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The Vache

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The Vache

The Vache is an estate near Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire. Located within the estate is a monument dedicated to the memory of Captain James Cook (1728–1779) the explorer.

History[edit]

The Vache was the family seat of the Fleetwood family; in 1660 George Fleetwood was found guilty of the regicide of King Charles I in January 1649, and although his life was spared, his estate of The Vache was confiscated and given to the then Duke of York, the future King James II.^[1] The site was acquired by Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser in 1771.^[2] Following Palliser’s death in 1796, the building passed to his son and was then sold to a Mr Thomas Allen in 1826; the house passed down the Allen family until it was sold to James Robertson in 1902.^[3]

After the Second World War homelessness and overcrowding sparked a nationwide movement of squatting. One of the first of these occurred at The Vache in September 1946, the leader was an ex-Commando, John Mann, of Chalfont St. Giles, who had been sharing a small cottage with his wife, his five-year-old son, and ten strangers, at the local pub one night, Mann heard a Polish captain say that a deserted army camp at nearby Vache Park was being readied for Polish soldiers of General Władysław Anders' army in exile. Mann decided to get there first,^[4] at dawn, he and a handful of homeless veterans bloodlessly routed three Polish guards and seized Vache Park. Next day, 120 families had moved into the spacious army huts, after a flurry of resistance, local authorities capitulated.^[4]

Captain James Cook monument[edit]

Captain James Cook monument

The Vache is the site of monument to Captain James Cook erected by Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser.^[5]

“

'To the memory of Captain James Cook/the ablest and most renowned Navigator this or any country hath produced', 'He raised himself solely by his merit/from a very obscure birth, to the rank/of a Post Captain in the Royal Navy,and/was unfortunately killed by the Savages/of the island Owhyee on the 14th of/February 1779 ...^[5]

”

Cook frequently visited the estate and named a South Sea island Vache Island.^[6]

References[edit]

^ Firth, C.H. (1889). "Fleetwood, George (fl.1650?)". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography. 19. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 265–266.
^ "The Cook Monument". Captain Cook Society. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
^ "Parishes: Chalfont St. Giles, in A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3, ed. William Page". London. 1925. p. 184-193. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
^ ^a ^b "Squatters Camp at The Vache in 1946". Chalfont St Giles village website. 1 January 2015. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
^ ^a ^b Memorial M1775, public memorials to seafarers and victims of maritime disaster, National Maritime Museum
^ BMC County Road Map and Gazetteer No.16 Berkshire Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire p. 94

Coordinates: 51°38′24″N 0°33′42″W / 51.6401°N 0.5618°W / 51.6401; -0.5618

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Vache&oldid=794232729"

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Chalfont St Giles – Chalfont means chalk spring, in reference to the water carrying capacities of the local terrain. The village has a pond that is fed by the River Misbourne. The Church of England parish church of Saint Giles is of Norman architecture, the Bishop Francis Hare is buried there. In the Domesday Book in 1086 Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont St Peter are listed as separate Manors with different owners and they were separate holdings before the Norman Conquest. During the Great Plague of London in 1665, John Milton retired to Chalfont St Giles, Miltons Cottage still stands in the village, and is open to the public. The inspiration for Paradise Regained is said to have found in this parish from a conversation with a former pupil. In 1887, after an attempt was made to relocate the house to America and rebuild it there, queen Victoria headed the list with a gift of £20, a considerable amount at the time - approximately £2360 as of 2016. The birthplace of J. T. Hearne, one of the greatest bowlers of

1. St Giles' parish church

2. Milton's Cottage, at 1 Deanway, Chalfont St Giles

3. Chalfont village green

Buckinghamshire – Development in this region is restricted by the Metropolitan Green Belt. Other large settlements include the county town of Aylesbury, Marlow in the south near the Thames and Princes Risborough in the west near Oxford. Some areas without rail links to London, such as around the old county town of Buckingham. The largest town is Milton Keynes in the northeast, which with the area is administered as a unitary authority separately to the rest of Buckinghamshire. The remainder of the county is administered by Buckinghamshire County Council as a non-metropolitan county, in national elections, Buckinghamshire is considered a reliable supporter of the Conservative Party. A large part of the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, runs through the south of the county and attracts many walkers, in this area older buildings are often made from local flint and red brick. Chequers, an estate owned by the government, is the country retreat of the incumbent Prime Minister. To the nort

2. Buckinghamshire shown within England

3. Map of Bucks (1904)

4. The River Thames at Medmenham

James Cook – Captain James Cook FRS RN was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755 and he saw action in the Seven Years War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society, in three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail, as he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, Cook was attacked and killed while attempting to kidnap the native chief of Hawaii during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He

1. James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

2. Portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Cook by William Henderson, dated 1830.

3. James Cook's 1775 chart of Newfoundland

4. Endeavour replica in Cooktown, Queensland harbour — anchored where the original Endeavour was beached for seven weeks in 1770.

George Fleetwood (regicide) – George Fleetwood was an English major-general and one of the regicides of King Charles I of England. George Fleetwood was the grandson of Sir George Fleetwood, and the son of Charles Fleetwood, Fleetwood entered the Long Parliament in July 1647 as member for Buckinghamshire. In 1648 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the trial of the king, in 1649 and 1650 Fleetwood was colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia, and was chosen a member of the eighth and last council of state of the Commonwealth from 1 November to l0 December 1653. On the occasion of Sir George Booths rising parliament authorised Fleetwood to raise a troop of well-affected volunteers and his life was spared, but his estate of The Vache confiscated and given to the Duke of York. Sources are unclear what happened to Fleetwood from 1664, in 1664 a warrant was issued for Fleetwoods transportation to Tangiers, but it may have been suspended at the solicitation of his wife. According to Noble he was released and went

1. George Fleetwood

Charles I of England – Charles I was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was the son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England. He became heir apparent to the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones on the death of his brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Two years later, he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France instead, after his succession, Charles quarrelled with the Parliament of England, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. Charles believed in the right of kings and thought he could govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent and he supported high church ecclesiastics, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, and failed to aid Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years War. From 1642, Charles fought the armies of

1. Portrait from the studio of Anthony van Dyck, 1636

2. Engraving by Simon de Passe of Charles and his parents, King James and Queen Anne, c. 1612

3. Portrait by Robert Peake, c. 1610

4. Portrait of Charles as Prince of Wales after Daniel Mytens, c. 1623

James II of England – James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland, the second surviving son of Charles I, he ascended the throne upon the death of his brother, Charles II. Members of Britains Protestant political elite increasingly suspected him of being pro-French and pro-Catholic and he was replaced by his eldest, Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. James made one attempt to recover his crowns from William. After the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamites at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 and he lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV. James, the surviving son of King Charles I and his wife. Later that same year, he was baptised by William Laud and he was educated by private tutors, along with his broth

1. Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1684

2. Turenne, James's commander in France

3. James and Anne Hyde in the 1660s, by Sir Peter Lely

4. Mary of Modena, James's second wife

Hugh Palliser – Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser, 1st Baronet was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War. During the latter he came into a dispute with Augustus Keppel over the Battle of Ushant which led to Palliser being court-martialled. Palliser was the son of Hugh Palliser and Mary Robinson. At Kirk Deighton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the family had estates in Yorkshire and Ireland. His parents died when he was young, so he. He entered the navy in 1735 as a midshipman on HMS Aldborough commanded by his uncle Nicholas Robinson and he followed his uncle to HMS Kennington in 1737, and then to HMS Tiger and HMS Essex. Palliser passed his lieutenants examination on 12 May 1741 and was promoted to the rank on 18 September 1741 and he continued to serve aboard Essex, at first under Robinson, and after he was superseded, under Captain Richard Norris, the son of Sir John Norris. In February 1746 he was placed in command of HMS Weazel, on 25 Novemb

1. Hugh Palliser, portrait by George Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

2. James Cook's 1775 Chart of Newfoundland

World War II – World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked t

1. Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the Lingayen Gulf, Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad

2. The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

3. Adolf Hitler at a German National Socialist political rally in Weimar, October 1930

4. Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the Second Italo-Abyssinian War

South Sea Islands – Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including the language family, culture, and beliefs. Historically, they were experienced sailors who used stars to navigate at night, the term Polynesia was first used in 1756 by French writer Charles de Brosses, and originally applied to all the islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont dUrville proposed a restriction on its use during a lecture to the Geographical Society of Paris, historically, these islands have also been referred to as the South Sea Islands. Polynesia is characterized by an amount of land spread over a very large portion of the mid. Most Polynesian islands and archipelagos, including the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa, are composed of volcanic islands built by hotspots, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Ouvéa, the Polynesian outli

1. Polynesia is the largest of three major cultural areas in the Pacific Ocean. Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian triangle.

2. Mokoliʻi Isle near Oahu, Hawaii

3. Cook's Bay on Moorea, French Polynesia

4. Moai at Ahu Tongariki on Rapa Nui

Leslie Stephen – Sir Leslie Stephen KCB was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Stephen was born at Kensington Gore in London, and son of Sir James Stephen and his father was Colonial Undersecretary of State and a noted abolitionist. He was the fourth of five children, his siblings including James Fitzjames Stephen and his family had belonged to the Clapham Sect, the early 19th century group of mainly evangelical Christian social reformers. At his fathers house he saw a deal of the Macaulays, James Spedding, Sir Henry Taylor. He recounted some of his experiences in a chapter in his Life of Fawcett as well as in less formal Sketches from Cambridge. These sketches were reprinted from the Pall Mall Gazette, to the proprietor of which, George Murray Smith, the family connections included that of William Makepeace Thackeray. His brother, Fitzjames had been a friend of Thackerays and assisted in the disposition of his estate when h

1. Leslie Stephen (c. 1860)

2. The grave of Sir Leslie Stephen, Highgate Cemetery, London

3. Grave of his first wife, Kensal Green Cemetery

4. Julia Duckworth (née Jackson), Stephen's second wife, and mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron

Dictionary of National Biography – The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and he approached Leslie Stephen, then editor of the Cornhill Magazine, owned by Smith, to become editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus on subjects from the UK and its present, an early working title was the Biographia Britannica, the name of an earlier eighteenth-century reference work. The first volume of the Dictionary of National Biography appeared on 1 January 1885, in May 1891 Leslie Stephen resigned and Sidney Lee, Stephens assistant editor from the beginning of the project, succeeded him as editor. While much of the dictionary was written in-house, the DNB also relied on external contributors, by 1900, more than 700 individuals had contributed to the work. Successive volumes appeared quarterly with complete punctuality until mids

1. George Murray Smith conceived of the DNB, subsidised it, and saw it finally into print before he died in 1901.

National Maritime Museum – The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom and may be the largest museum of its kind in the world. The historic buildings form part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, the museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Like other publicly funded museums in the United Kingdom, the National Maritime Museum does not levy an admission charge. The Museum was created by the National Maritime Act of 1934 Chapter 43, under a Board of Trustees and it is based on the generous donations of Sir James Caird. King George VI formally opened the Museum on 27 April 1937 when his daughter Princess Elizabeth, the first Director was Sir Geoffrey Callender. Since earliest times Greenwich has had associations with the sea and navigation and it was a landing place for the Romans, Henry VIII lived here, the navy has roots on the waterfront, and Charles II founded the Royal Observatory in

1. National Maritime Museum

2. Portrait of Captain James Cook by Nathaniel Dance at the National Maritime Museum.

3. The Bretagne, painting by Jules Achille Noël, 1859, at the National Maritime Museum

4. Admiral George Keith Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith by George Sanders.

Geographic coordinate system – 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 R

1. Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.

LIST OF IMAGES

1. Chalfont St Giles – Chalfont means chalk spring, in reference to the water carrying capacities of the local terrain. The village has a pond that is fed by the River Misbourne. The Church of England parish church of Saint Giles is of Norman architecture, the Bishop Francis Hare is buried there. In the Domesday Book in 1086 Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont St Peter are listed as separate Manors with different owners and they were separate holdings before the Norman Conquest. During the Great Plague of London in 1665, John Milton retired to Chalfont St Giles, Miltons Cottage still stands in the village, and is open to the public. The inspiration for Paradise Regained is said to have found in this parish from a conversation with a former pupil. In 1887, after an attempt was made to relocate the house to America and rebuild it there, queen Victoria headed the list with a gift of £20, a considerable amount at the time - approximately £2360 as of 2016. The birthplace of J. T. Hearne, one of the greatest bowlers of the 1890s and 1900s, who died there in 1944, the village has also given its name to Chalfont, Pennsylvania, which is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Chiltern Open Air Museum, located immediately outside the Parish boundary, rescues and re-erects historic buildings which face demolition and its collection includes a cottage from around 1600, and a variety of 19th century buildings, within 45 acres of parkland. In 2009 the village was awarded the European Diploma of the Council of Europe, the village is the closest to Hodgemoor Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The village is twinned with Graft-De Rijp, Netherlands, the local football club is Chalfont Wasps, which was promoted to the Hellenic Football League Premier Division for the 2008–09 season. They play their games at The Nest. Chalfont St Giles has a club, affiliated to the Lawn Tennis Association. The village is home to Oakland Park Golf Club, and nearby to Harewood Downs Golf Club, Chalfont St Giles has been the location of several film and television programmes. It doubled as Walmington-on-Sea in the 1971 film version of Dads Army, John Laurie, one of the main actors, lived in Chalfont St Peter. The Millers Tale episode of the BBC Television drama The Canterbury Tales was filmed in and it was the location for the filming of Episode 6 of Series 3 of Peep Show. The village is mentioned in the series 3 episode of Jeeves and Wooster entitled Bertie Sets Sail. Other films and TV shows filmed in Chalfont St Giles include Hammer House of Horror, The Sweeney, the village is ideal for film production due to its close proximity to Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, and London

Chalfont St Giles – St Giles' parish church
Chalfont St Giles – Milton's Cottage, at 1 Deanway, Chalfont St Giles
Chalfont St Giles – Chalfont village green

2. Buckinghamshire – Development in this region is restricted by the Metropolitan Green Belt. Other large settlements include the county town of Aylesbury, Marlow in the south near the Thames and Princes Risborough in the west near Oxford. Some areas without rail links to London, such as around the old county town of Buckingham. The largest town is Milton Keynes in the northeast, which with the area is administered as a unitary authority separately to the rest of Buckinghamshire. The remainder of the county is administered by Buckinghamshire County Council as a non-metropolitan county, in national elections, Buckinghamshire is considered a reliable supporter of the Conservative Party. A large part of the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, runs through the south of the county and attracts many walkers, in this area older buildings are often made from local flint and red brick. Chequers, an estate owned by the government, is the country retreat of the incumbent Prime Minister. To the north of the county lies rolling countryside in the Vale of Aylesbury, the Thames forms part of the county’s southwestern boundary. Notable service amenities in the county are Pinewood Film Studios, Dorney rowing lake, many national companies have offices in Milton Keynes. Heavy industry and quarrying is limited, with agriculture predominating after service industries, the name Buckinghamshire is Anglo-Saxon in origin and means The district of Buccas home. Buccas home refers to Buckingham in the north of the county, the county has been so named since about the 12th century, however, the county has existed since it was a subdivision of the kingdom of Mercia. Historically, the biggest change to the county came in the 19th century, Buckinghamshire is a popular home for London commuters, leading to greater local affluence, however, some pockets of relative deprivation remain. As a result, most county institutions are now based in the south of the county or Milton Keynes, the county can be split into two sections geographically. The county includes parts of two of the four longest rivers in England, the River Thames forms the southern boundary with Berkshire, which has crept over the border at Eton and Slough so that the river is no longer the sole boundary between the two counties. The River Great Ouse rises just outside the county in Northamptonshire and flows east through Buckingham, Milton Keynes, the main branch of the Grand Union Canal passes through the county as do its arms to Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover and Buckingham. The canal has been incorporated into the landscaping of Milton Keynes, the southern part of the county is dominated by the Chiltern Hills. The two highest points in Buckinghamshire are Haddington Hill in Wendover Woods at 267 metres above sea level, quarrying has taken place for chalk, clay for brickmaking and gravel and sand in the river valleys. Flint, also extracted from quarries, was used to build older local buildings

Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire – Buckinghamshire shown within England
Buckinghamshire – Map of Bucks (1904)
Buckinghamshire – The River Thames at Medmenham

3. James Cook – Captain James Cook FRS RN was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755 and he saw action in the Seven Years War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society, in three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail, as he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, Cook was attacked and killed while attempting to kidnap the native chief of Hawaii during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 in the village of Marton in Yorkshire and baptised on 14 November in the church of St Cuthbert. He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, in 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where his fathers employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for him to attend the local school. In 1741, after five years schooling, he work for his father. For leisure, he would climb a hill, Roseberry Topping, enjoying the opportunity for solitude. Cooks Cottage, his parents last home, which he is likely to have visited, is now in Melbourne, having moved from England and reassembled, brick by brick. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved 20 miles to the village of Staithes. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sandersons, John. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade and their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their fleet of vessels. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent several years on this and various other coasters, sailing between the Tyne and London. As part of his apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and his three-year apprenticeship completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea

James Cook – James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
James Cook – Portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Cook by William Henderson, dated 1830.
James Cook – James Cook's 1775 chart of Newfoundland
James Cook – Endeavour replica in Cooktown, Queensland harbour — anchored where the original Endeavour was beached for seven weeks in 1770.

4. George Fleetwood (regicide) – George Fleetwood was an English major-general and one of the regicides of King Charles I of England. George Fleetwood was the grandson of Sir George Fleetwood, and the son of Charles Fleetwood, Fleetwood entered the Long Parliament in July 1647 as member for Buckinghamshire. In 1648 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the trial of the king, in 1649 and 1650 Fleetwood was colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia, and was chosen a member of the eighth and last council of state of the Commonwealth from 1 November to l0 December 1653. On the occasion of Sir George Booths rising parliament authorised Fleetwood to raise a troop of well-affected volunteers and his life was spared, but his estate of The Vache confiscated and given to the Duke of York. Sources are unclear what happened to Fleetwood from 1664, in 1664 a warrant was issued for Fleetwoods transportation to Tangiers, but it may have been suspended at the solicitation of his wife. According to Noble he was released and went to America. However, it clear from his death notice in the London Gazette of 9–13 January 1672 that he in fact died in Tangiers on 17 November 1672 Footnotes Citations 17. The London Gazette, published by authority, Number 746, from Thursday January 9 to Sunday January 13,1672 and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Firth, Charles Harding. London, Smith, Elder & Co. pp.265,266

George Fleetwood (regicide) – George Fleetwood

5. Charles I of England – Charles I was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was the son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England. He became heir apparent to the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones on the death of his brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Two years later, he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France instead, after his succession, Charles quarrelled with the Parliament of England, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. Charles believed in the right of kings and thought he could govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent and he supported high church ecclesiastics, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, and failed to aid Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years War. From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War, after his defeat in 1645, he surrendered to a Scottish force that eventually handed him over to the English Parliament. Charles refused to accept his captors demands for a constitutional monarchy, re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, Charles forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648 Oliver Cromwells New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and a called the Commonwealth of England was declared. The monarchy was restored to Charless son, Charles II, in 1660, the second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on 19 November 1600. James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England, in mid-July 1604, Charles left Dunfermline for England where he was to spend most of the rest of his life. His speech development was slow, and he retained a stammer, or hesitant speech. In January 1605, Charles was created Duke of York, as is customary in the case of the English sovereigns second son, Thomas Murray, a Presbyterian Scot, was appointed as a tutor. Charles learnt the usual subjects of classics, languages, mathematics, in 1611, he was made a Knight of the Garter. Eventually, Charles apparently conquered his physical infirmity, which might have been caused by rickets and he became an adept horseman and marksman, and took up fencing. Even so, his public profile remained low in contrast to that of his stronger and taller elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. However, in early November 1612, Henry died at the age of 18 of what is suspected to have been typhoid, Charles, who turned 12 two weeks later, became heir apparent

Charles I of England – Portrait from the studio of Anthony van Dyck, 1636
Charles I of England – Engraving by Simon de Passe of Charles and his parents, King James and Queen Anne, c. 1612
Charles I of England – Portrait by Robert Peake, c. 1610
Charles I of England – Portrait of Charles as Prince of Wales after Daniel Mytens, c. 1623

6. James II of England – James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland, the second surviving son of Charles I, he ascended the throne upon the death of his brother, Charles II. Members of Britains Protestant political elite increasingly suspected him of being pro-French and pro-Catholic and he was replaced by his eldest, Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. James made one attempt to recover his crowns from William. After the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamites at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 and he lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV. James, the surviving son of King Charles I and his wife. Later that same year, he was baptised by William Laud and he was educated by private tutors, along with his brother, the future King Charles II, and the two sons of the Duke of Buckingham, George and Francis Villiers. At the age of three, James was appointed Lord High Admiral, the position was honorary, but would become a substantive office after the Restoration. He was designated Duke of York at birth, invested with the Order of the Garter in 1642, as the Kings disputes with the English Parliament grew into the English Civil War, James stayed in Oxford, a Royalist stronghold. When the city surrendered after the siege of Oxford in 1646, in 1648, he escaped from the Palace, aided by Joseph Bampfield, and from there he went to The Hague in disguise. When Charles I was executed by the rebels in 1649, monarchists proclaimed Jamess older brother as Charles II of England, Charles II was recognised as king by the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of Ireland, and was crowned King of Scotland at Scone in 1651. Although he was proclaimed King in Jersey, Charles was unable to secure the crown of England and consequently fled to France, like his brother, James sought refuge in France, serving in the French army under Turenne against the Fronde, and later against their Spanish allies. In the French army James had his first true experience of battle where, according to one observer, he ventures himself, in the meantime, Charles was attempting to reclaim his throne, but France, although hosting the exiles, had allied itself with Oliver Cromwell. In 1656, Charles turned instead to Spain – an enemy of France – for support, in consequence, James was expelled from France and forced to leave Turennes army. James quarrelled with his brother over the choice of Spain over France. In 1659, the French and Spanish made peace, James, doubtful of his brothers chances of regaining the throne, considered taking a Spanish offer to be an admiral in their navy. Ultimately, he declined the position, by the year the situation in England had changed. After Richard Cromwells resignation as Lord Protector in 1659 and the subsequent collapse of the Commonwealth in 1660, although James was the heir presumptive, it seemed unlikely that he would inherit the Crown, as Charles was still a young man capable of fathering children

James II of England – Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1684
James II of England – Turenne, James's commander in France
James II of England – James and Anne Hyde in the 1660s, by Sir Peter Lely
James II of England – Mary of Modena, James's second wife

7. Hugh Palliser – Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser, 1st Baronet was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War. During the latter he came into a dispute with Augustus Keppel over the Battle of Ushant which led to Palliser being court-martialled. Palliser was the son of Hugh Palliser and Mary Robinson. At Kirk Deighton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the family had estates in Yorkshire and Ireland. His parents died when he was young, so he. He entered the navy in 1735 as a midshipman on HMS Aldborough commanded by his uncle Nicholas Robinson and he followed his uncle to HMS Kennington in 1737, and then to HMS Tiger and HMS Essex. Palliser passed his lieutenants examination on 12 May 1741 and was promoted to the rank on 18 September 1741 and he continued to serve aboard Essex, at first under Robinson, and after he was superseded, under Captain Richard Norris, the son of Sir John Norris. In February 1746 he was placed in command of HMS Weazel, on 25 November of that year he was appointed post-captain of HMS Captain, sailing for the West Indies with the broad pennant of Commodore Edward Legge. Legge died on 19 September 1747, and Palliser transferred to HMS Sutherland. Six months later a fire in that ships arms chest wounded Palliser, a ball entered his back and exited his groin, another ball struck his right hip. Two other men were killed in the explosion, Palliser returned to England to recover, but remained lame in his left leg, and suffered perpetual and sometimes excruciating pain to which his death was eventually attributed. Palliser was then part of Edward Boscawens squadron on the Coromandel coast from July 1749, as an alternative to half-pay he took up appointment as captain of HMS Yarmouth, the guardship at Chatham. The sailor took refuge aboard the ship, and Palliser refused to him over. Palliser was thereupon arrested in the place and held for several days in the Tolbooth Jail in Edinburgh. Palliser sailed in January 1755, directing the convoy in a southern arc across the Atlantic. This represented a substantial deviation from the traditional and more easterly route. The unorthodox navigation won Palliser some praise from British authorities, the ongoing friction between Britain and France ignited into open warfare in 1755. In October of that year Palliser was placed in command of the 60-gun HMS Eagle and that ship engaged and defeated the French 50-gun Duc dAquitain off Ushant on 30 May 1757

Hugh Palliser – Hugh Palliser, portrait by George Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Hugh Palliser – James Cook's 1775 Chart of Newfoundland

8. World War II – World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan

World War II – Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the Lingayen Gulf, Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad
World War II – The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930
World War II – Adolf Hitler at a German National Socialist political rally in Weimar, October 1930
World War II – Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the Second Italo-Abyssinian War

9. South Sea Islands – Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including the language family, culture, and beliefs. Historically, they were experienced sailors who used stars to navigate at night, the term Polynesia was first used in 1756 by French writer Charles de Brosses, and originally applied to all the islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont dUrville proposed a restriction on its use during a lecture to the Geographical Society of Paris, historically, these islands have also been referred to as the South Sea Islands. Polynesia is characterized by an amount of land spread over a very large portion of the mid. Most Polynesian islands and archipelagos, including the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa, are composed of volcanic islands built by hotspots, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Ouvéa, the Polynesian outlier near New Caledonia, are the unsubmerged portions of the largely sunken continent of Zealandia. At first, the Pacific plate was subducted under the Australian plate, the Alpine Fault that traverses the South Island is currently a transform fault while the convergent plate boundary from the North Island northwards is called the Kermadec-Tonga Subduction Zone. The volcanism associated with subduction zone is the origin of the Kermadec. Out of approximately 300,000 or 310,000 square kilometres of land, over 270,000 km2 are within New Zealand, the Zealandia continent has approximately 3,600,000 km2 of continental shelf. The oldest rocks in the region are found in New Zealand and are believed to be about 510 million years old, the oldest Polynesian rocks outside of Zealandia are to be found in the Hawaiian Emperor Seamount Chain, and are 80 million years old. Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian Triangle, geographically, the Polynesian Triangle is drawn by connecting the points of Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island. The other main island groups located within the Polynesian Triangle are Samoa, Tonga, there are also small Polynesian settlements in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, and in Vanuatu. An island group with strong Polynesian cultural traits outside of this triangle is Rotuma. The people of Rotuma have many common Polynesian traits but speak a non-Polynesian language, some of the Lau Islands to the southeast of Fiji have strong historic and cultural links with Tonga. However, in essence, Polynesia is a term referring to one of the three parts of Oceania. Some islands of Polynesian origin are outside the triangle that geographically defines the region. The Phoenix Islands and Line Islands, most of which are part of Kiribati, are geographically Polynesian islands, tracing Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in the Malay Archipelago, and ultimately, in Taiwan. Between about 3000 and 1000 BC speakers of Austronesian languages began spreading from Taiwan into Island Southeast Asia, there are three theories regarding the spread of humans across the Pacific to Polynesia

South Sea Islands – Polynesia is the largest of three major cultural areas in the Pacific Ocean. Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian triangle.
South Sea Islands – Mokoliʻi Isle near Oahu, Hawaii
South Sea Islands – Cook's Bay on Moorea, French Polynesia
South Sea Islands – Moai at Ahu Tongariki on Rapa Nui

10. Leslie Stephen – Sir Leslie Stephen KCB was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Stephen was born at Kensington Gore in London, and son of Sir James Stephen and his father was Colonial Undersecretary of State and a noted abolitionist. He was the fourth of five children, his siblings including James Fitzjames Stephen and his family had belonged to the Clapham Sect, the early 19th century group of mainly evangelical Christian social reformers. At his fathers house he saw a deal of the Macaulays, James Spedding, Sir Henry Taylor. He recounted some of his experiences in a chapter in his Life of Fawcett as well as in less formal Sketches from Cambridge. These sketches were reprinted from the Pall Mall Gazette, to the proprietor of which, George Murray Smith, the family connections included that of William Makepeace Thackeray. His brother, Fitzjames had been a friend of Thackerays and assisted in the disposition of his estate when he died in 1863 and his sister Caroline met Thackerays daughters, Anny and Minny when they were mutual guests of Julia Margaret Cameron. This led to an invitation to visit from Leslie Stephens mother, Lady Stephen and they also met at George Murray Smiths house at Hampstead. Minny and Leslie became engaged on December 4,1866 and married on June 19,1867. After the wedding they travelled to the Swiss Alps and northern Italy, and on return to England lived at the Thackeray sisters home at 16 Onslow Gardens with Anny, in the spring of 1868 Minny miscarried but recovered sufficiently for the couple to tour the eastern United States. Minny miscarried again in 1869, but became pregnant again in 1870 and on December 7 gave birth to their daughter, Laura was premature, weighing three pounds. In March 1873 Thackeray and the Stephens moved to 8 Southwell Gardens, the couple travelled extensively, and by 1875 Minny was pregnant again, but this time was in poor health. On November 27 she developed convulsions, and died the day of eclampsia. After Minnys death, Leslie Stephen continued to live with Anny, Leslie Stephen and his daughter were also cared for by his sister, the writer Caroline Emelia Stephen, although Leslie described her as Silly Milly and her books as little works. Meanwhile, Anny was falling in love with her younger cousin Richmond Ritchie, Ritchie became a constant visitor and they became engaged in May 1877, and were married on August 2. At the same time Leslie Stephen was seeing more and more of Julia Duckworth and his second marriage was to Julia Prinsep Duckworth. Julia had been born in India and after returning to England she became a model for Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, in 1867 she had married Herbert Duckworth by whom she had three children prior to his death in 1870. Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth were married on March 26,1878 and they had four children, Vanessa married Clive Bell Thoby Virginia married Leonard Woolf Adrian In May 1895, Julia died of influenza, leaving her husband with four young children aged 11 to 15

Leslie Stephen – Leslie Stephen (c. 1860)
Leslie Stephen – The grave of Sir Leslie Stephen, Highgate Cemetery, London
Leslie Stephen – Grave of his first wife, Kensal Green Cemetery
Leslie Stephen – Julia Duckworth (née Jackson), Stephen's second wife, and mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron

11. Dictionary of National Biography – The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and he approached Leslie Stephen, then editor of the Cornhill Magazine, owned by Smith, to become editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus on subjects from the UK and its present, an early working title was the Biographia Britannica, the name of an earlier eighteenth-century reference work. The first volume of the Dictionary of National Biography appeared on 1 January 1885, in May 1891 Leslie Stephen resigned and Sidney Lee, Stephens assistant editor from the beginning of the project, succeeded him as editor. While much of the dictionary was written in-house, the DNB also relied on external contributors, by 1900, more than 700 individuals had contributed to the work. Successive volumes appeared quarterly with complete punctuality until midsummer 1900, when the series closed with volume 63, the year of publication, the editor and the range of names in each volume is given below. The supplements brought the work up to the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901. The dictionary was transferred from its original publishers, Smith, Elder & Co. to Oxford University Press in 1917, until 1996, Oxford University Press continued to add further supplements featuring articles on subjects who had died during the twentieth century. The supplements published between 1912 and 1996 added about 6,000 lives of people who died in the century to the 29,120 in the 63 volumes of the original DNB. In 1993 a volume containing missing biographies was published and this had an additional 1,000 lives, selected from over 100,000 suggestions. Consequently, the dictionary was becoming less and less useful as a reference work, in 1966, the University of London published a volume of corrections, cumulated from the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. There were various versions of the Concise Dictionary of National Biography, the last edition, in three volumes, covered everyone who died before 1986. In the early 1990s Oxford University Press committed itself to overhauling the DNB, the new dictionary would cover British history, broadly defined, up to 31 December 2000. The research project was conceived as a one, with in-house staff co-ordinating the work of nearly 10,000 contributors internationally. Following Matthews death in October 1999, he was succeeded as editor by another Oxford historian, Professor Brian Harrison, in January 2000. The new dictionary, now known as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes in print at a price of £7500, most UK holders of a current library card can access it online free of charge. In subsequent years, the print edition has been able to be obtained new for a lower price. At publication, the 2004 edition had 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives, a small permanent staff remain in Oxford to update and extend the coverage of the online edition

Dictionary of National Biography – George Murray Smith conceived of the DNB, subsidised it, and saw it finally into print before he died in 1901.
Dictionary of National Biography

12. National Maritime Museum – The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom and may be the largest museum of its kind in the world. The historic buildings form part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, the museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Like other publicly funded museums in the United Kingdom, the National Maritime Museum does not levy an admission charge. The Museum was created by the National Maritime Act of 1934 Chapter 43, under a Board of Trustees and it is based on the generous donations of Sir James Caird. King George VI formally opened the Museum on 27 April 1937 when his daughter Princess Elizabeth, the first Director was Sir Geoffrey Callender. Since earliest times Greenwich has had associations with the sea and navigation and it was a landing place for the Romans, Henry VIII lived here, the navy has roots on the waterfront, and Charles II founded the Royal Observatory in 1675 for finding the longitude of places. An active loans programme ensures that items from the collection are seen in the UK, through its displays, exhibitions and outreach programmes the Museum also explores our current relationship with the sea and the future of the sea as an environmental force and resource. The museum plays host to exhibitions, including Ships Clocks & Stars in 2014, Samuel Pepys, Plague, Fire, Revolution in 2015 and Emma Hamilton, Seduction. The collection of the National Maritime Museum also includes items taken from the German Naval Academy Mürwik after World War II, including several ship models, the museum has been criticized for possessing what has been described as Looted art. The Museum regards these cultural objects as war trophies, removed under the provisions of the Potsdam Conference, the Museum awards the Caird Medal annually in honour of its major donor, Sir James Caird. The Caird Library is a comprehensive specialist reference library and a research resource for all. The reading room is open Monday to Friday,10. 00–16.45, the Archive and Library holds a fantastic range of resources for finding out more about maritime history. Material includes manuscripts, books, charts and maps dating back to the 15th century, the collection can be used to research maritime history and exploration, the history of the Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy and much more, including astronomy and timekeeping. Many of the resources they hold are useful for family historians, including collections of Master’s Certificates dating back to 1845. For news and interesting items from the collection, see Caird Library blog To request items to view in the Library, search Archive catalogue and Library catalogue. The Library has produced a range of guides to help people carry out their own research on a wide range of topics. The guides provide information about the Museums collections and other sources for research into maritime history, find out more about the research guides at Research Guides. The museum was established in 1934 within the 200 acres of Greenwich Royal Park in the buildings formerly occupied by the Royal Hospital School

National Maritime Museum – National Maritime Museum
National Maritime Museum – Portrait of Captain James Cook by Nathaniel Dance at the National Maritime Museum.
National Maritime Museum – The Bretagne, painting by Jules Achille Noël, 1859, at the National Maritime Museum
National Maritime Museum – Admiral George Keith Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith by George Sanders.

13. Geographic coordinate system – 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

Geographic coordinate system – Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.