1.
Willesden
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Willesden is an area in north west London which forms part of the London Borough of Brent. It is situated 5 miles northwest of Charing Cross and it was historically a parish in the county of Middlesex, that was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Willesden in 1933 and has formed part of Greater London since 1965. The Daily Telegraph called Willesden Green one of Londons new middle class areas, the area had a population of 44,295 in 2011 including the Willesden Green, Dollis Hill and Dudden Hill wards. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon Willesdune, meaning the Hill of the Spring, the Domesday Book of 1086 records it as Wellesdone. However, on 19th century maps of the such as those from the Ordnance Survey First Series. The motto of Willesden Borough Council was Laborare est orare, from the 14th to 16th centuries, the town was a place of pilgrimage due to the presence of two ancient statues of the Virgin Mary at the Church of St Mary. There was also a well which was thought to possess miraculous qualities, particularly for blindness. The Iris was a British car brand that was manufactured from 1906 by Legros & Knowles Ltd in Willesden, the parish of Willesden remained predominantly rural up until 1875, when its population was 18,500. It included the villages and hamlets of Brondesbury, Dollis Hill, Dudden Hill, Harlesden, Kilburn, Mapesbury, Oxgate, however, this changed with the opening of the Metropolitan Railway station of Willesden Green on 24 November 1879. By 1906 the population had grown to 140,000, a phenomenon of rapid growth that was to be repeated in the 1920s in neighbouring areas such as Harrow. The Metropolitan line service was withdrawn in 1940, when the station was served by the Bakerloo line, World War I caused Willesden to change from a predominantly middle class suburb to a working class part of London. After the war, Willesden grew rapidly as many factories opened up with numerous flats, the local council encouraged building to prevent large unemployment and decline. To the present day, Willesden has been shaped by the patterns of migration which marks it out as one of the most diverse areas in the United Kingdom. City of London Corporation records show that the first black person recorded in Brent was Sarah Eco, the 1901 United Kingdom census recorded that 42% of the population was born in London. In 1923, the specialist coach builder Freestone and Webb established their base in Willesden, producing bespoke cars on Rolls-Royce, Willesden became a municipal borough in 1933, and it is at this time that the area became predominantly working class. A small Irish community had formed in Willesden by this time, a small Jewish community of refugees from Europe also formed during the war, with 3. 5% of the population in 1951 born in Germany, Poland, Russia or Austria. During the war, Willesden suffered large damage due to the concentration of industry, such as munition factories. The period from 1960 saw migrants settling from the Caribbean and the Indian Subcontinent, additionally, from 1963 it was the site of the Kuo Yuan, the first Chinese restaurant to serve Pekinese dishes in Britain
2.
Middlesex
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Middlesex is a historic county in south-east England. It is now entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and its area is now also mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in other neighbouring ceremonial counties. It was established in the Anglo-Saxon system from the territory of the Middle Saxons, the largely low-lying county, dominated by clay in its north and alluvium on gravel in its south, was the second smallest county by area in 1831. The City of London was a county in its own right from the 12th century and was able to exert control over Middlesex. Westminster Abbey dominated most of the financial, judicial and ecclesiastical aspects of the county. As London grew into Middlesex, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to expand the city boundaries into the county, in the 18th and 19th centuries the population density was especially high in the southeast of the county, including the East End and West End of London. From 1855 the southeast was administered, with sections of Kent and Surrey, the City of London, and Middlesex, became separate counties for other purposes and Middlesex regained the right to appoint its own sheriff, lost in 1199. In the interwar years suburban London expanded further, with improvement and expansion of public transport, after the Second World War, the population of the County of London and inner Middlesex was in steady decline, with high population growth continuing in the outer parts. Since 1965 various areas called Middlesex have been used for cricket, Middlesex was the former postal county of 25 post towns. The name means territory of the middle Saxons and refers to the origin of its inhabitants. The word is formed from the Anglo-Saxon, i. e. Old English, middel, in an 8th-century charter the region is recorded as Middleseaxon and in 704 it is recorded as Middleseaxan. The Saxons derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known, the seax has a lasting symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex, both of which feature three seaxes in their ceremonial emblem. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon, there were settlements in the area of Middlesex that can be traced back thousands of years before the creation of a county. Middlesex was formerly part of the Kingdom of Essex It was recorded in the Domesday Book as being divided into the six hundreds of Edmonton, Elthorne, Gore, Hounslow, Ossulstone and Spelthorne. The City of London has been self-governing since the century and became a county in its own right. Middlesex also included Westminster, which also had a degree of autonomy. Of the six hundreds, Ossulstone contained the districts closest to the City of London, during the 17th century it was divided into four divisions, which, along with the Liberty of Westminster, largely took over the administrative functions of the hundred. The divisions were named Finsbury, Holborn, Kensington and Tower, the county had parliamentary representation from the 13th century
3.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
4.
BBC News
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BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the worlds largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, the service maintains 50 foreign news bureaux with more than 250 correspondents around the world. James Harding has been Director of News and Current Affairs since April 2013, the departments annual budget is in excess of £350 million, it has 3,500 staff,2,000 of whom are journalists. BBC News domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London. Through the BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England, as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, all nations and English regions produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes. As with all media outlets, though, it has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum. The British Broadcasting Company broadcast its first radio bulletin from radio station 2LO on 14 November 1922, on Easter weekend in 1930, this reliance on newspaper wire services left the radio news service with no information to report. The BBC gradually gained the right to edit the copy and, in 1934, however, it could not broadcast news before 6 PM until World War II. Gaumont British and Movietone cinema newsreels had been broadcast on the TV service since 1936, a weekly Childrens Newsreel was inaugurated on 23 April 1950, to around 350,000 receivers. The network began simulcasting its radio news on television in 1946, televised bulletins began on 5 July 1954, broadcast from leased studios within Alexandra Palace in London. The publics interest in television and live events was stimulated by Elizabeth IIs coronation in 1953 and it is estimated that up to 27 million people viewed the programme in the UK, overtaking radios audience of 12 million for the first time. Those live pictures were fed from 21 cameras in central London to Alexandra Palace for transmission and that year, there were around two million TV Licences held in the UK, rising to over three million the following year, and four and a half million by 1955. This was then followed by the customary Television Newsreel with a commentary by John Snagge. It was revealed that this had been due to producers fearing a newsreader with visible facial movements would distract the viewer from the story. On-screen newsreaders were finally introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall, Robert Dougall, mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950 to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherds Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs with it. It was from here that the first Panorama, a new programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953. On 28 October 1957, the Today programme, a radio programme, was launched in central London on the Home Service. In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs and he set up a BBC study group whose findings, published in 1959, were critical of what the television news operation had become under his predecessor, Tahu Hole
5.
Kenneth Kendall
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Kenneth Kendall was a British broadcaster. He worked for years as a newsreader for the BBC. He is also remembered as the host of the Channel 4 game show Treasure Hunt, Kendall was born in India, where his father, Frederic William Kendall, worked, and was brought up in Cornwall. Kendall was educated at Felsted School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Kendall was a schoolmaster and later a captain in the Coldstream Guards during the Second World War, and was injured on D-Day. He joined the BBC in 1948 as a newsreader and transferred to television in 1954. Although he was not the first newsreader on BBC television, Kendall was the first to appear before a camera reading the news in 1955. Kendall became known for his elegant dress sense and was voted best-dressed newsreader by Style International and he left the BBC in 1961, and from 1961 to 1969 was a freelance newsreader, working occasionally for ITN and presenting Southern Televisions Day By Day. He appeared as himself in the Adam Adamant episode The Doomsday Plan and he also appeared in a cameo role as a newsreader in 2001, A Space Odyssey, as well as in the Doctor Who serial The War Machines. He rejoined the BBC in 1969 and finally retired from news reading on 23 December 1981, Kendalls retirement allowed him to work on the popular Channel Four programme Treasure Hunt throughout its first run, which featured Anneka Rice as a skyrunner. He also presented the television programme Songs of Praise, soon after retirement from news reading, Kendall lent his voice to the BBC Micro as part of Acorn Computers hardware speech synthesis system. In 2010 he took part in BBCs The Young Ones, in which six people in their 70s and 80s attempt to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s. Kendall lived in Cowes on the Isle of Wight with his partner Mark Fear, where he was the owner of an art gallery. Before owning the art gallery, he co-ran a restaurant, this was stated in an interview in Radio Times in 1996, Kendall died on 14 December 2012, following a stroke a few weeks previously. He was survived by Mark Fear, his partner for the last 23 years of his life, the couple entered into a civil partnership in 2006. On 29 April 2013, Mark Fear, Kendalls former partner, was found hanged and he was 55 and had committed suicide
6.
Kilburn, London
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Kilburn is an area of north-west London, England, which is between London Borough of Brent postcodes, most of Kilburn is in the Brent but a small section is inside Westminster. West Kilburn which is Kilburn lane to the north, Fernhead road to the east, Harrow road to the south, Kilburn is situated 3.75 miles north-west of Charing Cross. The main thoroughfare running northwest-southeast is Kilburn High Road, part of the modern A5 road which forms the boundary between the boroughs of Brent and Camden, the road dates back to pre-Roman times and is part of the Roman road known as Watling Street. The town of Kilburn has its origins in a 12th-century priory on the banks of the Kilburn Brook, Kilburn today is a busy and multicultural London district. It has one of the capitals highest Irish populations, as well as a sizable Afro-Caribbean population, the area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Kilburn High Road originated as an ancient trackway, part of a Celtic route between the now known as Canterbury and St Albans. Under Roman rule, the route was paved, in Anglo-Saxon times the road became known as Watling Street. Kilburn grew up on the banks of a stream which has been known variously as Cuneburna, Kelebourne and Cyebourne and it is suggested the name means either Royal River or Cattle River. The river is today as the River Westbourne. From the 1850s it was piped underground and is now one of Londons many underground rivers, the name Kilburn was first recorded in 1134 as Cuneburna, referring to the priory which had been built on the site of the cell of a hermit known as Godwyn. Godwyn had built his hermitage by the Kilburn river during the reign of Henry I, Kilburn Priory was a small community of nuns, probably Augustinian canonesses. It was founded in 1134 at the Kilburn river crossing on Watling Street, Kilburn Priorys position on Watling Street meant that it became a popular resting point for pilgrims heading for the shrines at St Albans and Willesden. The Priory was dissolved in 1536-37 by Henry VIII, and nothing remains of it today, the priory lands included a mansion and a hostium, which may have been the origin of the Red Lion pub, thought to have been founded in 1444. Opposite, the Bell Inn was opened around 1600, on the site of the old mansion, the whole is now open for the reception of the public, the great room being particularly adapted to the use and amusement of the politest companies. Fit either for music, dancing, or entertainments, a plentiful larder is always provided, together with the best of wines and other liquors. A printed account of the waters, as drawn up by an eminent physician, is given gratis at the Wells, in the 19th century the wells declined, but the Kilburn Wells remained popular as a tea garden. The Bell was demolished and rebuilt in 1863, the building stands there today. The Kilburn stretch of Watling Street, now called Edgware Road and Kilburn High Road, was built up with inns
7.
Grammar school
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The original purpose of medieval grammar schools was the teaching of Latin. Over time the curriculum was broadened, first to include Ancient Greek, and later English and other European languages, natural sciences, mathematics, history, geography, and other subjects. In the late Victorian era grammar schools were reorganised to provide secondary education throughout England and Wales, Grammar schools of these types were also established in British territories overseas, where they have evolved in different ways. With the move to comprehensive schools in the 1960s and 1970s, some grammar schools became fully independent and charged fees. In both cases, many of these schools kept grammar school in their names, more recently, a number of state grammar schools still retaining their selective intake gained academy status, meaning that they are independent of the Local Education Authority. Some parts of England retain forms of the Tripartite System, some of the remaining grammar schools can trace their histories to before the 16th century. The schools were attached to cathedrals and monasteries, teaching Latin – the language of the church – to future priests, other subjects required for religious work were occasionally added, including music and verse, astronomy and mathematics and law. With the foundation of the ancient universities from the late 12th century, grammar schools became the point to a liberal arts education. Pupils were usually educated in schools up to the age of 14, after which they would look to universities. An example of a grammar school founded by a medieval borough corporation unconnected with church or university is Bridgnorth Grammar School. During the English Reformation in the 16th century, most cathedral schools were closed and replaced by new foundations funded from the dissolution of the monasteries. For example, the oldest extant schools in Wales – Christ College, Brecon, with the increased emphasis on studying the scriptures after the Reformation, many schools added Greek and, in a few cases, Hebrew. The teaching of languages was hampered by a shortage of non-Latin type. Many of these are commemorated in annual Founders Day services and ceremonies at surviving schools. The usual pattern was to create an endowment to pay the wages of a master to instruct boys in Latin. The school day ran from 6 a. m. to 5 p. m. with a two-hour break for lunch, in winter, school started at 7 a. m. Most of the day was spent in the learning of Latin. To encourage fluency, some schoolmasters recommended punishing any pupil who spoke in English, by the end of their studies at age 14, they would be quite familiar with the great Latin authors, and with Latin drama and rhetoric
8.
Peterhouse, Cambridge
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Peterhouse is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the oldest college of the university, having founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 226 undergraduates,86 full-time graduate students and 45 fellows, the modern name of Peterhouse does not include the word college. Peterhouse is one of the wealthiest colleges in Cambridge, with assets exceeding £250 million, Peterhouse is widely considered the most traditional of the Cambridge colleges. It is one of the few that still seeks to insist that its members attend communal dinners, Hall takes place in two sittings, with the second known as Formal Hall, which consists of a three-course candlelit meal and which must be attended wearing gowns. At Formal Hall, the rise as the fellows proceed in, a gong is rung. The college has five Nobel laureates associated with it, either as students or fellows, Sir John Kendrew, Sir Aaron Klug, Archer Martin, Max Perutz. After disagreement between the scholars and the Brethren of the Hospital, both requested a separation, the Church of St Peter without Trumpington Gate was to be used by the scholars. Bishop Hugo de Balsham died in 1286, bequeathing 300 marks that were used to buy land to the south of St Peters Church. The earliest surviving set of statutes for the college was given to it by the then Bishop of Ely, Simon Montacute, although based on those of Merton College, these statutes clearly display the lack of resources then available to the college. They were used in 1345 to defeat an attempt by Edward III to appoint a candidate of his own as scholar, in 1354-55, William Moschett set up a trust that resulted in nearly 70 acres of land at Fen Ditton being transferred to the College by 1391-92. The Colleges relative poverty was relieved in 1401 when it acquired the advowson and rectory of Hinton through the efforts of Bishop John Fordham and John Newton. During the reign of Elizabeth I, the college acquired the area formerly known as Volneys Croft, which today is the area of St Peters Terrace, the William Stone Building. In 1553, Andrew Perne was appointed Master and his religious views were pragmatic enough to be favoured by both Mary I, who gave him the Deanery of Ely, and Elizabeth I. A contemporary joke was that the letters on the weather vane of St Peters Church could represent Andrew Perne, Papist or Andrew Perne, Protestant according to which way the wind was blowing. Having previously been close to the reformist Regius Chair of Divinity, Martin Bucer, later as vice-chancellor of the university Perne would have Bucers bones exhumed, John Foxe in his Actes and Monuments singled this out as shameful railing. There is a hole burnt in the middle of the relevant page in Pernes own copy of Foxe, Perne died in 1589, leaving a legacy to the college that funded a number of fellowships and scholarships, as well bequeathing an extensive collection of books. This collection and rare volumes since added to it is now known as the Perne Library, between 1626 and 1634, the Master was Matthew Wren
