1.
Stevenage
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Stevenage /ˈstiːvənᵻdʒ/ is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England. It is situated to the east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1, Stevenage is roughly 32.9 miles north of central London. Its population has increased significantly over the last century, the population was 1,430 in 1801,4,049 in 1901,79,715 in 2001 and 83,957 in 2011. The largest increase occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, after Stevenage was designated a new town under the New Towns Act of 1946, the current population is now estimated to be around 84,000. Two films were set in and around Stevenage, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, spy Game was partly filmed in Stevenage but set in Washington, D. C. The 1959 film Serious Charge was also filmed in Stevenage, Stevenage may derive from Old English stiþen āc / stiðen āc / stithen ac meaning the stiff oak. The name was recorded as Stithenæce, c.1060 and Stigenace in 1086 in the Domesday Book, Stevenage lies near the line of the Roman road from Verulamium to Baldock. Some Romano-British remains were discovered during the building of the New Town, the most substantial evidence of activity from Roman times is Six Hills, six tumuli by the side of the old Great North Road – presumably the burial places of a local family. A little to the east of the Roman sites the first Saxon camp was made in a clearing in the woods where the church, manor house, settlements also sprang up in Chells, Broadwater and Shephall. In the Domesday Book the Lord of the Manor was the Abbot of Westminster Abbey, the settlement had moved down to the Great North Road and in 1281 it was granted a Royal Charter to hold a weekly market and annual fair. The earliest part of St Nicholas Church dates from the 12th century, the known list of priests or rectors is relatively complete from 1213. The remains of a moated homestead in Whomerley Wood is an 80-yard-square trench almost 5 feet wide in parts. It was probably the home of Ralph de Homle, and both Roman and later pottery has been found there, around 1500 the Church was much improved, with decorative woodwork and the addition of a clerestory. In 1558 Thomas Alleyne, a rector of the town, founded a grammar school for boys, Alleynes Grammar School. Francis Cammaerts was headmaster of the school from 1952 to 1961, the school, which was a mixed comprehensive school and is now an Academy as of 2013, still exists on its original site at the north end of the High Street. It was intended to move the school to Great Ashby, Stevenages prosperity came in part from the North Road, which was turnpiked in the early 18th century. Many inns in the High Street served the stage coaches,21 of which passed through Stevenage each day in 1800, in 1857 the Great Northern Railway was constructed, and the era of the stage coach had ended. Stevenage grew only slowly throughout the 19th century and a church was constructed at the south end of the High Street
2.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
3.
Francis Leggatt Chantrey
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Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey RA was an English sculptor. He became the leading sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts. He left the Chantrey Bequest or Chantrey Fund for the purchase of works of art for the nation, Chantrey was born at Jordanthorpe near Norton, where his father had a small farm. His father, who dabbled in carpentry and wood-carving, died when Francis was twelve. In 1802 Chantrey paid £50 to buy out of his apprenticeship with Ramsay and immediately set up a studio as a portrait artist in Sheffield. For several years he divided his time between Sheffield and London, studying intermittently at the Royal Academy Schools, in the summer of 1802 he travelled to Dublin, where he fell very ill, losing all his hair. He exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy for a few years from 1804, but from 1807 onwards devoted himself mainly to sculpture. Asked later in life, as a witness in a case, whether he had ever worked for any other sculptors, he replied, No. His first recorded marble bust was one of the Rev. James Wilkinson and his first imaginative sculpture, a head of Satan was shown at the Royal Academy in 1808. Three of them were shown at the Royal Academy that year, on 23 November 1809 he married his cousin, Mary Ann Wale at St Marys Church, Twickenham. He also bought land to two more houses, a studio and offices. In 1811 he showed six busts in the Royal Academy, the subjects included Horne Tooke and Sir Francis Burdett, two political figures he greatly admired, his early mentor John Raphael Smith, and Benjamin West. Joseph Nollekens placed the bust of Tooke between two of his own, and the given to it is said to have had a significant influence on Chantreys career. In the wake of the exhibition he received commissions amounting to £2,000, in 1813 he was able to raise his price for a bust to a hundred and fifty guineas, and in 1822 to two hundred. He visited Paris in 1814, and again in 1815, this time with his wife, Thomas Stothard, in 1819 he went to Italy, accompanied by the painter John Jackson, and an old friend named Read. In Rome he met Thorvaldsen and Canova, getting to know the latter especially well, in 1828 Chantrey set up his own foundry in Eccleston Place, not far from his house and studio, where large-scale works in bronze, including equestrian statues, could be cast. His assistants would make a clay model based on the drawings. A plaster cast would be made of the model
4.
Edward Hodges Baily
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Edward Hodges Baily RA FRS was an English sculptor who was born in Downend in Bristol. At the age of fourteen Baily was placed in a mercantile house, at the age of sixteen he abandoned his commercial career and began executing portraits in wax. In 1809 he entered the Royal Academy Schools and he was elected ARA in 1817 and RA in 1821 when he exhibited one of his best pieces, Eve at the Fountain. In 1857, the year of his retirement from the Royal Academy, Bailys election as a fellow of the Royal Society came in 1842. Amongst his pupils was William Theed, a leading Victorian sculptor who produced a number of portrait busts, among Bailys assistants were Musgrave Watson and Joseph Durham ARA. Financial insecurity was a theme in his life. He was first declared bankrupt in 1831, and again in 1838, on the first occasion questions were asked in Parliament on his behalf because his financial distress had resulted from delays in receiving payment for sculptures at Buckingham Palace. Baily died at 99 Devonshire Road, Holloway on 22 May 1867 and is buried in Londons Highgate Cemetery and his nephew was William Hellier Baily, the paleontologist. Some of Edward Bailys descendants still live in Bristol, East Grinstead, the Isle of Wight, and in Canada today. Also, Cambridge. Edward Bowring Stephens Jordan, Caroline, The very spirit of purity and chastity, Eve at the Fountain by Edward Hodges Baily, Sculpture Journal,15, 19–35, doi,10. 3828/sj.15.1.2
5.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
6.
Royal High School, Edinburgh
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For the A-listed building on Calton Hill, see Old Royal High School, Edinburgh. The Royal High School of Edinburgh is a school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland and it serves 1,200 pupils drawn from four feeder primaries in the north-west of the city, Blackhall, Clermiston, Cramond and Davidsons Mains. The Royal High School was last inspected by HMIE in April 2007, the rector is Pauline Walker who replaced Jane Frith, the first woman to head the school. The Royal High School is, by one reckoning, the 18th-oldest school in the world, historians associate its birth with the flowering of the 12th century renaissance. It first enters the record as the seminary of Holyrood Abbey, founded for Alwin. In 1505 the school was described as a school, the first recorded use of this term in either Scotland or England. In 1584 the Town Council informed the rector, Hercules Rollock, as far as possible, instruction was carried out in Latin. The study of Greek began in 1614, and geography in 1742, the egalitarian spirit of Scotland and the classical tradition exerted a profound influence on the school culture and the Scottish Enlightenment. The historian William Ross notes, Walter Scott stood head and shoulders above his literary contemporaries, the Royal High School was used as a model for the first public high school in the United States, the English High School of Boston, in 1821. Learning Greek ceased to be compulsory in 1836, and the allotted to its study was reduced in 1839 as mathematics became recognised. In 1866 classical masters were confined to teaching Latin and Greek, a modern and commercial course was introduced in 1873. A school choir was instituted in 1895, the Jocks Lodge site is now the Royal High Primary, and is no longer associated with the secondary school. For many years the school maintained a facility for pupils from outside Edinburgh. The boarders ranged in age six to eighteen. The House, as it was known, was located at 24 Royal Terrace and in later years moved to 13 Royal Terrace. When the boarding house was closed the records of all boarders, the artefacts such as the board with the names of boys. The Royal High School moved to its current site at Barnton in 1968, in 1973 it became a co-educational state comprehensive
7.
University of Edinburgh
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The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582, is the sixth oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotlands ancient universities. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city of Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh was ranked 17th and 21st in the world by the 2014–15 and 2015-16 QS rankings. It is now ranked 19th in the according to 2016-17 QS Rankings. It is ranked 16th in the world in arts and humanities by the 2015–16 Times Higher Education Ranking and it is ranked the 23rd most employable university in the world by the 2015 Global Employability University Ranking. It is ranked as the 6th best university in Europe by the U. S. News Best Global Universities Ranking and it is a member of both the Russell Group, and the League of European Research Universities, a consortium of 21 research universities in Europe. It has the third largest endowment of any university in the United Kingdom, after the universities of Cambridge and it continues to have links to the British Royal Family, having had the Duke of Edinburgh as its Chancellor from 1953 to 2010 and Princess Anne since 2011. Edinburgh receives approximately 50,000 applications every year, making it the fourth most popular university in the UK by volume of applicants, after St Andrews, it is the most difficult university to gain admission into in Scotland, and 9th overall in the UK. This was a move at the time, as most universities were established through Papal bulls. Established as the Tounis College, it opened its doors to students in October 1583, instruction began under the charge of another St Andrews graduate Robert Rollock. It was the fourth Scottish university in a period when the more populous. It was renamed King Jamess College in 1617, by the 18th century, the university was a leading centre of the Scottish Enlightenment. The universitys first custom-built building was the Old College, now Edinburgh Law School and its first forte in teaching was anatomy and the developing science of surgery, from which it expanded into many other subjects. From the basement of a nearby house ran the anatomy tunnel corridor and it went under what was then North College Street, and under the university buildings until it reached the universitys anatomy lecture theatre, delivering bodies for dissection. It was from this tunnel the body of William Burke was taken after he had been hanged, towards the end of the 19th century, Old College was becoming overcrowded and Robert Rowand Anderson was commissioned to design new Medical School premises in 1875. The medical school was more or less built to his design and was completed by the addition of the McEwan Hall in the 1880s. The building now known as New College was originally built as a Free Church college in the 1840s and has been the home of divinity at the university since the 1920s. The two oldest schools – law and divinity – are both well-esteemed, with law being based in Old College and divinity in New College on the Mound and they are also represented by the Edinburgh University Sports Union which was founded in 1866. The medical school is renowned throughout the world and it was widely considered the best medical school in the English-speaking world throughout the 18th century and first half of the 19th century
8.
Palace of Westminster
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The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Commonly known as the Houses of Parliament after its occupants, the Palace lies on the bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster. The palace is owned by the monarch in right of the Crown and for ceremonial purposes, the building is managed by committees appointed by both houses, which report to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker. The first royal palace was built on the site in the 11th century, part of the New Palaces area of 3.24 hectares was reclaimed from the Thames, which is the setting of its nearly 300-metre long façade, called the River Front. Barry was assisted by Augustus Pugin, an authority on Gothic architecture and style. The Palace is one of the centres of political life in the United Kingdom, Westminster has become a metonym for the UK Parliament, the Palace of Westminster has been a Grade I listed building since 1970 and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. The Palace of Westminster site was important during the Middle Ages. Known in medieval times as Thorney Island, the site may have been first-used for a residence by Canute the Great during his reign from 1016 to 1035. St Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Anglo-Saxon monarch of England, Thorney Island and the surrounding area soon became known as Westminster. Neither the buildings used by the Anglo-Saxons nor those used by William I survive, the oldest existing part of the Palace dates from the reign of William Is successor, King William II. The Palace of Westminster was the principal residence in the late Medieval period. The predecessor of Parliament, the Curia Regis, met in Westminster Hall, simon de Montforts parliament, the first to include representatives of the major towns, met at the Palace in 1265. The Model Parliament, the first official Parliament of England, met there in 1295, in 1512, during the early years of the reign of King Henry VIII, fire destroyed the royal residential area of the palace. In 1534, Henry VIII acquired York Place from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, renaming it the Palace of Whitehall, Henry used it as his principal residence. Although Westminster officially remained a royal palace, it was used by the two Houses of Parliament and by the various law courts. Because it was originally a residence, the Palace included no purpose-built chambers for the two Houses. Important state ceremonies were held in the Painted Chamber which had originally built in the 13th century as the main bedchamber for King Henry III. The House of Commons, which did not have a chamber of its own, the Commons acquired a permanent home at the Palace in St Stephens Chapel, the former chapel of the royal palace, during the reign of Edward VI
9.
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
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Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English statesman who served as Lord Chancellor to King Charles II from 1658, two years before the Restoration of the Monarchy, until 1667. He was loyal to the king and built-up the royalist cause and he was one of the most important historians of England, as author of the most influential contemporary history of the Civil War, The History of the Rebellion. He was the grandfather of two monarchs, Queen Mary II and Queen Anne. Hyde was the son of Henry Hyde of Dinton and Purton. Henrys brother was Sir Lawrence Hyde, Attorney General, the family of Hyde was long established at Norbury in Cheshire. Hyde was fond of his mother and idolised his father, whom he called the best father, the best friend, and the wisest man I have known. He was educated at Gillingham School, and in 1622 entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, having been rejected by Magdalen College, Oxford, and graduated BA in 1626. Intended originally for holy orders in the Church of England, the death of two brothers made him his fathers heir, and in 1625 he entered the Middle Temple to study law. Of the most excellent men in their several kinds that lived in that age and these included Ben Jonson, John Selden, Edmund Waller, John Hales and especially Lord Falkland, who became his best friend. From their influence and the reading in which he indulged, he doubtless drew the solid learning. The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote thirty years later that he never knew anyone who could speak as well as Hyde and he was one of the most prominent members of the famous Great Tew Circle, a group of intellectuals who gathered at Lord Falklands country house Great Tew, Oxfordshire. In 1633 he was called to the bar, and obtained quickly a good position and practice, both his marriages gained him influential friends, and in December 1634 he was made keeper of the writs and rolls of the Court of Common Pleas. In April 1640, Hyde was elected Member of Parliament for both Shaftesbury and Wootton Bassett in the Short Parliament and chose to sit for Wootton Bassett. Hyde opposed legislation restricting the power of the King to appoint his own advisors, viewing it unnecessary and he gradually moved over towards the royalist side, championing the Church of England and opposing the execution of the Earl of Strafford, Charless primary advisor. Following the Grand Remonstrance of 1641, Hyde became an advisor to the King. He left London about 20 May 1642, and rejoined the king at York, in February 1643, Hyde was knighted and was officially appointed to the Privy Council, the following month he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Despite his own opposition to the King he found it hard to forgive anyone, even a close friend, who fought for Parliament. His view of the conflict and of his opponents was undoubtedly coloured by the death of his best friend Lord Falkland at the First Battle of Newbury in September 1643
10.
John Somers, 1st Baron Somers
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John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, PC, PRS was an English Whig jurist and statesman. Somers first came to attention in the trial of the Seven Bishops where he was on their defence counsel. He published tracts on political topics such as the succession to the crown and he played a leading part in shaping the Revolution settlement. He was Lord High Chancellor of England under King William III and was an architect of the union between England and Scotland achieved in 1707 and the Protestant succession achieved in 1714. He was a leading Whig during the years after 1688. He was the author of a pamphlet supporting the Exclusion Bill, A Brief History of the Succession, Collected out of the Records and the Most Authentical Historians. Somers showed that Parliament had for centuries regulated the succession of the English crown against the arguments of those who believed that Parliament had no right to alter the succession. Before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon kings had been elected, the authorship of this has been disputed. According to Bishop Burnet it was first penned by Sidney, but a new draught was made by Somers, Lord Hardwicke saw a copy in Somerss handwriting amongst his manuscripts before they were destroyed by fire in 1752. In 1681 Lord Shaftesbury was sent to the Tower of London without bail or recourse to a trial, in November he was charged at the Old Bailey for high treason, specifically for intending to levy war against the king. However the grand jury of Middlesex threw out the bill against Lord Shaftesbury, Somers published anonymously The Security of Englishmens Lives, or, The Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England in 1681. Somers acknowledged that judges may advise but juries are bound by their Oaths to present the Truth, the whole Truth, in Macaulays words, Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes, but every word was full of weighty matter, and when he sate down his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established. In his speech Somers cited the case of Thomas v. Sorrel whereby it was ruled that no Act of Parliament could be abrogated except through Parliament, the bishops petition had been described as a false, malicious and seditious libel. In his peroration Somers answered this charge, My Lord, as to all the matters of fact alleged in the Petition, in every instance which the petitioners mention, this power of dispensation was considered in Parliament, and, on debate, declared to be contrary to law. They could have no design to diminish the prerogative, because the King hath no such prerogative, seditious, my Lord, the Petition could not be, for the matter of it must be seen to be strictly true. There could be nothing of malice, for the occasion, instead of being sought, was forced upon them, in the secret councils of those who were planning the Glorious Revolution Somers took a leading part, and in the Convention Parliament was elected a member for Worcester. On 6 February Somers advocated the word rather than desert to describe James flight to France
Caw, James Lewis (1901). "Marshall, William Calder". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
