1.
Order of Merit
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The Order of Merit is an order of merit recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. While all members are awarded the right to use the post-nominal letters OM and a medallion for life, however, Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, advised against the new order, primarily because of its selection process. From its inception, the order has been open to women, Florence Nightingale being the first woman to receive the honour, several individuals have refused admission into the Order of Merit, such as Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman, and George Bernard Shaw. To date, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, remains the youngest person inducted into the Order of Merit, having been admitted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1968. All citizens of the Commonwealth realms are eligible for appointment to the Order of Merit, since 1991, it has been required that the insignia be returned upon the recipients death. However, it has been claimed by Stanley Martin, in his book The Order of Merit 1902–2002, One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour, that the Order of Merit is the pinnacle of the British honours system. Some orders of precedence are as follows, Martin, Stanley, The Order of Merit, One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour, New York City, I. B
2.
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
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Her Majestys Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises senior politicians, who are present or former members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, the Council also holds the delegated authority to issue Orders of Council, mostly used to regulate certain public institutions. The Council advises the sovereign on the issuing of Royal Charters, which are used to grant special status to incorporated bodies, otherwise, the Privy Councils powers have now been largely replaced by the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The Judicial Committee consists of judges appointed as Privy Counsellors, predominantly Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Privy Council of the United Kingdom was preceded by the Privy Council of Scotland, the key events in the formation of the modern Privy Council are given below, Witenagemot was an early equivalent to the Privy Council of England. During the reigns of the Norman monarchs, the English Crown was advised by a court or curia regis. The body originally concerned itself with advising the sovereign on legislation, administration, later, different bodies assuming distinct functions evolved from the court. The courts of law took over the business of dispensing justice, nevertheless, the Council retained the power to hear legal disputes, either in the first instance or on appeal. Furthermore, laws made by the sovereign on the advice of the Council, powerful sovereigns often used the body to circumvent the Courts and Parliament. During Henry VIIIs reign, the sovereign, on the advice of the Council, was allowed to enact laws by mere proclamation, the legislative pre-eminence of Parliament was not restored until after Henry VIIIs death. Though the royal Council retained legislative and judicial responsibilities, it became an administrative body. The Council consisted of forty members in 1553, but the sovereign relied on a smaller committee, by the end of the English Civil War, the monarchy, House of Lords, and Privy Council had been abolished. The remaining parliamentary chamber, the House of Commons, instituted a Council of State to execute laws, the forty-one members of the Council were elected by the House of Commons, the body was headed by Oliver Cromwell, de facto military dictator of the nation. In 1653, however, Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the Council was reduced to thirteen and twenty-one members, all elected by the Commons. In 1657, the Commons granted Cromwell even greater powers, some of which were reminiscent of those enjoyed by monarchs, the Council became known as the Protectors Privy Council, its members were appointed by the Lord Protector, subject to Parliaments approval. In 1659, shortly before the restoration of the monarchy, the Protectors Council was abolished, Charles II restored the Royal Privy Council, but he, like previous Stuart monarchs, chose to rely on a small group of advisers. Under George I even more power transferred to this committee and it now began to meet in the absence of the sovereign, communicating its decisions to him after the fact. Thus, the British Privy Council, as a whole, ceased to be a body of important confidential advisers to the sovereign and it is closely related to the word private, and derives from the French word privé
3.
W. & D. Downey
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W. & D. Downey were Victorian studio photographers operating in London from the 1860s to the 1910s. William Downey, who came to be known as the Queens Photographer, was born in King Street in South Shields, a decade before commercial photography had become a reality. William, initially, was a carpenter and boatbuilder, but in about 1855 he set up a studio in South Shields with his brother Daniel and later established branches in Blyth, Morpeth and Newcastle. Their first Royal commission was to provide photographs for Queen Victoria of the Hartley Colliery Disaster in January 1862, in 1863 they opened a studio on Eldon Square in Newcastle. The same year William set up a studio in the Houses of Parliament, the resulting images location is unknown to this day. William moved to 57 &61 Ebury Street in London in 1872 and opened another studio, the London studio enjoyed the patronage of Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, taking photos at Balmoral and Frogmore during the 1860s. Its first Royal image was of the Princess of Wales at the York Agricultural Show in about 1865, the studio also produced the iconic carte-de-visite portrait of the Princess of Wales piggybacking Princess Louise. The studio received a Royal Warrant in 1879, Downey used Joseph Swans carbon process for their best work. In the 1880s Mawson, Swan & Morgan of Newcastle, was the worlds largest manufacturer of dry plates. George Eastman spent some time there during the eighties and afterwards invented the Box Brownie and roll film, William Downeys son, William Edward Downey, managed most of the royal sittings during the Edwardian era. Gladys Cooper, a photographic model of the time, reminisces about the Downeys in her autobiography, I can remember the Downeys quite well – they were father. Old Downey was a tall old man with a long white beard. It was considered an honour to be photographed by Old Downey himself. He never took anyone lower than one of the Princesses, or perhaps a duchess now and then, if he felt in the mood. His staff treated him rather like Royalty itself, and, when he rode abroad in his carriage, they would stand round with rugs, cushions, young Downey was a big man – or so he seemed to me then – with a bald head. He was an artist in his work, and used to say that he knew the best side of anybodys face after one good look at them. He certainly made some fine photographs of the beauties of his time. I used to enjoy my visits to the Downey père et fils, William senior was married to Lucy, who had been born in Speenhamland, Berkshire in 1843, and they had one son and one daughter
4.
President of the Board of Trade
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The President of the Board of Trade is head of the Board of Trade. The current holder is Liam Fox who is also the Secretary of State for International Trade, charles II established a Council of Trade on 7 November 1660 followed by a Council of Foreign Plantations on 1 December that year. The two were united on 16 September 1672 as the Board of Trade and Plantations, after the Board was re-established in 1696, there were 15 members of the Board - the 7 Great Officers of State, and 8 unofficial members, who did the majority of the work. The senior unofficial member of the board was the President of the Board, the board was abolished on 11 July 1782, but a Committee of the Privy Council was established on 5 March 1784 for the same purposes. On 23 August 1786 a new Committee was set up, more focused on commercial functions than the previous boards of trade. At first the President of the Board of Trade only occasionally sat in the Cabinet, but from the early 19th century it was usually a cabinet-level position
5.
George V
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George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. He was the son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. From the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession behind his father and his own brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, on the death of his grandmother in 1901, Georges father became King-Emperor of the British Empire, and George was created Prince of Wales. He succeeded his father in 1910 and he was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own Delhi Durbar. His reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, the Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, in 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations. He had health problems throughout much of his reign and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son. George was born on 3 June 1865, in Marlborough House and he was the second son of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Albert Edward and Alexandra. His father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and he was baptised at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Longley. As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was expectation that George would become king. He was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother, George was only 17 months younger than Albert Victor, and the two princes were educated together. John Neale Dalton was appointed as their tutor in 1871, neither Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually. For three years from 1879, the brothers served on HMS Bacchante, accompanied by Dalton. They toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, and visited Norfolk, Virginia, as well as South America, the Mediterranean, Egypt, Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante. Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman, after Lausanne, the brothers were separated, Albert Victor attended Trinity College, Cambridge, while George continued in the Royal Navy. He travelled the world, visiting many areas of the British Empire, during his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters then HMS Thrush on the North America station, before his last active service in command of HMS Melampus in 1891–92. From then on, his rank was largely honorary
6.
Ramsay MacDonald
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Historians credit MacDonald, along with Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson, as one of the three principal founders of the Labour Party. His speeches, pamphlets and books him an important theoretician. He entered Parliament in 1906 and was the Chairman of the Labour MPs from 1911 to 1914 and he was widely denounced for his opposition to the First World War, and he lost his seat in 1918. The antiwar mood of the 1920s led to his rehabilitation in the 1920s and he returned to Parliament in 1922, the first Labour government—formed with Liberal support—in 1924 lasted only nine months but demonstrated that the Labour Party was sufficiently competent to run a government. In 1931, MacDonald formed a National Government in which two of his Labour colleagues agreed to serve. His majority came from the Conservatives and he abandoned the gold standard and called a general election in 1931 seeking a doctors mandate to do whatever was necessary to fix the economy. MacDonalds National coalition won a landslide and the Labour Party was reduced to a rump of around 50 seats in the House of Commons. Nevertheless budget pressures, and a strong popular pacifist sentiment, forced a reduction in the military and his health rapidly deteriorated and he became increasingly ineffective as a leader. He stood down as Prime Minister in 1935, losing his seat at the election that autumn. He remained in the Cabinet as Lord President of the Council until retiring from the government in 1937 and dying, still an MP, later that year. Since 1931 MacDonald has been denounced by Labour supporters as a traitor to their cause. Since the late 1970s historians have defended his reputation, emphasising his role in building up the Labour Party. MacDonald was born at Gregory Place, Lossiemouth, Morayshire, Scotland, the son of John MacDonald, a farm labourer, and Anne Ramsay. Although registered at birth as James McDonald Ramsay, he was known as Jaimie MacDonald and his mother had worked as a domestic servant at Claydale farm, near Alves, where her future husband was also employed. Ramsay MacDonald received an education at the Free Church of Scotland school in Lossiemouth from 1872 to 1875. He left school at the end of the term in 1881, at the age of 15. In December 1881 he was appointed as a teacher at Drainie parish school. In 1885 he left to take up a position as an assistant to Mordaunt Crofton and it was in Bristol that Ramsay MacDonald joined the Democratic Federation, a Radical sect
7.
Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton
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His paternal grandfather Yarburgh Gamaliel Lloyd, later Lloyd-Greame had inherited Sewerby House by the will of his maternal uncle Yarburgh Greame, later Yarburgh. He attended Winchester College and University College, Oxford, where he studied law, Philip became an Honorary Fellow of his college and was admitted to the Inner Temple. He was enlisted in 1914 following the start of World War I, was mentioned in despatches, while serving on the western front he was awarded the Military Cross in 1916, while serving as Brigade Major to the 124th Brigade of 41st Division. During the war Sir Philip spent time with Churchill at his advanced HQ Lawrence Farm and they later worked together in the Baldwin ministries of the 1920s when Sir Philip served as a minister of state. In 1917 he was appointed joint secretary to the Minister of National Service and he was noticed by Lloyd George who recruited the young veteran to be Chairman of the Labour sub-committee of the war cabinet in Downing Street. After the war he decided to stand as a Conservative candidate in the Coupon election and he agreed to join the Coalition slate and was elected for Hendon. He would hold this seat until his elevation to the House of Lords in 1935 and he achieved his first ministerial post as Additional Under-Secretary Foreign Affairs in 1920 and took charge of the Overseas Trade Department in 1921 as Additional Parliamentary Secretary. In 1922 he became a Privy Counsellor and was appointed President of the Board of Trade, in 1923, Law was forced to resign due to failing health and there was discussion as to whether he would be succeeded by Stanley Baldwin or Lord Curzon. On 27 November 1924 Lloyd-Greame changed his surname to Cunliffe-Lister so as to be able to inherit property from his wifes family, raised to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1929. The National Government won an election victory in the 1931 general election but was internally divided on the question of protective tariffs. When MacDonald retired as Prime Minister and was succeed by Stanley Baldwin a Cabinet reshuffle took place in which Cunliffe-Lister became Secretary of State for Air. As Swinton was now in the House of Lords his hands were free to be Chairman of the UK Commercial Corporation responsible for boosting entreprise, so Chamberlain appointed the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Lord Winterton to speak for the Air Ministry in the Commons. This arrangement did not prove successful and in May 1938 there was a debate on air. Swinton was dismissed, his career seemingly over. During 1944 he served on the Executive Committee and on the Steering Committee at the Convention on International Civil Aviation done in Chicago, when Winston Churchill formed his peacetime government in 1951 he appointed Swinton as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for War Materials a year. As Deputy Leader of the House of Lords Lord Swinton was also Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations for three years, when in 1955 Churchill retired, Swinton insisted on retiring too, and he was further ennobled as the Earl of Swinton. Towards the end of his life, Swinton was an Honorary Fellow of University College, Lord Swinton married Mary Constance Molly Boynton on 5 September 1912. She was the granddaughter of industrialist Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Baron Masham who had bought the castle in 1882, in 1924, Philip and Molly Lloyd-Greame took the name of Cunliffe-Lister and moved to Swinton Park
8.
Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
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When initially created, the office was held in tandem with that of Secretary of State for the Colonies, this arrangement persisted until June 1930. On two subsequent occasions the offices were held by the same person. The Secretary was supported by an Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, in 1947, the name of the office was changed to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. The Viscount Addison took up the new post of Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations on 7 July 1947
9.
Leo Amery
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Leopold Amery was born in Gorakhpur, India, to an English father and a Hungarian Jewish mother. His father was Charles Frederick Amery, of Lustleigh, Devon and his mother Elisabeth Johanna Saphir, who was the sister of the orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, had come to India from England, where her parents had settled and converted to Protestantism. In 1877, his mother moved back to England from India, in 1887, Amery went to Harrow School, where he was a contemporary of Winston Churchill. Amery represented Harrow at gymnastics and held the top position in examinations for a number of years, he won prizes. After Harrow, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he performed well and he gained a First in classical moderations in 1894, in literae humaniores in 1896 and was proxime accessit to the Craven scholar in 1894 and Ouseley scholar in Turkish in 1896. He also won a half-blue in cross-country running and he was elected a fellow of All Souls College. Undoubtedly intelligent, he could speak Hindi at 3, Amery was born in India and he could converse in French, German, Italian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Serbian and Hungarian. During the Second Boer War Amery was a correspondent for The Times, in 1901, in his articles on the conduct of the war, he attacked the British commander, Sir Redvers Henry Buller, which contributed to Bullers sacking. Amery was the correspondent to visit Boer forces and was nearly captured with Churchill. Amery later edited and largely wrote The Times History of the South African War, the Boer War had exposed deficiencies in the British Army and in 1903, Amery wrote The Problem of the Army and advocated its reorganisation. In The Times he penned articles attacking free trade using the pseudonym Tariff Reformer and in 1906 and he was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers, set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Amery turned down the chance to be editor of The Observer in 1908 and he narrowly failed to win the Wolverhampton East by-election held in 1908 by eight votes. In the Birmingham South by-election of 1911 he was unopposed as a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament, according to AJP Taylor, Amery was a rare Conservative to promote only protectionism as merely the beginning of a planned economy. During World War I, Amerys knowledge of Hungarian led to his employment as an Intelligence Officer in the Balkans campaign, later, as a parliamentary under-secretary in Lloyd Georges national government, he helped draft the Balfour Declaration,1917. He also encouraged Zeev Jabotinsky in the formation of the Jewish Legion for the British Army in Palestine. Amery was opposed to the constitution of the League of Nations because he believed that the world was not equal and so the League and he instead believed that the world was tending towards larger and larger states that made up a balanced world of inherently stable units. He contrasted that idea with what he called US President Woodrow Wilsons facile slogan of self-determination and he was First Lord of the Admiralty under Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin. Amery defended the financing of the Singapore Naval Base against both Liberal and Labour attacks, Amery was Colonial Secretary in Baldwins government from 1924 to 1929
10.
J. H. Thomas
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James Henry Thomas, sometimes known as Jimmy Thomas, was a British trade unionist and Labour politician. He was involved in a scandal involving budget leaks. Thomas was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, the son of an unmarried mother. He was raised by his grandmother and began work at twelve years of age and he became an official of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and in 1913 helped to organise its merger with two smaller trade unions on the railways to form the National Union of Railwaymen. Thomas was elected NUR general secretary in 1916, a post he held until 1931, Thomas was general secretary during the successful national rail strike of 1919 that was jointly called by the NUR and ASLEF against proposed wage reductions. In 1921 Thomas played a role in the Black Friday crisis, in which rail and transport unions failed to come to the aid of the mineworkers. Before the 1926 General Strike the TUC asked Thomas to negotiate with Stanley Baldwins Conservative Government, but the talks were unsuccessful, Thomas began his political career as a Labour Party local councillor for Swindon. He was elected to Parliament in 1910 as the Member of Parliament for Derby and he was appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies in the incoming Labour government of 1924 under Ramsay MacDonald. In the second Labour government of 1929 Thomas was made Lord Privy Seal with special responsibility for employment and he became Secretary of State for the Dominions in 1930 and retained that position in Ramsay MacDonalds National Government. As a result of joining the National Government he was expelled from the Labour Party, for the first few months of the National Government in 1931 he also served as Colonial Secretary once more. One of the problems he had to cope with was the Australian cricket bodyline affair, Thomas served as Secretary of State for the Colonies once more from 1935 until May 1936, when he was forced to resign from politics. It was revealed that he had been entertained by stock exchange speculators and had dropped heavy hints as to tax changes planned in the budget, for example, while playing golf, he shouted Tee up. Which was taken as a suggestion that the duties on tea were to rise, Thomas was made a Freeman of Newport in 1924. In May 2011 a casket given to him to celebrate the occasion was purchased at auction for Newport Museum, despite his humble origins he had a reputation for mixing well with all levels of society. Thomas was known as a natty dresser, and was caricatured by the cartoonist David Low as Lord Dress Suit, after leaving parliament, Thomas served as company chairman of the British Amalgamated Transport Ltd. He died in London, aged seventy-four, in 1949, after cremation at Golders Green Crematorium, his ashes were buried at Swindon. His son Leslie Thomas became a Conservative Member of Parliament, Thomas is mentioned in Have His Carcase, a 1932 detective novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. Thomas custom of wearing a suit is cited as an apparent certainty that could fail unlike the Second Law of Thermodynamics
11.
Secretary of State for the Colonies
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The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdoms various colonial dependencies. The position was first created in 1768 to deal with the increasingly troublesome North American colonies, joint responsibility continued under the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but led to a diminution of the boards status and it became an adjunct to the new Secretarys Department. Following this, colonial duties given to the Home Secretary, then Lord Sydney, following the Treaty of Paris 1783, a new board, named the Committee of Council on Trade and Plantations was established under William Pitt the Younger, by an Order in Council in 1784. In the latter part of the century the United Kingdom also gained control over a number of territories with the status of protectorate. The ministerial responsibility for these territories was initially held by the Foreign Secretary, however, by the early years of the twentieth century the responsibility for each of these territories had been transferred to the Colonial Secretary as well. The League of Nations mandated territories acquired as a result of the Treaty of Versailles became a responsibility of the Colonial Office in the aftermath of the First World War. In 1925 part of the Colonial Office was separated out as the Dominions Office, the new office was responsible for dealing with the Dominions together with a small number of other territories. In the twenty years following the end of the Second World War, in 1968 the Commonwealth Office was subsumed into the Foreign Office, which was renamed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Colonial Secretary never had responsibility for the provinces and princely states of India, from 1768 until 1966 the Secretary of State was supported by an Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and latterly by a Minister of State
12.
Liphook
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Liphook is a large village in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 4.1 miles west of Haslemere, bypassed by the A3 road, Liphook has a railway station, on the Portsmouth Direct Line. The village grew as a stop between London and Portsmouth during the 17th and 18th centuries. It served as a base during the First World War and the Second World War for Canadian troops stationed in Southern England, the village grew out of the hamlet of Bramshott which was established by Norman times. The first record of Liphook is in the Bramshott Manor Court Rolls to one Robert of Lupe in 1281, then follows Matilda of Lhupe in 1337, William at Lupe in 1365, John at Lepe in 1386, and John Maunser at Leope in 1423. On his death in 1428, John Maunsers tenancy at Lepe between modern London Road and Headley Road is the first identifiable landmark in Liphook, sir Edmund Pakynham inherited a tenement and land in Lepoke in 1527, and John Hooke bought the manor of Chiltle in Lippuck in 1591. John Speeds map of 1610 shows it as Lippocke and it seems some people escaped from the manors of Bramshott, Chiltlee and Ludshott to Liphook, an area above the marshes around the River Wey, to evade taxes of their local Lords. Liphook grew further as a stop on the London - Portsmouth route. In Tudor times mail was sent from London to Portsmouth via Southampton, the map of 1675 by John Ogilby shows this road bypassing Bramshott and going through Lippock, however the quality of this road was very poor. Originally travellers needs were catered for by stalls, eventually replaced by the houses that exist around The Square. Growth accelerated with wagons being replaced by coaches, and coaching in Liphook was firmly established by 1660, the Royal Anchor itself has a fireback dated 1588 which supports the supposition that there was an earlier building on the site. In the 17th century the Royal Navy considered the road from Petersfield to Portsmouth impassable for heavy goods in winter, improvements were made in the 18th century to roads and coaches along with the coming of the turnpike. Turnpiking between Petersfield and Portsmouth began in 1710 and between Kingston and Petersfield via Liphook in 1749, the Old Toll House by Radford Bridge in Liphook dates from the 18th century. Highwaymen were a problem in the 18th century as notices in the Royal Anchor show, by 1784 London-Portsmouth coaches carried mail through Liphook. Turnpiking reduced the journey from London-Portsmouth from two days in the 1660s to 10 hours in 1819, carys New Itinerary of 1819 records seven coaches on weekdays left London for Portsmouth via Liphook and three during the night. Local tradition has it that Nelson spent his last night in England in Liphook before sailing for the Battle of Trafalgar, george III and Queen Charlotte on their stay gave permission for the Blue Anchor to be renamed the Royal Anchor. The London and South Western Railway came to Liphook in 1859, the Portsmouth Direct Line was built after the 1840s railway mania. Originally the LSWR route from London to Portsmouth was via a branch from Southampton to Gosport and this lasted until the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway extended their London-Brighton line to Portchester
13.
Labour Party (UK)
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The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Labour later served in the coalition from 1940 to 1945. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan. The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a majority of 179. Having won 232 seats in the 2015 general election, the party is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the party also organises in Northern Ireland, but does not contest elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Labour Party is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party, the first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates, Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardies roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and it had no single leader, and in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 Khaki election came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively, only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful, Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, the judgement effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. In their first meeting after the election the groups Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name The Labour Party formally, the Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement, the Peoples History Museum in Manchester holds the minutes of the first Labour Party meeting in 1906 and has them on display in the Main Galleries. Also within the museum is the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, the governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation
14.
Beatrice Webb
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Martha Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, FBA, was an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer. It was Webb who coined the collective bargaining. She was among the founders of the London School of Economics and her paternal grandfather was Liberal Party MP Richard Potter, co-founder of the Little Circle which was key in creating the Reform Act 1832. From an early age Beatrice was self-taught and cited as important influences the cooperative movement, after her mothers death in 1882 she acted as a hostess and companion for her father. In 1882, she began a relationship with twice-widowed Radical politician Joseph Chamberlain and he would not accept her need for independence as a woman and after four years of storm and stress their relationship failed. Marriage in 1892 to Sidney Webb established a partnership of shared causes. At the beginning of 1901 Beatrice wrote that she and Sidney were still on our honeymoon and every year makes our relationship more tender, Beatrice Webb left unfinished a planned autobiography, under the general title My Creed and My Craft. At her death, aged 85, the only work she had published was My Apprenticeship. The posthumously issued Our Partnership covered the first two decades of her marriage to Sidney Webb between 1892 and 1911 and their collaboration on a variety of public issues, one of Beatrices older sisters, Catherine, became a well-known social worker. After Catherine married Leonard Courtney, Beatrice took over her work as a voluntary rent-collector in the dwellings at Katharine Buildings, Wapping. These experiences stimulated a critical attitude to current ideas of philanthropy, in 1890 Beatrice Potter was introduced to Sidney Webb, whose help she sought with her research. They married in 1892, and until her death 51 years later shared political and professional activities. When her father died in January 1892, leaving Potter an endowment of £1,000 pounds a year, she had an income for life with which to support herself. The Webbs became active members of the Fabian Society, with the Fabians support, Beatrice Webb co-authored books and pamphlets on socialism and the co-operative movement including The History of Trade Unionism and Industrial Democracy. In 1895, the Fabians used part of a legacy of £10,000 from Henry Hutchinson. Beatrice Webb made a number of important contributions to the political, in her 1891 book The Cooperative Movement in Great Britain, based on her experiences in Lancashire, she distinguished between co-operative federalism and co-operative individualism. She identified herself as a co-operative federalist, a school of thought which advocates consumer co-operative societies and she argued that consumers co-operatives should be set up co-operative wholesale societies and that these federal co-operatives should then acquire farms or factories. Examples of successful worker cooperatives did of course exist, then as now, in some professions they were the norm
15.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
16.
Birkbeck, University of London
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Birkbeck, University of London, is a public research university located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is regarded as one of the leading universities for excellence in research. Birkbecks historic and main building is based in the Bloomsbury zone of Camden, in Central London, in partnership with University of East London, Birkbeck has an additional large campus in Stratford, next to the Theatre Royal. Birkbeck offers over 200 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time and its staff members have optimal research reputation. Birkbecks academic activities are organised into five constituent faculties which are subdivided into nineteen departments and it also offers many continuing education courses leading to certificates and diplomas, foundation degrees, and short courses. Research at Birkbeck in 11 subject areas is rated as ‘internationally excellent’, Birkbeck, being part of the University of London, shares the University’s academic standards and awards University of London degrees. In common with the other University of London colleges, Birkbeck has also secured its own independent degree awarding powers, the quality of degrees awarded by Birkbeck was confirmed by the UK Quality Assurance Agency following institutional audits in 2005 and 2010. Birkbeck has been acknowledged as a ‘global elite‘ university and it is often shortlisted by the Times Higher Education Awards as University of the Year, the university was awarded The Queen’s Anniversary Prize for excellence in higher education research in 2006. Birkbeck has produced notable alumni in the fields of science, law, politics, economics, literature, media, art. Alumni include four Nobel laureates, numerous political leaders, members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, however the idea was not universally popular and some accused Birkbeck of scattering the seeds of evil. Two years later, the moved to the Southampton Buildings on Chancery Lane. In 1830, the first female students were admitted, in 1858, changes to the University of Londons structure resulting in an opening up of access to the examinations for its degree. The Institute became the provider of part-time university education. The early twentieth century saw further developments, with Birkbeck Students Union being established in 1904, in 1913, a review of the University of London successfully recommended that Birkbeck become a constituent college, although the outbreak of the First World War delayed this until 1920. The Royal Charter for the college was granted in 1926, the colleges first female professor, Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan began teaching botany in 1921. Among the other distinguished faculty in the years were Nikolaus Pevsner, J. D. Bernal. During the Second World War, Birkbeck was the only central University of London college not to out of the capital. In 1941, the library suffered a hit during The Blitz
17.
King's College London
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Kings College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, and a founding constituent college of the federal University of London. Kings was established in 1829 by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington, in 1836, Kings became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London. It is a member of organisations such as the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association. Kings has five campuses, its main campus on the Strand in central London. In 2015/16, Kings had an income of £738.4 million, of which £193.2 million was from research grants and contracts and as of 2014/15. It has the fifth largest endowment of any university in the United Kingdom, and its academic activities are organised into nine faculties which are subdivided into numerous departments, centres and research divisions. Kings is home to six Medical Research Council centres and is a member of the Kings Health Partners academic health sciences centre, Francis Crick Institute. Kings College London, so named to indicate the patronage of King George IV, was founded in 1829 in response to the controversy surrounding the founding of London University in 1826. The need for such an institution was a result of the religious and social nature of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which then educated solely the sons of wealthy Anglicans. The secular nature of London University was disapproved by The Establishment, indeed, thus, the creation of a rival institution represented a Tory response to reassert the educational values of The Establishment. Winchilsea and about 150 other contributors withdrew their support of Kings College London in response to Wellingtons support of Catholic emancipation. In a letter to Wellington he accused the Duke to have in mind insidious designs for the infringement of our liberty, the letter provoked a furious exchange of correspondence and Wellington accused Winchilsea of imputing him with disgraceful and criminal motives in setting up Kings College London. The result was a duel in Battersea Fields on 21 March 1829, Winchilsea did not fire, a plan he and his second almost certainly decided upon before the duel, Wellington took aim and fired wide to the right. Accounts differ as to whether Wellington missed on purpose, Wellington, noted for his poor aim, claimed he did, other reports more sympathetic to Winchilsea claimed he had aimed to kill. Honour was saved and Winchilsea wrote Wellington an apology, duel Day is still celebrated on the first Thursday after 21 March every year, marked by various events throughout Kings, including reenactments. Kings opened in October 1831 with the cleric William Otter appointed as first principal, despite the attempts to make Kings Anglican-only, the initial prospectus permitted, nonconformists of all sorts to enter the college freely. William Howley, the governors and the professors, except the linguists, had to be members of the Church of England but the students did not, though attendance at chapel was compulsory. Kings was divided into a department and a junior department, also known as Kings College School
18.
London School of Economics
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The London School of Economics is a public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LSE is located in Westminster, central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn, the area is historically known as Clare Market. The LSE has more than 10,000 students and 3,300 staff and it had a total income of £340.7 million in 2015/16, of which £30.3 million was from research grants. 155 nationalities are represented amongst LSEs student body and the school has the highest percentage of students of all British universities. Despite its name, the school is organised into 25 academic departments and institutes which conduct teaching and research across a range of legal studies, in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the School had the highest proportion of world-leading research among research submitted of any British non-specialist university. The LSE is usually considered part of the triangle of highly research-intensive universities in southeast England. It is a member of organisations such as the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association. LSE has produced notable alumni in the fields of law, history, economics, philosophy, business, literature, media. Alumni and staff include 52 past or present heads of state or government and 20 members of the current British House of Commons. To 2016, 27% of all the Nobel Prizes in Economics have been awarded or jointly awarded to LSE alumni, current staff or former staff, LSE alumni and staff have also won 3 Nobel Peace Prizes, and 2 Nobel Prizes in Literature. Out of all European universities, LSE has educated the most billionaires according to a 2014 global census of U. S dollar billionaires, LSE graduates earn higher incomes on average than those of any other British university. The London School of Economics was founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Hutchinson, a lawyer and member of the Fabian Society, left the money in trust, to be put towards advancing its objects in any way they deem advisable. The five trustees were Sidney Webb, Edward Pease, Constance Hutchinson, William de Mattos, LSE records that the proposal to establish the school was conceived during a breakfast meeting on 4 August 1894, between the Webbs, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw. The proposal was accepted by the trustees in February 1895 and LSE held its first classes in October of that year, in rooms at 9 John Street, Adelphi, in the City of Westminster. The School joined the federal University of London in 1900, and was recognised as a Faculty of Economics of the university, the University of London degrees of BSc and DSc were established in 1901, the first university degrees dedicated to the social sciences. Expanding rapidly over the years, the school moved initially to the nearby 10 Adelphi Terrace, then to Clare Market. The foundation stone of the Old Building, on Houghton Street, was laid by King George V in 1920, the 1930s economic debate between LSE and Cambridge is well known in academic circles. The dispute also concerned the question of the role
19.
Fabian Society
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Today, the society functions primarily as a think tank and is one of 15 socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party. Similar societies exist in Australia, in Canada, in Sicily, the Fabian Society was founded on 4 January 1884 in London as an offshoot of a society founded a year earlier called The Fellowship of the New Life. Early Fellowship members included the visionary Victorian elite, among them poets Edward Carpenter and John Davidson, sexologist Havelock Ellis and they wanted to transform society by setting an example of clean simplified living for others to follow. Some members also wanted to become involved to aid societys transformation, they set up a separate society. All members were free to both societies. The Fabian Society additionally advocated renewal of Western European Renaissance ideas, the Fellowship of the New Life was dissolved in 1899, but the Fabian Society grew to become the pre-eminent academic society in the United Kingdom in the Edwardian era. It was typified by the members of its vanguard Coefficients club, public meetings of the Society were for many years held at Essex Hall, a popular location just off the Strand in central London. The Fabian Society was named—at the suggestion of Frank Podmore—in honour of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the wolf in sheep’s clothing symbolism was later abandoned, due to its obvious negative connotations. Its nine founding members were Frank Podmore, Edward R. Pease, William Clarke, Hubert Bland, Percival Chubb, Frederick Keddell, H. H. Champion, Edith Nesbit, and Rosamund Dale Owen. Havelock Ellis is sometimes mentioned as a tenth founding member. Even Bertrand Russell briefly became a member, but resigned after he expressed his belief that the Societys principle of entente could lead to war, at the core of the Fabian Society were Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Together, they wrote numerous studies of industrial Britain, including alternative co-operative economics that applied to ownership of capital as well as land, at the meeting that founded the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, the Fabian Society claimed 861 members and sent one delegate. In 1912 a student section was organised called the University Socialist Federation, the first Fabian Society pamphlets advocating tenets of social justice coincided with the zeitgeist of Liberal reforms during the early 1900s, including eugenics. The Fabian proposals however were more progressive than those that were enacted in the Liberal reform legislation. That the future battles of the Empire for commercial prosperity are already being lost, in 1900 the Society produced Fabianism and the Empire, the first statement of its views on foreign affairs, drafted by Bernard Shaw and incorporating the suggestions of 150 Fabian members. It was directed against the individualism of those such as John Morley. It claimed that the liberal political economy was outdated. The question was whether Britain would be the centre of an empire or whether it would lose its colonies
20.
George Bernard Shaw
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He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman, Pygmalion and Saint Joan. With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1873, where he established himself as a writer and novelist. By the mid-1880s he was a theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society, Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, 1894s Arms and the Man. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctors Dilemma and Caesar, Shaws expressed views were often contentious, he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform while opposing vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable and he castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period, and became a citizen of the Irish Free State in 1934, maintaining dual citizenship. He was prolific, finishing during the years a series of often ambitious plays which achieved varying degrees of popular success. Since Shaws death, opinion has varied about his works and he has at times been rated as second only to William Shakespeare among English-language dramatists, analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaws ideas, Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw and his elder siblings were Lucinda Frances and Elinor Agnes. The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, George Carr Shaw and his relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s, thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly, in the view of Shaws biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt, if, as Holroyd and others surmise, Georges motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her familys money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of shabby-genteel poverty. By the time of Shaws birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father, there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he recalled that her indifference. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house, Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing, Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lees unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws house was filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players
21.
Annie Besant
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Annie Besant was a British socialist, theosophist, womens rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule. In 1867, Annie at age 20, married Frank Besant, a clergyman and she then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society and writer and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877 they were prosecuted for publishing a book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton, the scandal made them famous, and Bradlaugh was elected M. P. for Northampton in 1880. She became involved with union actions including the Bloody Sunday demonstration and she was a leading speaker for the Fabian Society and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation. She was elected to the London School Board for Tower Hamlets, in 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky and over the next few years her interest in theosophy grew while her interest in secular matters waned. She became a member of the Theosophical Society and a prominent lecturer on the subject, as part of her theosophy-related work, she travelled to India. In 1898 she helped establish the Central Hindu College and in 1922 she helped establish the Hyderabad National Collegiate Board in Mumbai, in 1902, she established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire, in 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were in Adyar, Madras. She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress, when World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India and dominion status within the Empire. This led to her election as president of the India National Congress in late 1917, in the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, who she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929, after the war, she continued to campaign for Indian independence and for the causes of theosophy, until her death in 1933. Annie Wood was born in 1847 in London into a family of Irish origin. She was proud of her heritage and supported the cause of Irish self-rule throughout her adult life and her father died when she was five years old, leaving the family almost penniless. Her mother supported the family by running a house for boys at Harrow School. However, she was unable to support Annie and persuaded her friend Ellen Marryat to care for her, Marryat made sure that Besant had a good education. She was given a sense of duty to society and an equally strong sense of what independent women could achieve. As a young woman, she was able to travel widely in Europe. There she acquired a taste for Roman Catholic colour and ceremony that never left her, in 1867, at age twenty, she married 26-year-old clergyman Frank Besant, younger brother of Walter Besant
22.
Graham Wallas
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Graham Wallas was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Born in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, Wallas was educated at Shrewsbury School and Corpus Christi College and it was at Oxford that Wallas abandoned his religion. He taught at Highgate School until 1885, when he resigned rather than participate in communion, Wallas joined the Fabian Society in April 1886, following his acquaintances Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw. He was to resign in 1904 in protest at Fabian support for Joseph Chamberlains tariff policy, in 1894 he was elected to the London school board as a Progressive. In 18 December 1897 he married the socialist writer Ada Radford, the following year they had a daughter May Wallas who despite diphtheria and flu went to Newnham College like her mother. He was appointed a university lecturer in 1890 and lectured at the newly founded London School of Economics from 1895. In 1898 he published a biography of the early nineteenth-century utilitarian radical Francis Place and his most important academic writings were Human Nature in Politics and its successors The Great Society and Our Social Heritage 1921). Wallas argued in Great Society that a social-psychological analysis could explain the problems created by the impact of the revolution on modern society. In The Art of Thought, he proposed one of the first models of the process. What to Read, A List of Books for Social Reformers, the Life of Francis Place, 1771-1854. Martin Wiener, Between two worlds, The political thought of Graham Wallas, Oxford, Clarendon Press,1971
23.
Edward R. Pease
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Edward Reynolds Pease was an English writer and a founding member of the Fabian Society. Pease, the sixth of fifteen children, was born near Bristol, the son of devout Quakers, Thomas Pease and Susanna Ann Fry sister of Edward Fry, the judge. He was educated at home until he was sixteen, and soon moved to London where he soon became a successful stock-broker. In the early 1880s Pease became friends with Frank Podmore and husband and wife Edith Nesbit, in 1884, the group founded the Fabian Society. In 1886, the death of a relative meant Pease received a sizeable legacy allowing him to give up work at the London Stock Exchange. In 1886, he moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, began working as a cabinet-maker and formed the National Labour Federation, however, his attempts to convert the working class to socialism were unsuccessful so he returned to London. He travelled to United States with Sidney Webb in 1888, and on his return married Marjory Davidson, in 1890 Pease was appointed secretary of the Fabian Society. As well as managing the administration, he edited Fabian News and wrote ten pamphlets, including tracts on liquor licensing. With Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Pease was a trustee in the used to found the London School of Economics in 1895. They had two children, Michael S. Pease, the geneticist, and Nicholas Arthington Pease, with his wife Marjory, Pease established the East Surrey Labour Party and both served on the local council
24.
Hubert Bland
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Hubert Bland was the husband of Edith Nesbit and was known for being an infamous libertine, a journalist, an early English socialist, and one of the founders of the Fabian Society. Bland was born in Woolwich, south-east London, the youngest of the four children of Henry Bland, a commercial clerk. He received his education in local schools. He was baptised on 14 March 1855 at St Mary Magdalene, Woolwich. As a young man, Bland, showed his “passion was for politics” by his “strong interest in the ideas raised at social protest meetings. ”Bland wanted to attend the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and become an army officer. Later, he went into a business that failed. After that, he worked as secretary to the General Hydraulic Power Company, in 1877, he met 19-year-old Edith Nesbit. They married on 22 April 1880 with Edith already seven months pregnant and they did not immediately live together as Bland initially continued to live with his mother. When, in 1880, Edith learned of her husband’s affair with Maggie, in 1886, Bland met Alice Hoatson, a friend of Edith, and in 1886 she became his mistress for the rest of his life. Bland had two children by Hoatson, Rosamund, his child, and John. They were raised by Edith as her own, with Nesbit, Bland produced three children, Paul, Iris and Fabian, who died aged 15 from a tonsil operation performed at home. Fabian had been given food before the anaesthetic for the operation. “The marriage between Nesbit and Bland was unconventional and would today be characterized as an open marriage. ”Given Bland’s affairs and out of children, his “marriage to Edith was inevitably stormy at times. ”Bland, “a poseur by nature, was something more than a philanderer by habit. ”He had “a voracious sexual appetite. ”When Edith met Bland, he “already had a mistress with child. ”After Alice Hoatson joined the Bland household. To top it off, Bland “was not averse to seeking to seduce” the girlfriends of his daughter Rosamund. Bland wrote that he “hated the Pharisees, the Prigs, the Puritans. ”He smoked, in 1883, the Blands joined a socialist debating group which evolved to become the Fabian Society in January 1884. On 4 January 1884, Bland chaired the first meeting and was elected to be the Societys honorary treasurer. Bland served as co-editor of the Fabian News, a monthly journal, nevertheless, “he sometimes disagreed with others in the group, and over the years he had been repeatedly outmanoeuvred and overruled by Shaw, Sidney Webb, and their supporters. Fellow members included Edward Pease, Havelock Ellis, and Frank Podmore, george Bernard Shaw described how Bland intimidated other Fabian Society members, describing him as a man of fierce Norman exterior and huge physical strength
25.
Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier
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Sydney Haldane Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier, KCMG, CB, PC was a British civil servant. A Fabian and a member of the Labour Party, he served as Governor of Jamaica and he was the uncle of the actor Laurence Olivier. Olivier was born in Colchester, the second of eight children of Anne Elizabeth Hardcastle and the Reverend Henry Arnold Olivier and his brothers included Henry, who had a military career ending as a colonel, Herbert, a successful portrait painter, and Gerard, a clergyman. During Oliviers youth, the spent time at Lausanne and Kineton, and at Poulshott in Wiltshire. Sydney Olivier was sent to Tonbridge School, and then studied philosophy and theology at Corpus Christi College, at Oxford he became a close friend of Graham Wallas, who came from a similar background. After graduation Olivier resisted family pressure to train as a barrister and he came first, beating Sidney Webb into second place. Olivier entered the Colonial Office in the spring of 1882, working as a resident clerk and he was joined by Webb shortly afterwards, and the two became good friends. In contrast to Webb, Olivier was an impulsive and dominating dandy, at this time Olivier also worked at Toynbee Hall in the East End of London, living in the slums of Whitechapel and teaching Latin at the Working Mens College. Olivier had become enthusiastic about Positivism after working as a tutor to the son of Henry Compton, the same month that he joined the Fabians, Olivier married Margaret Cox, the sister of Harold Cox, an old school friend and later a Liberal member of parliament. He began speaking at the Hampstead Historic Society, a group for a number of Fabians. In the summer of 1887 he took part in the Fabians mock legislature experiment, in 1888 Olivier wrote the seventh Fabian tract, Capital and Land, in which he criticised Georgism and instead advocated the communal ownership and control of land. That year he performed with Annie Besant clerical duties at the headquarters during the Bryant. By now he was one of the Big Four of the Fabian movement in London, with Shaw, Webb, in 1889 he wrote Moral Aspects of the Basis of Socialism in the Essays in Fabian Socialism, an attempt to develop a distinct programme for the Fabians. That year he stood down as Secretary of the Fabian Society, the Oliviers bought a holiday home in Limpsfield in the North Downs, they had two daughters by now, and a third was born in November. He was a guest speaker at the London School of Economics, in October 1890, having established an excellent reputation at the Colonial Office, Sydney Olivier was appointed as acting Colonial Secretary of British Honduras. He continued to be active in the Fabian Society during his periods back in London, in 1891 the Oliviers made a permanent home in Limpsfield, several other Fabians and radicals moved to the area, and they soon became the dominant force on the parish council. In 1895 he was posted to the Leeward Islands as Auditor-General, after this he returned to London, working as Private Secretary to the Under-Secretary to the Colonial Office, Lord Selbourne. In 1897 he became Secretary to the West Indian Royal Commission, in the run-up to the Second Boer War, the executive of the Fabian Society became split
26.
Edwardian era
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The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victorian era. The new king Edward VII was already the leader of an elite that set a style influenced by the art. The Liberals returned to power in 1906 and made significant reforms, below the upper class, the era was marked by significant shifts in politics among sections of society that had been largely excluded from wielding power in the past, such as common labourers. The Edwardian period is sometimes imagined as a golden age of long summer afternoons and garden parties. This perception was created in the 1920s and later by those who remembered the Edwardian age with nostalgia, the Edwardian age was also seen as a mediocre period of pleasure between the great achievements of the preceding Victorian age and the catastrophe of the following war. Recent assessments emphasise the differences between the wealthy and the poor during the Edwardian era and describe the age as heralding great changes in political and social life. Robert Tressells popular novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is an example of the eras social critique. Despite this, this type of perception has been challenged more recently by modern historians, the British historian Lawrence James has argued that, during the early 20th century, the British felt increasingly threatened by rival powers such as Germany, Russia, and the United States. There was a political awareness of the working class, leading to a rise in trade unions. The aristocracy remained in control of top government offices, the Conservatives – at the time called Unionists – were dominant from the 1890s to 1906. The party had many strengths, appealing to voters supportive of imperialism, tariffs, the Church of England, a powerful Royal Navy, and traditional hierarchical society. There was a powerful leadership base in the aristocracy and landed gentry in rural England, plus strong support from the Church of England. Historians have used election returns to demonstrate that Conservatives did surprisingly well in working-class districts and they had an appeal as well to the better-off element of traditional working class Britons in the larger cities. Nevertheless, the weaknesses were accumulating, and proved so overwhelming in 1906 that they did not return to power until 1922. The Conservative Party was losing its drive and enthusiasm, especially after the retirement of the charismatic Joseph Chamberlain, there was a bitter split on tariff reform, that drove many of the free traders over to the Liberal camp. Tariff reform was an issue that the Conservative leadership inexplicably clung to. Support among the top tier of the class, and in lower middle class weakened. The 1906 election was a landslide for the opposition, which saw its total vote jump 25 percent, the Liberal Party lacked a unified ideological base in 1906
27.
University of London
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The University of London is a collegiate research university located in London, England, consisting of 18 constituent colleges, nine research institutes and a number of central bodies. The university moved to a structure in 1900. The specialist colleges of the university include the London Business School, Imperial College London was formerly a member before leaving the university in 2007. City is the most recent constituent college, having joined on 1 September 2016, in post-nominals, the University of London is commonly abbreviated as Lond. or, more rarely, Londin. From the Latin Universitas Londiniensis, after its degree abbreviations, University College London was founded under the name London University in 1826 as a secular alternative to the religious universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In response to the controversy surrounding such educational establishment, Kings College London was founded and was the first to be granted a royal charter. Yet to receive a charter, UCL in 1834 renewed its application for a royal charter as a university. In response to this, opposition to exclusive rights grew among the London medical schools, the idea of a general degree awarding body for the schools was discussed in the medical press. And in evidence taken by the Select Committee on Medical Education, in 1835, the government announced the response to UCLs petition for a charter. Following the issuing of its charter on 28 November 1836, the university started drawing up regulations for degrees in March 1837. The death of William IV in June, however, resulted in a problem – the charter had been granted during our Royal will and pleasure, queen Victoria issued a second charter on 5 December 1837, reincorporating the university. The university awarded its first degrees in 1839, all to students from UCL, the university established by the charters of 1836 and 1837 was essentially an examining board with the right to award degrees in arts, laws and medicine. However, the university did not have the authority to grant degrees in theology, in medicine, the university was given the right to determine which medical schools provided sufficient medical training. Beyond the right to students for examination, there was no other connection between the affiliated colleges and the university. In 1849 the university held its first graduation ceremony at Somerset House following a petition to the senate from the graduates, about 250 students graduated at this ceremony. The London academic robes of this period were distinguished by their rich velvet facings, the list of affiliated colleges grew by 1858 to include over 50 institutions, including all other British universities. In that year, a new charter effectively abolished the affiliated colleges system by opening up the examinations to everyone whether they attended a college or not. The expanded role meant the university needed more space, particularly with the number of students at the provincial university colleges
28.
New Statesman
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The New Statesman is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was connected then with Sidney and Beatrice Webb. The magazine, which today is a hybrid, has, according to its present self-description. The longest-serving editor was Kingsley Martin, the current editor is Jason Cowley, who assumed the post at the end of September 2008. The magazine has recognized and published new writers and critics. Its contributors have included John Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, Christopher Hitchens, historically, the magazine was sometimes affectionately referred to as The Staggers because of crises in funding, ownership and circulation. The nickname is now used as the title of its politics blog, Circulation peaked in the mid-1960s but has surged in recent years. The magazine had an average circulation of 34,025 in 2016. Traffic to the website reached a new record high in June 2016, with 27 million page views. In September 2014, as part of its expansion, the magazine launched two new websites, the urbanism-focused CityMetric and May2015. com, a data and polling site. The New Statesman was founded in 1913 by Sidney and Beatrice Webb with the support of George Bernard Shaw and its first editor was Clifford Sharp, who remained editor until 1928. Desmond MacCarthy joined the paper in 1913 and became literary editor, J C Squire edited the magazine when Sharp was on wartime duties during the First World War. It sold a phenomenal 75,000 copies by the end of the year, the New York Times reprinted it as America began its lengthy debate on entering what was then called the European War. During Sharps last two years in the post, from around 1926, he was debilitated by chronic alcoholism, Lloyd stood in after Sharps departure until the appointment of Kingsley Martin as editor in 1930 – a position Martin was to hold for 30 years. Although the Webbs and most Fabians were closely associated with the Labour Party, in 1931 the New Statesman merged with the Liberal weekly The Nation and Athenaeum and changed its name to the New Statesman and Nation, which it kept until 1964. It also absorbed The Week-end Review in 1934, the Competition feature, in which readers submitted jokes and often parodies and pastiches of the work of famous authors, became one of the most famous parts of the magazine. Most famously, Graham Greene won second prize in a challenge to parody his own work, during the 1930s, Martins New Statesman moved markedly to the left politically. It became strongly anti-fascist and pacifist, opposing British rearmament, after the 1938 Anschluss, Martin wrote, Today if Mr
29.
Seaham (UK Parliament constituency)
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Seaham was a parliamentary constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was in existence between 1918 and 1950. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election, incorporating a lot of the mining area of the eastern part of County Durham around Seaham, it has a history of strong Labour Party support. In the so-called Coupon Election of 1918, Major Evan Hayward was issued a Coalition coupon, Hayward however repudiated the coupon and stood as a Liberal and was elected. The following general election, in 1922, Sidney Webb, an early socialist, Webb was easily re-elected in 1923 and 1924. Sidney Webb was raised to the peerage and his successor in the constituency was Ramsay MacDonald. At the 1929 general election, MacDonald won and for the time became Prime Minister over a minority Labour administration. The economic crisis after 1929 led to a crisis in mid-1931. MacDonald went to see King George V who persuaded him to form a National Government, MacDonald retired as Prime Minister in 1935 but remained in the Cabinet. In the general election of 1935 he was defeated at Seaham by Emanuel Shinwell. Shinwell was re-elected in the Labour landslide at the 1945 election, and served as MP for Easington, the Urban District of Seaham Harbour, and the Rural District of Easington. Hayward had been issued with the coupon, but repudiated it. General Election 1939/40 Another General Election was required to place before the end of 1940
30.
United Kingdom general election, 1922
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The United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on Wednesday 15 November 1922. R. Clynes, and a divided Liberal Party, the Conservatives had been in coalition with the National Liberals led by David Lloyd George until the previous month, at which point Andrew Bonar Law had formed a Conservative majority government. Most attention was focussed on the new and most recent Prime Ministers, asquiths daughter Violet Bonham-Carter, a prominent Liberal Party campaigner, likened the election to a contest between a man with sleeping sickness and a man with St Vitus Dance. Some Liberal candidates stood calling for a reunited Liberal Party whilst others appear to have backed both Asquith and Lloyd George, few sources are able to agree on exact numbers, and even in contemporary records held by the two groups, some MPs were claimed for both sides. It was the first election where Labour surpassed the strength of both Liberal parties in votes and seats. By one estimate, there were 29 seats where Liberals stood against one another. This is thought to have cost them at least 14 seats,10 of them to Labour, so in theory a reunited Liberal Party would have much closer to. However, in reality the two factions were on terms and Lloyd George was still hoping for a renewed coalition with the Conservatives. The Conservative party basically offered the continuation of the status quo with no new adventures, Bonar Laws Election Address stated, The crying need of the nation have this moment. The Labour Party proposed to nationalise the mines and railways, to impose a levy on financial capital and it promised a higher standard of living for workers, higher wages, and better housing. National Liberals were party formed by Lloyd Georges Coalition Liberals after leaving the government and their net seat change is compared with the Coalition Liberals number of seats after the 1918 election. All comparisons are with the 1918 election, in some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party. Such circumstances are marked with a *, in other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1922. Such circumstances are marked with a † and it is impossible to compare seats in Northern Ireland because the number of seats there dropped so dramatically between the 1918 and 1922 elections. The Coalition Liberals of 1918 and National Liberals of 1922 are treated as a single party, W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts, 1832–1987 Jenkins, Roy. United Kingdom election results – summary results 1885–19791922 Conservative manifesto 1922 Labour manifesto 1922 Liberal manifesto
31.
Second MacDonald ministry
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The Second MacDonald ministry was formed by Ramsay MacDonald on his second appointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 5 June 1929. It was only the second occasion on which the Labour Party had formed a government, the last boundary change was contained in the Representation of the People Act 1918. MacDonald thus had a minority government that needed Lloyd-Georges 58 Liberal MPs support to any legislation. His ministers rapidly faced the problems stemming from the impact of the Great Depression, the Government did try to pass legislation, such as the Coal Mines Act 1930, which provided for a 7 1/2-hour shift in mines. Owners were guaranteed coal prices through the introduction of a quota system among collieries. This guarantee was introduced to prevent a fall in miners wages, however, this legislation largely ignored by the mine owners due to Labours lack of enforcement powers. The Housing Act of 1930 resulted in the demolition of 245,000 slums by 1939, the 1930 Housing Act also allowed local authorities to set up differential rent schemes, with rents related to the incomes of the tenants concerned. Changes were also made to the system that resulted in the poor paying less tax. Expenditure on the fund was raised as a means of ensuring that unemployed persons would not be reduced so quickly to poor relief. Altogether, an estimated 170,000 people were brought into benefit by the exchanges in the Act. In addition, the provision of instruction for unemployed boys and girls between the ages of 14 and 18 was extended, the Widows and Old Age Pensions Act was amended to cover some hundreds of thousands of additional pensioners, under improved conditions. With the inclusion of widows between the ages of 55 and 70, in addition, an Act passed by the previous Conservative government providing assistance towards the improvement of privately owned cottages for land workers was extended for another 5 years. In addition, levels of support for war veterans and family members were expanded, in education, various measures were introduced to promote equality and opportunity. More generous standards of school-planning were secured, while attention was given to the provision of adequate accommodation for practical work. The number of schools was reduced from about 2,000 to about 1,500. From 1929 to 1931, the number of certified teachers in service was increased by about 3,000, in addition, an annual grant to the Universities was increased by £250,000. Technical education was developed and arrangements were made for co-operation between technical colleges and industry, while new regulations facilitated an expansion of adult education, in addition, the government increased the number of free places that Local Education Authorities could offer to 50%. Conditions for soldiers were improved, while the penalty for certain offences was abolished
32.
Mandatory Palestine
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Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity under British administration, carved out of Ottoman Southern Syria after World War I. British civil administration in Palestine operated from 1920 until 1948, further confusing the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, promising British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. At the wars end the British and French set up a joint Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in what had been Ottoman Syria, the British achieved legitimacy for their continued control by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922. The civil Mandate administration was formalized with the League of Nations consent in 1923 under the British Mandate for Palestine, the land west of the Jordan River, known as Palestine, was under direct British administration until 1948. The land east of the Jordan, a region known as Transjordan, under the rule of the Hashemite family from the Hijaz. The divergent tendencies regarding the nature and purpose of the mandate are visible already in the discussions concerning the name for this new entity. As a set-off to this, certain of the Arab politicians suggested that the country should be called Southern Syria in order to emphasise its close relation with another Arab State. During the British Mandate period the area experienced the ascent of two major nationalist movements, one among the Jews and the other among the Arabs, following its occupation by British troops in 1917–1918, Palestine was governed by the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. In July 1920, the administration was replaced by a civilian administration headed by a High Commissioner. The first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, a Zionist recent cabinet minister, arrived in Palestine on 20 June 1920, following the arrival of the British, Muslim-Christian Associations were established in all the major towns. In 1919 they joined to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem and its main platforms were a call for representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration. The Zionist Commission was formed in March 1918 and was active in promoting Zionist objectives in Palestine, on 19 April 1920, elections were held for the Assembly of Representatives of the Palestinian Jewish community. The Zionist Commission received official recognition in 1922 as representative of the Palestinian Jewish community, Rutenberg soon established an electric company whose shareholders were Zionist organizations, investors, and philanthropists. Palestinian-Arabs saw it as proof that the British intended to favor Zionism, when Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Kamil al-Husayni died in March 1921, High Commissioner Samuel appointed his half-brother Mohammad Amin al-Husseini to the position. Amin al-Husseini, a member of the clan of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist. As Grand Mufti, as well as the influential positions that he held during this period. In 1922, al-Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council which had created by Samuel in December 1921. The Council controlled the Waqf funds, worth annually tens of thousands of pounds, in addition, he controlled the Islamic courts in Palestine
33.
Churchill White Paper
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To reduce tensions between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine the paper called for a limitation of Jewish immigration to the economic capacity of the country to absorb new arrivals. Unauthorized statements have made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to become as Jewish as England is English and his Majestys Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. Hitherto the immigration has fulfilled these conditions, the number of immigrants since the British occupation has been about 25,000. That letter is quoted as conveying the promise to the Sherif of Mecca to recognise and this reservation has always been regarded by His Majestys Government as covering the vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir and it also called for an Arab State or confederation under an Arab Chief, and the British government had arranged for the meetings leading up to the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement. The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement said that the boundaries between an Arab State and Palestine should be determined by a Commission after the Paris Peace Conference. The Zionist delegation submitted a map that proposed a border west of the Hedjaz Railway, exactly where Balfour had suggested it be drawn in a memo to the British Foreign Secretary, the Zionist Committees proposal excluded the area from Amman to the Mesopotamian and Arabian frontiers. According to Sykes, Churchill, and Balfour the areas lying east of the line from Damascus, Homs, Hama, the Vilayet of Maan and the port of Aqaba were annexed to Transjordan from the Kingdom of Hedjaz as the latter fell to Ibn Saud. They also pointed out that McMahon had been acting as an intermediary for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, years later, scholars searching through the declassified files in the National Archives discovered evidence that Palestine had been pledged to Hussein. The Eastern Committee of the Cabinet, previously known as the Middle Eastern Committee, had met on 5 December 1918 to discuss the governments commitments regarding Palestine, according to the minutes Lord Curzon explained the Hussein, Sykes-Picot, and Balfour commitments, The Palestine position is this. Great Britain and France—Italy subsequently agreeing—committed themselves to an administration of Palestine in consultation with Russia. Those, as far as I know, are the actual engagements into which we entered with regard to Palestine
34.
Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
35.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
36.
Trotskyism
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Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism, as they oppose Stalins theory of Socialism in One Country in favor of Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution, Trotskyists also criticize the bureaucracy that developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky were close both ideologically and personally during the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, and some call Trotsky its co-leader, Trotsky was the paramount leader of the Soviet Red Army in the direct aftermath of the Revolutionary period. Trotsky originally opposed some aspects of Leninism, later, he concluded that unity between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was impossible, and joined the Bolsheviks. Trotsky played a role with Lenin in the revolution. Assessing Trotsky, Lenin wrote, Trotsky long ago said that unification is impossible, Trotsky understood this and from that time on there has been no better Bolshevik. Trotsky was exiled from the USSR to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan on 31 January 1928 under Stalins orders, almost all of the Partys Trotskyists were executed in the Great Purges of 1937–1938 effectively removing all of Trotskys internal influence on the USSR. In contemporary English language usage, an advocate of Trotskys ideas is called a Trotskyist. In the 1920s they called themselves the Left Opposition, although todays left communism is distinct, the terminological disagreement can be confusing because different versions of a left-right political spectrum are used. Anti-revisionists consider themselves the ultimate leftists on a spectrum from communism on the left to imperialist capitalism on the right, but given that Stalinism is often labeled rightist within the communist spectrum and left communism leftist, Anti-revisionists idea of left is very different from that of left communism. Trotsky was extremely critical of the Stalinist USSR for suppressing democracy, in 1905, Trotsky formulated a theory that became known as the theory of Permanent Revolution. It is one of the characteristics of Trotskyism. Until 1905, Marxism only claimed that a revolution in a European capitalist society would lead to a socialist one, according to the original theory it was impossible for such to occur in more backward countries such as early 20th century Russia. Russia in 1905 was widely considered to have not yet established a capitalist society, the theory of Permanent Revolution addressed the question of how such feudal regimes were to be overthrown, and how socialism could be established given the lack of economic prerequisites. Trotsky argued that in Russia only the class could overthrow feudalism. Furthermore, he argued that the Russian working class would not stop there and they would win its own revolution against the weak capitalist class, establish a workers state in Russia, and appeal to the working class in the advanced capitalist countries around the world. As a result, the working class would come to Russias aid. Revolutions in Britain in the 17th century and in France in 1789 abolished feudalism, Trotsky argued that these revolutions would not be repeated in Russia
37.
Eight-hour day
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The use of child labour was common. The working day could range from 10 to 16 hours for six days a week, robert Owen had raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his socialist enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817 he had formulated the goal of the day and coined the slogan, Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation. Women and children in England were granted the day in 1847. French workers won the 12-hour day after the February revolution of 1848, a shorter working day and improved working conditions were part of the general protests and agitation for Chartist reforms and the early organisation of trade unions. Karl Marx saw it as of importance to the workers health, saying in Das Kapital, By extending the working day, therefore. The first international treaty to mention it was the Treaty of Versailles in the annex of its thirteen part establishing the International Labour Office, now the International Labour Organization. The eight-hour day was the first topic discussed by the International Labour Organization which resulted in the Hours of Work Convention,1919 ratified by 52 countries as of 2016. The eight-hour day movement forms part of the history for the celebration of Labour Day. In Iran in 1918, the work of reorganizing the trade began in earnest in Tehran during the closure of the Iranian constitutional parliament Majles. In 1918, the newly organised union staged a 14-day strike and succeeded in reaching an agreement with employers to institute the eight-hours day, overtime pay. The success of the printers union encouraged other trades to organize, in 1919 the bakers and textile-shop clerks formed their own trade unions. In 1946 the council of ministers issued the first labor law for Iran, the first company to introduce an eight-hour working day in Japan was the Kawasaki Dockyards in Kobe. An eight-hour day was one of the demands presented by the workers during pay negotiations in September 1919, after the company resisted the demands, a slowdown campaign was commenced by the workers on 18 September. After ten days of action, company president Kōjirō Matsukata agreed to the eight-hour day and wage increases on 27 September. The effects of the action were felt nationwide and inspired further industrial action at the Kawasaki, the eight-hour day did not become law in Japan until the passing of the Labor Standards Act in April 1947. Article 32 of the Act specifies a 40-hour week and paragraph specifies an eight-hour day, the Eight-hour day was enacted in France by Georges Clemenceau, as a way to avoid unemployment and diminish communist support. It was succeeded by a strong French support of it during the writing of the International Labour Organization Convention of 1919, at the turn of the 20th century the eight-hour day was introduced by Ernst Abbe at the Zeiss plants in Jena
38.
Eugenics
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Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population. The exact definition of eugenics has been a matter of debate since the term was coined, frederick Osborns 1937 journal article Development of a Eugenic Philosophy framed it as a social philosophy—that is, a philosophy with implications for social order. That definition is not universally accepted, osborn advocated for higher rates of sexual reproduction among people with desired traits, or reduced rates of sexual reproduction and sterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits. Alternatively, gene selection rather than people selection has recently been made possible through advances in genome editing, in this period, eugenic ideas were espoused across the political spectrum. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies with the intent to improve the quality of stock of their countries. S. Furthermore, negative eugenics in particular is considered by many to be a violation of human rights. Another criticism is that eugenic policies eventually lead to a loss of genetic diversity, the concept of positive eugenics to produce better human beings has existed at least since Plato suggested selective mating to produce a guardian class. The idea of eugenics to decrease the birth of inferior human beings has existed at least since William Goodell advocated the castration. Galton had read his half-cousin Charles Darwins theory of evolution, which sought to explain the development of plant and animal species, based on his biographical studies, Galton believed that desirable human qualities were hereditary traits, though Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory. In 1883, one year after Darwins death, Galton gave his research a name, with the introduction of genetics, eugenics relied on an ideology of genetic determinism in which human character was due to genes, unaffected by education or living conditions. Many of the early geneticists were not Darwinians, and evolution theory was not needed for eugenics policies based on genetic determinism, throughout its recent history, eugenics has remained controversial. Eugenics became a discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from many sources. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals, in 1909 the Anglican clergymen William Inge and James Peile both wrote for the British Eugenics Education Society. Inge was a speaker at the 1921 International Eugenics Conference. Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenists with meetings in 1912 in London, Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the United States. It also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain, later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Japan and Sweden. In addition to being practiced in a number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations, politically, the movement advocated measures such as sterilization laws. In its moral dimension, eugenics rejected the doctrine that all beings are born equal
39.
Reform of the House of Lords
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Certain governments in the United Kingdom have, for more than a century, attempted to find a way to reform the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This process was started by the Parliament Act 1911 introduced by the then Liberal Government which stated. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the Blair government subsequently passed the House of Lords Act 1999. On 7 November 2001 the government undertook a public consultation and this helped to create a public debate on the issue of Lords reform, with 1,101 consultation responses and numerous debates in Parliament and the media. However, no consensus on the future of the upper chamber emerged, deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg introduced the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012 on 27 June 2012 which built on proposals published on 17 May 2011. However, this Bill was abandoned by the Government on 6 August 2012 following opposition from within the Conservative Party, a successful attempt to pursue minor reform of the House was made on 14 May 2014 when the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 gained Royal Assent. In 1917 the Bryce Commission was set up to consider House of Lords reform proposals, the commissions recommendations were rejected by a vote in the House of Lords. The Parliament Act 1949, however, amended the 1911 act reducing the time the Lords could delay a bill from three sessions to two. The Salisbury Convention is a constitutional convention that as the Commons. The Life Peerages Act 1958 enabled the appointment of a new class of peers, who could sit and vote in the House of Lords, but the honour and rights would not be hereditary. These were intended to be merit-based, letting in the great, since 1965, almost all peerages appointed have been life peerages. The Peerage Act 1963 allowed hereditary peers to disclaim their peerage, allowing them to vote, in 1968, Harold Wilsons Labour Government published a white paper on reform of the House of Lords. Number of bishops would have decreased from 26 to 16 through retirements. Hereditary peers by succession sitting at the time would have remained as non-voting members with all rights of a member. Their heirs would have been excluded from future membership, sitting government would have got a right to a majority of voting members of the House. The right of the House to delay a bill would have reduced from one year to six months. The Parliament Bill, which embodied proposals of the paper, was introduced in December 1968. Prime Minister announced in April 1969 that the Government would not proceed with the bill, originally, the two Houses of Parliament had equal legislative powers
40.
H. G. Wells
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Herbert George H. G. Wells was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a father of science fiction, along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Wellss earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context and he was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote science fiction. A diabetic, in 1934, Wells co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association, Herbert George Wells was born at Atlas House,46 High Street in Bromley, Kent, on 21 September 1866. Called Bertie in the family, he was the fourth and last child of Joseph Wells and his wife, Sarah Neal. An inheritance had allowed the family to acquire a shop in which they sold china and sporting goods, although it failed to prosper, the stock was old and worn out, and the location was poor. Joseph Wells managed to earn an income, but little of it came from the shop. Payment for skilled bowlers and batsmen came from voluntary donations afterwards, a defining incident of young Wellss life was an accident in 1874 that left him bedridden with a broken leg. To pass the time he started reading books from the local library and he soon became devoted to the other worlds and lives to which books gave him access, they also stimulated his desire to write. Later that year he entered Thomas Morleys Commercial Academy, a school founded in 1849 following the bankruptcy of Morleys earlier school. The teaching was erratic, the curriculum mostly focused, Wells later said, Wells continued at Morleys Academy until 1880. In 1877, his father, Joseph Wells, fractured his thigh, the accident effectively put an end to Josephs career as a cricketer, and his subsequent earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss of the primary source of family income. No longer able to support financially, the family instead sought to place their sons as apprentices in various occupations. From 1880 to 1883, Wells had an apprenticeship as a draper at the Southsea Drapery Emporium. Wellss parents had a turbulent marriage, owing primarily to his mother being a Protestant, when his mother returned to work as a ladys maid, one of the conditions of work was that she would not be permitted to have living space for her husband and children. Thereafter, she and Joseph lived separate lives, though they never divorced and remained faithful to each other, as a consequence, Herberts personal troubles increased as he subsequently failed as a draper and also, later, as a chemists assistant
