1.
Teddington, Gloucestershire
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Teddington is a village and parish in Gloucestershire, England. The village is fortunate to have an ancient church that is thought to date from the 12th Century, the interior wall has a partially faded mural of the Lion and the Unicorn that dates from the second half of the 17th century. It also contains an arch sourced from Hailes Abbey after the latter was destroyed following the dissolution of the monasteries, the village has a population of less than 300, of which the majority are professional commuters and elderly pensioners. The population increased to 393 at the 2011 census and it has an archaic water pump, a village hall and some property dating from the 18th century and earlier. Nearby is the Teddington Hands pub, the name of which refers to the sign that was renovated as part of the 2000 Millennium celebrations. Opposite the pub and outside a Texaco service station is a stone of purportedly mystical significance and is believed to be over 2,000 years old. In recent years, the village has been host to a murder in 1993 where a male resident, the victims are buried in St Nicholass church graveyard and a bench commemorates their lives. The village dates from the 8th Century, the area gets its name from the historic fingerpost which formerly stood at the crossroads but now stands adjacent to the entrance to the pub. The finger post is a listed structure, Glenn Miller also entertained troops in an adjacent field and visited the pub for refreshments prior to going to Cheltenham to perform a further concert. The following day he left from an airfield for France. He and the plane he was travelling in was never seen again, the current theory being is small plane was hit by bombs discharged from returning allied bombers over the channel. So the Teddington Hands Inn is possibly the last pub Glenn Miller ever visited, many of the close personal friendships forged as a result have prove long and lasting. Please visit the Teddington and Alstone Parish Council website below, the existence of this parish began when the standing stone was founded and was thought to bring good-natured happenings and luck. Travellers came into the area looking to see the stone there was a whole community of travellers and settlers. After a few there were thriving businesses and schools worthy for education of children. Even today people moving house or coming into retirement like to travel to Teddington for its famous brews and the mystical significance of the standing stone
2.
Teddington Lock
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Teddington Lock is a complex of three locks and a weir on the River Thames in England at Ham in south west London. The lock is on the side of the river. The river downstream of the lock, known as the Tideway, is tidal, though Teddington marks the tidal limit, in periods of very high fluvial flow the tidal influence can be seen as far upstream as East Molesey, location of the second lock on the Thames. The Teddington lock complex consists of three locks, a launch lock, a very large barge lock and a small skiff lock. The barge lock has a set of gates in the middle so it can operate in two sizes. The large bow shaped weir stretches across to Teddington from an island upstream of the lock which also acts as the point for the two bridges making up Teddington Lock Footbridge. Stephen Leach took over the post of Clerk of Works for the First District in 1802, just before his retirement, Truss has proposed locks at Molesey and Teddington, each having a weir with long tumbling bays, similar to modern practice. John Rennie had suggested a series of cuts in 1794. Rennie and William Jessop again proposed four long cuts in 1805, each about 1.5 miles long, zacchary Allnutt, by then Surveyor for the Second and Third Districts, stretching from Staines to Mapledurham, suggested locks at Chertsey, Sunbury and Teddington in 1805. Rennie submitted new proposals in 1809, with nine locks between Staines and Twickenham, two would be without weirs, while the other seven would require large weirs to be built in the river. An Act of Parliament was obtained by the City of London Corporation in June 1810, each would be 150 by 20 feet with the associated weir having ample capacity for flood conditions. Rennie, Leach and the Navigation Committee visited the sites in July, Leach then took charge of the work, which was undertaken by contractors Joseph Kimber and John Dows who also built Sunbury Lock. Work at Teddington started in September 1810, but there were delays caused by flooding in November and December, the lock was finished and opened in June 1811, but the weir was incomplete. The lock was further upstream than the present lock complex at the point where the footbridge now crosses and it comprised three pairs of gates as stipulated in the act. Total cost for lock, cut, weir, ballast and ground was £22,035 10s, 7 1⁄2d. of which the land from Lord Dysarts estate cost £282 10s. The lock was, at first, highly unpopular with the fishermen and bargemen. After attempts to smash it, the keeper was granted permission to keep a blunderbuss with bayonet attached thereto to ward off attacks on the lock. By 1827 the timber lock needed considerable repair and in 1829 the weir was destroyed by an accumulation of ice and it is noted that in 1843 the lock-keeper prevented a steam vessel from coming through the lock
3.
Greater London
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London, or Greater London, is a region of England which forms the administrative boundaries of London. It is organised into 33 local government districts, the 32 London boroughs, the Greater London Authority, based in Southwark, is responsible for strategic local government across the region and consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The county of Greater London was created on 1 April 1965 through the London Government Act 1963, administratively, Greater London was first established as a sui generis council area under the Greater London Council between 1963 and 1986. The area was re-established as a region in 1994, and the Greater London Authority formed in 2000, the region covers 1,572 km2 and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. In 2012, it had the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom at £37,232, the Greater London Built-up Area—used in some national statistics—is a measure of the continuous urban area of London, and therefore includes areas outside of the administrative region. The term Greater London has been and still is used to different areas in governance, statistics, history. In terms of ceremonial counties, London is divided into the small City of London, outside the limited boundaries of the City, a variety of arrangements has governed the wider area since 1855, culminating in the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916, one of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied 1,856 square miles and included 9 million people. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan, a Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. The LCC proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties, protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor, Slough and Eton in the authority. The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCCs scheme, two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a central authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission, Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council sharing power with the City of London Corporation and the 32 London Borough councils. The GLC was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its functions were devolved to the City Corporation and the London Boroughs, with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards. Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994, a referendum held in 1998 established a public will to recreate an upper tier of government to cover the region. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999, in 2000, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary. The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were won by Ken Livingstone, the 2008 and 2012 elections were won by Boris Johnson. The 2016 election was won by Sadiq Khan, Greater London continues to include the most closely associated parts of the Greater London Urban Area and their historic buffers. Thus it includes, in five boroughs, significant parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt which protects designated greenfield land in a way to the citys parks
4.
United Kingdom Census 2011
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A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011 and it was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National Statistics is the office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department formed in 2008. ONS designs, manages and runs the census in England and Wales, the first results from the 2011 census, age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and Wales and Northern Ireland, were released on 16 July 2012. The first results for Scotland, and the first UK-wide results, were published on 17 December 2012, more detailed and specialised data were published from 2013. The Registrar General John Rickman conducted the first census of Great Britains population, from 1911 onwards rapid social change, scientific breakthroughs, and major world events affected the structure of the population. The 1971 census was run by the newly created Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, in 1996 the Office for National Statistics was formed by merging the Central Statistical Office, OPCS and the statistics division of the Department of Employment, the first census it ran was in 2001. In 2008 the UK Statistics Authority was established as an independent body, a population census is a key instrument for assessing the needs of local communities. When related to data sources such as housing or agricultural censuses, or sample surveys. Most countries of the world take censuses, the United Nations recommends that countries take a census at least once every ten years, other organisations that use census data include healthcare organisations, community groups, researchers and businesses. The 2011 census for England and Wales included around 25 million households, people could complete and submit their questionnaire online, or fill it in on paper and post it back in a pre-addressed envelope. Guidance was provided online and through the census helpline, completed questionnaires were electronically tracked and field staff followed up with households that did not return a questionnaire. In these cases field staff delivered and collected questionnaires and, where needed, provided advice or assistance in completing the questionnaire, there was a legal requirement to complete the 2011 census questionnaire, under the terms of the Census Act 1920. As at 27 March 2011 everyone who had lived or intended to live in the country for three months or more was required to complete a questionnaire, failure to return a completed questionnaire could lead to a fine and criminal record. The contract is valued at £150 million, approximately one third of the total £482 million census budget, concerns were raised during contract negotiations that the US PATRIOT Act could be used to force Lockheed Martin to reveal census data to US authorities. The Cabinet Office state that Lockheed Martin will develop the systems used to process census data, neither Lockheed Martin UK nor any Lockheed Martin employee will have access to personal Census data. The Office for National Statistics stated that no census information will ever leave the UK or be seen by any American-owned company. Several groups called for a boycott of the census over the involvement of Lockheed Martin, including the Stop the War Coalition, and the Christian thinktank Ekklesia
5.
Population density
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Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume, it is a quantity of type number density. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and most of the time to humans and it is a key geographical term. Population density is population divided by land area or water volume. Low densities may cause a vortex and lead to further reduced fertility. This is called the Allee effect after the scientist who identified it, commonly this may be calculated for a county, city, country, another territory, or the entire world. The worlds population is around 7,000,000,000, therefore, the worldwide human population density is around 7,000,000,000 ÷510,000,000 =13.7 per km2. If only the Earths land area of 150,000,000 km2 is taken into account and this includes all continental and island land area, including Antarctica. If Antarctica is also excluded, then population density rises to over 50 people per km2, thus, this number by itself does not give any helpful measurement of human population density. Several of the most densely populated territories in the world are city-states, microstates, cities with high population densities are, by some, considered to be overpopulated, though this will depend on factors like quality of housing and infrastructure and access to resources. Most of the most densely populated cities are in Southeast Asia, though Cairo, for instance, Milwaukee has a greater population density when just the inner city is measured, and the surrounding suburbs excluded. Arithmetic density, The total number of people / area of land, physiological density, The total population / area of arable land. Agricultural density, The total rural population / area of arable land, residential density, The number of people living in an urban area / area of residential land. Urban density, The number of people inhabiting an urban area / total area of urban land, ecological optimum, The density of population that can be supported by the natural resources. S. States by population density Selected Current and Historic City, Ward & Neighborhood Density
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Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
7.
Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of local government in England was the parish overseen by the parish church vestry committee. Vestries dealt with the administraction of both parochial and secular governmental matters, parishes were the successors of the manorial system and historically had been grouped into hundreds. Hundreds once exercised some supervising administrative function, however, these powers ebbed away as more and more civic and judicial powers were centred on county towns. From 1834 these parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law and these areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London. Meanwhile, from this date parish-level local government administration was transferred to civil parishes, the setting-down of the current structure of districts in England began in 1965, when Greater London and its 32 London boroughs were created. They are the oldest type of still in use. In 1974, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties were created across the rest of England and were split into metropolitan districts, in London power is now shared again, albeit on a different basis, with the Greater London Authority. During the 1990s a further kind of district was created, the unitary authority, metropolitan boroughs are a subdivision of a metropolitan county. These are similar to unitary authorities, as the county councils were abolished in 1986. Most of the powers of the county councils were devolved to the districts but some services are run by joint boards, the districts typically have populations of 174,000 to 1.1 million. Non-metropolitan districts are second-tier authorities, which share power with county councils and they are subdivisions of shire counties and the most common type of district. These districts typically have populations of 25,000 to 200,000, the number of non-metropolitan districts has varied over time. Initially there were 296, after the creation of unitary authorities in the 1990s and late 2000s and these are single-tier districts which are responsible for running all local services in their areas, combining both county and district functions. They were created in the out of non-metropolitan districts, and often cover large towns. In addition, some of the smaller such as Rutland, Herefordshire
8.
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
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The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London, England, forms part of Outer London and is the only London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas amalgamated under the London Government Act 1963 and it is governed by Richmond upon Thames London Borough Council. The borough is approximately half parkland – large areas of Londons open space fall within the boundaries, including Richmond Park, Kew Gardens, Bushy Park. A neighbouring authority in Surrey achieved the best quality of life in that report, demography is a diverse picture as in all of London, each district should be looked at separately and even those do not reflect all neighbourhoods. Whatever generalisations are used, the texture of London poverty by its minutely localised geography must always be taken into account according to an influential poverty report of 2010. Londons German business and expatriate community is centred on this borough, the above are arranged by post town Parks take up a great deal of the borough and include Richmond Park, Bushy Park, Kew Gardens, and Hampton Court Park. There are over 100 parks and open spaces within its boundary and 21 miles of river frontage,140 hectares within the borough are designated as part of the Metropolitan Green Belt. The name Richmond upon Thames was coined at that time, it is now commonly but inaccurately used to refer to Richmond only, the boroughs history is reflected in the coat of arms, which was officially granted on 7 May 1966. It is, Ermine a portcullis or within a bordure gules charged with eight fleurs-de-lis or. The crest is, On a wreath argent and gules out of a mural crown gules a swan rousant argent in beak a branch of climbing red roses leaved and entwined about the neck proper. The supporters are, On either side a griffin gules, armed and beaked azure, each supporting an oar proper, the blade of the dark blue. Red, gold and ermine are the royal colours, reflecting Richmonds royal history. The swan represents the River Thames, which flows through the borough, the oars are from the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, reflecting the fact that the Boat Race between the two universities ends at Mortlake in the borough. The borough currently has a Conservative-led council which has been the most common administration since its formation, the borough is served by many Transport for London bus routes. The borough is connected to central London and Reading by the National Rail services of South West Trains, the London Undergrounds District line serves Richmond and Kew Gardens stations, both are also served by London Overground trains on the North London Line. The other stations are, Barnes, Barnes Bridge, Fulwell, Hampton, Hampton Wick, Mortlake, North Sheen, St Margarets, Strawberry Hill, Teddington, Twickenham, Richmond upon Thames is the local education authority for the borough. The borough has a football club, Hampton & Richmond Borough F. C. who play at Beveree Stadium in Hampton. The Twickenham Stadium hosts rugby internationals and the Twickenham Stoop is home to the Harlequins Rugby Team, Richmond Rugby Club are also active and share their grounds with London Scottish F. C
9.
Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk
10.
Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
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Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
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England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
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United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
14.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
15.
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995
16.
Metropolitan Police Service
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As of March 2016, the Met employed 48,661 full-time personnel. This included 32,125 sworn police officers,9,521 police staff and this number excludes the 3,271 Special Constables, who work part-time and who have the same powers and uniform as their regular colleagues. This makes the Metropolitan Police the largest police force in the United Kingdom by a significant margin, the post of Commissioner was first held jointly by Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne. The post is occupied by the now-outgoing Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. The Commissioners deputy, the Deputy Commissioner, is currently Craig Mackey, a number of informal names and abbreviations exists for the Metropolitan Police Service, the most common being the Met. In colloquial London, it is referred to as the Old Bill. The Met is also referred to by the metonym Scotland Yard after the location of its headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The Mets current headquarters is New Scotland Yard, in Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Service, whose officers became affectionately known as bobbies, was founded in 1829 by Robert Peel under the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. In 1839, the Marine Police Force, which had formed in 1798, was amalgamated into the Metropolitan Police. In 1837, it also incorporated with the Bow Street Horse Patrol that had organised in 1805. Since January 2012, the Mayor of London is responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Police through the Mayors Office for Policing, the mayor is able to appoint someone to act on his behalf, the current office-holder is Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden. The work of MOPAC is scrutinised by the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly, the area policed by the Metropolitan Police Service is known as the Metropolitan Police District. In terms of policing, the Met is divided into a number of Borough Operational Command Units. The City of London is a police area and is the responsibility of the separate City of London Police. The British Transport Police are responsible for policing of the network in the United Kingdom. Within London, they are responsible for the policing of the London Underground, Tramlink, The Emirates Air Line. There is also a park police force, the Kew Constabulary, responsible for the Royal Botanic Gardens. Officers also have limited powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland, within the MPD, the Met will take over the investigation of any serious crime from the British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police, if it is deemed appropriate
17.
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association
18.
London Fire Brigade
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The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act of 1865 under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. Dany Cotton is the Commissioner for Fire and Emergency Planning, which includes the position of Chief Fire Officer, statutory responsibility for the running of the brigade lies with the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2013/14 the LFB handled 171,067999 emergency calls, of the calls it actually mobilised to,20,934 were fires, including 10,992 that were of a serious nature, making it one of the busiest fire brigades in the world. In the same 12-month period, it received 3,172 hoax calls, the highest number of any UK fire service, in 2015/16 the LFB received 171,488 emergency calls. These consisted of,20,773 fires,30,066 special service callouts and it also conducts emergency planning and performs fire safety inspections and education. He introduced a uniform that, for the first time, included personal protection from the hazards of firefighting. With 80 firefighters and 13 fire stations, the unit was still a private enterprise, funded by the insurance companies, in 1904 it was renamed as the London Fire Brigade. The LFB moved into a new headquarters built by Higgs and Hill on the Albert Embankment in Lambeth in 1937, during the Second World War the countrys brigades were amalgamated into a single National Fire Service. The separate London Fire Brigade for the County of London was re-established in 1948, in 1986 the Greater London Council was disbanded and a new statutory authority, the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority, was formed to take responsibility for the LFB. The LFCDA was replaced in 2000 by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, at the same time, the Greater London Authority was established to administer the LFEPA and coordinate emergency planning for London. Consisting of the Mayor of London and other elected members, the GLA also takes responsibility for the Metropolitan Police Authority, Transport for London, in 2007 the LFB vacated its Lambeth headquarters and moved to a site in Union Street, Southwark. In the same year, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced that LFB Commissioner Ken Knight had been appointed as the first Chief Fire, Knight was succeeded as Commissioner at that time by Ron Dobson, who served for almost ten years. Dany Cotton took over in 2017, becoming the brigades first female commissioner, dany Cotton is the current commissioner, having taken up the role on 1 January 2017. She holds the Queens Fire Service Medal, frank Jackson, CBE1938 to 1941, Cdr. Sir Aylmer Firebrace, CBE1933 to 1938, Maj. Cyril Morris 1918 to 1933, Arthur Reginald Dyer 1909 to 1918, sir Sampson Sladen 1903 to 1909, RAdm. James de Courcy Hamilton 1896 to 1903, Capt, lionel de Latour Wells 1891 to 1896, James Sexton Simmonds 1861 to 1891, Capt. Both divisions were divided into three districts, each under a Superintendent with his headquarters at a superintendent station, the superintendent stations themselves were commanded by District Officers, with the other stations under Station Officers
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Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
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London Ambulance Service
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It is one of the busiest ambulance services in the world, and the busiest in the United Kingdom, providing care to more than 8.6 million people, who live and work in London. The service is currently under the leadership of chief executive Dr Fionna Moore MBE, the service employ around 4,500 staff. In exceptional cases, or where the service deems in necessary, specialist teams can be deployed from within the service, such as the Hazardous Area Response Team and these teams are specially trained and equipped to deal with incidents such as working at height or in confined spaces. It is one of 10 ambulance trusts in England providing emergency medical services, there is no charge to patients for use of the service, as every person in England has the right to the attendance of an ambulance in an emergency. The LAS responded to over 1.8 million calls for assistance, incidents rose by 20,000 in 2015/16, putting more pressure on the service. All 999 calls from the public are answered at the Emergency Operations Centre in Waterloo, to assist, the services command and control system is linked electronically with the equivalent system for Londons Metropolitan Police. This means that police updates regarding specific jobs will be updated directly on the computer-aided dispatch log, to be viewed by the EOC, the first became operational at The South Eastern Fever Hospital, Deptford, in October 1883. In all, six hospitals operated horse-drawn land ambulances, putting almost the whole of London within three miles of one of them, each ambulance station included accommodation for a married superintendent and around 20 drivers, horse keepers and attendants, nurses, laundry staff and domestic cleaners. At Deptford, in order to transfer patients between the hospitals at Joyce Green and Long Reach near Gravesend, a horse-drawn ambulance tramway was constructed in 1897, in 1902, the MAB introduced a steam driven ambulance and in 1904, their first motor ambulance. The last horse-drawn ambulances were used on 14 September 1912, although the MAB was legally supposed to be transporting only infectious patients, it increasingly also carried accident victims and emergency medical cases. Also in 1915, the MAB Ambulance Section were the first public body to women drivers. By July 1916 the London County Council Ambulance Corps was staffed entirely by women, the LCC also took control of the River Ambulance Service, but it was disbanded in 1932. During World War II, the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service was operated by over 10,000 auxiliaries, mainly women and they ran services from 139 Auxiliary Stations across London. A plaque at one of the last to close, Station 39 in Weymouth Mews, near Portland Place, in 1948 the National Health Service Act made it a requirement for ambulances to be available for anyone who needed them. On 1 April 1996, the LAS left the control of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority, as an NHS Trust, the LAS has a Trust Board consisting of 12 members. The board includes, a chairman, five of the Service’s executive directors. Special events in London are co-ordinated from the Services event control room, also located in east London, during mass casualty incidents, the command structure works on three levels, gold, silver and bronze. Silver control, tactical command, from a point in the vicinity of the incident, Bronze control
21.
London (European Parliament constituency)
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London is a constituency of the European Parliament. It currently elects 8 MEPs using the method of party-list proportional representation. The constituency corresponds to the Greater London region of England, in the south east of the United Kingdom, prior to 1999, London was represented by a number of single-member constituencies. The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 reduced this to a constituency returning a number of MEPs. Below are all the members since the creation of the London constituency, the number of seats allocated to London has been reduced from 10 to 8 between 1999 and 2009 due to EU enlargement. Members elected in 1999 who previously represented a London constituency were Pauline Green, elected candidates are shown in bold. Brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won, the 2014 results were delayed by Tower Hamlets, where there were recounts needed for six local election wards
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Twickenham (UK Parliament constituency)
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Twickenham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Tania Mathias, a member of the Conservative Party. 1918–1945, The Urban Districts of Heston and Isleworth, and Twickenham, 1983–1997, Central Twickenham, Hampton, Hampton Hill, Hampton Nursery, Hampton Wick, Heathfield, South Twickenham, Teddington, West Twickenham, and Whitton. 1997–2010, Central Twickenham, East Twickenham, Hampton, Hampton Hill, Hampton Nursery, Hampton Wick, Heathfield, South Twickenham, Teddington, West Twickenham, and Whitton. The seat covers the western half of the London Borough of Richmond. It chiefly contains the towns or London districts of Twickenham, Hampton, Teddington and Whitton, smaller sub-localities by order of commercial activity are Hampton Hill, Hampton Wick, St Margarets, Fulwell, Strawberry Hill and Hampton Court hamlet proper. Features includes Hampton Court Palace, Bushy Park, and the Rugby Football Unions national ground, as such these areas had some support for the Labour Party, who in their best result in the seat, lost the 1929 by-election in the seat by 503 votes. Twickenham was from 1931 until 1983 a safe seat of the Conservative Party, Liberal Democrat Vince Cable gained the seat at the 1997 landslide Conservative defeat and held it until 2015. The seat was one of few in Britain that gave the Liberal Democrats a majority of votes in the 2005 and 2010 elections. Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the average of 3. 8%. Twickenham had the highest turnout in England and the fourth highest in the UK at the 7 May 2015 General Election
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Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
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Historic counties of England
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The historic counties of England were established for administration by the Normans, in most cases based on earlier kingdoms and shires established by the Anglo-Saxons and others. They ceased to be used for administration with the creation of the counties in 1889. They are alternatively known as ancient counties or traditional counties, where they are not included among the modern counties of England they are also known as former counties. Counties were used initially for the administration of justice, collection of taxes and organisation of the military and they continue to form the basis of modern local government in many parts of the country away from the main urban areas, although sometimes with considerably altered boundaries. The name of a county often gives a clue to how it was formed, either as a division took its name from a centre of administration. The majority of English counties are in the first category, with the name formed by combining the central town with the suffix -shire, for example Yorkshire. Former kingdoms, which became earldoms in the united England did not feature this formulation, so for Kent, Counties ending in the suffix -sex are also in this category and are former Saxon kingdoms. Many of these names are formed from compass directions, the third category includes counties such as Cornwall and Devon where the name corresponds to the tribes who inhabited the area. County Durham is anomalous in terms of naming and origin, not falling into any of the three categories, instead it was a diocese that was turned into the County Palatine of Durham, ruled by the Bishop of Durham. The expected form would otherwise be Durhamshire, but it was rarely used, there are customary abbreviations for many of the counties. In most cases these consist of simple truncation, usually with an s at the end signifying shire, some abbreviations are not obvious, such as Salop for Shropshire, Oxon for Oxfordshire, Hants for Hampshire and Northants for Northamptonshire. Counties were often prefixed with County of in official contexts, such as County of Kent and those counties named after central towns lost the -shire suffix, for example Yorkshire would be known as County of York. This usage was sometimes followed even where there was no town by that name, the -shire suffix was also appended for some counties, such as Devonshire, Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, despite their origin. There is still a Duke of Devonshire, Great Britain was first divided into administrative areas by the Romans, most likely following major geographical features such as rivers. Before their arrival there were distinct tribal areas, but they were in a constant state of flux as territory was gained, the areas that would later form the English counties started to take shape soon afterwards, with the Kingdom of Kent founded by settlers around 445. Once the Kingdom of England was united as a whole in 927 it became necessary to subdivide it for convenience and to this end. The whole kingdom was divided into shires by the time of the Norman conquest, robert of Gloucester accounts for thirty-five shires and William of Malmesbury thirty-two, Henry of Huntingdon, thirty-seven. In most cases the counties or shires in medieval times were administered by a sheriff on behalf of the monarch, after the Norman conquest the sheriff was replaced and the shires became counties, or areas under the control of a count, in the French manner
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Middlesex
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Middlesex is a historic county in south-east England. It is now entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and its area is now also mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in other neighbouring ceremonial counties. It was established in the Anglo-Saxon system from the territory of the Middle Saxons, the largely low-lying county, dominated by clay in its north and alluvium on gravel in its south, was the second smallest county by area in 1831. The City of London was a county in its own right from the 12th century and was able to exert control over Middlesex. Westminster Abbey dominated most of the financial, judicial and ecclesiastical aspects of the county. As London grew into Middlesex, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to expand the city boundaries into the county, in the 18th and 19th centuries the population density was especially high in the southeast of the county, including the East End and West End of London. From 1855 the southeast was administered, with sections of Kent and Surrey, the City of London, and Middlesex, became separate counties for other purposes and Middlesex regained the right to appoint its own sheriff, lost in 1199. In the interwar years suburban London expanded further, with improvement and expansion of public transport, after the Second World War, the population of the County of London and inner Middlesex was in steady decline, with high population growth continuing in the outer parts. Since 1965 various areas called Middlesex have been used for cricket, Middlesex was the former postal county of 25 post towns. The name means territory of the middle Saxons and refers to the origin of its inhabitants. The word is formed from the Anglo-Saxon, i. e. Old English, middel, in an 8th-century charter the region is recorded as Middleseaxon and in 704 it is recorded as Middleseaxan. The Saxons derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known, the seax has a lasting symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex, both of which feature three seaxes in their ceremonial emblem. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon, there were settlements in the area of Middlesex that can be traced back thousands of years before the creation of a county. Middlesex was formerly part of the Kingdom of Essex It was recorded in the Domesday Book as being divided into the six hundreds of Edmonton, Elthorne, Gore, Hounslow, Ossulstone and Spelthorne. The City of London has been self-governing since the century and became a county in its own right. Middlesex also included Westminster, which also had a degree of autonomy. Of the six hundreds, Ossulstone contained the districts closest to the City of London, during the 17th century it was divided into four divisions, which, along with the Liberty of Westminster, largely took over the administrative functions of the hundred. The divisions were named Finsbury, Holborn, Kensington and Tower, the county had parliamentary representation from the 13th century
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River Thames
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The River Thames is a river that flows through southern England, most notably through London. At 215 miles, it is the longest river entirely in England and it also flows through Oxford, Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor. The lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. It rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, and flows into the North Sea via the Thames Estuary, the Thames drains the whole of Greater London. Its tidal section, reaching up to Teddington Lock, includes most of its London stretch and has a rise, in Scotland, the Tay achieves more than double the average discharge from a drainage basin that is 60% smaller. Along its course are 45 navigation locks with accompanying weirs and its catchment area covers a large part of South Eastern and a small part of Western England and the river is fed by 38 named tributaries. The river contains over 80 islands, in 2010, the Thames won the largest environmental award in the world – the $350,000 International Riverprize. The Thames, from Middle English Temese, is derived from the Brittonic Celtic name for the river, Tamesas, recorded in Latin as Tamesis and yielding modern Welsh Tafwys Thames. It has also suggested that it is not of Celtic origin. A place by the river, rather than the river itself, indirect evidence for the antiquity of the name Thames is provided by a Roman potsherd found at Oxford, bearing the inscription Tamesubugus fecit. It is believed that Tamesubugus name was derived from that of the river, tamese was referred to as a place, not a river in the Ravenna Cosmography. The rivers name has always pronounced with a simple t /t/, the Middle English spelling was typically Temese. A similar spelling from 1210, Tamisiam, is found in the Magna Carta, the Thames through Oxford is sometimes called the Isis. Ordnance Survey maps still label the Thames as River Thames or Isis down to Dorchester, richard Coates suggests that while the river was as a whole called the Thames, part of it, where it was too wide to ford, was called *lowonida. An alternative, and simpler proposal, is that London may also be a Germanic word, for merchant seamen, the Thames has long been just the London River. Londoners often refer to it simply as the river in such as south of the river. Thames Valley Police is a body that takes its name from the river. The marks of human activity, in cases dating back to Pre-Roman Britain, are visible at various points along the river
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Meander
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A meander, in general, is a bend in a sinuous watercourse or river. A meander forms when moving water in a stream erodes the outer banks and widens its valley, a stream of any volume may assume a meandering course, alternately eroding sediments from the outside of a bend and depositing them on the inside. The result is a pattern as the stream meanders back. When a meander gets cut off from the stream, an oxbow lake forms. Over time meanders migrate downstream, sometimes in such a time as to create civil engineering problems for local municipalities attempting to maintain stable roads. There is not yet full consistency or standardization of scientific terminology used to describe watercourses, a variety of symbols and schemes exist. Parameters based on mathematical formulae or numerical data vary as well, unless otherwise defined in a specific scheme meandering and sinuosity here are synonymous and mean any repetitious pattern of bends, or waveforms. In some schemes, meandering applies only to rivers with exaggerated circular loops or secondary meanders, sinuosity is one of the channel types that a stream may assume over all or part of its course. All streams are sinuous at some time in their history over some part of their length. The term derives from the Meander River located in present-day Turkey and known to the Ancient Greeks as Μαίανδρος Maiandros and its course is so exceedingly winding that everything winding is called meandering. The Meander River is located south of Izmir, east of the ancient Greek town of Miletus, now, Milet and it flows through a graben in the Menderes Massif, but has a flood plain much wider than the meander zone in its lower reach. Its modern Turkish name is the Büyük Menderes River, when a fluid is introduced to an initially straight channel which then bends, the sidewalls induce a pressure gradient that causes the fluid to alter course and follow the bend. From here, two opposing processes occur, irrotational flow and secondary flow, for a river to meander, secondary flow must dominate. Irrotational flow, From Bernoullis equations, high pressure results in low velocity, therefore, in the absence of secondary flow we would expect low fluid velocity at the outside bend and high fluid velocity at the inside bend. This classic fluid mechanics result is irrotational vortex flow, in the context of meandering rivers, its effects are dominated by those of secondary flow. Secondary flow, A force balance exists between pressure forces pointing to the bend of the river and centrifugal forces pointing to the outside bend of the river. In the context of meandering rivers, a boundary layer exists within the layer of fluid that interacts with the river bed. Inside that layer and following standard boundary-layer theory, the velocity of the fluid is effectively zero, centrifugal force, which depends on velocity, is also therefore effectively zero
28.
Strawberry Hill, London
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Strawberry Hill is an affluent area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in Twickenham. It is a development situated 10.4 miles west south-west of Charing Cross. It consists of a number of roads centred on a small development of shops. The areas ACORN demographic type is characterised as well-off professionals, larger houses, St Marys University, Twickenham, the countrys oldest Roman Catholic University, is situated on Waldegrave Road. Its sports grounds were used as a site for the 2012 Olympics. The nineteenth-century development is named after Strawberry Hill, the fanciful Gothic Revival villa designed by author Horace Walpole between 1749 and 1776. It began as a small 17th century house little more than a cottage, with only 5 acres of land, after a £9 million, two year restoration, Strawberry Hill House re-opened to the public in October 2010. Other local attractions include, St Marys University, Twickenham Radnor Gardens Strawberry Hill railway station, a Guide to the Architecture of London,1983, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London The Strawberry Hill Residents Association
29.
Bushy Park
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Bushy Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is the second largest of Londons Royal Parks, at 445 hectares in area, after Richmond Park. The park, most of which is open to the public, is north of Hampton Court Palace. It is surrounded by Teddington, Hampton, Hampton Hill and Hampton Wick, the parks acid grasslands are mostly just above the 25-foot contour. In September 2014 most of it was designated a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest together with Hampton Court Park and Hampton Court Golf Course as Bushy Park, the park is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The area now known as Bushy Park has been settled for at least the past 4,000 years, there is also evidence that the area was used in the medieval period for agricultural purposes. A keen hunter, he established them as deer-hunting grounds and this period also saw the construction of the main thoroughfare, Chestnut Avenue, which runs from Park Road in Teddington to the Lion Gate entrance to Hampton Court Palace in Hampton Court Road. This avenue and the Arethusa Diana Fountain were designed by Sir Christopher Wren as an approach to Hampton Court Palace. The park has long been popular with locals, but also visitors from further afield. From the mid-19th century until World War II, Londoners came here to celebrate Chestnut Sunday, the customs were discovered and resurrected in 1993 by Colin and Mu Pain. Among those who served as ranger was King William IV, while Duke of Clarence, to ensure his consort Queen Adelaide, could remain at their long-time home after his death, he immediately appointed her as his successor as ranger. During World War I, Bushy Park housed the Kings Canadian Hospital, during World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower planned the D-Day landings from Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force at Camp Griffiss in the Park. A memorial by Carlos Rey dedicated to the Allied troops who fell on D-Day now marks the spot where General Eisenhowers tent stood, the nearby Eisenhower House is named in the Generals honour. Spaatz went on to command the US Army Air Forces throughout the European Theatre of Operations, also known by its US Army code, AAF-586, Camp Griffiss/Widewing was often confused with the wartime headquarters of Eighth Air Force Fighter Command at Bushey Hall, near Watford, Hertfordshire. It also has fishing and model boating ponds, horse rides, formal plantations of trees and other plants, wildlife conservation areas and herds of both red deer and fallow deer. As part of an upgrade of the facilities, the new Pheasantry Café was added. The work was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the closest railway stations are Hampton Court in East Molesey to the south, Hampton Wick to the east, Teddington and Fulwell to the north, and Hampton to the west. All are within a 10- to 20-minute walk, transport for London bus routes 111,216 and 411 pass the Hampton Court Gate on Hampton Court Road. R70, R68 and 285 buses stop near the two Hampton Hill Gates off the High Street, while the R68 also serves the Blandford Road Gate before continuing to Hampton Court Green via Hampton Hill
30.
High Street
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High Street is a metonym for the concept of the primary business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations. To distinguish it from centres of nearby places it is frequently preceded unofficially by the name of its settlement, in a town it implies the focal point for business, especially shops and street stalls in town and city centres. The equivalent in the United States and some parts of Canada, as well as some Northern English, the smallest High Street in Britain is located in a small market town in Devon called Holsworthy. The street itself is no more than 100 yards long and there are three shops located on Holsworthys High Street. High Street is the most common name in the UK. Already in Middle English the word denoted a metaphorical meaning of excellence or superior rank. High also applied to roads as they improved, highway was a new term taken up by the church, High Street gradually adopted a narrower meaning to describe thoroughfares with significant retail in large villages and towns. In the United Kingdom geographic concentration of goods and services has reduced the share of the economy contributed to by workers in the high street, High street refers to only a part of commerce. The town centre in many British towns combines a group of outdoor shopping streets, the continued vitality of towns is predicated on a number of different variables. The way that consumers perceive and use town centres has also fundamentally changed, in order to address the issues threatening the sustainability of towns it is increasingly important to consider consumer behaviour and customer experience. High Streets are less seen in Ireland. Neither of Dublins two main shopping streets carry this name, nor does its main thoroughfare, while Dublin has a High Street near Christchurch, it is not a shopping street. The city of Corks main shopping street is St. Patricks Street, Limericks, Main Street is used in many smaller towns and villages. For example, the OSI North Leinster Town Maps book lists sixteen Main Streets, similarly, the OSI Dublin Street Guide lists twenty Main Streets and only two High Streets. Killarney and Galway are two of the few large Irish towns in which the streets are named High Street. Nonetheless, the high street is often used in the Irish media to refer generically to shopping streets. The phrase High Street banks is used to refer to the banking sector in the United Kingdom. The equivalent in the United States, sometimes in Canada and Ireland is Main Street, in Jamaica, North East England and some sections of Canada and the United States, the main commercial district is Front Street
31.
Suspension bridge
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A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of type of bridge were built in the early 19th century. Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical suspenders, have a history in many mountainous parts of the world. This type of bridge has cables suspended between towers, plus vertical suspender cables carry the weight of the deck below, upon which traffic crosses. This arrangement allows the deck to be level or to arc upward for additional clearance, like other suspension bridge types, this type often is constructed without falsework. The suspension cables must be anchored at each end of the bridge, the main cables continue beyond the pillars to deck-level supports, and further continue to connections with anchors in the ground. The roadway is supported by vertical suspender cables or rods, called hangers, in the latter case there will be very little arc in the outboard main cables. The earliest suspension bridges were ropes slung across a chasm, with a deck possibly at the level or hung below the ropes such that the rope had a catenary shape. The Tibetan saint and bridge-builder Thangtong Gyalpo originated the use of chains in his version of simple suspension bridges. In 1433, Gyalpo built eight bridges in eastern Bhutan, the last surviving chain-linked bridge of Gyalpos was the Thangtong Gyalpo Bridge in Duksum en route to Trashi Yangtse, which was finally washed away in 2004. Gyalpos iron chain bridges did not include a deck bridge which is the standard on all modern suspension bridges today. Instead, both the railing and the layer of Gyalpos bridges used wires. The stress points that carried the screed were reinforced by the iron chains, before the use of iron chains it is thought that Gyalpo used ropes from twisted willows or yak skins. He may have also used tightly bound cloth, the first American iron chain suspension bridge was the Jacobs Creek Bridge in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, designed by inventor James Finley. Finleys bridge was the first to all of the necessary components of a modern suspension bridge. Finley patented his design in 1808, and published it in the Philadelphia journal, The Port Folio, in 1810. Early British chain bridges included the Dryburgh Abbey Bridge and 137 m Union Bridge, with rapidly increasing to 176 m with the Menai Bridge. The first chain bridge on the European continent was the Chain Bridge in Nuremberg, the Clifton Suspension Bridge is one of the longest of the parabolic arc chain type
32.
Low-rise building
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A low-rise is a building that is only a few stories tall or any building that is shorter than a high-rise, though others include the classification of mid-rise. Emporis defines a low-rise as a structure below 35 metres which is divided into regular floor levels. The city of Toronto defines a mid-rise as a building between 4 and 12 stories, also they have elevators and stairs. Low-rise apartments sometimes offer more privacy and negotiability of rent and utilities than high-rise apartments, although they may have fewer amenities and it is also easier to put out fires in low-rise buildings. Some businesses prefer low-rise buildings due to costs and more usable space. Having all employees on a floor may also increase work productivity
33.
National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)
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The National Physical Laboratory is the national measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington, London, England. It is the largest applied physics organisation in the UK, NPL is an internationally respected centre of excellence in measurement and materials science. Since 1900, when Bushy House was selected as the site of NPL, today it provides the scientific resources for the National Measurement System financed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. NPL also offers a range of services, applying scientific skills to industrial measurement problems. The NPL cooperates with professional networks such as those of the IET to support scientists, NPL is at the forefront of new developments in metrology, such as researching metrology for, and standardizing, nanotechnology. NPL is mainly based on the Teddington site but also has a site in Huddersfield for dimensional metrology, Teddington was also home to the UK National Chemical Laboratory but this was closed in 1965 and some of its work was transferred to NPL. The laboratory was run by the UK government, with members of staff being part of the civil service. Administration of the NPL was contracted out in 1995 under a GOCO model, with Serco winning the bid, under this regime, overhead costs halved, third party revenues grew by 16% per annum, and the number of peer-reviewed research papers published doubled. It was decided in 2012 to change the model for NPL from 2014 onward to include academic partners. The date of the changeover was postponed for up to a year. The laboratory transferred back to Department for Business, Innovation and Skills ownership on 1 January 2015, NPL was initially sited entirely within Bushy House but grew to fill a large selection of buildings on the Teddington site. Many of these buildings were demolished and the moved to a large state-of-the-art laboratory for NPL that was built between 1998 and 2007. In January 2013 funding for a new £25m Advanced Metrology Laboratory was announced that will be built on the footprint of an unused building. H. J. Gough one of the pioneers of research into metal fatigue worked at NPL for 19 years from 1914-38, the inventor Sir Barnes Wallis did early development work there on the Bouncing Bomb used in the Dam Busters wartime raids. Sydney Goldstein and Sir James Lighthill worked in NPLs aerodynamics division during World War II researching boundary layer theory, dr Clifford Hodge also worked there and was engaged in research on semiconductors
34.
National Measurement and Regulation Office
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The National Measurement and Regulation Office was an executive agency of the UK Governments Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Its function were to provide a measurement infrastructure which supports innovation, facilitates fair competition, promotes trade and protects consumers. Until June 28,2007 it was an Agency of the Department of Trade and it then became part of the newly formed Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. In 2009 an agency moved to Department for Business Innovation and Skills, since July 2017, Regulatory Delivery has been a directorate in the newly created Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. In addition, the NMO / NMRO acts as a National Enforcement Authority for a range of EU-based environmental legislation and it has responsibility for maintaining the national primary standards and disseminating the associated measurements and technologies to the UK for trade and measurement purposes. The Agency also made available to manufacturers of equipment a consultancy service. They also provided calibration and testing services to local authorities and private businesses, as well as training in aspects of legal metrology to national and international clients
35.
Teddington railway station
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Teddington railway station is located in Teddington in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, in south west London, and is in Travelcard Zone 6. The station is operated by South West Trains, as are all trains serving it, there are two platforms joined by a footbridge near the north-western end of the station buildings. This footbridge has a barrier running its length so that it is either externally to provide access from Victoria Road to Station Road or internally to provide access between the platforms. A second footbridge exists south-east of the station between a footpath off Victoria Road and the point where Station Road becomes Cromwell Road, there is also an hourly service between Kingston and Waterloo via Hounslow. The principal station buildings are located in Victoria Road in Teddington, several carriages of a train that had stopped at the station were destroyed in an arson attack by suffragettes on 26 April 1913. Media related to Teddington railway station at Wikimedia Commons Train times and station information for Teddington railway station from National Rail
36.
Direct marketing
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Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response. The prevalence of direct marketing and the nature of some communications has led to regulations and laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act. Measured against total US sales, these advertising expenditures generated approximately $1.798 trillion in incremental sales, in 2010, direct marketing accounted for 8. 3% of total US gross domestic product. In 2010, there were 1.4 million direct marketing employees in the US and their collective sales efforts directly supported 8.4 million other jobs, accounting for a total of 9.8 million US jobs. The term direct marketing was coined long after Montgomery Wards time, in 1872, Ward produced the first mail-order catalog for his Montgomery Ward mail order business. By buying goods and then reselling them directly to customers, Ward was consequently removing the middlemen at the store and, to the benefit of the customer. The Direct Mail Advertising Association, predecessor of the present-day Direct Marketing Association, was first established in 1917, third class bulk mail postage rates were established in 1928. In 1967, Lester Wunderman identified, named, and defined the term direct marketing, Direct marketing is attractive to many marketers because its positive results can be measured directly. For example, if a marketer sends out 1,000 solicitations by mail and 100 respond to the promotion and this metric is known as the response rate, and it is one of many clearly quantifiable success metrics employed by direct marketers. In contrast, general advertising uses indirect measurements, such as awareness or engagement, measurement of results is a fundamental element in successful direct marketing. One of the significant benefits of Direct Marketing is, it enables promoting products or services that might not have a strong brand. The Internet has made it easier for marketing managers to measure the results of a campaign and this is often achieved by using a specific website landing page directly relating to the promotional material. Another way to measure the results is to compare the projected sales or generated leads for a term with the actual sales or leads after a direct advertising campaign. This poses a problem for marketers and consumers alike, as advertisers do not wish to waste money on communicating with consumers not interested in their products, the medium/media used to deliver a message can have a significant impact on responses. It is difficult to truly personalize a DRTV or radio message, in sum, choosing the best of all the above parameters may yield up to 58 times more response, as compared to choosing the worst of the above parameters. Addressing these helps assuage the concerns of the marketers, some of these concerns have been addressed by direct marketers by the use of individual opt-out lists, variable printing, and better-targeted list practices. The term junk mail, referring to unsolicited commercial ads delivered via post office or directly deposited in consumers mail boxes, can be traced back to 1954. To address the concerns of unwanted emails or spam, in 2003, The US Congress enacted the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography, can-Spam gives recipients the ability to stop unwanted emails, and set out tough penalties for violations
37.
Information technology
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Information technology is the application of computers to store, study, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data, or information, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. IT is considered a subset of information and communications technology, the term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that the new technology not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology, based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development, pre-mechanical, mechanical, electromechanical, electronic. This article focuses on the most recent period, which began in about 1940, devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, probably initially in the form of a tally stick. Electronic computers, using either relays or valves, began to appear in the early 1940s, the electromechanical Zuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the worlds first programmable computer, and by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. Colossus, developed during the Second World War to decrypt German messages was the first electronic digital computer, although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task. It also lacked the ability to store its program in memory, programming was carried out using plugs, the first recognisably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, which ran its first program on 21 June 1948. The development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with reduced power consumption. The first commercially available stored-program computer, the Ferranti Mark I, by comparison the first transistorised computer, developed at the University of Manchester and operational by November 1953, consumed only 150 watts in its final version. Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes. IBM introduced the first hard drive in 1956, as a component of their 305 RAMAC computer system. Most digital data today is stored magnetically on hard disks. Until 2002 most information was stored on analog devices, but that year digital storage capacity exceeded analog for the first time. As of 2007 almost 94% of the data stored worldwide was held digitally, 52% on hard disks, 28% on optical devices and 11% on digital magnetic tape. It has been estimated that the capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007. Database management systems emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data accurately and quickly, one of the earliest such systems was IBMs Information Management System, which is still widely deployed more than 50 years later
38.
Tearfund
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Tearfund is a UK Christian relief and development agency which works in over 50 countries. The charity was created out of the Evangelical Alliance and the Evangelical Refugee Fund created by the United Nations, the organisation was originally called The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund Committee. George Hoffman headed up the fund, in January 1969 Cliff Richard did two fundraising concerts for Tearfund at Londons Royal Albert Hall. He has served as the charitys Vice President and in 1999 served as its president, in 2009 Richard gave the proceeds of his first 50th anniversary concert in Wembley Arena to Tearfund. Tearfund was registered as a charity on 6 March 1973, Tearfund Ireland was launched as an independent charity in 2008 and now works closely with Tearfund UK as a sister organisation. Tearfund first sent staff overseas in 1972 when nurses were sent to flood-struck Bangladesh to work with the Bible, the nurses spent from six months to two years working in hospitals, clinics and feeding camps. In 2006–2007 it provided £9 million to groups working in emergencies. In 1994 Tearfund set up a Disaster Response Unit, now called the Disaster Management Team, the first disaster responded to was the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Since 2014, Tearfund have been supporting Giving Tuesday and this is a campaign to counter the effects of Black Friday and Cyber Monday by asking people to support a charity on the following Tuesday. In 2000, four Tearfund staff were kidnapped whilst performing charity work in Sierra Leone and they were freed after four days but robbed of all their possessions. The charity produces a grassroots development magazine named Footsteps which is produced in seven languages and has a print run of ~50,000, the charity has also produced a booklet entitled Dont Forget Your Ethics which advises people how to travel in both an eco-friendly and fair trade manner. In 1997 Global Action Network became Tearfunds first full-scale programme of equipping supporters to campaign on poverty issues from a Biblical basis, in 2014, Tearfund began partnering with Nvader, a New Zealand based charity working to free women and children from sex trafficking. Tearfund is an organisation of several coalitions, including, The European Network on Debt. The initiative seeks to identify, support and resource social entrepreneurs, members of the initiative include Kelvin Mwikya
39.
Teddington Studios
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The complex also provided studio space for channel continuity. The site was run by the Pinewood Studios Group, Pinewood Groups lease on Teddington Studios expired in 2014. The studios are being demolished to be turned into housing, with programmes made there having moved to other facilities, the studio buildings will be replaced by three modern apartment blocks and other smaller houses, with the view towards the river from Broom Road opened up. The studio began in the early 20th century as film studios when stockbroker Henry Chinnery, owner of Weir House, Teddington, dedicated studio facilities were then built in the 1910s. The studio was expanded by a partnership of filmmaker E. G. Norman and actor Henry Edwards. Warner Bros. -First National continued to make US/UK coproductions at Teddington until The Dark Tower, one Teddington Studios production Murder at Monte Carlo with Errol Flynn in his first major film role, is considered a lost film. The studio was damaged in a V-2 attack in July 1944, in which Jack L. Warners studio manager. By the 1950s the studios fortunes had declined, but in 1958 it was bought by Associated British Corporation for use as a television studio, after Thames lost its ITV franchise to Carlton Television, which took over in 1993, the studio became independent. 7m. Teddington was also the home of British TV Casino show Smart Live Casino until they moved to Picadilly Studios, the media company Haymarket owned the Teddington Studios site from 2004 and occupied some of it from 2006. Part of the site was leased to Pinewood until 2014, Haymarket announced in June 2013 that it planned to redevelop the site into homes, meaning the end of Teddington Studios. In February 2016 it was reported that the site was being demolished to make way for a 213-flat development, the site consisted of 8 studios in total, as well as post production editing facilities. Studio 1 was Teddingtons largest studio at nearly 8,900 square feet, other notable productions made in Studio 1 included Men Behaving Badly, Pop Idol, Birds of a Feather, one series of Parkinson and Black Books. Historically, many series were recorded in Studio 1. The final four series made by Morecambe and Wise were also produced at Teddingtons Studio 1 by Thames Television and this studio was popular for programmes which required intimate medium-sized space, like Bremner, Bird and Fortune for Channel 4. Studio 3 was a smaller studio at 2,098 square feet and was home to many music shows productions. Studio 4 was a studio at 1,475 square feet. CBeebies used the studio before moving back to BBC Television Centre in 2010, another small studio, Studio 5 was home to The Chinese Channel. Until early 2008, this was a studio at (594 square feet
40.
Ham, London
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Ham is a suburban district in south-west London which has meadows adjoining the River Thames where the Thames Path National Trail also runs. Most of Ham is in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and, chiefly, within the ward of Ham, Petersham and Richmond Riverside, Ham is centred 9.25 miles south-west of the centre of London. Together with Petersham, Ham lies east of the bend in the river almost surrounding it on three sides,1 mile south of Richmond and 2 miles north of Kingston upon Thames. Its elevation mostly ranges between 6m and 12m OD but reaches 20m in the foothill side-streets leading to Richmond Park, apart from semi-rural Petersham, Richmond Park and the town of Kingston, the neighbouring land is on the opposite side of the river, Teddington and Twickenham. Ham is bounded on the west, along the bank of the River Thames, part of this former pasture land was used for gravel extraction. The last remnant of these gravel pits now forms an artificial lake, in this area is the Thames Young Mariners 10 acres site, operated as a water activity centre by Surrey County Council. The area along the riverside is preserved as a public amenity, mostly on low-lying river terrace, Ham today is bounded to the east by Richmond Park, where the land rises at the escarpment of the Richmond and Kingston hills. Small streams that drain this higher ground flow into a watercourse that flows south-north along the foot of the hill, known as Latchmere Stream to the south, Ham lies within the London Basin and its London clay bedrock. The low-lying flood plains to the west consist of fluvial gravels, sands, the name derives from the Old English word Hamme meaning place in the bend of a river. The Thames Valley has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic period and finds of Palaeolithic flints near to White Lodge and these have not been excavated, so it is impossible to date them precisely, but barrows are known to span the period from 3500BC to 900BC. Many of these artifacts are part of the Edwards Collection and housed in the Museum of Richmond, other finds from Ham are held at the Museum of London including an early Bronze Age collared urn, also from the Edwards Collection. The first early Saxon settlement found in the Greater London area was a Pit-house, or Grubenhaus, along with pottery finds dated to the 5th century AD, this suggests the area was amongst the first colonised by Saxon settlers. Historically, Ham covered a larger area, the boundaries shown in the tithe map of 1843 are believed to have changed little, if at all, for centuries. The earliest known record of Ham as a separate village dates from the 12th century when Hamma was included in the royal demesne as a member of Kingston. 4d. in 1168 towards the marriage of Matilda, the eldest daughter of Henry II, the related history of the Earls of Dysart dominated the development of Ham and Petersham for the following four centuries. In return for this, a deed was struck which has protected most of the remaining common land, Ham Common. The enclosed land, whilst lost to agriculture, remained within Hams administrative boundaries, the whole area was referred to as Ham cum Hatch, or Ham with Hatch, until late Victorian times. Hesba Stretton, the Evangelical childrens writer, retired to Ivycroft, Ham Common in 1892, since 1965 Ham has been mostly in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
41.
Teddington Lock Footbridges
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Teddington Lock Footbridge consists of two separate bridges across the River Thames in England situated just upstream of Teddington Lock at Teddington. There is an island between the bridges. The two footbridges were built between 1887 and 1889, funded by donations from residents and businesses. They replaced a ferry which gave its name to Ferry Road at Teddington, the western bridge consists of a suspension bridge crossing the weir stream and linking the island to Teddington. The eastern bridge is a girder bridge crossing the lock cut. From this point downstream the Thames Path runs on both sides of the river and upstream it runs on the Surrey side only, crossings of the River Thames Ham Photos blog - photos of Teddington Lock Footbridge with brief descriptions
42.
Royal National Lifeboat Institution
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There are numerous other lifeboat services operating in the same area. Founded in 1824 as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, the RNLI is principally funded by legacies and donations with most lifeboat crew members being unpaid volunteers. The RNLI has 237 lifeboat stations and operates 444 lifeboats, crews rescued on average 22 people a day in 2015. RNLI Lifeguards operate on more than 200 beaches and they are paid by local authorities, while the RNLI provides equipment and training. The Institution operates Flood Rescue Teams nationally and internationally, the prepared to travel to emergencies overseas at short notice. The Institution has saved some 140,000 lives since its foundation, Sir William Hillary came to live on the Isle of Man in 1808. Being aware of the nature of the Irish Sea, with many ships being wrecked around the Manx coast. Initially he received response from the Admiralty. At the age of 60, Sir William took part in the 1830 rescue of the packet St George and he commanded the lifeboat and was washed overboard with others of the lifeboat crew, yet finally everyone aboard the St George was rescued with no loss of life. In 1854 the institutions changed to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. In its first year the RNLI raised £10,000, however by 1849, finding itself in financial difficulties, the RNLI accepted a government subsidy of £2,000, which rose in subsequent years. It was the loss of 27 lifeboat crew of Southport and St Annes in 1886 that gave new impetus to fundraising, the first Lifeboat Saturday was held in that year. During World War I, lifeboat crews launched 1,808 times, with many younger men on active service, the average age of a lifeboatman was over 50. During the war 6,376 lives were saved, nineteen RNLI lifeboats sailed to Dunkirk between 27 May and 4 June 1940 to assist with the Dunkirk evacuation. Lifeboats from Ramsgate and Margate went directly to France with their own crews, the crew of Ramsgates Prudential collected 2,800 troops. Margates Coxswain, Edward Parker, was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for his taking the RNLB Lord Southborough to the beaches. The dispute resulted in the first three crews being sent home, subsequent lifeboats arriving were commandeered without discussion, much to the disappointment of many lifeboatmen. The RNLIs lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved more than 140,000 lives since 1824, the RNLI makes a distinction between people aided and lives saved
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Teddington
"Teddington". Encyclopædia Britannica. 26 (11th ed.). 1911.
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