1.
Thomas Gainsborough
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Thomas Gainsborough FRSA was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and he preferred landscapes to portraits, and is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a member of the Royal Academy. He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woollen goods, and his wife, the artist spent his childhood at what is now Gainsboroughs House, on Gainsborough Street. The original building survives and is now a dedicated House to his life. Gainsborough was allowed to leave home in 1740 to study art in London and he assisted Francis Hayman in the decoration of the supper boxes at Vauxhall Gardens, and contributed to the decoration of what is now the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children. In 1746, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr, a daughter of the Duke of Beaufort. The artists work, then consisting of landscape paintings, was not selling well. He returned to Sudbury in 1748–1749 and concentrated on painting portraits, in 1752, he and his family, now including two daughters, moved to Ipswich. Commissions for personal portraits increased, but his clientele included mainly local merchants and he had to borrow against his wifes annuity. The Artists family and Self-Portrait In 1759, Gainsborough and his moved to Bath. There, he studied portraits by van Dyck and was able to attract a fashionable clientele. In 1761, he began to work to the Society of Arts exhibition in London. He selected portraits of well-known or notorious clients in order to attract attention, the exhibitions helped him acquire a national reputation, and he was invited to become a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1769. His relationship with the academy was not a one and he stopped exhibiting his paintings in 1773. In 1774, Gainsborough and his moved to London to live in Schomberg House. A commemorative blue plaque was put on the house in 1951, in 1777, he again began to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Academy, including portraits of contemporary celebrities, such as the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland
2.
Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
3.
Antiquarian
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An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with attention to ancient artifacts, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives. Today the term is used in a pejorative sense, to refer to an excessively narrow focus on factual historical trivia. The Kaogutu or Illustrated Catalogue of Examined Antiquity compiled by Lü Dalin is one of the oldest known catalogues to systematically describe and classify ancient artifacts which were unearthed. Interests in antiquarian studies of ancient inscriptions and artifacts waned after the Song Dynasty, Books on antiquarian topics covered such subjects as the origin of customs, religious rituals, and political institutions, genealogy, topography and landmarks, and etymology. By contrast, antiquarian works as a form are organized by topic. Major antiquarian Latin writers with surviving works include Varro, Pliny the Elder, Aulus Gellius, the Roman emperor Claudius published antiquarian works, none of which is extant. Some of Ciceros treatises, particularly his work on divination, show strong antiquarian interests, roman-era Greek writers also dealt with antiquarian material, such as Plutarch in his Roman Questions and the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus. The aim of Latin antiquarian works is to collect a number of possible explanations. The antiquarians are often used as sources by the ancient historians, despite the importance of antiquarian writing in the literature of ancient Rome, some scholars view antiquarianism as emerging only in the Middle Ages. Antiquarianisms wider flowering is more associated with the Renaissance, and with the critical assessment. The development of genealogy as a scientific discipline went hand-in-hand with the development of antiquarianism, genealogical antiquaries recognised the evidential value for their researches of non-textual sources, including seals and church monuments. Many early modern antiquaries were also chorographers, that is to say, they recorded landscapes, in England, some of the most important of these took the form of county histories. They increasingly argued that empirical evidence could be used to refine. Antiquaries had always attracted a degree of ridicule, and since the century the term has tended to be used most commonly in negative or derogatory contexts. Nevertheless, many practising antiquaries continue to claim the title with pride, Antiquary was the usual term in English from the 16th to the mid-18th centuries to describe a person interested in antiquities. From the second half of the 18th century, however, antiquarian began to be used widely as a noun. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, a distinction was perceived to exist between the interests and activities of the antiquary and the historian
4.
Old Style
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Closely related is the custom of dual dating, where writers gave two consecutive years because of differences in the starting date of the year, or included both the Julian and Gregorian dates. Beginning in 1582, the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian in Roman Catholic countries and this change was implemented subsequently in Protestant and Orthodox countries, usually at much later dates. In England and Wales, Ireland, and the British colonies, the change of the start of the year, in Scotland, the legal start of the year had already been moved to 1 January, but Scotland otherwise continued to use the Julian calendar until 1752. When recording British history it is usual to use the dates recorded at the time of the event, but the start of the Julian year was not always 1 January, and was altered at different times in different countries. From 1155 to 1752, the civil or legal year in England began on 25 March so for example the execution of Charles I was recorded at the time in Parliament as happening on 30 January 1648. In modern English language texts this date is shown as 30 January 1649. The corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar is 9 February 1649, designation is particularly relevant for dates which fall between the start of the historical year and the official start date, where different. This was 25 March in England, Wales and the Colonies until 1752, during the years between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar in continental Europe and its introduction in Britain, contemporary usage in England started to change. In Britain 1 January was celebrated as the New Year festival, some more modern sources, often more academic ones, also use the 1661/62 style for the period between 1 January and 25 March for years before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in England. Through enactment of the Calendar Act 1750, Britain and the British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, wednesday,2 September 1752, was followed by Thursday,14 September 1752. Claims that rioters demanded Give us our eleven days out of a misinterpretation of a painting by William Hogarth. The British tax year began on Lady Day on the Julian calendar and thus became 5 April. A 12th skipped Julian leap day in 1800 changed its start to 6 April and it was not changed when a 13th Julian leap day was skipped in 1900, so the tax year in the United Kingdom still begins on 6 April. The European colonies of the Americas adopted the change when their mother countries did, in Alaska, the change took place after the United States purchased Alaska from Russia. Friday,6 October 1867 was followed by Friday,18 October, usually, the mapping of new dates onto old dates with a start of year adjustment works well with little confusion for events which happened before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Agincourt is universally known to have fought on 25 October 1415. Events in continental western Europe are usually reported in English language histories as happening under the Gregorian calendar, for example, the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. However confusion occurs when an event involves both, for example, William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November, after setting sail from the Netherlands on 11 November, in 1688
5.
Downing Hall
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Downing Hall was built in 1627 by the Pennant family near Whitford, Flintshire. It was later the home of Thomas Pennant, the naturalist and it was partially destroyed in a fire in the early 20th Century and afterwards left derelict until it was demolished in 1953. Downing Hall was built by the Pennant family in 1627, their seat being a mansion Bychton Hall at Mostyn, Flintshire. The front of Downing Hall was set back with wings projecting forward on either side, on the south east side there was a prominent bay window with the family coat of arms above. On the front of the house was the Welsh motto Heb Dduw, heb ddim, when Thomas Pennant inherited the estate, he described the house as being incapable of being improved into a magnitude exceeding the revenue of the family. It pleased him because it was a house with a large garden. Thomas Pennant inherited the house on the death of his father, David and he refurbished the house, erected a new stable block and was probably responsible for creating the walled kitchen garden. He found the pleasure grounds badly neglected with the surrounding woods encroaching on the gardens and he was helped in this by the discovery of a seam of lead on the estate which, when mined, brought in a useful income. He laid open the natural beauties of the place, improved the scenery, created walkways, vistas and dingles and his son, David, who inherited the house in 1793, was also a keen gardener. He added the wing and was responsible for the erection of productive glasshouses with vineries. Davids granddaughter Louisa was the last of the line of this branch of the Pennant family and she married Rudolph, Viscount Feilding, later to become the 8th Earl of Denbigh. Louisa died without issue in 1853 and Lord Feilding inherited the house and he employed the architect T. H. Wyatt to enlarge it and was also responsible for the rebuilding of the lean-to glasshouses. He did not live there most of the time, making his Warwickshire house, Newnham Paddox, Downing Hall was then let to various tenants as a sporting retreat. In 1920 the house was put up for sale and in 1922 there was a fire seriously damaged the structure. It was never rebuilt and was demolished in 1953, immediately before demolition, several photographs were taken on behalf of Gathering the Jewels, a society devoted to commemorating the culture and heritage of Wales. In 2007, the buildings remaining included the glasshouses, the coach house, the stables, the potting sheds, the upper and lower lodges, the clock tower
6.
Whitford, Flintshire
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Whitford derived from White Ford is a village, community and an electoral ward near Holywell in Flintshire, northeast Wales. As a community it includes the village of Pantasaph, the population of both the Community and the Ward taken at the 2011 census was 2,332. It is best known as the home of traveller and writer Thomas Pennant. The parish church of St Mary and St Beuno is thought to have founded by St Beuno in the 7th century. It was restored in the 19th century and is a grade I listed building, photos of Whitford and surrounding area on geograph. org. uk Whitford Community Council Website
7.
Samuel Johnson
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Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and is described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history. He is also the subject of perhaps the most famous biography in English literature, born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentlemans Magazine and his early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. After nine years of work, Johnsons A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 and it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship. This work brought Johnson popularity and success, until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnsons was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary. His later works included essays, an annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Johnson was a tall and robust man. His odd gestures and tics were disconcerting to some on first meeting him, after a series of illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Born on 18 September 1709, to Michael Johnson, a bookseller and he did not cry and, with doubts surrounding the newborns health, his aunt exclaimed that she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street. Since it was feared that the baby die, the vicar of St Marys was summoned to perform a baptism. Two godfathers were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner, Johnsons health improved and he was put to wet-nurse with Joan Marklew. He soon contracted scrofula, known at time as the Kings Evil because it was thought royalty could cure it. Sir John Floyer, former physician to King Charles II, recommended that the young Johnson should receive the royal touch, however, the ritual was ineffective, and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scars across his face and body. Johnson demonstrated signs of intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust. His education began at the age of three, and was provided by his mother, who had him memorise and recite passages from the Book of Common Prayer. When Samuel turned four, he was sent to a nearby school, a year later, Johnson went to Lichfield Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin. During this time, Johnson started to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his years
8.
National Library of Wales
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The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, Welsh is the Librarys main medium of communication but it does, however, aim to deliver all public services in Welsh and English. In 1873, a committee was set up to collect Welsh material and house it at University College, Sir John Williams, physician and book collector, had also said he would present his collection to the library if it were established in Aberystwyth. He also eventually gave £20,000 to build and establish the library, cardiff was eventually selected as the location of the National Museum of Wales. Funds for both the National Library and the National Museum were contributed by the subscriptions of the working classes, in a Prefatory Note to A List of Subscribers to the Building Fund, the first librarian, John Ballinger, estimates that there were almost 110,000 contributors. The Library and Museum were established by Royal Charter on 19 March 1907, the Charter stipulated that if the National Library of Wales should be removed from Aberystwyth then the manuscripts donated by Sir John Williams will become the property of the University College. A new Royal Charter was granted in 2006, the National Library of Wales was granted the privilege of legal deposit under the 1911 Copyright Act. Initially, however, the Library could only claim material deemed to be of Welsh, the first use of the Library of Congress Classification by a library in Britain was at the National Library of Wales in 1913. On 15 July 1911 King George V and Queen Mary laid the stone of the National Library of Wales. The central block, or corps de logis, was added by Charles Holden to a version of Greenslades design. It was completed in 1937 and is a Grade II* listed building, the Library is faced with Portland stone on the upper storeys which contrasts with the Cornish granite below it. Restoration work was necessary in 1969 and 1983 due to the effects of weathering on the Portland stone, in recent years many changes have been made to the front part of the building. The large North Reading Room, where printed books are consulted, has the proportions of a Gothic Cathedral, there are galleries at three levels above the floor. The feasibility of installing a mezzanine floor to better use of the space has been considered on two occasions. The South Reading Room is used for consulting archives, manuscripts, maps, carved above the entrance is the rooms original name the Print and Maps Room. Above it on the floor of the south wing is the Gregynog Gallery where temporary. A six-storey bookstack, which was completed in 1931, was built to increase space for the rapidly expanding book collection. A second bookstack was officially opened in March 1982, in 1996, the Third Library Building was opened, doubling the storage capacity of the Library
9.
Josiah Wedgwood
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Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter and entrepreneur. The renewed classical enthusiasms of the late 1760s and early 1770s was of importance to his sales promotion. His expensive goods were in demand from the nobility, while he used emulation effects to market cheaper sets to the rest of society. Every new invention that Wedgwood produced - green glaze, creamware, black basalt, having once achieved perfection in production, he achieved perfection in sales and distribution. His showrooms in London gave the public the chance to see his complete range of tableware and he pioneered direct mail, money back guarantees, travelling salesmen, carrying pattern boxes for display, self-service, free delivery, buy one get one free, and illustrated catalogues. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered too for his Am I Not a Man And a Brother and he was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family, and he was the grandfather of Charles and Emma Darwin. By the age of nine, he was proving himself to be a skilled potter and he survived a childhood bout of smallpox to serve as an apprentice potter under his eldest brother Thomas Wedgwood IV. Smallpox left Josiah with a permanently weakened knee, which made him unable to work the foot pedal of a potters wheel, as a result, he concentrated from an early age on designing pottery and then making it with the input of other potters. In his early twenties, Wedgwood began working with the most renowned English pottery-maker of his day, Thomas Whieldon and he began experimenting with a wide variety of techniques, an experimentation that coincided with the burgeoning of the nearby industrial city of Manchester. Inspired, Wedgwood leased the Ivy Works in the town of Burslem, from 1768 to 1780 he partnered with Thomas Bentley, a potter of sophistication and astute taste. Over the course of the decade, his experimentation transformed the sleepy artisan works into the first true pottery factory. In January 1764 Wedgwood married Sarah Wedgwood, his third cousin and they had eight children, Susannah Wedgwood married Robert Darwin and became the mother of the English naturalist Charles Darwin. Charles married Emma Wedgwood, his cousin and this double-barreled inheritance of Wedgwoods money gave Charles Darwin the leisure time to formulate his theory of evolution. His unique glazes began to distinguish his wares from anything else on the market, by 1763, he was receiving orders from the highest levels of the British nobility, including Queen Charlotte. Wedgwood convinced her to let him name the line of pottery she had purchased Queens Ware, anything Wedgwood made for the Queen was automatically exhibited before it was delivered. In 1764 he received his first order from abroad, Wedgwood marketed his Queens Ware at affordable prices, everywhere in the world British trading ships sailed. In 1767 he wrote, The demand for this sd, creamcolour, Alias, Queen Ware, Alias, Ivory, still increases -- It is amazing how rapidly the use of it has spread all most over the whole Globe. He first opened a warehouse at Charles Street, Mayfair in London as early as 1765, in two years his trade had outgrown his rooms in Grosvenor Square
10.
Wrexham
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Wrexham is the largest town in north Wales and an administrative, commercial, retail and educational centre. Wrexham is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley alongside the border with England, historically part of Denbighshire, the town became part of Clwyd in 1974 and since 1996 has been the centre of the Wrexham County Borough. At the 2011 Census, Wrexham had a population of 61,603, human activity in the Wrexham area dates back to the Mesolithic period. By the early Middle Bronze Age the area had developed into a centre for an innovative metalworking industry, a Roman civilian settlement was located in the Plas Coch area of Wrexham and excavations have revealed evidence of agriculture and trade with the wider Roman world. By the end of the 6th century AD, the area was being contested between the Celtic-speaking inhabitants and the English-speaking invaders advancing from the east, the origins of the name Wrexham may possibly be traced back to this period. Renewed Welsh and Viking attacks led to a reduction in Anglo-Saxon power in north Wales from the early 10th century, following the Welsh reconquest of the area during the 11th century, Wrexham formed part of the native Welsh lordship of Maelor. During the 12th century the lordship was disputed between the Welsh and the English. The first recorded reference to the town in 1161 is to a Norman motte and bailey castle at Wristlesham which was founded in the Erddig area around 1150 by Hugh de Avranches. However, by the early 13th century Wrexham was undisputedly in the hands of the Welsh house of Powys Fadog, stability under the princes of Powys enabled Wrexham to develop as a trading town and administrative centre of one of the two commotes making up the Lordship. Following the loss of Welsh independence on the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282, Wrexham became part of the semi-independent Marcher lordship of Bromfield and Yale. From 1327 onwards, the town is referred to as a villa mercatoria and by 1391 Wrexham was wealthy enough for a bard, jester, juggler, dancer and goldsmith to earn their living there. At the beginning of the 15th century, the local gentry, local poet Glyn Gutor Glyn wrote of Sion ap Madog, the great-nephew of Owain Glyndŵr, as Alecsander i Wrecsam. In the mid 15th century, the church was gutted by fire. The main part of the current church was built in the late 15th, the Acts of Union passed during the reign of Henry VIII brought the lordship into the full system of English administration and law. It became part of the new shire of Denbighshire in 1536, the economic character remained predominantly agricultural into the 17th century but there were workshops of weavers, smiths, nailers as well as dye houses. A grammar school was established in 1603 by Alderman Valentine Broughton of Chester, during the English Civil War, Wrexham was on the side of the Royalists, as most Welsh gentry supported the King, but local landowner Sir Thomas Myddelton, owner of Chirk Castle, supported Parliament. The Industrial Revolution began in Wrexham in 1762 when the entrepreneur John Wilkinson, known as Iron Mad Wilkinson, wilkinsons steam engines enabled a peak of production at Minera Lead Mines on the outskirts of Wrexham. Wrexham was also known for its industry, by the 18th century there were a number of skinners and tanners in the town
11.
Fulham
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Fulham is part of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, in southwest London. It is an Inner London district located 3.7 miles south-west of Charing Cross and it was formerly a parish in the County of Middlesex. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London, Fulham Palace, now a museum, served between 1900 and 1976 as the official residence of the Bishops of London. Fulham has a history of industry and enterprise dating back to the 15th-century, in the shape of its Mill at Millshot and this was followed by pottery, tapestry-weaving, paper-making and brewing in the 17th and 18th-centuries all in the area of present-day Fulham High Street. The next two centuries saw involvement with production, transportation, the automotive industry, including early aviation and food production. It is to be decommissioned by 2019, in contrast to its modest post-World War II reputation, Fulham is now considered among the prime London areas by estate agents. Two football clubs, the eponymous Fulham F. C. and Premier League rivals, There are two exclusive sporting clubs, The Hurlingham Club known for Polo and the Queens tennis club known for its annual pre-Wimbledon Tennis tournament. In the 1800s Lillie Bridge Grounds, hosted the first meetings of the Amateur Athletic Association of England, the second FA Cup Final, the Lillie Bridge area was also the former home-ground of the Middlesex County Cricket Club, before it moved to Marylebone. The manor of Fulham is said to have given to Bishop Erkenwald about the year 691 for himself. In effect, Fulham Palace, for nine centuries the residence of the Bishops of London, is the manor of Fulham. In 879 Danish invaders, sailed up the Thames and wintered at Fulham, raphael Holinshed relates that the Bishop of London was lodging in his manor place in 1141 when Geoffrey de Mandeville, riding out from the Tower of London, took him prisoner. During the Commonwealth the manor was temporarily out of the bishops hands, in recent years there has been a great revival of interest in Fulhams earliest history, due almost entirely to the efforts of the Fulham Archaeological Rescue Group. Excavations have also revealed Roman settlements during the third and fourth centuries AD, There is no record of the original erection of a Parish church in Fulham, but the first written record of a church dates from 1154 as a result of a tithe dispute. The first known parish priest of All Saints Church, Fulham was appointed in 1242, interestingly, there is a comparably old church on the opposite bank of the Thames, St Marys Church, Putney, on the other side of the river crossing. In 1642 the Earl of Essex threw a bridge of boats across the river in order to march his army in pursuit of Charles I and this is thought to have been near the subsequent wooden Fulham Bridge, built in 1729 and replaced in 1886 with Putney Bridge. In 1792 it was occupied by Charles Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach and his wife and his non-political wife was Maria Fitzherbert who lived in East End House in Parsons Green. They are reputed to have had several children, during the 18th century Fulham had a reputation for debauchery, becoming a playground for the wealthy of London, where there was much gambling and prostitution and breweries. Until 1834, the village of Hammersmith had been incorporated in the parish of Fulham
12.
Francis Willughby
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Francis Willughby was an English ornithologist and ichthyologist. He was a student, friend and colleague of the naturalist John Ray at Cambridge University, Ray saw Willughbys Ornithologia libri tres through the press after Willughbys sudden death. Willughby was born at Middleton Hall, Warwickshire to Sir Francis Willoughby and he studied at Bishop Veseys Grammar School, Sutton Coldfield and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1667 he married Emma Barnard, daughter of Sir Henry Barnard of Bridgnorth, the first child, Francis, died at the age of nineteen, while his daughter Cassandra Willoughby married the Duke of Chandos, who was a patron of Mark Catesby. His second son was Thomas, who was created Baron Middleton by Queen Anne, at Cambridge Francis Willughby was taught by the naturalist John Ray. In 1662 they travelled to the west coast of England to study the breeding seabirds, between 1663 and 1666 they toured Europe together, travelling through the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. They separated at Naples and Willughby returned home via Spain, on returning to England they made plans to publish the results of their studies. Willughby died from pleurisy during the preparation of work, but Ray published Willughbys Ornithologiae libri tres in 1676. This is considered the beginning of scientific ornithology in Europe, revolutionizing ornithological taxonomy by organizing species according to their physical characteristics, Willughby and Ray were among the first to dismiss the older inaccuracies of Aristotle. Aristotle had claimed that swallows hibernated but Willughby and Ray wrote, To us it seems probable that they fly away into hot countries, viz. Egypt. Ray also published Willughbys De Historia piscium, in 2003 Willughbys scientific study of games was published, making generally available for the first time in-depth descriptions of a number of seventeenth century games. It was the first such work in the English language, and is comparable to the Spanish Libro de los juegos and he adds, The harder the ball is blown, the better it flies. They used to put quicksilver into it sometimes to keep it from lying still, the Willughby family seat, Wollaton Hall is now owned by the City of Nottingham. The Willughby papers are amongst the Middleton collection held at the Nottingham University Library, johnson, Joan, Excellent Cassandra, The Life and Times of the Duchess of Chandos. Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, Gloucester, England, poole, William, The Prae-Adamitae and the early Royal Society, Two Cases from the Periphery Willughby, Francis, Ornithologiae libri tres. Willughby, Francis, The ornithology of Francis Willughby
13.
The Queen's College, Oxford
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The Queens College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Queen Philippa of Hainault, the college is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, which includes buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor. In 2014, the college had an endowment of £206.1 million, the college was founded during the 14th century by Robert de Eglesfield, chaplain to Queen Philippa of Hainault, hence its name. The colleges coat of arms is that of the founder, it slightly from his familys coat of arms. The current coat of arms was adopted by dEglesfield because he was unable to use his familys arms, the frontage of the college was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, part of a substantial rebuilding in the 18th century during which the library was built. The medieval foundations, however, remain beneath the current 18th-century structure, in 2012, the college had net assets of £201.4 million. The college has had an association with the north of England, in part because of its founder. This connection was reinforced for many years until recently by the large number of Hastings Scholarships given to men from 20 schools in Yorkshire. Graduate students from the universities of Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, the college is named for its first patroness, Queen Philippa of Hainault. Established in January 1341 under the name of the Hall of the Queens scholars of Oxford, an Act of 1585 sought to end this confusion by providing that it should be called by the one name the Queens College, in practice the definite article is usually omitted. The full name of the College, as indicated in its reports, is The Provost. Queens College in Cambridge positions its apostrophe differently and has no article, in April 2012, as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, a series of commemorative stamps were released featuring A-Z pictures of famous British landmarks. The Queens Colleges front quad was used on the Q stamp, alongside other landmarks such as the Angel of the North on A, the college has one of the best-stocked college libraries in Oxford. The current lending library consists of around 50,000 volumes, the Upper Library has been a focal point for the College ever since its construction at the end of the 17th century. Unlike many other rooms in Oxford libraries, the Upper Library remains as a silent reading room for students open during staffed hours. The open cloister below the Upper Library was enclosed in the 19th century to form the Lower Library, the college has one of the largest and most diverse collections of rare books in Oxford. The chapel is noted for its Frobenius organ in the west gallery and it was installed in 1965, replacing a Rushworth and Dreaper organ from 1931. The earliest mention of an organ is 1826, the Chapel Choir has been described as Oxfords finest mixed-voice choir and continues to perform termly concerts, with recent examples including Handels Messiah and Bachs St. John Passion
14.
Oriel College, Oxford
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Oriel College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford, in recognition of this royal connection, the college has also been known as Kings College and Kings Hall. The reigning monarch of the United Kingdom is the official Visitor of the College, the original medieval foundation set up by Adam de Brome, under the patronage of Edward II, was called the House or Hall of the Blessed Mary at Oxford. The first design allowed for a Provost and ten Fellows, called scholars, and the College remained a body of graduate Fellows until the 16th century. During the English Civil War, Oriel played host to high-ranking members of the Kings Oxford Parliament, the College has nearly 40 Fellows, about 300 undergraduates and some 160 graduates, the student body having roughly equal numbers of men and women. Oriels notable alumni include two Nobel laureates, prominent Fellows have included founders of the Oxford Movement, among Oriels more notable possessions are a painting by Bernard van Orley and three pieces of medieval silver plate. In 1329, the college received by royal grant a large house belonging to the Crown, known as La Oriole and it is from this property that the college acquired its common name, Oriel, the name was in use from about 1349. The word referred to an oratoriolum, or oriel window, forming a feature of the earlier property, the arrangement was cancelled in 1450. In 1643 a general obligation was imposed on Oxford colleges to support the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. The King called for Oriels plate, and almost all of it was given, the total weighing 29 lb.0 oz.5 dwt. of gilt, and 52 lb.7 oz.14 dwt. of white plate. In the same year the College was assessed at £1 of the sum of £40 charged on the colleges. When the Oxford Parliament was assembled during the Civil War in 1644, Oriel housed the Executive Committee of the Privy Council, following the defeat of the Royalist cause, the University was scrutinised by the Parliamentarians, and five of the eighteen Oriel Fellows were removed. In 1673 James Davenant, a Fellow since 1661, complained to William Fuller, then Bishop of Lincoln, Bishop Fuller appointed a commission that included the Vice-Chancellor, Peter Mews, the Dean of Christ Church, John Fell, and the Principal of Brasenose, Thomas Yates. During the early 1720s, a struggle began between the Provost and the Fellows, culminating in a lawsuit. In 1721, Henry Edmunds was elected as a Fellow by 9 votes to 3, his election was rejected by Provost George Carter, and on appeal, by the Visitor, Edmund Gibson, then Bishop of Lincoln. The Provost continued to reject candidates, fuelling discontent among the Fellows, the jury decided for the Fellows, supporting the original charter of Edward II. In the early 19th century, the zeal of Provosts John Eveleigh. The group was disgusted by the then Church of England and sought to revive the spirit of early Christianity, tension arose in College since Provost Edward Hawkins was a determined opponent of the Movement
15.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
16.
Cornwall
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Cornwall is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, Cornwall has a population of 551,700 and covers an area of 3,563 km2. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the south-west peninsula of the island of Great Britain, and this area was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age peoples, there is little evidence that Roman rule was effective west of Exeter and few Roman remains have been found. In the mid-19th century, however, the tin and copper mines entered a period of decline, subsequently, china clay extraction became more important and metal mining had virtually ended by the 1990s. Traditionally, fishing and agriculture were the important sectors of the economy. Railways led to a growth of tourism in the 20th century, however, the area is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its long and varied coastline, its attractive villages, its many place-names derived from the Cornish language, and its very mild climate. Extensive stretches of Cornwalls coastline, and Bodmin Moor, are protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. Some people question the present constitutional status of Cornwall, and a nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom in the form of a devolved legislative Cornish Assembly. On 24 April 2014 it was announced that Cornish people will be granted minority status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The modern English name Cornwall derives from the concatenation of two ancient demonyms from different linguistic traditions, Corn- records the native Brythonic tribe, the Cornovii. The Celtic word kernou is cognate with the English word horn. -wall derives from the Old English exonym walh, the Ravenna Cosmography first mentions a city named Purocoronavis in the locality. This is thought to be a rendering of Duro-cornov-ium, meaning fort of the Cornovii. The exact location of Durocornovium is disputed, with Tintagel and Carn Brea suggested as possible sites, in later times, Cornwall was known to the Anglo-Saxons as West Wales to distinguish it from North Wales. The name appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 891 as On Corn walum, in the Domesday Book it was referred to as Cornualia and in c.1198 as Cornwal. Other names for the county include a latinisation of the name as Cornubia, the present human history of Cornwall begins with the reoccupation of Britain after the last Ice Age. The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods and it continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age people. The Common Brittonic spoken at the time developed into several distinct tongues
17.
William Borlase
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William Borlase, Cornish antiquary, geologist and naturalist. From 1722 he was Rector of Ludgvan, Cornwall, where he died and he was a contemporary of John Wesley and attempted to enter him into the Royal Navy by compulsion, but relented when he realised Wesley was a gentleman. Borlase was born on 2 February 1695/6 at Pendeen, of an ancient family originating at St Wenn and he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford from 1713, and in 1719 he was ordained. In 1722 he was presented to the rectory of Ludgvan, and in 1732 he obtained in addition the vicarage of St Just, between 1744 and 1746, Borlase was active against the Methodist preachers in his capacity of magistrate. Various Methodist preachers were seized on warrants issued by him and press-ganged to serve on ships abroad, in John Wesleys Diary there is an account of how he personally laid hands on Wesley, to serve his majesty, but withdrew when he realised that Wesley was a gentleman. In 1750, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society and his next publication was Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Islands of Scilly, and their Importance to the Trade of Great Britain. In 1758 appeared his Natural History of Cornwall which includes a chapter on the inhabitants and he also sent collections of mineral and fossil specimens to Dr William Oliver and to a number of natural historians in Europe. In 1724 William Borlase married Anne Smith, the couple had six sons, of whom two died in infancy. Of the remaining four, three became churchmen, borlases elder brother was Walter Borlase, who served as vicar of Madron, and also as mayor of Penzance. His great-great-grandson was William Copeland Borlase, an antiquarian who was influenced by his ancestors archaeological work, Borlase was a conscientious minister to his parishioners, politically conservative, and an amateur painter. Some of his papers are preserved in Penzance at the Morrab Library, Borlase, William The Antiquities of Cornwall. London, E & W Books,1973, reprint of the 2d ed. printed in 1769 by W. Bowyer and J. Nichols, for S. Baker & G. Leigh, T. Payne, B. ISBN 0-85409-852-6 Borlase, William Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Islands of Scilly, Oxford, W. Jackson Borlase, William Natural History of Cornwall. Oxford, printed for the author, by W. Jackson, sold by W. Sandby, at the Ship in Fleet-Street London, pool, P. A. S. William Borlase, 1696-1772. Pool, P. A. S. William Borlase
18.
Fossil
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Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, such a preserved specimen is called a fossil if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. The observation that fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or absolute age of the various strata. Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, even single bacterial cells one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs, Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils, finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals, these are known as chemofossils or biosignatures. The process of fossilization varies according to type and external conditions. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried, the empty spaces within an organism become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces and this process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils, for permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil, some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. This is a form of diagenesis, in some cases the original remains of the organism completely dissolve or are otherwise destroyed. The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold, if this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the cavity of an organism. This is a form of cast and mold formation. If the chemistry is right, the organism can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, if this happens rapidly before significant decay to the organic tissue, very fine three-dimensional morphological detail can be preserved. Nodules from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, USA, are among the best documented examples of such mineralization, replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral
19.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
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Philosophical Transactions, titled Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society from 1776, is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a venture of the Royal Societys secretary. It became an official society publication in 1752 and it was established in 1665, making it the first journal in the world exclusively devoted to science, and therefore also the worlds longest-running scientific journal. The use of the word Philosophical in the title refers to natural philosophy, in 1887 the journal expanded and divided into two separate publications, one serving the physical sciences and the other focusing on the life sciences. Both journals now publish themed issues and issues resulting from papers presented at the Discussion Meetings of the Royal Society, primary research articles are published in the sister journals Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biology Letters, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, and Interface Focus. The first issue, published in London on 6 March 1665, was edited and published by the Societys first secretary, Henry Oldenburg, four-and-a-half years after the Royal Society was founded. Oldenburg published the journal at his own expense and seems to have entered into an agreement with the societys council allowing him to keep any resulting profits. He was to be disappointed, however, since the journal performed poorly from a point of view during his lifetime. Oldenburg put out 136 issues of the Transactions before his death in 1677, the familiar functions of the scientific journal – registration, certification, dissemination and archiving − were introduced at inception by Philosophical Transactions. The printed journal replaced much of Oldenburgs letter-writing to correspondents, at least on scientific matters, Oldenburg also described his journal as one of these philosophical commonplace books, indicating his intention to produce a collective notebook between scientists. The final article of the issue concerned The Character, Lately Published beyond the Seas, of an Eminent Person, not Long Since Dead at Tholouse, the eminent person recently deceased was Pierre de Fermat, although the issue failed to mention his last theorem. In the aftermath of the Interregnum, the potential for censorship was very real, by reporting ongoing and often unfinished scientific work that may otherwise have not been reported, the journal had a central function of being a scientific news service. Foundation, print was heavily regulated, and there was no such thing as a free press, in fact, the first English newspaper, The London Gazette, did not appear until after Phil. Oldenburgs compulsive letter writing to foreign correspondents led to him being suspected of being a spy for the Dutch, a rival took the opportunity to publish a pirate issue of Philosophical Transactions, with the pretense of it being Issue 27. Oldenburg repudiated the issue by publishing the real 27 upon his release, upon Oldenburgs death, following a brief hiatus, the position of Editor was passed down through successive secretaries of the Society as an unofficial responsibility and at their own expense. Robert Hooke changed the name of the journal to Philosophical Collections in 1679 – a name that remained until 1682, the position of editor was sometimes held jointly and included William Musgrave and Robert Plot. By the mid-eighteenth century, the most notable editors, besides Oldenburg, were Hans Sloane, James Jurin, in virtually all cases the journal was edited by the serving secretary of the society. These editor-secretaries carried the burden of publishing the Philosophical Transactions
20.
Coral
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Corals are marine invertebrates in the class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in colonies of many identical individual polyps. The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans, a coral group is a colony of myriad genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is an animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening, an exoskeleton is excreted near the base. Over many generations, the colony creates a large skeleton that is characteristic of the species. Individual heads grow by reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning, polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously over a period of one to several nights around a full moon and these are commonly known as zooxanthellae and the corals that contain them are zooxanthellate corals. Such corals require sunlight and grow in clear, shallow water, other corals do not rely on zooxanthellae and can live in much deeper water, with the cold-water genus Lophelia surviving as deep as 3,000 metres. Some have been found on the Darwin Mounds, north-west of Cape Wrath, Corals have also been found as far north as off the coast of Washington State and the Aleutian Islands. In his Scala Naturae, Aristotle classified corals as zoophyta, animals that had characteristics of plants and were therefore hypothetically in between animals and plants, the Persian polymath Al-Biruni classified sponges and corals as animals, arguing that they respond to touch. The phylogeny of Anthozoans is not clearly understood and a number of different models have been proposed, within the Hexacorallia, the sea anemones, coral anemones and stony corals may constitute a monophyletic grouping united by their eight-fold symmetry and cnidocyte trait. The Octocorallia appears to be monophyletic, and primitive members of this group may have been stolonate, the cladogram presented here comes from a 2014 study by Stampar et al. which was based on the divergence of mitochondrial DNA within the group and on nuclear markers. Corals are classified in the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria and they are divided into three subclasses, Hexacorallia, Octocorallia, and Ceriantharia. The Hexacorallia include the stony corals, the sea anemones and the zoanthids and these groups have polyps that generally have 6-fold symmetry. The Octocorallia include blue coral, soft corals, sea pens and these groups have polyps with 8-fold symmetry, each polyp having eight tentacles and eight mesenteries. Fire corals are not true corals, being in the order Anthomedusa of the class Hydrozoa, Corals are sessile animals in the class Anthozoa and differ from most other cnidarians in not having a medusa stage in their life cycle. The body unit of the animal is a polyp, most corals are colonial, the initial polyp budding to produce another and the colony gradually developing from this small start
21.
Coalbrookdale
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Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the parish called the Gorge. This is where iron ore was first smelted by Abraham Darby using easily mined coking coal, the coal was drawn from drift mines in the sides of the valley. As it contained far fewer impurities than normal coal, the iron it produced was of a superior quality, before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Madeley and the adjacent Little Wenlock belonged to Much Wenlock Priory. At the Dissolution there was a bloomsmithy called Caldebroke Smithy, the manor passed about 1572 to John Brooke, who developed coal mining in his manor on a substantial scale. His son Sir Basil Brooke was a significant industrialist, and invested in ironworks elsewhere and it is probable that he also had ironworks at Coalbrookdale, but evidence is lacking. He also acquired an interest in the patent for the process of making steel in about 1615. Though forced to surrender the patent in 1619, he continued making iron and steel until his estate was sequestrated during the Civil War, but the works continued in use. In 1651, the manor was leased to Francis Wolfe, the clerk of the ironworks, the surviving old blast furnace contains a cast-iron lintel bearing a date, which is currently painted as 1638, but an archive photograph has been found showing it as 1658. What ironworks existed at Coalbrookdale and from precisely what dates thus remains obscure, by 1688, the ironworks were operated by Lawrence Wellington, but a few years after the furnace was occupied by Shadrach Fox. He renewed the lease in 1696, letting the Great Forge, some evidence may suggest that Shadrach Fox smelted iron with mineral coal, though this remains controversial. Fox was evidently an iron founder, as he supplied round shot and grenado shells to the Board of Ordnance during the Nine Years War, but not later than April 1703 and it remained derelict until the arrival of Abraham Darby the Elder in 1709. However the forges remained in use, a brass works was built sometime before 1712, but closed in 1714. In 1709, the first Abraham Darby rebuilt Coalbrookdale Furnace, Darby renewed his lease of the works in 1714, forming a new partnership with John Chamberlain and Thomas Baylies. They built a furnace in about 1715, which was intended to be followed up with a furnace at Dolgûn near Dolgellau. However, Darby died prematurely in 1717, followed quickly by his widow Mary, the partnership was dissolved before Marys death, Baylies taking over Vale Royal. After Marys death, Baylies had difficulty extracting his capital, the works then passed to a company led by his fellow Quaker Thomas Goldney II of Bristol and managed by Richard Ford. Darbys son Abraham Darby the Younger was brought into the business as an assistant manager when old enough, the companys main business was producing cast-iron goods
22.
Lead
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Lead is a chemical element with atomic number 82 and symbol Pb. When freshly cut, it is bluish-white, it tarnishes to a dull gray upon exposure to air and it is a soft, malleable, and heavy metal with a density exceeding that of most common materials. Lead has the second-highest atomic number of the stable elements. Lead is a relatively unreactive post-transition metal and its weak metallic character is illustrated by its amphoteric nature and tendency to form covalent bonds. Compounds of lead are found in the +2 oxidation state. Exceptions are mostly limited to organolead compounds, like the lighter members of the group, lead exhibits a tendency to bond to itself, it can form chains, rings, and polyhedral structures. Lead is easily extracted from its ores and was known to people in Western Asia. A principal ore of lead, galena, often bears silver, Lead production declined after the fall of Rome and did not reach comparable levels again until the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, global production of lead is about ten million tonnes annually, Lead has several properties that make it useful, high density, low melting point, ductility, and relative inertness to oxidation. In the late 19th century, lead was recognized as poisonous, Lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates in soft tissues and bones, damaging the nervous system and causing brain disorders and, in mammals, blood disorders. A lead atom has 82 electrons, arranged in a configuration of 4f145d106s26p2. The combined first and second ionization energies—the total energy required to remove the two 6p electrons—is close to that of tin, leads upper neighbor in group 14. This is unusual since ionization energies generally fall going down a group as an elements outer electrons become more distant from the nucleus, the similarity is caused by the lanthanide contraction—the decrease in element radii from lanthanum to lutetium, and the relatively small radii of the elements after hafnium. The contraction is due to shielding of the nucleus by the lanthanide 4f electrons. The combined first four ionization energies of lead exceed those of tin, for this reason lead, unlike tin, mostly forms compounds in which it has an oxidation state of +2, rather than +4. Relativistic effects, which become particularly prominent at the bottom of the periodic table, as a result, the 6s electrons of lead become reluctant to participate in bonding, a phenomenon called the inert pair effect. A related outcome is that the distance between nearest atoms in crystalline lead is unusually long, the lighter group 14 elements form stable or metastable allotropes having the tetrahedrally coordinated and covalently bonded diamond cubic structure. The energy levels of their outer s- and p-orbitals are close enough to allow mixing into four hybrid sp3 orbitals
23.
Nicholas Pocock
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Nicholas Pocock was a British artist known for his many detailed paintings of naval battles during the age of sail. Pocock was born in Bristol in 1740, the son of a seaman and he followed his fathers profession and was master of a merchant ship by the age of 26. During his time at sea, he became a skilled artist by making ink and wash sketches of ships, in 1778, Pococks employer, Richard Champion, became financially insolvent due to the effects of the American Revolutionary War on transatlantic trade. As a result, Pocock gave up the sea and devoted himself to painting, the first of his works were exhibited by the Royal Academy in 1782. Later that year, Pocock was commissioned to produce a series of paintings illustrating George Rodneys victory at the Battle of the Saintes, in 1789, he moved to London, where his reputation and contacts continued to grow. He was a favourite of Samuel Hood and was appointed Marine Painter to King George and he was also present himself at the Glorious First of June in 1794, on board the frigate HMS Pegasus. In addition to his oil paintings depicting naval battles, Pocock also produced many watercolours of coastal. Pocock married Ann Evans of Bristol in 1780, together they had eight children, two of his grandsons, Alfred Downing Fripp and George Arthur Fripp, were also artists. He died on 9 March 1821 at the home of his oldest son, Isaac, in Raymead in the parish of Cookham, near Maidenhead, Pocock biography Another Pocock biography Pocock paintings at the National Maritime Museum
24.
Peter Paillou
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Peter Paillou was a British artist best known for his paintings of birds, many of which were used as book illustrations. Little is known of his life but it is believed that he came to Britain from France in the early part of the eighteenth century. He was given a commission to paint a gilded pheasant in 1745 and he was employed by Thomas Pennant to paint pictures of birds, many of which were engraved by Peter Mazell for use as plates in Pennants books. He made a number of paintings representing different climate types for Thomas Pennant, probably under commission and his son, also named Peter Paillou, was a painter of portraits including miniatures. He practised in London for 20 years before moving to Glasgow for some years, colour plates in A natural history of birds by George Edwards, 1740–50
25.
Climate
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Climate is the statistics of weather, usually over a 30-year interval. Climate differs from weather, in that weather only describes the conditions of these variables in a given region. A regions climate is generated by the system, which has five components, atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, climates can be classified according to the average and the typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme was the Köppen climate classification, the Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses that define the climate of a region. Paleoclimatology is the study of ancient climates, Climate models are mathematical models of past, present and future climates. Climate change may occur long and short timescales from a variety of factors. For example, a 3°C change in mean annual temperature corresponds to a shift in isotherms of approximately 300–400 km in latitude or 500 m in elevation, therefore, species are expected to move upwards in elevation or towards the poles in latitude in response to shifting climate zones. Climate is commonly defined as the weather averaged over a long period, the standard averaging period is 30 years, but other periods may be used depending on the purpose. Climate also includes statistics other than the average, such as the magnitudes of day-to-day or year-to-year variations, the classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system. The World Meteorological Organization describes climate normals as reference points used by climatologists to compare current climatological trends to that of the past or what is considered normal, a Normal is defined as the arithmetic average of a climate element over a 30-year period. A30 year period is used, as it is enough to filter out any interannual variation or anomalies. The WMO originated from the International Meteorological Organization which set up a commission for climatology in 1929. At its 1934 Wiesbaden meeting the commission designated the thirty-year period from 1901 to 1930 as the reference time frame for climatological standard normals. In 1982 the WMO agreed to update climate normals, and in these were completed on the basis of climate data from 1 January 1961 to 31 December 1990. The difference between climate and weather is usefully summarized by the popular phrase Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. Over historical time spans there are a number of nearly constant variables that determine climate, including latitude, altitude, proportion of land to water and these change only over periods of millions of years due to processes such as plate tectonics
26.
Bryncroes
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Bryncroes is a hamlet and former civil parish in Gwynedd in Wales, and lies on the Llŷn Peninsula approximately 2 km west of Sarn Mellteyrn. The parish was abolished in 1934 and divided between Botwnnog and Aberdaron, the village was the scene of fierce protests between 1969 and 1972 when it was proposed to close the village school. However, the protests were in vain and the school closed, near the school is a well, which was used as a stopping-off point of the pilgrims on their way to Bardsey Island
27.
Halkyn
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Halkyn is a village in Flintshire, north-east Wales and situated between Pentre Halkyn, Northop and Rhosesmor. At the 2001 Census the population of the community was 2,876, Halkyn is one of the ancient parishes of Flintshire, originally comprising the townships of Hendrefigillt, Lygan y Llan and Lygan y Wern. The area was notable during the Roman occupation for the mining of lead, the village was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Alchene, when it was then part of Cheshire, in England. Halkyn had many public houses in the early 19th century and these public houses included the Crown Inn, which was situated on the left-hand side as you go towards Rhes-Y-Cae from the Old Halkyn Post Office. The Royal Oak, directly opposite the Blue Bell down a lane going towards Pen-Y-Parc Farm, also the Raven in the Catch, and the Blue Bell Inn, which is still operating. There were also a few shops, a butcher, a post office, the Crown Inn and the former Scranton Stores, an electoral ward in the same name exists. The population of this ward at the 2011 Census was 1,785. The village has a football club Halkyn United F. C. a cricket club, a post office, a church, a library. Dan Jones, translator of the Book of Mormon into Welsh, Halkyn Community Website Geograph. co. uk, photos of Halkyn and surrounding area
28.
Peter Mazell
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Not to be confused with Peter Mazell, caricaturist. Peter Mazell was an Irish painter and engraver, working in London between c.1761 and 1797 and he is known for his fine engravings of natural history subjects, especially those illustrating books by John Walcott and the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant. He created almost 600 engravings in his career and he also exhibited paintings of landscapes and of flowers. He exhibited at the Society of Artists and at the Royal Academy, Mazell is believed to have been the son of Pierre Mazell and Catherine Rocque, Huguenots living in Dublin, Ireland. He lived in central London, with addresses in Tottenham Court Road, Paddington, Portland Street, Gerrard Street, Covent Garden, in 1761 he exhibited a landscape painting at the Society of Artists in London, and worked in London for the rest of his career. His landscape and natural history engravings are considered extremely crisp and neat, Mazell often worked on natural history illustrations for books by Thomas Pennant, using paintings of birds by Peter Paillou in The British Zoology, History of Quadrupeds and Arctic Zoology. He also illustrated some of Pennants travel books including Tour of Wales,1778, as well as works by Pennant, Mazell illustrated books by John Boydell in 1763, Charles Cordiners Remarkable Ruins and Romantic Prospects of North Britain in 1792, and Captain James Cooks Voyages. At least occasionally, he continued to paint as well as to make engravings, Mazell became a Fellow of the Society of Artists in 1772, and Vice-President of the same Society in 1790. National Portrait Gallery British Museum National Trust Victoria and Albert Museum National Maritime Museum, Greenwich National Gallery of Australia Bibliotheca Britannica
29.
Paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms evolution and interactions with each other, paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuviers work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term itself originates from Greek παλαιός, palaios, i. e. old, ancient, ὄν, on, i. e. being, creature and λόγος, logos, i. e. speech, thought, study. Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics. The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition is the study of ancient life, paleontology is one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, philology and history itself. This means that it aims to describe phenomena of the past, hence it has three main elements, description of the phenomena, developing a general theory about the causes of various types of change, and applying those theories to specific facts. Sometimes the smoking gun is discovered by an accident during other research. Paleontology lies on the boundary between biology and geology since paleontology focuses on the record of past life but its source of evidence is fossils. In addition paleontology often uses techniques derived from other sciences, including biology, osteology, ecology, chemistry, techniques developed in engineering have been used to analyse how ancient organisms might have worked, for example how fast Tyrannosaurus could move and how powerful its bite was. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions, vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils of vertebrates, from the earliest fish to the immediate ancestors of modern mammals. Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils of such as molluscs, arthropods. Paleobotany focuses on the study of plants, but traditionally includes the study of fossil algae. Palynology, the study of pollen and spores produced by plants and protists. Micropaleontology deals with all microscopic fossil organisms, regardless of the group to which they belong, one example is the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria, which hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems. This also caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere, together, these were a prerequisite for the evolution of the most complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built
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Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
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Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala
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The Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, is the oldest of the royal academies in Sweden. The society has, by decree of 1906,50 Swedish fellows and 100 foreign. Early members included Emanuel Swedenborg and Anders Celsius, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was founded in Stockholm 1739, and its founders specifically wanted an academy which was different from the Uppsala academy. The Academy was founded 1710 in Uppsala on the initiative of the university librarian Erik Benzelius under the name of Collegium curiosorum, all the Academys publications were in the Latin language until 1863. The brief description of the awarded by the Academy are taken from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala priser section of their web site. This is the prize awarded by the Academy, named after Carl Linnaeus. This is the most prestigious prize awarded by the Academy, named after Anders Celsius and this is the second older prize awarded by the Academy, instituted on 12 May 1827, upon a donation by the Secretary of State Erik Bergstedt. Instituted in 1902, it is named after the physics professor Robert Thalén and it is a prize, awarded yearly, named after Erik Benzelius the younger, instituted in 1980 and entirely founded by the Academy, it is meant as a grant to young researchers. Vetenskapssocieteten i Uppsala, V – Väring, Nordisk familjebok,17, Stockholm, Gernandt, westrin, Th. ed. Vetenskapssocieteten i Uppsala, Werth – Väderkvarn, Nordisk familjebok,32, Stockholm, pp. 118–121. The Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, Sundelöf, Erik, Society Web Site, retrieved 16 May 2011
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Folio
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The term folio, from the Latin folium, has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing. It is firstly a term for a method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once. Secondly, it is a term for a sheet, leaf or page in manuscripts and old books, and thirdly, an approximate term for the size of a book. Each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet, ordinarily, additional printed folio sheets would be inserted inside one another to form a group or gathering of leaves prior to binding the book. Means the first side of the 26th leaf in a book, other common book formats are quarto and octavo, which are both also printing formats, involving two and three folds in the sheet respectively. Famous folios include the Gutenberg Bible, printed in about 1455, each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet. This contrasts with a quarto, folding each sheet twice, and octavo, there are variations in how folios are produced. For example, bibliographers call a book printed as a folio, but bound in gatherings of 8 leaves each, a folio in 8s. The Gutenberg Bible was printed in about 1455 as a folio, in four pages of text were printed on each sheet of paper. The page size is 12 x 17.5 inches, a folio size. Several such folded conjugate pairs of leaves were inserted inside one another to produce the sections or gatherings, Shakespeares First Folio edition is printed as a folio and has a page height of 12.5 inches, making it a rather small folio size. Folios were a common format of books printed in the period, although the earliest printed book. In the discussion of manuscripts, a means a leaf with two pages, the recto being the first the reader encounters, and the verso the second. When this page is turned over f1 v. is on the left and f2 r. on the right of the opening, in the discussion of two-columned manuscripts, a/b/c/d can denote the left and right-hand columns of recto and verso pages. In the discussion of three-columned manuscripts, notation may make use of folio number + recto/verso + column a/b/c. The actual size of a folio book depends on the size of the sheet of paper on which it was printed. Historically, printers used a range of such as, Double Elephant Folio, Atlas Folio, Elephant Folio, Royal Folio, Medium Folio. From the mid-nineteenth century, technology permitted the manufacture of large sheets or rolls of paper on which books were printed, as a result, it may be impossible to determine the actual format
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Quarto
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Quarto is a book or pamphlet produced from full blanksheets, each of which is printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. Each printed page presents as one-fourth size of the full blanksheet, the earliest known European printed book is a quarto, the Sibyllenbuch, believed to have been printed by Gutenberg in 1452–53, before the Gutenberg Bible, surviving only as a fragment. These terms are discussed in detail in Book sizes. A quarto is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more sheets of paper on which 8 pages of text were printed. Each leaf of a quarto book thus represents one fourth the size of the original sheet, each group of 4 leaves could be sewn through the central fold to attach it to the other gatherings to form a book. Sometimes, additional leaves would be inserted within another group to form, for example gatherings of 8 leaves, generally, quartos have more squarish proportions than folios or octavos. There are variations in how quartos were produced, for example, bibliographers call a book printed as a quarto, but bound in gatherings of 8 leaves each, a quarto in 8s. The actual size of a quarto book depends on the size of the sheet of paper on which it was printed. The earliest surviving books printed by movable type by Gutenberg are quartos which were printed before the Gutenberg Bible, the earliest known one is a fragment of a medieval poem called the Sibyllenbuch, believed to have been printed by Gutenberg in 1452–53. Quartos were the most common format of books printed in the incunabula period, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, technology permitted the manufacture of large sheets or rolls of paper on which books were printed, many text pages at a time. As a result, it may be impossible to determine the actual format, the term quarto as applied to such books may refer simply to the size, i. e. books that are approximately 12 inches tall. During the Elizabethan era and through the century, plays. Eighteen of Shakespeares 36 plays included in first folio collected edition of 1623, were separately printed as quartos. Bibliographers have extensively studied these different editions, which refer to by abbreviations such as Q1, Q2. The texts of some of the Shakespeare quartos are highly inaccurate and are full of errors and omissions. Bibliographer Alfred W. Pollard named those editions Bad quartos, and it is speculated that they may have produced, not from manuscript texts. Other playwrights in this period published their plays in quarto editions. Christopher Marlowes Doctor Faustus, for example, was published as a quarto in 1604, the same is true of poems, Shakespeares poem Venus and Adonis being first printed as a quarto in 1593, with a second quarto edition in 1594
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St David's School, Middlesex
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St Davids School was an independent girls school in Ashford, England. The school was established in London in 1716 as the British Charity School or Welsh Charity School. It was at first a school, and then from 1758 co-educational. It changed its name to St Davids School in 1967, in the later 18th century it was also supported by the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, another London Welsh society. The school opened informally in 1716 in a house in Sheer Lane, London, in 1719 it moved into one of the buildings of Ailesbury Chapel, Clerkenwell, the former chapel of the medieval Clerkenwell Priory, but at this date in use as a Presbyterian meeting-house. The chapel was reconstructed as an Anglican parish church in 1721–3, the numbers of pupils fluctuated through this period, though there were at times up to 50 boys. In 1738 the school moved into a new home on Clerkenwell Green. The construction of building, designed by James Steer, was funded by subscriptions. The building survives, and is now the Marx Memorial Library, the first girls were admitted to the school in 1758. In 1768, a decision was taken to admit a number of residential pupils. Thomas Pennants British Zoology was published under the auspices of the Cymmrodorion Society, pennant in fact lost heavily on the publication, and so the school derived no direct benefit from it. Independently of this work, however, he did give the school a donation of £100, conditions at Clerkenwell Green became increasingly cramped, and in 1772 the school moved into a new building in Gray’s Inn Lane. The school now became predominantly residential, in 1857 the school moved out of London to a new site at Ashford, Middlesex. It began to have difficulty attracting charitable pupils, and in 1882 was reconstituted to admit a higher proportion of fee-paying pupils and it now became known as the Welsh Girls School. During World War II the school was evacuated to the Powis Castle estate in Montgomeryshire, in the post-war period its connections with Wales became more tenuous, and in 1967 the name was changed to St Davids School. The school closed in 2009 because of falling numbers caused by economic recession, in 2010, the Ashford buildings were taken over by St James Independent Schools and opened as St James Senior Boys School. London Welsh School Jones, Emrys, ed, rise and Progress, the story of the Welsh Girls’ School and of the Honourable and Loyal Society of Antient Britons
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Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
36.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
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Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. It has been said that Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the half of the 18th century. Buffon held the position of intendant at the Jardin du Roi, Georges was named after his mother’s uncle Georges Blaisot, the tax-farmer of the Duke of Savoy for all of Sicily. In 1714 Blaisot died childless, leaving a fortune to his seven-year-old godson. Benjamin Leclerc then purchased an estate containing the village of Buffon. Georges attended the Jesuit College of Godrans in Dijon from the age of ten onwards, from 1723–1726 he then studied law in Dijon, the prerequisite for continuing the family tradition in civil service. In 1728 Georges left Dijon to study mathematics and medicine at the University of Angers in France, in 1732 after the death of his mother and before the impending remarriage of his father, Georges left Kingston and returned to Dijon to secure his inheritance. Having added de Buffon to his name while traveling with the Duke, he repurchased the village of Buffon, with a fortune of about 80000 livres Buffon set himself up in Paris to pursue science, at first primarily mathematics and mechanics, and the increase of his fortune. In 1732 he moved to Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire, in 1734 he was admitted to the French Academy of Sciences. During this period he corresponded with the Swiss mathematician Gabriel Cramer and his protector Maurepas had asked the Academy of Sciences to do research on wood for the construction of ships in 1733. Soon afterward, Buffon began a study, performing some of the most comprehensive tests to date on the mechanical properties of wood. Included were a series of tests to compare the properties of small specimens with those of large members, in 1739 he was appointed head of the Parisian Jardin du Roi with the help of Maurepas, he held this position to the end of his life. Buffon was instrumental in transforming the Jardin du Roi into a research center. He also enlarged it, arranging the purchase of adjoining plots of land, thanks to his talent as a writer, he was invited to join Pariss second great academy, the Académie française in 1753. In his Discours sur le style, pronounced before the Académie française, he said, Writing well consists of thinking, feeling and expressing well, of clarity of mind, soul, the style is the man himself. Unfortunately for him, Buffons reputation as a literary stylist also gave ammunition to his detractors, The mathematician Jean le Rond DAlembert, for example, called him the great phrase-monger. In 1752 Buffon married Marie-Françoise de Saint-Belin-Malain, the daughter of an noble family from Burgundy
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Voltaire
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Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 21,000 letters and over two books and pamphlets. He was an advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma. Some speculation surrounds Voltaires date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the son of a nobleman. Two of his older brothers—Armand-François and Robert—died in infancy and his brother, Armand. Nicknamed Zozo by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with François de Castagnère, abbé de Châteauneuf, and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mothers cousin, standing as godparents. He was educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric, later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English. By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father out, he sent Voltaire to study law. Nevertheless, he continued to write, producing essays and historical studies, Voltaires wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the marquis de Châteauneuf, at The Hague, Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer. Their scandalous affair was discovered by de Châteauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year, Most of Voltaires early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government and these activities were to result in two imprisonments and a temporary exile to England. One satirical verse, in which Voltaire accused the Régent of incest with his own daughter, the Comédie-Française had agreed in January 1717 to stage his debut play, Œdipe, and it opened in mid-November 1718, seven months after his release. Its immediate critical and financial success established his reputation, both the Régent and King George I of Great Britain presented Voltaire with medals as a mark of their appreciation. He mainly argued for tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects peoples rights, the author adopted the name Voltaire in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille
38.
Albrecht von Haller
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Albrecht von Haller was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet. A pupil of Herman Boerhaave, he is referred to as the father of modern physiology. Haller was born into an old Swiss family at Bern, prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind. Hallers attention had been directed to the profession of medicine while he was residing in the house of a physician at Biel after his fathers death in 1721. While still a sickly and excessively shy youth, he went in his year to the University of Tübingen. Dissatisfied with his progress, he in 1725 exchanged Tübingen for Leiden, where Boerhaave was in the zenith of his fame, later in 1757, he conducted a famous series of experiments to distinguish between nerve impulses and muscular contractions. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1743, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1747. The quantity of work achieved by Haller in the seventeen years during which he occupied his Göttingen professorship was immense, like his mentor Boerhaave, Haller was a Christian and a collection of his religious thoughts can be read in a compilation of letters to his daughter. Haller also grew many plants from the Alps himself, the plant genus Halleria, an attractive shrub from Southern Africa, was named in his honour by Carl Linnaeus. About 1773 the state of his health meant he withdrew from public business, Haller, who had been three times married, left eight children. The eldest, Gottlieb Emanuel, attained to some distinction as a botanist, another son, Albrecht was also a botanist. Inde ad ductum phaenomenorum, in sano obviorum, transeas ad experimenta in corpore aegroro, but no one, not a single physician, attended to or followed up this invaluable hint. Then in relation to the form of the phenomena in a person from those exposed to it. Gaum, Ulm 1755 Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf Historia stirpium indigenarum Helvetiae inchoata, vol. 1&2 Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf. Ode sur les Alpes,1773 Materia medica oder Geschichte der Arzneyen des Pflanzenreichs, Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf. Histoire des Plantes suisses ou Matiere médicale et de lUsage économique des Plantes par M. Alb. de Haller, berne 1791 Digital edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf. Hegel mentions Hallers description of eternity, called by Kant terrifying, according to Hegel, Haller realizes that a conception of eternity as infinite progress is futile and empty. In a way, Hegel uses Hallers description of eternity as a foreshadowing of his own conception of the true infinite, Hegel claims that Haller is aware that, only by giving up this empty, infinite progression can the genuine infinite itself become present to him
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Peter Simon Pallas
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Peter Simon Pallas was a German zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia. Pallas was born in Berlin, the son of Professor of Surgery Simon Pallas and he studied with private tutors and took an interest in natural history, later attending the University of Halle and the University of Göttingen. In 1760, he moved to the University of Leiden and passed his doctors degree at the age of 19, Pallas traveled throughout the Netherlands and to London, improving his medical and surgical knowledge. He then settled at The Hague, and his new system of classification was praised by Georges Cuvier. Pallas wrote Miscellanea Zoologica, which included descriptions of several new to science which he had discovered in the Dutch museum collections. A planned voyage to southern Africa and the East Indies fell through when his father recalled him to Berlin, there, he began work on his Spicilegia Zoologica. He explored the Caspian Sea, the Ural and Altai Mountains, the regular reports which Pallas sent to St Petersburg were collected and published as Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs. They covered a range of topics, including geology and mineralogy, reports on the native peoples and their religions. In 1776, Pallas was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Pallas settled in St Petersburg, becoming a favourite of Catherine II and teaching history to the Grand Dukes Alexander. He was provided with the plants collected by other naturalists to compile the Flora Rossica, a Russian flora, and started work on his Zoographica Rosso-Asiatica and he also published an account of Johann Anton Güldenstädts travels in the Caucasus. The Empress bought Pallass large natural history collection for 2,000 rubles,500 more than his asking price, during this period, Pallas helped plan the Mulovsky expedition, which was cancelled in October 1787. Between 1793 and 1794, Pallas led an expedition to southern Russia, visiting the Crimea. He was accompanied by his daughter and his new wife, an artist, servants, in February 1793, they travelled to Saratov and then downriver to Tsaritsyn. They spent the spring exploring the country to the east, and in August travelled along the banks of the Caspian Sea, in September, they travelled to the Crimea, wintering in Simferopol. Pallas spent the spring of 1794 exploring to the southeast, and in July travelled up the valley of the Dnieper, Pallas gave his account of the journey in his P. S. Pallas Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die Südlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs. Catherine II gave him an estate at Simferopol, where Pallas lived until the death of his second wife in 1810. He was then granted permission to leave Russia by Emperor Alexander, and returned to Berlin and his grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof I der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde in Berlin-Kreuzberg, south of Hallesches Tor
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John Ray
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John Ray was an English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray, from then on, he used Ray, after having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him. He published important works on botany, zoology, and natural theology and his classification of plants in his Historia Plantarum, was an important step towards modern taxonomy. He was the first to give a definition of the term species. John Ray was born in the village of Black Notley in Essex and he is said to have been born in the smithy, his father having been the village blacksmith. He was sent at the age of sixteen to Cambridge University, studying at Trinity College and his tutor at Trinity was James Duport, and his intimate friend and fellow-pupil the celebrated Isaac Barrow. Ray was chosen fellow of Trinity in 1649, and later major fellow. Among these sermons were his discourses on The wisdom of God manifested in the works of the creation, Ray was also highly regarded as a tutor. He communicated his own passion for history to several pupils. His religious views were generally in accord with those imposed under the restoration of Charles II of England, from this time onwards he seems to have depended chiefly on the bounty of his pupil Francis Willughby, who made Ray his constant companion while he lived. Willughby arranged that after his death, Ray would have 6 shillings a year for educating Willughbys two sons, from this tour Ray and Willughby returned laden with collections, on which they meant to base complete systematic descriptions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The plants gathered on his British tours had already described in his Catalogus plantarum Angliae. In 1667 Ray was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1669 he, in 1671, he presented the research of Francis Jessop on formic acid to the Royal Society. In this volume, he moved on from the naming and cataloguing of species like his successor Carl Linnaeus, instead, Ray considered species lives and how nature worked as a whole, giving facts that are arguments for Gods will expressed in His creation of all visible and invisible. Ray gave a description of dendrochronology, explaining for the ash tree how to find its age from its tree-rings. In 1673 Ray married Margaret Oakley of Launton, in 1676 he went to Middleton Hall near Tamworth, finally, in 1679, he removed to Black Notley, where he afterwards remained. His life there was quiet and uneventful, although he had poor health, Ray kept writing books and corresponded widely on scientific matters. He lived, in spite of his infirmities, to the age of seventy-seven, Ray was the first person to produce a biological definition of species, in his 1686 History of plants
41.
Catherine the Great
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Catherine II of Russia, also known as Catherine the Great, was a Russian monarch. She was the female leader of Russia, reigning from 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. She came to following a coup détat when her husband. Russia was revitalised under her reign, growing larger and stronger than ever, in both her accession to power and in rule of her empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherines former lover, king Stanisław August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, in the east, Russia started to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America. Catherine reformed the administration of Russian guberniyas, and many new cities, an admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and the continued to depend on serfdom. This was one of the reasons behind several rebellions, including the large-scale Pugachevs Rebellion of cossacks. The period of Catherine the Greats rule, the Catherinian Era, is considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the Empress and she enthusiastically supported the ideals of The Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot. Catherine was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, she was nicknamed Figchen. Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt, two of her first cousins became Kings of Sweden, Gustav III and Charles XIII. In accordance with the then prevailing in the ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a French governess. She once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm, I see nothing of interest in it, although Catherine was born a princess, her family had very little money. Catherines rise to power was supported by her mothers relatives who were both wealthy nobles and royal relations. Catherine first met Peter III at the age of 10, based on her writings, she found Peter detestable upon meeting him. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol at such a young age, Peter also still played with toy soldiers
42.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
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Royal Society
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Founded in November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Societys President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the members of the society. As of 2016, there are about 1,600 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS, there are also royal fellows, honorary fellows and foreign members, the last of which are allowed to use the postnominal title ForMemRS. The Royal Society President is Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who took up the post on 30 November 2015, since 1967, the society has been based at 6–9 Carlton House Terrace, a Grade I listed building in central London which was previously used by the Embassy of Germany, London. The Royal Society started from groups of physicians and natural philosophers, meeting at variety of locations and they were influenced by the new science, as promoted by Francis Bacon in his New Atlantis, from approximately 1645 onwards. A group known as The Philosophical Society of Oxford was run under a set of rules still retained by the Bodleian Library, after the English Restoration, there were regular meetings at Gresham College. It is widely held that these groups were the inspiration for the foundation of the Royal Society, I will not say, that Mr Oldenburg did rather inspire the French to follow the English, or, at least, did help them, and hinder us. But tis well known who were the men that began and promoted that design. This initial royal favour has continued and, since then, every monarch has been the patron of the society, the societys early meetings included experiments performed first by Hooke and then by Denis Papin, who was appointed in 1684. These experiments varied in their area, and were both important in some cases and trivial in others. The Society returned to Gresham in 1673, there had been an attempt in 1667 to establish a permanent college for the society. Michael Hunter argues that this was influenced by Solomons House in Bacons New Atlantis and, to a lesser extent, by J. V. The first proposal was given by John Evelyn to Robert Boyle in a letter dated 3 September 1659, he suggested a scheme, with apartments for members. The societys ideas were simpler and only included residences for a handful of staff and these plans were progressing by November 1667, but never came to anything, given the lack of contributions from members and the unrealised—perhaps unrealistic—aspirations of the society. During the 18th century, the gusto that had characterised the early years of the society faded, with a number of scientific greats compared to other periods. The pointed lightning conductor had been invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, during the same time period, it became customary to appoint society fellows to serve on government committees where science was concerned, something that still continues. The 18th century featured remedies to many of the early problems
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pennant, Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "