Berkshire
Berkshire is one of the home counties in England. It was recognised by the Queen as the Royal County of Berkshire in 1957 because of the presence of Windsor Castle, letters patent were issued in 1974. Berkshire is a county of historic origin, a ceremonial county and a non-metropolitan county without a county council; the county town is Reading. The River Thames formed the historic northern boundary, from Buscot in the west to Old Windsor in the east; the historic county therefore includes territory, now administered by the Vale of White Horse and parts of South Oxfordshire in Oxfordshire, but excludes Caversham and five less populous settlements in the east of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. All the changes mentioned, apart from the change to Caversham, took place in 1974; the towns of Abingdon, Faringdon and Wantage were transferred to Oxfordshire, the six places joining came from Buckinghamshire. Berkshire County Council was the main local government of most areas from 1889 to 1998 and was based in Reading, the county town which had its own County Borough administration.
Since 1998, Berkshire has been governed by the six unitary authorities of Bracknell Forest, Slough, West Berkshire and Maidenhead and Wokingham. The ceremonial county borders Oxfordshire, Greater London, Surrey and Hampshire. No part of the county is more than 8.5 miles from the M4 motorway. According to Asser's biography of King Alfred, written in 893 AD, its old name Bearrocscir takes its name from a wood of box trees, called Bearroc; this wood no longer extant, was west of Frilsham, near Abingdon. Berkshire has been the scene of some notable battles through its history. Alfred the Great's campaign against the Danes included the Battles of Englefield and Reading. Newbury was the site of two English Civil War battles: the First Battle of Newbury in 1643 and the Second Battle of Newbury in 1644; the nearby Donnington Castle was reduced to a ruin in the aftermath of the second battle. Another Battle of Reading took place on 9 December 1688, it was the only substantial military action in England during the Glorious Revolution and ended in a decisive victory for forces loyal to William of Orange.
Reading became the new county town in 1867. Under the Local Government Act 1888, Berkshire County Council took over functions of the Berkshire Quarter Sessions, covering the administrative county of Berkshire, which excluded the county borough of Reading. Boundary alterations in the early part of the 20th century were minor, with Caversham from Oxfordshire becoming part of the Reading county borough, cessions in the Oxford area. On 1 April 1974, Berkshire's boundaries changed under the Local Government Act 1972. Berkshire took over administration of Slough and Eton and part of the former Eton Rural District from Buckinghamshire; the northern part of the county became part of Oxfordshire, with Faringdon and Abingdon and their hinterland becoming the Vale of White Horse district, Didcot and Wallingford added to South Oxfordshire district. 94 Signal Squadron still keep the Uffington White Horse in their insignia though the White Horse is now in Oxfordshire. The original Local Government White Paper would have transferred Henley-on-Thames from Oxfordshire to Berkshire: this proposal did not make it into the Bill as introduced.
On 1 April 1998 Berkshire County Council was abolished under a recommendation of the Banham Commission, the districts became unitary authorities. Unlike similar reforms elsewhere at the same time, the non-metropolitan county was not abolished. Signs saying "Welcome to the Royal County of Berkshire" exist on borders of West Berkshire, on the east side of Virginia Water, on the M4 motorway, on the south side of Sonning Bridge, on the A404 southbound by Marlow, northbound on the A33 past Stratfield Saye. A flag for the historic county of Berkshire was registered with the Flag Institute in 2017. All of the county is drained by the Thames. Berkshire divides into two topological sections: west of Reading. North-east Berkshire has the low calciferous m-shaped bends of the Thames south of, a broader, gravelly former watery plain or belt from Earley to Windsor and beyond, are parcels and belts of uneroded higher sands, flints and acid soil and in north of the Bagshot Formation, north of Surrey and Hampshire.
Swinley Forest known as Bracknell Forest, Windsor Great Park and Stratfield Saye Woods have many pine, silver birch and other acid-soil trees. East of the grassy and wooded bends a large minority of East Berkshire's land mirrors the clay belt being of low elevation and on the left bank of the Thames: Slough, Eton Wick, Wraysbury and Datchet. In the heart of the county Reading's northern suburb Caversham is on that bank but rises steeply into the Chiltern Hills. Two main tributaries skirt past Reading, the Loddon and its sub-tributary the Blackwater draining parts of two counties south and the Kennet draining part of upland Wiltshire in the west. Heading west the reduced, but large, part of county becomes further from the Thames which flows from the north-north-west before the Goring Gap. To the south, the land crests along the bo
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people." In 2012–13, the National Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, an additional 15,506 metres of manuscript material. It is located in Parkes, Canberra, ACT; the National Library of Australia, while formally established by the passage of the National Library Act 1960, had been functioning as a national library rather than a Parliamentary Library since its inception. In 1901, a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was established to serve the newly formed Federal Parliament of Australia. From its inception the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was driven to development of a national collection. In 1907 the Joint Parliamentary Library Committee under the Chairmanship of the Speaker, Sir Frederick William Holder defined the objective of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library in the following words: The Library Committee is keeping before it the ideal of building up, for the time when Parliament shall be established in the Federal Capital, a great Public Library on the lines of the world-famed Library of Congress at Washington.
The present library building was opened on 15 August 1968 by Prime Minister John Gorton. The building was designed by the architectural firm of Bunning and Madden in the Late Twentieth Century Stripped Classical style; the foyer is decorated in marble, with stained-glass windows by Leonard French and three tapestries by Mathieu Matégot. The building was listed on the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004. In 2012–13 the Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, with an estimated additional 2,325,900 items held in the manuscripts collection; the Library's collections of Australiana have developed into the nation's single most important resource of materials recording the Australian cultural heritage. Australian writers and illustrators are sought and well represented—whether published in Australia or overseas; the Library's collection includes all formats of material, from books, journals and manuscripts to pictures, maps, oral history recordings, manuscript papers and ephemera.
92.1% of the Library's collection has been catalogued and is discoverable through the online catalogue. The Library has digitized over 174,000 items from its collection and, where possible, delivers these directly across the Internet; the Library is a world leader in digital preservation techniques, maintains an Internet-accessible archive of selected Australian websites called the Pandora Archive. The Library collects material produced by Australians, for Australians or about the Australian experience in all formats—not just printed works—books, newspapers, posters and printed ephemera—but online publications and unpublished material such as manuscripts and oral histories. A core Australiana collection is that of John A. Ferguson; the Library has particular collection strengths in the performing arts, including dance. The Library's considerable collections of general overseas and rare book materials, as well as world-class Asian and Pacific collections which augment the Australiana collections.
The print collections are further supported by extensive microform holdings. The Library maintains the National Reserve Braille Collection; the Library houses the largest and most developing research resource on Asia in Australia, the largest Asian language collections in the Southern hemisphere, with over half a million volumes in the collection, as well as extensive online and electronic resources. The Library collects resources about all Asian countries in Western languages extensively, resources in the following Asian languages: Burmese, Persian, Japanese, Korean, Manchu, Thai and Vietnamese; the Library has acquired a number of important Western and Asian language scholarly collections from researchers and bibliophiles. These collections include: Australian Buddhist Library Collection Braga Collection Claasz Collection Coedes Collection London Missionary Society Collection Luce Collection McLaren-Human Collection Otley Beyer Collection Sakakibara Collection Sang Ye Collection Simon Collection Harold S. Williams Collection The Asian Collections are searchable via the National Library's catalogue.
The National Library holds an extensive collection of manuscripts. The manuscript collection contains about 26 million separate items, covering in excess of 10,492 meters of shelf space; the collection relates predominantly to Australia, but there are important holdings relating to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the Pacific. The collection holds a number of European and Asian manuscript collections or single items have been received as part of formed book collections; the Australian manuscript collections date from the period of maritime exploration and settlement in the 18th century until the present, with the greatest area of strength dating from the 1890s onwards. The collection includes a large number of outstanding single items, such as the 14th century Chertsey Cartulary, the journal of James Cook on the HM Bark Endeavour, inscribed on t
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. Although remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scott was an advocate and legal administrator by profession, throughout his career combined his writing and editing work with his daily occupation as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an active member of the Highland Society, served a long term as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was a Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; as Encyclopædia Britannica argues: "Scott gathered the disparate strands of contemporary novel-writing techniques into his own hands and harnessed them to his deep interest in Scottish history and his knowledge of antiquarian lore.
The technique of the omniscient narrator and the use of regional speech, localized settings, sophisticated character delineation, romantic themes treated in a realistic manner were all combined by him into a new literary form, the historical novel. His influence on other European and American novelists was immediate and profound, though interest in some of his books declined somewhat in the 20th century, his reputation remains secure." Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771. He was the ninth child of a Writer to the Signet and Anne Rutherford, his father was a member of a cadet branch of the Scott Clan, his mother descended from the Haliburton family, the descent from whom granted Walter's family the hereditary right of burial in Dryburgh Abbey. Via the Haliburton family, Walter was a cousin of the pre-eminent contemporaneous property developer James Burton, a Haliburton who had shortened his surname, of his son, the architect Decimus Burton. Walter subsequently became a member of the Clarence Club, of which the Burtons were members.
Five of Walter's siblings died in infancy, a sixth died when he was five months of age. Walter was born in a third-floor flat on College Wynd in the Old Town of Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the Cowgate to the gates of the University of Edinburgh, he survived a childhood bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame, a condition, to have a significant effect on his life and writing. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders at his paternal grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower, the earlier family home. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that characterised much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, that summer went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England, where they lived at 6 South Parade. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a water cure at Prestonpans during the following summer.
In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to prepare him for school, joined his family in their new house built as one of the first in George Square. In October 1779 he began at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, he was now well able to explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems and travel books, he was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters. After finishing school he was sent to stay for six months with his aunt Jenny in Kelso, attending the local grammar school where he met James and John Ballantyne, who became his business partners and printed his books. Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, a year or so younger than most of his fellow students. In March 1786 he began an apprenticeship in his father's office to become a Writer to the Signet. Whilst at both high school and university, Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, the son of Professor Adam Ferguson who hosted literary salons.
Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock, who lent him books and introduced him to James Macpherson's Ossian cycle of poems. During the winter of 1786–87 the 15-year-old Scott met Robert Burns at one of these salons, for what was to be their only meeting; when Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem "The Justice of the Peace" and asked who had written the poem, only Scott knew that it was by John Langhorne, was thanked by Burns. Scott describes this event in his memoirs where he whispers the answer to his friend Adam who tells Burns Another version of the event is described in Literary Beginnings When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in moral philosophy and universal history in 1789–90. After completing his studies in law, he became a lawyer in Edinburgh; as a lawyer's clerk he made his first visit to the Scottish Highlands directing an eviction. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792, he had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, who married Scott's friend Sir William Forbes, 7th Baronet.
As a boy and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders. He was an obsessive collector of stories, developed an innovative method of recording what he heard at the feet of local story-tellers using carvings on twigs, to avoid
Richard Henry Horne
Richard Hengist Horne was an English poet and critic most famous for his poem Orion. Horne was born at Edmonton, son of James Horne, a quarter-master in the 61st Regiment; the family moved to Guernsey, where James was stationed, until James' death on 16 April 1810. Horne was raised at the home of his rich paternal grandmother and sent to a school at Edmonton and to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, as he was intended for the army. Horne appears to have had as little sense of discipline as Adam Lindsay Gordon showed at the Royal Military Academy and like him was asked to leave, it appears that he caricatured the headmaster, took part in a rebellion. He began writing while still in his teens, but he was intended for the army, entered at Sandhurst, but receiving no commission, he left his country and in 1825 went as a midshipman in the Libertad to fight for Mexican independence, was taken prisoner and joined the Mexican navy, he served in the war against Spain, travelled in the United States and Canada, returned to England in 1827, took up literature as a profession.
Horne became a journalist, from 1836 to 1837 edited the Monthly Repository. In 1837 he published The Death of Marlowe. Another drama in blank verse, Gregory VII, appeared in 1840, in 1841 a History of Napoleon in prose. About the end of 1840 Horne was given employment as a sub-commissioner in connection with the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Children's Employment which focused the employment of children in mines and manufactures; this commission finished its labours at the beginning of 1843, in the same year Horne published his epic poem, which appeared in 1843. It was published at the price of one farthing, was read. In the next year he set forth a volume of critical essays called A New Spirit of the Age, in which he was assisted by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with whom, from 1839 to her marriage in 1845, he conducted a voluminous correspondence. In 1847 Horne married Catherine Foggo but they were soon separated. In December 1849 Horne's acquaintance Charles Dickens gave him a position as a sub-editor on his new weekly magazine Household Words at a salary of "five guineas a week".
In 1852 with Horne's marriage failing and being discontented with his work on Household Words, he decided to emigrate to Australia. In June 1852 Horne migrated to the Colony of Victoria in Australia, travelling as a passenger on the same ship as William Howitt and arriving in Melbourne in September. With assistance from Captain Archibald Chisholm, he was given a position as commander of a gold escort, it was reported that on the first trip of the escort under Horne's command they returned to Melbourne with "two tonnes weight of gold". The escort was robbed in 1853 and Horne wrote to The Argus with his recollections of George Melville, the bushranger convicted of the crime and hanged. In 1854 he was a Goldfields Commissioner at the Waranga goldrush and named the township of Rushworth. During his time there he reached a peaceful settlement with over 4,000 gold miners who had rioted over the payment of their mining license fee and, in his memoirs, stated that he believed this action, in light of the events at the Eureka Stockade a few months was never adequately recognised.
During his time at Rushworth, as part of a "foolhardy business transaction", Horne had invested in blocks of land at nearby Murchison on the Goulburn River. But as "the village grew slowly" he was eager to "promote any venture which might bring prosperity to the district" and joined with his friend, Rushworth storekeeper Ludovic Marie in establishing a vineyard on the river near Nagambie; the two set up a public company, the Goulburn Vineyard Proprietary, with Marie as manager and Horne as honorary secretary. A third partner "died mysteriously in the Melbourne scrub" but the venture lasted and still exists as the Tahbilk winery; the venture didn't compensate Horne for the money he had lost in an early public float but he claimed "he was the father of the Australian wine industry". In 1856, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Victorian Electoral district of Rodney. In his platform of policies was an ambitious proposal for an irrigation system, realised with the construction of the Waranga Basin in the 1900s.
Following Waranga, Horne acted as a "counsel's clerk to his friend, Mr Mitchie". Horne became a commissioner of the Yan Yean water-supply on 18 April 1857, it is unfortunate that his lively Australian Autobiography, prefixed to his Australian Facts and Prospects published in 1859, abruptly breaks off about 1854–55. From among the Commissioners he was elected President of the Victorian Sewerage and Water Commission, he lost the position "as a consequence of departmental changes" and was promised another "by successive Governments" however this did not eventuate. He "wasted three years and upwards, in fruitless expectation", with his capital tied up in Goulburn River investments, he applied to the Royal Literary Fund, of London, where he "was at once recognised, a handsome assistance transmitted to him by return mail". While in Australia Horne brought out an Australian edition of Orion, in 1864 published his lyrical drama Prometheus the Fire-bringer. Another edition, printed in Australia, came out in 1866.
Published in 1866 were The South Sea Sisters, a Lyric Masque, for which Charles Horsley wrote the music. It was sung at the opening of the 1866 intercolonial exhibition. Along with
John Philip Kemble
John Philip Kemble was an English actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe, his elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on the stage of Drury Lane. His other siblings, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, Elizabeth Whitlock enjoyed success on the stage; the second child of Roger Kemble – the manager of the travelling theatre company the Warwickshire Company of Comedians – he was born at Prescot, Lancashire. His mother being a Roman Catholic, he was educated at Sedgley Park Catholic seminary, near Wolverhampton, the English college at Douai, with a view to becoming a priest. At the end of the four years' course, he still felt no vocation for the priesthood, returning to England he joined the theatrical company of Crump & Chamberlain, his first appearance being as Theodosius in Nathaniel Lee's tragedy of that name at Wolverhampton on 8 January 1776. In 1778, Kemble joined the York company of Tate Wilkinson, appearing at Wakefield as Captain Plume in George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer.
In 1781 he obtained a "star" engagement at Dublin making his first appearance there on 2 November as Hamlet. He achieved great success as Raymond in The Count of Narbonne, a play taken from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, he won for himself a high reputation as a careful and finished actor, this, combined with the greater fame of his sister, led to an engagement at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he made his first appearance on 30 September 1783 as Hamlet. In this role he awakened interest and discussion among the critics such as Harriet Evans Martin rather than the enthusiastic approval of the public; as Macbeth on 31 March 1785 he shared in the enthusiasm aroused by Sarah Siddons, established a reputation among living actors second only to hers. Brother and sister had first appeared together at Drury Lane on 22 November 1783, as Beverley and Mrs Beverley in Edward Moore's The Gamester, as King John and Constance in Shakespeare's tragedy. In the following year they played Montgomerie and Matilda in Richard Cumberland's The Carmelite, in 1785 Adorni and Camiola in Kemble's adaptation of Philip Massinger's A Maid of Honor, Othello and Desdemona.
Between 1785 and 1787 Kemble appeared in a variety of roles, his Mentevole in Robert Jephson's Julia producing an overwhelming impression. In December 1787 he married Priscilla Hopkins Brereton, the widow of an actor and herself an actress. Kemble's appointment as manager of the Drury Lane theatre in 1788 gave him full opportunity to dress the characters less according to tradition than in harmony with his own conception of what was suitable, he was able to experiment with whatever parts might strike his fancy, of this privilege he took advantage with greater courage than discretion. He played a huge number of parts, including a large number of Shakespearean characters and a great many in plays now forgotten, in his own version of Coriolanus, revived during his first season, the character of the "noble Roman" was so suited to his powers that he not only played it with a perfection that has never been approached, but, it is said, unconsciously allowed its influence to colour his private manner and modes of speech.
His tall and imposing person, noble countenance, solemn and grave demeanour were uniquely adapted for the Roman characters in Shakespeare's plays. In 1785 the well-known actor, John Henderson, asked his friend, the critic Richard "Conversation" Sharp, to go and see the newcomer, to report back to him. Sharp wrote to Henderson with the following insightful description of what he had found, "I went, as I promised, to see the new ‘Hamlet’, whose provincial fame had excited your curiosity as well as mine. There has not been such a first appearance since yours: yet Nature, though she has been bountiful to him in figure and feature, has denied him voice, he is a handsome man tall and large, with features of a sensible but fixed and tragic cast. Careful study appears in all he says and all he does. Upon the whole he strikes me rather as a finished French performer, than as a varied and vigorous English actor, it is plain he will succeed better in heroic, than in natural and passionate tragedy. Excepting in serious parts, I suppose.
You have been so long without a ‘brother near the throne’ that it will be serviceable to you to be obliged to bestir yourself in Hamlet, Lord Townley and Maskwell. His elocutionary art, his fine sense of rhythm and emphasis, enabled him to excel in declamation, but physically he was incapable of giving expression to impetuous vehemence and searching pat
Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands Pitcairn, Henderson and Oeno Islands, are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific Ocean. The four islands—Pitcairn proper, Henderson and Oeno—are scattered across several hundred miles of ocean and have a combined land area of about 18 square miles. Henderson Island accounts for 86 % of the land area; the nearest places are Easter Island to the east. Pitcairn is the least populous national jurisdiction in the world; the Pitcairn Islanders are a biracial ethnic group descended from nine Bounty mutineers and the handful of Tahitians who accompanied them, an event, retold in many books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. Today there are 50 permanent inhabitants, originating from four main families; the earliest known settlers of the Pitcairn Islands were Polynesians who appear to have lived on Pitcairn and Henderson, on Mangareva Island 540 kilometres to the northwest, for several centuries.
They traded goods and formed social ties among the three islands despite the long canoe voyages between them, which helped the small populations on each island survive despite their limited resources. Important natural resources were exhausted, inter-island trade broke down and a period of civil war began on Mangareva, causing the small human populations on Henderson and Pitcairn to be cut off and become extinct. Although archaeologists believe that Polynesians were living on Pitcairn as late as the 15th century, the islands were uninhabited when they were rediscovered by Europeans. Ducie and Henderson Islands were discovered by Portuguese sailor Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, sailing for the Spanish Crown, who arrived on 26 January 1606, he named them San Juan Bautista, respectively. However, some sources express doubt about which of the islands were visited and named by Queirós, suggesting that La Encarnación may have been Henderson Island, San Juan Bautista may have been Pitcairn Island. Pitcairn Island was sighted on 3 July 1767 by the crew of the British sloop HMS Swallow, commanded by Captain Philip Carteret.
The island was named after midshipman Robert Pitcairn, a fifteen-year-old crew member, the first to sight the island. Robert Pitcairn was a son of British Marine Major John Pitcairn, killed at the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution. Carteret, who sailed without the newly-invented marine chronometer, charted the island at 25°02′S 133°21′W, although the latitude was reasonably accurate, his recorded longitude was incorrect by about 3° west of the island; this made Pitcairn difficult to find, as highlighted by the failure of captain James Cook to locate the island in July 1773. In 1790, nine of the mutineers from the Bounty, along with the native Tahitian men and women who were with them, settled on Pitcairn Islands and set fire to the Bounty; the wreck is still visible underwater in Bounty Bay, discovered in 1957 by National Geographic explorer Luis Marden. Although the settlers survived by farming and fishing, the initial period of settlement was marked by serious tensions among them.
Alcoholism, murder and other ills took the lives of most mutineers and Tahitian men. John Adams and Ned Young turned to the scriptures, using the ship's Bible as their guide for a new and peaceful society. Young died of an asthmatic infection. Ducie Island was rediscovered in 1791 by Royal Navy captain Edwards aboard HMS Pandora, while searching for the Bounty mutineers, he named it after Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie a captain in the Royal Navy. The Pitcairn islanders reported it was not until 27 December 1795 that the first ship since the Bounty was seen from the island, but it did not approach the land and they could not make out the nationality. A second ship made no attempt to communicate with them. A third did not try to send a boat on shore; the American sealing ship Topaz, under Mayhew Folger, became the first to visit the island, when the crew spent 10 hours on Pitcairn in February 1808. A report of Folger's discovery was forwarded to the Admiralty, mentioning the mutineers and giving a more precise location of the island: 25°02′S 130°00′W.
However, this was not known to Sir Thomas Staines, who commanded a Royal Navy flotilla of two ships, which found the island at 25°04′S 130°25′W on 17 September 1814. Staines wrote a detailed report for the Admiralty. By that time, only one mutineer, John Adams, remained alive, he was granted amnesty for his part in the mutiny. Henderson Island was rediscovered on 17 January 1819 by British Captain James Henderson of the British East India Company ship Hercules. Captain Henry King, sailing on the Elizabeth, landed on 2 March to find the king's colours flying, his crew scratched the name of their ship into a tree. Oeno Island was discovered on 26 January 1824 by American captain George Worth aboard the whaler Oeno. In 1832 a Church Missionary Society missionary, Joshua Hill, arrived, he reported that by March 1833, he had founded a Temperance Society to combat drunkenness, a "Maundy Thursday Society", a monthly prayer meeting, a juvenile society, a Peace Society and a school. Traditionally, Pitcairn Islanders consider that their islands "officially" became a British colony on 30 November 1838, at the same time becomi
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mitford, Mary Russell". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 619–620.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
