1.
Richard Attenborough
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Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, Kt, CBE was an English actor, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and politician. He was the President of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, as a film director and producer, Attenborough won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1983. He also won four BAFTA Awards and four Golden Globe Awards, as an actor, he is perhaps best known for his roles in Brighton Rock, The Great Escape,10 Rillington Place, Miracle on 34th Street and Jurassic Park. He was the brother of David Attenborough, a naturalist and broadcaster, and John Attenborough. He was married to actress Sheila Sim from 1945 until his death, Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and studied at RADA. The sisters moved to the United States in the 1950s and lived with an uncle, during the Second World War, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force. After initial pilot training he was seconded to the newly formed R. A. F, Film Unit at Pinewood Studios, under the command of Flight Lieutenant John Boulting where he appeared with Edward G. Robinson in the propaganda film Journey Together. Attenboroughs acting career started on stage and he appeared in shows at Leicesters Little Theatre, Dover Street, prior to his going to RADA, in 1949, exhibitors voted him the sixth most popular British actor at the box office. Early in his career, Attenborough starred in the West End production of Agatha Christies The Mousetrap. Both he and his wife were among the original cast members of the production and it was his first appearance in a major Hollywood film blockbuster and his most successful film thus far. His portrayal of the serial killer John Christie in 10 Rillington Place garnered excellent reviews, in 1977, he played the ruthless General Outram, again to great acclaim, in the Indian director Satyajit Rays period piece The Chess Players. He starred in the remake of Miracle on 34th Street as Kris Kringle and he made his only appearance in a film adaptation of Shakespeare when he played the English ambassador who announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead at the end of Kenneth Branaghs Hamlet. His performance in The Angry Silence earned him his first nomination for a BAFTA, seance On A Wet Afternoon won him his first BAFTA award. His feature film debut was the all-star screen version of the hit musical Oh. What a Lovely War, after which his acting appearances became sporadic as he concentrated more on directing and producing. He later directed two epic films, Young Winston, based on the early life of Winston Churchill, and A Bridge Too Far. He had been attempting to get the project made for 18 years and he directed the screen version of the musical A Chorus Line and the anti-apartheid drama Cry Freedom. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for both films and his later films as director and producer include Chaplin starring Robert Downey, Jr. as Charlie Chaplin and Shadowlands, based on the relationship between C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham
2.
Carl Foreman
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Carl Foreman, CBE was an American screenwriter and film producer who wrote the award-winning films The Bridge on the River Kwai and High Noon among others. He was one of the screenwriters that were blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s because of their suspected Communist sympathy or membership in the Communist Party, Born in Chicago, Illinois, to a working-class Jewish family, he was the son of Fanny and Isidore Foreman. He studied at the University of Illinois, as a student in the 1930s, he became an advocate of revolutionary socialism and joined the American Communist Party. After graduating from university, Carl Foreman moved to Hollywood where he used his writing talents, from 1941 to 1942, he was involved with writing three films but his career was interrupted by service in the United States military during World War II. In 1951, during production of the film High Noon, Carl Foreman was summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He testified that he had been a member of the American Communist Party more than ten years earlier while still a man but had become disillusioned with the Party. As a result of his refusal to give the names of fellow Party members, Foreman was labeled as an uncooperative witness, Carl Foreman was the screenwriter of High Noon, a film released in 1952 that is seen by some as an allegory for McCarthyism. The Western film is considered an American classic and was No.27 on American Film Institutes 100 Years,100 Movies and this would be the last film he would be allowed to work on by a Hollywood studio for the next six years. Unemployed, Foreman and some others who had also been blacklisted such as Ring Lardner, in 1956 he co-wrote the screenplay for the equally acclaimed The Bridge on the River Kwai with fellow blacklisted writer Michael Wilson. Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle, the two were not given screen credit and the Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay went to Pierre Boulle and this was only rectified posthumously in 1984 and his name was added to the award. In addition to his writing of screenplays, Carl Foreman produced ten films and he also produced and scripted the 1961 smash hit World War II blockbuster The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn, it remains one of his most popular pictures. He is credited as presenter on the smash hit 1966 film Born Free, in 1965, he was made a governor of the British Film Institute, serving until 1971. In 1970, Foreman was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Such is his influence on the British film industry, that from 1998 to 2009 there was a British Academy Film Award named in his honor, the Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer. Nearing the end of his life, Carl Foreman returned to the United States and his first marriage resulted in the birth of a daughter, Katie, to Estelle, his second marriage brought him two children, Amanda and Jonathan, born in London to Evelyn. Foremans daughter, Amanda Foreman, graduated from Columbia University and Oxford University, in 2008, he became one of the founders of the monthly British centre-right current affairs magazine Standpoint. High Noons production and release intersected with the second Red Scare. Foreman was called before HUAC while he was writing the film, Foreman had not been in the Communist Party for almost ten years, but declined to name names and was considered an un-cooperative witness by HUAC
3.
Robert Shaw (actor)
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Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor, novelist, and playwright. With his menacing mutter and intimidating demeanour, he was often cast as a villain or stern military types. He is best remembered for his performances in Jaws, in which he portrayed a shark hunter named Quint, and The Sting, where he played the conned mobster, Doyle Lonnegan. Shaw also appeared in From Russia with Love, Battle of the Bulge, A Man for All Seasons, Battle of Britain, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Black Sunday, The Deep, Robert Shaw was born in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, in 1927. His mother, Doreen, was a former nurse born in Piggs Peak, Swaziland and he had three sisters, Elisabeth, Joanna and Wendy, and one brother, Alexander. When he was 7, the moved to Stromness, Orkney. When he was 12, his father, an alcoholic, took his own life, the family then moved to Cornwall, where he went to the independent Truro School. For a brief period, he was a teacher in Saltburn-by-the-Sea in the North Riding of Yorkshire and he served in the Royal Air Force. Shaw began his career in theatre, appearing in regional theatre throughout England. In 1952, he made his London debut in the West End at the Embassy Theatre and he developed his formidable, piercing shouting technique. Shaw starred in a British TV series which appeared on American television as The Buccaneers. Shaw was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in A Man for All Seasons, Shaw was also an accomplished writer of novels, plays and screenplays. His first novel, The Hiding Place, published in 1960 and his next, The Sun Doctor, published the following year, was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1962. Shaw then embarked on a trilogy of novels – The Flag, The Man in the Glass Booth and his adaptation for the stage of The Man in the Glass Booth gained him the most attention for his writing. The Man in the Glass Booth was further developed for the screen, however, Shaw viewed the completed film before its release and asked to have his name reinstated. And Robert Shaw became very disturbed and he just didn’t like the idea until he saw the film. Then he phoned Eddie Anhalt, the screenwriter, and congratulated him because he thought it was—just kept the tone he wanted, and he phoned Mort Abrahams the Executive Producer to see if he could get his name put on the final credits. But it was too late to restore his name, all the prints were all made, Shaw also adapted The Hiding Place into a screenplay for the film Situation Hopeless
4.
Anne Bancroft
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Anna Maria Louisa Italiano, known professionally as Anne Bancroft, was an American actress associated with the method acting school, having studied under Lee Strasberg. Respected for her acting prowess and versatility, Bancroft was acknowledged for her work in film, theatre and she won one Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globes, two Tony Awards and two Emmy Awards, and several other awards and nominations. She won both an Oscar for her work in the film, and a Tony for the role in the play. On Broadway in 1965, she played a medieval nun obsessed with a priest in John Whitings play The Devils and she was perhaps best known as the seductress, Mrs. Robinson, in The Graduate, a role that she later stated had come to overshadow her other work. Bancroft received several other Oscar nominations and continued in lead roles until the late 1980s, in 1987, she starred with Anthony Hopkins in 84 Charing Cross Road. In the 1990s she returned to supporting roles in films, and she received Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, for The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, as well as an Emmy nomination for 2001s Haven. Bancroft was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano in the Bronx, New York, Bancrofts parents were both children of Italian immigrants. In an interview, she stated her family was originally from Muro Lucano and she was raised in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, later moving to 1580 Zerega Ave. and graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in 1948. She later attended HB Studio, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Actors Studio, after appearing in a number of live television dramas under the name Anne Marno, she was told to change her surname for her film debut in Dont Bother to Knock. In 1958, Bancroft made her Broadway debut as lovelorn, Bronx-accented Gittel Mosca opposite Henry Fonda in William Gibsons two-character play Two for the Seesaw, for Gittel, she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. She took the role to Hollywood, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She had returned to Broadway to star in Mother Courage and Her Children, so Joan Crawford accepted Bancrofts Oscar on her behalf, Bancroft is one of the few actors to have won an Academy Award and a Tony Award for the same role. Bancroft co-starred as a medieval nun obsessed with a priest in the 1965 Broadway production of John Whitings play The Devils, produced by Alexander H. Cohen and directed by Michael Cacoyannis, it ran for 63 performances. Bancroft received a second Academy Award nomination in 1965 for her performance in The Pumpkin Eater and her best-known role during this period was Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, for which she received a third Academy Award nomination. In the film, she played a married woman who seduces a family friend. In the movie, Hoffmans character later dates and falls in love with her daughter, Bancroft was ambivalent about her appearance in The Graduate, she stated in several interviews that the role overshadowed all of her other work. Despite her character becoming an archetype of the older woman role, a CBS television special, Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man, won Bancroft an Emmy Award for her singing and acting. Bancroft is one of few entertainers to win an Oscar, an Emmy
5.
Anthony Hopkins
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Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE, is a Welsh actor of film, stage, and television. In 1968, he got his break in film in The Lion in Winter, since 2016, he has starred in the critically acclaimed HBO television series Westworld. Along with his Academy Award, Hopkins has won three BAFTA Awards, two Emmys, and the Cecil B, in 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, Hopkins was born on New Years Eve 1937, in Margam, a suburb of Port Talbot, Glamorgan. His parents were Annie Muriel and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker and his school days were unproductive, he would rather immerse himself in art, such as painting and drawing, or playing the piano, than attend to his studies. In 1949, to discipline, his parents insisted he attend Jones West Monmouth Boys School in Pontypool. He remained there for five terms and was educated at Cowbridge Grammar School in the Vale of Glamorgan. Hopkins was influenced and encouraged by Welsh compatriot Richard Burton, whom he met at the age of 15, Hopkins promptly enrolled at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, from which he graduated in 1957. After two years in the British Army doing his national service, he moved to London, where he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Hopkins made his first professional appearance in the Palace Theatre, Swansea. In 1965, after years in repertory, he was spotted by Laurence Olivier. Hopkins became Oliviers understudy, and filled in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a production of August Strindbergs The Dance of Death, despite his success at the National, Hopkins tired of repeating the same roles nightly and yearned to be in films. He made his debut in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear. His first starring role in a film came in 1964 in Changes, in 1968, he got his break in The Lion in Winter playing Richard I. Although Hopkins continued in theatre he gradually moved away from it to more established as a television. He portrayed Charles Dickens in the BBC television film The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens in 1970, and Pierre Bezukhov in the BBCs mini series War and Peace. In 1972 he starred as British politician David Lloyd George in Young Winston, in 1980, he starred in The Elephant Man as the English doctor Sir Frederick Treves, who attends to Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man in 19th century London. That year he starred opposite Shirley MacLaine in A Change of Seasons
6.
John Mills
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Sir John Mills, CBE was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. On screen, he often played people who are not at all exceptional and he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Ryans Daughter. Mills was born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills in Norfolk but grew up in Felixstowe, Suffolk, the son of Edith, a box office manager, and Lewis Mills. His spent his years in the village of Belton where his father was the headmaster of the village school. He first felt the thrill of performing at a concert in the hall when six years old. He lived in a modest house in Gainsborough Road Felixstowe until 1929 and his older sister was Annette Mills, remembered as presenter of BBC Televisions Muffin the Mule. Upon leaving school he worked as a clerk at a corn merchants in Ipswich before finding employment in London as a traveller for the Sanitas Disinfectant Company. In September 1939, at the start of the Second World War and he was later commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, but in 1942 he received a medical discharge because of a stomach ulcer. Mills took an early interest in acting, making his professional début at the London Hippodrome in The Five OClock Girl in 1929 and he also starred in the Noël Coward revue Words and Music. He made his film début in The Midshipmaid, and appeared as Colley in the 1939 film version of Goodbye, Mr Chips, in 1942, he starred in Noël Cowards In Which We Serve. Mills took the lead in Great Expectations in 1946, and subsequently made his career playing traditionally British heroes such as Captain Scott in Scott of the Antarctic. After Morning Departure he made a series of films but bounced back with war dramas, such as The Colditz Story, Above Us the Waves. From 1959 through the mid-1960s, Mills starred in films alongside his daughter Hayley. Their first film together was the 1959 crime drama Tiger Bay, as Colonel Barrow in Tunes of Glory, Mills won the best Actor Award at the 1960 Venice Film Festival. For his role as the village idiot in Ryans Daughter — a complete departure from his usual style – Mills won an Best Supporting Actor Oscar and his most famous television role was probably as the title character in Quatermass for ITV in 1979. Mills also starred as Gus, The Theatre Cat in the version of the musical Cats in 1998. The film was produced and written by Jonathan Mills, directed and edited by Marcus Dillistone, millss last cinema appearance was playing a tramp in Lights 2, the cinematographer was Jack Cardiff. They had last worked together on Scott of the Antarctic in 1948 and their combined age was 186 years, a cinema record
7.
Edward Elgar
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Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello and he also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the Kings Musick in 1924, although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically and he nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British army officer. His later full-length religious choral works were received but have not entered the regular repertory. In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity, Elgars music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death and it began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of recordings of his works. Edward Elgar was born in the village of Lower Broadheath, outside Worcester. His father, William Henry Elgar, was raised in Dover and had apprenticed to a London music publisher. In 1841 William moved to Worcester, where he worked as a tuner and set up a shop selling sheet music. In 1848 he married Ann Greening, daughter of a farm worker, Edward was the fourth of their seven children. Ann Elgar had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before Edwards birth, William Elgar was a violinist of professional standard and held the post of organist of St. Georges Roman Catholic Church, Worcester, from 1846 to 1885. At his instigation, masses by Cherubini and Hummel were first heard at the Three Choirs Festival by the orchestra in which he played the violin, all the Elgar children received a musical upbringing. Elgars mother was interested in the arts and encouraged his musical development and he inherited from her a discerning taste for literature and a passionate love of the countryside. His friend and biographer W. H, Billy Reed wrote that Elgars early surroundings had an influence that permeated all his work and gave to his whole life that subtle but none the less true and sturdy English quality
8.
Columbia Pictures
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The studio was founded in 1918 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and Jacks best friend Joe Brandt, released its first feature film in August 1922. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924, and went public two years later and its name is derived from Columbia, a national personification of the United States, which is used as the studios logo. In its early years, it was a player in Hollywood. With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the homes of the screwball comedy. In the 1930s, Columbias major contract stars were Jean Arthur, in the 1940s, Rita Hayworth became the studios premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s. Rosalind Russell, Glenn Ford, and William Holden also became major stars at the studio, in 1982, the studio was purchased by The Coca-Cola Company, and launched TriStar Pictures as a joint venture with HBO and CBS. Five years later, Coca-Cola spun off Columbia, which was sold to Tri-Star, after a brief period of independence with Coca-Cola maintaining a financial interest, the combined studio was acquired by Sony in 1989. It is one of the film studios in the world. It was one of the so-called Little Three among the eight major film studios of Hollywoods Golden Age, Brandt was president of CBC Film Sales, handling sales, marketing and distribution from New York along with Jack Cohn, while Harry Cohn ran production in Hollywood. The studios early productions were short subjects, Screen Snapshots, the Hall Room Boys. The start-up CBC leased space in a Poverty Row studio on Hollywoods famously low-rent Gower Street, among Hollywoods elite, the studios small-time reputation led some to joke that CBC stood for Corned Beef and Cabbage. Brandt eventually tired of dealing with the Cohn brothers, and sold his stake to Harry Cohn. In an effort to improve its image, the Cohn brothers renamed the company Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10,1924, Cohn remained head of production as well, thus concentrating enormous power in his hands. He would run Columbia for the next 34 years, the second-longest tenure of any studio chief, even in an industry rife with nepotism, Columbia was particularly notorious for having a number of Harry and Jacks relatives in high positions. Humorist Robert Benchley called it the Pine Tree Studio, because it has so many Cohns, Columbias product line consisted mostly of moderately budgeted features and short subjects including comedies, sports films, various serials, and cartoons. Columbia gradually moved into the production of higher-budget fare, eventually joining the tier of Hollywood studios along with United Artists. Like United Artists and Universal, Columbia was an integrated company. It controlled production and distribution, it did not own any theaters, helping Columbias climb was the arrival of an ambitious director, Frank Capra
9.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of Her Majestys Government in the United Kingdom. The prime minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Monarch, to Parliament, to their political party, the office is one of the Great Offices of State. The current prime minister, Theresa May, leader of the Conservative Party, was appointed by the Queen on 13 July 2016. The position of Prime Minister was not created, it evolved slowly and erratically over three hundred years due to acts of Parliament, political developments, and accidents of history. The office is therefore best understood from a historical perspective, the origins of the position are found in constitutional changes that occurred during the Revolutionary Settlement and the resulting shift of political power from the Sovereign to Parliament. The political position of Prime Minister was enhanced by the development of political parties, the introduction of mass communication. By the start of the 20th century the modern premiership had emerged, prior to 1902, the prime minister sometimes came from the House of Lords, provided that his government could form a majority in the Commons. However as the power of the aristocracy waned during the 19th century the convention developed that the Prime Minister should always sit in the lower house. As leader of the House of Commons, the Prime Ministers authority was further enhanced by the Parliament Act of 1911 which marginalised the influence of the House of Lords in the law-making process. The Prime Minister is ex officio also First Lord of the Treasury, certain privileges, such as residency of 10 Downing Street, are accorded to Prime Ministers by virtue of their position as First Lord of the Treasury. As the Head of Her Majestys Government the modern Prime Minister leads the Cabinet, in addition the Prime Minister leads a major political party and generally commands a majority in the House of Commons. As such the incumbent wields both legislative and executive powers, under the British system there is a unity of powers rather than separation. In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister guides the process with the goal of enacting the legislative agenda of their political party. The Prime Minister also acts as the face and voice of Her Majestys Government. The British system of government is based on an uncodified constitution, in 1928, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith described this characteristic of the British constitution in his memoirs, In this country we live. Our constitutional practices do not derive their validity and sanction from any Bill which has received the assent of the King, Lords. They rest on usage, custom, convention, often of slow growth in their early stages, not always uniform, the relationships between the Prime Minister and the Sovereign, Parliament and Cabinet are defined largely by these unwritten conventions of the constitution. Many of the Prime Ministers executive and legislative powers are actually royal prerogatives which are still vested in the Sovereign
10.
Winston Churchill
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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD PC DL FRS RA was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his overall, in 1963, he was the first of only eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States. Churchill was born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough and his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young officer, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns, at the forefront of politics for fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, during the war, he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He then briefly resumed active service on the Western Front as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He returned to government under Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister and he led Britain as Prime Minister until victory over Nazi Germany had been secured. After the Conservative Party suffered a defeat in the 1945 general election. He publicly warned of an Iron Curtain of Soviet influence in Europe, after winning the 1951 election, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His second term was preoccupied by foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising, Korean War, domestically his government laid great emphasis on house-building. Churchill suffered a stroke in 1953 and retired as Prime Minister in 1955. Upon his death aged ninety in 1965, Elizabeth II granted him the honour of a state funeral and his highly complex legacy continues to stimulate intense debate amongst writers and historians. Born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the noble Spencer family, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, like his father. His ancestor George Spencer had changed his surname to Spencer-Churchill in 1817 when he became Duke of Marlborough, to highlight his descent from John Churchill, Churchill was born on 30 November 1874, two months prematurely, in a bedroom in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire. From age two to six, he lived in Dublin, where his grandfather had been appointed Viceroy, Churchills brother, John Strange Spencer-Churchill, was born during this time in Ireland
11.
My Early Life
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My Early Life, also known in the USA as A Roving Commission, My Early Life, is a 1930 book by Winston Churchill. It is an autobiography from his birth in 1874 up to approximately 1902, a significant portion of the book covers his experiences in the Second Boer War of 1899-1902 which he had earlier described in London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamiltons March. It also includes descriptions of other campaigns he had written about, The River War, concerning the reconquest of Sudan. The book begins by describing his childhood and schooldays, and provides context for the earlier accounts, from his perspective of writing in 1930, he notes that he has drawn a picture of a vanished age. The book also notes an observation by the French ambassador to Britain between 1900 and 1920, that during his time a silent revolution had occurred which totally replaced the class of Britain. The book was published after the Conservative Party lost the 1929 election and he occupied himself instead writing a number of books, which together with public speaking was his chief source of income throughout his life. However, most of My Early Life was written during the recess in the summer of 1928. He wrote to Stanley Baldwin, I have had a delightful month - building a cottage, the first English edition published by Thornton Butterworth in October 1930 sold 11,200 copies, and the American edition published by Charles Scribners Sons sold 6,600. Scribners titled the book by the name of its UK subtitle and it was translated into thirteen languages. It has been considered by some to be his best book and this is because it was deliberately written to be much shorter than his typical books, with a slight sense of irony and an intention to entertain. It contains a level of self-mockery alongside criticism of others he encountered. Unlike some other of his works, it did not seek to any particular point. The book includes an observation made upon the death of his nanny and he wrote She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I had lived. The Sensations of a Cavalry Charge 16, with Buller to the Cape 19. I Escape from the Boers-I22, I Escape from the Boers-II23. In the Orange Free State 27, the House of Commons The film Young Winston was based on this book. Charles Scribners sons, New York,1930
12.
Cavalry
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Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the most mobile of the combat arms, an individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations such as cavalryman, horseman, dragoon or trooper. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to any military forces that used animals, such as camels. Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a man fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent. In Europe cavalry became increasingly armoured, and eventually became known for the mounted knights, in the period between the World Wars, many cavalry units were converted into motorized infantry and mechanized infantry units, or reformed as tank troops. Most cavalry units that are horse-mounted in modern armies serve in purely ceremonial roles, modern usage of the term generally refers to specialist units equipped with tanks or aircraft. The shock role, traditionally filled by heavy cavalry, is filled by units with the armored designation. Before the Iron Age, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was largely performed by light chariots, the chariot originated with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in Central Asia and spread by nomadic or semi-nomadic Indo-Iranians. The power of mobility given by mounted units was recognized early on, Cavalry techniques were an innovation of equestrian nomads of the Central Asian and Iranian steppe and pastoralist tribes such as the Persian Parthians and Sarmatians. The photograph above left shows Assyrian cavalry from reliefs of 865–860 BC, at this time, the men had no spurs, saddles, saddle cloths, or stirrups. Fighting from the back of a horse was more difficult than mere riding. The cavalry acted in pairs, the reins of the archer were controlled by his neighbours hand. Even at this time, cavalry used swords, shields. The sculpture implies two types of cavalry, but this might be a simplification by the artist, Later images of Assyrian cavalry show saddle cloths as primitive saddles, allowing each archer to control his own horse. As early as 490 BC a breed of horses was bred in the Nisaean plain in Media to carry men with increasing amounts of armour. However, chariots remained in use for purposes such as carrying the victorious general in a Roman triumph. The southern Britons met Julius Caesar with chariots in 55 and 54 BC, the last mention of chariot use in battle was by the Caledonians at the Mons Graupius, in 84 AD. During the classical Greek period cavalry were usually limited to citizens who could afford expensive war-horses
13.
Presidencies and provinces of British India
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Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India and still earlier, Presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in the subcontinent. Collectively, they were called British India, in one form or other they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods. During 1612–1757, the East India Company set up factories in several locations, mostly in coastal India and its rivals were the merchant trading companies of Holland and France. By the mid-18th century, three Presidency towns, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta had grown in size, during the period of Company rule in India, 1757–1858, the Company gradually acquired sovereignty over large parts of India, now called Presidencies. However, it increasingly came under British government oversight, in effect sharing sovereignty with the Crown. At the same time it gradually lost its mercantile privileges, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Companys remaining powers were transferred to the Crown. In the new British Raj, sovereignty extended to a few new regions, increasingly, however, unwieldy presidencies were broken up into Provinces. In 1608, the English East India Company established a settlement at Surat, and it was followed in 1611 by a permanent factory at Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast, and in 1612 the company joined other already established European trading companies in Bengal. Company rule in Bengal, however, ended with the Government of India Act 1858 following the events of the Bengal Rebellion of 1857 and these rulers were allowed a measure of internal autonomy in exchange for British suzerainty. British India constituted a significant portion of India both in area and population, in 1910, for example, it covered approximately 54% of the area, in addition, there were Portuguese and French exclaves in India. Independence from British rule was achieved in 1947 with the formation of two nations, the Dominions of India and Pakistan, the latter also including East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh. The term British India also applied to Burma for a time period, starting in 1824, a small part of Burma. This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma commenced being administered as a separate British colony, British India did not apply to other countries in the region, such as Sri Lanka, which was a British Crown colony, or the Maldive Islands, which were a British protectorate. It also included the Colony of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula, the original seat of government was at Allahabad, then at Agra from 1834 to 1868. Bombay Presidency, East India Companys headquarters moved from Surat to Bombay in 1687, the East India Company, which was incorporated on 31 December 1600, established trade relations with Indian rulers in Masulipatam on the east coast in 1611 and Surat on the west coast in 1612. The company rented a trading outpost in Madras in 1639, meanwhile, in eastern India, after obtaining permission from the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to trade with Bengal, the Company established its first factory at Hoogly in 1640. Almost a half-century later, after Emperor Aurengzeb forced the Company out of Hooghly, by the mid-18th century the three principal trading settlements, now called the Madras Presidency, the Bombay Presidency, and the Bengal Presidency were each administered by a Governor. After Robert Clives victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in 1772, the Company also obtained the Nizāmat of Bengal and thereby full sovereignty of the expanded Bengal Presidency
14.
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
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The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was a condominium of the United Kingdom and Egypt in the eastern Sudan region of northern Africa between 1899 and 1956. It attained independence as the Republic of the Sudan, which since 2011 has been split into Sudan, until 1914, Egypt itseslf was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire. During the 19th century, it expanded its control of the Sudan as far south as the Great Lakes region. In 1881 the Mahdist revolt broke out in Sudan and in 1882 the British invaded Egypt, Egypt became a de facto protectorate of Britain and together British and Egyptian forces gradually re-conquered the Sudan. In 1899, they agreed to establish a joint protectorate, Egypt on the basis of its previous claims. Between 1914 and 1922, Egypt and thus the Sudan were formally a part of the British Empire, after Egyptian independence in 1922, Britain gradually assumed more control of the condominium, edging out Egypt almost completely by 1924. Increasing Egyptian dissatisfaction with this arrangement came to a head after the overthrow of the Egyptian monarch in 1952, on 1 January 1956, Egypt and Britain ceded Sudan its independence. In 1820, the army of Egyptian wāli Muhammad Ali Pasha, commanded by his son Ismail Pasha, the region had longstanding linguistic, cultural, religious, and economic ties to Egypt and had been partially under the same government at intermittent periods since the times of the pharaohs. Muhammad Ali was aggressively pursuing a policy of expanding his power with a view to possibly supplanting the Ottoman Empire and this policy was expanded and intensified most notably by Muhammad Alis grandson, Ismail Pasha, under whose reign most of the remainder of modern-day Sudan was conquered. Ten years later in 1879, the foreign debt of Ismail Pashas government served as the pretext for the Great Powers to force his abdication. The situation was compounded by Tewfiks perceived corruption and mismanagement that ultimately culminated in the Urabi Revolt, with the survival of his throne in dire jeopardy, Tewfik appealed for British assistance. In 1882, at Tewfiks invitation, the British bombarded Alexandria, Egypts and Sudans primary seaport, British forces overthrew the Urabi government in Cairo and proceeded to occupy the rest of Egypt and Sudan in 1882. Though officially the authority of Tewfik had been restored, in reality the British largely took control of Egyptian, Tewfiks acquiescence to British occupation as the price for securing the monarchy was deeply detested by many throughout Egypt and Sudan. With the bulk of British forces stationed in northern Egypt, protecting Cairo, Alexandria, in contrast, the British military presence in Sudan was comparatively limited and eventually revolt broke out. The rebellion in Sudan, led by the Sudanese religious leader Muhammad ibn Abdalla, Abdalla wished not only to expel the British, but to overthrow the monarchy, viewed as secular and Western-leaning, and replace it with a pure Islamic government. Whilst primarily a Sudanese figure, Abdalla even attracted the support of some Egyptian nationalists and caught Tewfik, the revolt culminated in the fall of Khartoum and the death of the British General Charles George Gordon in 1885. Tewfiks forces and those of the United Kingdom were forced to withdraw from almost all of Sudan with Abdalla establishing a theocratic state and this invasion was halted by Tewfiks forces, and was followed later by withdrawal from Ethiopia. Abdullahi wrecked virtually all of the previous Turkish and Fung administrative systems, from 1885 to 1898 the population of Sudan collapsed from eight to three million due to war, famine, disease and persecution
15.
Battle of Omdurman
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At the Battle of Omdurman, an army commanded by the British General Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. Kitchener was seeking revenge for the 1885 death of General Gordon, however, it was not until the 1899 Battle of Umm Diwaykarat that the final Mahdist forces were defeated. Omdurman is today a suburb of Khartoum in central Sudan, with a population of some 1.5 million, the village of Omdurman was chosen in 1884 as the base of operations by the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. After his death in 1885, following the siege of Khartoum. The battle took place at Kerreri,11 kilometres north of Omdurman, Kitchener commanded a force of 8,000 British regulars and a mixed force of 17,000 Sudanese and Egyptian troops. The British and Egyptian cavalry were placed on either flank, abdullahs followers, calling themselves the Ansar and known to the British as the Dervishes, numbered around 50,000, including some 3,000 cavalry. A final force of around 8,000 was gathered on the slope on the flank of Azraks force. The battle began in the morning, at around 6,00 a. m. The frontal attack ended quickly, with around 4,000 Mahdist casualties, a flanking move from the Ansar right was also checked, and there were bloody clashes on the opposite flank that scattered the Mahdist forces there. Kitchener was anxious to occupy Omdurman before the remaining Mahdist forces could withdraw there and he advanced his army on the city, arranging them in separate columns for the attack. The British light cavalry regiment, the 21st Lancers, was sent ahead to clear the plain to Omdurman and they had a tough time of it. The 400-strong regiment attacked what they thought were only a few hundred dervishes, after a fierce clash, the Lancers drove them back. One of the participants of this fight was Lieutenant Winston Churchill, on a larger scale, the British advance allowed the Khalifa to re-organize his forces. He still had over 30,000 men in the field, Kitcheners force wheeled left in echelon to advance up Surgham ridge and then southwards. To protect the rear, a brigade of 3,000 mainly Sudanese, commanded by Hector MacDonald, was reinforced with Maxims and artillery, curiously, the supplies and wounded around Egeiga were left almost unprotected. MacDonald was alerted to the presence of around 15,000 enemy troops moving towards him from the west and he wheeled his force and lined them up to face the enemy charge. The Mahdist infantry attacked in two prongs, Lewiss Egyptian Brigade managed to hold its own but MacDonald was forced to repeatedly re-order his battalions, the brigade maintained a punishing fire. Kitchener, now aware of the problem, began to throw his brigades about as if they were companies, MacDonalds brigade was soon reinforced with flank support and more Maxim guns and the Mahdist forces were forced back, they finally broke and fled or died where they stood
16.
War correspondent
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A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. They were also called special correspondents in the 19th century and their jobs require war correspondents to deliberately go to the most conflict-ridden parts of the world. Once there, they attempt to get enough to the action to provide written accounts, photos. Thus, being a war correspondent is often considered the most dangerous form of journalism, on the other hand, war coverage is also one of the most successful branches of journalism. Newspaper sales increase greatly in wartime and television news ratings go up, News organizations have sometimes been accused of militarism because of the advantages they gather from conflict. William Randolph Hearst is often said to have encouraged the Spanish–American War for this reason, only some conflicts receive extensive worldwide coverage, however. Among recent wars, the Kosovo War received a deal of coverage. Written war correspondents have existed as long as journalism, before modern journalism it was more common for longer histories to be written at the end of a conflict. The first known of these is Herodotuss account of the Persian Wars, thucydides, who some years later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian Wars was an observer to the events he described. Her description of the events took place in the Marshall House are particularly poignant because she was in the midst of battle. A further modernization came with the development of newspapers and magazines, one of the earliest war correspondents was Henry Crabb Robinson, who covered Napoleons campaigns in Spain and Germany for The Times of London. Another early correspondent was William Hicks who letters describing the Battle of Trafalgar were also published in The Times, early film and television news rarely had war correspondents. Rather, they would simply collect footage provided by sources, often the government. This footage was often staged as cameras were large and bulky until the introduction of small, the situation changed dramatically with the Vietnam War when networks from around the world sent cameramen with portable cameras and correspondents. This proved damaging to the United States as the brutality of war became a daily feature on the nightly news. The discourse in mediated conflicts is influenced by its public character, by forwarding information and arguments to the media, conflict parties attempt to use the media influence to gain support from their constituencies and persuade their opponents. The continued progress of technology has allowed live coverage of events via satellite up-links, the rise of twenty-four hour news channels has led to a heightened demand for coverage. William Howard Russell, who covered the Crimean War, also for The Times, is described as the first modern war correspondent
17.
Second Boer War
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The Second Boer War, usually known as the Boer War and also at the time as the South African War, started on 11 October 1899 and ended on 31 May 1902. Great Britain defeated two Boer states in South Africa, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, Britain was aided by its Cape Colony, Colony of Natal and some native African allies. The British war effort was supported by volunteers from the British Empire, including Southern Africa, the Australian colonies, Canada, India. All other nations were neutral, but public opinion in them was largely hostile to Britain, inside Britain and its Empire there also was significant opposition to the Second Boer War. The British were overconfident and under-prepared, the Boers were very well armed and struck first, besieging Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking in early 1900, and winning important battles at Colenso, Magersfontein and Stormberg. Staggered, the British brought in numbers of soldiers and fought back. General Redvers Buller was replaced by Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener and they relieved the three besieged cities, and invaded the two Boer republics in late 1900. The onward marches of the British Army were so overwhelming that the Boers did not fight staged battles in defense of their homeland, the British quickly seized control of all of the Orange Free State and Transvaal, as the civilian leadership went into hiding or exile. In conventional terms, the war was over, Britain officially annexed the two countries in 1900, and called a khaki election to give the government another six years of power in London. However, the Boers refused to surrender and they reverted to guerrilla warfare under new generals Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, Christiaan de Wet and Koos de la Rey. Two more years of attacks and quick escapes followed. As guerrillas without uniforms, the Boer fighters easily blended into the farmlands, which provided hiding places, supplies, the British solution was to set up complex nets of block houses, strong points, and barbed wire fences, partitioning off the entire conquered territory. The civilian farmers were relocated into concentration camps, where very large proportions died of disease, especially the children, then the British mounted infantry units systematically tracked down the highly mobile Boer guerrilla units. The battles at this stage were small operations with few combat casualties The war ended in surrender, the British successfully won over the Boer leaders, who now gave full support to the new political system. Both former republics were incorporated into the Union of South Africa in 1910, the conflict is commonly referred to as simply the Boer War, since the First Boer War is much less well known. Boer was the term for Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans descended from the Dutch East India Companys original settlers at the Cape of Good Hope. It is officially called the South African War and it is known as the Anglo-Boer War among some South Africans. In Afrikaans it may be called the Anglo-Boereoorlog, Tweede Boereoorlog, in South Africa it is officially called the South African War
18.
Lord Randolph Churchill
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Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill was a British statesman. Churchill was a genuine Tory radical, who coined the term Tory Democracy and his most acerbic critics resided in his own party among his closest friends, but his disloyalty to Lord Salisbury was the beginning of the end of what should have been a glittering career. His devoted son, Winston, who knew his father in life. Born at 3 Wilton Terrace, Belgravia, London, Randolph Spencer was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, and his wife, Lady Frances Vane. He was at first privately educated, and later attended Tabors Preparatory School, Cheam, in January 1863 he travelled the short distance by private train to Eton College, where he remained until July 1865. He did not stand out either at work or sport while at Eton, his contemporaries describe him as a vivacious. Among lifelong friendships made at school were Edward Hamilton and Archibald Primrose, in October 1867 he matriculated and was admitted at Merton College, Oxford. At Oxford, Primrose, now Lord Dalmeny, joined him at the parties as members of the Bullingdon Club. Randolph was frequently in trouble with the university authorities for drunkenness, smoking in academic dress and his rowdy behavior was infectious, rubbing off on friends and contemporaries, he gained a reputation as an enfant terrible. He had a liking for sport, but was a reader, playing hard. Churchill experienced none of the early doubts but made many mistakes and he never regretted being an early friend and admirer of the Disraelis. It was however the cause of dissension that emerged in his relations with a colder more aloof, disciplinarian Salisbury. Churchills youthful exuberance did not prevent him gaining a degree in jurisprudence. A year later Churchill and his brother, George, were initiated into the rites of Freemasonry. His maiden speech, delivered in his first session, prompted compliments from Harcourt and Disraeli, Lord Randolph Churchill married a New Yorker, Jennie Jerome, daughter of Leonard Jerome, on 15 April 1874. According to Frank Harris, the editor of Fortnightly Magazine, who published the allegation in his scandalous 1924 autobiography, My Life and Loves, dr Clayton was, however, a society doctor with many patients among the British upper class. Harris book recounted a story told by Louis Jennings, who had published Randolphs 1880-1888 speeches, Jennings account as reported by Harris has never been corroborated. By 1924, Harris had fallen out with Winston Churchill, for whom he had been a literary agent, Harris had made similar but false or unsubstantiated assertions about Oscar Wilde and Guy de Maupassant
19.
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
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His term as Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul, the Viceroy Lord Curzon, who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General, in 1914, at the start of the First World War, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. Kitchener died on 5 June 1916 when HMS Hampshire sank west of the Orkney Islands and he was making his way to Russia in order to attend negotiations when the ship struck a German mine. He was one of more than 600 killed on board the ship, Kitchener was born in Ballylongford near Listowel, County Kerry, in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier. His father had recently bought land in Ireland under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after selling his commission. They then moved to Switzerland where the young Kitchener was educated at Montreux, then at the Royal Military Academy, pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War. His father took him back to England after he caught pneumonia after ascending in a balloon to see the French Army of the Loire in action. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871, his service in France had violated British neutrality, and he was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief. He served in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic, Sir Walter Kitchener, had also entered the army, and was Governor of Bermuda from 1908 to 1912. In 1874, at age 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria. Conder and Kitchener’s expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was confined to the area west of the Jordan River. The survey collected data on the topography and toponymy of the area, as well as local flora, the results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener’s contribution in the first three tomes. This survey has had an effect on the Middle East for several reasons, The ordnance survey serves as the basis for the grid system used in the modern maps of Israel. The collection of data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists, the survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For instance, the border between Israel and Lebanon is established at the point in upper Galilee where Conder and Kitchener’s survey stopped. In 1878 having completed the survey of Western Palestine, Kitchener was sent to Cyprus to undertake a survey of newly acquired British protectorate. Then in 1879 he became vice-consul in Anatolia, in 1883 Kitchener became a Freemason. On 4 January 1883 Kitchener was promoted to captain, given the Turkish rank bimbashi, Egypt had recently become a British puppet state, its army led by British officers, although still nominally under the sovereignty of the Khedive and his nominal overlord the Sultan of Turkey
20.
David Lloyd George
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David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George was a key figure in the introduction of reforms which laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. His most important role came as the highly energetic Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government, during and he was a major player at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that reordered Europe after the defeat of the Central Powers. He made an impact on British public life than any other 20th-century leader. Furthermore, in foreign affairs he played a role in winning the First World War, redrawing the map of Europe at the peace conference. His main political problem was that he was not loyal to his Liberal party—he was always a political maverick, while he was Prime Minister he favoured the Conservatives in his coalition in the 1918 elections, leaving the Liberal party as a hopeless minority. He became leader of the Liberal Party in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he was a marginalised and widely mistrusted figure. He gave weak support to the Second World War amidst fears that he was favourable toward Germany, Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, to Welsh parents, and was brought up as a Welsh-speaker. He is so far the only British Prime Minister to have been Welsh and his father, William George, had been a teacher in both London and Liverpool. He also taught in the Hope Street Sunday Schools, which were administered by the Unitarians, in March of the same year, on account of his failing health, William George returned with his family to his native Pembrokeshire. He took up farming but died in June 1864 of pneumonia, Lloyd George was educated at the local Anglican school Llanystumdwy National School and later under tutors. He added his uncles surname to become Lloyd George and his surname is usually given as Lloyd George and sometimes as George. The influence of his childhood showed through in his entire career, brought up a devout evangelical, as a young man he suddenly lost his religious faith. Biographer Don Cregier says he became a Deist and perhaps an agnostic, though he remained a chapel-goer and he kept quiet about that, however, and was hailed as one of the foremost fighting leaders of a fanatical Welsh Nonconformity. It was also during this period of his life that Lloyd George first became interested in the issue of land ownership, by the age of twenty-one, he had already read and taken notes on Henry Georges Progress and Poverty. This strongly influenced Lloyd Georges politics later in life through the Peoples Budget which heavily drew on the georgist tax reform ideas, the practice flourished, and he established branch offices in surrounding towns, taking his brother William into partnership in 1887. Although many Prime Ministers have been barristers, Lloyd George is to date the only solicitor to have held that office, by then he was politically active, having campaigned for the Liberal Party in the 1885 election, attracted by Joseph Chamberlains unauthorised programme of reforms. The election resulted firstly in a stalemate with neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives having a majority, William Gladstones proposal to bring about Irish Home Rule split the party, with Chamberlain eventually leading the breakaway Liberal Unionists
21.
Lady Randolph Churchill
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Jeanette, Lady Randolph Churchill, CI, RRC, DStJ was an American-born British socialite, the wife of Lord Randolph Churchill and the mother of British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. She was raised in Brooklyn, Paris, and New York City and she had two surviving sisters, Clarita and Leonie. Another sister, Camille died when Jennie was nine, leonard Jerome was rumoured to also be the father of the American opera singer Minnie Hauk. There is some controversy regarding the time and place of her birth, a plaque at 426 Henry St. gives her year of birth as 1850, not 1854. However, on 9 January 1854, the Jeromes lived nearby at number 8 Amity Street and it is believed that the Jeromes were temporarily staying at the Henry Street address, which was owned by Leonards brother Addison, and that Jennie was born there during a snowstorm. A noted beauty, Jennie Jerome worked as an editor in early life. Hall family lore insists that Jennie had Iroquois ancestry, through her grandmother, however. Lady Randolph was an amateur pianist, having been tutored as a girl by Stephen Heller. Heller believed that his pupil was good enough to attain concert standard with the necessary hard work. The couple had met at sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight in August 1873, having been introduced by the Prince of Wales, Although they became engaged within three days of this initial meeting, the marriage was delayed for months while their parents argued over settlements. By this marriage, she was known as Lady Randolph Churchill. The Churchills had two sons, Winston, the prime minister, was born less than eight months after the marriage. According to his biographer William Manchester, Winston was most likely conceived before the marriage, a recent biography has stated that he was born two months prematurely after Lady Randolph had a fall. When asked about the circumstances of his birth, Winston Churchill would reply, Although present on the occasion, Lady Randolphs sisters believed that the biological father of the second son, John was Evelyn Boscawen, 7th Viscount Falmouth. Lady Randolph is believed to have had numerous lovers during her marriage, including Karl Kinsky, the Prince of Wales, and Herbert von Bismarck. As was the custom of the day in her class, Lady Randolph played a limited role in her sons upbringing, relying largely upon nannies. Winston worshipped his mother, writing her numerous letters during his time at school and begging her to visit him and he wrote about her in My Early Life, She shone for me like the evening star. I loved her dearly – but at a distance, after he became an adult, they became good friends and strong allies, to the point where Winston regarded her almost as a political mentor, more as a big sister than as a mother
22.
Patrick Magee (actor)
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He was born in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Born into a family, McGee was the first born of five children and was educated at St. Patricks Grammar School. His first stage experience in Ireland was with Anew McMasters touring company and it was here that he first worked with Pinter. He was then brought to London by Tyrone Guthrie for a series of Irish plays and he met Beckett in 1957 and soon recorded passages from the novel, Molloy, and the short story, From an Abandoned Work, for BBC radio. Impressed by the quality of Magees distinctly Irish voice, Beckett requested copies of the tapes. First produced at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 28 October 1958, a televised version with Magee directed by McWhinnie was later broadcast by BBC2 on 29 November 1972. Becketts biographer Anthony Cronin wrote that there was a sense in which, as an actor, in 1965 he appeared in Peter Weisss Marat/Sade, and when the play transferred to Broadway he won a Tony Award. He also appeared in the 1966 RSC production of Staircase opposite Paul Scofield, early film roles included Joseph Loseys The Criminal and The Servant, the latter an adaptation scripted by Pinter. He also appeared as Surgeon-Major Reynolds in Zulu, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Anzio, but he is perhaps best known for his role as the victimised writer Frank Alexander, who tortures Alex DeLarge with Beethovens music, in Stanley Kubricks film A Clockwork Orange. His other role for Kubrick was as Chevalier de Balibari in Barry Lyndon, Magee also appeared in Young Winston, The Final Programme, Galileo, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, The Monster Club and Chariots of Fire, but was most often seen in horror films. Magee married Belle Sherry, also a native of County Armagh in 1958, in February 1961, their twins, Mark and Caroline McGee, were born in London. Patrick Magee died in his London flat of natural causes on 14 August 1982 at the age of 60, according to obituaries in the Glasgow Herald and the New York Times
23.
Ian Holm
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Sir Ian Holm CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and many film roles. He won the 1981 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role as athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire, for which he was also nominated for an Academy Award. Holm was born Ian Holm Cuthbert on 12 September 1931 in Goodmayes, in Essex, to Scottish parents, Jean Wilson and James Harvey Cuthbert. His mother was a nurse, and his father was a psychiatrist who worked as the superintendent of the West Ham Corporation Mental Hospital and was one of the pioneers of electric shock therapy and he had an older brother, Eric, who died in 1943. Holm was educated at the independent Chigwell School in Essex and his parents retired to Mortehoe, Devon and then Worthing where he joined an amateur dramatic society. They were then interrupted a second time when he volunteered to go on an tour of the United States in 1952. Holm was a star of the Royal Shakespeare Company before making an impact on television. In 1965, he played Richard III in the BBC serialisation of The Wars of The Roses, based on the RSC production of the plays, what a Lovely War, Nicholas and Alexandra, Mary, Queen of Scots and Young Winston. In 1967, he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play as Lenny in The Homecoming by Harold Pinter, in 1977, Holm appeared in the TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth as the Sadducee Zerah, and a villainous Moroccan in March or Die. The following year he played J. M. Barrie in the award-winning BBC TV series The Lost Boys, in 1981 he played Frodo Baggins in the BBC radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings. Holms first film role to have an impact was that of the treacherous android, Ash. His portrayal of Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire, earned him an award at the Cannes Film Festival. Back home in England, he won a BAFTA award, for Best Supporting Actor, for Chariots, in the 1980s, he had memorable roles in Time Bandits, Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and Terry Gilliams Brazil. He played Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland in the Dennis Potter-scripted fantasy Dreamchild, in 1989 Holm was nominated for a BAFTA award for the TV series Game, Set and Match. Based on the novels by Len Deighton, this tells the story of an officer who discovers that his own wife is an enemy spy. He continued to perform Shakespeare, and appeared with Kenneth Branagh in Henry V, Holm was reunited with Kenneth Branagh in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, playing the father of Branaghs Victor Frankenstein. Holm raised his profile in 1997 with two prominent roles, as the stressed but gentle priest Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element, in 2001 he starred in From Hell as the physician Sir William Withey Gull. He reappeared in the trilogy in The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King and he reprised his role as the elder Bilbo Baggins in the movie The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit, The Battle of the Five Armies
24.
Edward Woodward
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Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE was an English actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Woodward began his career on stage, throughout his career, he appeared in productions in both the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. He came to attention from 1967 in the title role of the British television spy drama Callan. Woodward starred as Police Sergeant Neil Howie in the 1973 cult British horror film The Wicker Man, Woodward was born in Croydon, Surrey, the only child of working class parents Edward Oliver Woodward, a metalworker, and Violet Edith Woodward. As a boy, he was bombed out of his home three times during the Blitz and he attended Eccleston Road, Sydenham Road, and E Wallington, as well as Kingston Day Commercial School, all in Surrey. In the post-World War II period, Woodward became a member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art while taking amateur roles. Wanting to train as a journalist he took work in a sanitary engineers office before attending RADA from age 16. He was reputedly torn between becoming an actor or a professional footballer. He was on the books of Leyton Orient FC and Brentford FC, Woodwards professional acting debut was in the Castle Theatre, Farnham, in 1946. After graduation from RADA, he worked extensively in repertory companies as a Shakespearean actor throughout England and Scotland, delderfields Where Theres A Will in 1955 and also appeared in the film adaptation that same year, his first film, and then Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Having established himself, he worked in Broadway theatre in New York City. Woodward first appeared on Broadway in Rattle of a Simple Man and the musical comedy High Spirits, in 2004, Woodward, alongside Australian actor Daniel MacPherson, appeared as God in a revival of The Mystery Plays at Canterbury Cathedral. From a cast of hundreds of actors, Joseph McManners. He made occasional appearances until taking the role of Police Sergeant Neil Howie in the thriller The Wicker Man in 1973, Woodward was offered a cameo role in the 2005 remake but declined. He also appeared in the 1982 film Who Dares Wins, also known as The Final Option, Woodward played the title role in the 1980 Australian biographical film drama Breaker Morant, which was highly acclaimed, and his presence brought the film worldwide attention. Woodward also had a role in the 2007 action comedy Hot Fuzz. Robin Hardy, who directed The Wicker Man, said, He was one of the greatest actors of his generation, without a doubt, noël Coward once said of him, He was one of the nicest and most co-operative actors Ive ever met or worked with. In 1990 Woodward was the narrator for the official FIFA film of the 1990 World Cup entitled Soccer Shoot-Out, Woodward appeared in many television productions
25.
Jack Hawkins
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John Edward Jack Hawkins, CBE was an English actor who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s. He was born at 45 Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, now in Haringey, London and he was educated at Wood Green’s Trinity County Grammar School, where, aged eight, he joined the school choir. By the age of ten Hawkins had joined the local operatic society, the following year aged 14 he played the page in a production of Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw. Five years later he was in a production of Beau Geste alongside Laurence Olivier and he appeared on Broadway in Journeys End by the age of 18. In the 1930s Hawkins focus was on the stage and he worked in the companies of Sybil Thorndike, John Gielgud and Basil Dean. In 1932 he was in a production of Hamlet with John Gielgud and Robert Donat. He was also in Death at Broadcasting House, Lorna Doone, stage roles included Iron Mistress by Arthur Macrae, then an open air Shakespeare festival - As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Comedy of Errors. Some of these productions were done on radio, the Maitlands by Ronald Mackenzie was for John Gielguds company. He was Horatio to Gielguds Hamlet and he also appeared in Accidentally Yours by Clifford Grey, The World Waits by Clifford Hummel, Coincidence by Bryce Robertson, and The Frog. Films in the late 1930s included Beauty and the Barge, The Frog, a Royal Divorce, Murder Will Out, The Flying Squad. During World War II Hawkins served as an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers and he became a colonel in ENSA for India and Southeast Asia. During his military service he made The Next of Kin for Ealing Studios, Hawkins left the army in July 1946. Two weeks later he appeared on stage in The Apple Cart at ten pounds a week, the following year he starred in Othello, to a mixed reception. Hawkinss wife became pregnant and he concerned about his future. He decided to accept a contract with Alexander Korda for three years at £50 a week, Hawkins had been recommended to Korda by the latters production executive, Bill Bryden, who was married to Elizabeth Allen, who had worked with Hawkins. The association began badly when Hawkins was cast in Kordas notorious flop Bonnie Prince Charlie as Lord George Murray, however he followed it with a good role in the successful, highly acclaimed The Fallen Idol for Carol Reed. Also acclaimed was The Small Back Room, for Powell and Pressburger, he impressed as the villain in State Secret and he was hired by 20th Century Fox to support Tyrone Power and Orson Welles in an expensive epic, The Black Rose. He made another with Powell and Pressburger for Korda, The Elusive Pimpernel, Hawkins played the lead in The Adventurers, shot in South Africa, then had a good role in another Hollywood-financed film shot in England, No Highway in the Sky, with James Stewart
26.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
27.
James Welldon
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James Edward Cowell Welldon was an English clergyman and scholar. He was Bishop of Calcutta from 1898 to 1902, Dean of Manchester Cathedral from 1906 to 1918, and Dean of Durham Cathedral from 1918 to 1933. Welldon was born in 1854 in Tonbridge, Kent, the son of Edward Ind Welldon, the Second Master of Tonbridge School and he was educated at Eton and was named the Newcastle scholar in 1873. He went on to Kings College, Cambridge where he was prominent, becoming the Bell scholar in 1874. In 1877, as well as gaining his BA degree, he was the senior classical and he became a fellow in 1878 and in 1880 gained his MA degree. He had a reputation at Eton in both the Colleges Wall Game and Field Game and became school captain and he also played for Upton Park and Hertfordshire Rangers and in representative matches for Essex and London. In May 1883, Welldon was appointed master of Dulwich College, in the short time he held this position he did much for the college, including the creation and institution of its school song Pueri Alleynienses which is still in use today. He resigned in July 1885 to take up the position of headmaster of Harrow School and he was disliked by many of the masters as an autocratic administrator, but was more popular with the boys, by whom he was known as the Porker. He was honorary chaplain to Queen Victoria from 1888 to 1892 and he was the Hulsean Lecturer at Cambridge in 1897. In 1898, he became a Doctor of Divinity, after leaving Harrow, Welldon was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1898. He remained diocesan until early 1902 when he resigned owing to ill health and disagreement with the Viceroy and he returned to England to become a canon of Westminster, and was installed as such on 8 March 1902. He served in Westminster until 1906, from 1906 to 1918 he was Dean of Manchester and from 1918 of Durham. He had a relationship with the Bishop of Durham, Hensley Henson. Welldon became an Officer dacadémie in 1898 and he was a member of the Athenaeum, a freemason, and a keen proponent of British imperialism. He was a bachelor, and for nearly fifty years had the close companionship of a manservant, Edward Hudson Perkins. Welldon died at Sevenoaks, Kent, on 17 June 1937 aged eighty-three, harvest Home, A Sheaf of Sermons. The Revelation of the Holy Spirit, forty Years On Lyttelton, George, and Rupert Hart-Davis. ISBN 0-7195-3478-X This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
28.
Bindon Blood
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General Sir Bindon Blood, GCB, GCVO was a British Army commander who served in Egypt, Afghanistan, India and Southern Africa. Born near Jedburgh, Scotland, Blood was related to Colonel Thomas Blood who attempted to steal the Crown Jewels in 1671, Blood attended the Royal School, Banagher, Queens College, Galway, and the Addiscombe Military College. He was commissioned in 1860 in the Royal Engineers as a lieutenant in charge of signalling and pontoon bridge construction in India. Promoted to captain in 1873, he served with British forces in the North-West Frontier, in 1879 he was sent back to Africa for the Anglo-Zulu War. He went on to fight in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, by 1882 he was a brevet lieutenant-colonel. The following year,1883, Blood married Charlotte E. Colvin, second daughter of Sir Auckland Colvin, then he returned to India and took command of the Bengal Sappers and Miners in 1885. After seven years he reached the rank of brigadier-general, serving in the garrison at Rawalpindi and he then commanded the Malakand Field Force and the Buner Field Force, relieving the garrison during the siege of Malakand. At the end of this command he was promoted to major-general, Lord Kitchener succeeded as chief of command during the Second Boer War in late 1900, and requested Blood for service in South Africa, where he arrived in early March 1901. He spent six months in command of a fighting in the Eastern Transvaal. He was mentioned in the last despatch by Lord Kitchener dated 23 June 1902, in late September 1901 he returned to India to take up the position of Commander-in-Chief Punjab Command, where he arrived the following month. He kept the rank of lieutenant-general. In November 1907 he retired to London, where he continued to lead an active life. He was made colonel-commandant of the Royal Engineers in 1914 and worked to recruit soldiers for the First World War and he was aged 94 when he was made Chief Royal Engineer in 1936. He died in 1940, survived by his one daughter, winston Churchill, who served under Blood on the North-West Frontier in 1897, dedicated his first non-fiction book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, to Major-General Sir Bindon Blood, K. C. B. Profile, ThePeerage. com, retrieved 2 June 2007, Royal Engineers Museum Bloods Pontoon Royal Engineers Museum The Corps between the wars - General Bloods appointment to Chief Royal Engineer
29.
Aylmer Haldane
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General Sir James Aylmer Lowthorpe Haldane, GCMG, KCB, DSO was a senior British Army officer with a long and distinguished career. In September 1882, after attending the Edinburgh Academy and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, on 18 February 1886, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and on 8 April 1892 to the rank of captain. Between 1894 and 1895, Haldane was part of the Waziristan Field Force, Haldane fought in the Second Boer War in South Africa, where he was taken a war prisoner. While imprisoned in Pretoria, he planned the escape which made Winston Churchill famous, Haldane failed to escape at the same time and later complained of Churchills lack of regard for those who should have escaped with him. However, Haldane later managed his own escape and he was military attaché with the Imperial Japanese Army from July 1904 to September 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War, and accompanied Japanese forces into Manchuria. Promoted to brevet colonel, Haldane was appointed a CB on 16 March 1906, from 1906 to 1909, he served as assistant director of military intelligence. On 1 October 1909, Haldane was promoted to temporary brigadier-general, Haldane fought in World War I initially as General Officer Commanding 3rd Division, then part of the British Expeditionary Force. He was given command of 6th Army Corps in France in 1916, after the end of the war, Haldane was appointed General Officer Commanding Mesopotamia 1920 remaining in that post until 1922, he retired in 1925. Haldane died on 19 April 1950, at his home in London and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery, order of the Sacred Treasure, Japan,1905. Haldanes published writings encompass 6 works in 8 publications in 1 language and 311 library holdings, a brigade of the old army,1914, relating to operations of 10 Infantry Bde, France, Aug–Nov 1914. Haldane, Lieutenant General Sir Aylmer The Insurrection in Mesopotamia, a soldiers saga, the autobiography of General Sir Aylmer Haldane. A Soldiers Saga, the Autobiography of General Sir Alymer Haldane, London, William Blackwood & Sons,1922. Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War
30.
Peter Cellier
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Peter Cellier is an English actor who has appeared in film, stage and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Sir Frank Gordon in Yes Minister and then Yes, Cellier was born into a family of actors including his father Frank and half-sister Antoinette. His grandfather was the Gilbert and Sullivan conductor François Cellier and he was educated at Harrow School. Cellier started his career at the Leatherhead Theatre in 1953 and his theatre work has included seasons at Stratford-on-Avon, the Old Vic and the Chichester Festival Theatre, and he was a founder-member of the National Theatre. Finache in Jacques Charons National Theatre production of Feydeaus A Flea in her Ear, Charles Blutham in Juno and the Paycock, Dr. He also appeared in the sitcoms It Aint Half Hot Mum, Yes Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister and Keeping Up Appearances, as the Major, among others. In the two Minister series, he played Sir Frank Gordon, the Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury and his most recent TV roles were as Roy Difford in the Casualty episode The Silence of Friends. And the Judge in BBC Fours Canoe Man, which recounted the John Darwin disappearance case, as Second Counsel, Young Winston, as Captain 35th Sikhs, Luther, as the Prior, Dont Just Lie There, Say Something. He played W. S. Gilbert in the 1983 film The Best of Gilbert and Sullivan, in which Gilbert, celliers grandfather, François Cellier, was the musical director for Gilbert and Sullivan. Peter Cellier at the Internet Movie Database Curriculum vitae
31.
35th Sikhs
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The 35th Sikhs were an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. They could trace their origins to 1887, when they were raised as the 35th Bengal Infantry, the regiment took part in the Siege of Malakand in 1897 AND World War I. During World War I the regiment was part of the 2nd Division stationed on the North West Frontier dealing with numerous incursions by Afghan tribes. In 1919, they part in the Third Afghan War After World War I the Indian government reformed the army moving from single battalion regiments to multi battalion regiments. In 1922, the 35th Sikhs now became the 10th Training Battalion, the regiment was allocated to the new Indian Army on independence. 35th Bengal Infantry -1887 35th Sikh Infantry -1901 35th Sikhs -1903 Barthorp, Michael, Burn, Jeffrey
32.
Laurence Naismith
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Laurence Naismith was an English actor. He made numerous film and television appearances, including starring roles in the musical films Scrooge and he also had memorable rôles as Captain Edward Smith of the RMS Titanic in A Night to Remember and the First Sea Lord in Sink the Bismarck. Naismith was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, in 1908 and he attended All Saints Choir School in London and was a chorus member for a 1927 production of the George Gershwin musical Oh, Kay. He then worked in theatre and ran a repertory company of his own. At the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the British Army where he became an officer in the Royal Artillery and his film roles included Carrington VC, Richard III, Sink the Bismarck. The World of Suzie Wong (1960, Jason and the Argonauts and he played the non-singing role of Merlin in the 1967 film version of the musical Camelot and appeared in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever as the chairman of the diamond trading syndicate. In 1965, Naismith played the role of the Virginia statesman George Mason in the NBC documentary series, Profiles in Courage. William Bakewell played George Wythe in the episode, and Arthur Franz was cast as James Madison. In 1965, Naismith guest-starred as barber Gilly Bright in episode 25, The Threat of the ABC military drama,12 O-Clock High and in the ABC action drama, The Fugitive, in 1969 he played Don Q Hought in an episode of Bonanza. He played Judge Fulton in the television series The Persuaders, with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. He portrayed Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph in the BBC production Fall of Eagles, Naismith played the Prince of Verona in the BBC Television Shakespeare version of Romeo and Juliet. He appeared on Broadway in the Meredith Willson musical Heres Love in 1963, laurence Naismith at Find a Grave
33.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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He was the last prime minister to head his full administration from the House of Lords. In 1868 upon the death of his father, Cecil was elevated to the House of Lords and he became prime minister in June 1885 when the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone resigned, and held the office until January 1886. When Gladstone came out in favour of Home Rule for Ireland, Salisbury opposed him and formed an alliance with the breakaway Liberal Unionists and he died a year later, in 1903. Historians agree that Salisbury was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs, Paul Smith characterises his personality as deeply neurotic, depressive, agitated, introverted, fearful of change and loss of control, and self-effacing but capable of extraordinary competitiveness. A representative of the aristocracy, he held the reactionary credo, Whatever happens will be for the worse. Lord Robert Cecil was the son of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury. He was a descendant of Lord Burghley and the 1st Earl of Salisbury. The family owned vast rural estates in Hertfordshire and Dorset and this wealth increased sharply in 1821, when he married the rich heiress of a merchant prince who had bought up large estates in Essex and Lancashire. Robert had a childhood, with few friends, he filled his time with reading. He was bullied unmercifully at the schools he attended, in 1840, he went to Eton College, where he did well in French, German, Classics, and Theology, however, he left in 1845 because of intense bullying. The unhappy schooling shaped his outlook on life and his negative views on democracy. He decided that most people were cowardly and cruel, and that the mob would run roughshod over sensitive individuals, in December 1847 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he received an honorary fourth class in mathematics conferred by noblemans privilege due to ill health. Whilst at Oxford he found the Oxford movement or Tractarianism to be an intoxicating force, in April 1850 he joined Lincolns Inn but subsequently did not enjoy law. His doctor advised him to travel for his health, and so in July 1851 to May 1853 Cecil travelled through Cape Colony, Australia, including Tasmania, and New Zealand. He found the Kaffirs a fine set of men – whose language bears traces of a very high former civilisation and they were an intellectual race, with great firmness and fixedness of will but horribly immoral as they lacked theism. In the Bendigo goldmine of Australia, he claimed there is not half as much crime or insubordination as there would be in an English town of the same wealth. Ten thousand miners were policed by four men armed with carbines, a Maori chief offered Cecil five acres near Auckland, which he declined. He entered the House of Commons as a Conservative on 22 August 1853 and he retained this seat until entering the peerage and it was not contested during his time as its representative
34.
Basil Dignam
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Basil Dignam was an English character actor. Basil Dignam was born in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire and he acted on film and television between 1948 and 1978. He often appeared as an authority figure, such as a police officer and he was married to actress Mona Washbourne. His brother Mark Dignam was also a professional actor, basil Dignam died, aged 73, in Westminster, London. Basil Dignam at the Internet Movie Database
35.
Joseph Chamberlain
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He split both major British parties in the course of his career. Chamberlain made his career in Birmingham, first as a manufacturer of screws and he was a radical Liberal Party member and an opponent of the Elementary Education Act 1870. As a self-made businessman, he had never attended university and had contempt for the aristocracy and he entered the House of Commons at 39 years of age, relatively late in life compared to politicians from more privileged backgrounds. Rising to power through his influence with the Liberal grassroots organisation, Chamberlain resigned from Gladstones Third Government in 1886 in opposition to Irish Home Rule. He helped to engineer a Liberal Party split and became a Liberal Unionist, from the 1895 general election the Liberal Unionists were in coalition with the Conservative Party, under Chamberlains former opponent Lord Salisbury. In that government Chamberlain promoted the Workmens Compensation Act 1897 and he served as Secretary of State for the Colonies, promoting a variety of schemes to build up the Empire in Asia, Africa, and the West Indies. He had major responsibility for causing the Second Boer War in South Africa and was the government minister most responsible for the war effort and he became a dominant figure in the Unionist Governments re-election at the Khaki Election in 1900. In 1903, he resigned from the Cabinet to campaign for tariff reform and he obtained the support of most Unionist MPs for this stance, but the Unionists suffered a landslide defeat at the 1906 general election. Shortly after public celebrations of his 70th birthday in Birmingham, he was disabled by a stroke, despite never becoming Prime Minister, he was one of the most important British politicians of his day, as well as a renowned orator and municipal reformer. Historian David Nicholls notes that his personality was not attractive, he was arrogant and ruthless and he never succeeded in his grand ambitions. However, he was a highly proficient grassroots organizer of democratic instincts and he is most famous for setting the agenda of British colonial, foreign, tariff and municipal policies, and for deeply splitting both major political parties. Chamberlain was born in Camberwell, then in Surrey to a shoe manufacturer also named Joseph. His younger brother was Richard Chamberlain, later also a Liberal politician and he was educated at University College School 1850–1852, excelling academically and gaining prizes in French and mathematics. At 18 he joined his uncles screw-making business, Nettlefolds of Birmingham, the company became known as Nettlefold and Chamberlain when Chamberlain became a partner with Joseph Nettlefold. During the businesss most prosperous period, it produced two-thirds of all metal screws made in England, Chamberlain married Harriet Kenrick, the daughter of Archibald Kenrick, in July 1861. Their daughter Beatrice Mary Chamberlain was born in May 1862, Harriet, who had had a premonition that she would die in childbirth, became ill two days after the birth of their son Joseph Austen in October 1863, and died three days later. Chamberlain devoted himself to business, while bringing up Beatrice and Austen with the Kenrick parents-in-law, in 1868, Chamberlain married for the second time, to Harriets cousin, Florence Kenrick, daughter of Timothy Kenrick. Chamberlain and Florence had four children, Arthur Neville in 1869, Ida in 1870, Hilda in 1871, on 13 February 1875, Florence gave birth to their fifth child, but she and the child died within a day
36.
Austen Chamberlain
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Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain KG was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and half-brother of Neville Chamberlain. He stood for the Liberal Unionist party, which merged with the Conservatives in 1912, as Foreign Secretary, he negotiated the Locarno Pact, aimed at preventing war between France and Germany, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was one of the few MPs supporting Winston Churchills appeals for rearmament against the German threat in the 1930s and his mother, the former Harriet Kenrick, died in childbirth, leaving his father so shaken that for almost 25 years he maintained a distance from his first-born son. In 1868, his father married Harriets cousin, Florence, and had further children, Austen was educated first at Rugby School, before passing on to Trinity College, Cambridge. While at Trinity College, he became a friend of F. S. Oliver, a future advocate of Imperial Federation and, after 1909. Chamberlain made his first political address in 1884 at a meeting of the universitys Political Society and was vice-president of the Cambridge Union Society. For nine months, he was shown the brilliance of Paris under the Third Republic, from Paris, Austen was sent to Berlin for twelve months, to imbibe the political culture of the other great European power, Germany. Among others, Austen met and dined with the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, Austen returned to England in 1888, lured largely by the prize of a parliamentary constituency. He was first elected to parliament as a member of his fathers own Liberal Unionist Party in 1892 and that was highly significant, given the bad blood existing between Joseph Chamberlain and his former leader. Appointed a junior Whip of the Liberal Unionists after the general election, in the wake of the struggle between his father and Balfour, Austen Chamberlain became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1903. While Austen supported his father’s programme, his influence within the cabinet was diminished following the departure of the senior Chamberlain to become backbenchers, with the Unionists in disarray after two successive electoral defeats in 1910, Balfour was forced from his position as party leader in November 1911. Chamberlain was one of the candidates to succeed as Conservative leader even though he was still technically a member of the Liberal Unionist wing of the coalition. Chamberlain was opposed by Canadian-born Andrew Bonar Law, Walter Long, after a short period of internal party campaigning, Chamberlain determined to withdraw from the contest for the good of the still-divided party. He succeeded in persuading Long to withdraw him in favour of Bonar Law. In the last years before the outbreak of World War I, Chamberlain was concerned with one issue above all others, Chamberlain was resolutely opposed to the dissolution of the Union with Ireland. Chamberlain joined the cabinet as Secretary of State for India and he was widely acclaimed for such a principled act. Later, he returned to government and became a member of the War Cabinet in April 1918 as Minister without Portfolio, replacing Lord Milner, citing ill health, Bonar Law retired from the leadership of the Conservative branch of the Lloyd George government in the spring of 1921. He was succeeded at the Exchequer by Sir Robert Horne, it seemed that after ten years of waiting, Austen would again be given the opportunity of succeeding to the premiership
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