London
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans; the City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of the London Assembly. London is considered to be one of the world's most important global cities and has been termed the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for work, the most vegetarian friendly city in the world. London exerts a considerable impact upon the arts, education, fashion, healthcare, professional services and development, tourism and transportation.
London ranks 26 out of 300 major cities for economic performance. It is one of the largest financial centres and has either the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area GDP, it is the most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the busiest city airport system as measured by passenger traffic. It is the leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. London's universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted three modern Summer Olympic Games. London has a diverse range of people and cultures, more than 300 languages are spoken in the region, its estimated mid-2016 municipal population was 8,787,892, the most populous of any city in the European Union and accounting for 13.4% of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census.
The population within the London commuter belt is the most populous in the EU with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016. London was the world's most populous city from c. 1831 to 1925. London contains four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London. Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square and The Shard. London has numerous museums, galleries and sporting events; these include the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, British Library and West End theatres. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world. "London" is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD in the Latinised form Londinium. Over the years, the name has attracted many mythicising explanations; the earliest attested appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136. This had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had taken over the city and named it Kaerlud.
Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources Latin, Old English, Welsh, with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It is agreed; this was adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English, the ancestor-language of English. The toponymy of the Common Brythonic form is much debated. A prominent explanation was Richard Coates's 1998 argument that the name derived from pre-Celtic Old European *lowonida, meaning "river too wide to ford". Coates suggested that this was a name given to the part of the River Thames which flows through London. However, most work has accepted a Celtic origin for the name, recent studies have favoured an explanation along the lines of a Celtic derivative of a proto-Indo-European root *lendh-, combined with the Celtic suffix *-injo- or *-onjo-. Peter Schrijver has suggested, on these grounds, that the name meant'place that floods'; until 1889, the name "London" applied to the City of London, but since it has referred to the County of London and Greater London.
"London" is sometimes written informally as "LDN". In 1993, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south foreshore, upstream of Vauxhall Bridge; this bridge either reached a now lost island in it. Two of those timbers were radiocarbon dated to between 1750 BC and 1285 BC. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to between 4800 BC and 4500 BC, were found on the Thames's south foreshore, downstream of Vauxhall Bridge; the function of the mesolithic structure is not known. Both structures are on the south bank. Although there is evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans about four years after the invasion
Field of Remembrance
The Field of Remembrance is a memorial garden organised annually by the Poppy Factory in Westminster. For eight days, from the morning of the Thursday before Remembrance Sunday until the evening of following Thursday, the lawn of St Margaret's Church, between Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, is marked out with 250 plots for regimental and armed services associations. Participants are able to buy a wooden token of remembrance decorated with a remembrance poppy; the token is marked with the name of a member of the armed forces, killed in action and planted in the appropriate plot. The packed lines of remembrance symbols in the separate plots can resemble a temporary military cemetery. After the Field of Remembrance closes, the crosses are collected and burnt, the ashes are scattered at the First World War battlefields in northern France and Belgium. Any money raised at the event is traditionally donated by The Poppy Factory to The Royal British Legion; the Field of Remembrance was first held in 1928, organised by George Arthur Howson, an officer in the British Army in the First World War and founder and chairman of the Poppy Factory.
In the first year, there were only two memorials: one dedicated to "Tommy Atkins". The ANZAC Field of Remembrance at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Australia was established in 1952, inspired by the Field of Remembrance in London. For the 90th anniversary of the Poppy Appeal in 2011, other Fields of Remembrance were established at Belfast and Edinburgh. A Field of Remembrance was created at Lydiard Park in November 2011, close to Royal Wootton Bassett, in the shape 11-11-11-11, commemorating the 93rd anniversary of the Armistice with Germany at 11am on 11 November 1918. Field of Remembrance, The Royal British Legion Field of Remembrance, PoppyScotland Scotland's first field of remembrance opens, PoppyScotland, 7 November 2011 Field of Remembrance, The Poppy Factory Trauma and the memory of politics, Jenny Edkins, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-521-53420-8, p. 22 The Great War and medieval memory: war and medievalism in Britain and Germany, 1914-1940, Stefan Goebel, Cambridge University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-521-85415-6, p. 35
Jack Cohen (politician)
Major Sir Benn Jack Brunel Cohen KBE was a British Conservative Party politician and campaigner on behalf of disabled people. He was Member of Parliament for Liverpool Fairfield from 13 years, from 1918 to 1931. Cohen was born in Toxteth Park, where his father, Louis Cohen, was a businessman and Conservative local politician, his family owned the Lewis's department stores, which Cohen's father ran after the death of David Lewis. Both of his grandfathers were politicians in New South Wales, he was educated at Cheltenham College, joined the family business. He married Vera Evelyn Samuel in 1914, becoming the son-in-law of 1st Baronet, they had three children: a daughter. Cohen volunteered for military service in 1906, joining a territorial battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment, he served with the battalion after the outbreak of the First World War, but remained in the depot in Liverpool until 1917. Meanwhile, two elder brothers joined the Regiment on the Western Front in France, where one was killed in action and the second was gassed.
At his own request, Cohen was sent to France in early 1917. He was promoted to Major in June 1917, but was wounded at the Third Battle of Ypres, both legs were amputated above the knee, he used an electric wheelchair for most of his life afterwards. Cohen was elected as MP for Liverpool Fairfield in December 1918, remained in office until he stood down at the 1931 general election, his maiden speech in February 1919 was on the needs of disabled former servicemen, he devoted much of his time to advancing the cause of disabled people, particular the war wounded, including problems of employment and war pensions. He was involved in the discussions which led to the founding of the British Legion in 1921, served as its honorary treasurer from 1921 to 1930 as vice-chairman from 1930 to 1932, again as honorary treasurer until 1946, he was the parliamentary representative of the British Legion. He served on the board of the Poppy Factory in Richmond, as a member of the council of St Dunstan's for 40 years, as a governor of St Thomas' Hospital for 33 years.
He advocated rapprochement after the First World War between the former enemy nations, spoke at the first International Conference of the Fédération Interalliée des Anciens Combattants in New Orleans in 1922. He visited Austria and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, was criticised by British Jewish organisations for receiving visitors from Nazi Germany in his official role with the British Legion. Cohen served as an army welfare officer for the Auxiliary Territorial Service in the Second World War, he chaired the Ministry of Labour's national advisory council on employment for the disabled, which spurred the passing of the Disabled Persons Act 1944, mandating employers to give jobs to disabled people. He became vice-chairman of Remploy in 1946, its chairman in 1955, he was not a Zionist. He was the founding president of the anti-Zionist Jewish Fellowship from 1944 until it was dissolved after the foundation of Israel in 1948, he was a member of the council of Cheltenham College. He received a knighthood in 1943, was appointed KBE in 1948.
He published an autobiography, Count Your Blessings, in 1956. He was the subject of This, he died with a memorial service at the West London Synagogue. Craig, F. W. S.. British parliamentary election results 1918-1949. Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X. Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages Niall Barr, ‘Cohen, Sir Jack Brunel ’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2011 accessed 17 Oct 2011 Portrait, National Portrait Gallery Jack Cohen's appearance on This Is Your Life
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world, the second oldest after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the vice-chancellor known as the delegates of the press, they are headed by the secretary to the delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University has used a similar system to oversee OUP since the 17th century; the Press is located on opposite Somerville College, in the suburb Jericho. The Oxford University Press Museum is located on Oxford. Visits are led by a member of the archive staff. Displays include a 19th-century printing press, the OUP buildings, the printing and history of the Oxford Almanack, Alice in Wonderland and the Oxford English Dictionary; the university became involved in the print trade around 1480, grew into a major printer of Bibles, prayer books, scholarly works. OUP took on the project that became the Oxford English Dictionary in the late 19th century, expanded to meet the ever-rising costs of the work.
As a result, the last hundred years has seen Oxford publish children's books, school text books, journals, the World's Classics series, a range of English language teaching texts. Moves into international markets led to OUP opening its own offices outside the United Kingdom, beginning with New York City in 1896. With the advent of computer technology and harsh trading conditions, the Press's printing house at Oxford was closed in 1989, its former paper mill at Wolvercote was demolished in 2004. By contracting out its printing and binding operations, the modern OUP publishes some 6,000 new titles around the world each year; the first printer associated with Oxford University was Theoderic Rood. A business associate of William Caxton, Rood seems to have brought his own wooden printing press to Oxford from Cologne as a speculative venture, to have worked in the city between around 1480 and 1483; the first book printed in Oxford, in 1478, an edition of Rufinus's Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, was printed by another, printer.
Famously, this was mis-dated in Roman numerals as "1468", thus pre-dating Caxton. Rood's printing included John Ankywyll's Compendium totius grammaticae, which set new standards for teaching of Latin grammar. After Rood, printing connected with the university remained sporadic for over half a century. Records or surviving work are few, Oxford did not put its printing on a firm footing until the 1580s. In response to constraints on printing outside London imposed by the Crown and the Stationers' Company, Oxford petitioned Elizabeth I of England for the formal right to operate a press at the university; the chancellor, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, pleaded Oxford's case. Some royal assent was obtained, since the printer Joseph Barnes began work, a decree of Star Chamber noted the legal existence of a press at "the universitie of Oxforde" in 1586. Oxford's chancellor, Archbishop William Laud, consolidated the legal status of the university's printing in the 1630s. Laud envisaged a unified press of world repute.
Oxford would establish it on university property, govern its operations, employ its staff, determine its printed work, benefit from its proceeds. To that end, he petitioned Charles I for rights that would enable Oxford to compete with the Stationers' Company and the King's Printer, obtained a succession of royal grants to aid it; these were brought together in Oxford's "Great Charter" in 1636, which gave the university the right to print "all manner of books". Laud obtained the "privilege" from the Crown of printing the King James or Authorized Version of Scripture at Oxford; this "privilege" created substantial returns in the next 250 years, although it was held in abeyance. The Stationers' Company was alarmed by the threat to its trade and lost little time in establishing a "Covenant of Forbearance" with Oxford. Under this, the Stationers paid an annual rent for the university not to exercise its full printing rights – money Oxford used to purchase new printing equipment for smaller purposes.
Laud made progress with internal organization of the Press. Besides establishing the system of Delegates, he created the wide-ranging supervisory post of "Architypographus": an academic who would have responsibility for every function of the business, from print shop management to proofreading; the post was more an ideal than a workable reality, but it survived in the loosely structured Press until the 18th century. In practice, Oxford's Warehouse-Keeper dealt with sales and the hiring and firing of print shop staff. Laud's plans, hit terrible obstacles, both personal and political. Falling foul of political intrigue, he was executed in 1645, by which time the English Civil War had broken out. Oxford became a Royalist stronghold during the conflict, many printers in the city concentrated on producing political pamphlets or sermons; some outstanding mathematical and Orientalist works emerged at this time—notably, texts edited by Edward Pococke, the Regius Professor of Hebrew—but no university press on Laud's model was possible before the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.
It was established by the vice-chancellor, John Fell, Dean of Christ Church, Bishop of Oxford, Secretary to the Delegates. Fell regarded Laud as a martyr, was determined to honour his vision of the Press. Using the provisions of the Great Charter, Fell persuaded Oxford to refuse any further payments from the Stationers and drew
Redford Barracks
Redford Cavalry and Infantry Barracks is located on Colinton Road, near the Edinburgh City Bypass, east of the suburb of Colinton in Edinburgh, Scotland. Redford Barracks was built between 1909 and 1915 by the War Office and designed by Harry Bell Measures; when completed, the barracks was the largest military installation built in Scotland since Fort George in the Highlands. The British Army garrison in Edinburgh Castle formally moved out to the barracks in 1923. Today, the Infantry Barracks are unoccupied, the Cavalry Barracks houses Balaclava Company, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland; the barracks comprises two category B listed main buildings and parade squares facing Colinton Road. The Infantry Barracks, was built to house an entire infantry regiment and could accommodate 1,000 men, it could provide everything the resident line infantry battalion required to function. The families lived in service quarters close to the barracks and the children attended local schools; the main barrack block itself housed the resident Battalion Headquarters, one Rifle Company, a Fire Support Company and Headquarters Company.
The two other Rifle Companies were accommodated in a separate, newer block. 3rd Battalion The Rifles, the last battalion to occupy the barracks, moved out in 2014. As part of the Future Force 2020 budgetary announcement in July 2011, RAF Kirknewton was to have been developed into a major Army base to host a Multi-Role Brigade Redford and Dreghorn Barracks would become surplus to requirements and were earmarked for disposal under this plan. However, in December 2011 it was reported that the planned move to Kirknewton was in doubt, that Redford Barracks would be retained. By 2013 it was confirmed that the MRB plan had been dropped, that only a part of Redford Barracks would be closed; the three-storey Cavalry Barracks, with its tall domed clock-tower, was built to house a cavalry regiment, most notably the Royal Scots Greys, with a large annexe of stables and associated outbuildings. With the permanent stationing of armoured units such as the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine, the Cavalry Barracks became a home to D squadron, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards stationed there from 1971 until disbanded in 1976.
The cavalry barracks have been the home for Balaclava Company, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland since 2014. The Regimental Headquarters of the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry has been located at the cavalry barracks since 2014; the following notable units are based at Redford Barracks. Royal Armoured Corps The Scottish And North Irish Yeomanry Headquarters The Scottish And North Irish Yeomanry E SquadronInfantry The Royal Regiment of Scotland Balaklava Company, 5th BattalionIntelligence Corps 1st Intelligence and Reconnaissance Brigade 5 Military Intelligence Battalion In November 2016, the Ministry of Defence announced that the whole site would close in 2022
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is a large Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and British monarchs; the building itself was a Benedictine monastic church until the monastery was dissolved in 1539. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral. Since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England "Royal Peculiar"—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, a Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have been in Westminster Abbey.
There have been 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100. As the burial site of more than 3,300 persons of predominant prominence in British history, Westminster Abbey is sometimes described as'Britain's Valhalla', after the iconic burial hall of Norse mythology. A late tradition claims that Aldrich, a young fisherman on the River Thames, had a vision of Saint Peter near the site; this seems to have been quoted as the origin of the salmon that Thames fishermen offered to the abbey in years – a custom still observed annually by the Fishmongers' Company. The recorded origins of the Abbey date to the 960s or early 970s, when Saint Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks on the site. Between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church, it was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style. The building was completed around 1060 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edward's death on 5 January 1066.
A week he was buried in the church. His successor, Harold II, was crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror the same year; the only extant depiction of Edward's abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry. Some of the lower parts of the monastic dormitory, an extension of the South Transept, survive in the Norman Undercroft of the Great School, including a door said to come from the previous Saxon abbey. Increased endowments supported a community increased from a dozen monks in Dunstan's original foundation, up to a maximum about eighty monks; the abbot and monks, in proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the seat of government from the 13th century, became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest. The Abbot of Westminster was employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. Released from the burdens of spiritual leadership, which passed to the reformed Cluniac movement after the mid-10th century, occupied with the administration of great landed properties, some of which lay far from Westminster, "the Benedictines achieved a remarkable degree of identification with the secular life of their times, with upper-class life", Barbara Harvey concludes, to the extent that her depiction of daily life provides a wider view of the concerns of the English gentry in the High and Late Middle Ages.
The proximity of the Palace of Westminster did not extend to providing monks or abbots with high royal connections. The abbot remained Lord of the Manor of Westminster as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale the monastery helped fuel the town economy, relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising charter was issued during the Middle Ages; the abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings. None were buried there until Henry III, intensely devoted to the cult of the Confessor, rebuilt the abbey in Anglo-French Gothic style as a shrine to venerate King Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England; the Confessor's shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonization. Construction of the present church began in 1245 by Henry III; the first building stage included the entire eastern end, the transepts, the easternmost bay of the nave.
The Lady Chapel built from around 1220 at the extreme eastern end was incorporated into the chevet of the new building, but was replaced. This work must have been completed by 1258-60, when the second stage was begun; this carried the nave on an additional five bays. Here construction stopped in about 1269, a consecration ceremony being held on 13 October of that year, because of Henry's death did not resume; the old Romanesque nave remained attached to the new building for over a century, until it was pulled down in the late 14th century and rebuilt from 1376 following the original design. Construction was finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II. Henry III commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar (the pavement has undergone a major cleani
Charitable organization
A charitable organization or charity is a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being. The legal definition of a charitable organization varies between countries and in some instances regions of the country; the regulation, the tax treatment, the way in which charity law affects charitable organizations vary. Charitable organizations may not use any of its funds to profit individual entities. Financial figures are indicators to assess the financial sustainability of a charity to charity evaluators; this information can impact a charity's reputation with donors and societies, thus the charity's financial gains. Charitable organizations depend on donations from businesses; such donations to charitable organizations represent a major form of corporate philanthropy. The Organizational Test: If the organization doesn't follow the exemption organizational test, it will be under mentoring, in order to meet the organizational test it has to be organized and operated.
Serving the public interest: In order to receive and pass the exemption test, charitable organization must follow the public interest and all exempt income should be for the public interest. Until the mid-18th century, charity was distributed through religious structures and bequests from the rich. Both Christianity and Islam incorporated significant charitable elements from their beginnings and dāna has a long tradition in Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. Charities provided education, health and prisons. Almshouses were established throughout Europe in the Early Middle Ages to provide a place of residence for poor and distressed people. In the Enlightenment era charitable and philanthropic activity among voluntary associations and rich benefactors became a widespread cultural practice. Societies, gentleman's clubs, mutual associations began to flourish in England, the upper-classes adopted a philanthropic attitude toward the disadvantaged. In England this new social activism was channeled into the establishment of charitable organizations.
This emerging upper-class fashion for benevolence resulted in the incorporation of the first charitable organizations. Captain Thomas Coram, appalled by the number of abandoned children living on the streets of London, set up the Foundling Hospital in 1741 to look after these unwanted orphans in Lamb's Conduit Fields, Bloomsbury. This, the first such charity in the world, served as the precedent for incorporated associational charities in general. Jonas Hanway, another notable philanthropist of the Enlightenment era, established The Marine Society in 1756 as the first seafarer's charity, in a bid to aid the recruitment of men to the navy. By 1763 the Society had recruited over 10,000 men. Hanway was instrumental in establishing the Magdalen Hospital to rehabilitate prostitutes; these organizations were run as voluntary associations. They raised public awareness of their activities through the emerging popular press and were held in high social regard - some charities received state recognition in the form of the royal charter.
Charities began to adopt campaigning roles, where they would champion a cause and lobby the government for legislative change. This included organized campaigns against the ill treatment of animals and children and the campaign that succeeded at the turn of the 19th century in ending the slave trade throughout the British Empire and within its considerable sphere of influence; the Enlightenment saw growing philosophical debate between those who championed state intervention and those who believed that private charities should provide welfare. The Reverend Thomas Malthus, the political economist, criticized poor relief for paupers on economic and moral grounds and proposed leaving charity to the private sector, his views became influential and informed the Victorian laissez-faire attitude toward state intervention for the poor. During the 19th century a profusion of charitable organizations emerged to alleviate the awful conditions of the working class in the slums; the Labourer's Friend Society, chaired by Lord Shaftesbury in the United Kingdom in 1830, aimed to improve working-class conditions.
It promoted, for example, the allotment of land to labourers for "cottage husbandry" that became the allotment movement. In 1844 it became the first Model Dwellings Company - one of a group of organizations that sought to improve the housing conditions of the working classes by building new homes for them, at the same time receiving a competitive rate of return on any investment; this was one of the first housing associations, a philanthropic endeavour that flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century brought about by the growth of the middle class. Associations included the Peabody Trust and the Guinness Trust; the principle of philanthropic intention with capitalist return was given the label "five per cent philanthropy". There was strong growth in municipal charities; the Brougham Commission led on to the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which reorganized
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