1.
Privately held company
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More ambiguous terms for a privately held company are unquoted company and unlisted company. Though less visible than their publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the worlds economy. In 2008, the 441 largest private companies in the United States accounted for US$1,800,000,000,000 in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to Forbes. In 2004, the Forbes count of privately held U. S. businesses with at least $1 billion in revenue was 305, cargill, Koch Industries, Bechtel, Publix, Pilot Corp. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Hearst Corporation, Cox Enterprises, S. C, johnson, McWane, Carlson Companies, and Mars are among the largest privately held companies in the United States. In the broadest sense, the private corporation refers to any business not owned by the state. This usage is found in former communist countries to differentiate from former state-owned enterprises. In the United States, the privately held company is more often used to describe for-profit enterprises whose shares are not traded on the stock market. In countries with public trading markets, a privately held business is taken to mean one whose ownership shares or interests are not publicly traded. Often, privately held companies are owned by the company founders and/or their families, sometimes employees also hold shares of private companies. Most small businesses are privately held, Private companies may be called corporations, limited companies, limited liability companies, unlimited companies, or other names, depending on where and how they are organized and structured. In the United States, but not generally in the United Kingdom, privately held companies generally have fewer or less comprehensive reporting requirements and obligations for transparency, via annual reports, etc. than publicly traded companies do. For example, in the United States, unlike in Europe, in addition, private company executives may steer their ships without shareholder approval, allowing them to take significant action without delays. There is a requirement for large proprietary companies, which are required to lodge Form 388H to the ASIC containing their financial report. In the United States, private companies are held to different accounting auditing standards than are public companies, other companies, like Sageworks, provide aggregated data on privately held companies, segmented by industry code. Privately held companies also sometimes have restrictions on how many shareholders they may have, for example, the U. S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, section 12, limits a privately held company, generally, to fewer than 2000 shareholders, and the U. S. Investment Company Act of 1940, requires registration of investment companies that have more than 100 holders, in Australia, section 113 of the Corporations Act 2001 limits a privately held company to fifty non-employee shareholders. Private enterprises comprise the sector of an economy
2.
Royal Ordnance
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It owned some 16 factories, and employed about 19,000 staff. Royal Ordnance plc was bought by British Aerospace in April 1987, the name Royal Ordnance was retained for almost another twenty years, and the sites retained their former names, either as Royal Ordnance or later RO Defence sites. The Royal Ordnance name was dropped in 2004 and after having traded as Land Systems, the Royal Ordnance Factories can trace their history back to 1560 with the founding of the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey, Essex. This was linked to the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock, all three were based near London— but not too close in case of explosion. The title of Royal Arsenal was introduced in 1805 to encompass the Royal Laboratories, Royal Gun Factory, and the Royal Carriage, which were originally separate and based in Greenwich. In 1927 these three Royal Factories were transferred, within the War Office, from the Ministry of Munitions to the Department of the Master-General of the Ordnance. As World War II loomed, a further 40 ROFs were built by the Ministry of Supply, from the late 1930s into the 1940s, the number of factory sites and personnel employed shrank considerably after the end of the Second World War. Other parts of the UKs defence research and design capability were later closed down, remained with the UK Ministry of Defence, later to become Dstl, or became part of the privatised QinetiQ. The small number of ROFs involved in weapons production, ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff, were removed from ROF management. They were transferred to the control of AWRE, which became the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Its headquarters was moved to ROF Chorley, Lancashire, with its office located in central London. The intention of the government at this stage was to privatise Royal Ordnance as soon as possible through a stock market flotation. In mid-1985 a target date of July 1986 was set, however, by June 1986 the government announced that flotation would not be possible and that it intended to sell the company privately. The following problems were identified as barriers to a flotation, The future of ROF Leeds, the future relationship between the MOD and the company. The financial position of the company.2 million, Vickers became Alvis Vickers and, in 2004, became part of BAE Systems, and the Leeds factory was closed. The relationship with the MOD was resolved by certain guarantees given to the company by the MOD regarding future procurement strategies, the financial position of the company was resolved by a Treasury cash injection and the proceeds of the ROF Leeds sale. Bids for Royal Ordnance Plc were invited in October 1986, resulting in six offers and these were eventually reduced to two, one from British Aerospace and one from Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds. The £188.5 million GBP BAe offer was accepted, at the time of the sale, RO Defence had 16 factories, and some 19,000 personnel were employed
3.
BAE Systems
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BAE Systems plc is a British multinational defence, security, and aerospace company. Its headquarters are in London in the United Kingdom and it has operations worldwide and it is among the worlds largest defence companies, it was ranked as the third-largest based on applicable 2015 revenues. Its largest operations are in the United Kingdom and United States, other major markets include Australia, India and Saudi Arabia. The company was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7. V, since its formation it has made a number of acquisitions, most notably of United Defense and Armor Holdings of the United States, and sold its shares in Airbus, Astrium, AMS and Atlas Elektronik. BAE Systems is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index, BAE Systems was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7.7 billion merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems. As a result, BAE Systems is the successor to many of the most famous British aircraft, defence electronics, British Aerospace was a civil and military aircraft manufacturer, as well as a provider of military land systems. The company had emerged from the consolidation of UK aircraft manufacturers since World War II. British Aerospace was formed on 29 April 1977 by the nationalisation and merger of The British Aircraft Corporation, both BAC and Hawker Siddeley were themselves the result of various mergers and acquisitions. Marconi Electronic Systems was the subsidiary of British engineering firm The General Electric Company, dealing largely in military systems integration, as well as naval. Marconis heritage dates back to Guglielmo Marconis Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company, GEC purchased English Electric in 1968 and thereafter used the Marconi brand for its defence businesses. GECs own defence heritage dates back to World War I, when its contribution to the war effort included radios, World War II consolidated this position, as the company was involved in important technological advances, notably the cavity magnetron for radar. Between 1945 and 1999, GEC-Marconi/Marconi Electronic Systems became one of the worlds most important defence contractors, in June 1998, MES acquired Tracor, a major American defence contractor, for £830 million. In June 1997 British Aerospace Defence managing director John Weston commented Europe, is supporting three times the number of contractors on less than half the budget of the U. S. European governments wished to see the merger of their defence manufacturers into a single entity, as early as 1995 British Aerospace and the German aerospace and defence company DaimlerChrysler Aerospace were said to be keen to create a transnational aerospace and defence company. The two companies envisaged including Aérospatiale, the other major European aerospace company, but only after its privatisation, as well as Airbus, British Aerospace and DASA were partners in the Panavia Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft projects. A merger was agreed between British Aerospace chairman Richard Evans and DASA CEO Jürgen Schrempp in December 1998, meanwhile, GEC was also under pressure to participate in defence industry consolidation. GEC favours forging a national champion defence group with BAe to compete with the giant US organisations, when GEC put MES up for sale on 22 December 1998, British Aerospace abandoned the DASA merger in favour of purchasing its British rival. The merger of British Aerospace and MES was announced on 19 January 1999, Evans stated that in 2004 that his fear was that an American defence contractor would acquire MES and challenge both British Aerospace and DASA
4.
Enfield Lock
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Enfield Lock is an area in the London Borough of Enfield, north London. It is approximately located east of the Hertford Road between Turkey Street and the Holmesdale Tunnel overpass, and extends to the River Lee Navigation, the locality gains its name from the lock on the River Lee Navigation. Todays Enfield Lock was rebuilt in 1922, the area forms part of the Lee Valley Park and the Enfield Lock Conservation Area. On its eastern boundary Enfield Lock has marshland formerly used as a site between the Royal Small Arms Factory and the Gunpowder Mills. To the south is Brimsdown, the north Waltham Cross and to the west Bullsmoor, Enfield Lock forms part of the London boundary. Enfield Lock is recorded thus in 1710, earlier as Norhtlok, The Locke, i. e. the lock or river barrier, from Middle English lok. The area was first developed from about 1812 when a rifle factory. The factory was built towards the end of the Napoleonic War on the instructions of the Board of Ordnance on marshland at Enfield Lock on the banks of both the River Lea and the River Lee Navigation. The RSAF was closed in the late 1980s, shortly after privatisation, the original machine shop frontage and the older part of the rear structure has been retained and was converted into workshops and retail units by the Enfield Enterprise Agency. Until the construction of the M25 in the 1980s, and the building of the A1055. Roads such as Ordnance Road, Salisbury Road and Medcalf Road are still populated by families who have lived in the Enfield Lock area for several generations. After rioting had spread from neighbouring Tottenham on 8 August 2011, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, was shown the destroyed distribution centre by chief police officers and firefighters on 12 August 2011. In September 2012, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, opened the rebuilt warehouse, the Enfield Lock ward, which also covers Enfield Island Village, is 54% white as of the 2011 census. 23% of the population is black, nick de Bois had previously beaten Joan Ryan, who had served as the Enfield North MP between 1997 and 2010. The path connects with the Lea Valley Walk above Enfield Lock at Ordnance Road, angling is allowed on the River Lee Navigation upstream and downstream of Enfield Lock. Information from the River Lea Anglers Club, national Cycle Route 1 follows the River Lea towpath to Gunpowder Park. Gunpowder Park, which lies to the east of Enfield Lock, is an open space consisting mostly of marshland. The land is owned and managed by the Lee Valley Regional Park and is open to the public
5.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
6.
British military rifles
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The origins of the modern British military rifle are within its predecessor the Brown Bess musket. While a musket was largely inaccurate over 80 yards, due to a lack of rifling, the use in volley or in mass firing by troops meant that rate of fire took precedence over accuracy. Early rifles were non-standard and frequently used adaptations from components of the Brown Bess and it was not until the late 19th century that the rifle fully supplanted the musket as the primary weapon of the infantryman. Civilian rifles had on occasions been used by marksmen during the English Civil War. In the 1750s, a few German rifles were used by British light infantry regiments in the French, in January 1776,1,000 rifles were ordered to be built for the British Army. A pattern by gunsmith William Grice, based on German rifles in use by the British Army, was approved for issue as the Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifle. The barrel is 30.5 inches with hook breech in.62 calibre, eight hundred were delivered through four Birmingham producers, William Grice, Mathias Barker, Galton & Sons and Bejamin Willets. Two hundred more were obtained from Hannover and this weapon was issued to the light company of each regiment in the British Army during the American Revolution, these were probably present at most battles in the conflict. Also in 1776, Major Patrick Ferguson patented his breech-loading Ferguson rifle, the Baker rifle was a muzzle-loading flintlock weapon used by the British Army in the Napoleonic Wars, notably by the 95th Rifles and the 5th Battalion, 60th Regiment of Foot. This rifle was a weapon for its day with reported kills being taken at 100 to 300 yards away. The rifle was in service in the British Army until the 1840s, the Mexican Army under Santa Anna used British Baker Rifles during the 1836 Texas-Mexican War. The Brunswick rifle was a.704 calibre muzzle-loading percussion rifle manufactured for the British Army at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield in the early 19th century. The weapon was introduced to replace the Baker rifle and weighed from over 9 and 10 pounds without its bayonet attached, depending on the pattern. The weapon was difficult to load but remained in production for about 50 years and was used in both the United Kingdom and assorted colonies and outposts throughout the world, the Brunswick had a two-groove barrel designed to accept a belted round ball. There are four variants of the British Brunswick Rifle. The first rifle produced in whole to a set pattern at Enfield was the Baker rifle, Brunswick rifles were also produced there, but prior to 1851, rifles were considered speciality weapons and served alongside the muskets which were issued to regular troops. Relatively few of these were produced since a new design was adopted two years. The rifle used the lock and bayonet mount from the Pattern 1842, the new Minie ammunition allowed much faster loading so that rifles were no longer slower to load than smoothbore muskets
7.
Musket
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A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore firearm, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry, a soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer. The musket replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle. By the end of the 17th century, a version of the musket had edged out the arquebus, and the addition of the bayonet edged out the pike. In the 18th century, improvements in ammunition and firing methods allowed rifling to be practical for use. In the 19th century, rifled muskets became common, combining the advantages of rifles, about the time of the introduction of cartridge, breechloading, and multiple rounds of ammunition just a few years later, muskets fell out of fashion. Musket calibers generally ranged from 0.50 to 0.90 in, rifled muskets of the mid-19th century, like the Springfield Model 1861, were significantly more accurate, with the ability to hit a man sized target at a distance of 500 yards or more. However, in the Italian War of 1859, French forces were able to defeat the longer range of Austrian rifle muskets by aggressive skirmishing and rapid bayonet assaults during close quarters combat. According to the Etymology Dictionary, firearms were often named after animals, and the word derived from the French word mousquette. An alternative theory is that derives from the 16th century French mousquet, -ette, from the Italian moscetto, -etta, the Italian moscetto is a diminutive of mosca, a fly. Hand cannons arrived in Europe from Asia sometime in the early 14th century and they were more commonly used by the early 15th century, particularly in the Hussite wars. It is possible that the noise was at least as important as the missile and these were very short ranged, inaccurate and difficult to load and fire. Hand cannons had a handle, or no handle at all. A wooden stock was added, allowing the weapon to be easily held. The hand cannon evolved into the arquebus by the mid 15th century, the matchlock mechanism was a simple solution to this problem, and placed the match in a clamp on the end of a lever. When a trigger was pulled, the lever would rotate and allowed the match to come in contact with the touch hole, the first European usage of firearms in large ratios was in Hungary under king Matthias Corvinus. Every third soldier in the Black Army of Hungary had an arquebus, gradual advances in the empirical understanding of the corning of gunpowder made possible a more powerful explosive. The cost of gunpowder also gradually fell, by the 16th century the handheld firearm became commonplace, replacing the crossbow and longbow in all advanced armies, and known as the arquebus
8.
Sword
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A sword is a long bladed weapon intended for slashing or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the epoch or the geographical region under consideration. A sword consists of a blade attached to a hilt. The blade can be straight or curved, thrusting swords have a pointed tip on the blade, and tend to be straighter, slashing swords have sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade, and are more likely to be curved. Many swords are designed for thrusting and slashing. Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger, the later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The word sword continues the Old English, sweord, the use of a sword is known as swordsmanship or as fencing. In the Early Modern period, western sword design diverged into two forms, the thrusting swords and the sabers. The thrusting swords such as the rapier and eventually the smallsword were designed to impale their targets quickly and their long and straight yet light and well balanced design made them highly maneuverable and deadly in a duel but fairly ineffective when used in a slashing or chopping motion. A well aimed lunge and thrust could end a fight in seconds with just the swords point, the saber and similar blades such as the cutlass were built more heavily and were more typically used in warfare. Built for slashing and chopping at multiple enemies, often from horseback, most sabers also had sharp points and double edged blades, making them capable of piercing soldier after soldier in a cavalry charge. Sabers continued to see use until the early 20th century. The US Navy kept tens of thousands of sturdy cutlasses in their armory well into World War II, non-European weapons called sword include single-edged weapons such as the Middle Eastern scimitar, the Chinese dao and the related Japanese katana. The Chinese jian is an example of a non-European double-edged sword, the first weapons that can be described as swords date to around 3300 BC. They have been found in Arslantepe, Turkey, are made from arsenical bronze, some of them are inlaid with silver. The sword developed from the dagger when the construction of longer blades became possible, from the late 3rd millennium BC in the Middle East, first in arsenic copper, then in tin-bronze. Blades longer than 60 cm were rare and not practical until the late Bronze Age because the strength of bronze is relatively low. These are the type A swords of the Aegean Bronze Age, one of the most important, and longest-lasting, types swords of the European Bronze Age was the Naue II type, also known as Griffzungenschwert
9.
Rifle
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A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called lands, which contact with the projectile. When the projectile leaves the barrel, this spin lends gyroscopic stability to the projectile and prevents tumbling and this allows the use of aerodynamically-efficient bullets and thus improves range and accuracy. The word rifle originally referred to the grooving, and a rifle was called a rifled gun, the word rifle is now used for any long hand-held aimed device activated by a trigger, such as Air rifles and the Personnel halting and stimulation response rifle. Rifles are used in warfare, hunting and shooting sports, formerly, rifles only fired a single projectile with each squeeze of the trigger. Modern rifles are capable of firing more than one round per trigger squeeze, some fire in an automatic mode. Thus, modern automatic rifles overlap to some extent in design, in fact, many light machine guns are adaptations of existing automatic rifle designs. A militarys light machine guns are chambered for the same caliber ammunition as its service rifles. Generally, the difference between a rifle and a machine gun comes down to weight, cooling system. Modern military rifles are fed by magazines, while machine guns are generally belt-fed, many machine guns allow the operator to quickly exchange barrels in order to prevent overheating, whereas rifles generally do not. Most machine guns fire from a bolt in order to reduce the danger of cook-off. Machine guns are often crewed by more than one soldier, the rifle is an individual weapon, the term rifle is sometimes used to describe larger crew-served rifled weapons firing explosive shells, for example, recoilless rifles. In many works of fiction a rifle refers to any weapon that has a stock and is shouldered before firing, the origins of rifling are difficult to trace, but some of the earliest practical experiments seem to have occurred in Europe during the 15th century. Archers had long realized that a twist added to the feathers of their arrows gave them greater accuracy. This might also have led to a increase in accuracy. Rifles were created as an improvement in the accuracy of smooth bore muskets, the black powder used in early muzzle-loading rifles quickly fouled the barrel, making loading slower and more difficult. Since musketeers could not afford to take the time to stop and clean their barrels in the middle of a battle, rifles were limited to use by sharpshooters, muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at relatively low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle
10.
London Borough of Enfield
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The London Borough of Enfield is a London borough in north London with some districts within the borough straddling north-east London, England. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest, the districts of Hertsmere, Welwyn Hatfield and Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, the local authority is Enfield Council. The feld would have been a reference to an area cleared of trees within woodland that would become known as Enfield Chase. Enfield Town used to be a market town in the county of Middlesex on the edge of the forest about a days walk north of London. As London grew, Enfield Town and its surrounds eventually became a residential suburb, the current borough was created in 1965 from the former areas of the Municipal Borough of Southgate, the Municipal Borough of Enfield and the Municipal Borough of Edmonton. The armorial bearings of three boroughs were also merged. The heraldic beast on the shield of the Enfield coat of arms is known in heraldry as an Enfield, in Roman times, Enfield was connected to Londinium by Ermine Street, the great Roman road which stretched all the way up to York. Artefacts found in the early 1900s reveal that there were Roman settlements in the areas that are now Edmonton, in 790 King Offa of Mercia was recorded as giving the lands of Edmonton to St Albans Abbey. The area became important as East Anglia was taken over by the Danes. In the 790s strongholds were built by men loyal to King Alfred the Great, after the Norman Conquest, both Enfield and Edmonton were mentioned in Domesday Book. Both had churches, and Enfield had 400 inhabitants, Edmonton 300, Enfield is also described as having a parc. This parc—a heavily forested area for hunting—was key to Enfields existence in the Middle Ages, wealthy Londoners came to Enfield first to hunt, and then to build houses in the green, wooded surroundings. In 1303, Edward I of England granted Enfield a charter to hold a weekly market, Enfield Grammar School with its Tudor Old Hall stands next to the Enfield Town Market Place and St. Andrews Church, the school having been extended several times since 1586. A new hall and further additions were completed shortly before World War II, nearby historically was the palace of Edward VI, where Elizabeth I lived while a princess, including during the final illness of Henry VIII. Later Elizabeth held court there when she was queen, Enfield has a history of armaments manufacture—see Royal Small Arms Factory. The Lee–Enfield.303 rifle was standard issue for the British Army until 1957, other firearms manufactured there include the Bren and Sten machine guns—the en in both cases denoting the place of manufacture. The worlds first solid state circuitry colour televisions were manufactured by Ferguson at their now closed plant in Enfield, the first dishwasher to be mass-produced was in Hotpoints now closed Enfield plant. This historical event was marked by a plaque on the wall of the bank
11.
Lewisham
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Lewisham is an area in south-east London, England, in the London Borough of Lewisham, centred 5.9 miles south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London, as a major centre, Lewisham had a population of 95,041 in 2011. It is an important transport hub for South London, and is one of the boroughs largest settlements, Lewisham has the largest Police Station in Europe which was moved to the Town Centre from Ladywell Road and rebuilt where the shopping centres department store once stood. There were plans to replace the department store to where the Riverdale Leisure Centre was based adjacent to Boots store when the Mayor was elected. It is most likely to have founded by a pagan Jute, Leof. A Latin legal record, dated 1440, mentions a place in Kent as Levesham which may refer to Lewisham and it is now written, as well in parochial and other records as in common usage, Lewisham. Leofshema was an important settlement at the confluence of the rivers Quaggy and Ravensbourne, King Alfred was Lord of the Manor of Lewisham, as is celebrated by a plaque in Lewisham Library. This grant is said to have been confirmed by King Edgar in 964, in the mid-17th century, the then vicar of Lewisham, Abraham Colfe, built a grammar school, a primary school and six almshouses for the inhabitants. In the 17th century the Manor of Lewisham was purchased by George Legge and his grandson George, Lord Dartmouth, obtained from King Charles II the privilege of holding a fair twice a year, and a market twice a week, upon Blackheath in the parish. The fair used to be held on 12 May and 11 October, the village of Lewisham had its nucleus in its southern part, around the parish church of St Mary, towards the present site of University Hospital Lewisham. The centre migrated north with the coming of the North Kent railway line to Dartford in 1849, the area of the parish is 5,789 acres. Lord of the manor, the Earl of Dartmouth to whom it gives the title Viscount, Lewisham was administratively part of Kent until 1889, and then formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Lewisham in the County of London until 1965. The town centre was hit by a V-1 flying bomb in 1944, there were over 300 casualties including 51 fatalities, and it devastated the high street and this horrific event is commemorated by a plaque outside the Lewisham Shopping Centre. The plaque was on the pavement outside the Marks and Spencers store in the shopping precinct. However, suffering wear and tear, the local authority arranged for it to be mounted to the façade, the area at the north end of the High Street was pedestrianised in 1994. It is home to a street market and a local landmark. The police station, opened in 2004 to replace the station in Ladywell, is officially the largest in Europe, Lewisham Cricket Club was one of the most prestigious London sides during the Victorian era. From 1864 they played at Lewisham Cricket Ground, which lay north of Ladywell Road, Lewisham Swimming Club was also very successful, with several of its members representing England at water polo and other gymkhana events
12.
Greenwich armour
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The armoury was formed from imported master armourers hired by Henry VIII, initially including some from Italy and Flanders, as well as the Germans who dominated during most of the 16th century. The most notable head armourer of the Greenwich workshop was Jacob Halder and this was the peak period of the armourys production and it coincided with the elaborately gilded and sometimes coloured decorated styles of late Tudor England. As the use of plate in actual combat had declined by the late 16th century. Even late in her reign, courtiers gained favour by participating and dressing the part, the workshop produced bespoke armour for the nobility, relatively mass-produced government orders for the military mainly went elsewhere. The book of Greenwich armour designs for 24 different gentlemen, known as the Jacob Album after its creator, therefore, the Greenwich workshop represented the last flourishing of decorative armour-making in England, and comprises a unique genre of late-Renaissance art in its own right. Greenwich Palace was still an important royal residence, the birthplace of both Henry and his two daughters, all were given damask livery clothes. In 1516 the workshop moved closer to London to a mill in Southwark, on completion of this in 1520 they returned to Greenwich. The lines of these armours were typically not much different from Northern German designs of the time period. A good example of this sort of Greenwich style is the harness which is thought to have belonged to Galiot de Genouillac, Constable of France. The armour, currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has a specially designed corset built into the cuirass to support the weight of the burly kings large stomach and this harness also has very wide sabatons in the Maximilian style. Very similar in design, but ungilded, is another tournament harness made for Henry VIII which now resides at the Tower of London, after the reign of Henry VIII, the Greenwich armour began to evolve into a different and unique style. There were several defining characteristics of this wave of armour. One was the mimicking of popular fashions of the time in the styles of the armour to reflect the individual wearers taste in civilian clothing, from 1560 cuirasses were designed to imitate the curving peascod style of doublet which was immensely popular among gentlemen during the reign of Elizabeth. This type of cuirass curved outwards in front at an angle which culminated at the groin. Some armours were provided with a pair of tassets for use at the barriers which were very wide. The extant armours of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, the armour of William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester is also similarly styled. Another defining characteristic of Elizabethan-era Greenwich armour is the extravagant use of colour in general to decorate the steel, the Greenwich style, however, came at a time when complicated decoration of the metal with colour, texture and embossed designs was fashionable across Europe. Greenwich did not produce the highly modelled figurative designs of some Continental centres, colour contrast became extremely important, as it was in civilian fashion
13.
Napoleonic War
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The wars resulted from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, which had raged on for years before concluding with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Napoleon became the First Consul of France in 1799, then Emperor five years later, inheriting the political and military struggles of the Revolution, he created a state with stable finances, a strong central bureaucracy, and a well-trained army. The British frequently financed the European coalitions intended to thwart French ambitions, by 1805, they had managed to convince the Austrians and the Russians to wage another war against France. At sea, the Royal Navy destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in October 1805, Prussian worries about increasing French power led to the formation of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July, although Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, it did not bring a lasting peace for Europe. Hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia, the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, the Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. Unwilling to bear the consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse and retreat of the Grand Army along with the destruction of Russian lands. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, a lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814 and he was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again, the Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The Congress of Vienna, which started in 1814 and concluded in 1815, established the new borders of Europe and laid out the terms, Napoleon seized power in 1799, creating a de facto military dictatorship. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition, Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleons assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, for its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers. The British quickly enforced a blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britains Continental allies to break the coalitions arrayed against him, the so-called Continental System formed a league of armed neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France
14.
Board of Ordnance
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The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London, the Board also maintained and directed the Artillery and Engineer corps, which it founded in the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the Board of Ordnance was second in only to HM Treasury among government departments. The Board lasted until 1855, at which point it was disbanded, the introduction of gunpowder to Europe led to innovations in offensive weapons, such as cannon, and defences, such as fortifications. From the 1320s a member of the Royal Household, the Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe in the Tower of London, became responsible for the procurement, storage. His office and main arsenal were located in the White Tower and this Privy Wardrobe in the Tower grew, both in size and significance, after the start of the Hundred Years War. In the following century, the influence of the Privy Wardrobe and its staff receded, a distinct Office of Ordnance began to establish itself at the Tower, staffed in the 1460s by a Master, a Clerk and a Yeoman. In the 1540s, under Henry VIII, the Ordnance Office was expanded, new officers were appointed and their principal duties clarified. In 1671, the Ordnance Office took over the work of the Office of Armoury at the Tower, at this time the Ordnance Office began to take on oversight of the nations forts and fortifications. In 1683, by now known as the Board of Ordnance. These detailed Instructions continued, with little change, to provide the working framework for the Board. From the mid-16th century onwards, the Board of Ordnance had six principal officers, merbury was present at the Siege of Harfleur and at the Battle of Agincourt. By 1450 Master of Ordnance was a permanent appointment, firmly based at the Tower of London, until 1544 the Master had generally managed the day-to-day activities of the Ordnance Office. Thereafter the Lieutenant had day-to-day oversight of the Boards activities, while Master had more the role of a statesman, from the seventeenth century through till 1828 the Master-General routinely had a seat in Cabinet, and thus served as de facto principal military adviser to the government. Some of the most illustrious soldiers of their generation served as Master-General, Marlborough, Cadogan, Cornwallis, Hastings, Wellington, from its earliest years, the Ordnance Office was staffed by a large number of Clerks to manage its substantial administrative functions. A number of officials reported to the board, including furbishers, proofmasters, keepers and fireworkers. Two appointments stand out, as they were appointed by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm, namely the Master Gunner of England and these were the senior technicians on the staff. The Treasurer of the Ordnance was another important officer of the department and this office was instituted in 1670, the post was consolidated with several others in 1836 to form that of Paymaster-General
15.
Marsh
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A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species. Marshes can often be found at the edges of lakes and streams and they are often dominated by grasses, rushes or reeds. If woody plants are present they tend to be low-growing shrubs, Marshes provide a habitat for many species of plants, animals, and insects that have adapted to living in flooded conditions. The plants must be able to survive in wet mud with low oxygen levels, many of these plants therefore have aerenchyma, channels within the stem that allow air to move from the leaves into the rooting zone. Marsh plants also tend to have rhizomes for underground storage and reproduction, familiar examples include cattails, sedges, papyrus and sawgrass. Aquatic animals, from fish to salamanders, are able to live with a low amount of oxygen in the water. Some can obtain oxygen from the air instead, while others can live indefinitely in conditions of low oxygen, Marshes provide habitats for many kinds of invertebrates, fish, amphibians, waterfowl and aquatic mammals. Marshes have extremely high levels of production, some of the highest in the world. Marshes also improve water quality by acting as a sink to filter pollutants, Marshes are able to absorb water during periods of heavy rainfall and slowly release it into waterways and therefore reduce the magnitude of flooding. The pH in marshes tends to be neutral to alkaline, as opposed to bogs, Marshes differ depending mainly on their location and salinity. Both of these factors influence the range and scope of animal and plant life that can survive. The three main types of marsh are salt marshes, freshwater marshes, and freshwater marshes. These three can be found worldwide and each contains a different set of organisms, saltwater marshes are found around the world in mid to high latitudes, wherever there are sections of protected coastline. They are located close enough to the shoreline that the motion of the tides affects them and they flourish where the rate of sediment buildup is greater than the rate at which the land level is sinking. Salt marshes are dominated by specially adapted rooted vegetation, primarily salt-tolerant grasses, salt marshes are most commonly found in lagoons, estuaries, and on the sheltered side of shingle or sandspit. The currents there carry the fine particles around to the side of the spit. These locations allow the marshes to absorb the nutrients from the water running through them before they reach the oceans. Coastal development and urban sprawl has caused significant loss of these essential habitats, although considered a freshwater marsh, this form of marsh is affected by the ocean tides
16.
River Lea
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It is one of the largest rivers in London and the easternmost major tributary of the Thames. Its valley creates a chain of marshy ground along its lower length, much of which has been used for gravel and mineral extraction, reservoirs. The river has been canalised to provide a route for boats into eastern Hertfordshire. While the lower Lea remains somewhat polluted, its stretch and tributaries. A diversion known as the New River, opened in 1613 and its origins in the Chilterns contribute to the extreme hardness of London tap water. The name of the River Lea was first recorded in the 9th century, spellings from the Anglo-Saxon period include Ligan in 880 and Lygan in 895, and in the early medieval period it is usually Luye or Leye. It seems to be derived from a Celtic root lug-meaning bright or light which is also the derivation of a name for a deity, a simpler derivation may well be the Brythonic word cognate with the modern Welsh Li pronounced Lea which means a flow or a current. The spelling Lea predominates west of Hertford, but both spellings are used from Hertford to the River Thames, the Lee Navigation was established by Acts of Parliament and only that spelling is used in this context. The Lee Valley Regional Park Authority also uses this spelling for leisure facilities, however, the spelling Lea is used for road names, locations and other infrastructure in the capital, such as Leamouth, Lea Bridge, the Lea Valley Walk and the Lea Valley Railway Lines. This spelling is used in geology, archaeology, etc. to refer to the Lea Valley. The divergent spellings of the river are also reflected in the place-names of Luton and Leyton, both mean farmstead on the River Lea. The source is said to be at Well Head inside Wauluds Bank at Leagrave, but there the River Lea is also fed by Houghton Brook. It forms the boundary between the counties of Middlesex and Essex, and was used for part of the Danelaw boundary. It also forms part of the boundary between Essex and Hertfordshire, for much of its distance the river runs within or as a boundary to the Lee Valley Park. Between Tottenham and Hackney the Lea feeds Tottenham Marshes, Walthamstow Marshes, in their early days, Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient played their matches as football amateurs on the Marshes. South of Hackney Wick the rivers course is split, running almost completely in man made channels flowing through an area that was once an industrial zone. Inside Greater London below Enfield Lock the river forms the boundary with the former Royal Small Arms Factory, now known as Enfield Island Village, just downstream the river is joined by the River Lee Flood Relief Channel. At Tottenham Hale there is a set of reservoirs, Lockwood Reservoir, High Maynard Reservoir, Low Maynard Reservoir, Walthamstow Reservoirs, East Warwick Reservoir
17.
Lee Navigation
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The Lee Navigation is a canalised river incorporating the River Lea. It runs from Hertford Castle Weir to the River Thames at Bow Creek, its first lock is Hertford Lock, the Lee Navigation is named by Acts of Parliament and is so marked on Ordnance Survey maps. Constructed elements and human features are spelled Lee, such as the canal system, the un-canalized river is spelled Lea, along with other natural features such as Lower Lea Valley. The River Lea is a tributary of the River Thames. It has an association with navigation, as the marshes of Walthamstow have produced a dugout canoe from the Bronze Age. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the river was used by Viking raiders, in more peaceful times, it became important for the transport of grain from Hertfordshire, but navigation of its southern-most tidal reaches of Bow Creek were difficult due to its tortuous meanders. The first Act of Parliament for improvement of the river was granted in 1425, by 1571, the river was an important route for the carriage of grain to London, and the City of London obtained another act to authorise improvements. This included making new cuts, and creating towpaths on both sides of the river, shoals were removed, and a cut, probably the section which is now called Bow River from Old Ford Locks to Bow Locks, was excavated, which was not subject to any tolls. The plan for a branch from the river to the north of London was not implemented, one innovation was the construction of a pound lock at Waltham Abbey, Essex, in 1577. This had mitred gates at each end, and was probably the second lock to be built in England and it inspired Vallens to write a poem entitled A tale of Two Swannes about it in 1590. It was 70 by 24 feet, with wooden sides, the remainder of the control of levels was carried out by staunches or turnpikes, consisting of a single vertically lifting gate in a weir, through which boats were pulled against the current. The New River was an attempt to clean water from near Ware to the citizens of London. However, the springs at Amwell soon proved to be inadequate, the increased extraction of water had a detrimental effect on milling and navigation, and by the early 1700s it had become clear that major work would be needed to produce a solution. A petition was presented to Parliament resulting in a further Act of 1739, while recognising the right of the New River Company to extract water, it also enshrined the rights of the millers and bargemen. The previous administration by commissioners was replaced by a body of trustees, in 1765, the trustees therefore asked John Smeaton to assess the navigation and make recommendations for its improvement. Smeaton made a survey of the river and produced a report in 1766, in which he recorded there were 18 staunches at the time, with a lock at Ware. He recommended that the staunches should be replaced by locks. However, the trustees were granted an Act on 29 June 1767, Yeoman was also responsible for setting out towing paths, designing 35 roving bridges, and construction of lock gates
18.
Essex
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Essex /ˈɛsᵻks/ is a county in England immediately north-east of London. It borders the counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, the county town is Chelmsford, which is the only city in the county. Essex occupies the part of the old Kingdom of Essex, before this. As well as areas, the county also includes London Stansted Airport, the new towns of Basildon and Harlow, Lakeside Shopping Centre, the port of Tilbury. Originally recorded in AD527, Essex occupied territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating all of what later became Middlesex and its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lea. In changes before the Norman conquest the East Saxons were subsumed into the Kingdom of England and, following the Norman conquest, Essex became a county. During the medieval period, much of the area was designated a Royal forest, including the county in a period to 1204. Gradually, the subject to forest law diminished, but at various times included the forests of Becontree, Chelmsford, Epping, Hatfield, Ongar. County-wide administration Essex County Council was formed in 1889, however County Boroughs of West Ham, Southend-on-Sea and East Ham formed part of the county but were unitary authorities. 12 boroughs and districts provide more localised services such as rubbish and recycling collections, leisure and planning, parish-level administration – changes A few Essex parishes have been transferred to other counties. Before 1889, small areas were transferred to Hertfordshire near Bishops Stortford, Essex became part of the East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part of the South East England region. Two unitary authorities In 1998 the boroughs of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock were granted autonomy from the county of Essex after successful requests to become unitary authorities. Essex Police covers the county and the two unitary authorities. The county council chamber and main headquarters is at the County Hall in Chelmsford, before 1938 the council regularly met in London near Moorgate, which with significant parts closer to that point and the dominance of railways had been more convenient than any place in the county. It currently has 75 elected councillors, before 1965, the number of councillors reached over 100. The highest point of the county of Essex is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, close to the Hertfordshire border, the pattern of settlement in the county is diverse. Epping Forest also acts as a barrier to the further spread of London. Part of the southeast of the county, already containing the population centres of Basildon, Southend and Thurrock, is within the Thames Gateway
19.
Waltham Abbey (town)
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Waltham Abbey is a suburban market town within the metropolitan area of London, England, the Greater London Urban Area and the Epping Forest District of Essex with a population of about 21,149. It is located 15 miles north east of central London and it is on the Greenwich Meridian, between the River Lea in the west and Epping Forest in the east. The town is situated north of the London Borough of Waltham Forest in East London and it is the resting place of King Harold Godwinson, who died in the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Henry VIII visited the town several times, including with his wife Anne Boleyn, Waltham Abbey takes its name from the Abbey Church of Waltham Holy Cross, a scheduled ancient monument that was prominent in the towns early history. The town is within the civil parish of Waltham Abbey which was known as Waltham Holy Cross until 1974. The parish has a council and is twinned with the German town of Hörstel. The name Waltham derives from weald or wald forest and ham homestead or enclosure, indeed, the former urban district was named Waltham Holy Cross, rather than Waltham Abbey. There are traces of prehistoric and Roman settlement in the town, ermine Street lies only 5 km west and the causeway across the River Lea from Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire may be a Roman construction. A local legend claims that Boudicas rebellion against the Romans ended in the neighbourhood and it is this cross that gave Waltham the earliest suffix to its name. After Tovis death around 1045, Waltham reverted to the King, Harold rebuilt Tovis church in stone around 1060, in gratitude it is said for his cure from a paralysis, through praying before the miraculous cross. Walthams people used the abbey as their church, and paid their tithes, worked the glebe as well any of their lords land. Legend has it that after his death at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, today, the spot is marked by a stone slab in the churchyard. In 1184, this was enlarged so that Waltham became an abbey with an abbot and twenty-four canons, to the abbeys west and south, the town grew as a linear development around a crossing road, although it had a single north-south High Street as late as 1848. The former, which existed from at least 1375, occupied the Lady Chapel in the part of the church. The Charnel Guild, which occurs as the Sepulchre in 1366, the towns dependence on the Abbey is signalled by its decline after the Abbey was dissolved and partially demolished in 1540, the last working abbey or monastery to be dissolved. Waltham Abbey vicarage is a 17th-century timber framed and plastered building and it was given by Edward Denny, 1st Earl of Norwich to create the first curacy, but was much altered in the 18th century and later, and was more recently architecturally Grade II*listed. In the early 19th century the church held three Sunday services, including one in the evening for the factory workers. In 1862, Holy Communion was celebrated monthly and attended by about 100, in the 17th century there were four churchwardens, one each for the town, Holyfield, Upshire, and Sewardstone
20.
Epping Forest District
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Epping Forest is a local government district in Essex, England. It is named after, and contains a part of. Epping Forest District also borders Hertfordshire both to the northeast and southwest of the district of Harlow. The south is more suburban and dominated by Loughton, the largest town in the district, most of the District has a wide range of architectural styles and periods. Loughton is beside Epping Forest to the west and separated by farms, rivers, the settlements here are close to, and in places are contiguous with, Londons conurbation. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chigwell Urban District, Epping Urban District and Waltham Holy Cross Urban District, along with most of Epping and Ongar Rural District. The district can be traced on maps by reference to the M25 motorway, from the junction the towns of Loughton and Buckhurst Hill are south-west, Chigwell is south, Waltham Abbey is west, Epping north-west, and Ongar north-east. Rail transport in the district is provided by the Central line of the London Underground, which is entirely above ground in the District, further National Rail stations are available at Harlow, and Sawbridgeworth, along the Districts boundary. Unlike the section of the Metropolitan line outside Greater London, where a special fare structure exists, until November 2006, services to Roding Valley, Chigwell and Grange Hill stopped at around 8pm but since then the service has run to around midnight. However, the service to stations is still not as frequent as to those wholly within Greater London or to those between Buckhurst Hill and Epping. The Central line used to have an extension from Epping to Ongar, with stations at North Weald. The line was reopened in 2004 as the Epping Ongar Railway. North Weald Airfield, a Battle of Britain airfield, is owned by the District Council, stapleford Aerodrome is another local airfield, and offers pleasure and charter flights. Eric Pickles - Brentwood and Ongar constituency, mostly covering the part of the district east of the River Roding, including the parish of Ongar and village of North Weald Bassett. Robert Halfon - Harlow constituency, which includes the villages of Roydon and Lower Nazeing to the west of Harlow, the district council is now based in Epping, roughly in the centre of the district. Its offices were located in Loughton. Since 2002, when the boundaries were reorganised resulting in the loss of one council seat. Each ward is represented by one, two or three Councillors, depending on the population, so that each Councillor represents a roughly equal proportion of the districts electorate
21.
John By
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By was born in Lambeth, Surrey, the second of three sons of George By, of the London Customs House, and Mary Bryan. By studied at the Royal Military Academy and he entered Officer Training in the army when he was 18 years old. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery on 1 August 1799, in 1802 he was posted to Canada for the first time, where he worked on the fortification of Quebec City and on improving the navigability of the Saint Lawrence River. During the Napoleonic wars he returned to Europe, where he served in Spain under the Duke of Wellington from 1811 until 1815, the resulting settlement, called Bytown in his honour, was later renamed after the river. The canal was completed in six years, and was acclaimed as an engineering triumph, the huge cost overruns, however, became a political scandal for the Board of Ordnance. Colonel By was recalled to London to face accusations that he had made a number of unauthorised expenditures, the charges were spurious and a parliamentary committee exonerated him. By petitioned Wellington and other leaders to review his case. He died in 1836, and is buried in the village of Frant in Sussex, by was married three times, first to Elizabeth Baines in 1801, who died in 1814. He remarried in 1818 to Esther March with whom he had two daughters, Harriet Martha By and Esther By Ashburnham, by was survived by 2 brothers, The family is buried at St Albans Church in Frant. George By – died in 1840 without children Henry By – b. approx, during the construction of the Rideau Canal, Barracks Hill was the site of the military barracks and military hospital. A historical plaque located on the grounds of Colonel By Secondary School states, Colonel John By was born and educated in England and first came to Canada in 1802. As a member of the Royal Engineers, he worked on the first small locks on the St. Lawrence River as well as the fortifications of Quebec and this formidable task included the building of about 50 dams and 47 locks, without the aid of modern equipment. Colonel Bys attributes of courage, determination, and diligence inspire us to emulate him, a plaque erected by the Province of Ontario sits in the stairwell of Lambeth Town Hall, in Brixton, London, England, commemorating Bys Lambeth origins. Media related to John By at Wikimedia Commons Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online Biography from the Dictionary of National Biography
22.
John Rennie the Elder
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John Rennie FRSE FRS was a Scottish civil engineer who designed many bridges, canals, and docks. His older brother George remained to assist in the agricultural business. He seems to have employed his vacations in working as a millwright, at this early date the originality of his mind was exhibited by the introduction of cast iron pinions instead of wooden trundles. In 1784 he took a journey south for the purpose of enlarging his knowledge, visiting James Watt at Soho, the machinery was all designed by Rennie, a distinguishing feature being the use of iron instead of wood for the shafting and framing. About 1791 he started in business as an engineer on his own account in Holland Street, Blackfriars, whence he. In 1791, he moved to London and set up his own engineering business, having by then begun to expand into civil engineering, the Kennet and Avon Canal including the Dundas Aqueduct, Caen Hill Locks and Crofton Pumping Station occupied him between 1794 and 1810. In 1802 he revised the plans for the Royal Canal of Ireland from Dublin to the Shannon near Longford, for many years he was engaged in extensive drainage operations in the Lincolnshire and Norfolk fens, and in the improvement of the River Witham. The Eau Brink Cut, a new channel for the River Ouse, was completed just before his death and his later efforts in this line also show that he was a skilful architect, endowed with a keen sense of beauty of design. Waterloo Bridge was considered his masterpiece and was the most prestigious bridge project in England, the Italian sculptor Canova called it ‘the noblest bridge in the world’ and said that ‘it is worth going to England solely to see Rennie’s bridge. Southwark Bridge was built as three cast-iron spans over the river and he also designed the Old Vauxhall Bridge. He devoted much time to the preparation of plans for a government dockyard at Northfleet, Rennies last project was London Bridge, still under construction when he died in 1821 but completed by his son, also John Rennie. Dunleary harbour of Asylum was a difficult and important project. Rennie was responsible for the construction of Howth Harbour on the North side of Dublin bay a decade earlier and this was originally planned as the landing for the Holyhead packets, but it silted up to such an extent that it became unfit for purpose. An Act of Parliament of 1816 authorised the building of Dunleary harbour and he was correct as the sand has built up behind the west pier. The harbour once built was renamed The Royal Harbour of Kingstown in 1821 on the occasion of the visit of George IV, the material for the harbour is Dalkey Hill granite. The granite was provided by Richard Toucher at no cost to the construction team, the foundations of the piers are 300-0 wide and 24-0 below low water level. Many options were considered for the width of the space between the two pier heads, Rennie wrote to the Harbour Commissioners that the opening should be 430-0 wide with the pier heads turned into the harbour to control swells within the harbour. His demands were never met and the opening was built at 1
23.
Leat
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A leat is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, leat is cognate with let in the sense of allow to pass through, other names for the same thing include fleam. In parts of northern England, for example around Sheffield, the equivalent word is goit, in southern England, a leat used to supply water for water-meadow irrigation is often called a carrier, top carrier, or main. Leats generally start some distance above the mill or other destination, a weir often serves to provide a reservoir of water adequate for diversion. The leat then runs along the edge or side of the valley, the gradient determines the flow rate together with the quality of the wetted surface of the leat. The flow rate may be calculated using the Manning formula, leats are used to increase the yield of a reservoir by trapping streams in nearby catchments by means of a contour leat. This captures part or all of the flow and transports it along the contour to the reservoir. Such leats are common around reservoirs in the uplands of Wales, leats were built to work lead, tin and silver ores in mining areas of Wales, Cornwall, Devon, the Pennines and the Leadhills/Wanlockhead area of Southern Scotland from the 17th century onwards. They were used to water for hushing mineral deposits, washing ore. Leats were also used extensively by the Romans, and can still be seen at many sites and they used the aqueducts to prospect for ores by sluicing away the overburden of soil to reveal the bedrock in a method known as hushing. They could then attack the ore veins by fire-setting, quench with water from a tank above the workings, and remove the debris with waves of water, the water supply could then be used for washing the ore after crushing by simple machines also driven by water. The Romans also used them for supplying water to the bath-houses or thermae, drakes Leat, constructed in 1591 under the management of Sir Francis Drake, as an agent of the Corporation of Plymouth, to carry water from Dartmoor to Plymouth. Devonport Leat constructed in the late 18th century to carry water to the naval dockyard at Devonport. Many leats on Dartmoor, mostly constructed to power for mining activities. The courses of many Dartmoor leats may still be followed, many leats used for tin mining are marked on the 1⁄50000 and 1⁄25000 Ordnance Survey maps, such as that serving the now-defunct Vitifer mine near the Warren House Inn. Acequia Aqueduct Flume Roman aqueduct Roman engineering Roman mining
24.
Water wheel
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A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface. Most commonly, the wheel is mounted vertically on a horizontal axle, vertical wheels can transmit power either through the axle or via a ring gear and typically drive belts or gears, horizontal wheels usually directly drive their load. Water wheels were still in use well into the 20th century. Uses included milling flour in gristmills, grinding wood into pulp for papermaking, hammering wrought iron, machining, some water wheels are fed by water from a mill pond, which is formed when a flowing stream is dammed. A channel for the water flowing to or from a wheel is called a mill race. The race bringing water from the pond to the water wheel is a headrace. In the mid to late 18th century John Smeatons scientific investigation of the water led to significant increases in efficiency supplying much needed power for the Industrial Revolution. Water wheels began being displaced by the smaller, less expensive and more efficient turbine, developed by Benoît Fourneyron, turbines are capable of handling high heads, or elevations, that exceed the capability of practical-sized waterwheels. The main difficulty of water wheels is their dependence on flowing water, modern hydroelectric dams can be viewed as the descendants of the water wheel, as they too take advantage of the movement of water downhill. The two main functions of water wheels were historically water-lifting for irrigation purposes and as a power source, when used for water-lifting power can be supplied by either human or animal force or by the water current itself. Water wheels come in two designs, either a vertical or a horizontal axle. The latter type can be subdivided, depending on where the hits the wheel. Engineers of the Hellenistic era Mediterranean region are credited with the development of the water wheel, Mediterranean engineers of the Hellenistic and Roman periods were also the first to use it for both irrigation and as a power source. The technological breakthrough occurred in the advanced and scientifically minded Hellenistic period between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. This is seen as an evolution of the paddle-driven water-lifting wheels that had appeared in ancient Egypt by the 4th century BCE. According to John Peter Oleson, both the wheel and the hydraulic Noria appeared in Egypt by the 4th century BCE. This is supported by finds at Faiyum, where the oldest archeological evidence of a water-wheel has been found
25.
Gun barrel
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A gun barrel is a part of firearms and artillery pieces. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, a gun barrel must be able to hold in the expanding gas produced by the propellants to ensure that optimum muzzle velocity is attained by the projectile as it is being pushed out by the expanding gas. Modern small arms barrels are made of known and tested to withstand the pressures involved. Artillery pieces are made by various techniques providing reliably sufficient strength, early firearms were muzzle-loading, with powder, and then shot loaded from the muzzle, capable of only a low rate of fire. During the 19th century effective mechanical locks were invented that sealed a breech-loading weapon against the escape of propellant gases, the early Chinese, the inventors of gunpowder, used bamboo, a naturally tubular stalk, as the first barrels in gunpowder projectile weapons. Early European guns were made of iron, usually with several strengthening bands of the metal wrapped around circular wrought iron rings. The Chinese were the first to master cast-iron cannon barrels, early cannon barrels were very thick for their caliber. Bore evacuator Bore snake Cannon Muzzle Polygonal rifling Rifling Slug barrel Smoothbore
26.
Crimean War
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The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, the French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. While the churches eventually worked out their differences and came to an agreement, Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas issued an ultimatum that the Orthodox subjects of the Empire be placed under his protection. Britain attempted to mediate and arranged a compromise that Nicholas agreed to, when the Ottomans demanded changes, Nicholas refused and prepared for war. Having obtained promises of support from France and Britain, the Ottomans declared war on Russia in October 1853. The war started in the Balkans, when Russian troops occupied the Danubian Principalities, until then under Ottoman suzerainty and now part of modern Romania, led by Omar Pasha, the Ottomans fought a strong defensive campaign and stopped the advance at Silistra. A separate action on the town of Kars in eastern Anatolia led to a siege. Fearing an Ottoman collapse, France and Britain rushed forces to Gallipoli and they then moved north to Varna in June, arriving just in time for the Russians to abandon Silistra. Aside from a skirmish at Köstence, there was little for the allies to do. Karl Marx quipped that there they are, the French doing nothing, after extended preparations, the forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and fought their way to a point south of Sevastopol after a series of successful battles. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, a second counterattack, ordered personally by Nicholas, was defeated by Omar Pasha. The front settled into a siege and led to conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller actions were carried out in the Baltic, the Caucasus, Sevastopol fell after eleven months, and neutral countries began to join the Allied cause. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion from the west if the war continued and this was welcomed by France and Britain, as their subjects were beginning to turn against their governments as the war dragged on. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, Russia was forbidden from hosting warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent, Christians there were granted a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute. The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to use technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways
27.
Machine shop
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A machine shop is a room, building, or company where machining is done. In a machine shop, machinists use machine tools and cutting tools to make parts, a machine shop can be a small business or a portion of a factory, whether a toolroom or a production area for manufacturing. The parts produced can be the end product of the factory, to be sold to customers in the industry, the car industry. In other cases, companies in those fields have their own machine shops, the production can consist of cutting, shaping, drilling, finishing, and other processes. The machine tools typically include metal lathes, milling machines, machining centers, multitasking machines, drill presses, or grinding machines, other processes, such as heat treating, electroplating, or painting of the parts before or after machining, are often done in a separate facility. A machine shop can contain some raw materials and an inventory of finished parts and these items are often stored in a warehouse. A machine shop can be an intensive business, because the purchase of equipment can require large investments. It no longer requires masses of workers, although the jobs that remain tend to require high talent, training and experience in a machine shop can both be scarce and valuable. The first machine started to appear in the 19th century when the Industrial Revolution was already long underway. Before the industrial parts and tools were produced in workshops in local villages and cities on small scale often for a local market. The first machinery that made possible the Industrial Revolution were also developed in similar workshops, the production machines in the first factories were built on site, where every part was still individually made to fit. After some times those factories started their own workshops, where parts of the machinery was repaired or modified. In those days textiles were the dominant industry, and these started to further develop their own machine tools. The rise of machine shops and their manufacturing and organizational problems triggered the early job shop management pioneers. One of the earliest publications in this field was Horace Lucian Arnold and this work stretched out from production technology, production methods and factory lay out to time studies, production planning, and machine shop management. A series of publications on these topic would follow, in 1899 Joshua Rose published the book Modern machine-shop practice, about the operation, construction, and principles of shop machinery, steam engines, and electrical machinery. Taylor had started his workmanship as a laborer at Midvale Steel Works in 1878, and worked his way up to machine shop foreman, research director. As independent consulting engineer one of his first major assignments was in 1898 at Bethlehem Steel was to solve an expensive machine-shop capacity problem, in 1906 Oscar E. Perrigo published the popular book Modern machine shop, construction the equipment and management of machines shops
28.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
29.
Mass production
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Mass production, flow production or continuous production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch production, it is one of the three main production methods, the term mass production was popularized by a 1926 article in the Encyclopedia Britannica supplement that was written based on correspondence with Ford Motor Company. The New York Times used the term in the title of an article that appeared before publication of the Britannica article, the concepts of mass production are applied to various kinds of products, from fluids and particulates handled in bulk to discrete solid parts to assemblies of such parts. Mass production is a field, but it can generally be contrasted with craft production or distributed manufacturing. Mass production of fluid matter typically involves pipes with centrifugal pumps or screw conveyors to transfer raw materials or partially complete products between vessels, materials on pallets are handled with forklifts. Also used for handling heavy items like reels of paper, steel or machinery are electric overhead cranes, sometimes called bridge cranes because they span large factory bays. Mass production is intensive and energy intensive, as it uses a high proportion of machinery. It is also usually automated while total expenditure per unit of product is decreased, however, the machinery that is needed to set up a mass production line is so expensive that there must be some assurance that the product is to be successful to attain profits. One of the descriptions of mass production is that the skill is built into the tool, for example, in the 19th or early 20th century, this could be expressed as the craftsmanship is in the workbench itself. Later, once computerized control came about, jigs were obviated and this is the specialized capital required for mass production, each workbench and set of tools is different. Crossbows made with bronze parts were produced in China during the Warring States period, the Qin Emperor unified China at least in part by equipping large armies with these weapons, which were equipped with a sophisticated trigger mechanism made of interchangeable parts. Ships of war were produced on a scale at a moderate cost by the Carthaginians in their excellent harbors. The Venetians themselves also produced ships using prefabricated parts and assembly lines many centuries later, the Venetian Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day, in what was effectively the worlds first factory which, at its height, employed 16,000 people. Mass production in the industry has been commonplace since the Gutenberg Bible was published using a printing press in the mid-15th century. In the Industrial Revolution simple mass production techniques were used at the Portsmouth Block Mills in England to make ships pulley blocks for the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars. It was achieved in 1803 by Marc Isambard Brunel in cooperation with Henry Maudslay under the management of Sir Samuel Bentham, the Navy was in a state of expansion that required 100,000 pulley blocks to be manufactured a year. Bentham had already achieved remarkable efficiency at the docks by introducing power-driven machinery, by 1805, the dockyard had been fully updated with the revolutionary, purpose-built machinery at a time when products were still built individually with different components. A total of 45 machines were required to perform 22 processes on the blocks, the machines were almost entirely made of metal thus improving their accuracy and durability
30.
Steam engine
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A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. Steam engines are combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be used. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle, in the cycle, water is heated and transforms into steam within a boiler operating at a high pressure. When expanded through pistons or turbines, mechanical work is done, the reduced-pressure steam is then exhausted to the atmosphere, or condensed and pumped back into the boiler. Specialized devices such as hammers and steam pile drivers are dependent on the steam pressure supplied from a separate boiler. The use of boiling water to mechanical motion goes back over 2000 years. The Spanish inventor Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont obtained the first patent for an engine in 1606. In 1698 Thomas Savery patented a steam pump that used steam in direct contact with the water being pumped, Saverys steam pump used condensing steam to create a vacuum and draw water into a chamber, and then applied pressurized steam to further pump the water. Thomas Newcomens atmospheric engine was the first commercial steam engine using a piston. In 1781 James Watt patented an engine that produced continuous rotary motion. Watts ten-horsepower engines enabled a range of manufacturing machinery to be powered. The engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained, by 1883, engines that could provide 10,000 hp had become feasible. The stationary steam engine was a key component of the Industrial Revolution, the aeolipile described by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD is considered to be the first recorded steam engine. Torque was produced by steam jets exiting the turbine, in the Spanish Empire, the great inventor Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont obtained a patent for the first steam engine in history in 1603. Thomas Savery, in 1698, patented the first practical, atmospheric pressure and it had no piston or moving parts, only taps. It was an engine, a kind of thermic syphon, in which steam was admitted to an empty container. The vacuum thus created was used to water from the sump at the bottom of the mine
31.
Royal Engineers
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The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers, and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. It is highly regarded throughout the military, and especially the Army and it provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is headed by the Chief Royal Engineer. The Regimental Headquarters and the Royal School of Military Engineering are in Chatham in Kent, the corps is divided into several regiments, barracked at various places in the United Kingdom and around the world. In Woolwich in 1716, the Board formed the Royal Regiment of Artillery and established a Corps of Engineers, the manual work was done by the Artificer Companies, made up of contracted civilian artisans and labourers. In 1782, a Soldier Artificer Company was established for service in Gibraltar, ten years later the Gibraltar company, which had remained separate, was absorbed and in 1812 the name was changed to the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners. The Corps has no battle honours, in 1832, the regimental motto, Ubique Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt, was granted. The motto signified that the Corps had seen action in all the conflicts of the British Army. In 1911 the Corps formed its Air Battalion, the first flying unit of the British Armed Forces, the Air Battalion was the forerunner of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force. In 1915, in response to German mining of British trenches under the then static siege conditions of the First World War, before the Second World War, Royal Engineers recruits were required to be at least 5 feet 4 inches tall. They initially enlisted for six years with the colours and a six years with the reserve or four years. Unlike most corps and regiments, in which the age limit was 25. They trained at the Royal Engineers Depot in Chatham or the RE Mounted Depot at Aldershot, the Royal Engineers Museum is in Gillingham in Kent. Britain having acquired an Empire, it fell to the Royal Engineers to conduct some of the most significant civil engineering schemes around the world, some examples of great works of the era of empire can be found in A. J. Smitherss book Honourable Conquests. The Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, commanded by Richard Clement Moody, was responsible for the foundation, the Royal Albert Hall is one of the UKs most treasured and distinctive buildings, recognisable the world over. Since its opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the leading artists from every kind of performance genre have appeared on its stage. The Hall was designed by Captain Francis Fowke and Major-General Henry Y. D. Scott of the Royal Engineers, the designers were heavily influenced by ancient amphitheatres, but had also been exposed to the ideas of Gottfried Semper while he was working at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Much of the British colonial era infrastructure of India, of which survive today, was created by engineers of the three presidencies armies and the Royal Engineers. In 1838 he designed and built sea defences for Vizagapatam and he masterminded the Godavery Delta project where 720,000 acres of land were irrigated and 500 miles of land to the port of Cocanada was made navigable in the 1840s
32.
Sparkbrook
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Sparkbrook is an inner-city area in south-east Birmingham, England. It is one of the four wards forming the Hall Green formal district within Birmingham City Council, the area receives its name from Spark Brook, a small stream which flowed south of the city centre. It was later channelled and partially used for a canal, Sparkbrook ward is represented by three Labour councillors on Birmingham City Council, Mohammed Azim, Tony Kennedy and Victoria Quinn. Its former independent councillor, the late Talib Hussain, was elected as a Liberal Democrat, Sparkbrook Ward has adopted a Ward Support Officer with the current holder of the title being Becky Jones. Project Champion is a project to install a £3m network of 169 Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras to monitor vehicles entering and leaving Sparkbrook, West Midlands Police were forced into making a humiliating apology. Chief Constable Simms said, I am sorry that we got such an important issue so wrong, many of the churches within Sparkbrook were constructed in the late 19th century and early 20th century. One of the most prominent churches in the area is St Agathas Church on the Stratford Road and it is a Grade I listed building. Christ Church, on the corner of Grantham Road and Dolobran Road, was one of the oldest churches in the area, the spire belonging to the tower was removed in 1918, and following a bomb blast in World War II, the entire tower was demolished. In 1927, The Diocesan Home for Girls received a licence permitting public worship within the building, following damage caused by the Birmingham Tornado 28 July 2005 the whole church was demolished. Consecrated in the year as St Agathas Church, Emmanuel Church, was a chapel of ease to Christ Church until it received its own parish in 1928. Located within the church is an ancient blank bell from Ullenhall, Ladypool Road mission hall was opened in 1894 by the Sparkbrook Gospel Mission. In 1849, a called the Methodist New Connexion, opened a chapel in the area. Lloyd House is a Georgian building situated on Sampson Road and it was built between 1742 and 1752 by Sampson Lloyd, the founder of Lloyds Bank. The building is used as offices by the Bromford Corinthia Housing Association, in 1780, Sparkbrook was the home of Joseph Priestley, one of the founding fathers of modern chemistry. In 1791, his mansion was destroyed in what became known as the Priestley Riots. It stood on what is now Priestley Road, only Ladywood has a higher rate of unemployment in the West Midlands. The 2001 Census recorded that 31,485 people were living in the ward, Sparkbrook is also the location of Birminghams Balti Triangle, and many of the residents have their own balti businesses. Roy Hattersley, Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook in the County of West Midlands, farm, Bordesley Ladypool Primary School Sparkbrook and Small Heath UB40 Birmingham City Council, Sparkbrook Ward Sparkbrook Community Network Sparkbrook Tornado July 2005
33.
Birmingham Small Arms
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This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited or BSA Company or its successors. At its peak, BSA was the largest motorcycle producer in the world, in the late 1950s and early 1960s poor management and failure to develop new products in the motorcycle division led to a dramatic decline of sales to its major USA market. The management had failed to appreciate the importance of the resurgent Japanese motorcycle industry, the original company, The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited, remains a subsidiary of Manganese Bronze but its name was changed in 1987. BSA began in June 1861 in the Gun Quarter, Birmingham, England and it was formed by a group of fourteen gunsmith members of the Birmingham Small Arms Trade Association. The War Office provided this new grouping of gunsmiths free access to technical drawings, the newly formed company purchased 25 acres of land at Small Heath, Birmingham, built a factory there and made a road on the site calling it Armoury Road. This machinery brought to Birmingham manifested the principle of the inter-changeability of parts, BSAs resort to the use of machinery was rewarded in 1863 with an order for 20,000 Turkish infantry rifles. F. Swinburn under the chairmanship of John Dent Goodman, the first War Office contract was not agreed until 1868. In 1879, the factory, without work, was shut for a year, the military arms trade was precarious. The next year BSA branched out into bicycle manufacture, the gun factory proved remarkably adaptable to the manufacture of cycle parts. What cycles needed was large quantities of standard parts accurately machined at low prices, bicycle production ceased in 1887 as the company concentrated on producing the Lee–Metford magazine-loading rifle for the War Office which was re-equipping the British Army with it. The order was for 1,200 rifles per week, BSA recommenced manufacturing bicycles on their own behalf from 1908. BSA Cycles Ltd was set up in 1919 for the manufacture of bicycles and motorcycles. BSA sold the business to Raleigh in 1957 after separating the bicycle and motorcycle business in 1953. In 1893, BSA commenced making bicycle hubs and continued to supply the cycle trade with bicycle parts up to 1936, BSA bought The Eadie Manufacturing Company of Redditch in 1907 and so began to manufacture the Eadie two speed hub gear and the Eadie coaster brake hub. BSA also signed an agreement with the Three Speed Gear Syndicate in 1907 to manufacture a 3 speed hub under licence. This was later classified as the Sturmey Archer Type X. BSA introduced a Duo hub in the late 1930s which was capable of one fixed gear, all BSA hub gear production temporarily ceased in 1939, until they recommenced making their 3 speed hub around 1945. The Eadie coaster hub made a return in 1953 on two BSA bicycle models. BSA forever ceased production of their hub gears in 1955, BSA sold its ammunition business in 1897 to Birmingham Metal and Munitions Company Limited part of the Nobel-Dynamite Trust, through Kynoch a forerunner of ICI
34.
James Paris Lee
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James Paris Lee was a British, Canadian and later American inventor and arms designer, best known for inventing the Lee–Metford and Lee–Enfield series of rifles. Born in Hawick, Scotland Lee emigrated with his family to Galt and he built his first gun at the age of 12, using an old horse-pistol barrel, a newly carved walnut stock, and a priming pan made from a halfpenny. The gun failed to function effectively when first fired, but started Lees interest in gunsmithing, in 1858, James Lee and his wife Caroline Lee moved to Wisconsin in the USA, where they had two sons- William and George. The Lee Civil War carbine was manufactured in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,200 were delivered but due to a bore diameter error, these were rejected by the army and the weapon did not see use in the Civil War. These guns are rare and highly collectible, perhaps Lees greatest individual impact on modern small arms development came with his invention for a spring-loaded column-feed magazine system for centerfire cartridge rifles. The main advance of the Lee magazine was that it carried its cartridges in two columns, rather than the column which was typical of the time. This allowed twice the ammunition to be carried without making the magazine any deeper, when fitted with a charger bridge, the Lee magazine could be quickly reloaded with either single cartridges, like a tubular-feed magazine, or with a charger holding five rounds. The charger system avoided all this, allowing ammunition to be carried in units of five and rapidly loaded like an en bloc clip, but also allowing it to be easily used without the clips. Although the charger clip was invented in by Paul Mauser in 1889, for the Mauser M1889, it was adapted to the new Lee-Metford. The Lee magazine was perfectly compatible with the device, unlike tube-magazine guns. The Lee magazine differed in holding the ammunition in two columns, rather than a single stack, allowing for ten rounds to be carried in a magazine that was no deeper than that of the M1889. The rest of the time you can use it as a rifle with a five-round reserve. This is one reason why the UK never adopted 10 round chargers to go with the 10 round magazines. It also allowed the rifle to be used as a single shot weapon during long range fire, with the full magazine set aside for when the enemy closed. Although no Lee rifle ever carried more than ten rounds, the served as the basis for what later became the universal standard for military rifles. In combat, the detachable magazine theoretically allowed a soldier to carry loaded magazines, thus speeding reloading time, at the time Lees magazine was introduced, rifle magazines were expensive to fabricate and could not be regarded as expendable items. With the exception of handguns, it wasnt until rifles with magazine capacities of 20 rounds or greater were invented that detachable magazines were used to carry ammunition in. Lees detachable column-feed magazine system eventually became the pre-eminent design after WW2, in 1891, Lee sued von Mannlicher, claiming that the latters design infringed upon his en bloc magazine patent but lost the case
35.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
36.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
37.
Public limited company
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A public limited company is a type of public company under the United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a liability company whose shares may be freely sold and traded to the public, with a minimum share capital of £50,000. Similar companies in the United States are called publicly traded companies, public limited companies will also have a separate legal identity. A PLC can be either an unlisted or listed company on the stock exchanges, in the United Kingdom, a public limited company usually must include the words public limited company or the abbreviation PLC or plc at the end and as part of the legal company name. Welsh companies may choose to end their names with ccc. However, some public limited companies incorporated under special legislation are exempted from bearing any of the identifying suffixes. The term public limited company and the PLC/plc suffix were introduced in 1981, prior to this, all limited companies bore the suffix Limited, which is still used by private limited companies. When a new company incorporates in England and Wales or in Scotland, it must register with Companies House, Formation of a public limited company requires a minimum of one director and one secretary. In England and Wales and in Scotland, the male/female is under 16 years old, some people who are not British citizens are restricted as to what work they may do while in the UK, which may exclude them from being a director. The members must agree to some, or all, of the shares when the company is registered. The memorandum of association must show the names of the people who have agreed to take shares and these people are called the subscribers. There is a share capital for public limited companies, Before it can start business. A quarter of them, £12,500, must be paid up, each allotted share must be paid up to at least one quarter of its nominal value together with the whole of any premium. A company can increase its share capital by passing an ordinary resolution. A copy of the resolution – and notice of the increase on Form 123 – must reach Companies House within 15 days of being passed, no fee is payable to Companies House. A company can decrease its authorised share capital by passing a resolution to cancel shares which have not been taken or agreed to be taken by any person. Notice of the cancellation, on Form 122, must reach Companies House within one month, no fee is payable to Companies House. A company may have as different types of shares as it wishes
38.
British Aerospace
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British Aerospace plc was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, in 1999 it purchased Marconi Electronic Systems, the defence electronics and naval shipbuilding subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, to form BAE Systems. The company was formed in the United Kingdom as a corporation on 29 April 1977 as a result of the Aircraft. This called for the nationalisation and merger of the British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics, in 1979 BAe officially joined Airbus, the UK having previously withdrawn support for the consortium in April 1969. On 4 February 1981 the government sold 51. 57% of its shares, the British government sold its remaining shares in 1985, maintaining a £1 golden share which allows it veto foreign control of the board or company. On 26 September 1985, the UK and Saudi Arabian governments signed the Al-Yamamah arms deal with BAe as prime contractor, the Al Yamamah deals are valued at anything up to £20 billion and still continue to provide a large percentage of BAE Systems profits. In 1986, With Alenia Aeronautica, CASA and DASA, BAe formed Eurofighter GmbH for the development of the Eurofighter Typhoon, on 22 April 1987, BAe acquired Royal Ordnance, the British armaments manufacturer, for £190 million. Heckler & Koch GmbH was folded into this division when BAe acquired it in 1991, in 1988, BAe purchased the Rover Group which then was privatised by the British government of Margaret Thatcher. In August 1991, BAe formed a naval systems joint venture, BAeSEMA, BAe acquired Semas 50% share in 1998. 1991 also saw BAe begin to experience major difficulties, BAe saw its share price fall below 100p for the first time. On 9 September 1991, the company issued a profits warning, Evans described the troubles as a confluence of events, our property company was hit with a lousy market. Sales of the Rover Group sank by about a fifth and losses mounted, the governments defence spending volumes underwent a major review. Losses in our commercial aerospace division increased dramatically with the recession in the airline industry, in 1992, BAe formed Avro RJ Regional Jets to produce the Avro RJ series, an evolution of the BAe 146. In mid-1992 BAe wrote off £1 billion of assets, largely as part of redundancies and this was largest asset write-off in UK corporate history. The General Electric Company, later to sell its interests to BAe. BAe cut 47% of its workforce,40,000 of which were from the aircraft division. Evans decided to sell non-core business activities which included The Rover Group, Arlington Securities, BAe Corporate Jets, BAe Communications and Ballast Nedam. Although the rationale of diversification was sound the company could not afford to continue the position
39.
Gun Quarter
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It is an industrial area to the north of the city centre, bounded by Steelhouse Lane, Shadwell Street and Loveday Street. The first recorded gun maker in Birmingham was in 1630, by the 1690s Birmingham artisans were supplying guns for William III to equip the British Army. The importance of the trade to the town grew throughout the 18th century. The 19th century saw expansion, with the Quarter meeting the demand for the Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, American Civil War. During both the First and Second World Wars the area played a role in the manufacture of small arms for the British Armed Forces. In the 1960s, a part of the Gun Quarter was demolished by post-war town planners. During the early to mid-17th century Birminghams population numbered several thousand. Sir Richard Newdigate, one of the new, local Newdigate Baronets and it was stressed that they would need to be of high enough calibre to equal the small arms that were imported from abroad. After a successful trial order in 1692, the Government placed its first contract, at the start of the 18th century, gun manufacture was concentrated in the Digbeth area, but fifty years later the trade had moved to the present-day Gun Quarter. A commemorative plaque in the Gun Quarter claims that around this time Birmingham was the foremost arms producer in the world, by the end of the 18th century the Gun Quarter had become a thriving gun-manufacturing community. Government viewing rooms were opened in Bagot Street in 1798, employing sixty or seventy people to ensure that guns produced were of the standard to provide for the British army. Military use, however, was accompanied by a market in the Atlantic slave trade. A1788 Parliamentary report counted over 4,000 gun makers, the British Government began to rely heavily upon the skilled gun manufacturers of the town. The Napoleonic Wars required special efforts, and between 1804 and 1817 a total of 1,827,889 muskets, rifles, carbines, Birmingham Proof House was built in 1813, then one of only two such proof houses in England, the other being in London. The building was managed by a consortium of the towns gun traders, the number of firms in Birminghams gun industry was 125 in 1815,455 in 1829, and by 1868 there were 578 gun firms in the city. The trade employed 2,867 people in 1851, out of a total of 7,731 in the whole of England and Wales. In the late 19th century, Showells Dictionary of Birmingham listed more than fifty specialist trades involved in gun manufacture, the Crimean War brought much business to the gun makers of Birmingham, and from 1854 to 1864 more than 4,000,000 barrels were proved there. Most military gun stocks were made from walnut, whereas for the cheaper African market common beech was used
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Birmingham Small Arms Company
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This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited or BSA Company or its successors. At its peak, BSA was the largest motorcycle producer in the world, in the late 1950s and early 1960s poor management and failure to develop new products in the motorcycle division led to a dramatic decline of sales to its major USA market. The management had failed to appreciate the importance of the resurgent Japanese motorcycle industry, the original company, The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited, remains a subsidiary of Manganese Bronze but its name was changed in 1987. BSA began in June 1861 in the Gun Quarter, Birmingham, England and it was formed by a group of fourteen gunsmith members of the Birmingham Small Arms Trade Association. The War Office provided this new grouping of gunsmiths free access to technical drawings, the newly formed company purchased 25 acres of land at Small Heath, Birmingham, built a factory there and made a road on the site calling it Armoury Road. This machinery brought to Birmingham manifested the principle of the inter-changeability of parts, BSAs resort to the use of machinery was rewarded in 1863 with an order for 20,000 Turkish infantry rifles. F. Swinburn under the chairmanship of John Dent Goodman, the first War Office contract was not agreed until 1868. In 1879, the factory, without work, was shut for a year, the military arms trade was precarious. The next year BSA branched out into bicycle manufacture, the gun factory proved remarkably adaptable to the manufacture of cycle parts. What cycles needed was large quantities of standard parts accurately machined at low prices, bicycle production ceased in 1887 as the company concentrated on producing the Lee–Metford magazine-loading rifle for the War Office which was re-equipping the British Army with it. The order was for 1,200 rifles per week, BSA recommenced manufacturing bicycles on their own behalf from 1908. BSA Cycles Ltd was set up in 1919 for the manufacture of bicycles and motorcycles. BSA sold the business to Raleigh in 1957 after separating the bicycle and motorcycle business in 1953. In 1893, BSA commenced making bicycle hubs and continued to supply the cycle trade with bicycle parts up to 1936, BSA bought The Eadie Manufacturing Company of Redditch in 1907 and so began to manufacture the Eadie two speed hub gear and the Eadie coaster brake hub. BSA also signed an agreement with the Three Speed Gear Syndicate in 1907 to manufacture a 3 speed hub under licence. This was later classified as the Sturmey Archer Type X. BSA introduced a Duo hub in the late 1930s which was capable of one fixed gear, all BSA hub gear production temporarily ceased in 1939, until they recommenced making their 3 speed hub around 1945. The Eadie coaster hub made a return in 1953 on two BSA bicycle models. BSA forever ceased production of their hub gears in 1955, BSA sold its ammunition business in 1897 to Birmingham Metal and Munitions Company Limited part of the Nobel-Dynamite Trust, through Kynoch a forerunner of ICI
