Balmoral Castle
Balmoral Castle is a large estate house in Royal Deeside, Scotland, near the village of Crathie, 6.2 miles west of Ballater and 6.8 miles east of Braemar. Balmoral has been one of the residences of the British royal family since 1852, when the estate and its original castle were purchased by Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, it is not part of the Crown Estate. Soon after the estate was purchased by the royal family, the existing house was found to be too small and the current Balmoral Castle was commissioned; the architect was William Smith of Aberdeen. The castle is an example of Scottish baronial architecture, is classified by Historic Environment Scotland as a category A listed building; the new castle was completed in the old castle demolished shortly thereafter. The Balmoral Estate has been added to by successive members of the royal family, now covers an area of 50,000 acres, it is a working estate, including grouse moors and farmland, as well as managed herds of deer, Highland cattle, ponies.
King Robert II of Scotland had a hunting lodge in the area. Historical records indicate that a house at Balmoral was built by Sir William Drummond in 1390; the estate is recorded in 1451 as "Bouchmorale", was tenanted by Alexander Gordon, second son of the 1st Earl of Huntly. A tower house was built on the estate by the Gordons. In 1662, the estate passed to Charles Farquharson of Inverey, brother of John Farquharson, the "Black Colonel"; the Farquharsons were Jacobite sympathisers, James Farquharson of Balmoral was involved in both the 1715 and 1745 rebellions. He was wounded at the Battle of Falkirk in 1746; the Farquharson estates were forfeit, passed to the Farquharsons of Auchendryne. In 1798, James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife, leased the castle. Sir Robert Gordon, a younger brother of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, acquired the lease in 1830, he made major alterations to the original castle at Balmoral, including baronial-style extensions that were designed by John Smith of Aberdeen. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert first visited Scotland in 1842, five years after her accession to the throne and two years after their marriage.
During this first visit they stayed at Edinburgh, at Taymouth Castle in Perthshire, the home of the Marquess of Breadalbane. They returned in 1844 to stay at Blair Castle and, in 1847, when they rented Ardverikie by Loch Laggan. During the latter trip they encountered weather, rainy, which led Sir James Clark, the queen's doctor, to recommend Deeside instead, for its more healthy climate. Sir Robert Gordon died in his lease on Balmoral reverted to Lord Aberdeen. In February 1848 an arrangement was made—that Prince Albert would acquire the remaining part of the lease on Balmoral, together with its furniture and staff—without having seen the property first; the royal couple arrived for their first visit on 8 September 1848. Victoria found the house "small but pretty", recorded in her diary that: "All seemed to breathe freedom and peace, to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils"; the surrounding hilly landscape reminded them of Albert's homeland in Germany. The house was confirmed to be too small and, in 1848, John and William Smith were commissioned to design new offices and other ancillary buildings.
Improvements to the woodlands and estate buildings were being made, with the assistance of the landscape gardener, James Beattie, by the painter, James Giles. Major additions to the old house were considered in 1849, but by negotiations were under way to purchase the estate from the trustees of the deceased Earl Fife. After seeing a corrugated iron cottage at the Great Exhibition of 1851, Prince Albert ordered a pre-fabricated iron building for Balmoral from E. T. Bellhouse & Co. to serve as a temporary ballroom and dining room. It was in use by 1 October 1851, would serve as a ballroom until 1856; the sale was completed in June 1852, the price being £32,000, Prince Albert formally took possession that autumn. The neighbouring estate of Birkhall was bought at the same time, the lease on Abergeldie Castle secured as well. To mark the occasion, the Purchase Cairn was erected in the hills overlooking the castle, the first of many; the growing family of Victoria and Albert, the need for additional staff, the quarters required for visiting friends and official visitors such as cabinet members, meant that extension of the existing structure would not be sufficient and that a larger house needed to be built.
In early 1852, this was commissioned from William Smith. The son of John Smith, William Smith was city architect of Aberdeen from 1852. On learning of the commission, William Burn sought an interview with the prince to complain that Smith had plagiarised his work, Burn was unsuccessful in depriving Smith of the appointment. William Smith's designs were amended by Prince Albert, who took a close interest in details such as turrets and windows. Construction began during summer 1853, on a site some 100 yards northwest of the original building, considered to have a better vista. Another reason for consideration was, that whilst construction was ongoing, the family would still be able to use the old house. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone on 28 September 1853, during her annual autumn visit. By the autumn of 1855, the royal apartments were ready for occupancy, although the tower was still under construction and the servants had to be lodged in the old house. By coincidence, sh
John Brown (servant)
John Brown was a Scottish personal attendant and favourite of Queen Victoria for many years. He was appreciated by many for his competence and companionship, resented by others for his influence and informal manner; the exact nature of his relationship with Victoria was the subject of great speculation by contemporaries and continues to be controversial today. Brown was born on 8 December 1826 at Crathienaird and Braemar Aberdeenshire, to Margaret Leys and John Brown, went to work as an outdoor servant at Balmoral Castle, which Queen Victoria and Prince Albert leased in February 1848, purchased outright in November 1851. Brown had several younger brothers and a sister, three of whom entered the royal service, his brother Archibald Anderson "Archie" Brown, 15 years John's junior became personal valet to Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. Prince Albert's untimely death in 1861 was a shock from which Queen Victoria never recovered. John Brown supported the Queen. Victoria gave him gifts and created two medals for him, the Faithful Servant Medal and the Devoted Service Medal.
She commissioned a portrait of him. Victoria's children and ministers resented the high regard she had for Brown, stories circulated that there was something improper in their relationship; the Queen's daughters joked that Brown was "Mama's lover", while Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, wrote in his diary that Brown and Victoria slept in adjoining rooms "contrary to etiquette and decency". Victoria herself dismissed the chatter as "ill-natured gossip in the higher classes"; the diaries of Lewis Harcourt contain a report that one of the Queen's chaplains, Rev. Norman Macleod, made a deathbed confession repenting his action in presiding over Queen Victoria's marriage to John Brown. Debate continues over this report, it should be emphasised that Harcourt did not receive the confession directly but that it passed from Macleod's sister to the wife of Henry Ponsonby, the Queen's private secretary, thence to Harcourt's father Sir William Harcourt Home Secretary. Harcourt served as Home Secretary in the final three years of Brown's life.
While it is true that some widowed monarchs have contracted private marriages with their servants, there is little evidence that Victoria married Brown. The most compelling evidence of the depth of Victoria and Brown's relationship comes from the pen of the Queen herself. A discovered letter written by Victoria shortly after Brown's death, to Viscount Cranbrook, reveals the true extent of the loss: "Perhaps never in history was there so strong and true an attachment, so warm and loving a friendship between the sovereign and servant... Strength of character as well as power of frame – the most fearless uprightness, sense of justice, honesty and unselfishness combined with a tender, warm heart... made him one of the most remarkable men. The Queen feels that life for the second time is become most trying and sad to bear deprived of all she so needs... the blow has fallen too not to be heavily felt..." The phrase "life for the second time" relates to the death of her husband Prince Albert. The historian who discovered the letter believed that it suggested that Victoria, in her mind, equated Brown's death with Albert's, that she therefore viewed him as more than a servant.
Whether Brown and Victoria were actual lovers, however, is not known. John Brown died, aged 56, at Windsor Castle on 27 March 1883, is buried in Crathie Kirkyard, in the next plot to his parents and a number of his siblings; the inscription on his gravestone further shows the attachment between him and the Queen: "This stone is erected in affectionate and grateful remembrance of John Brown the devoted and faithful personal attendant and beloved friend of Queen Victoria in whose service he had been for 34 years. Born at Crathienaird 8th Decr. 1826 died at Windsor Castle 27th March 1883. That Friend on whose fidelity you count/that Friend given to you by circumstances/over which you have no control/was God’s own gift. Well done good and faithful servant/Thou hast been faithful over a few things,/I will make thee ruler over many things/Enter through into the joy of the Lord." Those who believe that the Queen saw Brown as little more than a servant point to the fact that after his death she became attached to an Indian servant, Abdul Karim, one of two who had come to work for her in late June 1887.
She called him the Munshi, he came to be resented more than John Brown: unlike Brown, whose loyalty was without question, there was evidence that Karim exploited his position for personal gain and prestige. Tony Rennell's book Last Days of Glory: The Death of Queen Victoria reveals that Victoria had entrusted detailed instructions about her burial to her doctor, Sir James Reid; these included a list of the keepsakes and mementoes and trinkets to be placed in the coffin with her: along with Albert's dressing gown and a plaster cast of his hand, the Queen was buried with a lock of Brown's hair, his photograph, Brown's mother's wedding ring, given to her by Brown, along with several of his letters. The photograph, wrapped in white tissue paper, was placed in her left hand, with flowers arranged to hide it from view, she wore the ring on the third finger of her right hand. The statues and private memorials that Victoria had created for Brown were destroyed at the order of her son, Edward VII, with whom Brown had clashed and who resented Brown for his influence.
Queen Victoria commissioned a life-sized statue of Brown by Ed
Billy Connolly
Sir William Connolly, is a Scottish stand-up comedian, presenter and artist. He is sometimes known in his homeland, by the Scots nickname "The Big Yin". Connolly's first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer, he first sang in folk rock band The Humblebums alongside friend Gerry Rafferty and Tam Harvey, with whom he stayed until 1974, before beginning singing as a solo artist. In the early 1970s, Connolly made the transition from folk singer with a comedic persona to fledged comedian, for which he is now best known. In 1972, he made his theatrical debut, at the Cottage Theatre in Cumbernauld, with a revue called Connolly's Glasgow Flourish, he played the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 1972, Connolly's first solo album was produced, Billy Connolly Live!, a mixture of comedic songs and short monologues. As an actor, Connolly has appeared in such films as Indecent Proposal, Muppet Treasure Island, The Boondock Saints, The Last Samurai, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The X-Files: I Want to Believe and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
On his 75th birthday in 2017, three portraits of Connolly were made by leading artists Jack Vettriano, John Byrne and Rachel Maclean. These were turned into part of Glasgow's official mural trail. In October the same year, he was knighted in Buckingham Palace by Prince William for services to entertainment and charity. Connolly was born at 69 Dover Street, "on the linoleum, three floors up" "at six o'clock in the evening", in Anderston, Glasgow; this section of Dover Street, between Breadalbane and Claremont streets, was demolished in the 1970s. Connolly refers to this in his 1983 song "I Wish I Was in Glasgow" with the lines "I would take you there and show you but they've pulled the building down" and "They bulldozed it all to make a road." The flat had only two rooms: a kitchen-living room, with a recess, where the children slept and another room for their parents. The family bathed in the kitchen sink, there was no hot water. In 1946, when he was four years old, Connolly's mother abandoned her children while their father was serving as an engineer in the Royal Air Force in Burma.
"I've never felt abandoned by her", Connolly explained in 2009. "My mother was a teenager. My father was in Burma; the Germans were dropping all kinds of crap on the town. We lived at the docks, so that's where all the bombs were happening, she was a teenager with two kids in a slum. A guy says, ` I love you. Come with me.' Given the choice, I think. It looks. I don't have an ounce of feelings, she tried to survive."Connolly and his older sister Florence were cared for by two aunts and Mona Connolly, his father's sisters, in their cramped tenement in Stewartville Street, Partick. "My aunts told me I was stupid, which still affects me today pretty badly. It's just a belief, it gets worse. I'm a happy man now but I still have the scars of that." Regarding his sister, Connolly has called her his "great defender". "To this day, he explained in 2009, "Guys say,'God, your sister... We didn't dare beat you up – your sister was a nightmare', she used to get after them." In the mid-1960s, Flo was on holiday in Dunoon with two children.
"My mother said,'I saw Florence walking along, I followed her.'" "I said,'Did you speak to her?"Oh, no, I didn't,' she said. I thought,'Oh, my god. It's like being a ghost while you're still alive.' Walking behind your own child. Having a look. I couldn't bear that."The aunts resented the children for the fact that they had to sacrifice their young lives to look after them. It was Mona, troubled the most by having to care for her niece and nephew. "It was big of her to take on the responsibility, but having said that, I wish people wouldn't do that. I wish people wouldn't be big for five minutes and rotten for twenty years. Just keep your'big' and keep your'rotten' and get out of my life, quite frankly, I would rather have gone to a children's home and be with a lot of other kids being treated the same. To this day, I'm still working on the things she did to me."Connolly credits one of John Bradshaw's publications with helping him deal with his past demons. "He reckons that if this trauma happened to you when you were five or six emotionally, that part of you remains five or six.
And what you have to do is carry that five- or six-year-old around with you and try and help that other part of you. It sounds a bit airy-fairy, but I think he's something of a genius, Mr. Bradshaw."Connolly, Sr. returned from the war, a stranger to his children, shortly after the move to Partick. He never spoke to them about their mother's departure. Connolly's biography Billy, written by wife Pamela Stephenson, documented years of physical and sexual abuse by his father, which began when he was ten and lasted until he was about 15. "Sometimes, when father hit me, I flew over the settee backwards in a sitting position. It was fabulous. Just like real flying, except you didn't get a cup of tea or a safety belt or anything." In 1949, Mona gave birth to a son, Michael, by a "local man". He was presented as a brother to Billy and Flo, nobody questioned it. Connolly's bedroom had double windows, which directly faced St Peter's Primary School across the street. Now defunct, the schoo
Geoffrey Palmer (actor)
Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, is an English actor known for his roles in British television sitcoms playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Ben Parkinson in Butterflies and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By. His film appearances include A Fish Called Wanda, The Madness of King George, Mrs. Brown, Tomorrow Never Dies. Palmer's early television appearances included a variety of roles in Granada Television's The Army Game, two episodes of The Baron and as a property agent in Cathy Come Home. Getting a major break in John Osborne's West of Suez at the Royal Court with Ralph Richardson, he acted in major productions at the Royal Court and for the National Theatre Company and was directed by Laurence Olivier in J. B. Priestley's Eden End. Palmer found the play so boring, that it put him off a stage career for good. Two sitcom roles brought him attention in the 1970s: the hapless brother-in-law of Reggie Perrin in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, the phlegmatic Ben Parkinson in Carla Lane's Butterflies.
He continued to appear in productions written by Perrin creator David Nobbs, the last being the radio comedy The Maltby Collection. He starred opposite Judi Dench for over a decade in the BBC situation comedy As Time Goes By. During this time he appeared with Dench in other productions, including the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, in which he portrayed Admiral Roebuck, Mrs. Brown, playing Sir Henry Ponsonby to Dench's Queen Victoria, he played Doctor Price in the Fawlty Towers episode "The Kipper and the Corpse", determined to get breakfast amidst the confusion caused by the death of a guest and Basil's inept way of handling the emergency. His distinctive voice has given him a career in advertising in such commercials as the'Slam in the Lamb' ads for the Meat & Livestock Commission, he narrated the audiobook version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, released in 2005 as a podcast by Penguin Books. He narrates Little England. In the 2006 DVD series The Compleat Angler, Palmer partners Rae Borras in a series of episodes based on Izaak Walton's 1653 The Compleat Angler.
In 2007, he recorded The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith as an online audiobook. In December 2007, Palmer appeared in the role of the Captain in "Voyage of the Damned", the Christmas special episode of the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. In March 2009, he joined in a sketch with the two double acts "Armstrong and Miller" and "Mitchell and Webb" for Comic Relief. In 2011, he played the reactionary father-in-law of the eponymous clergyman of Rev. in its Christmas episode. Palmer attended Highgate School, he is the son of Norah Gwendolen and Frederick Charles Palmer, a chartered surveyor. He has a daughter, a son, Charles, a television director, married to actress Claire Skinner. In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama. Kafka's Dick by Alan Bennett at the Royal Court Theatre Eden End by J. B. Priestley at the Royal National Theatre At Home With The Snails Les Miserables as Inspector Javert The Man Who Was Thursday High Table, Lower Orders The Maltby Collection A Murder of Quality North by Northamptonshire Two Pipe Problems: The Case of the Missing Meerschaum as Mortimer Tregennis Geoffrey Palmer on IMDb Geoffrey Palmer at the BFI's Screenonline Selected performances in Theatre Archive University of Bristol
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench is an English actress. Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays, in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer, she drew strong reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968. Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company, she received critical praise in television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984, As Time Goes By from 1992 until 2005, in which she held a starring role. Her film appearances were infrequent, included supporting roles in major films, such as A Room with a View, before she rose to international fame as M in GoldenEye, a role she continued to play in James Bond films until Spectre.
A seven-time Oscar nominee, Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, has received nominations for her roles in Mrs Brown, Iris, Mrs Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal, Philomena. She has received many other accolades for her acting in theatre and television, she has received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2001, the Special Olivier Award in 2004. In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute. Dench is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Dench was born in North Riding of Yorkshire, her mother, Eleanora Olive, was born in Ireland. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor, was born in Dorset and moved to Dublin, where he was brought up, he met Dench's mother while he was studying medicine at Dublin. Dench attended the Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, became a Quaker, her brothers, one of whom was actor Jeffery Dench, were born in Lancashire. Her niece, Emma Dench, is a historian of ancient Rome and professor at Birkbeck, University of London, at Harvard University.
In Britain, Dench has developed a reputation as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period through her work in theatre, her forte throughout her career. She has more than once been named number one in polls for Britain's best actor. Through her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre, her father, a physician, was the GP for the York theatre, her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors stayed in the Dench household. During these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in 1951, 1954 and 1957. In the third production she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens. Though she trained as a set designer, she became interested in drama school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech and Drama, she applied and was accepted by the School based at the Royal Albert Hall, where she was a classmate of Vanessa Redgrave and being awarded four acting prizes, including the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.
In September 1957, she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet. According to the reviewer for London Evening Standard, Dench had "talent which will be shown to better advantage when she acquires some technique to go with it." Dench made her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957–1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958, as directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli. During this period, she toured the United States and Canada and appeared in Yugoslavia and at the Edinburgh Festival, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 1961, playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London and made her Stratford-upon-Avon debut in April 1962 as Isabella in Measure for Measure. She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963, with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964.
In 1964, Dench appeared on television as Valentine Wannop in Theatre 625's adaptation of Parade's End, shown in three episodes. That same year, she made her film debut in The Third Secret, before featuring in a small role in the Sherlock Holmes thriller A Study in Terror with her Nottingham Playhouse colleague John Neville, she performed again on BBC's Theatre 365 in 1966, as Terry in the four-part series Talking to a Stranger, for which she won a BAFTA Television for Best Actress. The 1966 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles was made to Dench for her performance in Four in the Morning and this was followed in 1968 by a BAFTA Television Best Actress Award for her role in John Hopkins' 1966 BBC drama Talking to a Stranger. In 1968, she was offered the role of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret; as Sheridan Morley reported: "At first she thought they were joking. She had never done a musical and she has an unusual croaky voice which sounds as if she has a p
Punch (magazine)
Punch. It was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. After the 1940s, when its circulation peaked, it went into a long decline, closing in 1992, it was revived in 1996, but closed again in 2002. Punch was founded on 17 July 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells, on an initial investment of £25, it was jointly edited by Mark Lemon. It was subtitled The London Charivari in homage to Charles Philipon's French satirical humour magazine Le Charivari. Reflecting their satiric and humorous intent, the two editors took for their name and masthead the anarchic glove puppet, Mr. Punch, of Punch and Judy. Mayhew ceased to be joint editor in 1842 and became "suggestor in chief" until he severed his connection in 1845; the magazine struggled for readers, except for an 1842 "Almanack" issue which shocked its creators by selling 90,000 copies. In December 1842 due to financial difficulties the magazine was sold to Bradbury and Evans, both printers and publishers.
Bradbury and Evans capitalised on newly evolving mass printing technologies and were the publishers for Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. The term "cartoon" to refer to comic drawings was first used in Punch in 1843, when the Houses of Parliament were to be decorated with murals, "cartoons" for the mural were displayed for the public. Punch humorously appropriated the term to refer to its political cartoons, the popularity of the Punch cartoons led to the term's widespread use; the illustrator Archibald Henning designed the cover of the magazine's first issues. The cover design varied in the early years, though Richard Doyle designed what became the magazine's masthead in 1849. Artists who published in Punch during the 1840s and 50s included John Leech, Richard Doyle, John Tenniel and Charles Keene; this group became known as "The Punch Brotherhood", which included Charles Dickens who joined Bradbury and Evans after leaving Chapman and Hall in 1843. Punch authors and artists contributed to another Bradbury and Evans literary magazine called Once A Week, created in response to Dickens' departure from Household Words.
In the 1860s and 1870s, conservative Punch faced competition from upstart liberal journal Fun, but after about 1874, Fun's fortunes faded. At Evans's café in London, the two journals had "Round tables" in competition with each other. After months of financial difficulty and lack of market success, Punch became a staple for British drawing rooms because of its sophisticated humour and absence of offensive material when viewed against the satirical press of the time; the Times and the Sunday paper News of the World used small pieces from Punch as column fillers, giving the magazine free publicity and indirectly granting a degree of respectability, a privilege not enjoyed by any other comic publication. Punch shared a friendly relationship with not only The Times but journals aimed at intellectual audiences such as the Westminster Review, which published a fifty-three page illustrated article on Punch's first two volumes. Historian Richard Altick writes that "To judge from the number of references to it in the private letters and memoirs of the 1840s...
Punch had become a household word within a year or two of its founding, beginning in the middle class and soon reaching the pinnacle of society, royalty itself". Increasing in readership and popularity throughout the remainder of the 1840s and 1850s, Punch was the success story of a threepenny weekly paper that had become one of the most talked-about and enjoyed periodicals. Punch enjoyed an audience including Elizabeth Barrett, Robert Browning, Thomas Carlyle, Edward FitzGerald, Charlotte Brontë, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell. Punch gave several phrases to the English language, including The Crystal Palace, the "Curate's egg". Several British humour classics were first serialised in Punch, such as the Diary of a Nobody and 1066 and All That. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the artistic roster included Harry Furniss, Linley Sambourne, Francis Carruthers Gould, Phil May. Among the outstanding cartoonists of the following century were Bernard Partridge, H. M. Bateman, Bernard Hollowood who edited the magazine from 1957 to 1968, Kenneth Mahood and Norman Thelwell.
Circulation broke the 100,000 mark around 1910, peaked in 1947–1948 at 175,000 to 184,000. Sales declined thereafter. Punch was emulated worldwide and was popular in the colonies; the colonial experience in India, influenced Punch and its iconography. Tenniel's Punch cartoons of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny led to a surge in the magazine's popularity. Colonial India was caricatured in Punch and was an important source of knowledge of India for British readers. Punch material was collected in book formats from the late nineteenth century, which included Pick of the Punch annuals with cartoons and text features and the War, A Big Bowl of Punch –, republished a number of times. Many Punch cartoonists of the late 20th century published collections of their own bas
Edward VII
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Edward was related to royalty throughout Europe, he was heir apparent to the British throne and held the title of Prince of Wales for longer than any of his predecessors. He was heir presumptive to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha until before his marriage he renounced his right to the duchy, which devolved to his younger brother Alfred. During the long reign of his mother, he was excluded from political power, came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite, he travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties, represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular successes, but despite public approval his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship with his mother; as king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War.
He reinstituted traditional ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom royalty socialised. He fostered good relations between Britain and other European countries France, for which he was popularly called "Peacemaker", but his relationship with his nephew, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, was poor; the Edwardian era, which covered Edward's reign and was named after him, coincided with the start of a new century and heralded significant changes in technology and society, including steam turbine propulsion and the rise of socialism. He died in 1910 in the midst of a constitutional crisis, resolved the following year by the Parliament Act 1911, which restricted the power of the unelected House of Lords. Edward was born at 10:48 in the morning on 9 November 1841 in Buckingham Palace, he was the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was christened Albert Edward at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 25 January 1842.
He was named Albert after his father and Edward after his maternal grandfather Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. He was known as Bertie to the royal family throughout his life; as the eldest son of the British sovereign, he was automatically Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay at birth. As a son of Prince Albert, he held the titles of Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Saxony, he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 8 December 1841, Earl of Dublin on 10 September 1849 or 17 January 1850, a Knight of the Garter on 9 November 1858, a Knight of the Thistle on 24 May 1867. In 1863, he renounced his succession rights to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in favour of his younger brother, Prince Alfred. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were determined that their eldest son should have an education that would prepare him to be a model constitutional monarch. At age seven, Edward embarked on a rigorous educational programme devised by Prince Albert, supervised by several tutors.
Unlike his elder sister Victoria, Edward did not excel in his studies. He to no avail. Although Edward was not a diligent student—his true talents were those of charm and tact—Benjamin Disraeli described him as informed, intelligent and of sweet manner. After the completion of his secondary-level studies, his tutor was replaced by a personal governor, Robert Bruce. After an educational trip to Rome, undertaken in the first few months of 1859, he spent the summer of that year studying at the University of Edinburgh under, among others, the chemist Lyon Playfair. In October, he matriculated as an undergraduate at Oxford. Now released from the educational strictures imposed by his parents, he enjoyed studying for the first time and performed satisfactorily in examinations. In 1861, he transferred to Trinity College, where he was tutored in history by Charles Kingsley, Regius Professor of Modern History. Kingsley's efforts brought forth the best academic performances of Edward's life, Edward looked forward to his lectures.
In 1860, Edward undertook the first tour of North America by a Prince of Wales. His genial good humour and confident bonhomie made the tour a great success, he inaugurated the Victoria Bridge, across the St Lawrence River, laid the cornerstone of Parliament Hill, Ottawa. He watched Charles Blondin traverse Niagara Falls by highwire, stayed for three days with President James Buchanan at the White House. Buchanan accompanied the Prince to Mount Vernon, to pay his respects at the tomb of George Washington. Vast crowds greeted him everywhere, he met Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Prayers for the royal family were said in Trinity Church, New York, for the first time since 1776; the four-month tour throughout Canada and the United States boosted Edward's confidence and self-esteem, had many diplomatic benefits for Great Britain. Edward had hoped to pursue a career in the British Army, but his mother vetoed an active military career, he had been gazetted colonel on 9 November 1858—to his disappointment, as he had wanted to earn his commission by examination.
In September 1861, Edward was sent to Germany to watch military manoeuvres, but in order to engineer a meeting between him and Princess Alexandra of Denmark, the eldest daughter of Prince Christian of Denmark and his wife Louise. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had decided that Edward and Alexandra should marry, they met at Speyer on 24 September under the auspices of his elder sister, who ha
