1.
Waterloo Bridge
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Waterloo Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, the Dutch, thanks to its location at a strategic bend in the river, the views from the bridge are widely held to be the finest from any spot in London at ground level. The first bridge on the site was designed in 1809–10 by John Rennie for the Strand Bridge Company, before its opening it was known as the Strand Bridge. During the 1840s the bridge gained a reputation as a place for suicide attempts. In 1841 the American daredevil Samuel Gilbert Scott was killed performing a act in which he hung by a rope from a scaffold on the bridge. In 1844 Thomas Hood wrote the poem The Bridge of Sighs, paintings of the bridge were created by the French Impressionist Claude Monet and the English Romantic John Constable. The bridge was nationalised in 1878 and placed under the control of the Metropolitan Board of Works, Michael Faraday tried in 1832 to measure the potential difference between each side of the bridge caused by the ebbing salt water flowing through the Earths magnetic field. From 1884 serious problems were found in Rennies bridge piers, after scour from the river flow after Old London Bridge was demolished damaged their foundations. In 1925, a steel framework was built on top of the existing bridge. London County Council decided to demolish the bridge and replace it with a new designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The engineers were Ernest Buckton and John Cuerel of Rendel Palmer & Tritton, Scott, by his own admission, was no engineer and his design, with reinforced concrete beams under the footways, leaving the road to be supported by transverse slabs, was difficult to implement. The beams were shaped to look as much like arches as and they are clad in Portland stone, which cleans itself whenever it rains. To guard against the possibility of further subsidence from scour each pier was given a number of jacks that can be used to level the structure, the new bridge was partially opened on Tuesday 11 March 1942 and was completed in 1945. It is the only Thames bridge to have been damaged by German bombers during the Second World War, the building contractor was Peter Lind & Company Limited. It is frequently asserted that the force was largely female. Granite stones from the bridge were subsequently presented to various parts of the British world to further historic links in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The monument, built in 1945, is on Queens Wharf and it includes a bronze likeness of Paddy, a drinking fountain and drinking bowls below for dogs. The north end of the bridge passes above the Victoria Embankment where the road joins the Strand and this end housed the southern portal of the Kingsway Tramway Subway until the late 1950s
2.
London Eye
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The London Eye is a giant Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. The structure is 443 feet tall and the wheel has a diameter of 394 feet, when erected in 1999 it was the worlds tallest Ferris wheel. Its height was surpassed by the 520 feet tall Star of Nanchang in 2006, the 541 feet tall Singapore Flyer in 2008, and the 550 feet High Roller in 2014. Supported by an A-frame on one side only, unlike the taller Nanchang and Singapore wheels and it is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom with over 3.75 million visitors annually, and has made many appearances in popular culture. The London Eye adjoins the western end of Jubilee Gardens, on the South Bank of the River Thames between Westminster Bridge and Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. A predecessor to the London Eye, the Great Wheel, was built for the Empire of India Exhibition at Earls Court, modelled on the original Chicago Ferris Wheel, it was 94 metres tall and 82.3 metres in diameter. It stayed in service until 1906, by which time its 40 cars had carried over 2.5 million passengers, the Great Wheel was demolished in 1907 following its last use at the Imperial Austrian Exhibition. The London Eye was designed by architects Frank Anatole, Nic Bailey, Steve Chilton, Malcolm Cook, Mark Sparrowhawk, mace was responsible for construction management, with Hollandia as the main steelwork contractor and Tilbury Douglas as the civil contractor. Consulting engineers Tony Gee & Partners designed the works while Beckett Rankine designed the marine works. Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners assisted The Tussauds Group in obtaining planning, the rim of the Eye is supported by tensioned steel cables and resembles a huge spoked bicycle wheel. The lighting was redone with LED lighting from Color Kinetics in December 2006 to allow control of the lights as opposed to the manual replacement of gels over fluorescent tubes. The wheel was constructed in sections which were floated up the Thames on barges, once the wheel was complete it was lifted into an upright position by a strand jack system made by Enerpac. It was first raised at 2 degrees per hour until it reached 65 degrees, the London Eye was formally opened by then Prime Minister Tony Blair on 31 December 1999, but did not open to the paying public until 9 March 2000 because of a capsule clutch problem. On 5 June 2008 it was announced that 30 million people had ridden the London Eye since it opened, the wheels 32 sealed and air-conditioned ovoidal passenger capsules, designed and supplied by Poma, are attached to the external circumference of the wheel and rotated by electric motors. Each of the 10-tonne capsules represents one of the London Boroughs, and holds up to 25 people, the wheel rotates at 26 cm per second so that one revolution takes about 30 minutes. It does not usually stop to take on passengers, the rate is slow enough to allow passengers to walk on. It is, however, stopped to allow disabled or elderly passengers time to embark and disembark safely, in 2009 the first stage of a £12.5 million capsule upgrade began. Each capsule was taken down and floated down the river to Tilbury Docks in Essex, on 2 June 2013 a passenger capsule was named the Coronation Capsule to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
3.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
4.
London Underground
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The London Underground is a public rapid transit system serving London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. The network has expanded to 11 lines, and in 2015–16 carried 1.34 billion passengers, the 11 lines collectively handle approximately 4.8 million passengers a day. The system has 270 stations and 250 miles of track, despite its name, only 45% of the system is actually underground in tunnels, with much of the network in the outer environs of London being on the surface. In addition, the Underground does not cover most southern parts of Greater London, the current operator, London Underground Limited, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London, the statutory corporation responsible for the transport network in Greater London. As of 2015, 92% of operational expenditure is covered by passenger fares, the Travelcard ticket was introduced in 1983 and Oyster, a contactless ticketing system, in 2003. Contactless card payments were introduced in 2014, the LPTB was a prominent patron of art and design, commissioning many new station buildings, posters and public artworks in a modernist style. Other famous London Underground branding includes the roundel and Johnston typeface, to prepare construction, a short test tunnel was built in 1855 in Kibblesworth, a small town with geological properties similar to London. This test tunnel was used for two years in the development of the first underground train, and was later, in 1861, the worlds first underground railway, it opened in January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. It was hailed as a success, carrying 38,000 passengers on the opening day, the Metropolitan District Railway opened in December 1868 from South Kensington to Westminster as part of a plan for an underground inner circle connecting Londons main-line termini. The Metropolitan and District railways completed the Circle line in 1884, built using the cut and this opened in 1890 with electric locomotives that hauled carriages with small opaque windows, nicknamed padded cells. The Waterloo and City Railway opened in 1898, followed by the Central London Railway in 1900, the Metropolitan Railway protested about the change of plan, but after arbitration by the Board of Trade, the DC system was adopted. When the Bakerloo was so named in July 1906, The Railway Magazine called it an undignified gutter title, by 1907 the District and Metropolitan Railways had electrified the underground sections of their lines. In January 1913, the UERL acquired the Central London Railway, the Bakerloo line was extended north to Queens Park to join a new electric line from Euston to Watford, but World War I delayed construction and trains reached Watford Junction in 1917. During air raids in 1915 people used the stations as shelters. An extension of the Central line west to Ealing was also delayed by the war, the Metropolitan promoted housing estates near the railway with the Metro-land brand and nine housing estates were built near stations on the line. Electrification was extended north from Harrow to Rickmansworth, and branches opened from Rickmansworth to Watford in 1925, the Piccadilly line was extended north to Cockfosters and took over District line branches to Harrow and Hounslow. In 1933, most of Londons underground railways, tramway and bus services were merged to form the London Passenger Transport Board, the Waterloo & City Railway, which was by then in the ownership of the main line Southern Railway, remained with its existing owners. In the same year that the London Passenger Transport Board was formed, in the following years, the outlying lines of the former Metropolitan Railway closed, the Brill Tramway in 1935, and the line from Quainton Road to Verney Junction in 1936
5.
London Waterloo station
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Waterloo main line station is one of 19 in the country that are managed by Network Rail and the station complex is in fare zone 1. The first railway station on site opened in 1848, the present structure was inaugurated in 1922. Part of the station is a Grade II listed building, with just under 100 million National Rail passenger entries/exits in 2015/16, Waterloo is Britains busiest railway station by patronage. Waterloo railway station alone is the 15th-busiest passenger station in Europe, however, including National Rail interchanges, the Underground station, and Waterloo East, the complex handled a total of 211 million passengers in the 2015/2016 financial year. It is therefore the busiest transport hub in Europe and it has more platforms and a greater floor area than any other station in the UK. The station was the London terminus for Eurostar international trains from 1994 until 2007, the London and South Western Railway opened the station on 11 July 1848 as Waterloo Bridge Station when its main line was extended from Nine Elms. The station, designed by William Tite, was raised above ground on a series of arches. The unfulfilled intention was for a station with services to the City of London. In 1886, it officially became Waterloo Station, reflecting long-standing common usage, the L&SWRs aim throughout much of the 19th century was to extend its main line eastward beyond Waterloo into the City of London. Given this, it was reluctant to construct a grand terminus at Waterloo. However traffic and passenger usage continued to grow and the company expanded the station at regular intervals and this resulted in the station becoming increasingly ramshackle. The original 1848 station became known as the Central Station as other platforms were added, each of these stations-within-a-station had its own booking office, taxi stand and public entrances from the street, as well as often poorly marked and confusing access to the rest of the station. Passengers were, not surprisingly, confused by the layout and by the two adjacent stations called Waterloo, from 1897 there had also been the adjacent Necropolis Company station. This complexity and confusion became the butt of jokes by writers and music hall comics for many years in the late 19th century, by the late 1890s the L&SWR accepted that main-line access to the City was impossible. In 1898, the company opened the Waterloo & City line and this gave the company the direct commuter service it had long desired. Legal powers to carry out the work were granted in 1899 and extensive groundwork and slum clearance were carried out until 1904, the new station was opened in stages, the first five new platforms being opened in 1910. The engineers J. W. Jacomb-Hood and Alfred Weeks Szlumper designed the roof and platforms, construction continued sporadically throughout the First World War, and the new station finally opened in 1922, with 21 platforms and a concourse nearly 800 feet long. The new station included a stained glass window depicting the L&SWRs company crest over the main road entrance
6.
Royal Festival Hall
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The Royal Festival Hall is a 2, 500-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge and it is a Grade I listed building, the first post-war building to become so protected. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are resident in the hall, the hall was built as part of the Festival of Britain for London County Council, and was officially opened on 3 May 1951. The complex includes several rooms, bars and restaurants. A large head and shoulders bust of Nelson Mandela stands on the walkway between the hall and Hungerford Bridge approach viaduct, originally made in glass-fibre it was repeatedly vandalised until re-cast in bronze. The closest tube stations are Waterloo and, across the river via the Jubilee Bridges, Embankment, the acoustical consultant was Hope Bagenal, working with members of the Building Research Station, Henry Humphreys, Peter Parkin and William Allen. Martin was 39 at the time, and very taken with the Nordic activities of Alvar Aalto, the figure who really drove the project forward was Herbert Morrison, the Labour Party politician. He it was who had insisted that Matthew had Martin as his deputy architect, a 1948 sketch by Martin shows the design of the concert hall as the egg in a box. But the strength of the design was the arrangement of interior space and they were concerned that whilst the scale of the project demanded a monumental building, it should not ape the triumphal classicism of many earlier public buildings. The wide open foyers, with bars and restaurants, were intended to be meeting places for all, because these public spaces were built around the auditorium, they also had the effect of insulating the Hall from the noise of the adjacent railway bridge. The hall they built used modernism’s favourite material, reinforced concrete, alongside more luxurious elements including beautiful woods, the exterior of the building was bright white, intended to contrast with the blackened city surrounding it. The cantilevered boxes are described as looking like drawers pulled out in a hurried burglary. The ceiling was wilfully sculptural, a conceit at the edge of building technology and, as it turns out. Robin Day, who designed the furniture for the auditorium, used a clearly articulated structure in his designs of bent plywood, the foundation stone was laid in 1949 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee on the site of the former Lion Brewery, built in 1837. The first general manager was T. E. Bean, who had managed the Hallé Orchestra. I was overwhelmed by a shock of breathless delight at the originality and beauty of the interior and it felt as if I had been instantly transported far into the future and that I was on another planet, said journalist Bernard Levin of his first impressions of the building. The 7,866 pipe organ was built during 1950–1954 by Harrison & Harrison in Durham, to the specification of the London County Councils consultant, Ralph Downes, however, the design of the organ in its housing made maintenance difficult, and by 2000 it had become unusable. It was consequently completely removed before restoration of the Hall itself began in 2005, and after restoration and updating by Harrison & Harrison, the remainder was reinstalled between 2012 and 2013, and voicing completed in 2014
7.
Queen Elizabeth Hall
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The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival of Britain of 1951, and the Hayward Gallery. It stands on the site of a shot tower, built as part of a lead works in 1826. The venue was closed for two years of renovations in September 2015, the QEH has over 900 seats and the Purcell Room in the same building has 360 seats. These two auditoriums were built together by Higgs and Hill and opened in March 1967, the sculpture Zemran in stainless steel stands on the riverside terrace of the QEH. The QEH is an example of brutalist architecture, the design was intended to show to a high degree the separate masses and elements of the building, in order to avoid competing with the scale and presence of the Royal Festival Hall. The QEH uses minimal decoration and was designed to allow circulation at multiple levels around the building, the focus is primarily on the internal spaces, which have very limited fenestration except for the sweep along the river frontage of the foyer building. The original arrangements provided circulation above and below the foyer, right around the sides, the powerful forms and austere materials are an example of Brutalist architecture, and the design also highlights the plasticity of concrete. The foyer is at first floor level and the building is supported on octagonal reinforced concrete columns, with an undercroft below. The two arms of the vee-shape are linked to the QEH auditorium by cast concrete tubes, reminiscent of a spaceships docking arrangement, the provision of only two entrances to the auditorium causes congestion and slow exit for audiences. The foyer is a shape to accommodate the change in angle between the lines of Waterloo Bridge and the north-east side of the Royal Festival Hall. A notable feature of the QEH is the interior of the building, with its intimate scale and subtle use of materials. The original 1960s cool of this area has now largely lost due to the intrusion of artificial partitions to provide smaller areas for various activities by day as well as in the evening. Access to all parts of the building, including from the foyer to the auditorium, the main entrance to the foyer is from walkway level near the north end of the terrace of the Royal Festival Hall. To see the effect this should be viewed head-on from the north corner of the Royal Festival Hall. The entrance, in Brutalist style, is in the form of a slit in a concrete structure. A smaller entrance is provided at ground level, intended to be for visitors set down by car or coming from the car park under The Hayward and this entrance also appears to have led to the undercroft but that access is now blocked off. An internal stairs leads to the level from this lower entrance
8.
Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges
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The Hungerford Bridge crosses the River Thames in London, and lies between Waterloo Bridge and Westminster Bridge. The north end of the bridge is Charing Cross railway station, and is near Embankment Pier, the south end is near Waterloo station, County Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, and the London Eye. Each pedestrian bridge has steps and lift access, the first Hungerford Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, opened in 1845 as a suspension footbridge. It was named after the then Hungerford Market, because it went from the South Bank to Hungerford Market on the side of the Thames. In 1859 the original bridge was bought by the railway company extending the South Eastern Railway into the newly opened Charing Cross railway station. The railway company replaced the bridge with a structure designed by Sir John Hawkshaw, comprising nine spans made of wrought iron lattice girders. The chains from the old bridge were re-used in Bristols Clifton Suspension Bridge, the buttress on the South Bank side still has the entrances and steps from the original steamer pier Brunel built on to the footbridge. Walkways were added on each side, with the one later being removed when the railway was widened. Another walkway was added in 1951 when an Army Bailey bridge was constructed for the Festival of Britain. In 1980 a temporary walkway was erected on the side while the downstream railway bridge. It is one of three bridges in London to combine pedestrian and rail use, the others being Fulham Railway Bridge. The footbridge gained a reputation for being narrow, dilapidated and dangerous, in the mid-1990s a decision was made to replace the footbridge with new structures on either side of the existing railway bridge, and a competition was held in 1996 for a new design. It was felt, especially following the Marchioness disaster, that these should be clad in concrete at water level, the Golden Jubilee Bridges achieved this protection at no cost to Railtrack. The concept design for the new footbridges was won by architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, detailed design of the two bridges was carried out by consulting engineers Gifford, now Ramboll UK. Despite extensive surveys of the riverbed, London Underground was unwilling to accept these risks and preliminary works were stopped in 2000. The design was modified so that the structure on the north side. Excavation near the lines was carried out when the tube was closed. The two new 4-metre wide footbridges were completed in 2002 and they were named the Golden Jubilee Bridges, in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth IIs accession, although in practice they are still referred to as the Hungerford Footbridges
9.
Royal National Theatre
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The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdoms three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. Internationally, it is known as the National Theatre of Great Britain, from its foundation in 1963 until 1976, the company was based at the Old Vic theatre in Waterloo. The current building is located next to the Thames in the South Bank area of central London, in addition to performances at the National Theatre building, the National Theatre company tours productions at theatres across the United Kingdom. Since 1988, the theatre has been permitted to call itself the Royal National Theatre, the theatre presents a varied programme, including Shakespeare and other international classic drama, and new plays by contemporary playwrights. Each auditorium in the theatre can run up to three shows in repertoire, thus widening the number of plays which can be put on during any one season. In June 2009, the theatre began National Theatre Live, a programme of simulcasts of live productions to cinemas, first in the United Kingdom, the programme began with a production of Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren, which was screened live in 70 cinemas across the UK. NT Live productions have since been broadcast to over 1,000 venues in 35 countries around the world, the NT had an annual turnover of approximately £87 million in 2012–13, of which earned income made up 80%. Support from Arts Council England provided 20% of income, and the remaining 7% came from a mixture of companies, individuals, trusts, in 1847, a critic using the pseudonym Dramaticus published a pamphlet describing the parlous state of British theatre. Production of serious plays was restricted to the patent theatres, at the same time, there was a burgeoning theatre sector featuring a diet of low melodrama and musical burlesque, but critics described British theatre as driven by commercialism and a star system. There was a demand to commemorate serious theatre, with the Shakespeare Committee purchasing the playwrights birthplace for the nation demonstrating a recognition of the importance of serious drama, the following year saw more pamphlets on a demand for a National Theatre from London publisher Effingham William Wilson. The situation continued, with a renewed call every decade for a National Theatre, attention was aroused in 1879 when the Comédie-Française took a residency at the Gaiety Theatre, described in The Times as representing the highest aristocracy of the theatre. This still left the capital without a national theatre and this work was interrupted by World War I. The play was part of the campaign to build a National Theatre. Still, the Government tried to apply unacceptable conditions to save money, attempting to force the amalgamation of the publicly supported companies. In July 1962, with agreements reached, a board was set up to supervise construction. The National Theatre Company opened on 22 October 1963 with Hamlet, the current building was designed by architects Sir Denys Lasdun and Peter Softley and structural engineers Flint & Neill and contains three stages, which opened individually between 1976 and 1977. The construction work was carried out by Sir Robert McAlpine, the Company was to remain at the Old Vic until 1977, when construction of the Olivier was complete. The National Theatre building houses three separate auditoria, additionally, a temporary structure was added in April 2013 and closed in May 2016
10.
Festival of Britain
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The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Up and down the land, lesser festivals enlisted much civic, Labour cabinet member Herbert Morrison was the prime mover, in 1947 he started with the original plan to celebrate the centennial of the Great Exhibition of 1851. However it was not to be another World Fair, for international themes were absent, instead the 1951 festival focused entirely on Britain and its achievements, it was funded chiefly by the government, with a budget of £12 million. The Festivals centrepiece was in London on the South Bank of the Thames, there were events in Poplar, Battersea, South Kensington and Glasgow. The Festival became a beacon for change that proved popular with thousands of elite visitors. It helped reshape British arts, crafts, designs and sports for a generation, journalist Harry Hopkins highlights the widespread impact of the Festival style. It was, clean, bright and new, in 1945, the government appointed a committee under Lord Ramsden to consider how exhibitions and fairs could promote exports. When the committee reported a year later, it was decided not to continue with the idea of an international exhibition because of its cost at a time when reconstruction was a high priority, Morrison insisted there be no politics, explicit or implicit. Much of London lay in ruins and models of redevelopment were needed, the Festival was an attempt to give Britons a feeling of recovery and progress and to promote better-quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival of Britain described itself as one united act of national reassessment, gerald Barry, the Festival Director, described it as a tonic to the nation. A Festival Council to advise the government was set up under General Lord Ismay, responsibility for organisation devolved upon the Lord President of the Council, Herbert Morrison, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, who had been London County Council leader. In March 1948, a Festival Headquarters was set up, which was to be the nucleus of the Festival of Britain Office, Festival projects in Northern Ireland were undertaken by the government of Northern Ireland. Associated with the Festival of Britain Office were the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Council of Industrial Design, the British Film Institute and the National Book League. Government grants were made to the Arts Council, the Council of Industrial Design, the British Film Institute and the National Museum of Wales for work undertaken as part of the Festival. A long-time editor with left-leaning, middle-brow views, he was energetic and optimistic, with an eye for what would be popular, unlike Morrison, Barry was not seen as a Labour ideologue. Barry selected the next rank, giving preference to young architects and they thought along the same lines socially and aesthetically, as middle-class intellectuals with progressive sympathies. Thanks to Barry a collegial sentiments prevailed that minimised stress and delay, the arts were displayed in a series of country-wide musical and dramatic performances. Achievements in architecture were to presented in a new neighbourhood, the Lansbury Estate, planned, built, there were other displays elsewhere, each intended to be complete in itself, yet each part of the one single conception
11.
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
Waterloo
Waterloo
