1.
William Gell (RAF officer)
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Air Vice Marshal William Charles Coleman Gell, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, TD, DL was a Royal Air Force officer who served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at RAF Balloon Command from 1944 to 1945. Educated at the University of Cambridge, where he gained an MA degree in Law Gell was commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1911. Gell was commissioned into 7th Battalion, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 12 May 1911, from 21 January 1912 he transferred to 5th and 6th Battalions The Royal Warwickshire Regiment still a Second Lieutenant. This was a unit of the Territorial Army, almost all officers, gells profession was a junior solicitor. Gell served in the First World War and commanded the 5th/6th Battalion in France, on 1 January 1917 his bravery still as a lieutenant and acting captain during his service in France was rewarded with a rare appointment as a junior officer, to the Distinguished Service Order. The Italian government awarded him the Silver Medal of Military Valor and he continued to serve in the Territorial Army. Gell married Edith Maud Gosling on 30 January 1923 in Maidstone, while serving as a lieutenant colonel in command of 5th Battalion Royal Warwicks, Gell was awarded the Territorial Decoration for his long and distinguished service in the Territorial Army. On 26 August 1931 Gell, who was living at the Croft, Blossomfield. He joined the Anti Aircraft Service of the Territorial Army in 1935, in 1937 he was appointed Honorary Colonel of the 5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, of which he had been commanding officer in 1924–29. On 18 Jan 1939 Gell was appointed to a commission in the Auxiliary Air Force in the rank of wing commander Officer Commanding, No 6 Balloon Centre, Auxiliary Air Force. During the Second World War, Gell served as Officer Commanding No.5, Gell was promoted to group captain in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force on 1 September 1940. In January 1941 the RAF List shows him as the group captain in the RAF Balloon Section date 1 September 1940. Following wartime service Gell again returned to practice with Johnson
2.
Cornelius Varley
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Cornelius Varley, FRSA was an English water-colour painter. Varley was born at Hackney, then a village north of London, on 21 November 1781 and he was a younger brother of John Varley, a watercolour painter and astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake. He was educated by his uncle, an instrument maker. Around 1800, he joined his brother in a tour through Wales and he was soon engaged in teaching drawing. He died in Hampstead on 2 October 1873, varleys works consist mainly of carefully finished classical subjects, with architecture and figures. He published a series of etchings of boats and other craft on the River Thames, in 1821, Varley married Elizabeth Livermore Straker. They had ten children including telegraph engineer Cromwell Fleetwood C. F, list of astronomical instrument makers Monkhouse, William Cosmo. London, Smith, Elder & Co. pp.148,149, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Varley, Cornelius
3.
National Portrait Gallery, London
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The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was the first portrait gallery in the world when it opened in 1856, the gallery moved in 1896 to its current site at St Martins Place, off Trafalgar Square, and adjoining the National Gallery. It has been expanded twice since then, the National Portrait Gallery also has regional outposts at Beningbrough Hall in Yorkshire and Montacute House in Somerset. It is unconnected to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, the gallery is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The gallery houses portraits of important and famous British people, selected on the basis of the significance of the sitter. The collection includes photographs and caricatures as well as paintings, drawings, one of its best-known images is the Chandos portrait, the most famous portrait of William Shakespeare although there is some uncertainty about whether the painting actually is of the playwright. Not all of the portraits are exceptional artistically, although there are self-portraits by William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, some, such as the group portrait of the participants in the Somerset House Conference of 1604, are important historical documents in their own right. Portraits of living figures were allowed from 1969, the three people largely responsible for the founding of the National Portrait Gallery are commemorated with busts over the main entrance. At centre is Philip Henry Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, with his supporters on either side, Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay and it was Stanhope who, in 1846 as a Member of Parliament, first proposed the idea of a National Portrait Gallery. It was not until his attempt, in 1856, this time from the House of Lords. With Queen Victorias approval, the House of Commons set aside a sum of £2000 to establish the gallery, as well as Stanhope and Macaulay, the founder Trustees included Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Ellesmere. It was the latter who donated the Chandos portrait to the nation as the gallerys first portrait, Carlyle became a trustee after the death of Ellesmere in 1857. For the first 40 years, the gallery was housed in locations in London. The first 13 years were spent at 29 Great George Street, there, the collection increased in size from 57 to 208 items, and the number of visitors from 5,300 to 34,500. In 1869, the moved to Exhibition Road and buildings managed by the Royal Horticultural Society. Following a fire in buildings, the collection was moved in 1885. This location was unsuitable due to its distance from the West End, condensation. Following calls for a new location to be found, the government accepted an offer of funds from the philanthropist William Henry Alexander, Alexander donated £60,000 followed by another £20,000, and also chose the architect, Ewan Christian
4.
Fellow of the Royal Society
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As of 2016, there are around 1600 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members. Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian newspaper as “the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar” with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows, honorary and foreign members are elected annually usually in May, each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRS, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society and Category, Female Fellows of the Royal Society. Every year, Fellows elect up to ten new Foreign Members, like Fellows, Foreign Members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 there are around 165 Foreign Members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS, see Category, Foreign Members of the Royal Society. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson, Melvyn Bragg, Robin Saxby, David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters HonFRS. Others including John Maddox, Patrick Moore and Lisa Jardine were elected as honorary fellows, statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough and John Palmer, prime Ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain, H. H. Asquith were elected under statute 12, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society. The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows, Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination, each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society, who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, the certificate of election includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April, a candidate is elected if he or she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows present and voting. A further maximum of six can be ‘Honorary’, ‘General’ or ‘Royal’ Fellows, nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by sectional committees, each with fifteen members and a chair
5.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
6.
Hopton, Derbyshire
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Hopton is a hamlet in the English county of Derbyshire. It is south west of Wirksworth and at the end of Carsington Water. The village had an association with the Gell family who had extensive lead mining interests in the Wirksworth area. Notable members include Sir John Gell who was a Parliamentarian in the English Civil War, the famous Hopton Incline of the Cromford and High Peak Railway, is about 1 mile north of the village
7.
Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet
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Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet was a Parliamentarian politician and military figure in the English Civil War. His father died shortly before the birth of a son in 1594 and his mother married John Curzon, of Kedleston Hall. Millicent gave birth to a son, John, in 1598, until his return to Hopton in 1620, Gell lived with his mother and stepfather at Kedleston. This proved significant to his political career as he formed a close relationship with his half-brother, John Curzon. Gell was married in January 1609, at the age of 15, to Elizabeth Willoughby, in 1624 Gell was appointed captain of foot in the trained bands, or militia, in the hundreds of High Peak and Scarsdale. During a decade or more as a militia captain Gell learned how the military was organised in Derbyshire and he became familiar with the rank and file and their officers and with the minutiae of training and command. This knowledge and expertise was soon to be put to use, Gells next public appointment was shared with his brother, Thomas, who was a well-connected barrister in London. This was the office of Receiver and Supervisor of the Honour of Tutbury, granted in 1632 successively, for life, to Thomas, and to John and his son, John Gell the younger. Armed with a schedule of property on which inheritance fees were outstanding, at a time when the king, Charles I, was governing without a Parliament, and was desperately short of money, the Gells revenue raising earned them Royal favour. John Gell was rewarded by appointment to the post of High Sheriff of Derbyshire for the year 1635, Gells year as High Sheriff was politically important because one of his duties was to raise the tax known as Ship Money, levied for the first time in 1635. Ship Money had previously been levied on coastal towns and its extension to inland areas caused resentment which contributed toward the gathering estrangement between Charles I and Parliament. In Derbyshire Gell set about raising the tax with a thoroughness which made him many enemies, especially among those of his own class. Gell was ruthless in using distraint - confiscation of assets - against non-payers, the honour may have been designed to secure Gells loyalty to the Crown in the conflict with Parliament which by then seemed inevitable. However Gell, a Presbyterian, was opposed to the attempts to reform the church on High Church lines and to his political absolutism. He was commissioned as Colonel to raise a regiment in Derbyshire and throughout the First English Civil War, units of his regiment fought engagements in the neighbouring counties of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire and took part in the siege of Chester. Gell was appointed Governor of Derby in 1643, Gell had an irascible nature and a dictatorial way with both his regiment and his colleagues in the county administration which made enemies and provoked complaints to Parliament. In 1650 he was tried and found guilty of misprision of treason and he was sentenced to life imprisonment and confiscation of his estates. The authorities were thwarted in their attempt to confiscate the Hopton estate since John Gell the younger was able to prove its transfer to himself
8.
John Gell (Royal Navy officer)
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Admiral John Gell was from the Gell and Eyre families of Hopton Hall in Derbyshire. He served with the Royal Navy, fighting in India and taking part in the occupation of Toulon, Gell was a commander in the Royal Navy for over thirty years starting in 1762 following two years as a lieutenant. He was promoted to the rank of Admiral in 1799 after completing duties in Nova Scotia, Portugal, Genoa, in 1793, Gells squadron captured a Spanish ship which contained two million dollars and packages valued at over 200,000 pounds. Gell was born in 1740 to another John Gell of Hopton Hall and his father was born John Eyre but had taken the name Gell when he inherited the Gell fortune. The first known reference to Gells career is when he joins HMS Prince in 1757 and was promoted to Lieutenant on board HMS Conqueror in 1760 which was to be wrecked the same year, in 1776 he was appointed captain of the three-year-old HMS Thetis. With this ship he served in the American, The Mediterranean and the Channel Fleets until he was given command of the Monarca. This ship was unusual in that it had built in 1756. Gell who was under the orders of Sir Samuel Hood to go to the West Indies, however the ship lost its mast in a storm and was obliged to return to Britain for refitting. Gell was off the Indian coast during Sir Edward Hughes five actions against the French admiral Bailli de Suffren when Gell was in command of the 68 gun HMS Monarca, Gell and the Monarca did take part in the Battle of Cuddalore on 20 June 1783. The battle was the last of the American Revolutionary War between a rival French and British fleet. The battle which took place off the coast of India near Cuddalore was inconclusive and was remarkable in that peace had already signed in Europe. The 200 or so killed were lost to a war already abandoned. Gell returned to Europe in 1784 and received no command until 1790 when he was appointed to his last captaincy, on 1 February 1793 he was appointed to be Rear Admiral of the Blue, and raised his flag on HMS St George. The St George was under the command of Captain Foley, later Sir Thomas Foley, whilst in the Mediterranean with his division of the fleet, he was able to seize a French Privateer and its Spanish registered prize the St Jago. These ships were said to be one of the most valuable prizes ever brought to England, the prize was said to contain two million dollars and packages to the value of 200,000 to 300,000 pounds. The capture of this ship and its condemnation as a prize of war was said to be one of the causes for the subsequent war with Spain. The ownership of the Spanish ship was a matter of debate and was not settled until 4 February 1795 when the value of the cargo was put at £935,000. At this time all the crew, captains, officers and admirals could expect to share in this prize, Admiral Lord Hoods share was £50,000
9.
Derby School
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Derby School was a school in Derby in the English Midlands from 1160 to 1989. It had an almost continuous history of education of eight centuries. For most of time it was a grammar school for boys. The school became co-educational and comprehensive in 1972 and was closed in 1989, in 1994 a new independent school called Derby Grammar School for boys was founded. Local legend has it that it was the second oldest school in England, however, there is no firm information as to the site of the original school. Recorded in a book entitled Distinguished Alumni of Derby School by J. M. J. Fletcher and published in 1872 there is a drawing of St. Helens House in Olden Times on the front cover which it is believed was the original house given to the Augustinian Monks. Its site eventually became a marble workshop and factory, somewhere on the side of King Street from the new St. Helens House built in 1766 and 1767. This re-founding by Royal Charter of the new Free Grammar School was established in a building next to St Peters Church. The school remained at this site until around 1860 it moved temporarily to a property occupied by the then Headmaster, Dr. Thomas Humphreys Leary, research is being undertaken in December 2016 to determine the a property concerned. In the late 20th century, this building was for some part of the Derby Heritage Centre and is now a ladies hairdressers. The school held a closed exhibition worth £50 a year at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, at any one time, this could be held by one old boy of the school, who had the title at Emmanuel College of Exhibitioner. While the astronomer John Flamsteed was at the Free Grammar School in the 1660s, parents were expected to provide boys with books, quill-pens, at that time, most masters of the school were Puritans. St Helens House, in King Street, Derby, was built in 1766-1767 as the house for John Gisborne, an alderman of Yoxall Lodge, Staffordshire. The house was purchased by the Strutt family in 1801 and in 1860 Edward Strutt offered to sell the house for £3,300 to the governors of Derby Grammar School. Money at that time was a problem for the school, and so he loaned the property to the school for free, on a temporary basis. A map of the area around St. Helens showing the parkland dated 1852 shows that the parkland went down to the river Derwent and also where Belper Road, Edward Strutt, 1st Baron Belper, the nephew of the philanthropist Joseph Strutt, an old boy of the school. Under the Rev. Walter Clark BD the school was expanded from a grammar school into a nationally known public school
10.
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
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Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I, in every year since 1998 Emmanuel has been among the top five colleges in the Tompkins Table, which ranks colleges according to end-of-year examination results. Emmanuel has topped the five times since then and placed second six times. Emmanuel is one of the colleges at Cambridge with a financial endowment of approximately £105 million. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I, the site had been occupied by a Dominican friary until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, some 45 years earlier. Mildmays foundation made use of the existing buildings, Mildmay, a Puritan, intended Emmanuel to be a college of training for Protestant preachers. Like all of the older Cambridge Colleges, Emmanuel originally took only male students and it first admitted female students in 1979. Under Mildmays instruction, the chapel of the original Dominican Friary had been converted to be the Colleges dining hall, in the late 17th century, the College commissioned a new chapel, one of three buildings in Cambridge to be designed by Christopher Wren. After Wrens construction, the chapel became the College library until it outgrew the space. There is a fish pond in the grounds, part of the legacy of the friary. The pond is home of a colony of ducks, the Fellows Garden contains a swimming pool, which was originally the friars bathing pool, making it one of the oldest bathing pools in Europe. It includes an Oriental plane tree, also in the Fellows Garden, the Emmanuel College Students Union is the society of all undergraduate students at Emmanuel College. It provides a shop, a bar, a common room, eCSUs Executive Committee is elected on a yearly basis at the end of Michaelmas Term. The Emmanuel College Middle Combination Room is the society of all students at Emmanuel College. The Room itself is a comfortable and well equipped space in the Queens Building, the MCR committee organises regular social events for graduate students, including well-attended formal dinners in hall every few weeks. A large number of student societies and sports clubs exist at Emmanuel College, sports clubs include Emmanuel Boat Club, tennis, badminton, cricket, squash, rugby, football, hockey and netball. Funding for societies, old and new, come from applications to the Emmanuel College Student union, Emmanuel graduates had a large involvement in the settling of North America. Of the first 100 university graduates in New England, one-third were graduates of Emmanuel College, Harvard University, the first college in the United States, was organised on the model of Emmanuel, as it was then run
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gell, Sir William". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
