tom Paine and Richard Price. At the age of 12, Rowland became a student-teacher in his fathers school and he taught astronomy and earned extra money fixing scientific instruments. He also worked at the Assay Office in Birmingham and painted landscapes in his spare time, the school, which Hill designed, included innovations including a science laboratory, a swimming pool, and forced air heating. Science was to be a subject, and students were to be self-governing. Jullien even transferred his son there, Hazelwood so impressed Jeremy Bentham that in 1827 a branch of the school was created at Bruce Castle in Tottenham, London. In 1833, the original Hazelwood School closed and its system was continued at the new Bruce Castle School of which Hill was head master from 1827 until 1839. The colonisation of South Australia was a project of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, in 1832 Rowland Hill published a tract called Home colonies, sketch of a plan for the gradual extinction of pauperism, and for the diminution of crime, based on a Dutch model. Hill then served from 1833 until 1839 as secretary of the South Australian Colonization Commission, the political economist, Robert Torrens was chairman of the Commission. Under the South Australia Act 1834, the colony was to embody the ideals and best qualities of British society, shaped by religious freedom, Rowland Hills sister Caroline Clark, husband Francis and their large family were to migrate to South Australia in 1850. Rowland Hill first started to take a serious interest in reforms in 1835. In 1836 Robert Wallace, MP, provided Hill with numerous books and documents, Hill commenced a detailed study of these documents and this led him to the publication, in early 1837, of a pamphlet called Post Office Reform its Importance and Practicability. He submitted a copy of this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Thomas Spring Rice and this first edition was marked private and confidential and was not released to the general public. Fundamentally, the system was mismanaged, wasteful, expensive. It had become inadequate for the needs of a commercial and industrial nation. At that time, letters were normally paid for by the recipient, the recipient could simply refuse delivery
5.
Royal Mail
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Royal Mail plc is a postal service company in the United Kingdom, originally established in 1516. The companys subsidiary, Royal Mail Group Limited, operates the brands Royal Mail, General Logistics Systems, an international logistics company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail Group. The company provides mail collection and delivery services throughout the UK, letters are deposited in a pillar or wall box, taken to a post office, or collected in bulk from businesses. Deliveries are made at least once every day except Sundays and bank holidays at uniform charges for all UK destinations, Royal Mail generally aims to make first class deliveries the next business day throughout the nation. For most of its history, Royal Mail has been a public service, however, following the Postal Services Act 2011, a majority of the shares in Royal Mail were floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2013. The UK government initially retained a 30% stake in Royal Mail, however it sold its shares in 2015. The Royal Mail can trace its history back to 1516, when Henry VIII established a Master of the Posts, upon his accession to the throne of England at the Union of the Crowns in 1603, James VI and I moved his court to London. One of his first acts from London was to establish the royal postal service between London and Edinburgh, in an attempt to control over the Scottish Privy Council. The Royal Mail service was first made available to the public by Charles I on 31 July 1635, the monopoly was farmed out to Thomas Witherings. In the 1640s Parliament removed the monopoly from Witherings and during the Civil War, to keep his monopoly in those troubled times Prideaux improved efficiency and used both legal impediments and illegal methods. In 1653 Parliament set aside all previous grants for postal services, in July 1655 the Post Office was put under the direct government control of John Thurloe, a Secretary of State, and best known to history as Cromwells spymaster general. Previous English governments had tried to prevent conspirators communicating, Thurloe preferred to deliver their post having surreptitiously read it, the first Postmaster General was appointed in 1661, and a seal was first fixed to the mail. Between 1719 and 1763, Ralph Allen, postmaster at Bath, signed a series of contracts with the post office to develop and he organised mail coaches which were provided by both Wilson & Company of London and Williams & Company of Bath. The early Royal Mail Coaches were similar to ordinary family coaches, the first mail coach ran in 1784, operating between Bristol and London. Delivery staff received uniforms for the first time in 1793, the first mail train ran in 1830, on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The Post Offices money order system was introduced in 1838, in December 1839 the first substantial reform started when postage rates were revised by the short-lived Uniform Fourpenny Post. Greater changes took place when the Uniform Penny Post was introduced on 10 January 1840 whereby a single rate for delivery anywhere in Great Britain and Ireland was pre-paid by the sender. A few months later, to certify that postage had been paid on a letter, the sender could affix the first adhesive postage stamp, other innovations were the introduction of pre-paid William Mulready designed postal stationery letter sheets and envelopes
6.
Greater London
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London, or Greater London, is a region of England which forms the administrative boundaries of London. It is organised into 33 local government districts, the 32 London boroughs, the Greater London Authority, based in Southwark, is responsible for strategic local government across the region and consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The county of Greater London was created on 1 April 1965 through the London Government Act 1963, administratively, Greater London was first established as a sui generis council area under the Greater London Council between 1963 and 1986. The area was re-established as a region in 1994, and the Greater London Authority formed in 2000, the region covers 1,572 km2 and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. In 2012, it had the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom at £37,232, the Greater London Built-up Area—used in some national statistics—is a measure of the continuous urban area of London, and therefore includes areas outside of the administrative region. The term Greater London has been and still is used to different areas in governance, statistics, history. In terms of ceremonial counties, London is divided into the small City of London, outside the limited boundaries of the City, a variety of arrangements has governed the wider area since 1855, culminating in the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916, one of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied 1,856 square miles and included 9 million people. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan, a Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. The LCC proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties, protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor, Slough and Eton in the authority. The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCCs scheme, two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a central authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission, Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council sharing power with the City of London Corporation and the 32 London Borough councils. The GLC was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its functions were devolved to the City Corporation and the London Boroughs, with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards. Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994, a referendum held in 1998 established a public will to recreate an upper tier of government to cover the region. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999, in 2000, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary. The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were won by Ken Livingstone, the 2008 and 2012 elections were won by Boris Johnson. The 2016 election was won by Sadiq Khan, Greater London continues to include the most closely associated parts of the Greater London Urban Area and their historic buffers. Thus it includes, in five boroughs, significant parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt which protects designated greenfield land in a way to the citys parks
7.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
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The House of Commons of the United Kingdom is the lower house of the countrys parliament. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The House is a body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by first-past-the-post and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved, under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The Government is primarily responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as he or she retains the support of a majority of its members. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance, by convention, the prime minister is answerable to, and must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Since 1963, by convention, the minister is always a member of the House of Commons. The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence, confidence and no confidence motions are sometimes phrased explicitly, for instance, That this House has no confidence in Her Majestys Government. Many other motions were considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such, in particular, important bills that form a part of the Governments agenda were formerly considered matters of confidence, as is the annual Budget. Parliament normally sits for a term of five years. Subject to that limit, the minister could formerly choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament. By this second mechanism, the government of the United Kingdom can change without a general election. In such circumstances there may not even have been a party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim. A prime minister may resign if he or she is not defeated at the polls. In such a case, the premiership goes to whoever can command a majority in the House of Commons, in practice this is usually the new leader of the outgoing prime ministers party. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no mechanism for electing a new leader, when Anthony Eden resigned as PM in 1957 without recommending a successor and it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the advice of ministers. By convention, all ministers must be members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords, a handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament either in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Since 1902, all ministers have been members of the Commons
8.
Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning
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Charles John Canning, 1st Earl Canning KG GCB KSI PC, known as The Viscount Canning from 1837 to 1859, was an English statesman and Governor-General of India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Born at Gloucester Lodge, Brompton, near London, Canning was the youngest child of George Canning and Joan, Viscountess Canning, daughter of Major-General John Scott. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B. A. in 1833, as first class in classics, in 1836 he entered parliament, being returned as member for the town of Warwick in the Conservative interest. He did not, however, sit long in the House of Commons, for, on the death of his mother in 1837, he succeeded to the peerage and entered the House of Lords. His first official appointment was that of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the administration formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1841, his chief being the Earl of Aberdeen. This post he held till January 1846, and from January to July of that year and he served on the Royal Commission on the British Museum. He declined to accept office under the Earl of Derby, but on the formation of the ministry under the Earl of Aberdeen in January 1853. In this office he showed not only a capacity for hard work. This appointment appears to have been rather on the ground of his fathers great services than from any proof as yet given of special personal fitness on the part of Lord Canning. The new governor sailed from England in December 1855, and entered upon the duties of his office in India at the close of February 1856, in the year following his accession to office the deep-seated discontent of the people broke out in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Fears were entertained, and even the friends of the Governor-General to some extent shared them, the name of Clemency Canning, which was applied to him during the heated animosities of the moment, has since become a title of honour. While subsequently regarded as a humane and sensible measure, the Resolution made Cannings unpopular at a time when British popular opinion favored collective and indiscriminate reprisals. While rebellion was raging in Oudh he issued a proclamation declaring the lands of the province forfeited, and this step gave rise to much angry controversy. But from a sense of duty he continued at his post. Lord Canning replied to the despatch, calmly and in a statesman-like manner explaining and vindicating his censured policy, in April 1859 he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for his great services during the rebellion. He was also made an extra civil grand cross of the Order of the Bath and he died in London on 17 June. About a month before his death he was created a Knight of the Garter, as he died without issue the titles became extinct. Prior to the rebellion, Canning and his wife had desired to produce a survey of Indian people
9.
St Paul's Cathedral
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St Pauls Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade 1 listed building and its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD604. The present church, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren and its construction, completed in Wrens lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London. The cathedral is one of the most famous and most recognisable sights of London and its dome, framed by the spires of Wrens City churches, dominated the skyline for 300 years. At 365 feet high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1967, the dome is among the highest in the world. St Pauls is the second-largest church building in area in the United Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral, St Pauls Cathedral occupies a significant place in the national identity. It is the subject of much promotional material, as well as of images of the dome surrounded by the smoke. St Pauls Cathedral is a church with hourly prayer and daily services. The entry fee is £18 for adults, the location of Londiniums original cathedral is unknown. In 1995, however, a large and ornate 5th century building on Tower Hill was excavated, the Elizabethan antiquarian William Camden argued that a temple to the goddess Diana had stood during Roman times on the site occupied by the medieval St Pauls Cathedral. Wren reported that he had no trace of any such temple during the works to build the new cathedral after the Great Fire. Bede records that in AD604 St Augustine consecrated Mellitus as the first bishop to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Saxons and their king, Sæberht. Sæberhts uncle and overlord, Æthelberht, king of Kent, built a dedicated to St Paul in London. It is assumed, although unproven, that this first Anglo-Saxon cathedral stood on the site as the later medieval. On the death of Sæberht in about 616, his sons expelled Mellitus from London. The fate of the first cathedral building is unknown and this building, or a successor, was destroyed by fire in 962, but rebuilt in the same year. King Æthelred the Unready was buried in the cathedral on his death in 1016, the cathedral was burnt, with much of the city, in a fire in 1087, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The fourth St Pauls, generally referred to as Old St Pauls, was begun by the Normans after the 1087 fire, a further fire in 1136 disrupted the work, and the new cathedral was not consecrated until 1240
10.
Carshalton
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Carshalton is a suburb of London in the London Borough of Sutton, England. Carshalton is centred 1.2 miles east of the centre of Sutton. Carshalton consists of a number of neighbourhoods, the main focal point, Carshalton Village, is visually scenic and picturesque. At its centre it has two adjoining ponds, which are overlooked by the Grade II listed All Saints Church on the south side, the Grade II listed Honeywood Museum sits on the west side, a few yards from the water. There are a number of listed buildings, as well as three conservation areas, including one in the village. In addition to Honeywood Museum, there are other cultural features in Carshalton, including the Charles Cryer Theatre. It is also home to the Sutton Ecology Centre, and every year a fair is held in Carshalton Park to the south of the village. Carshalton is part of the Carshalton and Wallington parliamentary constituency formed in 1983, tom Brake has been its MP since 1997. The combined population of the five wards comprising Carshalton was 45,525 at the 2001 census, a majority of the population of Carshalton is in the ABC1 social group. In the 2011 Census the wards had been merged into 3 with a population of 29,917. To the south of the now known as Carshalton, remains of artefacts dating from the Neolithic to the Iron Age have been found. Prior to the Norman Conquest it is recorded there were five manors in this location owned by five freemen. The village lay within the Anglo-Saxon administrative division of Wallington hundred, Carshalton appears in Domesday Book as Aultone. It was held by Goisfrid de Mandeville and its domesday assets were, 3½ hides,1 church,10 ploughs,1 mill worth £1 15s 0d,22 acres of meadow, woodland worth 2 hogs. In the Domesday era there was a church and a mill in Carshalton. In the Middle Ages the land in the village was generally farmed in the form of a number of open fields, the number of strips which each land owner possessed was based roughly on his wealth. There was also an area of downland in the south of the parish for grazing sheep. Carshalton was known for its springs, these may have given the place its name Cars - Aul - ton, a ton is a farm which was in some way enclosed
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