Goscombe John
Sir William Goscombe John was a Welsh sculptor. He was born in Canton, Cardiff and as a youth assisted his father, Thomas John, a wood carver, in the restoration of Cardiff Castle, he studied in his home town, attending the Cardiff School of Art. He went to London in 1882 and studied at the South London School of Technical Art under Jules Dalou and William Silver Frith and afterward at the Royal Academy schools, where he won the gold medal and a travelling scholarship in 1887. In 1890–91 he studied in Paris, he married Swiss-born Marthe Weiss. Their daughter Muriel married the son of artist Sir Luke Fildes; as a young man he adopted the first name Goscombe, taken from the name of a village in Gloucestershire near his mother's home. Goscombe John was commissioned to design many public monuments and statues of public figures such as the shipping magnate and philanthropist John Cory. In 1921 he designed the memorial at Port Sunlight to the employees of Lever Brothers Ltd who had died in the First World War.
He received a gold medal in Paris in 1901, was made a Royal Academician in 1909, was knighted in 1911, became corresponding member of the French Institute. He settled in Greville Road, London, is buried in Hampstead Cemetery; the memorial statue of his wife, which he designed when she died in 1923, was stolen from the cemetery in 2001 but recovered after a few months. John's output included: Sculptures on Electra House in Moorgate, City of London, these dating from 1900 to 1903 and representing Egypt, Japan and China. Equestrian Statue of Edward VII on Liverpool; the Arthur Sullivan Memorial on the Embankment in London. Statue of Judge Gwilym Williams in Cathays Park, Cardiff; the work Grief dating to 1890. Queen Alexandra. Statue on the facade of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Carved figures on a reredos in St John the Baptist Church, St John Street, Cardiff. Statue of David Lloyd George in Caernarfon, Gwynedd. Evan James and James James Statues in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Evan James, bardic name Ieuan ap Iago was a weaver and poet and James James, bardic name Iago ap Ieuan was a harpist and musician.
They wrote the lyrics of Hen Wlad fy Nhadau, the national anthem of Wales. This Goscombe John work is located in Ynysangharad Park. Statue of Daniel Owen in Mold, Flintshire. Goscombe John's output was prolific and includes the seated statue of the Duke of Devonshire, at Eastbourne, King Edward VII, at Cape Town. Goscombe John executed the monument to the Marquis of Salisbury, in Westminster Abbey and Hatfield Church; the National Museum of Wales holds many works by Goscombe John. New Sculpture This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.. "article name needed". New International Encyclopedia. New York: Dodd, Mead. John, Sir William Goscombe Article on Goscombe John's work with images from The National Archives. Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, it employs over 20,950 staff in total. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time and fixed-contract staff are included; the BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee, charged to all British households and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up; the fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has funded the BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, online services in Arabic and Persian.
Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Studios Ltd, which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. From its inception, through the Second World War, to the 21st century, the BBC has played a prominent role in British culture, it is known colloquially as "The Beeb", "Auntie", or a combination of both. Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920, it was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.
But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast; the company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform and entertain"; the financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee.
The Committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired; the BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. The BBC was banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00 and was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise.
The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis; the crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On one hand Reith was acutely aware that the Government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the Government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently; the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the Government's objectives in a manner of its own choosing; the resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment
Cross of Sacrifice
The Cross of Sacrifice is a Commonwealth war memorial designed in 1918 by Sir Reginald Blomfield for the Imperial War Graves Commission. It is present in Commonwealth war cemeteries containing 40 or more graves, its shape is an elongated Latin cross with proportions more typical of the Celtic cross, with the shaft and crossarm octagonal in section. It ranges in height from 18 to 24 feet. A bronze longsword, blade down, is affixed to the front of the cross, it is mounted on an octagonal base. It may incorporated into other cemetery features; the Cross of Sacrifice is praised imitated, the archetypal British war memorial. It is the most imitated of Commonwealth war memorials, duplicates and imitations have been used around the world; the First World War introduced killing on such a mass scale that few nations were prepared to cope with it. Millions of bodies were never recovered, or were recovered long after any identification could be made. Hundreds of thousands of bodies were buried on the battlefield.
It was impossible to dig trenches without unearthing remains, artillery barrages uncovered bodies and flung the disintegrating corpses into the air. Many bodies were buried in French municipal cemeteries, but these filled to capacity. Due to the costs and sheer number of remains involved, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom barred repatriation of remains. Fabian Ware, a director of the Rio Tinto mining company, toured some battlefields in as part of a British Red Cross mission in the fall of 1914. Ware was disturbed by status of British war graves, many of which were marked by deteriorating wooden crosses, haphazardly placed and with names and other identifying information written nearly illegibly in pencil. Ware petitioned the British government to establish an official agency to oversee the locating and marking of British war dead, to acquire land for cemeteries; the Imperial War Office agreed, created the Graves Registration Commission in March 1915. In May, the Graves Registration Commission ceased to operate an ambulance service for the British Red Cross, in September was made an official arm of the military after being attached to the Royal Army Service Corps.
During its short existence, the Graves Registration Commission consolidated many British war dead cemeteries. Ware negotiated a treaty with the French government whereby the French would purchase space for British war cemeteries, the British government assumed the cost of platting and maintaining the sites. Over the next few months, the Graves Registration Commission closed British war dead cemeteries with fewer than 50 bodies, disinterred the bodies, reinterred them at the new burying grounds; the Graves Registration Commission became the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries in February 1916. As the war continued, there was a growing awareness in the British Army that a more permanent body needed be organized to care for British war graves after the war. In January 1916, the prime minister H. H. Asquith appointed a National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves to take over this task. Edward, Prince of Wales agreed to serve as the committee's president; the committee's membership reflected all members of the British Commonwealth.
Over the next year, members of the National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves began to feel that their organization was inadequate to the task, that a more formal organization, with a broader mandate, should be created. The idea was broached at the first Imperial War Conference in March 1917, on 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was chartered. Lord Derby was named its chair, the Prince of Wales its president. Prior to the First World War, the British tradition was to bury officers who died on the battlefield in individual graves and common soldiers in mass graves; the Great War changed this sentiment, as it was a total war, one in which nations engaged in the complete mobilization of all available resources, modes of production, population in order to fight. Subsequently, as the war continued, there was a growing expectation among the people of the United Kingdom that foot soldiers as well as officers should not only be buried singly but commemorated. Many British families had tried to visit the graves of loved ones, could not locate them.
Numerous letters appeared in newspapers decrying the problem, Ware realized the British war effort was heading toward a public relations disaster. Ware, felt that the experience of war in the trenches was reducing socio-economic and class barriers, he believed that British policy should be to treat all war dead alike, regardless of class or ability to pay. Wealthy families should not be able to repatriate their dead, inter remains in France, nor erect ornate memorials over their loved ones. In July 1917, after consulting with architectural and artistic experts in London, Ware invited Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, architects; the trip began on 9 July. The group met formally on 14 July. Ware and Baker agreed that every cemetery ought to obey a general theme, that there should only be four variations on the theme, that grave markers should be uniform headstones
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War took place from 1936 to 1939. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Second Spanish Republic, in alliance with the Anarchists and Communists, fought against the Nationalists, an alliance of Falangists and Catholics, led by General Francisco Franco. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets, different views saw it as class struggle, a war of religion, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, between fascism and communism; the Nationalists won the war in early 1939 and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975. The war began after a pronunciamiento against the Republican government by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces under the leadership of José Sanjurjo; the government at the time was a moderate, liberal coalition of Republicans, supported in the Cortes by communist and socialist parties, under the leadership of centre-left President Manuel Azaña.
The Nationalist group was supported by a number of conservative groups, including the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups, including both the opposing sides of Alfonsists and the religious conservative Carlists, the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista, a fascist political party. Sanjurjo was killed in an aircraft accident while attempting to return from exile in Portugal, whereupon Franco emerged as the leader of the Nationalists; the coup was supported by military units in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, Burgos, Valladolid, Cádiz, Córdoba, Seville. However, rebelling units in some important cities—such as Madrid, Valencia, Málaga—did not gain control, those cities remained under the control of the government. Spain was thus left militarily and politically divided; the Nationalists and the Republican government fought for control of the country. The Nationalist forces received munitions and air support from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while the Republican side received support from the Soviet Union and Mexico.
Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, continued to recognise the Republican government, but followed an official policy of non-intervention. Notwithstanding this policy, tens of thousands of citizens from non-interventionist countries directly participated in the conflict, they fought in the pro-Republican International Brigades, which included several thousand exiles from pro-Nationalist regimes. The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west, capturing most of Spain's northern coastline in 1937, they besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west for much of the war. After much of Catalonia was captured in 1938 and 1939, Madrid cut off from Barcelona, the Republican military position became hopeless. Madrid and Barcelona were occupied without resistance, Franco declared victory and his regime received diplomatic recognition from all non-interventionist governments. Thousands of leftist Spaniards fled to refugee camps in southern France.
Those associated with the losing Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists. With the establishment of a dictatorship led by General Franco in the aftermath of the war, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime; the war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired and for the many atrocities that occurred, on both sides. Organised purges occurred in territory captured by Franco's forces so they could consolidate their future regime. A significant number of killings took place in areas controlled by the Republicans; the extent to which Republican authorities took part in killings in Republican territory varied. The 19th century was a turbulent time for Spain; those in favour of reforming Spain's government vied for political power with conservatives, who tried to prevent reforms from taking place. Some liberals, in a tradition that had started with the Spanish Constitution of 1812, sought to limit the power of the monarchy of Spain and to establish a liberal state.
The reforms of 1812 did not last after King Ferdinand VII dissolved the Constitution and ended the Trienio Liberal government. Twelve successful coups were carried out between 1814 and 1874; until the 1850s, the economy of Spain was based on agriculture. There was little development of a bourgeois commercial class; the land-based oligarchy remained powerful. In 1868 popular uprisings led to the overthrow of Queen Isabella II of the House of Bourbon. Two distinct factors led to the uprisings: a series of urban riots and a liberal movement within the middle classes and the military concerned with the ultra-conservatism of the monarchy. In 1873 Isabella's replacement, King Amadeo I of the House of Savoy, abdicated owing to increasing political pressure, the short-lived First Spanish Republic was proclaimed. After the restoration of the Bourbons in December 1874, Carlists and Anarchists emerged in opposition to the monarchy. Alejandro Lerroux, Spanish politician and leader of the Radical Republican Party, helped bring republicanism to the fore in Catalonia, where poverty was acute.
Growing resentment of conscription and of the military culminated in the Tragic Week in Barcelona in 1909. Spain was neutral in World War I. Following the war, the working class, industrial class, military united in hopes of removing the corrupt central government, but were unsuc
Llandaff Cathedral
Llandaff Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral and parish church in Llandaff, Wales. It is the seat of the Bishop of head of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff, it is dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, three Welsh saints: Dubricius and Oudoceus. It is one of two cathedrals in Cardiff, the other being the Roman Catholic Cardiff Cathedral in the city centre; the current building was constructed in the 12th century over the site of an earlier church. Severe damage was done to the church in 1400 during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr, during the English Civil War when it was overrun by Parliamentarian troops, during the Great Storm of 1703. By 1717, the damage to the cathedral was so extensive that the church considered removal of the see. Following further storms in the early 1720s, construction of a new cathedral began in 1734, designed by John Wood, the Elder. During the Cardiff Blitz of the Second World War in January 1941, the cathedral was damaged when a parachute mine was dropped; the stonework which remains from the medieval period is Somerset Dundry stone, though local blue lias constitutes most of the stonework done in the post-Reformation period.
The work done on the church since World War II is concrete and Pennant sandstone, the roofs, of Welsh slate and lead, were added during the post-war rebuilding. In February 2007, the organ was damaged during a severe lightning strike, prompting a fundraiser of £1.5 million to raise money for an new organ. For many years, the cathedral had the traditional Anglican choir of boys and men, more a girls' choir, with the only dedicated choir school in the Church in Wales, the Cathedral School, Llandaff; the cathedral contains a number of notable tombs, including Dubricius, a 6th-century Briton Saint who evangelised Ergyng and much of South-East Wales, Meurig ap Tewdrig, King of Gwent, Teilo, a 6th-century Welsh clergyman, church founder and Saint, many Bishops of Llandaff, from the 7th century Oudoceus to the 19th century Alfred Ollivant, bishop from 1849 to 1882. Llandaff Cathedral was built on the site of an existing church. According to tradition, the community was established by Saint Dubricius at a ford on the River Taff and the first church was founded by Dubricius' successor, Saint Teilo.
These two are regarded as the cathedral's patron saints, along with their successor Oudoceus. The original church is no longer extant, but a standing Celtic cross testifies to the presence of Christian worship at the site in pre-Norman times; the Normans occupied Glamorgan early in the Norman conquest, appointing Urban their first bishop in 1107. He began construction of the cathedral in 1120 and had the remains of Saint Dyfrig transferred from Bardsey. After the death of Urban, it is believed the work was completed some time in the last years of Bishop Nicholas ap Gwrgant, who died in 1183; the cathedral was dedicated to St Paul, St Dubricius, St Teilo and St Oudoceus. Bishop Henry de Abergavenny organised the Llandaff Cathedral chapter circa 1214, he appointed eight priests, four deacons and two sub-deacons. De Abergavenny made changes to Llandaff's episcopal seal, giving more detail to the figure of the bishop depicted on it and adding the phrase "by the grace of God" to its inscription; the west front contains a statue of St Teilo.
By 1266, the structure that Urban began had been altered. The Lady Chapel was built by William de Braose, bishop from 1266 to 1287, it was built at the rear of the church constructed by Urban and the old choir area was removed in order to build the chapel. From this time on, it seemed as if the cathedral was in a constant state of repair or alterations at a slow pace. After the Lady Chapel had been completed, the two bays of the north choir aisle were rebuilt. Severe damage was done to the church in 1400 during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr; the damage was extensive enough to cause Bishop Blethyn to notify his fellow clergymen in 1575 that he believed the cathedral to be damaged beyond repair. Most of the other damage was repaired, most notably by Bishop Marshall, whose reredos survives; the northwest tower, the one without a spire, is now named after him. He assumed the lordship of Cardiff after the accession to the throne of his nephew, King Henry VII of England. Late medieval tombs include that of Sir David Mathew of Llandaff.
Sir David ap Mathew was appointed "Grand Standard Bearer of England", by King Edward IV, for saving his life at the Battle of Towton 1461 as part of the War of the Roses. During the English Civil War, the cathedral was overrun by Parliamentarian troops. Along with other destruction, the troops seized the books of the cathedral library, taking them to Cardiff Castle, where they were burned along with many copies of the Book of Common Prayer. Among those invited to the castle to warm themselves by the fire on that cold winter day, were the wives of some sequestered clergymen. During this time of unrest, a man named Milles, who claimed to be a practising Puritan, appropriated portions of the cathedral for his own gain. Milles set up a tavern in the cathedral, used part of it as a stable, turned the choir area into a pen for his calves and used the font as a trough for his pigs; the southwest tower suffered major damage in the Great Storm of 1703 and by 1720, was in a state of collapse. The damage to the cathedral was so extensive that the church considered removal of the see to Cardiff in 1717.
Between 1720 and 17
World War II
World War II known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries; the major participants threw their entire economic and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China, it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, the only use of nuclear weapons in war. Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history; this Eastern Front trapped most crucially the German Wehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in the Pacific. Following an immediate U. S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers declared war on the U.
S. in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies from defeated territories; the Axis advance in the Pacific halted in 1942. Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned toward Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in Central China, South China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands; the war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. Tribunals were set up by fiat by the Allies and war crimes trials were conducted in the wake of the war both against the Germans and the Japanese. World War II changed the political social structure of the globe; the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic expansion. Political integration in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and create a common identity; the start of the war in Europe is held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred and the two wars merged in 1941; this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935; the British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the fo
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