Henry Smith (British politician)
Henry Edward Millar Smith is an English Conservative Party politician and former property developer. He was Leader of West Sussex County Council from 2003 to 2010, he is the Member of Parliament for Crawley. Smith was born on 14 May 1969 in Surrey, he was educated at Chinthurst School, Surrey – at the time a boys' preparatory school – at Frensham Heights School, a co-educational independent school in Farnham in Surrey, followed by University College London, where he obtained a B. A. in Philosophy. Smith stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate in the Pound Hill South ward of Crawley Borough Council in 1996. However, he was elected in 2002 as a Conservative Councillor for Pound Hill North Ward, he served until the next election in May 2006. Smith stood as the Conservative Party candidate for Furnace Green ward on West Sussex County Council and was elected in 1997, before being re-elected in the same ward in 2001 and elected in Pound Hill Worth & Maidenbower ward in 2005 and 2009, he became Leader of the Council in 2003 at the age of 34, becoming the youngest county council leader in the country.
At the time he worked for a property investment business based in Crawley in West Sussex. Smith was the Chairman of the South East Counties Leaders Group from 2007 to 2010, has served as a Governor at The Oaks, The Brook, Oriel High schools in Crawley, he co-wrote the 2005 publication Direct Democracy. Smith stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate for Crawley at the General Election in 2001 and 2005, he stood against the incumbent MP Laura Moffatt, the second time achieving the highest national swing from Labour to the Conservatives, reducing the majority to 37, the smallest in the country. He was subsequently elected to Parliament at the 2010 general election. Following his election as Crawley MP he resigned as a West Sussex County Councillor on 1 September 2010, he was re-elected at 2017 general election. Smith is a Eurosceptic who supported backbench calls for an early referendum on exiting the EU, he denied rumours linking him to a possible defection to UKIP in 2014, insisting he supported the Conservatives' other policies and felt they were the best option for a referendum on the EU.
Smith said that getting a new hospital in the Pease Pottage area remained his "top issue" and was something he had raised in Parliament after constituents had criticised a lack of progress on the issue. Gatwick Airport lies within his constituency and he has spoken in favour of improved rail links to the airport and the reduction or abolition of Air Passenger Duty. On the airport's 2018 plans to expand and use its emergency runway for departure flights, Smith has said: "Crawley’s prosperity depends on the success of Gatwick Airport and the publication of this new draft master plan goes a long way to securing future growth in the town. I have always supported the airport growing within its existing boundaries."His parliamentary candidacy at the 2015 general election was endorsed by Queen guitarist Brian May on the grounds of his animal welfare record. May had worked with him in opposing the government's badger culling. In parliament, Smith has spoken against the export of live animals, the import of foie gras, the ivory trade, fur clothing and animals in circuses.
He has spoken in favour of CCTV in slaughterhouses, the reduction of the use of animals in scientific experiments and for increased criminal penalties for animal cruelty. Smith has spoken up for the rights of the expelled Chagos Islanders, many of whom live in his constituency. In January 2018 he introduced the private members' British Indian Ocean Territory Bill to enable the islanders and their descendants to claim British Overseas Territory citizenship. In the House of Commons he sits on the International Development Committee and Committees on Arms Export Controls, the International Development Sub-Committee on the Work of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the International Development Committee, he sat on the European Scrutiny Committee. Smith is a member of the Animal Welfare, Blood Cancer, Heart Disease All-Party Parliamentary Groups as well as sixteen other APPGs. Smith employs his wife as a Senior Secretary on a salary up to £25,000, he was listed in articles in the Daily Telegraph and Guardian criticising the practice of MPs employing family members, on the lines that it promotes nepotism.
Although MPs who were first elected in 2017 have been banned from employing family members, the restriction is not retrospective - meaning that Smith's employment of his wife is lawful. On 6 September 2013, while the St. Petersburg G20 Summit was ongoing, Smith referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "tosser" on Twitter, following reports of an unnamed Russian official having described Britain "small and unimportant." Smith subsequently said he stood by his comments, arguing that although it was "difficult to get a serious point across in 140 characters" the serious point was that Putin was an "absurd character, responsible for some serious breaches of human rights". Having criticised the government's conduct of the Brexit negotiations, he submitted a letter of no confidence in the Conservative Party leader Theresa May on the day after publication of the draft withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU. In December 2018, Smith released the names of a couple who were drone hobbyists and, arrested and questioned on suspicion of being responsible for the Gatwick Airport drone incident.
Kingdom of Sussex
The Kingdom of the South Saxons, today referred to as the Kingdom of Sussex, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. On the south coast of the island of Great Britain, it was a sixth century Saxon colony and an independent kingdom; the South Saxons were ruled by the kings of Sussex until the country was annexed by Wessex in 827, in the aftermath of the Battle of Ellandun. The Kingdom of Sussex had its initial focus in a territory based on the former kingdom and Romano-British civitas of the Regnenses and its boundaries coincided in general with those of the county of Sussex. For a brief period in the 7th century, the Kingdom of Sussex controlled the Isle of Wight and the territory of the Meonwara in the Meon Valley in east Hampshire. From the late 8th century, Sussex seems to have absorbed the Kingdom of the Haestingas, after the region was conquered by the Mercian king Offa. A large part of its territory was covered by the forest that took its name from the fort of Anderitum at modern Pevensey, known to the Romano-British as the Forest of Andred and to the Saxons as Andredsleah or Andredsweald, known today as the Weald.
This forest, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was 30 miles deep. It was the largest remaining area of woodland and heath in the territories that became England and was inhabited by wolves and bears, it was so dense. The forested Weald made expansion difficult but provided some protection from invasion by neighbouring kingdoms. Whilst Sussex's isolation from the rest of Anglo-Saxon England has been emphasised, Roman roads must have remained important communication arteries across the forest of the Weald; the Weald was not the only area of Sussex, forested in Saxon times--for example, at the western end of Sussex is the Manhood Peninsula, which in the modern era is deforested, but the name is derived from the Old English maene-wudu meaning "men's wood" or "common wood" indicating that it was once woodland. The coastline would have looked different from today. Much of the alluvium in the river plains had not yet been deposited and the tidal river estuaries extended much further inland, it is estimated.
Before people reclaimed the tidal marshes in the 13th century the coastal plain contained extensive areas of sea water in the form of lagoons, salt marsh, wide inlets and peninsulas. To the South Saxons of the 5th and 6th centuries this coastline must have resembled their original homeland between coastal Friesland, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein; the landscape gave rise to some key regional differences within the kingdom. The rich coastal plain continued to be the base for the large estates, ruled by their thegns, some of whom had their boundaries confirmed by charters; the Downs were more deserted. South Saxon impact was greatest in the Weald. Along the north scarp of the Downs runs a series of parishes with land evenly distributed across the different soils to their northern boundaries. In the early mediaeval period, the rivers of Sussex may have acted locally as a major unifier, linking coastal and riverside communities and providing people in these areas with a sense of identity; the boundaries of the Kingdom of Sussex crystallised around the 6th and 7th centuries.
To the west, Bede describes the boundary with the Kingdom of Wessex as being opposite the Isle of Wight, which fell on the River Ems. It is possible that the Jutish territories of the Isle of Wight and the Meon Valley in modern Hampshire acted as a buffer zone between the Saxon kingdoms of Sussex and Wessex until they were conquered by the Mercian king Wulfhere and passed to King Aethelwealh of Sussex in the 7th century. To the east at Romney Marsh and the River Limen, Sussex shared a border with the Kingdom of Kent. North of the Forest Ridge in the Wealden forest lay the sub-kingdom of Surrey, which became a frontier area disputed by various kingdoms until it became part of Wessex. To the south of Sussex lay the English Channel, beyond which lay Francia, or the Kingdom of the Franks. By the 680s, when Christianity was being introduced, there is no doubt that the district around Selsey and Chichester had become the political centre of the kingdom, though there is little archaeological evidence for a reoccupation of Chichester itself before the 9th century.
The capital of the Kingdom of Sussex was at Chichester, the seat of the kingdom's bishopric was at Selsey. The traditional residence of the South Saxon kings was at Kingsham, once outside the southern walls of Chichester although within its modern boundaries. Ditchling may have been an important regional centre for a large part of central Sussex between the Rivers Adur and Ouse until the founding of Lewes in the 9th century. By the 11th century the towns were developments of the fortified towns founded in the reign of Alfred the Great; the ancient droveways of Sussex linked coastal and downland communities in the south with summer pasture land in the interior of the Weald. The droveways were used throughout the Saxon era by the South Saxons and originated before the Roman occupation of Britain; the droveways formed a road system that suggests that the settlers in the oldest developed parts of Sussex were concerned not so much with east–west connections between neighbouring settlements as with north–south communication between each settlement and its outlying woodland pastur
Sussex
Sussex, from the Old English Sūþsēaxe, is a historic county in South East England corresponding in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English Channel, divided for many purposes into the ceremonial counties of West Sussex and East Sussex. Brighton and Hove, though part of East Sussex, was made a unitary authority in 1997, as such, is administered independently of the rest of East Sussex. Brighton and Hove was granted City status in 2000; until Chichester was Sussex's only city. Sussex has three main geographic sub-regions, each oriented east to west. In the southwest is the fertile and densely populated coastal plain. North of this are the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs, beyond, the well-wooded Sussex Weald; the name derives from the Kingdom of Sussex, founded, according to legend, by Ælle of Sussex in AD 477. Around 827, it was absorbed subsequently into the kingdom of England, it was the home of some of Europe's earliest recorded hominids, whose remains have been found at Boxgrove.
It is the site of the Battle of Hastings. In 1974, the Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex was replaced with one each for East and West Sussex, which became separate ceremonial counties. Sussex continues to be recognised as cultural region, it has had a single police force since 1968 and its name is in common use in the media. In 2007, Sussex Day was created to celebrate history. Based on the traditional emblem of Sussex, a blue shield with six gold martlets, the flag of Sussex was recognised by the Flag Institute in 2011. In 2013, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles formally recognised and acknowledged the continued existence of England's 39 historic counties, including Sussex; the name "Sussex" is derived from the Middle English Suth-sæxe, in turn derived from the Old English Suth-Seaxe which means of the South Saxons. The South Saxons were a Germanic tribe that settled in the region from the North German Plain during the 5th and 6th centuries; the earliest known usage of the term South Saxons is in a royal charter of 689 which names them and their king, Noðhelm, although the term may well have been in use for some time before that.
The monastic chronicler who wrote up the entry classifying the invasion seems to have got his dates wrong. The New Latin word Suthsexia was used for Sussex by Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu in his 1645 map. Three United States counties, a former county/land division of Western Australia, are named after Sussex; the flag of Sussex consists of six gold martlets, or heraldic swallows, on a blue background, blazoned as Azure, six martlets or. Recognised by the Flag Institute on 20 May 2011, its design is based on the heraldic shield of Sussex; the first known recording of this emblem being used to represent the county was in 1611 when cartographer John Speed deployed it to represent the Kingdom of the South Saxons. However it seems that Speed was repeating an earlier association between the emblem and the county, rather than being the inventor of the association, it is now regarded that the county emblem originated and derived from the coat of arms of the 14th-century Knight of the Shire, Sir John de Radynden.
Sussex’s six martlets are today held to symbolise the traditional six sub-divisions of the county known as rapes. Sussex by the Sea is regarded as the unofficial anthem of Sussex. Adopted by the Royal Sussex Regiment and popularised in World War I, it is sung at celebrations across the county, including those at Lewes Bonfire, at sports matches, including those of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club and Sussex County Cricket Club; the county day, called Sussex Day, is celebrated on 16 June, the same day as the feast day of St Richard of Chichester, Sussex's patron saint, whose shrine at Chichester Cathedral was an important place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. Sussex's motto, We wunt be druv, is a Sussex dialect expression meaning "we will not be pushed around" and reflects the traditionally independent nature of Sussex men and women; the round-headed rampion known as the "Pride of Sussex", was adopted as Sussex's county flower in 2002. The physical geography of Sussex relies on its lying on the southern part of the Wealden anticline, the major features of which are the high lands that cross the county in a west to east direction: the Weald itself and the South Downs.
Natural England has identified the following seven national character areas in Sussex:South Coast Plain South Downs Wealden Greensand Low Weald High Weald Pevensey Levels Romney MarshesAt 280m, Blackdown is the highest point in Sussex, or county top. Ditchling Beacon is the highest point in East Sussex. At 113 kilometres long, the River Medway is the longest river flowing through Sussex; the longest river in Sussex is the River Arun, 60 kilometres long. Sussex's largest lakes are man-made reservoirs; the largest is Bewl Water on the Kent border, while the largest wholly within Sussex is Ardingly Reservoir. The coastal resorts of Sussex and neighbouring Hampshire are the sunniest places in the United Kingdom; the coast has more sunshine than the inland areas: sea breezes, blowing off the sea, tend to clear any cloud from the coast. Most of Sussex lies in Hardiness zon
Petworth
Petworth is a small town and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 east-west road from Heathfield to Winchester and the A283 Milford to Shoreham-by-Sea road; some twelve miles to the south west of Petworth along the A285 road lies Chichester and the south-coast. The parish includes the settlements of Byworth and Hampers Green and covers an area of 2,690 hectares. In 2001 the population of the parish was 2,775 persons living in 1,200 households of whom 1,326 were economically active. At the 2011 Census the population was 3,027; the town is mentioned in Domesday Book. It is best known as the location of the stately home Petworth House, the grounds of which are the work of Capability Brown; the house and its grounds are now maintained by the National Trust. In the early 17th century, the question of Petworth's status as an honour or a town came up when the Attorney General charged William Levett of Petworth, Gent. Son of Anthony Levett, with "having unlawfully usurped divers privileges within the town of Petworth, parcel of the Honour of Arundel."
William Levett's son Nicholas became rector of West Sussex. Another historic attraction in the town, Petworth Cottage Museum in High Street, is a museum of domestic life for poor estate workers in the town in about 1910. At that time the cottage was the home of Mrs. Cummings, a seamstress, whose drunkard husband had been a farrier in the Royal Irish Hussars and on the Petworth estate; the railway line between Pulborough and Midhurst once had a station at Petworth, but the line was closed to passenger use in 1955, to freight in 1966, though the station building survives as a bed and breakfast establishment. Petworth fell victim to bombing in World War II on 29 September 1942, when a lone German Heinkel 111, approaching from the south over Hoes Farm, aimed three bombs at Petworth House; the bombs missed the house, but one bounced off a tree and landed on the Petworth Boys' School in North Street, killing 28 boys, the headmaster, Charles Stevenson, assistant teacher Charlotte Marshall. An electoral ward in the same name exists.
This ward includes Fittleworth and Ebernoe with a total ward population as taken at the 2011 census of 4,742. Petworth Primary School is the only school in the town; the school is at the south of the town and takes pupils up until Year 6. Until 2008 the Herbert Shiner School took pupils in years 6, 7 and 8 before they moved on to Midhurst Grammar School but this was closed down when the new Midhurst Rother College was opened; the town's amateur dramatics group is known as the Petworth Players, their past productions have included The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Sleeping Beauty. In 2015 Petworth saw the launch of petfringe, a fringe festival in the style of Edinburgh Fringe or Brighton Fringe. From the start petfringe's guiding aim has been to provide a platform for'Home Grown Talent + Guests'. Petfringe 2017 runs from 29 June to 9 July. Petworth has been the home to the Petworth Town Band for over 100 years. A group of nearly 40 amateur brass and woodwind players, the band rehearses weekly and is seen around the local area playing at local events.
Petworth House was one of the main locations for the 2014 Mike Leigh film Mr. Turner, which put Timothy Spall as the artist Turner in the actual locations where he painted in the early 19th century; the Petworth Society was founded in 1974 to protect the character and amenities of the parishes of Petworth and Byworth. On 20 November each year, the market square is closed off to traffic; this is the modern survival of an ancient custom. In earlier centuries the fair lasted several days and may have been wholly or held on a field on the south side of the town called fairfield; the London Gazette of November 1666 announced that a fair would not be held that year because of plague still infesting the county, shows that the fair was a nine-day event. Local tradition tells of a lost charter for the fair, but this is myth because it was determined by travelling justices of King Edward I in 1275 that the fair lasting eight days, had been in existence since time immemorial and no royal charter was needed.
At that time tolls on stalls for the sale of cattle provided an income for the Lord of the Manor. The traders of Arundel claimed a right to sell their wares at the fair as Petworth was in the Honour of Arundel. In the 20th century the fair field was used for allotments, is now housing and the Fairfield Medical Centre; the village of Byworth in the parish is just across the Shimmings valley. Further east still, on the border with Fittleworth, is Egdean, which has a small church dedicated to St. Bartholomew. Petworth is twinned with Ranville in Normandy and San Quirico d'Orcia in Tuscany, Italy. Petworth Town Council
Selsey Bill
Selsey Bill is a headland into the English Channel on the south coast of England in the county of West Sussex. The southernmost town in Sussex is Selsey, at the end of the Manhood Peninsula and Selsey Bill is situated on the town's southern coastline, it is the westernmost point of the Sussex Coast. Although the place name Selsey has existed since Saxon times, is derived from the Old English meaning Seal's Island, there is no evidence to suggest that the place name Selsey Bill is old. A 1698 survey of the area included in a report for the Royal Navy, by Dummer and Wiltshaw mentioned Selsey Island but not Selsey Bill; the place name does not appear to have been used before the early 18th century when it started appearing on maps. It is possible that the idea was taken from Portland Bill, another headland, on the western side of the Solent. Thomas Pennant described the location of Selsey-bill in his book A Journey between London and the Isle of Wight published in 1801; the place name Selsey-Bill has become synonymous with the town of Selsey, for example Edward Heron-Allen wrote about The Parish Church of St Peter on Selsey Bill Sussex though the church is situated in Selsey High Street.
Popular references to Selsey Bill include the song "Saturday's Kids" by The Jam, along with "Bracklesham Bay": "Save up their money for a holiday/To Selsey Bill, or Bracklesham Bay and the Madness song "Driving in My Car": "I drive up to Muswell Hill, I've been to Selsey Bill." The references are to Selsey Bill although most of the holiday facilities are the other side of Selsey. There were Pontin's holiday camps at Bracklesham Bay, although they are now both closed; the Pontin's at Broadreeds, has been redeveloped, was the only site, near to the Bill. However both the modern Admiralty Chart and the Ordnance Survey map of the area confirm that Selsey Bill is a headland and covered by sea at high tide and Selsey is part of the mainland. Although the name Selsey Bill is not old, the area has been well known to sailors from the earliest times. There have been many wrecks off Selsey Bill over the years. On his journey back home, in c.666, he was shipwrecked off Selsey Bill and was nearly killed by the heathen inhabitants.
The annals for 896 record a sea and beach battle, involving a fleet of Viking ships against those of Alfred the Great's newly founded navy. Three of the Danish vessels tried to escape; the crews were sent to Winchester where they were hanged by orders of Alfred. Henry VI granted that lands of Chichester Cathedral should be exempt from the Court of the Admiralty in the manner of wrecks, which meant in effect that any wrecks off Selsey Bill would be the bishop's property. In the 18th century, members of a notorious smuggling gang were captured and tried for the brutal murder of a supposed informant and a customs official and Galley. Seven were condemned to death at the assizes held at Chichester in 1749 and, after they had been executed at the Broyle, two of them were subsequently hung in chains at Selsey Bill, a Yeakel and Gardner map has a Gibbet Field marked on it where it is believed the smugglers hung. Since 1861, there has been a lifeboat station to the east of Selsey Bill, there is a system of beacons that warns sailors of the treacherous Owers and Mixon rocks that are south of Selsey Bill.
The Mixon rock was quarried during the Roman occupation and was to become an important building stone in the late Saxon period. It's quarrying continued after the Norman conquest and was still being used until the early 19th century; the quarrying ceased after an Admiralty prohibition order in 1827. The Meteorological office issues Shipping Forecasts and they are read out on BBC Radio 4, four times a day, it gives a summary of gale warnings in force, a general synopsis and area forecasts for specified sea areas around the UK. In addition, some bulletins include a forecast for all UK inshore waters, as distinct from the coastal waters. Selsey Bill is a boundary for two areas of the Met Office's inshore water forecast; the area to the west extends to the East to North Foreland. Selsey Bill is in sea area Wight. In the 19th and early 20th century the local fishermen jointly owned a longboat, operated by 22 oarsmen. If any vessel was stranded off the Bill after any rescue work had been completed the pilot of the longboat would negotiate with the skipper, of the damaged vessel, a price to assist them to safe harbour.
In modern times the "Channel Pilot for the South Coast of England and the North Coast of France", cautions sailors that Selsey Bill is difficult to locate in poor visibility. However, in clear weather when the wind is moderate, a short cut can be afforded by using the Looe Channel that passes through the rocks and ledges south of the Bill, marked by buoys; the pilot recommends that a large-scale chart is required and to proceed with caution. Hawkhurst Gang Armstrong, J. R.. A History of Sussex. Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore. ISBN 0-85033-185-4. Beda Venerabilis. A History of the English Church and People. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044042-9. Cunliffe, Tom; the Shell Channel Pilot, The South Coast of England and North Coast of France. Cambridgeshire: Imray. ISBN 0-8528-8894-5. Dummer, Edmund.
We wunt be druv
"We wunt be druv" is the unofficial county motto of Sussex in southern England. It is a Sussex dialect phrase meaning "we will not be driven"; the motto asserts that people from the English county of Sussex have minds of their own, cannot be forced against their will or told what to do. It is used as a motto of the people of the Sussex Bonfire Societies. Since 2016 it has been used as part of the re-branding of Harvey's Brewery of Lewes. According to the "Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs", "Sussex won't be druv" is a local proverbial saying dating from the early 20th century. In 1875 the Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect stated "I wunt be druv" as a "favourite maxim with Sussex people". Although used all over Sussex, the phrase originates from the Weald, there is evidence that in Wealden areas common people were freer from manorial control than in the rest of Sussex. Twice in the late Middle Ages Wealden peasants rose in revolt: once in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, under the leadership of Wat Tyler and the radical priest John Ball, again in 1450 under Jack Cade, pursued and fatally wounded at Old Heathfield, where he had connections.
The phrase "I wunt be druv" is mentioned in EV Lucas's 1904 book Byways in Sussex. In his 1924 tale The Cricket Match, Hugh de Selincourt wrote "‘Well, we'd better be going, I suppose,’ Gauvinier announced‥well aware that ‘Sussex won't be druv’." In David Frome's "Mr. Pinkerton at the Old Angel", "The sudden weariness in her frail face testified to years of patient leading. Mr. Pinkerton thought of the boast of the men of Sussex, they too couldn't be druv, they said." According to linguist Richard Coates an organisation called The Men of Sussex had as its motto, Non cogemur, a Latin translation of the motto. The phrase was used in poetry: You may push and you may shov But I'm hemmed if I'll be druv And a longer version: And you may pook And you may shove But a Sussex pig He wunt be druv In Sussex, pigs are respected for their independent spirit and are associated with the motto. In the 19th century, some Sussex potteries produced earthenware flasks in the shape of pigs with "wunt be druv" incised or impressed on the pig's neck.
W Victor Cook wrote a poem in Sussex dialect, published in 1914: Sussex Won’t be Druv Some folks as come to Sussex, They reckons as they know - A durn sight better what to do Than simple folks, like me and you, Could suppose. But them as comes to Sussex, They mustn't push and shove, For Sussex will be Sussex, And Sussex won't be druv! Mus Wilfred come to Sussex, Us heaved a stone at he, Because he reckoned he could teach Our Sussex fishers how to reach The fishes in the sea, but when he dwelt among us, Us gave un land and luv, For Sussex will be Sussex, And Sussex won't be druv! All folks as come to Sussex Must follow Sussex ways - And when they've larned to know us well, There's no place else they'll wish to dwell In all their blessed days - There ant no place like Sussex, Until ye goos above, For Sussex will be Sussex, And Sussex won't be druv. W Victor Cook 1914 "Sussex by the Sea" – unofficial Sussex county anthem
Sussex