Index Volume 3

  • My Invention – The Unique Virtual Newspaper

  • Captain Cook – His Travels and Life

  • The First Fleet – Australia 1787 – View from England

  • The Mayflower and It's Passengers – A View from England

  • Whitefriars Glass – 17th Century History

  • The Brown Dressed Lady Ghost of Raynham Hall – England

  • Windsor Castle – It's Royal Hauntings

  • Sir Walter Raleigh 1552 to 1618 – British Icon

  • Sir Roger Moore – British Iconic Actor

  • Peter Sellers –  English Comic Actor

  • Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov –  Renaissance Funny Man

  • Les Dawson – English iconic Comic, Writer and Actor

  • Benny Hill – Chaplin's Favourite Comedian

  • Ken Dodd – English iconic Comic, Writer and Actor

  • Samuel Fox – English Inventor of The Metal Ribbed Umbrella

  • Cats Eyes for the Roads– Invented by Percy Shaw 1933

  • Sir Alexander Fleming – Discoverer of Penicillin

  • Darts – British 16th Century History

  • English Football - It's History

  • English Football Premier League – History

  • Centuries of English Cricket History

  • English Rugby – History

  • Snooker and Billiards – History

  • British Boxing – It's History

  • Golf – Its History and My Funny Golfing Art prints

  • The Ryder Cup Golf Competition – History

  • English Field Hockey - 1363 AD History

  • Badminton and it's English History

  • Table Tennis History and Funny Sports Art Prints

  • English Lawn Tennis – History

  • The Sport 0f Squash - It's English Historical Beginings

  • British Sports and Icons Given To the World

  • Sir Winston Churchill – War Leader, Artist and Writer

  • History of The Tank – An England Icon

  • The Unofficial Truce – Christmas 1914

  • Famous English and British Battles and Wars 59 AD to Present

My Invention – The Unique Virtual Newspaper

We in Britain are famous for our inventors and designers and as part of that great tradition I have decided to mention this idea for replacing newspapers with an electronic version. Now I do not mean the I – Pad or other similar versions but a unique and different Virtual newspaper.

The Unique Virtual Newspaper

1)     Imagine an A4 binder with 50 clear pockets.

2)     In the binder is an electronic chip

3)     Instead of the clear A4 pockets are Clear A4 Sheets

4)     On the spine of the binder is a USB socket

5)     You connect the binder to the computer using the USB lead

6)     You visit an online daily newspaper of your choice

7)     At the newspaper site is a download button

8)     You download the coloured newspaper for a set price

9)     Prior to downloading you deposit credits to cover the weekly downloads.

10)  The front page of the coloured newspaper appears on the front of the binder.

11)  Inside the binder the clear sheets become the various pages of the newspaper

12)  Another idea is instead of using 50 + pages of clear pockets you have 2 pages and you click the top of the clear page for the the next newspaper page to appear.

13)  The Virtual publication is very flexible in that you can read it on the train, on the beach or anywhere you could read a normal newspaper. 

14)  The size of the Viewing Pockets could be A4, A5, A3 etc. 

This invention is very green in that instead of printing millions of pages of paper and knocking down many millions of trees this virtual newspaper will replace same. Imagine all those forests around the world being destroyed for newspapers which will no longer be needed.  

In the future, schoolbooks will also be replaced with virtual books that have pages that can be turned and downloaded direct from the internet. 

In the future, Magzines will also be replaced with virtual magazines that have pages that can be turned and downloaded from the internet. 

I believe this invention will replace the future of Newspapers / Magazines / Books and make Publications available online worldwide and could possibly make publishers very rich. I believe people prefer the feel and touch and the turning of the page. The great thing about this invention is the possibilities of design and the feel of the virtual newspaper is similar to an original newspaper in that you can turn the page as like a newspaper. 

Our there any IT companies that would be interested in my idea then please feel free to Email me by clicking here.  Another idea I have had is an interactive Tomb Stone which replays the departed messages and maybe in the future a Holographic Image telling the departed's life story.

 

Captain Cook – His Travels and Life

I thought it would be of interest to write this article about one of England's greatest explorers scientist - Captain Cook and his explorations and discoveries.  

James Cook was born on 27th  October 1728 at Marton in Yorkshire. A self-educated son of a farm labourer, he first went to sea at the age of 19, working the East Coast coal trade.  

At 27 he enlisted in the Royal Navy and soon became boatswain on the 60-gun ship Eagle. Four years later he surveyed the St Lawrence River, Newfoundland, in preparation for the capture of Quebec, and for three summers he conducted further surveys of the St Lawrence and the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland coasts.

In 1768, Cook began the first of the three great Pacific voyages which would see him chart the whole ocean, from New Zealand to the Arctic, so accurately that his charts can still be used today. Cook spent over eight and a half years charting
previously unknown islands.

Cook's ship for his first Pacific voyage was H.M. Bark Endeavour. The aim of the voyage was to observe the passage of Venus over the disc of the Sun from Tahiti and then to search for a "Great Southern Continent" south of Tahiti. Endeavour left Plymouth on 25th  August 1768, called at Madeira and Rio de Janeiro and, after rounding Cape Horn, reached Tahiti on 10th  April 1769. The transit of Venus was duly recorded on 3rd  June 1769 and Cook soon began the second part of the voyage. 

He searched for, and proved, that there was no continent to the south and west of Tahiti, discovered the east coast of New Zealand and charted its coasts, and discovered and charted the east coast of Australia. During this voyage Cook discovered and named Botany Bay (so called because of the many botanists on board Endeavour). But when Cook reached Batavia on 10th  October 1770, malaria and dysentery spread among the crew. A number died at Batavia and on the way back to the Cape. The expedition had been, however, a great success.

The second voyage began in 1772. Cook had been promoted to Commander and given two new ships, Resolution and Adventure to replace the dilapidated Endeavour. Cook took a copy of John Harrison's prize-winning marine chronometer, H4, made by Larcum Kendall, which, following a successful voyage, he called "my trusty friend the watch".

In January 1773, Cook became the first navigator to cross the Antarctic circle and soon proved that no continent existed in the Southern Ocean above polar latitudes. During this voyage, Cook landed at New Zealand, Tahiti, the Friendly Islands (Tonga), Easter Island, the Marquesas Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, the Isle of Pines and the South Sandwich Islands. Artist William Hodges, who accompanied the voyage, captured the beauty of the newly-discovered islands in his famous paintings.

The object of the third voyage was to search for a 'North-East or North-West Passage. from the Pacific Ocean into the Atlantic Ocean'. From the start of the voyage there were problems. Cook's ships. Resolution and Discovery, had been badly refitted and defects occurred during the voyage. Cook's crew searched to the edge of the Arctic ice without finding a northern passage into the Atlantic, explored and charted the northern Pacific coasts and discovered the islands of the Sandwich Group in the North Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii.

Upon going ashore at Hawaii, Cook was baffled by the great ceremony which greeted his arrival. He did not realise that he was being accepted as a Polynesian god, whose return to the island bringing gifts was prophesied in Polynesian legends. Priests and chiefs called upon the islanders to make contributions, putting a heavy strain on their resources. By the time the two ships sailed again on 4th  February 1779, their departure was hailed with relief. It was a tragic twist of fate that forced them to return two days later after Resolution had sprung her foremast. This time the natives were hostile.

On 14th  February 1779 a ship's boat was stolen by the islanders, forcing Cook ashore to bring a chief off the island as a hostage for its return. A large group of natives gathered with weapons to resist the arrest of their chief. Upon attack, Cook fired his musket but the shot bounced harmlessly off a warrior's armour. Cook was overwhelmed and stabbed to death.

In 2009 the native Hawaiians invited the descendants of Captain Cook back to Hawaii to apologise fro the killing of Captain Cook.

The First Fleet – Australia 1787 – View from England 

I thought as a born and bred Portsmouth chap I thought I would list the first fleet to Australia that left Portsmouth, England in 1787. Portsmouth is famous for its many famous events and people. Captain Arthur Philip R.N, set sail on May 13th  1787 from Portsmouth with 11 vessels and with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts (192 women and 586 men).  This fleet could be classed as the most important expedition since “The Mayflower” from Plymouth, England. Capt. Arthur Philip R.N. was also commissioned as the first Governor of New South Wales. 

Captain Arthur Philip arrived in N.S.W. with 717 convicts of whom 180 were women, guarded by 191 marines under 19 officers. The ships arrived at Botany Bay between 18th and 20th  January 1788. HMS Supply arrived on 18 January, The Alexander, Scarborough and Friendship arrived on 19th  January and the remaining ships on 20th  January 1788.

 

During the voyage there were seven births, while 69 people either died, were discharged, or deserted (61 males and 8 females). As no complete crew musters have survived for the six transports and three store ships, there may have been as many as 110 more seamen.  

This was one of the world's greatest sea voyages — eleven vessels carrying about 1,487 people and stores had travelled for 252 days for more than 15,000 miles (24,000 km) without losing a ship. Forty-eight people had died on the journey, a death rate of just over three per cent. Given the rigours of the voyage, the navigational problems, the poor condition and sea-faring inexperience of the convicts, the primitive medical knowledge, the lack of precautions against scurvy, the crammed and foul conditions of the ships, poor planning and inadequate equipment, this was a remarkable achievement.

      Embarked at Portsmouth    Landed at Port Jackson

Officials & Passengers      16       14

Ships' crews                      324           269

Marines                                   247      245

Marines wives & children   46            54

Convicts            (men)            579      543

Convicts (women)            193            189 Convicts'

Convicts (children)           14               18

 

Total 1,403 1,332

 

Below is a list of Named Convicts which may be of interest to the reader.

 

Convicts Name: Where sentenced   Term 

 

ABEL, Robert, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ABRAMS, Henry, - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

ABRAHAMS, Esther, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

ABELL, Mary, alias Tilley, Worcester - - - 7 

ACRES, Thomas, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ADAMS, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ADAMS, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

AGLEY, Richard, Winchester - - - - - - - - 7 

ALLEN, John, Hertford  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ALLEN, William, Ormskirk - - - - - - - - - 7 

ALLEN, Charles, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ALLEN, Susannah, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

ALLEN, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 

ALLEN, Jamasun, alias Boddington, London - 7 

ALLEN, Mary, alias Conner, London  - - - - 7 

ANDERSON, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ANDERSON, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - - 7 

ANDERSON, John, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ANDERSON, Fanny, Winchester  - - - - - - - 7 

ARCHER, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ARSCOTT, John, Bodmin  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ATKINSON, George, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

AULT, Sarah, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

AYNERS, John, alias Agnew, London  - - - - 7 

AYRES, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

BARTLETT, James, Winchester  - - - - - - - 7 

BARSBY, George, Winchester - - - - - - -  Life 

BARNETT, Henry, alias Barnard, alias 

           Burton, Warwick - - - - - - - - 7 

BAILS, Robert, Reading - - - - - - - - -  Life 

BARNES, Stephen, York  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BANNISTER, George, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

BARFERD, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BARLAND, George, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

BALDING, James, alias William, London  - - 7 

BASON, Elizabeth, wife of William 

           Bason, New Sarum  - - - - - - - 7 

BAYLEY, James, New Sarum - - - - - - - - - 7 

BAZLEY, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BAKER, Thomas, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BARRETT, Thomas, Exeter  - - - - - - - -  Life 

BATLEY, Caten, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BARSBY, Samuel, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BALL, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BARRY, John, Bristol - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BARRET, Daniel - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BARRER, Elizabeth  - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BALDWIN, Ruth, alias Bowyer, London  - - - 7 

BAKER, Martha, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7  

BELL, William, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BENEAR, Samuel, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BELLET, Jacob, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BEARDSLEY, Ann, Derby  - - - - - - - - - - 5 

BEST, John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BECKFORD, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - - 7 

BELLAMY, Thomas, Worcester - - - - - - - - 7 

BRID, James, Croydon - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BIRD, Samuel, Croydon  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BISHOP, Joseph - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BINGHAM, John, alias Boughan - - - - - - - 

BINGHAM, Elizabeth, alias Mooring, London- 

BIRD, Elizabeth, alias Winifred, Maidstone 7 

BLACKHALL, William, Abingdon - - - - - - - 7 

BLUNT, William London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BLAKE, Francis, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BLATHERHORN, William, Exeter - - - - - -  Life 

BLOEDWORTH, James, Kingstone - - - - - - - 7 

BLANCHETT, Susannah, Kingston  - - - - - - 7 

BOND, Peter, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BOYLE, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BOGGIS, William  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BOND, William, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BOND, Mary, wife of John Bond, Wells - - - 7 

BOULTON, Rebecca, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - 7 

BONNER, Jane,  London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BOLTON, Mary, Shrewsbury - - - - - - - - - 7 

BROWN, James, Hertford - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BROWN, William, Southwark  - - - - - - - - 7 

BRINDLEY, John, Warwick  - - - - - - - - - 7 

BROWN, Richard, Reading  - - - - - - - - - 7 

BROUGH, William, Stafford  - - - - - - - - 7 

BRADLEY, James, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BROWN, Thomas, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRADBURY, William, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

BRYANT, Thomas, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - 7 

BRYANT, William, Launceston  - - - - - - - 7 

BROWN, Thomas, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRADFORD, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRANNEGAN, James, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRUCE, Robert, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BROWN, William, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRYANT, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BREWER, William, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRICE, William, Bristol  - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRAND, Curtis  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BRYANT, Michael  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BRAND, Lucy, alias Wood, London  - - - - - 7 

BRANHAM, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BRUCE, Elizabeth, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

BURLEIGH, James, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

BURN, Peter, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BURNE, James, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BUTLER, William, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

BUCKLEY, Joseph, Dorchester  - - - - - - - 7 

BURRIDGE, Samuel, Dorchester - - - - - - - 7 

BURN, Patrick  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BURN, Simon  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BUFLEY, John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

BUNN, Margaret, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BURKITT, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

BURDO, Sarah, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

CARVER, Joseph, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - 7 

CASTLE, James, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CAMPBELL, James, alias George, London  - - 7 

CAMPBELL, James, Guildford - - - - - - - - 7 

CARNEY, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CARTY, Francis, Bodmin - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CAREY, Ann, Taunton  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CARTER, Richard, alias Michael 

          Cartwright, Shrewsbury - - - - - 7 

CABLE, Henry - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

CARROLL, Mary, wife of James Carroll, 

          London - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CESAR, John, Maidstone - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CHIELDS, William - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

CHADDICK, Thomas London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

CHURCH, William, Dorchester  - - - - - - - 7 

CHAAF, William, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CHINERY, Samuel, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - 7 

CHANIN, Edward, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CLOUGH, Richard, Durham  - - - - - - - - - 7 

CLEMENTS, Thomas, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

CLARK, John, alias Hosier, London  - - - - 7 

CLARK, William, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CLARKE, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CLEAVER, Mary, Bristol - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CLEAR, George  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

CLARK, Elizabeth - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

CONNELLY, William, Bristol - - - - - - - - 7 

CORMICK, Edward, Hertford  - - - - - - - - 7 

CORDEN, James, Warwick - - - - - - - - - - 7 

COLLING, Joseph, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

COLE, William, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

COX, John Matthew, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

COLLIER, Richard, Kingstone  - - - - - - - 7 

CONNOLLY, William, Bodmin  - - - - - - - - 7 

CONELLY, Cornelius, Exeter - - - - - - - - 7 

COLMAN, Ishmael, Dorchester  - - - - - - - 7 

COFFIN, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

COLE, Elizabeth, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - 7 

CON, James, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

COPP, James, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

COOMBES, Ann, wife of Samuel Coombes, 

          Taunton  - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

COLE, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

COLLEY, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - -  14 

COOKE, Charlotte, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

COOPER, Mary, Worcester  - - - - - - - - - 7 

COLPITTS, Ann, Durham  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CROSS, John, New Sarum - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CROPPER, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CROSS, William, Coventry - - - - - - - - - 7 

CREAMER, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CREEK, Jane, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

CUNNINGHAM, Edward, London - - - - - - - - 7 

CULLEN, James Bryen, London  - - - - - - - 7 

CULLYHORN, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - 7 

CUDLIP, Jacob, alias Norris, Bodmin  - - - 7 

CUSS, John, alias Hunsboy, New Sarum - - - 7 

CUCKOW, William, - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 

DAVIS, Aaron, Bristol  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAY, Richard, Reading  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIES, Edward, Stafford - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAY, Samuel, Glocester - - - - - - - - -  14 

DAVIS, Samuel, Glocester - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIS, William - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

DAVIS, James, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DANIELLS, Daniel, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

DALEY, James, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIDSON, John, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIS, William, Brecon - - - - - - - - -  Life 

DAVIS, Richard,  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

DALEY, Ann, wife of Gore Daley, alias 

          Ann Warburton, Nether Knutsford- 7 

DARNELL, Margaret, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIS, Ann, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DALTON, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIDSON, Rebecca, wife of Robert 

          Davidson, London - - - - - - - - 7 

DAWSON, Margaret, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIS, Frances, Chelmsford - - - - - - -  14 

DAVIES, Sarah, Worcester - - - - - - - - - 7 

DAVIES, Mary, Shrewsbury - - - - - - - - - 7 

DENNISON, Michael, Poole - - - - - - - - - 7 

DENISON, Barnaby, Bristol  - - - - - - - - 7 

DELANY, Patrick  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

DICKSON, Thomas, alias Ralph Raw, Durham - 7 

DISCALL, Timothy, Bodmin - - - - - - - - - 7 

DIXON, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DICKENSON, Mary, Southwark - - - - - - - - 7 

DOUGLAS, William, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - 7 

DOWLAND, Ferdinand, London - - - - - - - - 7 

DODDING, James, alias Doring,  - - - - - - 

DRING, William, Kingston upon Hull - - - - 7 

DUNNAGE, Joseph, London  - - - - - - - -  Life 

DUDGENS, Elizabeth - - - - - - - - - - - - 

DUNDASS, Jane, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DUTTON, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

DEYER, Leonard, Southwark  - - - - - - - - 7 

DYKES, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

EARLE, William, New Sarum  - - - - - - - - 7 

EAGLETON, William, alias Bones, Kingston - 7 

EATON, Mary, alias Shephard  - - - - - - - 

EARLY, Rachel, Reading - - - - - - - - - - 7 

EATON, Martha  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

ECCLES, Thomas, Guildford  - - - - - - -  Life 

EDMUNDS, William, Monmouth - - - - - - - - 7 

EDWARDS, William - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

EGGLESTON, George, Maidstone - - - - - - - 7 

ELLAM, Peter, Ormskirk - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ELLIOT, William, Croydon - - - - - - - - - 7 

ELLIOT, Joseph, Croydon  - - - - - - - - - 7 

ELAM, Deborah, Chester - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ENGLISH, Nicholas, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

EVERETT, John, Hertford  - - - - - - - - - 7 

EVERINGHAM, Matthew, London  - - - - - - - 7 

EVANS, Williams, Shrewsbury  - - - - - - - 7 

EVANS, Elizabeth, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

FARRELL, Phillip, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

FARLEY, William, Bristol - - - - - - - - - 7 

FARMER, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 

FENTUM, Benjamin, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

FERGUSON, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

FILLESEY, Thomas, Bristol  - - - - - - - - 7 

FITZGERALD, Jane, alias Phillips, London - 7 

FIELD, William,  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

FINLOW, John, alias Hervey - - - - - - - - 

FIELD, Jane, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 

FITZGERALD, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - 7 

FLYN, Edward - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

FLARTY, Phebe, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

FOWKES, Francis, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

FORRESTER, Robert, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

FOYLE, William, New Sarum  - - - - - - - - 7 

FOWLES, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

FOWNES, Margaret, Shrewsbury - - - - - - - 7 

FORBES, Ann, Kingston  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

FREEMAN, James, Hertford - - - - - - - - - 7 

FREEMAN, Robert, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

FRANCIS, William, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

FRANCISCO, George, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

FRY, George  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

FRYER, Catherine, alias Prior  - - - - - - 

FRASER, William, Manchester  - - - - - - - 7 

FRASER, Ellen, Manchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

FULLER, John, Manchester - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

GARDNER, Francis, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

GARTH, Edward, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GARLAND, Francis, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

GARTH, Susannah, alias Grath - - - - - - - 

GABEL, Mary, Southwark - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GASCOYGNE, Olive, Worcester  - - - - - - - 7 

GEARING, Thomas, Oxford  - - - - - - - -  Life 

GESS, George, Gloucester - - - - - - - - - 7 

GEORGE, Anne, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GLENTON, Thomas, Northallerton - - - - - - 7 

GLOSTER, William, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

GORDON, Daniel, Winchester - - - - - - - - 7 

GOODWIN, Edward, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

GOODWIN, Andrew, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

GOULD, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GRAY, Charles, Southwark - - - - - - - - - 7 

GRIFFITHS, Samuel, alias Briscow, alias 

          Butcher, Gloucester  - - - - - - 7 

GREENWELL, Nicholas, London  - - - - - - - 7 

GREEN, John, Reading - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GRIFFITHS, Thomas, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

GRANGER, Charles, Plymouth - - - - - - - - 7 

GRACE, James - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

GREEN, Hannah  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

GROVES, Mary, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GREEN, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GREEN, Ann, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

GREENWOOD, Mary (?), London  - - - - - - - 7 

GUNTER, William, Bristol - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

HANDFORD, John, Winchester - - - - - - - - 7 

HATCHER, John, Winchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

HATFIELD, William, Maidstone - - - - - - - 7 

HAWKES, Richard, Reading - - - - - - - - - 7 

HARRIS, William, Maidstone - - - - - - - - 7 

HATCH, John, Reading - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HARTLEY, John, Oxford  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HART, John, Stafford - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HAINES, Joseph, Gloucester - - - - - - - - 7 

HATHAWAY, Henry, Gloucester  - - - - - - - 7 

HAYES, Dennis, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HALL, Samuel, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HARBINE, Joseph, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HARPER, Joshua, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HAYTON, George, alias Clayton, London  - - 7 

HARRISON, Joseph, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

HART, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HARRIS, John, London - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

HAYES, John, Guildford - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HATTOM, Joseph - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HARRIFON, Joseph - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HAMLIN, William, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HALL, Joseph, Exeter - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

HALL, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HADON, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HA?ES, William - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HANDY, Cooper  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HAYNES, William  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HERVEY, Elizabeth  - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HALL, Margaret - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HART, Frances  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HARRISON, Mary, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HEADING, James, Chelmsford - - - - - - -  Life 

HEADINGTON, Thomas, Abingdon - - - - - - - 7 

HERBERT, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HART, Catherine, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HERBERT , John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HANDLAND, Dorothy, alias Gray, London  - - 7 

HALL, Sarah, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HAMILTON, Maria, london  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HARRISON, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HARWOOD, Ester, alias Howard, London - - - 7 

HAYWARD, Elizabeth, London - - - - - - - - 7 

HALL, Elizabeth, Newcastle - - - - - - - - 7 

HERBERT, Jane, alias Rose, alias Jenny 

          Russell, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

HENRY, Catherine, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

HILL, John, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - -  Life 

HINDLEY, William, alias Platt, Ormskirk  - 7 

HINDLE, Ottiwell, Preston  - - - - - - - - 7 

HILL, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HILL, Thomas, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HILT, William, Exeter  - - - - - - - - -  Life 

HILL, Thomas - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HIPSLEY, Eliabeth, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

HILL, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HOLLISTER, Job, Bristol  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HAWELL, Thomas, Stafford - - - - - - - - - 7 

HOLMES, William, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HOLLOWAY, James, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HOWARD, Thomas, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HOGG, William, London  - - - - - - - - -  14 

HOWARD, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HORTOP, James, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

HOLLAND, William, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

HOLMES, Susannah - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HOLLOGIN, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - - 7 

HUGHES, Hugh, Southwark  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HUMPHREY, Edward, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

HUSBAND, William, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

HUGHES, John, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - - 7 

HURLEY, Jeremiah, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

HUBBARD, William - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HUMPHREYS, Henry, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

HUGHES, Thomas - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HUDSON, John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HUSSEY, James  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HUGHES, Frances Ann, Lancaster - - - - - - 7 

HUFFNELL, Susannah, Worcester  - - - - - - 7 

HUMPHRIES, Mary, - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

HYLIDS, Thomas, Guildford  - - - - - - - - 7 

 

IRVINE, John, alias Aderson, alias Law, 

          Lincoln  - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

JACKSON, William, Durham - - - - - - - - - 7 

JACOBS, David, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JACOBS, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JACKSON, Hannah, Bristol - - - - - - - - - 7 

JAGET, Joseph, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JAMESON, James - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

JACKSON, Jane, alias Esther Roberts, 

          London - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JACKSON, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JEFFRIES, Robert, Devizes  - - - - - - - - 7 

JEFFERIES, John, Maidstone - - - - - - - - 7 

JENKINS, Robert, alias Brown, Maidstone  - 7 

JEPP, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JENKINS, William, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

INGRAM, Benjamin, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

INETT, Ann, Worcester  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JONES, Francis, Winchester - - - - - - - - 7 

JONES, Thomas, Warwick - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JOHNSON, Charles, Manchester - - - - - - - 7 

JONES, Edward, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

JOSEPHS, Thomas, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

JOHNSON, William, Kingston - - - - - - - - 7 

JOHNS, Stephen, Launceston - - - - - - - - 7 

JONES, Margaret, Launceston  - - - - - -  14 

JOHNSON, Edward, Dorcester - - - - - - - - 7 

JONES, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - -  14 

JONES, William, Shewsbury  - - - - - - - - 7 

JONES, Richard, Shewsbury  - - - - - - - - 7 

JONES, Thomas, Bristol - - - - - - - - -  14 

JOHNSON, Catherine, London - - - - - - - - 7 

JOHNSON, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

KELLY, Thomas, Pontefract  - - - - - - - - 7 

KELLAN, John, alias Keeling, London  - -  Life 

KENNEDY, Martha, Kingston  - - - - - - - - 7 

KIDNEY, Thomas, Bristol  - - - - - - - - - 7 

KILBY, William, Reading  - - - - - - - - - 7 

KING, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

KILPACK, David, London - - - - - - - - -  Life 

KIMBERLEY, Edward, Coventry  - - - - - - - 7 

KNOWLER, John, Maidstone - - - - - - - - - 7 

KNOWLAND, Andrew - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 

LANKEY, David, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LANE, Richard, Winchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

LAWRELL, John, Bodmin  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LANE, William, Chelmsford  - - - - - - - - 7 

LARNE, James, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LAMBETH, John, Bristol - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LAVELL, Henry  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

LARA, Flora, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 

LAYCOCK, Caroline, London  - - - - - - - - 

LANGLEY, Jane, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LAWRENCE, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LEMON, Isaac, Chelmsford - - - - - - - - - 7 

LEVY, Joseph, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LEARY, John, Winchester  - - - - - - - - - 7 

LEGG, George, Dorchester - - - - - - - - - 7 

LEARY, Jeremiah, Bristol - - - - - - - -  14 

LEGROVE, Stephen - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

LEE, Elizabeth, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LEWIS, Sophia, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LEONARD, Elizabeth, London - - - - - - - - 7 

LEVY, Amelia, Southwark  - - - - - - - - - 7 

LIFT, George, London - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

LIMEBURNER, John, New Sarum  - - - - - - - 7 

LIMPUS, Thomas, Exeter - - - - - - - - -  Life 

LIGHTFOOT, Samuel, Exeter  - - - - - - - - 7 

LONGSTREET, Joseph, Marlborough  - - - - - 7 

LONG, Joseph, Gloucester - - - - - - - -  14 

LOCKLEY, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LONG, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

LOVE, Mary, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

LOCK, Elizabeth, Gloucester  - - - - - - - 7 

LUCAS, Nathaniel, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

LYNCH, Humphry, New Sarum  - - - - - - - - 7 

LYNCH, Ann, Bristol  - - - - - - - - - -  14 

LYDE, John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 

MAY, Richard, New Sarun  - - - - - - - - - 7 

MARTIN, Stephen, Bristol - - - - - - - - - 7 

MANSFIELD, John, Chelmsford  - - - - - - - 7 

M'LEAN, Francis, Guildford - - - - - - - - 7 

M'LEAN, Thomas, Guildford  - - - - - - - - 7 

MATON, Thomas, Maidstone - - - - - - - - - 7 

M'DONNAUGH, James, Maidstone - - - - - - - 7 

MARINER, William, Oxford - - - - - - - - - 7 

MARROTT, John, Gloucester  - - - - - - - - 7 

M'LAUGHLIN, Charles, Durham  - - - - - - - 7 

MACINTIRE, John, Durham  - - - - - - - - - 7 

MARTIN, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

M'DONALD, Alexander, London  - - - - - - - 7 

MARNEY, William, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

MARSHALL, Joseph, London - - - - - - - -  14 

M'LEAN, Edward, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - 7 

MARTIN, Abraham, New Sarum - - - - - - - - 7 

MARTIN, Thomas, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MARTYN, James, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

McCORMICK, Sarah, Manchester - - - - - - - 7 

McCORMACK, Mary, Liverpool - - - - - - - - 7 

MASON, Betty, Gloucester - - - - - - - -  14 

McGRAH, Redman - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

McDEED, Richard  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

McNA MAR, William  - - - - - - - - - - - - 

MACKRIE, James - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

MARRIOTT, Jane, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MATHER, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MATHER, Mather, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MASON, Susannah, alias Gibbs, London - - - 

McCABE, Eleanor, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

MARSHALL, Mary, London - - - - - - - - -  Life 

MARSHALL, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MARTIN, Ann, Southwark - - - - - - - - - - 

MEYNELL, John, alias William Radford, 

          Nottingham - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MESSIAH, Jacob - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

MEECH, Jane, wife of William Meech, Exeter 7 

MILTON, Charles, Maidstone - - - - - - - - 7 

MIDGLEY, Samuel, Lancaster - - - - - - - - 7 

MIDDLETON, Richard, London - - - - - - - - 7 

MITCHELL, Nathaniel, Dorchester  - - - - - 7 

MILLS, Matthew - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

MITCHCRAFT, Mary, Kingston - - - - - - - - 7 

MITCHELL, Mary, Kingston - - - - - - - - - 7 

MORRIS, Peter, Bristol - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MOWBRAY, John, Lincoln - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MORGAN, Richard, Gloucester  - - - - - - - 7 

MORRISBY, John, London - - - - - - - - - - 7  

MOORE, William, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MORLEY, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MOORIN, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MORGAN, Robert, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MOBBS, Samuel, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MORGAN, William, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

MOULD, William, Guildford  - - - - - - - - 7 

MOLLANDS, John, Launceston - - - - - - - - 7 

MOYLE, Edward, Launceston  - - - - - - - - 7 

MOOD, Charles  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MORTIMORE, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - 7 

MORLEY, Joseph - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

MORTON, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MULLOCK, Jesse, New Sarum  - - - - - - - - 7 

MURPHY, William, Liverpool - - - - - - - - 7 

MUNROE, John, alias Nurse, London  - - - - 7 

MULLIS, Stephen, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - 7 

MURPHY, James  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

MUNRO, Lydia, Kingston - - - - - - - - -  14 

MULLENS, Hannah, London  - - - - - - - -  Life 

 

NEWLAND, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

NETTLETON, Robert, Kingston upon Hull  - - 7 

NEAL, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

NEAL, James, Bristol - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

NEEDHAM, Elizabeth, London - - - - - - - - 7 

NICHOLLS, John, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

NORTON, Phebe, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

NUNN, Robert,  London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

O'CRAFT, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

OGDEN, James, Manchester - - - - - - - - - 7 

OKEY, William, Gloucester  - - - - - - - - 7 

OLDFIELD, Thomas, Manchester - - - - - - - 7 

OLDFIELD, Isabella, Manchester - - - - - - 7 

OPLEY, Peter, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - - 7 

ORFORD, Thomas, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

OSBORNE, Thomas, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

OSBORNE, Elizabeth, alias Jones, London  - 7 

OWLES, John, Croydon - - - - - - - - - - - 7  

OWEN, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

OWEN, Joseph, Shewsbury  - - - - - - - -  14 

 

PAGE, Paul, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PANE, William, Nottingham  - - - - - - - - 7 

PARRY, Edward, Stafford  - - - - - - - - - 7 

PARR, William, Liverpool - - - - - - - - - 7 

PALMER, John Henry, London - - - - - - - - 7 

PARKER, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PARISH, William, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

PARTRIDGE, Richard, London - - - - - - -  Life 

PARRIS, Peter, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PARKINSON, Jane, alias Partington, alias 

          Ann Marsden, Manchester  - - - - 7 

PARKER, Elizabeth, Gloucester  - - - - - - 7 

PARFLEY, Ann, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PARKER, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PARTRIDGE, Sarah, alias Roberts, London  - 7 

PARRY, Sarah, London - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

PERROT, Edward Bearcroft, Bristol  - - - - 7 

PETRIE, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PEYTON, Samuel, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PERCIVAL, Richard, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

PETTITT, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PEAULET, James, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PEET, Charles, London  - - - - - - - - -  Life 

PECK, Joshua, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PERKINS, Edward, Plymouth  - - - - - - - - 7 

PETHERICK, John, Plymouth  - - - - - - - - 7 

PENNY, John  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PHILLIMORE, William, London  - - - - - - - 7 

PHILLIPS, Richard, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

PHILLIPS, Mary, Taunton  - - - - - - - - - 7 

PHYFIELD, Roger, alias Twyfield, 

          Shrewsbury - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PHYN, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PIGOTT, Samuel, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PINDER, Mary, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PIPKIN, Elizabeth, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

PILES, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

POPE, David, Southwark - - - - - - - - - - 7 

POWER, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PONTIE, John, London - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

POOLE, Jane, Wells - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

POWER, William - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

POWLEY, Elizabeth  - - - - - - - - - - - - 

POWELL, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PRICE, John, Southwark - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PRIOR, Thomas, Reading - - - - - - - - - - 7 

PRICE, James, Gloucester - - - - - - - - - 7 

PRITCHARD, Thomas  - - - - - - - - - - - - 

PUGH, Edward, Gloucester - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

RANDALL, John, Manchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

REYMOND, George, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

RAMFEY, John, Kingston - - - - - - - - - - 7 

REPEAT, Charles, Warwick - - - - - - - - - 7 

READ, William, Croydon - - - - - - - - - - 7 

REARDON, Bartholomew, Winchester - - - - - 7 

READ, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

RISDALE, Thomas, alias Crowder, Bristol-  Life 

RICHARD, James, East Grinstead - - - - - - 7  

RICHARDSON, James, Maidstone - - - - - - - 7 

RISBY, Edward, Gloucester  - - - - - - - - 7 

RICHARDSON, William, London  - - - - - - - 7 

RICHARDSON, Hardwicke, London  - - - - - - 7 

RICHARDSON, John, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

RICHARD, David, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

RICHARDSON, Samuel, London - - - - - - - - 7 

RICKSON, William, Chelmsford - - - - - - - 7 

RICHARDS, John, alias Williams, Winchester 7 

RICHARD, James, Launceston - - - - - - - - 7 

RICE, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROPE, Anthony, Chelmsford  - - - - - - - - 7 

ROGERS, Daniel, Croydon  - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROBINSON, George, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - 7 

ROGERS, Isaac, Gloucester  - - - - - - -  14 

ROBINSON, Thomas, Kingston upon Hull - - - 7 

ROBERTS, John, Liverpool - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROBINSON, George, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROMAIN, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROWE, John, Launceston - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROWE, William, Launceston  - - - - - - - - 7 

ROBERTS, William, Bodmin - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROBINSON, William, Exeter  - - - - - - - - 7 

ROACH, Henry, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

ROBINS, John, alias Major, Exeter  - - - - 7 

ROUS, Walton, alias Batley - - - - - - - - 

ROLT, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 

ROSSON, Isabella, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

RUSSEL, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

RUGLASS, John, London  - - - - - - - - -  Life 

RUSSLER, John, London  - - - - - - - - -  Life 

RUCE, James, Bodmin  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

RUTH, Robert, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

RYAN, John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 

SALTMARSH, William, Kingston - - - - - - - 7 

SANDERSON, Thomas, Lincoln - - - - - - - - 7 

SANDS, William, Lincoln  - - - - - - - - - 7 

SAMPSON, Peter, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SANDLIN, Ann, alias Lynes, alias 

          Pattens, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

SCATTERGOOD, Robert, Stafford  - - - - - - 7 

SCOTT, Elizabeth, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

SELSHIRE, Samuel, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

SEYMOUR, John, Sherborne - - - - - - - - - 7 

SHEARMAN, William, Reading - - - - - - - - 7 

SHAW, Joseph, Stafford - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SHEPHERD, Robert, Durham - - - - - - - - - 7 

SHARPE, George, Durham - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SHORE, William, Lancaster  - - - - - - - - 7 

SHORE, John  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

SHIERS, James, London  - - - - - - - - -  Life 

SILVERTHORN, John, New Sarum - - - - - - - 7 

SIDEWAY, Robert  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

SLATER, Sarah, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMALL, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMART, Richard, Gloucester - - - - - - - - 7 

SMART, Daniel, Gloucester  - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Thomas, Lancaster - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, William, Liverpool  - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Edward, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, William, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Thomas, alias Haynes, London  - - - 7 

SMITH, James, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, John, Guildford - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, William, Bodmin - - - - - - - - - - 1 

SMITH, Ann, wife of John Smith, Winchester 7 

SMITH, Hannah, Winchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, William, Dorchester - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Edward, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Ann, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Catherine, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Ann, London - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Catherine, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

SMITH, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

SNALEHAM, William, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

SPARKS, Henry  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

SPENCER, Daniel, Dorchester  - - - - - -  14 

SPENCER, John, alias Pearce  - - - - - - - 

SPENCE, Mary, Wigan  - - - - - - - - - - - 5 

SPRIGMORE, Charlotte, London - - - - - - - 7 

SPRINGHAM, Mary, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

SQUIRES, James, Kingston - - - - - - - - - 7 

STANLEY, William, New Sarum  - - - - - - - 7 

STRONG, James, Dorchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

STOW, James, Lincoln - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

STONE, Martin, Warwick - - - - - - - - - - 7 

STOKEE, John, Durham - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

STONE, Charles, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

STONE, Henry, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

STOGDELL, John, London - - - - - - - - -  14 

STUART, James, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

STANTON, Thomas, alias Ebden, Launceston - 7 

STEPHENS, John Morris, Dorchester  - - - - 7 

STEWART, Margaret, Exeter  - - - - - - - - 7 

STRECH, Thomas, Shrewsbury - - - - - - - - 7 

SUMMERS, John, Gloucester  - - - - - - - - 7 

 

TAYLOR, Joshua, Manchester - - - - - - - - 7 

TAYLOR, Henry  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

TAYLOR, Sarah, Kingston  - - - - - - - - - 7 

TENANT, Thomas Hilton, alias Phillip 

          Divine, Chelmsford - - - - - - - 7 

TEAGUE, Cornelius, Bodmin  - - - - - - - - 7 

TENCHALL, James, alias Tenninghill - - - - 

THACKERY, Elizabeth, Manchester  - - - - - 7 

THOMPSON, William, Durham  - - - - - - - - 7 

THOMAS, James, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

THOMPSON, James, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

THOMAS, James, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

THOMAS, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

THOMPSON, William, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

THOUDY, James  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

THOMAS, Elizabeth, Wigan - - - - - - - - - 7 

THORNTON, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

TUNMINS, Thomas, Warwick - - - - - - - - - 7 

TILLEY, Thomas, Stafford - - - - - - - - - 7 

TILL, Thomas, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

TODD, Nicholas, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

TROTTER, Joseph, Maidstone - - - - - - - - 7 

TRACE, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

TRIPPETT, Susannah, London - - - - - - - - 7 

TURNER, Ralph, Manchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

TUSO, Joseph, London - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

TURNER, John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

TUCKER, Moses, Plymouth  - - - - - - - - - 7 

TURNER, Thomas - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

TURNER, John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

TURNER, Mary, Worcester  - - - - - - - - - 7 

TWYNEHAM, William, Reading - - - - - - - - 7 

TWYFIELD, Ann, since said to be married 

          to William Dawley, a convict, 

          Shrewsbury - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

TYRRELL, William, Winchester - - - - - - - 7 

 

VANDELL, Edward, East Grinstead  - - - - - 7 

VINCENT, Henry, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

VICKERY, William, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

UNDERWOOD, James, New Sarum  - - - - - -  14 

USHER, John, Maidstone - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

WATERHOUSE, William, Kingston  - - - - - - 7 

WATSAN, John, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WARD, John, Lowth  - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WALL, William, Oxford  - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WAGER, Benjamin, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WALSH, William, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WALKER, John, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WALBOURNE, James, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

WATSON, Thomas, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WARE, Charlotte  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

WATKINS, Mary  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

WAINWRIGHT, Ellen, alias Esther Eccles, 

          Preston  - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WARD, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WADE, Mary, alias Cacklane, London - - -  14 

WELCH, James, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WELCH, John, Durham  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WEST, Benjamin, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WESTWOOD, John, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WELSH, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WELCH, John, London  - - - - - - - - - -  Life 

WESTLALE, Edward, Exeter - - - - - - - - - 7 

WADDICOMB, Richard, Exeter - - - - - - - - 7 

WHEELER, Samuel, Croydon - - - - - - - - - 7 

WHITAKER, George, Maidstone  - - - - - - - 7 

WHITING, William, Gloucester - - - - - - - 7 

WHITTON, Edward, Maidstone - - - - - - -  Life 

WHITE, James, Maidstone  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WILCOCKS, Samuel, Dorcester  - - - - - - - 7 

WILTON, William, Bristol - - - - - - - - - 7 

WILSON, Charles, London  - - - - - - - -  Life 

WILSON, Peter, Manchester  - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, Charles, London  - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, James, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, John, alias Black Jack, 

          Maidstone  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, Robert, Launceston - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, John, alias Floyd, Bodmin  - - - 7 

WILDING, John, alias Warren, Bury  - - - - 7 

WICKHAM, Mary, New Sarum - - - - - - - -  14 

WILLIAMS, Peter, alias Flaggett, 

          alias Creamer, Exeter  - - - - - 7 

WILCOCKS, Richard, Exeter  - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, John, Exeter - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WISEHAMMER, John, Bristol  - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, Daniel, Preston  - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, Frances, Mold  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WILLIAMS, Mary, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WOOD, George, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WOODCOCK, Peter, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WOODHAM, Samuel, London  - - - - - - - -  Life 

WORSDELL, William, Launceston  - - - - - - 7 

WOOLCOT, John, Exeter  - - - - - - - - -  Life 

WOODCOCK, Francis, Shrewsbury  - - - - - - 7 

WOOD, Mark - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

WRIGHT, Thomas, Reading  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WRIGHT, Benjamin, London - - - - - - - - - 7 

WRIGHT, Joseph, London - - - - - - - - - - 7 

WRIGHT, William, London  - - - - - - - - - 7 

WRIGHT, James, Maidstone - - - - - - - - - 7 

WRIGHT, Ann, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

 

YARDSLEY, Thomas, Shrewsbury - - - - - - - 7 

YATES, Nancy, York - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

YOUNG, John, London  - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

YOUNG, Simon, London - - - - - - - - - - - 7 

YOUNGSON, Elizabeth, Lancaster - - - - - - 7 

YOUNGSON, George, Lancaster  - - - - - - - 7 

The above list of convicts was authored by a Barbara Turner in 1992.

The Mayflower and It's Passengers – A View from England  

I thought it would be of interest to write this article about the The Mayflower and it's voyage to the new world from Plymouth, England to Plymouth in the New World. One of the unusual things about the first colony was that the Turkeys that were eaten at the first Thanksgiving were taken to the colony from England. By 1776 there were 13 Colonies of the Commonwealth of America and to this day there are 4 Commonwealth States of America. 

The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England to Plymouth Massachusetts, Commonwealth of America (which would become the capital of Plymouth Colony), in 1620. There were 102 passengers and a crew of 25–30.

The vessel left England on September 6th 1620 (Old Style) September 16th  (New Style), and after a gruelling 66-day journey marked by disease, which claimed two lives, the ship dropped anchor inside the hook tip of Cape Cod Provincetown Harbour on November 11th / November 21st . The Mayflower was originally destined for the mouth of the Hudson River near present-day New York City, at the northern edge of England's Virginia colony, which itself was established with the 1607 Jamestown Settlement. However, the Mayflower went off course as the winter approached, and remained in Cape Cod Bay.

On March 21st / 31st , 1621, all surviving passengers, who had inhabited the ship during the winter, moved ashore at Plymouth, and on April 5th / 15th the Mayflower, a privately commissioned vessel, returned to England.

In 1623, a year after the death of captain Christopher Jones, the Mayflower was most likely dismantled for scrap lumber in Rotherhythe, London.

The Mayflower has a famous place in American history as a symbol of early European colonization of the future US. With their religion oppressed by the English Church and government, the small party of religious Puritan separatists who comprised about half of the passengers on the ship desired a life where they could practice their religion freely. This symbol of religious freedom resonates in US society and the story of the Mayflower is a staple of any American history textbook. Americans whose roots are traceable back to New England often believe themselves to be descended from Mayflower passengers.

The main record for the voyage of the Mayflower and the disposition of the Plymouth Colony comes from William Bradford who was a guiding force and later the governor of the colony.

To establish legal order and to quell increasing strife within the ranks, the settlers wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact after the ship dropped anchor at the tip of Cape Cod on November 11th / 21st in what is now Provincetown Harbour.

The settlers, upon initially setting anchor, explored the snow-covered area and discovered an empty Native American village. The curious settlers dug up some artificially made mounds, some of which stored corn while others were burial sites. Nathaniel Philbrick recounts that the settlers stole the corn and looted and desecrated the graves, sparking friction with the locals. Philbrick goes on to say that as they moved down the coast to what is now Eastham, they explored the area of Cape Cod for several weeks, looting and stealing native stores as they went. He then writes about how they decided to relocate to Plymouth after a difficult encounter with the local native Americans, the Nausets, at First Encounter Beach, in December 1620.

However, Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation records that they took "some" of the corn to show the others back at the boat, leaving the rest. Then, later they took what they needed from another store of grain, paying the locals back in six months, which they gladly received.

Also there was found more of their corn and of their beans of various colours; the corn and beans they brought away, purposing to give them full satisfaction when they should meet with any of them as, about some six months afterwards they did, to their good content.

During the winter the passengers remained on board the Mayflower, suffering an outbreak of a contagious disease described as a mixture of scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis. When it ended, there were only 53 passengers, just more than half, still alive. Likewise, half of the crew died as well. In spring, they built huts ashore, and on March 21st / 31st  1621, the surviving passengers left the Mayflower.

Whitefriars Glass – 17th Century History 

The Whitefriars Glass company is one of the oldest glass companies in Britain from the 17th Century to the present day and is famous for its uniquely shaped glass. As a long established British glass designer and maker I thought readers may be interested in it's history.

The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were English glass-makers, lead lighters and stained glass window manufacturers. As Whitefriars Glass, the company existed from the 17th century, but became well known as a result of the 19th century Gothic Revival and the demand for stained glass windows.

In 1834 James Powell (1774-1840), a London wine merchant and entrepreneur, purchased the Whitefriars Glass Company, a small glass works off Fleet Street in London, believed to have been established in 1680. Powell and his sons were newcomers to glass making, but soon acquired the necessary expertise. They experimented and developed new techniques, devoting a large part of their production to the creating of church stained glass windows. The firm acquired a large number of patents for their new ideas and became world leaders in their field, business being boosted by the building of hundreds of new churches during the Victorian era. While Powell's manufactured stained glass windows, they also provided glass to other stained glass firms.

A major product of the factory was decorative quarry glass which was mass-produced by moulding and printing, rather than hand-cutting and painting. This product could be used in church windows as a cheap substitute for stained glass. It was often installed in new churches, to be later replaced by pictorial windows. Most of this quarry glass was clear, printed in black and detailed in bright yellow silver stain. Occasionally the quarries were produced in red, blue or pink glass, but these are rare. Surprisingly few entire windows of Powell quarries are to be seen in English churches, although they survive in little-seen locations such as vestries, ringing chambers and behind pipe organs. St Philip's Church, Sydney, retains a full set of Powell quarry windows. Powell also produced many windows in which pictorial mandorlas or roundels are set against a background of quarries. See picture right

During the latter part of the 1800s the firm formed a close association with leading architects and designers such as T. G. Jackson Edward Burne Jones, William De Morgan and James Doyle. Whitefriars produced the glass that Phillip Webb used in his designs for William Morris. The firm’s production diversified in the 1850s to include domestic table glass after supplying the glassware for William Morris's Red House.

In 1875 Harry James Powell, grandson of the founder and an Oxford graduate in chemistry, joined the business. His training, which led to more scientific production and innovations such as previously unattainable colours and heat-resistant glass, for applications in science and industry, like X-Ray tubes and light bulbs.

New production lines such as opalescent glass proved to be extremely successful. The firm took part in major exhibitions around the world. Designs were copied from historical Venetian and Roman glass found in European museums and art galleries. Harry Powell, an admirer of Ruskin delivered numerous lectures on glass manufacture.

The firm's name was changed to Powell & Sons (Whitefriars) Ltd in 1919 and the growth in business demanded new premises. In 1923 the new factory was opened in Wealdstone despite a flourishing business, the great expense of the new factory scuttled plans to construct a village to house the workers in a style fashionable during the Arts and Crafts Movement. The furnaces were lit at the new factory using the flame from a furnace at the old works, which had been carefully carried across London in a brazier. The company also had showrooms on Wigmore Street, and this attracted customers for both domestic and window glass.

In the years between World War 1 and World War 11 business and the financial situation were much improved. Glassware trended to the colourful and heavy, and optic moulding and wheel engraving played a major part in bringing the Art Deco style to the middle and upper classes.

In the 1930s the firm started production of Milefiori paperweights, characterised by shallow domes and wide bases. This period of prosperity was ended with the onset of World War 11. Glass manufacture was restricted to that aiding the war effort. Cessation of hostilities found the company in a desperate struggle for survival, aggravated by the loss of key personnel who had enlisted and not returned.

The Festival of Britain of 1951 led to a much-needed financial infusion for the economy. Whitefriars was selected as an outstanding example of modern British industry. The following years saw austere and functional Scandinavian design sweeping Europe, and dominating stock purchases by major outlets such as Selfridge's and Fortran's & Mason.

The arrival of glass bricks which were cheap, thick slabs of coloured glass set in concrete bricks, dispensed with the need for expensive stained glass in new churches.

One of the many well-known glass designers who worked at Whitefriars was Geoffrey Baxter. He joined the factory in 1954 after graduating from the Royal College of Art. Baxter had a great influence on Whitefriars table and domestic glass designs. In the 1960s, he began to experiment with a new moulded glass. This led to the introduction of the Textured range in 1967. The pieces were made in moulds using tree bark, nails, wire and other materials to produce alternative textures to the glass.

In 1962 the company name was changed back to Whitefriars Glass Ltd. and specialised in freeform domestic glass ware until its purchase in 1981 by Caithness Glass.

The Brown Dressed Lady Ghost of Raynham Hall – England

The Brown Dressed Lady of Raynham Hall has been sighted quite a few times over the years. She is so called because of the brown brocade dress she is supposedly seen wearing while wandering the halls and staircase.

According to legend, the Brown Dressed Lady of Raynham is the ghost of Lady Townsend who was married to Charles Townsend, a man known for his fiery temper. When Charles learned of his wife's infidelity, he punished her by imprisoning her in the family estate at Raynham Hall, located in Norfolk, England. He never allowed her to leave its premises, not even to see her children. She remained there until her death, when she was an old woman.

Over the next two centuries Lady Townsend's ghost was repeatedly sighted wandering through Raynham Hall, suggesting that she never left its premises even after her death.

For instance, in the early nineteenth century King George IV saw her while he was staying at the hall. He said that she stood beside his bed wearing a brown dress, and that her face was pale and her hair dishevelled.

In 1835 Colonel Loftus sighted her. He was visiting the house for the Christmas holidays and was walking to his room late one night when he saw a figure standing in the hall in front of him. The figure was wearing a brown dress. He tried to see who the woman was, but she mysteriously disappeared.

The next week Colonel Loftus again saw the figure. This time, however, he got a better look at her. He said she was an aristocratic looking woman. She was wearing the same brown satin dress, and her skin glowed with a pale luminescence, but, to his horror, her eyes had been gouged out and he took note of her empty eye-sockets. The incident resulted in several members of staff resigning and a full investigation of Raynham Hall involving local detectives.

Colonel Loftus told others of his experience, and more people then came forward to say that they too had seen a strange figure. An artist drew a painting of the 'brown lady' (as she was now known), and this picture was then hung in the room where she was most frequently seen.

A few years later the novelist Captain Frederick Marryat was staying at Raynham Hall. He decided to spend the night in the room in which she was most frequently seen. He studied the painting of her and waited to see her, but she never appeared that night.

However, a few days later he was walking down an upstairs hallway with two friends when they suddenly saw the brown lady. She was carrying a lantern and glided past them as they cowered behind a door. According to Marryat she grinned at them in a 'diabolical manner'. Before she disappeared, Marryat leapt out from behind the door and fired at her with a pistol that he happened to be carrying. The bullet passed through her and lodged in a wall. In 1936 a phograph was taken of the ghost and the image is widely believed to be one of the best and most convincing of all the known photographs of ghosts. In many publications it is presented as actual photographic proof of the existence of ghosts.

Windsor Castle – It's Royal Hauntings

Windsor Castle in England is famous for it's many hauntings seen over the centuries by many famous kings and queens of kings and queens. I thought it would be of interest to write this article about the various hauntings of Windsor Castle.

William the Conqueror began the building of Windsor Castle in 1075 after the Norman Conquest. The castle is almost one mile in circumference and is the largest in Britain. Since it was built, the Castle has been embroiled in legends of suicide, witchcraft and demonic ghosts. The list of ghostly sightings reported at the Castle is huge.

The castle was nearly destroyed during the civil war of the 1600s. While the castle served as a prison, it was also a safe haven for the Royal family for a long time.

Queen Elizabeth I haunts the Royal Library and is said to have been seen by several members of the Royal family. The sounds of her high heels are heard on bare floorboards, before her imposing figure appears and passes through the library and into an inner room. She has also been seen standing at the window in the Dean's Cloister. She is always dressed in a black gown with a black lace shawl draped over her shoulders.

King Charles I has often been seen in the library and the Canon's house. Although he was beheaded during the English Revolution, his ghost is seen as a whole. It is reported that he looks exactly like his portraits.

A young guard shot and killed himself and another guard on duty saw him afterwards.

The most frequently seen specter is Herne the Hunter whose ghost has been seen by hundreds of people in Great Windsor Park. According to legend, he was a royal huntsman who was framed by those who were jealous of his relationship with the king. He felt disgraced and hanged himself. His ghost is seen astride a phantom black steed, often accompanied by spectral baying hounds.

Both Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn haunt the Tower of London.

Henry VIII haunts the Deanery Cloisters. People heard his footsteps and groans.

One of the most famous ghosts reported at the Castle is that of King Henry VIII, while various guests staying at the castle have reported hearing the king's footsteps along the long hallways of the Castle. Some have even claimed to hear moans and groans coming from the hallway.

Anne Boleyn, one of his wives, whom he had executed, has been sighted and seen standing at the window in the Dean's Cloister.

In the last 250 years, hundreds of people have claimed to have seen the spirit of Herne the Hunter, who was the favourite huntsman of King Richard II. He is often seen accompanied by his pack of hounds, careering across the Great Park searching for lost souls.

The story is that Herne was one of the Royal keepers in the time of King Richard II (1367-1400). Herne had two large black hounds and was hated by the other keepers because of his great skill. One evening King Richard was hunting a stag in the grounds of Windsor Park, but the stag turned on him and he would have been killed if Herne hadn't stood between the enraged animal and Richard.

However, Herne was fatally wounded and fell to the ground. At this point a strange dark man appeared and said he could cure Herne. Richard asked him to go ahead and the dark man cut the stag's head off and put it on Herne's body. The Dark Man then took Herne away to his hut on Bagshot Heath some miles away, to complete the cure. The King was so grateful to Herne that he swore that if Herne recovered he would make him his chief keeper.

The other keepers disliked Herne so much that they wished that he would die. The Dark Man overheard them and offered them a bargain - if they would grant him the first request he made, he would ensure that, though Herne would recover, he would lose all his hunting skills. They agreed and everything happened as the Dark Man said. Herne was so distraught at the loss of his skill that he found a mighty oak in Windsor Park and hanged himself from it. Instantly, his body disappeared.

The other keepers weren't happy for long though, because they too lost all their hunting abilities. They found the Dark Man and asked him to help them. He said that if they went to the oak the following night, they would have a solution to their problem. When they went to the Oak, the spirit of Herne appeared to them. He told them to go and fetch his hounds and horses for a chase.

This they did and when they returned, Herne took them to a Beech tree. There he invoked the Dark Man who burst from the tree in a shower of sparks and flame. His first request of the unfortunate keepers was that they form a band for Herne the Hunter. Bound by their oath, they had to swear allegiance to Herne. After that, night after night, they hunted through the forests.

The ghostly haunt's is presaged by flashes of lightning, wind in the tree tops, the rattling of chains and tolling of bells and the terrible din of a pack of dogs in mad pursuit. As the legend goes, if you hear the baying of the ghostly hounds in the sky, run away, because if they catch you, you too will be forced to follow Herne and his Wild Hunt, ranging across the night skies for eternity.

In the early 1860's the tree from which Herne was found hanging, was cut down, and Queen Victoria kept the oak logs for her fire "To help kill the ghost". Her plan didn't work however.

King George III had his moments of insanity and was detained in a room. People have seen his sad face looking out of the window I that room. King George III had many bouts with mental deterioration. During these times he was kept out of the public's eye. He has been seen looking out the windows located below the Royal Library, where he was confined during the recurrence of his illness.

William of Wykeham and Sir George Villiers, the First Duke of Buckingham, are also haunters. Sir George Villiers, The first Duke of Buckingham, is said to haunt one of the bedrooms of Windsor castle.

The 'Prison Room' in the Norman Tower is haunted, possibly by a former Royalist prisoner from Civil War times. Children playing there have seen him and adults have felt him brush past.

The Deanery is haunted by a boy who yells that he doesn’t want to go riding. Footsteps are also heard there and many believe they are his. Children playing in the Norman Tower’s Prison Room have seen the ghost of a man. Adults felt him brush by them.

A kitchen in the castle is home to a spectral man and a horse. The room was once part of the cavalry stable. The ghost of a young girl standing by an evergreen tree has been sighted here.


Ghostly footsteps are often heard on the staircase in the Curfew Tower. On one occasion, the bells began to swing on their own while the temperature became distinctly chilly.

 

A visitor saw a new group of statues near St. George’s Chapel one night. They were dressed in black. One was crouched and the others stood. One of statues was wielding a sword. When asked about the tableau, a sentry replied he knew nothing about the new statues. When the visitor returned to the scene, the statues were gone.

 

Many spirits haunt the Long Walk, one of whom is a young Grenadier Guard who shot himself while on duty there in the 1920s. During his guard watch, he saw marble statues moving "of their own accord." He was seen by at least two of his colleagues, immediately after his death. Two Grenadier Guards saw his ghost while on duty on the Long Walk.

In 1873, a night-time visitor to the castle noticed an interesting new statuary group had been erected near St. George's Chapel: three standing figures, all in black, and a fourth crouching down. The central standing character was in the act of striking with a large sword. The sentry knew nothing of this artwork and when the visitor returned to re-examine it, it had gone!

There is a demonic horned being said to bring death and disease to those who are unfortunate enough to see it, especially the Royal family. Other legends tell of witchcraft, murder and suicide.

During the reign of King George IV in the nineteenth century, it was transformed into a palace. In 1917, King George V adopted the castle’s name as the Royal family’s, replacing the old one, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

From that time, the name of the monarchy would be the House of Windsor. Windsor Castle survived the bombs of two world wars. Today, Queen Elizabeth II goes to church in its St. George Chapel.

Sir Walter Raleigh 1552 to 1618 – British Icon

Sir Walter Raleigh is one of Britain's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as an English aristocrat, great sailor, navigator, frontierman's, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy and explorer and is also largely known for popularising tobacco and potato's in England. I thought it would be interesting to write the history of this famous icon from his early cloudy beginnings. Walter Raleigh was born on his father’s estate at Hays Burton, England. Little is known about Raleigh's birth. Some historians believe Raleigh was born in 1552, while others guess as late as 1554. In 1578, he joined forces with his half-brother Humphrey Gilbert to organize an exploratory venture in North America. However, the ships were prevented from sailing by a series of storms and eventually the expedition was cancelled. This failed effort was important to Raleigh because it had planted a seed within his mind - he was determined to establish English colonies in the New World. Raleigh’s reputation was enhanced by service at Munster during the Irish rebellion (1580). That contribution, coupled with immense personal charm, led to a close friendship with Elizabeth I and knighthood in 1585. Raleigh further increased his standing by helping to expose a plot by Catholic elements to depose the queen in favour of Mary, Queen of Scots. During the mid-1580s, Raleigh began efforts to establish permanent settlements in North America in an area he thoughtfully named Virginia, to honour his patroness the Virgin Queen. The culmination of these labours was the ill-fated Lost Colony on Roanoke Island under a Royal Patent. With the looming threat of the Spanish Armada (1588), Raleigh played a leading role at court in planning for the island's defence. Records do not indicate that Raleigh participated in the fighting, however. With the crown nearly hamstrung by an empty treasury, Raleigh provided the government with a new warship, the Ark Royal, in exchange for an IOU. In 1591 he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without the Queen's permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset. Raleigh served briefly in Parliament in the 1590s, but his reputation was tarnished by his association with a group of poets known as the “school of night,” most of whom were widely known religious skeptics. An actual rupture with Elizabeth and imprisonment in the Tower of London occurred when the queen learned that Raleigh had secretly married one of her maids of honour, Elizabeth Throckmorton.

Following his release, Raleigh turned his attention In1594, to the "City of Gold" in South America and sailed to find it, publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the legend of “El Dorado” in Guiana in South America. He explored portions of the Orinoco River and returned to England with only small amounts of gold.

Following the queen’s death in 1603, Raleigh’s enemies conspired against him and had him tried on charges of treason. Allegedly he had plotted against the accession of the new king, James I. A guilty verdict carried with it the death sentence, but James commuted the sentence to life imprisonment in the Tower of London.

Raleigh spent his confinement writing poetry, history, and tales of his adventures. In 1616, he managed to arrange release from prison in exchange for his promise to provide a huge ransom. He was to gather the treasure in Guiana and solemnly pledged that in doing so he would not disturb Spanish installations in the area.

The venture turned out to be an unmitigated failure. No gold was found. The group decided to attack a Spanish fort and Raleigh’s son was killed. He returned home in disgrace.

The Spanish ambassador protested Raleigh’s actions in Guiana and his earlier death sentence was reinstated. On October 29th 1618, he faced the executioner. As custom provided, he took the opportunity to examine the axe and is reported to have remarked, “This is a sharp medicine, but is a physician for all diseases.” His embalmed head was given to his wife, another customary practice, and she never let it out of her sight during the remaining 30 years of her life.


Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the most colourful figures of the Elizabethan Era and is important to World history because of his efforts to establish permanent settlements in America and his circumnavigation of the World.


Sir Roger Moore – British Iconic Actor

Sir Roger Moore is one of England's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as a great actor.  I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his early  beginnings to his present day status as a great English Icon.

Roger George Moore was born in Stockwell, south London on October 14, 1927, the son of a policeman. At 15, he entered art school with the intention of becoming a painter, and later became an apprentice at an animation studio. He delved into acting as an extra in crowd scenes in the mid 1940's. He studied at the Royal Academy of Drama (RADA) and appeared in some plays in the West End, before being inducted into the British Army. There he served in the rank of 2nd Lieutenant with a Combined Services Entertainment Unit in Germany at the end of World War II. After release from the military, he worked in theatre, radio and television, but also worked as a model and salesman to make ends meet.

Moore came to the U.S. in 1953, where he got a film contract with MGM, playing supporting roles in several films including “Ivanhoe”. His first big TV series was Ivanhoe, followed by Maverick. But it was his role as suave and debonair Simon Templar in the TV series The Saint that catapulted him to stardom. His contract with that show prevented him from being chosen for to play James Bond in 1962.

In 1971 an action/adventure series called The Persuaders!  Was produced by ITC Entertainment for initial broadcast on ITV and ABC.

It starred Tony Curtis as Danny Wilde, and Roger Moore as Lord Brett Sinclair, two international playboys. Much of the humour of the show derived from playful observations about the differences between British and American customs. The show ended after one season, in consequence of failing to make an impact on US TV, thereby releasing Roger Moore to star in the popular Bond Films. Roger Moore had been directly involved in the production of the series, and the need for an American co-star was deemed by all imperative to ensure a television release in the USA.

Tony Curtis agreed to the series project and flew into England in April 1970 to commence location filming, only to create headlines of a different type by way of his arrest at Heathrow Airport for possession of marijuana.

But the Bond role returned to Moore in 1972, when Sean Connery again said for a second time that he was finished as Bond, and Moore was hired as his successor for Live and Let Die.

It has been said that Moore is closer to Ian Fleming's original concept of Bond, as a disenfranchised member of the British Establishment, than Connery's more rough-and-tumble Bond. Indeed, the tone of the series changed under Moore's aegis, with the scripts being tailored to his personality and acting ability. Moore made 7 Bond films [more than Connery's, retiring as 007 after A View to a Kill in 1985.

Moore has acted sporadically since that time, and appears most frequently in European gossip magazines and at charitable events. In 1996 he appeared in a television commercial spoofing James Bond for the conglomerate Hansen's, which was pulled off the air due to litigation with the Bond copyright holders. He succeeded the late Audrey Hepburn in the role of Special Representative for the Film Arts for UNICEF, raising funds for children in underdeveloped countries.

Roger was the first James Bond to be honoured by the British government, receiving a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) award in March 1999. He was awarded a knighthood in June 2003 for his work with UNICEF.

He has been married 4 times: to Doorn Van Steyn, Dorothy Squires, Luisa Mattoli and Kristina Tholstrup (2002) and he has 3 children, Deborah, Geoffrey and Christian, and 2 granddaughters.

Roger Moore wrote his memoirs, My Word is My Bond which was published in 2008.

Peter Sellers – English Comic Actor 

Peter Sellers was one of England's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as one of the greatest comic actors of the 20th Century. I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his birth in Southsea to his present day status as a great English Icon.

Often credited as the greatest comedian of all time, Peter Sellers was born to a well-off English acting family in Southsea, Portsmouth, England in 1925. His mother and father worked in an acting company run by his grandmother. As a child, Sellers was spoiled, as his parents' first child had died at birth. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force and served during World War II. After the war he met Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine who would become his future workmates on the BBC Radio Show “The Goon Show”.

After the war, he set up a review in London, which was a combination of music (he played the drums) and impressions. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into prominence as the voices of numerous favourites on "The Goon Show" (1951-1960), making his début in films in Penny Points to Paradise (1951) and Down among the Men (1952), before making it big as one of the criminals in The Ladykillers (1955).

These small roles continued throughout the 1950s, but he got his first big break playing the dogmatic union man, Fred Kite, in I'm All Right Jack (1959). The film's success led to starring vehicles into the 1960s that showed off his extreme comic ability to its fullest. In 1962, Sellers was cast in the role of Clare Quilty in the Stanley Kubrick version of the film Lolita (1962) in which his performance as a mentally unbalanced TV writer with multiple personalities landed him another part in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964) in which he played three roles which showed off his comic talent in play-acting in three different accents; British, American, and German.

He is best known for playing the klutzy and bumbling French Inspector Jacques Clouseau in The Pink Panther (1963) which led to him reprising the role in A Shot in the Dark (1964), plus three more Pink Panther movies during the 1970s. But after the relative failure of Whay's New Pussycat (1965), which was Woody Allen;s first film, Sellers embarked on a rapid downfall to "Grade Z" movies during the 1970s, all of which he claimed to have made only because he needed the money.

In 1972, he read the book "Being There" and decided to make it into a film. It took him seven years to finally bring it to the screen, but it earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

The film “Being There” (1979) proved to be somewhat of a last hurray for Sellers, as he died the following year.

In May 1964, at age 38, Sellers suffered a series of heart attacks (13 in total, and all within a few days) because of his recreational smoking, drinking, and drug use. Although he survived, his heart was permanently damaged. Sellers' heart condition slowly deteriorated over the next 16 years because, instead of electing traditional medical treatment, he only consulted with "psychic healers." In late 1977, Sellers barely survived another major heart attack and as a result, he had a pacemaker surgically implanted on his failing heart to help regulate his heartbeat, which caused him even more considerable medical problems.

His last movie, The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu (1980), completed just a few months before his death, proved to be another box office flop. Director Blake Edward's attempt at reviving the Pink Panther series after Sellers' death resulted in two panned 1980s comedies, the first of which, Trail of The Pink Panther (1982), deals with Inspector Clouseau's disappearance and was made from material cut from previous Pink Panther films and includes interviews with the original casts playing their original characters.

A reunion dinner was scheduled in London with his Goon Show partners, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, for July 25, 1980. But on July 22, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack in his Dorchester Hotel room and fell into a coma. He died in a London hospital just after midnight on July 24, 1980 at age 54. He was survived by his fourth wife, Lynne Frederick, and three children: Michael, Sarah and Victoria. At the time of his death, he was scheduled to undergo heart surgery in Los Angeles at the very end of that month.

Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov – Renaissance Funny Man

Sir Peter Ustinov was one of Britain's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as one of the greatest comic actors, dramatist, director, writer's of the 20th Century. I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his birth in London on April 26th 1921 to his present day status as a great British Icon.

He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov on April 16, 1921, in Swiss Cottage, London, England. Ustinov was of Russian, German, French, Italian and Ethiopian descent, with ancestral connections to Russian nobility as well as the Ethiopian Royal Family. His grandmother, Magdalena, was daughter of a Swiss military engineer and Ethiopian princess. His father, Iona von Ustinov, also known as "Klop" in Russian and Yiddish, was a pilot in Luftwaffe during the First World War. In 1919 he joined his mother and sister in St. Petersburg, Russia. There he met artist Nadia Benois who worked for the Imperial Mariinsky Ballet and Opera House in St. Petersburg. In 1920, in a modest and discrete ceremony at a Russian-German Church in St. Petersburg, Ustinov's father married Nadia Benois. Later, when she was 7 months pregnant with Peter Ustinov, the couple emigrated from Russia in 1921, in the aftermath of the Communist Revolution.

Young Peter Ustinov was brought up in a multi-lingual family, he was fluent in Russian, French, Italian, and German, and also was a native English speaker. He attended the Westminster College in 1934-37, took the drama and acting class under Michel St. Denis at the London Theatre Studio, 1937-39, and made his stage debut in 1938, in a theatre in Surrey. In 1939, he made his London stage debut in a revue sketch, then had regular performances with Aylesbury Repertory Company. In 1940 he made his film debut in Hullo Fame (1940).


From 1942-46 Ustinov served as a private soldier with the British Army's Royal Sussex Regiment, during the Second World War. He was batman for David Niven and the two became life-long friends. Ustinov spent most of his service working with the Army Cinema Unit, where he was involved in making recruitment films, wrote plays, and appeared in three films as actor. At that time he wrote and directed his film, The Way Ahead (1944) (aka.. The Immortal Battalion).

Eventually, Ustinov made a stellar film career as actor, director, and writer, appearing in more than 100 film and television productions. He was awarded two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, one for his role in Spartacus (1960) and one for his role in Topkapi (1964); and received two more Oscar nominations as an actor and writer. During the 1970s he had a slowdown in his career, before making a comeback as Hercule Poirot in Death on The Nile (1978) by director John Guillermin. In the 1980s, Ustinov reprised the Poirot role in several subsequent television movies and theatrical films, such as Evil under the Sun (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988). Later he appeared as a
sympathetic doctor in the disease thriller Lorenzo's Oil (1992).

Ustinov's effortless style, his expertise in dialectal and physical comedy made him a regular guest of numerous talk shows and late night comedians. His witty and multi-dimensional humour was legendary, and he later published a collection of his jokes and quotations, summarizing his wide popularity as a raconteur. He was also an internationally acclaimed TV journalist. For one of his projects Ustinov covered over one hundred thousand miles and visited more than 30 Russian cities during the making of his well-received BBC television series 'Peter Ustinov's Russia'.


In his autobiographical books, such as 'Dear Me' (1977) and 'My Russia' (1996), Ustinov revealed a wealth of thoughtful and deep observations about how his life and career was formed by his rich multi-cultural and multi-ethnic background. Ustinov wrote and directed numerous stage plays, having success with presenting his plays in several countries, such as his 'Photofinish' had acclaimed staging in New York, London, and St. Petersburg, Russia, starring Elena Solovey and Petr Shelokhonov among other actors.

Outside of his film and acting professions, Ustinov served as a roving ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund. He was knighted Sir Peter Ustinov in 1990. From 1971 to his death in 2004, Ustinov lived in his own Château in the village of Bursins, Vaud, Switzerland, He died of a heart failure on March 28, 2004, in Genolier, Vaud, Switzerland. His funeral service was held at Geneva's historic cathedral of St. Pierre, and he was laid to rest in the village cemetery of Bursins, Switzerland. He was survived by three daughters, Tamara, Pavla, and Andrea, and son, Igor Ustinov.

"I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World" said Peter Ustinov.

Les Dawson – English iconic Comic, Writer and Actor

Les Dawson is one of England's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as one of the funniest comedians of the 20th Century. I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his birth in Knotty Ash, Liverpool on the 2nd  February 1931 to his present day status as a great English Icon. I recommend to any fan of comedy, please go out and by one of his many DVD's and see what a great comic Les Dawson was.

Raised in the Collyhurst district of Manchester.  Les Dawson began his entertainment career as a pianist in a Parisian brothel (according to his entertaining but factually unreliable autobiography). As a club pianist ("I finally heard some applause from a bald man and said 'thank you for clapping me' and he said 'I'm not clapping - I'm slapping me head to keep awake'"), he was to find that he got laughs by playing wrong notes and complaining to the audience. He made his television debut on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and became a prominent comic on British television for the rest of his life.

His most characteristic routines featured Roy Barraclough and Dawson as two elderly women, Cisse Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham. Cissie had pretensions of refinement and often corrected Ada's malapropisms or vulgar expressions. As authentic characters of their day, they spoke some words aloud but only mouthed others, particularly those pertaining to bodily functions and sex. At one time, no respectable woman would have said, for instance, "She's having a hysterectomy." Instead they would have mouthed, "She's having women's troubles." (Dawson's character, of course, mistakenly said "hysterical rectomy.") These female characters were based on those Les Dawson knew in real life. He explained that this mouthing of words was a habit of mill workers trying to communicate over the tremendous racket of the looms, and then resorted to in daily life for indelicate subjects. To further portray the reality of northern, working-class women, Cissie and Ada would sit with folded arms, occasionally adjusting their bosoms by a hoist of the forearms. Many of the Cissie and Ada sketches were written by Terry Ravenscroft. This was also typical of Pantomime dame style, an act copied faithfully from his hero, Norman Evans who had made famous his act Over The Garden Wall.

Les Dawson was of portly build and often dressed in the traditional 'John Bull' of England costume. He introduced to his BBC television shows a dancing group of very fat ladies called the Roly Polys.

He loved to undercut his own fondness for high culture. For example, he was a talented pianist but developed a gag where he would begin to play a familiar piece such as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. After he had established the identity of the piece being performed, Dawson would introduce hideously wrong notes (yet not to the extent of destroying the identity of the tune) without appearing to realise that he had done so, meanwhile smiling unctuously and apparently relishing the accuracy and soul of his own performance. He also used a grand piano in a series of sketches where it became animated, for example, trying to walk away from him across the stage, collapsing or shutting its lid.

Les Dawson's style as a comic performer was world-weary, lugubrious and earthy. He was as popular with female as with male audiences, and genuinely loved by the British public. A news reporter from The Sun looking for him after a show to interview him found him backstage joking with some cleaning women and making them laugh.

Before his fame Dawson wrote poetry and kept it secret. It was not expected that someone of his working class background would harbour such literary ambitions. In a BBC TV documentary about his life, he spoke of his love for some canonical figures in English literature, in particular the 19th Century essayist Charles Lamb whose somewhat florid style influenced Dawson's own.

His love of language influenced many of his comedy routines - for example one otherwise fairly routine joke began with the line "I was vouchsafed this vision by a pockmarked Lascar in the arms of a frump in a Huddersfield bordello..." He was also a master of painting a beautiful word picture and then letting the audience down with a bump: "The other day I was gazing up at the night sky, a purple vault fretted with a myriad points of light twinkling in wondrous formation, while shooting stars streaked across the heavens, and I thought: I really must repair the roof on this toilet."

Dawson wrote many novels but was always regarded solely as an entertainer in the public imagination, and this saddened him. He told his second wife, Tracey, "Always remind them - I was a writer too".

Having broken his jaw in a Boxing match, Dawson was able to pull grotesque faces by pulling his jaw over his upper lip. This incident is described in the first volume of Dawson's autobiography A Clown Too Many.

His first wife, Margaret, whom he married on 25 June 1960, died on 15 April 1986 from cancer. They had had three children: Julie, Pamela and Stuart. He later married Tracy on 6 May 1989, despite worries that his show business contemporaries and the public would object, as she was 17 years younger. They had a daughter, Charlotte, who was born on 3 October 1992.

Dawson starred in a radio sketch show Listen to Les, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in the 1970s and 1980s. Television series in which he appeared included Sez Les for Yorkshire Television, The Dawson Watch for the BBC, written by Andy Hamilton and Terry Ravenscroft, The Les Dawson Show, written by Terry Ravenscroft, Dawson's Weekly, Jokers Wild (1969-73) and the quiz show Blankety Blank, which he presented for some years. His final TV appearance was on the LWT series Surprise, Surprise hosted by Cilla Black, when he sang a comical rendition of "I Got You Babe" with a woman from the audience who wanted to fulfill a wish to sing with him.

Dawson was a heavy smoker and drinker throughout his adult life. On 10 June 1993, during a check-up at a hospital in Whalley Range, Manchester, Les Dawson died suddenly after suffering a heart attack. Many comedians and other celebrities attended a memorial service for him at Westminster Abbey on 24 February 1994.

On 23 October 2008, the fifteenth anniversary of his death, a bronze statue of Dawson, by sculptor Graham Ibbeson, was unveiled by his widow Tracy and daughter Charlotte. The statue stands in the ornamental gardens next to St Anne's Pier, in Lytham St Anne's, Lancashire where Dawson had lived for many years.

Benny Hill – Chaplin's Favourite Comedian

Benny Hill was one of England's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as one of the greatest comedians of the 20th Century. I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his birth in Southampton to his present day status as a great English Icon.

He was born Alfred Hawthorn Hill in Southampton in January 21st 1925. It was his grandfather who introduced him to Burlesque Shows and the theatre from where the young Benny Hill was to draw much of his comic inspiration.

Charlie Chaplin who died in 1977, was a fan of Benny Hill's work: Hill had discovered that Chaplin, his childhood idol, was a fan, when he was invited to Chaplin's home in Switzerland by the Chaplin family and discovered that Chaplin had a collection of Benny Hill's work on video. Benny Hill and Denis Kirkland were the first outside the family to be invited into Chaplin's private study. Hill was awarded the Charlie Chaplin International Award for Comedy at the 1991 Festival of Comedy in Vevey, Switzerland.

Which he used to watch all the time. Charlie Chaplin's son explained to Benny that he was his father's favourite comedian, which he said later, was the proudest moment of his life.

After his national service with the army during WW2, Benny came to London, adopted the stage name Benny Hill (in homage to his all time favourite comedian Jack Benny) and began appearing in variety shows. He briefly formed a double act with Reg varney and did radio shows. But it was his talent for impressions and comic timing that were to give him his first big break on TV with the show "Hi There" in 1949.

Benny Hill appeared in the following Shows and Films:

1)    "Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West". No1 Record for Christmas 1971

2)    The Benny Hill Show” began in (1955)

3)    Who Done it? (1956)

4)    Hill's audio recordings include Gather in the Mushroom (1961),

5)    Pepys Diary (1961),

6)    Transistor Radio (1961),

7)    Harvest of Love (1963),

8)    Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965).

9)    Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

10)  The Italian Job (1969),

11)  a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73)

12)  The Best Of Benny Hill (1974).  

13)  In 1979 “The Benny Hill Show” was shown in America for the first time and Benny   went on to become one of the biggest stars on US TV.

14)  He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song “Anything She Does” by the band Genesis.

The Benny Hill show itself has been seen in 109 countries and won a BAFTA as well as Golden Rose Of Montreaux Award.

In 1991 he was awarded the Charlie Chaplin Award for Contributions to Comedy.

Benny Hill's TV career came to an end in 1989, when his show was dropped, but his popularity continued and he completed a US TV special, Benny Hill - Unseen (1991) (TV) shortly before his death in 1992.

When Benny Hill died in April 1992, his estate was worth an estimated £10 million. The only will Hill created left his estate to his parents who both died years ago. Next in line were his brother and sister, neither of whom he had a close relationship with, but like his parents are also dead. As a result, Hill's estate was divided among his seven nieces and nephews.

Ken Dodd – English iconic Comic, Writer and Actor 

Ken Dodd is one of England's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as one of the funniest comedians of the last 100 years. I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his birth in Knotty Ash, Liverpool on the 8th. November 1927 to his present day status as a great English Icon. If you want a good laugh by a genius comedian than please look at one of his DVD's – you won't regret it.

Ken Dodd was the son of a Coal Merchant, Arthur Dodd and his loving Mother, Sarah Dodd. He went to the Knottyash School, and sang in the local church choir of St. Johns Church, Knottyash. At the age of Seven, he was dared by his School chums to ride his bike with his eyes shut..... And he did. For about 10 feet and the bike hit the kerb. As did the young Doddy, open mouthed onto the tarmac. Resulting in his Famous Teeth you see today.

It was around this time he became interested in showbiz. After seeing an advert in a comic, " Fool Your Teachers, Amaze Your Friends - Send 6d in Stamps and Become a Ventriloquist ! " And he Promptly sent off for the book. Not long after, His Father bought him a Ventriloquist's dummy and Doddy called it Charlie Brown. He started entertaining at the local orphanage, then at various other local community functions.

At 14yrs. He Left the High Holt Grammar School, and went into his Dad's Coal business. Though by his early 20's had branched out on his own. Selling Pots, Pans, and Brushes. And invented his own version of Soft soap for the Liverpool Housewives. He worked hard by day, selling his wares round the streets of Liverpool. And by night, became a regular and very popular performer on ' The Club's ' Circuit as " Professor Yaffle Chuckabutty. Operatic Tenor and Sausage-Knotter.

He Got his big break at the age of 27. In September 1954 he appeared at the Nottingham Playhouse. A nervous young man, he sat in a local Milk Bar for most of the Afternoon going over and over his lines before going to the theatre. Although he can't remember much of the actual act of that night. He did recall.,, " Well at least they didn't boo me off. " But there wasn't much fear of that, as Dodd's act went from strength to strength. Eventually Topping the bill at Blackpool in 1958 !

And in the late 1950's came to little guys we all came to love.,,The Diddymen of Knottyash Work the Broken Biscuit Repair Works, the Jam Butty Mines, The Moggy Ranch and the Treacle Wells. A very industrious town indeed.

Ken Also started to work in radio with the BBC. " The Ken Dodd Show " and " Ken Dodd's Laughter Show " Were all extremely popular productions.

Television also beckoned and in the late 50's the Ken Dodd Show was broadcast Live from the Opera House in Blackpool. Other Series followed. The Ken Dodd Show : Doddy's Music Box : The Good Old Days : Ken Dodd's World Of Laughter. and of Course, Ken Dodd and the Diddymen.

Ken entered hit the big time in 1965 with THE longest ever run at the London Palladium. 42 Weeks to be exact. Which broke all box office records. And for which he was awarded a gold watch by the manager.

At the same time Ken began his singing career Before 1964's 'Tears' on EMI's Columbia label, Ken had a big 'hit' in 1960, with his first ever 45 rpm single 'Love is Like a Violin' on EMI's 'rival' label, Decca,and he followed it up with 'Once in Every Lifetime' in 1961. The record numbers are Decca F 11248 and F11355.

His now famous theme tune "Happiness" Was Released in 1964.
However, his biggest hit though was "Tears" also in 1964. Which sold over 2 Million copies, earning Ken Dodd 2 gold discs. And the next year. "Promises, 1966."

It was the 1960's that also saw Ken entered into the Guinness Book of Records for the Longest Joke Telling session EVER. 1,500 jokes in 3 and a half Hours. People were queuing up at the theatre in Liverpool, and going into the theatre in relays to hear him.

Although Ken isn't on the telly as much as he used to be, Ken Still gives marathon performances. All over the U.K. Ken Dodd is currently doing around 4 shows a week at various locations across England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

Samuel Fox – English Inventor of The Metal Ribbed Umbrella

As the Umbrella is associated with England and It's weather I thought it would be interesting to write about the inventor of the Metal Ribbed collapsible umbrella invented in England In 1852 by Samuel Fox. He was born on the 17th June 1815 in Bradwell, Derbyshire.

An umbrella is a device used for temporary shade or shelter from precipitation. They can be made by stretching a fabric or other material over a wire frame. Umbrellas carried by hand are now usually used as rain shields, although their first use was for shielding from the sun; however, as tans became more sociably acceptable, this usage declined. An umbrella made for protection from the sun, is called a parasol. These are often meant to be fixed to one point and often used with patio tables or other outdoor furniture, or on the beach for shelter from the sun.

 

The first all umbrella shop was called "James Smith and Sons". The shop opened in 1830 and is still located at 53 New Oxford Street in London, England.

He started work as an apprentice wire drawer in Hathersage then became a partner in a wire drawing business in the Rivelin Valley near Sheffield.

He moved to Stocksbridge in 1842 to establish his own wire drawing business. This business developed into the Stocksbridge Steelworks. In 1842, Mr. Samuel Fox set up the “Fox Umbrella Frames Ltd” at Stocksbridge, UK. Fox Umbrella Company started with a rain umbrella. He is the first person who invented the U-shape ribs (called “ Paragon”) and used it in his Paragon Umbrella.

Paragon” used to be one of the oldest famous brand names in the UK. Its rain umbrella used to be the most famous brand in the umbrella field.

In 1842, Fox married Maria Radcliffe (born 20 January) at Stannington, Sheffield). They had one son, William Henry Fox (1843–1920) who never married.

In 1851 he and his company Fox Umbrella Frames Ltd. developed the "Paragon" Umbrella frame, a U section of string steel that was far superior to its competitors. Development of the product continued until at least 1935. A similar product was used to make Crinoline frames from 1855. Umbrellas with 'Fox Frames' were sold worldwide.

In 1852, Samuel Fox invented the steel ribbed umbrella design. Fox also founded the "English Steels Company", and claimed to have invented the steel ribbed umbrella as a way of using up stocks of farthingale stays, steel stays used in women's corsets.

Fox bought the Bradwell Grove Estate, Holwell, Oxfordshire in 1871. Upon his death, he was buried near his estate at the North Cliffe church (near Market Weighton). His son and wife are buried at St. Mary the Virgin church, Holwell, Oxfordshire.

The first all umbrella shop was called "James Smith and Sons". The shop opened in 1830 and is still located at 53 New Oxford Street in London, England.

Cats Eyes for the Roads– Invented by Percy Shaw 1933

Britain's history is made up of many famous Inventor's all through our history. This has made me decide to write about one of the most famous British Inventors – Percy Shaw the Inventor of the road safety device called “Cat's Eye's”.  This invention has saved many lives, worldwide and as a driver, late at night, It is always comforting to see the Cats Eyes guiding the way with its glowing light. 

 

The cat's eye is a retro-reflective safety device used in road markings and was the first of a range of raised pavement markers. It originated here in the UK in 1933 and is today used all over the world. It consists (in its original form) of two pairs of reflective glass spheres set into a white rubber dome, mounted in a cast iron housing. This is the kind that marks the centre of the road, with one pair of cat's eye showing in each direction. A single-ended form has become widely used in other colours at road margins and as lane dividers. Cat's eyes are particularly valuable in fog and are largely resistant to damage from snow ploughs.

 

A key feature of the cat's eye is the flexible rubber dome which is occasionally deformed by the passage of traffic. A fixed rubber wiper cleans the surface of the reflectors as they sink below the surface of the road (the base tends to hold water after a shower of rain, making this process even more efficient). The rubber dome is protected from impact damage by metal 'kerbs' – which also give tactile and audible feedback for wandering drivers.

The inventor of cat's eyes was Percy Shaw of Boothtown, Halifax,West Yorkshire. When the tram-lines were removed in the nearby suburb of Ambler Thorn when he realised that he'd been using the polished strips of steel to navigate. The name "cat's eye" comes from Shaw's inspiration for the device: the eye shine reflecting from the eyes of a cat. In 1934, he patented his invention (patent No.436.290 and 457.536), and on 15 March 1935, founded Reflecting Roadstuds Limited in Halifax to manufacture the items. The name Catseye was their trademark. The reflective lens had been invented six years earlier for use in advertising signs by Richard Hollins Murray, an accountant from Herefordshire and as Shaw acknowledged, they had contributed to his idea.

 

·       The following Types of Cats Eyes are used on UK roads:

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·       White cat's eyes are used for the centre of a road on many roads which lack street lighting but are subject to high speeds or high volumes of traffic. They are also used for lane markings, soft traffic islands and on "double-white lines" where no overtaking is permitted.

·       Red cat's eyes are placed along the hard shoulder of a motorway or sometimes dual carriageways

·       Amber cat's eyes are placed along the edge of the central reservation (median).

·       Green cat's eyes denote joining or leaving slip roads at junctions

·       Blue cat's eyes are used for police slip roads.

These units are not very visible in daylight and are generally used in conjunction with traditionally painted lines. Temporary cat's eyes with just a reflective strip are often used during motorway repair work. These are typically day glow green/yellow so they are easily visible in daylight as well as in darkness, they can then be used on their own for lane division.

Also seen during motorway repair work are plastic traffic pillars that are inserted into the socket of a retractable cat's eye rather than being free-standing. These are often used in conjunction with two rows of the temporary cat's eyes to divide traffic moving in opposite directions during motorway road works.

Solar powered cat's eyes known as solar road studs and showing a red or amber LED to traffic, have been introduced on roads regarded as particularly dangerous at locations throughout the world. However, shortly after one such installation in Essex in the Autumn of 2006 the BBC reported that the devices, which flash almost imperceptibly at 100 times a second, could possibly set off epileptic fits and the Highways Agency had suspended the programme.

Proposed enhancements, for an "intelligent cat's eye" of the future, will see the standard white light change to amber for four seconds after the passing of a vehicle, or red if the following vehicle is too close or traffic ahead is stationary.

My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th  Century AD. I am also a direct descendent of Sir Christopher Wren which has given me an interest in English History, English Sports, English Icons, English Discoverers and English Inventions which is great fun to research.

Sir Alexander Fleming – Discoverer of Penicillin

 

Britain's history is made up of very famous Scientists all through their history. This has made me decide to write about one of the most famous British Scientist – Sir Alexander Fleming the discoverer of Penicillin. The discovery of penicillin was more than a mere chance event.

 

Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin is one of the most celebrated case of an accident in science. In the conventional story, a stray mould spore was borne through an open window and landed on an exposed bacterial culture, Fleming later noticed a clear zone where the bacteria had been killed, he immediately recognized the therapeutic significance of the event, and it was only a matter of time before penicillin became a miracle drug. Fleming himself often underscored the role of chance in his work. Despite the numerous honours and awards he received, he was fond of reminding others, "I did not invent penicillin. Nature did that. I only discovered it by accident."

There was even more "chance" to the story than is often told, however. In addition, the traditional account obscures a considerable amount of scientific work that identified the efficacy of penicillin as an antibacterial agent. Without several researchers, who aggressively pursued the potential in Fleming's initial observation, penicillin would probably not have become a "discovery" on this occasion. The fuller story suggests a more complex view of science--as guided both by the contingencies of circumstance and by the focused effort of researchers.

Renewed interest in the history of Fleming's work began quite a few years ago when a bacteriologist in London noted that the windows of Fleming's lab at St. Mary's Hospital were so constructed that they could not open. How could a stray mould spore have wandered in, even by chance? Second, he observed, spores of Penicillium will not germinate under the conditions described by Fleming. Someone else then observed that the particular species of Penicillium would not likely have been floating in the air of London. Though common bread mould is a variety of Penicillium, it was the much rarer P. notatum that produced Fleming's penicillin.

The most likely source of the mould, it now appears, was a mycology lab downstairs from Fleming. There were likely spores all over the building. Further, Fleming was never known for neatness in his lab. Open cultures would not have been uncommon. It almost seems inevitable, then, that the mould would contaminate one of his cultures sooner or later.

The conditions of contamination would also have been important. Fleming believed, based on his earlier work on lysozyme, that penicillin acted by lysing bacteria open. This would certainly have accounted for the watery appearance of the area on his culture where the bacteria were absent. In this case, the spore would merely have needed to land on the culture plate--and this is how Fleming reported his own chance observation. But we have since learned that penicillin acts by blocking the synthesis of chemicals used by bacteria to build cell walls. Penicillin does not kill bacteria outright. Rather, it prevents their effective reproduction. A spore landing on an existing culture would thus be unlikely to have any immediate observable effect. The mould would have had to establish itself first if it was to prevent the further growth of bacteria. Temperature conditions while Fleming was away from his lab on vacation may have allowed this, or Fleming may have inoculated a plate that was already mouldy. In either case, a stray mould spore alone would not have created what Fleming observed.

The circumstance whereby Fleming noticed the original culture also seems quite improbable. Fleming did not notice the mould's effect while routine-ly examining his cultures, though he did inspect them when he returned from his one-month summer vacation in 1928. In fact, he had discarded the now famous culture and left it to soak in a tray of lysol. A former member of his lab stopped by to visit, however, and Fleming showed him several cultures. Among these he casually selected the critical culture from the top of the discarded stack, where it had escaped the liquid disinfectant. Only then was Fleming struck by the unusual pattern of growth. He was obviously impressed, though, because he showed the culture to numerous colleagues the rest of the day and went on to investigate some of the strange antibacterial properties he saw.

Fleming was certainly not the first scientist to have noticed the antibacterial effects of moulds. In 1871, Joseph Lister (noted for introducing antiseptic practice into surgery) had found that a mould in a sample of urine seemed to be inhibiting bacterial growth. In 1875 John Tyndall reported to the Royal Society in London that a species of Penicillium had caused some of his bacteria to burst. In 1877 Louis Pasteur and Jules Joubert observed that airborne micro-organisms could inhibit the growth of anthrax bacilli in urine that had been previously sterilized.

Most dramatically, Ernest Duchesne had completed a doctoral dissertation in 1897 on the evolutionary competition among micro-organisms, focusing on the interaction between E. coli and Penicillium glaucum . Duchesne reported how the mould had eliminated the bacteria in culture. He had also inoculated animals with both the mould and a lethal dose of typhoid bacilli, showing that the mould prevented the animals from contracting typhoid. He urged more research, but went into the army following his degree and died of tuberculosis before ever returning to research. Chance, here, worked against his discovery (or potential discovery?) bearing fruit.

Several other researchers--almost certainly unknown to Fleming--had noticed the effects of Penicillium moulds on bacteria. Fleming was not unique in this regard. But noticing a phenomena does not always mean that it will be followed up. The chance in Fleming's case may have been less the appearance of the mouldy culture itself than that Fleming had a habit of pursuing odd phenomena. Fleming pursued his observation.

Still, Fleming did not follow through on his own "discovery" in ways that we might expect, knowing the current role and importance of penicillin. Fleming originally observed the action of penicillin in 1928. Yet he did not initiate clinical trials. Nor did he strongly advocate the use of penicillin in treating humans until 1940. The events during this twelve-year hiatus are perhaps the most telling in the history of penicillin.

Fleming was certainly searching for antibacterial agents in 1928 and he investigated penicillin's potential. But he was not impressed. He found that penicillin was not toxic to animals and that it did not harm white blood cells (leukocytes), yet he also found that penicillin would not be absorbed if taken orally. Penicillin taken by injection, alternatively, was excreted in the urine in a matter of hours--well before it could have its effects. For Fleming, penicillin's therapeutic potential was limited, perhaps to topical antisepsis.

Fleming did continue to use and advocate penicillin in the years following his initial discovery. But he saw the value of penicillin primarily in the context of bacteriology. Penicillin suppressed the growth of certain bacterial species, allowing one to selectively culture certain others (such as those causing influenza, acne and whooping cough). In this role penicillin became a valuable tool in the manufacture of vaccines--a major task Fleming managed at St. Mary's Hospital. Production of penicillin continued on a weekly basis throughout the 1930s, but all for purifying bacterial cultures. The penicillin was crude--good enough for Fleming's purpose, but hardly strong enough to destroy a serious human infection. Meanwhile, Fleming had turned his research to another group of chemical bactericides, the sulphonamides.

The pursuit of penicillin in treating human infections was due ultimately to another lab, led by Howard Florey in Oxford. In 1938 Ernst Chain, an associate of Florey's, began a search for natural antibacterial agents, as part of an effort to under-stand their mechanisms more fully. He chose three to study, penicillin among them. Fleming's 1929 paper offered a thread of information that Chain could pick up, though with a quite different purpose in mind. By early 1939 Chain and Florey began to suspect the medical potential of penicillin. But they could not simply test it: penicillin was difficult to produce and to purify. Florey had difficulty finding funding. By that time, the war effort in Britain meant that extra funds were not available for exploring mere possibilities. Support eventually came in late 1939 from the Rockefeller Foundation in the U.S.

Florey shifted the resources of his department to the penicillin project. Before they could demonstrate the efficacy of penicillin, they had several technical challenges. They needed to improve extraction methods, refine an assay for determining the strength of their extracts, and scale up production. After five months of work--in May, 1940--they had enough of the brown powder to test on mice. The penicillin allowed several mice injected with lethal doses of virulent streptococci to survive. The potential of penicillin for treating infections then seemed demonstrably real. Florey and Chain repeated their tests as a double-check, and then went on to determine appropriate dosages and treatment duration, publishing their results in August.

But the research was hardly done. Would the results transfer to humans? To know, they had to scale up production yet again. Based on relative weight, a human would need roughly 3,000 times the penicillin used by a mouse. And commercial support was still not forthcoming. In the Oxford labs, flasks and biscuit tins used for the mould cultures gave way to hundreds of bedpan-like vessels stored on bookshelves. Purification turned from the laboratory to dairy equipment. Column chromatography allowed the group to isolate the relevant fractions and to concentrate their solutions. All this was in the service of a clinical test. --And after the first test in early 1941, they had to return to their methods to find a way to remove some impurities that had caused side effects. The tests eventually went quite well, but it had required two professors, five graduates and ten assistants working almost every day of the week for several months to produce enough penicillin to treat six patients.

Fleming took notice of the striking results. But he did not disturb his research agenda. He knew that the value of penicillin still lay in research on economical mass production. Thus, the research--and, in a sense, the discovery--was still not complete. Florey took his cause to America once again, where work began on the scale of breweries. One key technical assistant found a new medium for the mould cultures, increasing yields tenfold. Other drug companies in England were by now interested, but the scale of production was at first somewhat limited. After a second set of clinical trials in 1942-43, though, production began in earnest. In another half-year, industry could produce enough for treating 200 persons per month. Two years later, the U.S. was producing enough to treat a quarter-million patients per month.

Many scientists, Fleming among them, were confident that determining the chemical structure of penicillin would enable chemists to produce it synthetically and thus more economically. Once the structure was determined, however, synthesis proved to be at least as costly as extraction. The "failure" seems an exception in this tale otherwise graced by good fortune. But not all research ventures pay off as expected--chance works both ways in science.

Nobel Prize winner Peter Medawar once commented, "I was sorry that the traditional story of Fleming's discovery did not stand up to critical scrutiny because I should have liked to have believed it true; but even if it had been true, it would not have told us very much about the efficacy of luck." Here, Medawar referred to the substantial work that transforms a lucky event into a genuine discovery. There is more to science that what meets the eye. First, one must recognize and be ready to pursue the meaning of one's observations. Fleming had a habit of playing in the lab and of toying with oddities. He pursued a chance phenomenon that even his colleagues found insignificant, even without guessing its ultimate significance.

Further, the import of an observation is not always obvious. Chain and Florey recognized a therapeutic potential where Fleming saw it only vaguely. And they were willing to invest resources to pursue it. Fleming, Chain and Florey all shared in the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945. Their joint award reminds us that the discovery of penicillin was more than a mere chance event.

History of The Tank – An England Icon

 

As the Tank became an integral part of WW1 and helped in the defeat of Germany I thought I would tell the history of the Tank. If it wasn't for Sir Winston Churchill the Tank would probably have never seen the light of day.

The name tank first came about during World War I. The first armoured fighting vehicles were built in the United Kingdom by William Foster and Co. Ltd. of Lincoln. The development was cloaked in secrecy by making up a story that they were making mobile water cisterns (tanks) for use on the Eastern Front and the boxes were even labelled "with care to Petrograd" in the Cyrillic alphabet. Thus originated the name of tank for the new weapon. The naval background of the tank's development also explains such nautical tank terms as hatch, hull, bow, and ports.

The great secrecy surrounding tank development, coupled with the scepticism of infantry commanders, often meant that infantry had little training to cooperate with tanks. As a result, the infantry would become separated from the tanks, allowing the German infantry to defeat the two arms separately.

The Royal Navy, largely at Churchill's urging, sponsored experiments and tests of the vehicle as a type of "land ship" during 1915, and the tank at last became a reality.

Small, local attacks, beginning at Flers on the Somme on 15 September 1916, dissipated the initial surprise of the tank. Not until 20 November 1917, at Cambrai, did the British Tank Corps get the conditions it needed for success. around 400 tanks penetrated almost six miles on a 7-mile front in an attack at Cambrai. This was the first large-scale employment of tanks in combat. Unfortunately, success was not complete because the infantry failed to exploit and secure the tanks' gains.

The British scored another victory the following year, on 8 August 1918, with 600 tanks in the Amiens salient. General Eric von Ludendorff referred to that date as the "Black Day" of the German Army. The German response to the Cambrai assault was to develop its own armoured program.

Numerous sustained tank drives in the early tank actions showed the usefulness of tanks and by 1918 tanks were also accompanied by infantry and ground-attack aircraft and both of which worked to locate and suppress antitank defences.

The first appearnce of the tanks on the battlefield was at Flers-Courcelette on 15th  September 1916 during the Somme offensive, and the memorial to this event on the outskirts of Pozieres will be familiar to all who have visited the battlefields.

 

 

British Sports and History

Imbued in English culture is a love and creator of Sports of all kinds. It always amazes me how from a little Island like England we created and gave the world over 100 sports and games that have dominated the world. My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th. Century AD and I was born just a few miles away from the oldest Cricket Club in the World, which makes me an avid fan of English and British Sporting History.

Darts – British 16th Century History

 

Britain is famous for the game of Darts. I thought it would be of interest to write this article about Darts – It's English beginnings and history.

 

The sport of darts began as training in the martial arts, (well, the martial art of archery). Darts began in Medieval England. Historians surmise, because they don't know for certain, that those teaching archery shortened some arrows and had their students throw them at the bottom of an empty wine barrel.

it is said that darts even came to the new world on the Mayflower. Darts in America didn't really become popular until the late nineteenth century when immigrants from England came over and brought the game with them. Like much of American History, the roots of darts in America can be traced to the Pilgrims. These hardy colonizers were reputed to have played the game on the Mayflower as it made its ocean crossing. Like the game of horseshoes it was then played avidly in America whenever leisure time was available.

In fact the game of darts that we know today originated in English pubs hundreds of years ago and is still called English darts by many when referring to the modern day game of darts.

The fact that the bottom of an empty wine barrel was used is a clue to how the game developed into a pastime. It is thought that the soldiers took their shortened arrows with them to the local drinking establishment to both exhibit their skill and have fun at the same time. When the bottoms of wine barrels proved to be inconvenient or in short supply, some inventive dart thrower brought in a cross-section of a moderate sized tree.

The "board" provided rings, and when it dried out, the cracks provided further segmentation. This cracked and dried board began to evolve into what we think of as the current dart board.

A game as fun as darts could not be hidden from the upper classes and they soon put their own stamp on the game. The oft married Henry VIII was reputed to enjoy the game immensely. So much so, that he was given a beautifully ornate set by Anne Boleyn.

However, darts remained largely an Anglo-American sport until the Victorian age when it was spread world-wide by the great expansion of the British Empire. It seems that the "sun never set on the British Empire". At the same time, there was never a time when a dart was not in the air. Many native populations were exposed to the game and found enjoyment in it.

The international throwing line of 7 ft. 9 1/4 inches was established in the 1970s to make it standard for international competitions; depending on the country (or at times, even the venue), the throwing line was anywhere from 7 ft 6 in. to 8 ft. Also, throughout the early part of the 20th  century, there were many different types of dartboards until the 'clock' board became the standard...It really wasn't until after WWII that many of the rules of darts became standardized. Now people all around the world can enjoy the sport of darts in international competitions, in leagues, or in private parties and all be on an equal footing.

So the next time you put your toe to the line and raise a dart to the board, remember that there is a rich history behind this engrossing sport.

The throwing distance also became standardized during this time. There was a brewery named Hockey and Sons who supplied beer to much of the South west of England. The length of three Hockey and Sons kegs placed end to end became the standard throwing distance. This is generally believed to be where the phrase "toeing the hockey" comes from.

It was also during this time that the game really started to gain in popularity, especially in pubs. There is a fun story that happened in 1908. At this time, in England, games of chance were illegal and a pub owner in Leeds was brought into court for allowing darts to be played there because it was believed to be a game of chance. If the legend is true, when the pub owner appeared in court he brought along a dartboard and some darts. He then asked one of the officers of the court to name a number on the board, the officer obliged and the pub owner then hit that number with three darts. The pub owner then challenged anyone in the court to do the same. A court clerk attempted and failed and the judge immediately dismissed the case because it was obviously a game of skill and not of chance.

As the game grew more popular, more pub owners put up dartboards and the game continued to spread and gain in popularity. Naturally, as more and more people played, rhey started to form leagues and organizations. The very first organization was formed in 1924 in England. An English newspaper started sponsoring local competitions which later grew into regional competitions and then national tournaments. At one point the game grew so popular that the Scottish government tried to ban the game in pubs, saying that it encouraged bad habits. The public didn't stand for it and the ban never took place.

The game continued to grow in popularity in the twentieth century. Annual tournaments were held in England sponsored by the News of the World newspaper; these tournaments really helped to boost the popularity of the game and these tournaments ran from 1947 to 1990. During this time the game was also growing in popularity in Great Britain and in America.

In the mid-seventies darts had become so popular in Great Britain that the tournaments were being televised. With this kind of publicity the game was turning into a serious sport with professional players. This led to more players and larger prizes at the tournaments. This huge growth of popularity led to the creation of major national organizations who governed the tournaments, promoted the sport, and attracted more sponsors.

The first of these organizations was the British Darts Organization which was founded in 1973. The American Darts Organization followed in 1975, as well as dozens of other countries. There is also the World Dart Federation (WDF) which almost all the national darts organizations belong to; the WDF was formed in 1976 and is considered the official governing body for the sport of darts.

Technology hasn't ignored the game either. Today we have electronic dartboards which can keep score automatically for you, have dozens of games built into them, electronic scoreboards, and some of the boards will even talk to you. These technologic advancements have only furthered the popularity of the sport making the game much more accessible.

English Football - It's History

Our national game is Football which It is believed was first played over a 1,000 years ago in English villages up and down the country. There are stories that villager's played against villager's and the aim of the game was to get the ball passed the opposing village boundary line. The rules included kicking, punching, scratching the opposition over and above the kicking of the ball.

1280 AD - Earliest form of ball kicking

The earliest recorded form of ball kicking was recorded in England in 1280 AD at Ulgham near Ashington in Northumberland. A player was killed by running into an opposing players dagger.

1314 AD - The first banning of Football

In 1314, comes the earliest reference to a game called football when Nicholas de Farndone Lord Mayor of the City of London issued a decree on behalf of King Edward II banning football. It was written in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A translation reads: "For as much as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large foot balls in the fields of the public from which many evils might arise which God forbid: we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future."

1409 AD – First banning of betting on Football

In 1409 King Henry IV of England gives us the first documented use of the English word "football" when issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for "foteball".

1481 AD - Earliest description of Football Game At the end of the 15th century comes the earliest description of a football game. This account in Latin of a football game contains a number of features of modern football and comes from Cawston, Nottinghamshire, England. It is included in a manuscript collection of the miracles of King Henry VI of England. Although the precise date is uncertain it certainly comes from between 1481 and 1500. This is the first account of an exclusively "kicking game" and the first description of dribbling. "The game at which they had met for common recreation is called by some the foot-ball game. It is one in which young men, in country sport, propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air but by striking it and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their hands but with their feet... kicking in opposite directions" The chronicler gives the earliest reference to a football field, stating that: "The boundaries have been marked and the game had started.

1526 AD - First Football Boots In 1526 comes the first record of a pair of football boots occurs when Henry VIII of England ordered a pair from the Great Wardrobe in 1526. Unfortunately these are no longer in existence.

1581 AD - First organised Team Sport In 1581 comes the earliest account of football as an organised team sport. Richard Mulcaster, a student at Eton College in the early 16th century and later headmaster at other English schools provides the earliest references to teams ("sides" and "parties"), positions ("standings"), a referee ("judge over the parties") and a coach "(trayning maister)". Mulcaster's "footeball" had evolved from the disordered and violent forms of traditional football:

[s]ome smaller number with such overlooking, sorted into sides and standings, not meeting with their bodies so boisterously to trie their strength: nor shouldring or shuffing one an other so barbarously ... may use footeball for as much good to the body, by the chiefe use of the legges.

Mulcaster also confirms that in sixteenth century England football was very popular and widespread: it had attained "greatnes. .. [and was] much used ... in all places"

Despite this violence continued to be a problem. For example, the parish archives of North Moreton, Oxfordshire for May 1595 state: "Gunter's son and ye Gregorys fell together by ye years at football. Old Gunter drew his dagger and both broke their heads, and they died both within a fortnight after."

1600 AD - First reference to Scoring a Goal

The first direct references to scoring a goal come from England in the 1600s. For example, in John Day's play 'The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (performed circa 1600; published 1659): "I'll play a gole at camp-ball" (an extremely violent variety of football, which was popular in East Anglia. Similarly in a poem in 1613, Michael Drayton refers to "when the Ball to throw, And drive it to the Gole, in squadrons forth they goe".

1602 AD – First reference to Passing the Ball

 In 1602 the earliest reference to a game involving passing the ball comes from cornish hurling. In particular Carew tells us that: "Then must he cast the ball (named Dealing) to some one of his fellowes". In this case, however, the pass is by hand, as in rugby football. Although there are other allusions to ball passing in seventeenth century literature, this is the only one which categorically states that the ball was passed to another member of the same team. There are no other explicit references to passing the ball between members of the same team until the 1860s, however, in 1650 English puritan Richard baxter alludes to player to player passing of the ball during a football game in his book Everlasting Rest: "like a Football in the midst of a crowd of Boys, tost about in contention from one to another".

1608 AD – Outlawing of Football in Cities

Football continued to be outlawed in English cities, for example the Manchester Lete Roll contains a resolution, dated 12 October 1608: "That whereas there hath been heretofore great disorder in our towne of Manchester, and the inhabitants thereof greatly wronged and charged with makinge and amendinge of their glasse windows broken yearlye and spoyled by a companye of lewd and disordered psons vsing that unlawfull exercise of playinge with the ffote-ball in ye streets of ye sd toune breakinge many men's windowes and glasse at their plesures and other great enormyties. Therefore, wee of this jurye doe order that no manner of psons hereafter shall play or use the footeball in any street within the said toune of Manchester, subpœnd to evye one that shall so use the same for evye time xiid".

Although football was frequently outlawed in England, it remained popular even with the ruling classes. For example, during the reign of King James I of England James Howelll mentions how Lord Willoughby and Lord Sunderland enjoyed playing football, for example:"Lord Willoughby, and he, with so many of their servants ... play'd a match at foot- ball against such a number of Countrymen, where my Lord of Sunderland being busy about the ball, got a bruise in the breast.

1624 AD – First concept of Football Teams

The concept of football teams is mentioned by English Poet Edmund Waller in c1624: He mentions a "a sort [i.e. company]of lusty shepherds try their force at football, care of victory... They ply their feet, and still the restless ball, Toss'd to and fro, is urged by them all". The last line suggests that playing as a team emerged much earlier in English football than previously thought.

1638 AD - Popularity of Football

Football continued to be popular throughout seventeenth century England. For example in 1634 Davenant is quoted (in Hones Table-Book) as remarking, "I would now make a safe retreat, but methinks Jam stopped by one of your heroic gamea called football; which I conceive (under your favor) not very conveniently civil in the streets, especially in such irregular and narrow roads as Crooked Lane. Yet it argues your courage, much like your military pastime of throwing at cocks, since you have long allowed these two valiant exercises in the streets". Similarly in 1638 Thomas Randolp suggests this in the following lines from one of his plays: "Madam, you may in time bring down his legs To the just size, now overgrown with playing Too much at foot-ball".

1660 AD – First Objective study of Football

 In 1660 comes the first objective study of football, given in Francis Willughby's Book of Sports, written in about 1660. This account is particularly noteworthy as he refers to football by its correct name and is the first to describe the following: goals and a pitch ("a close that has a gate at either end. The gates are called Goals"), tactics ("leaving some of their best players to guard the goal"), scoring ("they that can strike the ball through their opponents' goal first win") and the way teams were selected ("the players being equally divided according to their strength and nimbleness"). He is the first to describe a law of football: "They often break one another's shins when two meet and strike both together against the ball, and therefore there is a law that they must not strike higher than the ball". His book includes the first (basic) diagram illustrating a modern football pitch.

Football continued to be played in the later seventeenth century, even in cities such as London. The great diarist Samuel Pepys, for example, states in 1665 that in a London street "the streete being full of footballs"

1840's AD - Codified Football England was the first country in the world to develop codified football, coming about from a desire of its various public schools to compete against each other. Previously, each school had its own rules, which may have dated back to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. The first attempts to come up with single codes probably began in the 1840s, with various meetings between school representatives attempting to come up with a set of rules with which all would be happy. The first attempt was The Cambridge Rules, created in 1848; others developed their own sets, most notably Sheffield F.C. (1855) and J.C. Thring(1862). These were moulded into one set in 1863 when the Football Association was formed; though some clubs continued to play under the Sheffield Rules 1878, and others dissented to form Rugby Union instead. The 1863 rules of the Football Association provides the first reference in the English Language to the verb to "pass" a ball.

1866 AD – First Player to be Ruled Offside C.W.Alcock became the first footballer ever to be ruled off side on 31 March 1866, confirming that players were probing ways of exploiting the new off side rule right from the start. The offside rule was introduced in 1866 into the Football Association rules. It was almost identical to the one that had been part of the Cambridge Rules.

The early Sheffield Rules were particularly important as their offside system allowed poaching or sneaking and thus demonstrated the use of the forward pass: Players known as "kick throughs" were positioned permanently near the opponents goal to receive these balls. According to C.W. Alcock the Sheffield style gave birth to the modern passing game. The Sheffield Rules of 1862later included both crossbars and half time and free kicks were introduced to their code in 1866.

1867 AD – The Oldest Football Cup in the World

 The Youdan Cup was an association football competition played in Sheffield, England. A local theatre owner Thomas Youdan sponsored the competition and provided the trophy. The trophy itself was made of silver, and although Thomas Youdan awarded a £2 prize to the winner of a competition to design the trophy, it was not completed in time to be presented on the day to the winners.

The format of the competition was drawn up by a committee and played under Sheffield Rules. The first two rounds were on a knock-out basis, however the final was contested between three teams playing each other in turn.

The final was played at Bramell Lane, Sheffield on 5 March 1867 and attracted 3,000 spectators, each paying 3d admission. The game used the concept of 'rouges' (a rouge was scored when an attempt at goal, using a goal only 4 yards wide, missed, but would have gone into an 8 yard wide goal: rouges were only considered in the case of a drawn match), and Hallam beat Norfolk and Mackenzie to finish first, while Norfolk beat Mackenzie and finished second. The Runners-up were presented with a two-handed silver goblet encircled with athletic figures that had been purchased with the proceeds of the gate money and had been completed. Sadly Youdan was unable to present it personally as he was ill.

1870 AD – The first International

 England was home to the first ever international football match on the 5 March 1870. The first match ended in a draw and was one of a series of four matches between representatives of England and Scotland at The Oval, London. These matches were arranged by the Football Association, at the time the only national football body in the world.

The origin of these games came in 1870 when CW Alcock challenged homegrown contenders in Scotland against an English eleven. These challenges were issued in Scottish newspapers, including the Glasgow Herald. He received no response to these adverts. One response to Alcock's challenges illustrates that soccer was eclipsed in Scotland by other codes:

"Mr Alcock's challenge to meet a Scotch eleven on the borders sounds very well and is doubtless well meant. But it may not be generally well known that Mr Alcock is a very leading supporter of what is called the "association game"...devotees of the "association" rules will find no foemen worthy of their steel in Scotland".

As a result he was forced to draw upon London-based players with Scottish origins. One notable Scottish player of the 1870 and 1871 games was Smith, a player of Queensn Park FC. This suggests that southern teams were not so isolated from Glasgow players and style of play as originally thought. Alcock was categorical that although most players were London based, this was due to lack of response from north of the border:

"I must join issue with your correspondent in some instances. First, I assert that of whatever the Scotch eleven may have been composed the right to play was open to every Scotchman [Alcock's italics] whether his lines were cast North or South of the Tweed and that if in the face of the invitations publicly given through the columns of leading journals of Scotland the representative eleven consisted chiefly of Anglo-Scotians ... the fault lies on the heads of the players of the north, not on the management who sought the services of all alike impartially. To call the team London Scotchmen contributes nothing. The match was, as announced, to all intents and purposes between England and Scotland". The first official ( i.e. Currently recognised by FIFA) international match would take place between Scotland and England on November 30th. 1872. This match was played under the Football Association rules.

1871 AD – The F.A.Cup The F.A. Cup was the first nationally organized competition. A knockout cup, it began 1871, with the first winners being the Wanderers. In those days professionalism was banned, and the cup was dominated by service teams or old schoolboys' teams (such as Old Etonians). In the early 1870s the modern team passing game was invented by the Sheffield FC, Royal Engineers A.F.C. and Scottish players of the era from Queens Park FC. This was the predecessor to the current passing, defensive game which was known as the Combination Game and was spread around the world by British expatriates.

1888 AD – Worlds First Football League

 The new professionals needed more regular competitive football in which they could compete, which led to the creation of the Football league in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor . This was dominated by those clubs who had supported professionalism, and the twelve founding members consisted of six from Lancashire (Blackburn Rovers, Burnely, Bolton Wanderers, Accrington, Everton and preston North End) and six from the Midlands (Aston Villa, Derby County, Notts County, Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers). No sides from the South or London initially participated.

Preston North End won the first ever Football League championship without losing any of their 22 fixtures, and won the FA Cup to complete the double. They retained their league title the following year but by the turn of the 20th century they had been eclipsed by Aston Villa, who had emulated Preston's double success in 1897. Other Midlands sides, such as Wolves (1893 FA Cup winners) and West Bromwich Albion (1888 & 1892 FA Cup winners) were also successful during this era, as were Blackburn Rovers, who won five FA Cups in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1892 a second division was added and in 1920 a third division was added.

1891 AD – Creation of Football Net In 1891 Liverpool engineer John Alexander Brodie invented the football net.

1991- Present In 1991 the English Premier league was formed of 20 clubs and with its links to Sky television and the increase in revenues by 2001 The Premier league was the richest league of any kind of sports in the world. At the present day, the league's TV rights have reached over 2 Billion Pounds. The argument at present is when will technology be used around the goal to confirm problem goals by Video replay.

It always amazes me how from a little Island like England we created and gave the world over 100 sports and games that have dominated the world.

Please visit my Sports and Football Playing funny Dogs on
Art Prints Collection @ http://www.fabprints.com/SPORTS.html

 

English Football Premier League – History

 

I have decided to write the history of the Premier League as it is the world's most popular and valuable league of any sporting kind.

Promoted as "The Greatest Show On Earth", the Premier League is the world's most popular and most watched sporting league, followed worldwide by over half a billion people in 202 countries, frequently on networks owned and/or controlled by Newscorp who also own Sky Sports. In China a Premier League match is watched from between 200-400 Million people.

The Premier League is watched by many countries including : United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, India, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong.

At the close of the 1991 season, a proposal for the establishment of a new league was tabled that would bring more money into the game overall. The Founder Members Agreement, signed on 17 July 1991 by the game's top-flight clubs, established the basic principles for setting up the FA Premier League. The newly formed top division would have commercial independence from the Football Association and the Football League, giving the FA Premier League license to negotiate its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements. The argument given at the time was that the extra income would allow English clubs to compete with teams across Europe.

In 1992 the First Division clubs resigned from the Football League en masse and on 27th  May 1992 the FA Premier League was formed as a limited company working out of an office at the Football Association's then headquarters in Lancaster gate. This meant a break-up of the 104-year-old Football League ( Since 1888) that had operated until then with four divisions; the Premier League would operate with a single division and the Football League with three. There was no change in competition format; the same number of teams competed in the top flight, and promotion and relegation between the Premier League and the new First Division remained on the same terms as between the old First and Second Divisions.

There are 20 clubs in the Premier League. During the course of a season (from August to May) each club plays the others twice (a double round robin system), once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents, for a total of 38 games. Teams receive three points for a win and one point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, then goal difference and then goals scored. At the end of each season, the club with the most points is crowned champion. If points are equal, the goal difference and then goals scored determine the winner. If still equal, teams are deemed to occupy the same position. If there is a tie for the championship, for relegation, or for qualification to other competitions, a play-off match at a neutral venue decides rank. The three lowest placed teams are relegated into the Football League Championship and the top two teams from the Championship, together with the winner of play-offs involving the third to sixth placed Championship clubs, are promoted in their place.

 

As of the end of the 2009–10 season, there had been 18 completed seasons of the Premier League. The league held its first season in 1992-93 and was originally composed of 22 clubs.

 

The first ever Premier League goal was scored by Brian Deane of Sheffield United in a 2–1 win against Manchester United. Due to insistence by FIFA, the international governing body of football, that domestic leagues reduce the number of games clubs played, the number of clubs was reduced to 20 in 1995 when four teams were relegated from the league and only two teams promoted.

 

The league changed its name from the FA Premier League to simply the Premier League in 2007.

 

British Television rights alone for the period 2010 to 2013 have been purchased for £1.782 billion. Worldwide rights were sold for the 2010 to 2013 season for over £600 Million which added to the British rights total £2.282 Billion over 3 years.

 

 

 Centuries of English Cricket History

Imbued in English culture is a love and Creator of Sports of all kinds. I was born just a few miles from the oldest cricket club in the world – Hambledon Cricket Club in Hampshire, England..

I have a website where I have listed and linked to the 100+ various sports and games created by us Brits.

Our national summer game is Cricket which It is believed was first played over a 1,000 years ago in English villages in an area of england called The Weald which borders Sussex and Kent. The game was played by children for hundreds of years before adults played the game . Its beginning is lost in the mists of history, but bat hitting games were played in Saxon England before the Norman Conquest.

There are stories that villager's played against villager's on village greens throughout our history, including up to today. There is nothing like a hot, sunny, summer day with the sound of leather ( The ball ) hitting willow ( The Bat ) in an English village.

What is agreed is that by Tudor times cricket had evolved far enough from club-ball to be recognisable as the game played today; that it was well established in many parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey; that within a few years it had become a feature of leisure time at a significant number of schools; and - a sure sign of the wide acceptance of any game - that it had become popular enough among young men to earn the disapproval of local magistrates.

Important Known Historical Dates of Cricketing Events

900AD (approx) English Children Play bat and ball games which are the pre-cursors to Cricket.                                                                                                                              1550 (approx) Evidence of cricket being played in Guildford, Surrey.
1598 Cricket mentioned in Florio's Italian-English dictionary.
1610 Reference to "cricketing" between Weald and Upland near Chevening, Kent.       1611 Randle Cotgrave's French-English dictionary translates the French word "crosse" as a cricket staff.
Two youths fined for playing cricket at Sidlesham, Sussex.

1624 Jasper Vinall becomes first man known to be killed playing cricket: hit by a bat while trying to catch the ball - at Horsted Green, Sussex.
1676 First reference to cricket being played abroad, by British residents in Aleppo, Syria.
1694 Two shillings and sixpence paid for a "wagger" (wager) about a cricket match at Lewes.
1697 First reference to "a great match" with 11 players a side for fifty guineas, in Sussex.
1700 Cricket match announced on Clapham Common.

1709 First recorded inter-county match: Kent v Surrey.
1710 First reference to cricket at Cambridge University.
1727 Articles of Agreement written governing the conduct of matches between the teams of the Duke of Richmond and Mr Brodrick of Peperharow, Surrey.
1729 Date of earliest surviving bat, belonging to John Chitty, now in the pavilion at The Oval.
1730 First recorded match at the Artillery Ground, off City Road, central London, still the cricketing home of the Honourable Artillery Company.

1744 Kent beat All England by one wicket at the Artillery Ground.
First known version of the Laws of Cricket, issued by the London Club, formalising the pitch as 22 yards long.
1767 (approx) Foundation of the Hambledon Club in Hampshire, the leading club in England for the next 30 years. ( I used to live just a few miles away from this excellent cricket club).
1769 First recorded century, by John Minshull for Duke of Dorset's XI v Wrotham.
1771 Width of bat limited to 4 1/4 inches, where it has remained ever since.
1774 LBW law devised.
1776 Earliest known scorecards, at the Vine Club, Sevenoaks, Kent.
1780 The first six-seamed cricket ball, manufactured by Dukes of Penshurst, Kent.
1787 First match at Thomas Lord's first ground, Dorset Square, Marylebone - White Conduit Club v Middlesex.
Formation of Marylebone Cricket Club by members of the White Conduit Club.
1788 First revision of the Laws of Cricket by MCC.
1794 First recorded inter-schools match: Charterhouse v Westminster.
1795 First recorded case of a dismissal "leg before wicket".
1806 First Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's.
1807 First mention of "straight-armed" (i.e. round-arm) bowling: by John Willes of Kent.
1809 Thomas Lord's second ground opened at North Bank, St John's Wood.
1811 First recorded women's county match: Surrey v Hampshire at Ball's Pond, London.
1814 Lord's third ground opened on its present site, also in St John's Wood.
1827 First Oxford v Cambridge match, at Lord's. A draw.
1828 MCC authorise the bowler to raise his hand level with the elbow.
1833 John Nyren publishes his classic Young Cricketer's Tutor and The Cricketers of My Time.
1836 First North v South match, for many years regarded as the principal fixture of the season.
1836 (approx) Batting pads invented.
1841 General Lord Hill, commander-in-chief of the British Army, orders that a cricket ground be made an adjunct of every military barracks.
1844 First official international match: Canada v United States.
1845 First match played at The Oval.
1846 The All-England XI, organised by William Clarke, begins playing matches, often against odds, throughout the country.
1849 First Yorkshire v Lancashire match.
1850 Wicket-keeping gloves first used.
1850 John Wisden bowls all ten batsmen in an innings for North v South.
1853 First mention of a champion county: Nottinghamshire.
1858 First recorded instance of a hat being awarded to a bowler taking three wickets with consecutive balls.
1859 First touring team to leave England, captained by George Parr, draws enthusiastic crowds in the US and Canada.
1864 Overhand bowling authorised by MCC.
John Wisden's The Cricketer's Almanack first published.
1868 Team of Australian aborigines tour England.
1873 W G Grace becomes the first player to record 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season.
First regulations restricting county qualifications, often regarded as the official start of the County Championship.
1877 First Test match: Australia beat England by 45 runs in Melbourne.
1880 First Test in England: a five-wicket win against Australia at The Oval.
1882 Following England's first defeat by Australia in England, an "obituary notice" to English cricket in the Sporting Times leads to the tradition of The Ashes.
1889 South Africa's first Test match.
Declarations first authorised, but only on the third day, or in a one-day match.
1890 County Championship officially constituted.
Present Lord's pavillion opened.
1895 W G Grace scores 1,000 runs in May, and reaches his 100th hundred.
1899 AEJ Collins scores 628 not out in a junior house match at Clifton College, the highest individual score in any match.
Selectors choose England team for home Tests, instead of host club issuing invitations.
1900 Six-ball over becomes the norm, instead of five.
1909 Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC - now the International Cricket Council) set up, with England, Australia and South Africa the original members.
1910 Six runs given for any hit over the boundary, instead of only for a hit out of the ground.
1912 First and only triangular Test series played in England, involving England, Australia and South Africa.
1915 W.G. Grace dies aged 67.
1926 Victoria score 1,107 v New South Wales at Melbourne, the record total for a first-class innings.
1928 West Indies' first Test match.
AP "Tich" Freeman of Kent and England becomes the only player to take more than 300 first-class wickets in a season: 304.
1930 New Zealand's first Test match.
Donald Bradman's first tour of England: he scores 974 runs in the five Ashes Tests, still a record for any Test series.
1931 Stumps made higher (28 inches not 27) and wider (nine inches not eight - this was optional until 1947).
1932 India's first Test match.
Hedley Verity of Yorkshire takes ten wickets for ten runs v Nottinghamshire, the best innings analysis in first-class cricket.
1932-33 The Bodyline tour of Australia in which England bowl at batsmen's bodies with a packed leg-side field to neutralise Bradman's scoring.
1934 Jack Hobbs retires, with 197 centuries and 61,237 runs, both records. First women's Test: Australia v England at Brisbane.
1935 MCC condemn and outlaw Bodyline.
1947 Denis Compton of Middlesex and England scores a record 3,816 runs in an English season.
1948 First five-day Tests in England.
Bradman concludes Test career with a second-ball duck at The Oval and a batting average of 99.94 - four runs short of 100.
1952 Pakistan's first Test match.
1953 England regain the Ashes after a 19-year gap, the longest ever.
1956 Jim Laker of England takes 19 wickets for 90 v Australia at Manchester, the best match analysis in first-class cricket.
1957 Declarations authorised at any time.
1960 First tied Test, Australia v West Indies at Brisbane.
1963 Distinction between amateur and professional cricketers abolished in English cricket.
The first major one-day tournament begins in England: the Gillette Cup.
1969 Limited-over Sunday league inaugurated for first-class counties.
1970 Proposed South African tour of England cancelled: South Africa excluded from international cricket because of their government's apartheid policies.
1971 First one-day international: Australia v England at Melbourne.
1975 First World Cup: West Indies beat Australia in final at Lord's.
1976 First women's match at Lord's, England v Australia.
1977 Centenary Test at Melbourne, with identical result to the first match: Australia beat England by 45 runs.
Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, signs 51 of the world's leading players in defiance of the cricketing authorities.
1978 Graham Yallop of Australia wears a protective helmet to bat in a Test match, the first player to do so.
1979 Packer and official cricket agree peace deal.
1980 Eight-ball over abolished in Australia, making the six-ball over universal.
1981 England beat Australia in Leeds Test, after following on with bookmakers offering odds of 500 to 1 against them winning.
1982 Sri Lanka's first Test match.
1991 South Africa return, with a one-day international in India.
1992 Zimbabwe's first Test match.
Durham become the first county since Glamorgan in 1921 to attain first class status.
1993 The ICC ceases to be administered by MCC, becoming an independent organisation with its own chief executive.
1994 Brian Lara of Warwickshire becomes the only player to pass 500 in a first class innings: 501 not out v Durham.
2000 County Championship split into two divisions, with promotion and relegation.
The Laws of Cricket revised and rewritten.
2003 Twenty20 Cup, a 20-over-per-side evening tournament, inaugurated in England.
2005 The ICC introduces Powerplays and Supersubs in ODIs, and hosts the inaugural Superseries. 2007 The inaugaral 20/20 World Cup. Also the creation of the Indian 20/20 Premier league. 2010 England reach the 20/20 Cricket Final.

English Rugby – History

Imbued in English culture is a love and creator of Sports of all kinds.

I have a website where I have listed and linked to the 100+ various sports and games created by us Brits. One of our favorite sports is Rugby Football which It is believed was first played in English villages up and down the country. There are stories that villager's played against villager's and the aim of the game was to get the ball passed the opposing village boundary line. The rules included kicking, punching, scratching the opposition over and above the running with the ball and kicking of the ball.

While it is true that such games as Rugby did exist for centuries, their may be a kernel of truth to the William Webb Ellis legend that a football match was being played when Web Ellis picked up the ball and created Rugby. As far as most historians can tell, the earliest form of football with much similarity to rugby as we know it today, did originate at Rugby School around Ellis's time. Whether he was the actual creator of the game or the game simply evolved into something like the modern game during his time is still a point for debate.

Most probable is the slightly different version of the legend that the English Rugby Union relates. According to the English Rugby Union, the type of football played at Rugby School in Ellis's time was not soccer, but a game with a mixture of both soccer and rugby rules. Handling the ball was prohibited unless the ball was airborne, when the player was permitted to catch it. After catching the ball he would stand still, as did all the other players, and had the option of kicking it wherever he chose, or placing it on the ground and kicking for goal.

It is also very important to remember that in those days at English Public Schools, students often developed their own rules for the games of football they played on the spot as there was very little official refereeing. So it is possible that William Webb Ellis did in fact pick up the ball and run with it during an impromptu game of football, which set an example for others. But one thing does remain, it is highly dubious that rugby originated from soccer as we know it today. It is far more likely, and most historians tend to agree, that both rugby and soccer developed roughly side by side as rules became more formalized and documented.

Whatever the case, the story of William Webb Ellis is too good not to be held on to and cherished. William Webb Ellis has an official headstone on the grounds of Rugby School with the following inscription:

"This stone commemorates the exploit of William Webb Ellis who with a fine disregard for the rules of football, as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game A.D. 1823"

By the 1840s running with the ball had become the norm, and by the 1870s rugby clubs had sprung up all over England and in the colonies. But just as it was during the earliest days at the public schools, different rules were being used by different clubs with no official codification of the rules being laid down. To try and remedy this situation and provide a more uniform set of laws, a meeting was held in January 26, 1871, attended by the representatives of 22 clubs. It was at this meeting that the Rugby Football Union was founded.

The meeting was called by Edwin Ash, then secretary of the Richmond Club. He sent a letter to the newspapers which stated: "Those who play the rugby type game should meet to form a code of practice as various clubs play to rules which differ from others, which makes the game difficult to play".

Following the founding of the Rugby Football Union, a committee was formed consisting of three ex-Rugby School pupils who were invited to formulate a set of laws to help govern and unify the game. By June 1871 they had accomplished their task.

Soon after the Scottish members of the Union challenged the English to a match. This was by all accounts the first international match between England and Scotland, perhaps between anyone, and took place at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh on March 27, 1871, resulting in a win to Scotland.

The "Great Schism" and the Start of Rugby League

The rugby football union at this time believed strongly in maintaining the games amateur status. Despite this commitment, in 1893 reports of some players in the north of England receiving payments for playing reached the RFU, and it attempted to obtain evidence. The Union set up an inquiry into the matter, but was warned that if the club involved was punished, all the chief clubs in Lancashire and Yorkshire would secede from the Rugby Football Union.

The inquiry went ahead and the club concerned was suspended. Two general meetings resulted at which the Northern Unions lobbied for the right to pay player "broken time" wages to help cover any lost wages players incurred by skipping work to play in matches. It is important to note that many of the Northern Union clubs had a strong mining and blue collar constituency and lost pay was a serious concern for them. The Northern Union's request was denied and in August 1895 twenty two of the northern clubs seceded from the Rugby Football Union and formed the Northern Union, later to become known as the Rugby League.

The Rugby League quickly adopted rules to make the game more attractive to spectators in order to draw crowds to help pay the men's broken time wages. This is where the reduction of players to 13 came into effect as well as the move to a multiple downs style of play. As a result, Rugby League is very distinctive from Rugby Union in both appearance and strategies employed.

Rugby Union Becomes Professional

As the years wore on, the IRB and the Rugby Football Union clung to their amateur roots and traditions tightly, but there were growing cries from around the globe to turn professional. Ironically many of these reasons shadow the reason the Northern Union split away in the first place, namely increased demands on players time as well as increased media attention on the sport and revenues generated as a result. Many felt it was simply unfair to have so much money generated and the players receive none of it in spite of all of their sacrifices for club and country.

Along with this was a growing "hidden professionalism" in Rugby Union. While open air payments were unlikely, it became clear that most players were receiving a number of perks for playing such as houses, cars, and other under the table deals.

Realizing that the sport needed to move to a professional model if it was to remain intact, the IRB and RFU accepted professionals in Rugby Union in August 1995.

Snooker and Billiards – History

One of the most popular British sports is Snooker and Billiards which It is believed was first played over a 600 years ago by British Soldiers.

1470 - Billiard tables evolved as a replacement to the lawn of a croquet game. Although billiards tables initially could only afforded by nobility and the rich.

1516-1558 - It was reported that Bloody Queen Mary of Scotland 1516 – 1558 had a Billiards Table and was a great fan of the game.

1674 - The first book discussing about the rules of Billiard was named as `The Complete Gamester` and was written by Charles Cotton. The book was published in England in the year 1674. Almost all the towns in England had public Billiard Table's, during that period.Billiards became quite familiar to the public and several writers of that period also started to mention about the game in their writings.

1875 - It was in 1875 that Neville Chamberlain ( No, not that Appeasement British prime Minister ) created snooker. During the rainy season, young officers spent much of their time in the billiards room, and several of the games they played allowed for gambling. Two of the most popular games were ' pyramids' and 'black pool'.there were 15 reds, arranged in a pyramid, and each time a player potted a red his opponent had to pay a forfeit. In 'black pool', each player had a different coloured cue ball, and when an opponent potted potted it they had to pay a fee to rejoin the game. If the opponent potted the black ball after an opponents ball, the fee was greater.

Chamberlain combined elements of these two games to create a new game, which he persuaded his fellow officers to try. One day, when a player missed an easy shot, Chamberlain remarked that he was a 'snooker' - this was slang for a new recruit at Woolwich Military Academy. Chamberlain went on to say that they were all snookers at this game, and the name stuck.

Chamberlain had various postings throughout India, and introduced the game wherever he went. He was stationed in Madras from 1881 to 1885 and the game became very popular at the Ootacamund Club there. This is where the rules were worked out in detail for the first time.

During a visit to India in 1885, John Roberts, the world billiards champion, sought out Chamberlain in order to learn the game of snooker. He then introduced the game to England.

Chamberlain was promoted to captain in 1885, major shortly afterwards, and lieutenant-colonel in 1887. He was military secretary to the Kashmir government between 1890 and 1897, when he reorganised the Kashmir army. In 1899 he was promoted to colonel.

As well as India, Chamberlain also served in South Africa and Ireland. He died at his home in Ascot in 1944.

The Name Snooker received its name in the 1800's by the British Armed Force who always called losing players "snooker". The name stuck and the billiards game has remained under the same name of snooker for all of these years. The first organized tournament which was played wasn't until 1916 when snooker introduced the Amateur English Championships. The World Snooker Championships was released soon after with the help of Joe Davis in 1927. Throughout the 1930's snooker quickly became the most popular billiards game played throughout many countries.

1885 - The first governing body of the game, the English Billiards Association was formed in the UK in 1885, a period that saw a number of sporting bodies founded across the British sporting world. By the mid-20th century, the principal sanctioning body was the Billiards Association and Control Council (later the Billiards and Snooker Control Council).

1927 - The history of Billiards in India can be traced back to the first half of the nineteenth century, when the British rulers were ruling India. The game was brought to India by the British armed services.

British Boxing – It's History

One of the most popular British sports is Boxing which It is believed was first played over a 500 years ago in English villages up and down the country.

BrItish Prize Fighting was popular in the 16th century in England and became especially popular during the championship reign of James Figg, who held the heavyweight title from 1719 through 1730. The first documented account of a bare-knuckle fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury, and the first English bare-knuckle champion was James Figg in 1719. This is also the time when the word "boxing" first came to be used. It should be noted, that this earliest form of modern boxing was very different. Contests in Mr. Figg's time, in addition to fistfighting, also contained fencing and cudgeling. Boxing became a workingman's sport during the Industrial Revolution as prizefights attracted participants and spectators from the working class. Organization was minimal at first, and the bouts of those eras resembled street fights more than modern boxing.

The second heavyweight champion, Jack Broughton of England, drew his own set of rules for his own fights, and these were recognized in 1743. They outlawed some of the gorier aspects that the sport had acquired, such as hitting below the belt line. Instead of a ring of spectators--hence, the name ring--Broughton insisted upon a squared-off area. His rules governed what is known as the "bareknuckle era."

In 1866 the Marquess of Queensberry gave his support to a new set of rules, which were named in his honor. These rules limited the number of 3-minute rounds, eliminated gouging and wrestling, and made the use of gloves mandatory.

Bareknuckle bouts did not cease immediately but did begin to decline. A new era dawned in 1892, when James J. CORBETT defeated the last of the great bare-fisted fighters, John L. SULLIVAN, under the new rules

With the growing popularity of boxing, especially in the United States, weight classes other than the unlimited heavyweights emerged. These classes became popular as world championships were held at the new weights. Currently, there are eight major professional divisions: flyweight (up to 112 lb/50.8 kg); bantamweight (118 lb/53.5 kg); featherweight (126 lb/57.2 kg); lightweight (135 lb/61.2 kg); welterweight (147 lb/66.7 kg); middleweight (160 lb/72.6 kg); light heavyweight (175 lb/79.4 kg); and heavyweight (unlimited). In recent years there has been some recognition of junior weights, or between-weights, such as junior lightweight and cruiserweight.

Because of its violent nature and its identification with betting, boxing has had a controversial history. There have been periodic efforts to outlaw the sport.

In 1867, the Marquess of Queensbury Rules were drafted by John Chambers for amateur championships held at Lillie Bridge in London for Lightweights.Middleweights and Heavyweights. The rules were published under the patronage of the Marquess of Queensbury, whose name has always been associated with them.

The June 1894 Leonard–Cushing bout. Each of the six one-minute rounds recorded by the Kinetograph was made available to exhibitors for $22.50. Customers who watched the final round saw Leonard score a knockdown.

There were twelve rules in all, and they specified that fights should be "a fair stand-up boxing match" in a 24-foot-square ring. Rounds were three minutes long with one minute rest intervals between rounds. Each fighter was given a ten-second count if he was knocked down and wrestling was banned.

The introduction of gloves of "fair-size" also changed the nature of the bouts. An average pair of boxing gloves resembles a bloated pair of mittens and are laced up around the wrists. The gloves can be used to block an opponent's blows. As a result of their introduction, bouts became longer and more strategic with greater importance attached to defensive maneuvers such as slipping, bobbing, countering and angling. Because less defensive emphasis was placed on the use of the forearms and more on the gloves, the classical forearms outwards, torso leaning back stance of the bare knuckle boxer was modified to more modern stance in which the torso is tilted forward and the hands are held closer to the face.

The English case of Rv. Coney in 1882 found that a bare knuckle fight was an assault occasioning actual bodily harm despite the consent of the participants. This marked the end of widespread public bare-knuckle contests in England.

The first world heavyweight champion under the Queensberry Rules was "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, who defeated John L. Sullivan in 1892 at the Pelican Athletic Club in New Orleans.

Throughout the early twentieth century, boxers struggled to achieve legitimacy, aided by the influence of promoters like Tex Rickard and the popularity of great champions from John L. Sullivan to Jack Dempsey. Shortly after this era, boxing commissions and other sanctioning bodies were established to regulate the sport and establish universally recognized champions.

Golf – Its History and My Funny Golfing Art prints

I have a website of Funny Golf Art prints, Please Click Here for My Funny Golfing Art Prints Website. One of Britain's favorite Sports is Golf which It is believed a form of ball and club sport called 'Paganica' was first played in Londinium ( London, England ) by the Romans over 1500 years ago.

Whilst the argument continues on who first invented the sport of Golf, the one certain fact concerning the origins of golf, is that golf was first played in Scotland in the form we know of today. It would appear that in around 1353, golfers adopted the principle of allowing each team to hit a second uninterrupted shot. Previously, teams of players would alternate hitting a ball back and forth across the links in Fife.

The history of golf shows that golf also rapidly acquired such a popularity, that it eclipsed the sport of archery. Archery was so vital to Scotland's national defence, that the playing of golf in Scotland was made a criminal offence punishable by hanging. The modern game of golf we understand today is generally considered to be a Scottish Invention, as the game was mentioned in two 15th-century Acts of the Scottish Parliament, prohibiting the playing of the game of gowf because it was taking time from archery practice, which was necessary for national defense.

The modern game of golf originated and developed in Scotland: the first permanent golf course originated in Scotland, as well as membership in the first golf clubs. The very first written rules originated there, as did the establishment of the 18-hole course. The first formalized tournament structures developed and competitions were held between various Scottish cities. Before long, the modern game of golf had spread from Scotland to England and from there to the rest of the world. The oldest playing golf course in the world is The Old Links at Musselburgh Links. Evidence has shown that golf was played on Musselburgh Links in 1672, although Mary, Queen of Scots reputedly played there in 1567.

In 1603 James VI of Scotland suceeded to the throne of England. He and his courtiers played golf at Blackheath, London, from which the Royal Blackheath Golf Club traces its origins. There is evidence that Scottish soldiers, expatriates and emigrants took the game to British colonies and elsewhere during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

The Royal Calcutta Golf Club and the club at Pau in south western France are notable reminders of these excursions and are the oldest golf clubs ouside the British Isles and the oldest in continental Europe respectively. However, it was not until the late 19th century that Golf became more widely popular outside of its Scottish home.

By the 1860s there were regular services from London to Edinburgh. The royal enthusiam for Scotland, the much improved transport links and the writings of Sir Walter Scott caused a boom for tourism in Scotland and a wider interest in Scottish history and culture outside of the country. This period also co-incided with the development of the Gutty; a golf ball made of Gutta Percha which was cheaper to mass produce, more durable and more consistent in quality and performance than the feather filled leather balls used previously. Golf began to spread across the rest of the British Isles. In 1864 the golf course at the resort of Westward Ho! became the first new course in England since Blackheath. In 1880 England had 12 courses, rising to 50 in 1887 and over 1000 by 1914. The game in England had progressed sufficiently by 1890 to produce its first Open Championship, John Ball. The game also started to spread further across the British Commonwealth and at British Tourist destinations.

By the 1880s golf clubs had been established in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Singapore followed in 1891. Courses were also established in several continental european resorts for the benefit of British visitors.

The word golf was first mentioned in writing in 1457 on a Scottish Parliamentary Statute on forbidden games as gouf, possibly derived from the Scots word goulf (variously spelled) meaning "to strike or cuff". This word may, in turn, be derived the Dutch word Kolf, meaning "bat," or "club," and the Dutch sport of the same name.

Timeline of the history of golf from 150 AD to 1900 AD:

·       150 AD ball and club sport called 'Paganica' was first played in Londinium ( London, England ) by the Romans.

·       1354 - The first recorded reference to "chole", the probable antecedent of golf. It is a derivative of hockey played in Flanders.

·       1421 - A Scottish regiment aiding the French against the English at the Siege of Bauge is introduced to the game of chole. Hugh Kennedy, Robert Stewart and John Smale, three of the identified players, are credited with introducing the game in Scotland.

·       1457 - Golf, along with football, is banned by the Scots Parliament of James II to preserve the skills of Archery by prohibiting gowf on Sundays because it has interfered with military training for the wars against the English.

·       1470 - The ban on golf is reaffirmed by the Parliament of James III.

·       1491 - The golf ban is affirmed again by Parliament, this time under James IV.

·       1502 - With the signing of the Treaty of Glasgow between England and Scotland, the ban on golf is lifted.

·       James IV makes the first recorded purchase of golf equipment, a set of golf clubs from a bow-maker in Perth.

·       1513 - Queen Catherine, queen consort of England, in a letter to Cardinal Wolsey, refers to the growing popularity of golf in England.

·       1527 - The first commoner recorded as a golfer is Sir Robert Maule, described as playing on Barry Links, Angus (near the modern-day town of Carnoustie).

·       1552 - The first recorded evidence of golf at St. Andrews, Fife.

·       1553 - The Archbishop of St Andrews issues a decree giving the local populace the right to play golf on the links at St. Andrews.

·       1567 - Mary, Queen of Scots, seen playing golf shortly after the death of her husband Lord Darnley, is the first known female golfer.

·       1589 - Golf is banned in the Blackfriars Yard, Glasgow. This is the earliest reference to golf in the west of Scotland.

·       1592 - The Royal Burgh of Edinburgh bans golfing at Leith on Sunday "in tyme of sermonis." (Eng: sermons)

·       1618 - Invention of the featherie ball.

·       King James VI of Scotland and I of England confirms the right of the populace to play golf on Sundays.

·       1621 - First recorded reference to golf on the links of Dornoch (later Royal Dornoch), in the far north of Scotland.

·       1641 - Charles I is playing golf at Leith when he learns of the Irish rebellion, marking the beginning of the English Civil War. He finishes his round.

·       1642 - John Dickson receives a licence as ball-maker for Aberdeen.

·       1659 - Golf is banned from the streets of Albany, New York-the first reference to golf in America.

·       1682 - In the first recorded international golf match, the Duke of York and John Paterstone of Scotland defeat two English noblemen in a match played on the links of Leith.

·       Andrew Dickson, carrying clubs for the Duke of York, is the first recorded caddy.

·       1687 - A book by Thomas Kincaid, Thoughts on Golve, contains the first references on how golf clubs are made.

·       1721 - Earliest reference to golf at Glasgow Green, the first course played in the west of Scotland.

·       1724 - "A solemn match of golf" between Alexander Elphinstone and Captain John Porteous becomes the first match reported in a newspaper. Elphinstone fights and wins a duel on the same ground in 1729.

·       1735 - The Royal Burgess Golfing Society of Edinburgh is formed.[1]

·       1743 - Thomas Mathison's epic The Goff is the first literary effort devoted to golf.

·       1744 - The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers is formed, playing at Leith links. It is the first golf club.

·       The Royal Burgh of Edinburgh pays for a Silver Cup to be awarded to the annual champion in an open competition played at Leith. John Rattray is the first champion.

·       1754 - Golfers at St. Andrews purchase a Silver Cup for an open championship played on the Old Course. Bailie William Landale is the first champion.

·       The first codified Rules of Golf published by the St. Andrews Golfers (later the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews).

·       1759 - Earliest reference to stroke play, at St. Andrews. Previously, all play was match.

·       1761 - The Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society of Edinburgh is formed.[2]

·       1764 - The competition for the Silver Club at Leith is restricted to members of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers.

·       The first four holes at St. Andrews are combined into two, reducing the round from twenty-two holes (11 out and in) to 18 (nine out and in). St. Andrews is the first 18-hole golf course, and sets the standard for future courses.

·       1766 - The Blackheath Club in London becomes the first golf club formed outside of Scotland.

·       1767 - The score of 94 returned by James Durham at St. Andrews in the Silver Cup competition sets a record unbroken for 86 years.

·       1768 - The Golf House at Leith is erected. It is the first golf clubhouse.

·       1773 - Competition at St. Andrews is restricted to members of the Leith and St. Andrews societies.

·       1774 - Thomas McMillan offers a Silver Cup for competition at Musselburgh, East Lothian. He wins the first championship.

·       The first part-time golf course professional (at the time also the greenkeeper) is hired, by the Edinburgh Burgess Society.

·       1780 - The Society of Golfers at Aberdeen (later the Royal Aberdeen Golf Club) is formed.

·       1783 - A Silver Club is offered for competition at Glasgow.

·       1786 - The South Carolina Golf Club is formed in Charleston, the first golf club outside of the United Kingdom.

·       The Crail Golfing Society is formed.

·       1788 - The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers requires members to wear club uniform when playing on the links.

·       1797 - The Burntisland Golf Club is formed.

·       The town of St. Andrews sells the land containing the Old Course (known then as Pilmor Links), to Thomas Erskine for 805 pounds. Erskine was required to preserve the course for golf.

·       1806 - The St. Andrews Club chooses to elect its captains rather than award captaincy to the winner of the Silver Cup. Thus begins the tradition of the Captain "playing himself into office," by hitting a single shot before the start of the annual competition.

·       1810 - Earliest recorded reference to a women's competition at Musselburgh.

·       1820 - The Bangalore Club is formed.

·       1824 - The Perth Golfing Society is formed, later Royal Perth (the first club so honored).

·       1826 - Hickory imported from America is used to make golf shafts.

·       1829 - The Dum Dum Golfing Club, later Calcutta Golf Club (and later still Royal Calcutta) is formed.

·       1832 - The North Berwick Club is founded, the first to include women in its activities, although they are not permitted to play in competitions.

·       1833 - King William IV confers the distinction of "Royal" on the Perth Golfing Society; as Royal Perth it is the first Club to hold the distinction.

·       The St. Andrews Golfers ban the stymie, but rescind the ban one year later.

·       1834 - William IV confers the title "Royal and Ancient" on the Golf Club at St. Andrews.

·       1836 - The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers abandons the deteriorating Leith Links, moving to Musselburgh.

·       The longest drive ever recorded with a feathery ball, 361 yards, is achieved by Samuel Messieux at Elysian Fields.

·       1842 - The Bombay Golfing Society (later Royal Bombay) is founded.

·       1844 - Blackheath follows Leith in expanding its course from five to seven holes. North Berwick also had seven holes at the time, although the trend toward a standard eighteen had begun.

·       1848 - Invention of the "guttie," the gutta-percha ball. It flies farther than the feathery and is much less expensive. It contributes greatly to the expansion of the game.

The Bangalore golf club was formed in 1868 and not 1820 as stated in timeline.[

1851–1860

1851

The Prestwick Golf Club is founded.

1856

The Royal Curragh Golf Club is founded at Kildare, the first golf club in Ireland. Pau Golf Club is founded, the first on the Continent.

A rule change is enacted that, in match play, the ball must be played as it lies or the hole be conceded. It is the last recorded toughening of the rules structure.

1857

"The Golfer's Manual", by "A Keen Hand" (H. B. Farnie), is published. It is the first book on golf instruction.

The Prestwick Club institutes the first Championship Meeting, a foursomes competition at St. Andrews attended by eleven golf clubs. George Glennie and J.C. Stewart win for Blackheath.

1858

The format of the Championship Meeting is changed to individual match play and is won by Robert Chambers of Bruntsfield.

Allan Robertson becomes the first golfer to break 80 at the Old Course, recording a 79.

The King James VI Golf Club is founded in Perth, Scotland.

1859

The first Amateur Championship is won by George Condie of Perth.

Death of Allan Robertson, the first great professional golfer.

[edit] 1860–1870

1860

The Prestwick Club institutes a Professional Championship played at Prestwick; the first Championship Belt is won by Willie Park, Snr.

1861

The Professionals Championship is opened to amateurs, and the The Open Championship is born. The first competition is won by Old Tom Morris.

1864

The North Devon Golf Club is founded at Westward Ho!

1867

The Ladies' Golf Club at St. Andrews is founded, the first golf club for women.

1869

The Liverpool Golf Club is founded at Hoylake, later Royal Liverpool.

Young Tom Morris, age 17, wins the first of four successive Open Championships. His streak would include an 11-stroke victory in 1869 and a 12-stroke victory in 1870 (in a 36-hole format). His 149 in the 1870 Open over 36 holes is a stroke average that would not be equalled until the invention of the rubber-cored ball.

[edit] 1870–1880

1870

Young Tom Morris wins his third consecutive Open Championship, thus winning permanent possession of the Belt.

The Royal Adelaide Golf Club is founded, the first golf club in Australia.

1871

The Otago Golf Club is formed, the first club in New Zealand.

1872

The Open Championship is reinstituted when Prestwick, St. Andrews and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers offer a new trophy, with the Open Championship to be hosted in rotation by the three clubs.

Young Tom Morris wins his fourth consecutive Open Championship.

1873

The Christchurch Golf Club is formed, the second club in New Zealand.

The Royal Montreal Golf Club is formed, the first club in Canada.

The Open Championship is held for the first time at the Old Course.

1875

The Oxford and Cambridge University Golf Clubs are founded.

Young Tom Morris dies at age 24. He did not emotionally recover from the death of both his wife and their daughter in childbirth earlier that year.

Vesper Country Club is formed in Tyngsboro, MA.

1878

The first University Match is played at Wimbledon, won by Oxford.

1880–1890

1881

Royal Belfast is founded.

The use of moulds is instituted to dimple the gutta-percha ball. Golfers had long noticed that the guttie worked in the air much better after it had been hit several times and scuffed up.

1883

Bob Ferguson of Musselburgh, losing The Open in extra holes, comes one victory shy of equalling Young Tom Morris' record of four consecutive titles. Ferguson ends up later in life penniless, working out of the Musselburgh caddy-shack.

1884

The Oakhurst Golf Club is founded at White Sulphur Springs. The first hole at The Homestead survives from this course and is the oldest surviving golf hole in America.

1885

The Amateur Championship is first played at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake.

The Royal Cape Golf Club is founded at Wynberg, South Africa, the first club in Africa.

1886

A.J. Balfour is appointed Chief Secretary (Cabinet Minister) for Ireland; his rise to political and social prominence has an incalculable effect on the popularity of golf, as he is an indefatigable player and catalyzes great interest in the game through his writing and public speaking.

1887

"The Art of Golf" by Sir Walter Simpson is published.

1887

The Foxburg Country Club is founded in Foxburg, Pennsylvania, the oldest golf course in the United States in continuous use in one place.

1888 Kebo Valley Golf Club is the 8th oldest Golf course in the US.

1888

The St. Andrew's Golf Club is founded in Yonkers, New York, the oldest surviving golf club in America.

[edit] 1890–1900

1890

John Ball, an English amateur, becomes the first non-Scotsman and first amateur to win The Open Championship.

Bogey is invented by Hugh Rotherham, as the score of the hypothetical golfer playing perfect golf at every hole. Rotherham calls this a "Ground Score," but Dr. Thomas Brown, honorary Secretary of the Great Yarmouth Club, christens this hypothetical man a "Bogey Man," after a popular song of the day, and christens his score a "Bogey." With the invention of the rubber-cored ball golfers are able to reach the greens in fewer strokes, and so bogey has come to represent one over the par score for the hole.

1891

The Golfing Union of Ireland is founded on 12 October 1891 and is the oldest Golfing Union in the world.

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club is founded on Long Island.

Warkworth Golf Club is founded in Northumberland, designed by Old Tom Morris

1892

Palmetto Golf Club established in Aiken, South Carolina.

Glen Arven Country Club golf course established in Thomasville, Georgia USA; the oldest course still in use in Georgia.

Gate money is charged for the first time, at a match between Douglas Rollard and Jack White at Cambridge. The practice of paying for matches through private betting, rather than gate receipts and sponsorships, survives well into the 20th Century as a "Calcutta," but increasingly gate receipts are the source of legitimate prize purses.

The Amateur Golf Championship of India and the East is instituted, the first international championship event.

1893

The Ladies' Golf Union of Great Britain and Ireland is founded and the first British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship won by Lady Margaret Scott at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club.

The Irish Ladies' Golf Union is founded and is the oldest Ladies Golf Union in the world.

The Chicago Golf Club opens the United States' first 18-hole golf course on the site of the present-day Downers Grove Golf Course. The Chicago Golf Club moved to its current location in 1895.

Victoria Golf Club is formed and remains the oldest course west of the Mississippi on its original site.

The Segregansett Country Club opens in Taunton, Massachusetts. This course is still in operation.

1894

The Open is played on an English course for the first time and is won for the first time by an Englishman, J.H. Taylor. Taylor, along with Harry Vardon and James Braid (together known as the Great Triumvirate) would dominate the Open Championship for the next two decades.

The United States Golf Association is founded as the Amateur Golf Association of the United States. Charter members are the Chicago Golf Club, The Country Club, Newport Country Club, St. Andrew's Golf Club, and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

Tacoma Golf Club is founded, the first golf club on the US Pacific Coast.

1895

The U.S. Amateur Championship is instituted, with Charles B. Macdonald winning the inaugural event. The first United States Open is held the following day, with Horace Rawlins winning.

July 6, 1895 - Van Cortlandt Park Golf Course opens - the first public golf course in America.

The pool cue is banned as a putter by the USGA.

The U.S. Women's Amateur is instituted. Mrs. Charles S. Brown (née Lucy N. Barnes)[1] is the first winner.

1896

Harry Vardon wins his first British Open.

1897

The first NCAA Championship is held. Louis Bayard, Jr. is the winner.

"Golf", America's first golfing magazine, is published for the first time.

1898

The term "birdie" is coined at Atlantic C.C. from "a bird of a hole."

Freddie Tait, betting he could reach the Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club clubhouse from the clubhouse at Royal St George's Golf Club - a three mile distance - in forty shots or less, puts his 32nd stroke through a window at the Cinque Ports club.

The Haskell ball is designed and patented by Coburn Haskell. It is the first rubber-cored ball.

Church Stretton Golf Club is founded, the oldest 18-hole course in Shropshire and one of the highest courses in England and the United Kingdom.

1899

The Western Open is first played at Glenview G.C., the first tournament in what would evolve into the PGA Tour.

1900

Walter Travis wins the first of his three U.S. Amateur Championships. Harry Vardon wins the U.S. Open, the first golfer to win both the British and U.S. Opens.

Golf is placed on the Olympic calendar for the 2nd Games at Paris.

It always amazes me how from a little Island like Britain we created and gave the world over 100 sports and games that have dominated the world. My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th. Century AD. This has given me an interest in British history and the sports us brits have created.

The Ryder Cup Golf Competition – History

The Ryder Cup Matches, one of the last great sporting events founded on prestige rather than prize money, span 34 competitions over 77 years. The origin of the idea to stage international matches between the best American professionals and those of Great Britain.

Ryder was an Englishman from St Albans in Hertfordshire, who made his fortune selling penny seed packets. Before the matches at Wentworth, Ryder had engaged the British star Abe Mitchell as his personal golf tutor. Mitchell beat the reigning British Open Champion Jim Barnes, 8 and 7, in the singles, and then partnered with George Duncan in the foursomes to beat Hagen and Barnes, 9 and 8.

After the matches, Ryder had tea with British Team Members George Duncan and Mitchell. Also joining them were Hagen and American teammate Emmett French. Duncan suggested Ryder provide a trophy and encourage the establishment of matches on a regular basis. Ryder agreed at once and commissioned the design of the gold chalice that bears his name and Mitchell's likeness on the top.

Few amateurs who took up golf after their 50th birthday have left as many positive impressions upon the game as Samuel Ryder. Born in 1858, he was the son of a Manchester corn merchant and educated at Manchester University. His father doubted the wisdom of his son's plans to sell penny seed packets to English garden lovers. The young Ryder decided he would go into business on his own, moved south to St Albans in Hertfordshire and formed the Heath and Heather Seed Company. His business quickly prospered, and in 1906 his social standing improved to the point where he was elected mayor of St Albans. He became ill due to overwork, and fresh air and light exercise were prescribed as part of the cure. He was encouraged to take up golf. Reared on music and cricket, Ryder at first spurned the idea, but later relented.

Ryder first enlisted a professional named Hill from a local nine-hole course to guide him through his golf fundamentals. Later, Ryder employed Mitchell as his exclusive instructor at an annual fee of £1,000. Ryder practiced rain or shine, six days a week (never on Sunday), for a year. He was given instruction at Marlborough House, his home, on driving and iron shots, and he hit chip shots over a hedge in the paddock. He followed up with putting.

After his rigorous practice regimen, Ryder decided he could apply for membership at Verulam Golf Club. By age 51, he boasted a six handicap and joined the Verulam Golf Club in St Albans in 1910. Within a year he was elected Captain of the club, and later held the title in 1926 and '27. He sponsored a Heath and Heather Tournament in 1923, which was restricted to professionals. Among the field was Mitchell, a former gardener himself, and considered one of the finest players in Great Britain to have ever won an Open Championship.

Ryder relished the 1926 unofficial international match between the Americans and British at Wentworth, watching Mitchell and Duncan defeat Hagen and Barnes.

"Why can't they all get to know each other?" said Ryder.

"I will give £5 to each of the winning players, and give a party afterwards, with champagne and chicken sandwiches."

Later that evening in a pub, Duncan turned to Ryder and said, "This is wonderful. It's too bad we don't have a match like this which is official."

"Why not?" Ryder asked. Soon, the deed of gift was drafted with Ryder agreeing to donate a solid gold cup, worth £250. The cup was designed by Mappin & Webb Company. Ryder insisted that a golfing figure adorn the lid and that it resemble Mitchell. The first official Ryder Cup Matches were arranged for June 3-4, 1927, at the Worcester (Mass.) Country Club.

An appeal for £3,000 to finance the first British Ryder Cup Team was met with apathy and fell £500 short of the goal, but Ryder made up the deficit. After Ryder, the biggest single contribution was £210 from the Stock Exchange Golf Society. With no Order of Merit money-winning list available, the famed British triumvirate of Harry Vardon, James Braid and James Taylor acted as team selection committee.

Samuel Ryder, who would serve two terms as mayor of St Albans, lived to see two Ryder Cup Matches on his home soil. While celebrating the holidays with his family in London, he died of a massive hemorrhage on January 2, 1936. He was 77. His eldest daughter, Mrs. Marjorie Claisen, sent her father's favorite mashie (5-iron) to be placed in his coffin. Another of his daughters, Mrs. Thomas Scarfe, took over the family business. However, she never shared her father's passion for golf.

Ryder's youngest daughter, Joan, was her father's constant companion at all his golfing events. She witnessed all Ryder Cup Matches in Great Britain, and once in America, in 1983, when the US edged the Europeans at PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

In 1981, Joan met the Duke of Kent at the Matches at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey, England. She told the royal guest that her father had been surprised by the success of the Matches.

"He had the idea that when the Americans came over for a match he would give a 'small friendly lunch party' to both teams," said Joan. The Duke gazed at the spectators swarming near the 18th green, and said: "I wonder what your father would think of this little lunch party!" Joan Ryder's final appearance at The Ryder Cup Matches was at The De Vere Belfry in 1985. She called that edition of The Matches "the most exciting ever." Later that year, she died at her home in Sussex at age 81.

War-Torn Matches
With the outbreak of World War II, The Ryder Cup Matches were suspended from 1939-45, and the US retained the trophy from its 1937 victory. However, the United States continued the spirit of The Matches by selecting a ten-member team that participated in "challenge" matches to raise funds for the American Red Cross, various service organizations and other war-related efforts. With The 1939 Ryder Cup Matches cancelled, challenge competitions were arranged from 1940- 43, with two at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield, Michigan, in 1940 and 1942: at Detroit Golf Club, in 1941: and at Plum Hollow Country Club in 1943. The Ryder Cup Team, which had various members during that period, won four of the five challenge matches.

Walter Hagen captained the 1939, '40 and '41 Ryder Cup Teams, while Craig Wood captained the Team in 1942 and 1943. There was no competition in 1939, though The Matches were set for Ponte Vedra Country Club in Florida in November of that year. The 1939 US selections were repeated in 1940 in a challenge match at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, against Gene Sarazen's Challengers. Sarazen, who was left off The Ryder Cup Team, challenged Hagen by assembling a team that included Ben Hogan, Jimmy Demaret and Craig Wood.

In 1939, The Professional Golfers Association of Great Britain had selected eight players and Captain Henry Cotton before war interrupted further plans. The eight players named were: Jimmy Adams, Dick Burton, Sam King, Alf Padgham, Dai Rees, Charles Whitcombe and Reg Whitcombe. The remaining two members were never filled.

During the war, the exhibition matches brought together the greatest players of the era, including amateur Bobby Jones who led his team to an 8 1/2 to 6 1/2 upset of the Ryder Cup Team, August 23-24, 1941, at Detroit Golf Club.

Europeans join the Fight for the Cup
In 1973, The Matches were contested for the first time in Scotland at historic Muirfield. The PGA of Great Britain altered its selection procedure by having eight players chosen from a year-long points system and four by invitation.

During The 1977 Matches at Royal Lytham & St Annes, Jack Nicklaus approached the PGA of Great Britain about the urgency to improve the competitive level of The Matches. The issue had been discussed earlier the same day by both Past PGA President Henry Poe and British PGA President Lord Derby. Nicklaus pitched his ideas, adding: "It is vital to widen the selection procedures if The Ryder Cup is to continue to enjoy its past prestige."

The changes in team selection procedure were approved by descendants of the Samuel A. Ryder family along with The PGA of America. The major change was expanding selection procedures to include players from the British PGA European Tournament Division Order of Merit, and "that European Members be entitled to play on the team."

This meant that professional players on the European Tournament Players Order of Merit could be natives and residents of countries other than the British Isles, as long as they were from continental Europe. The recommendation and succeeding approval of the new selection process followed another American victory at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1977.

The first Ryder Cup Matches under the expanded European selection format were played at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The first two Europeans to make the overseas squad were a pair of Spaniards-Severiano Ballesteros and Antonio Garrido. Ballesteros has gone on to become one of the all-time winners in The Matches. He has a record of won 20, lost 12 and halved five and has earned 22 1/2 points in 37 Ryder Cup Matches.

The move to include the continental players was a major step in upgrading the Ryder Cup competitive level. The US had won all but one outing from 1959 to 1977, being tied, 16-16, in a memorable duel in 1969 at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England.

Expanding the selection procedure to include The European Tour provided the British PGA with a much greater pool of talent from which to select their Team. The European Tour Order of Merit also ensured a team comprised of golfers who were playing their best at the time of selection.

The effect of this continental Tour, with its varying types of golf courses, climates, food, language and customs, was to produce players of unprecedented durability. They possessed the technique and confidence to deal with all course situations and make The Ryder Cup Matches even more of a quality event.

Ryder Cup Format Changes:
From the beginning of the series through 1959, The Ryder Cup competition was comprised of four foursomes (alternate shot) matches on one day and eight singles matches on the other day, each of 36 holes.

The format was changed in 1961, to provide four 18-hole foursomes matches the morning of the first day, four more foursomes that afternoon, eight 18-hole singles the morning of the second day and eight more singles that afternoon. One point was at stake in each match, so the total number of points was doubled to 24. In 1963, fourball (better-ball) matches were added for the first time, boosting the total number of points available to 32.

The format was altered again in 1977, this time with five foursomes on opening day, five four-ball matches on the second day, and 10 singles matches on the final day. This reduced the total points to 20.

In 1979, when the Great Britain & Ireland Team was expanded to include players from European countries, the format was revised to provide four fourball and four foursomes matches the first two days and 12 singles matches on the third day. The total points awarded were 28. This format still continues today and for the foreseeable future.

The Ryder Cup Matches were interrupted for the second time in history following the September 11, 2001, attack upon America. Some eight days following the tragedy, The 2001 Matches were rescheduled, with all future competitions conducted in even-numbered years.

English Field Hockey - 1363 AD History

One of our favorite games is Field Hockey which It is believed a club and ball game was first played over 1500 years ago by English Royalty.

The word 'hockey' was recorded in 1363 when Edward III of England issued the proclamation: "moreover we ordain that you prohibit under penalty of imprisonment all and sundry from such stone, wood and iron throwing; handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games".

The modern game grew from English public schools in the early 19th century. The first club was in 1849 at Blackheath in south-east London, but the modern rules grew out of a version played by Middlesex cricket clubs for winter sport. Teddington Hockey Club formed the modern game by introducing the striking circle and changing the ball to a sphere from a rubber cube. The Hockey Association was founded in 1886. The first international took place in 1895 (Ireland 3, Wales 0) and the International Rules Board was founded in 1900. Hockey was played at the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1920. It was dropped in 1924, leading to the foundation of the (FIH) as an international governing body by seven continental European nations, and hockey was reinstated in 1928. Men's hockey united under the FIH in 1970.

The two oldest trophies are the Irish Seniors Cup, which 1st XI teams compete for, and the Irish Junior Cup.

The game had been taken to India by British servicemen and the first clubs formed in Calcutta in 1885. The Beighton Cup and the Aga Khan tournament commenced within ten years. Entering the Olympics in 1928, India won all five games without conceding a goal and won from 1932 until 1956 and then in 1964 and 1980. Pakistan won in 1960, 1968 and 1984.

In the early 1970s artificial turf began to be used. Synthetic pitches changed most aspects of hockey, gaining speed. New tactics and techniques such as the Indian Dribble developed, followed by new rules to take account. The switch to synthetic surfaces ended Indian and Pakistani domination because artificial turf was too expensive—in comparison to the wealthier European countries—and since the 1970s Australia, The Netherlands and Germany have dominated at the Olympics.

Women's hockey was first played at British universities and schools, and the first club, Molesey Ladies, was founded in 1887. The first national association was the Irish Ladies Hockey Union in 1894 and though rebuffed by the Hockey Association, women's hockey grew rapidly around the world. This led to the International Federation of Women's Hockey Associations (IFWHA) in 1927, though this did not include many continental European countries where women played as sections of men's associations and were affiliated to the FIH. The IFWHA held conferences every three years, and tournaments associated with these were the primary IFWHA competitions. These tournaments were non-competitive until 1975.

By the early 1970s there were 22 associations with women's sections in the FIH and 36 associations in the IFWHA. Discussions started about a common rule book. The FIH introduced competitive tournaments in 1974, forcing the acceptance of the principle of competitive hockey by the IFWHA in 1973. It took until 1982 for the two bodies to merge, but this allowed the introduction of women's hockey to the Olympic games from 1980 where, as in the men's game, The Netherlands, Germany, and Australia have been consistently strong.

Badminton and it's English History

One of Englands popular games is Badminton which is played by over 1 million people every week. Badminton was originally an English game called "The battledore and shuttlecock Game", an English game about which there are many references as far back as the 1400's. As early as 1860, Isaac Spratt, a London toy dealer, published a booklet, Badminton Battledore - a new game, but unfortunately no copy has survived.

The beginnings of Modern Badminton can be traced to mid-18th century British India, where it was created by British military officers stationed there. Early pictures show Englishmen adding a net to the traditional English game of battledore and shuttlecock. Being particularly popular in the British garrison town Poona (now Pune), the game also came to be known as Poona. Initially, balls of wool were preferred by the upper classes in windy or wet conditions, but ultimately the shuttlecock stuck. This game was taken by retired officers back to England where it developed and rules were set out.

The new sport was definitively launched in 1873 at Badminton House, Gloucester, England and owned by the Duke of Beufort ( The same house and grounds used every year for the Badminton Horse Show ). During that time, the game was referred to as "The Game of Badminton," and the game's official name became Badminton.

The game uses Shuttlecocks which are made up of nylon and feathers instead of balls. Shuttlecocks have been used in English games since the 8th Century.

Until 1887, the sport was played in England under the rules that prevailed in British India. The Bath Badminton Club standardized the rules and made the game applicable to English ideas. The basic regulations were drawn up in 1887. In 1893, the Badminton Association of England published the first set of rules according to these regulations, similar to today's rules, and officially launched badminton in a house called "Dunbar" at 6 Waverley Grove, Southsea, Portsmouth, England on September 13 of that year. They also started the All England Open Badminton Championships, the first badminton competition held in the world, in 1899.

The International Badminton Federation (IBF) (now known as Badminton World Federation) was established in 1934 with the following countries:

·       Canada

·       Denmark

·       England

·       France

·       Holland

·       Ireland

·       New Zealand

·       Scotland

·       Wales

India joined as an affiliate in 1936. The BWF now governs international badminton and develops the sport globally.

I would image during the last 1500 years my family have been playing the many sports developed and created in England and may have led to my family's interest in most sports played in England and given to the world. My older brother Mark is a good example of our sporting prowess. When my brother was 11 years of age and onwards he represented his school in Cricket, Football, Tennis, Badminton, Athletics and when he was 15 years of age he had a Football trial with Portsmouth Football Club and at 16 years of age played for Hampshire juniors at Cricket.

It always amazes me how from a little Island like England we created and gave the world over 100 sports and games that have dominated the world. My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th. Century AD. This has given me an interest in English history and the sports England have created.

Table Tennis History and Funny Sports Art Prints

One of Englands favorite games is Table Tennis. It was initially an after dinner past time and originated as a common sport in England during the 1800s and was commonly known then as "wiff-waff". It's history goes back to Real Tennis played by the English Royal Family in the 1150's.

In the 1800's the game was played when a row of books were to stood up along the center of the table as a net, two more books served as rackets and were used to continuously hit a golf-ball from one end of the table to the other. Later, table tennis was played with paddles made of cigar box lids and balls made of champagne corks. Eventually, table tennis evolved into the modern game in Europe and the United States. The popularity of the game led game manufacturers to sell the equipment commercially. Early rackets were often pieces of parchment stretched upon a frame, and the sound generated in play gave the game its first nicknames of "wiff-waff" and "Ping-pong".

A number of sources indicate that the game was first brought to the attention of Hamley's of Regent Street under the name "Gossima". The name "ping-pong" was in wide use before British manufacturer J. Jaques & Son Ltd. trademarked it in 1901. The name "Ping-Pong" then came to be used for the game played by the rather expensive Jaquesses equipment, with other manufacturers calling theirs table tennis. A similar situation arose in the United States.

The next major innovation was by James Gibb, a British enthusiast of table tennis, who discovered novelty celluloid balls in 1901 and found them to be ideal for the game. This was followed by E. C. Goode who in 1901 invented the modern version of the racket by fixing a sheet of pimpled, or stippled, rubber to the wooden blade. Table tennis was growing in popularity by 1901 when table tennis tournaments were being organized, books on table tennis were being written, and an unofficial world championship was held in 1902. During the early 20th century the game was banned in Russia due to a belief that was held by the rulers at the time that playing the game had an adverse effect on players' eyesight. In 1921, the Table Tennis Association was founded in Britain, and the International Table Tennis Federation followed in 1926. London hosted the first official world championship in 1927. Table tennis was introduced as an Olympic sport at the Olympics in 1988.

In the 1950s rackets that used a rubber sheet combined with an underlying sponge layer changed the game dramatically, introducing greater spin and speed. These were introduced to Britain by the sports goods manufacturers S.W. Hancock Ltd. The use of speed glue increased the spin and speed even further, resulting in changes to the equipment to "slow the game down".

There is a move towards reviving the table tennis game that existed prior to the introduction of sponge rubber. Classic table tennis like Liha or "hardball" table tennis players reject the speed and spin of reversed sponge rubber, preferring the 1940–60s play style, with no-sponge, short-pimpled rubber equipment, when defense is less difficult by decreasing the speed and eliminating any meaningful magnus effect of spin. Because hardbat killer shots are almost impossible to hit against a skilled player, hardbat matches focus on the strategic side of table tennis, requiring skillful maneuvering of the opponent before an attack can be successful.

The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) worldwide governing body with national bodies responsible for the sport in each country. There are other local authorities applicable as well.

List of Members of the The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF)

The European Table Tennis Union is the governing body responsible for table tennis in Europe.

·       The English Table Tennis Association is the governing body responsible for table tennis in England.

·       The Irish Table Tennis Association is the governing body responsible for table tennis in Ireland.

·       The Polish Table Tennis Association is the governing body responsible for table tennis in Poland.

·       The Scottish Table Tennis Association is the governing body responsible for table tennis in Scotland.

·       The Table Tennis Association of Wales is the governing body responsible for table tennis in Wales.

·       The Canadian Table Tennis Association is the governing body responsible for table tennis in Canada.

·       The USA Table Tennis (USATT): national governing body for table tennis in the United States.

·       The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) is the governing body for table tennis in India.

It always amazes me how from a little Island like England we created and gave the world over 100 sports and games that have dominated the world. My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th. Century AD. This has given me an interest in English history and the sports England have created.

English Lawn Tennis – History

One of our favorite summer games is Lawn Tennis which It is believed a form called Real Tennis was first played over 500 years ago by English Royalty.

Royal interest in Real Tennis began with Henry V (1413–22) but it was Henry VIII (1509–47) who made the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at Hampton Court on a court he had built in 1530, and on several other courts in his palaces. It is believed that his second wife Anne Boleyn was watching a game of real tennis when she was arrested and that Henry was playing tennis when news was brought to him of her execution. During the reign of James I (1603–25), there were 14 courts in London. Today Real Tennis is still played at Hampton Court including by English Royalty like Prince Edward.

In England, during the 18th century and early 19th century as real tennis bacame less popular, three other racquet sports emerged: Racquets, Squash Racquets and Lawn Tennis (the modern game).

Its establishment as the modern sport can be dated to two separate inventions. Between 1859 and 1865, in Birmingham, England, Major Harry Gem, a solicitor combined elements of the game of rackets and played it on a croquet lawn in Edgbaston. In 1872, he moved to Leamington Spa and in 1874, with two doctors from the Warneford Hospital, founded the world's first tennis club. The Courier of 23 July 1884 recorded one of the first tennis tournaments, held in the grounds of Shrubland Hall.

In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield devised a similar game for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd in Llanelidan, Wales. He based the game on the older Real tennis. At the suggestion of Arthur Balfour, Wingfield named it "lawn tennis," and patented the game in 1874 with an eight-page rule book titled "Sphairistike or Lawn Ten-nis", but he failed to succeed in enforcing his patent.

Dates of first Tennis Grand Slams

1877 Wimbledon Championships and played on grass.

1881 US Open Championships and played on grass until in 1977 on clay court

1891 French Open Championships and played on grass until 1912 on clay court.

1905 Australian Open Championship and played on grass until 1988 on hard court.

In 1877 the All England Croquet Club formally changed its name to the All England Croquet Lawn tennis Club and held the first Lawn tennis Championship in July 1877. The referee was Henry Jones who devised the rules for the tournament with the help of a 2 man committee. Players were made to change ends after each set , matches were the best of 5 sets. Twenty two men entered the first championship. The shape of the court changed from hourglass to the modern rectangular. The net

was 5ft high at the posts and in the 3 ft 3in at the centre. The first champion was Spencer Gore.

The Sport 0f Squash - It's English Historical Beginings

One of our favorite summer games is "Squash" which It is believed originated from Royal Tennis played over 500 years ago by English Royalty. Squash is an individual or pairs game where players use a racquet to hit a small rubber ball around a four-walled court.

The origin of the game of "Squash" seems to originate from the English game called "Squash Rackets" and "Rackets and Fives" which evolved with a number of influences shaping its creation. The first known reference to a rebounding ball game was made by an English schoolmaster in 1581. The prisoners in "The Fleet Prison", London, mainly debtors, took their exercise by hitting a ball against walls, of which there were many, with rackets and so started the game of "Rackets". Rackets progressed, by some strange route, to Harrow and other select English schools from about 1820 and it was from this source that the sport of Squash, or Squash Rackets, developed.

In 1865, a game which had evolved from the English game of "Rackets and Fives" which was played in an enclosed court at the Harrow school. Several young boys in England began playing a game similar to squash (though squash had not been formally invented at the time) at the Harrow Boarding School in London. In the early 19th century, when the boys noted that puncturing a rackets' ball caused it to squash when hitting the wall, allowing a greater variety of shots. This led to the building of similar courts at Rugby, and at other private houses and clubs and "Squash" was officially created

By the end of the century it had spread to Britain's other private schools as well as Oxford and Cambridge universities. In 1908 a squash sub-committee of the Tennis and Rackets Association was formed to regulate the sport.

In 1923, a meeting was called to resolve the discrepancies in how the game of squash was played. At the time, squash competitions were held at several English clubs across Britain. The meeting requested representatives from each of these clubs to attend. A committee (called the "Squash Rackets Representative Committee") was formed and a set of squash standards were established. Court size, ball speed and various rules of play were codified. Today, most of the squash tournaments played throughout England adhere to these codified standards.

Since 1923, international competitions have taken place. During the previous 20 years, squash had progressed quickly from an obscure game played by young boys throughout England's boarding schools to a standardized sport with a committee overseeing tournaments in Britain, England, the U.S. and other countries. Today, squash is played by over 15 million people and it's enjoyed by players and fans throughout 150 countries.

The Sport of "Squash" started being played at the British Commonwealth Games in 1998 and there after every 4 years.

The Time Line of Squash

19th century: A game called 'Rackets' is developed in a London prison

1830 Squash invented at Harrow School

1864 The first four squash courts are built at Harrow

1907 National squash associations start to be set up

1912 First professional championship held in England

1966 International Squash Rackets Association (ISRF) founded

1985 ISRF amalgamated with the Women's International Squash Federation

1992 ISR becomes the World Squash Federation (WSF)

1998 Squash featured in the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

British Sports and Icons Given To the World

I am related to most of the British Royal Family going back 1500 years. This has made me a great fan of British History and below is a list of links of British Icons that have influenced my life.

I have also added a list of the many Sports and Games given to the world by us here in the UK.

●     Cricket

●     England Football Team

●     Portsmouth F. C. 1898 ( My Favorite Football Club - Pompey )

●     Sheffield F.C 1857 ( The Oldest Football Club In The World )

●     Wembley Stadium and Football Association ( Home of Football )

●     Wimbledon Tennis Championship ( Home of Tennis )

●     Saint Andrews ( Home Of Golf )

●     Lords Cricket Ground ( Home of Cricket )

●     The Jockey Club ( Home of Horse Racing )

●     Sebastian Coe

●     Steve Ovett

●     Steven Redgrave

●     The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race

●     David Beckham

●     George Best

●     Lester Piggett

●     Lewis Hamilton

●     Ian Botham

●     W.G.Grace

●     Andrew Flintoff

●     The England 1966 World Cup Winning Football Team

●     Speedway

●     Football / Soccer

●     English Premier League

●     American Football - Adapted from English Rugby

●     Rugby League

●     Rugby Union

●     Billiards

●     Snooker

●     Croquet

●     Curling

●     The Boat Race

●     Squash

●     Bowls

●     Tennis

●     Badminton

●     Table Tennis

●     Rounders

●     Softball

●     Baseball - Adapted from Rounders and Softball

●     Modern Olympic Games Held from 1846 Village of Wenlock by Dr. William Penny Brookes

●     Horse Racing

●     Polo

●     Show Jumpingarts

●     Modern Archery

●     Bar Billiards

●     Shove A Ha'penny

●     Golf

●     Skittles

●     Yachting and Sailing

●     Bobsleigh

●     Skeleton

●     Real Tennis

●     Hovercraft Racing

●     Field Hockey

●     Ten Pin

●     Darts

●     Boxing

●     Bowls

●     Pigeon Racing

●     Greyhound Racing

●     Stag Hunting

●     Fox Hunting

●     Otter Hunting

●     Angling

●     Formula One ( The First Ever Formula One race was Held in England in 1948 )

●     Boccia

●     A to Z British Games and Icons

●     British Games

●     Card Sharp

●     Ludo

●     Bingo

●     Cribbage

●     Crossword Puzzles

●     Jigsaw Puzzles

●     Reversi

●     Anexation

●     Snakes and ladders

●     Quoits

●     Shove Ha'penny

●     Shoffe Groat

●     Aunt Sally

●     Ringing The Bull

●     Slide thrift

●     Rings

●     Caves

●     3 Mens Morris

●     Jenga

●     Shut the box

●     Bowls

●     Bagatelle

●     Stoolball

●     Bat and Ball

●     Pitch Penny

     Toad in Hole

1.    1) King Alfred The Great
2)
Boudeca, Queen Chief of the Iceni Tribe
3) King Edward the Confessor ( I am Related to )
4) Queen Elizabeth the 1st
5) Queen Victoria
6) Queen Elizabeth the 2nd.
7) William Shakespeare
8) Charles Dickens
9) Agatha Christie ( Author of Miss Marple and Poiret )
10) J.K Rowling ( Author of the Harry Potter Books )
11) Sir Terry Pratchett ( Author of the Disc World Books )
12) James Herbert ( Horror Story writer of many novels including The Rats )
13) Sir Christopher Wren ( I am related to )
13b) Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel
13c) James Watt ( Inventor of the Steam Engine )
13d) George Stevenson ( Inventor of the Steam Train )
13e) Sir Isaac Newton
13f) Charles Darwin
14) Rudyard Kipling ( Author of the Jungle Book )
14b) H.G. Wells ( Author of The Time Traveller )
14c) Arthur Conan Doyle ( Author of Sherlock Holmes )
14d) Bram Stoker ( Author of Count Dracula )
14e) Mary Shelley ( Author of Frakenstein )

14) Sir Walter Raleigh
15) Sir Francis Drake
16) Duke Of Marlborough
17) Admiral Lord Nelson
18) Duke of Wellington
19) Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
20) Robert Walpole, 1st. Earl of Orford ( Regarded as the first Prime Minister in the modern sense );
21) William The Pit The Younger ( introduced the first Income tax )
22) Charles Grey, The Earl Grey ( restriction of employment of children; reform of the poor Laws, abolition of Slavery )
23) Sir Robert Peel ( Created the first National Police Force )
24) Edward Smith -Stanley, The Earl Derby. ( Father of the Conservative party ).
25) Benjamin Disraeli ( Queen Victoria's favorite Prime Minister )
26) Sir Winston Churchill ( Saviour of the world by defeating Hitler, Mussolini and Japanese Emporer )
27) Lady Margarat Thatcher ( First female prime minister and creator of Privatisation ).
28) The 1966 England World Cup Winning Team
29) The Portsmouth F.Cup Winning Team from 2008
30) Sir Ian Botham
31) David Beckham
32) Lord Sebastian Coe
33) Steve Ovett
34) Virginia Wade
35) David Bedford
36) Johnny Wilkinson
37) Torvil and Dean
38) Jennifer Ennis
39) Dame Kelly Holmes
40) Freddie Mercury
41) Elton John
42) Queen
43) Electric Light Orchestra ( ELO )
44) The Beatles
45) Annie Lennox
45b) Pink Floyd
45c) Genesis
46d) The Spice girls
46) Tom Baker
47) Lord Olivier
48) Sir Roger Moore
49) Cary Grant
50) Peter Davidson
51) John Pertwee

●     English Morris Dancing

●     The Valentine Card

●     William Wordsworth

●     Oxford University 1096

●     Cambridge University 1209

●     Haggis - A Dish first seen in a English Receipe Book from 1615 and loved by the Scots

●     London Hansom Black Cab

●     First British canal in AD50

●     Double Decker Buses ( Routemasters )

●     History of British Post Box

●     Histoy of British Telephone Box

●     Cludge Molliers

●     English Folk Songs

●     We British Invented the Fizz and Sparkle in Champagne

●     Scottish, Irish and English Kilts

●     History of London Stock Exchange

●     History of English Sterling Silver and Gold Hallmarks 1300 to present

●     English Language

●     English Peoples

●     British Peoples

●     Welsh Peoples

●     Irish Peoples

●     Scottish Peoples

●     Union Jack

●     A Compleat Angler by Charles Cotton and Izaac Walton

●     The Magna Carta

●     The Doomsday Book

●     Anglo Saxon Chronicles

●     English Jury Service

●     The English Sherriff

●     The King James Bible

●     Beowulf

●     BagPipes

●     Tower of London's Beefeaters or Yeoman of the Guard

●     Saint Georges Day Englands Patron Saint

●     Saint Andrews Day Scotlands Patron Saint

●     Saint Patrick's Day Ireland's Patron Saint ( Saint Patrick was an Englishman )

●     Saint Davids Day Welsh Patron Saint

●     Listing of All Other British Saints

●     The City of London ( survey found that over 350 languages are spoken in London Schools )

●     British Telephone Box

●     Augustus Pugin

●     Sir Charles Barry

●     Sir Christopher Wren ( I am a direct descendent )

●     Carnaby Street

●     The Iconic English Pub

●     Houses of Parliament and Big ben

●     Number 10 Downing Street

●     Buckingham Palace

●     Windsor Castle

●     Oxford Street

●     Regent Street

●     Mayfair

●     London Theatreland

●     The London Eye

●     Madame Tussaud Waxworks Museum

●     Tower Of London

●     Windsor Castle

●     Whitechapel ( aka Where Jack The Ripper Killed. aka Mr Tumblety was the Ripper )

Please visit www.BritishCouncil.org for A to Z Iconic British Buildings and Places

Sir Winston Churchill – War Leader, Artist and Writer

 

Sir Winston Churchill was one of Britain's greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as one of the greatest Leader and Politician of the 20th Century. I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his birth on November 30th 1874 at Blenheim Palace, a home given by Queen Anne to Churchill's ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough.  He is best known for his determination yet courageous leadership as Prime Minister for Great Britain when he led the British people from the brink of defeat during World War II.

 

He was the eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill, a Tory Democrat (a British political party) who achieved early success as a rebel in his party. Later, after Randolph Churchill failed, he was cruelly described as "a man with a brilliant future behind him." His mother was Jenny Jerome, the beautiful and talented daughter of Leonard Jerome, a New York businessman. Winston idolized his mother, but his relations with his father, who died in 1895, were cold and distant. It is generally agreed that as a child Winston was not shown warmth and affection by his family.

As a child Churchill was sensitive and suffered from a minor speech impediment. He was educated following the norms of his class. He first went to preparatory school, then to Harrow in 1888 when he was twelve years old. Winston was not especially interested in studying Latin or mathematics and spent much time studying in the lowest level courses until he passed the tests and was able to advance. He received a good education in English, however, and won a prize for reading aloud a portion of Thomas Macaulay's (1800–1859) Lays of Ancient Rome (1842). After finishing at Harrow, Winston failed the entrance test for the Royal Military College at Sandhurst three times before finally passing and being allowed to attend the school. His academic record improved a great deal once he began at the college. When he graduated in 1894 he was eighth in his class.

Very early on Churchill demonstrated the physical courage and love of adventure and action that he kept throughout his political career. His first role was that of a soldier-journalist.

In 1895 he went to Cuba to write about the Spanish army for the Daily Graphic. In 1896 he was in India, and while on the North-West Frontier with the Malakand Field Force he began work on a novel, Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania. The book was published in 1900.

More important, however, were Churchill's accounts of the military campaigns in which he participated. Savrola was followed by a book about the reconquest of the Sudan (1899), in which he had also taken part. As a journalist for the Morning Post, he went to Africa during the Boer War (1899–1902), where British forces fought against Dutch forces in South Africa. The most romantic of his adventures as a youth was his escape from a South African prison during this conflict and the “Wanted Dead Or Alive Poster” put up all over South Africa.

In 1899 Churchill lost in his first attempt at election to the House of Commons, one of two bodies controlling Parliament in England. This was to be the first of many defeats in elections, as Churchill lost more elections than any other political figure in recent British history. But in 1900 he entered the House of Commons, in which he served off and on until 1964.  Churchill's early years in politics were characterized by an interest in the radical reform (improvement) of social problems. The major intellectual achievement of this period of Churchill's life was his Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909). In this work he stated his belief in liberalism, or political views that stress civil rights and the use of government to promote social progress. Churchill was very active in the great reforming government of Lord Asquith between 1908 and 1912, and his work fighting unemployment was especially significant.

In 1912 Churchill became first lord of the Admiralty, the department of British government that controls the naval fleet. He switched his enthusiasm away from social reform to prepare Britain's fleet for a war that threatened Europe. While at the Admiralty Churchill suffered a major setback. He became committed to the view that the navy could best make an impact on the war in Europe (1914–18) by way of a swift strike through the Dardanelles, a key waterway in central Europe. This strategy proved unsuccessful, however, and Churchill lost his Admiralty post. In 1916 he was back in the army, serving for a time on the front lines in France.

Churchill soon re-entered political life. He was kept out of the Lloyd George War Cabinet by conservative hostility toward his style and philosophy. But by 1921 Churchill held a post as a colonial secretary. A clash with Turkish president Kemal Atatürk, however, did not help his reputation, and in 1922 he lost his seat in the House of Commons. The Conservative Party gained power for the first time since 1905, and Churchill began a long-term isolation, with few political allies.

In 1924 Churchill severed his ties with liberalism and became chancellor of the Exchequer (British treasury) in Stanley Baldwin's (1867–1947) government. Churchill raised controversy when he decided to put Britain back on the gold standard, a system where currency equals the value of a specified amount of gold. Although he held office under Baldwin, Churchill did not agree with his position either on defence or on imperialism, Britain's policy of ruling over its colonies. In 1931 he resigned from the conservative "shadow cabinet" in protest against its Indian policy.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, on 3 September 1939 the day Britain declared war on Germany, Churchill was appointed First Lord of The Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet, just as he had been during the first part of the First World War. When they were informed, the Board of the Admiralty sent a signal to the Fleet: "Winston is back". In this job, he proved to be one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called “Phoney War”, when the only noticeable action was at sea. Churchill advocated the pre-emptive occupation of the neutral Norwegian iron-ore port of Narvik and the iron mines in Kiruna, Sweden, early in the war. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the operation was delayed until the successful German Invasion of Norway.

 

On 10 May 1940, hours before the German invasion of France by a lightning advance through the Low Countries, it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so Chamberlain resigned. The commonly accepted version of events states that Lord Halifax turned down the post of prime minister because he believed he could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons. Although the prime minister does not traditionally advise the King on the formers successor, Chamberlain wanted someone who would command the support of all three major parties in the House of Commons.

A meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill and David Margesson, the government Chief Whip, led to the recommendation of Churchill, and, as we are a constitutional monarch, King George VI asked Churchill to be prime minister and to form an all-party government. Churchill's first act was to write to Chamberlain to thank him for his support.

Churchill had been among the first to recognise the growing threat of Hitler long before the outset of the Second World War, and his warnings had gone largely unheeded. Although there was an element of British public and political sentiment favouring negotiated peace with a clearly ascendant Germany, among them the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax.

Churchill nonetheless refused to consider an armistice with Hitler's Germany. His use of rhetoric hardened public opinion against a peaceful resolution and prepared the British for a long war. Coining the general term for the upcoming battle, Churchill stated in his “Finest Hour” speech to the House of Commons on 18 June 1940, "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin." By refusing an armistice with Germany, Churchill kept resistance alive in the British Empire and created the basis for the later Allied Counter-attacks of 1942–45, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of Soviet union and the liberation of Western Europe.

In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, Churchill created and took the additional position of Minister of Defence. He immediately put his friend and confidant, the industrialist and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of aircraft production. It was Beaverbrook's business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering that eventually made the difference in the war.

Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled British. His first speech as prime minister was the famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”.

He followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the Battle of Britain. One included the words:

... we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

The other:

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour”.

At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” which engendered the enduring nickname “The Few” for the RAF fighter pilots who won it.

One of his most memorable war speeches came on 10 November 1942 at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at Mansion House in London, in response to the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill stated:

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.

Without having much in the way of sustenance or good news to offer the British people, he took a risk in deliberately choosing to emphasise the dangers instead.

"Rhetorical power", wrote Churchill, "is neither wholly bestowed, nor wholly acquired, but cultivated."

As an Englishman I am proud we were able to stand alone from 1939 to the beginning of 1942 against Hitler, Stalin and the various Nazi quisling governments from continental Europe.

 

The final period of Churchill's career began with the British people rejecting him in the general election of 1945. In that election 393 Labour candidates were elected members of Parliament against 213 Conservatives and their allies. It was one of the most striking reversals of fortune in democratic history. It may perhaps be explained by the British voters' desire for social reform.

In 1951, the voters returned Churchill as prime minister. This was a belated thank you from the voters.

He resigned in April 1955 due to his age and health problems during his term in office. For many of the later years of his life, even his personal strength was not enough to resist the persistent cerebral arteriosclerosis, a brain disorder, from which he suffered. He died on January 24, 1965, and was given a state funeral.

History of The Tank – An England Icon

 

As the Tank became an integral part of WW1 and helped in the defeat of Germany I thought I would tell the history of the Tank. If it wasn't for Sir Winston Churchill the Tank would probably have never seen the light of day.

The name tank first came about during World War I. The first armoured fighting vehicles were built in the United Kingdom by William Foster and Co. Ltd. of Lincoln. The development was cloaked in secrecy by making up a story that they were making mobile water cisterns (tanks) for use on the Eastern Front and the boxes were even labelled "with care to Petrograd" in the Cyrillic alphabet. Thus originated the name of tank for the new weapon. The naval background of the tank's development also explains such nautical tank terms as hatch, hull, bow, and ports.

The great secrecy surrounding tank development, coupled with the scepticism of infantry commanders, often meant that infantry had little training to cooperate with tanks. As a result, the infantry would become separated from the tanks, allowing the German infantry to defeat the two arms separately.

The Royal Navy, largely at Churchill's urging, sponsored experiments and tests of the vehicle as a type of "land ship" during 1915, and the tank at last became a reality.

Small, local attacks, beginning at Flers on the Somme on 15 September 1916, dissipated the initial surprise of the tank. Not until 20 November 1917, at Cambrai, did the British Tank Corps get the conditions it needed for success. around 400 tanks penetrated almost six miles on a 7-mile front in an attack at Cambrai. This was the first large-scale employment of tanks in combat. Unfortunately, success was not complete because the infantry failed to exploit and secure the tanks' gains.

The British scored another victory the following year, on 8 August 1918, with 600 tanks in the Amiens salient. General Eric von Ludendorff referred to that date as the "Black Day" of the German Army. The German response to the Cambrai assault was to develop its own armoured program.

Numerous sustained tank drives in the early tank actions showed the usefulness of tanks and by 1918 tanks were also accompanied by infantry and ground-attack aircraft and both of which worked to locate and suppress antitank defences.

The first appearnce of the tanks on the battlefield was at Flers-Courcelette on 15th  September 1916 during the Somme offensive, and the memorial to this event on the outskirts of Pozieres will be familiar to all who have visited the battlefields.

 

The Unofficial Truce – Christmas 1914

One of the interesting things about the first world war concerns the Unofficial truce between the British and German troops and the Football played between them in “No Man's Land”.

One of the most remarkable, and heavily mythologised, events concerns the 'Christmas Truce' of 1914, in which the soldiers of the Western Front laid down their arms on Christmas Day and met in No Man's Land, exchanging food and cigarettes, as well as playing football. The cessation of violence was entirely unofficial and there had been no prior discussion. Both sets of troops acted spontaneously from goodwill, not orders.

It began when British troops hearing their German counterparts singing Christmas carols and joined in.  Frank Richards, a private in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, told of how both sides erected signs wishing the other a 'Merry Christmas'. From these small starts some men crossed the lines with their hands up, and troops from the opposing side went to meet them. By the time officers realised what was happening the initial meetings had been made, and most commanders either turned a blind eye or happily joined in. 

The fraternisation lasted, in many areas, for the whole of Christmas day. Food and supplies were exchanged on a one to one basis, while in some areas men borrowed tools and equipment from the enemy, in order to quickly improve their own living conditions. Many games of football were played using whatever would suffice for a ball, while bodies that had become trapped within No Man's Land were buried.

Most modern re-tellings of the Truce finish with the soldiers returning to their trenches and then fighting again the next day, but in many areas the peace lasted much longer. Frank Richard's account explained how both sides refrained from shooting at each other the next day, until the British troops were relieved and they left the front line. In other areas the goodwill lasted for several weeks, bringing a halt to opportunistic sniping, before the bloody conflict once again resumed.

On January 1, 1915, the London Times published a letter from a major in the Medical Corps reporting that in his sector the British played a game against the Germans opposite and were beaten 3-2.

Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons recorded in his diary: 'The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.'

The Truce lasted all day; in places it ended that night, but on other sections of the line it held over Boxing Day and in some areas, a few days more.  In fact, there parts on the front where the absence of aggressive behaviour was conspicuous well into 1915.

Captain J C Dunn, the Medical Officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, whose unit had fraternised and received two barrels of beer from the Saxon troops opposite, recorded how hostilities re-started on his section of the front.

Dunn wrote: 'At 8.30 I fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with "Merry Christmas" on it, and I climbed on the parapet. He [the Germans] put up a sheet with "Thank you" on it, and the German Captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and he fired two shots in the air, and the War was on again.'

The war was indeed on again, for the Truce had no hope of being maintained. Despite being wildly reported in Britain and to a lesser extent in Germany, the troops and the populations of both countries were still keen to prosecute the conflict.

Famous English and British Battles and Wars 59 AD to Present

Soldiers in the trenches of the First World War would often quote that they fought for each other. It makes us English a united culture, the envy of so many around the world. It is part of the English Enigma. It is why the English can laugh at themselves and celebrate defeats. It is their confidence and their very character.

In peacetime we English played and invented many sports and Games which we gave the world including Football, Rugby, Cricket etc.

Queen Boudecca and the Rebellion of 59 AD Boudicca was the wife of Prasutagus, who was head of the Iceni tribe in East England, in what is now Norfolk and Suffolk.After Prasutagus died in 59 AD the Romans arrived to take over half the kingdom and seize control. To humiliate the former rulers, the Romans beat Boudicca publicly, raped their two daughters, seized the wealth of many Iceni and sold much of the royal family into slavery.

Led by Boudicca, about 100,000 British attacked Camulodunum (now Colchester), where the Romans had their main centre of rule. With Suetonius and most of the Roman forces away, Camulodunum was not well-defended, and the Romans were driven out. The Procurator Decianus was forced to flee. Boudicca's army burned Camulodunum to the ground; only the Roman temple was left.

Immediately Boudicca's army turned to the largest city in the British Isles, Londinium (London). Suetonius strategically abandoned the city, and Boudicca's army burned Londinium and massacred the 25,000 inhabitants who had not fled. Archaeological evidence of a layer of burned ash shows the extent of the destruction.

List of Anglo – Welsh Wars from 446 AD to 598 AD This is a list of wars and battles between the English or England and the Welsh from the Adventus Saxonum in c.446AD to the late Middle Ages when they ceased.

The Battle of Mons Badonicus 490 - 517 AD The Battle of Mons Badonicus  (English Mount Badon, Welsh Mynydd Baddon) was a battle between a force of Britons and an Anglo – Saxon army, probably sometime between 490 and 517 AD. Though it is believed to have been a major political and military event, there is no certainty about its date or place.

Battle of Edington – 878 AD In the late 9th century the Danes had slowly but surely infiltrated the British Isles and pushed back the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants. They already held the north and east of the country. A temporary defeat at Ashdown had interrupted, but not stopped, the Danish advances. Under Guthrum, they pushed into Wessex from the south and east. They launched a winter attack on a surprised King Alfred at his court of Chippenham.

The Battle of Ethandun by King Alfred The Great 878 AD Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Ethandun, which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire. He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity; and three weeks later the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.

Battles of Brunanburh 937 AD was an Anglo-Saxon victory in 937 by the army of Æthelstan, King of Angle-Land, and his brother, Edmund, over the combined armies of Olaf III Guthfrithson, Norse-Gael King of Dublin, Constantine II, King of Scots, and Owen I, King of Strathclyde.

The Battle of Maldon AD 991Took place on the shores of the River Blackwater in Essex. There was a heroic stand by the Anglo-Saxons against the Viking invasion which ended in utter defeat for Brithnoth and his men. The battle's progress is related in a famous Anglo-Saxon poem, only part of which survives.

Battle of Fulford - 1066 AD and Battle of Stamford Bridge – 1066.The Battle of Fulford, on the outskirts of York, has been overshadowed by the other great battles of 1066 at Stamford Bridge and Hastings.

The Battle of Hastings 1066 AD The Battle of Hastings which took place on October 14th. 1066 is considered to be the decisive battle resulting in the Norman conquest of England. The battle took place at Senlac Hill, about eighteen miles from Hastings.

Battle of The Standard or The Battle of Northallerton 1138 AD The Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, in which English Forces repelled a Scottish Army which took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire.

Lincoln (First Battle of Lincoln) – 1141 AD The contest between Stephen of Blois and his cousin Maud ( Matilda ) for the throne of England was a messy affair, with first one side and then the other side gaining the upper hand. A supporter of Maud's cause, Ranulf de Tailebois, seized control of Lincoln Castle and fortified it against attack. The citizens of Lincoln appealed to King Stephen for help.

Lincoln ( Second Battle of Lincoln ) - 1217 AD King John's conflict with his powerful barons was at the root of the conflict known as the Battle of Lincoln Fair. The king was forced by his barons to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215. Louis, Dauphin of France, sent troops to aide the baron's cause.

Battle of Lewes – 1264 AD The reign of Henry III was beset by conflict with the Barons. Henry's autocratic rule, his favouritism at Court towards unpopular French nobles, particularly his despised half brothers, his foreign policies, and his refusal to discuss or negotiate policy with his Barons led ultimately to the Barons War  of 1263 – 1267.

Battle of Evesham – 1265 ADThe Battle of Evesham in 1265 restored Henry III to the English throne where he stayed until his death in 1272. He was succeeded by his son Edward I who went on to conquer Wales and nearly Scotland. Monks recovered de Montfort's mutilated body and buried him at Evesham Abbey. Today his grave is marked by a stone on which an inscription commemorates his death.

Battle of Stirling Bridge – 1297 AD In 1297 a commoner by the name of William Wallace was starting to oppose the English rule by attacking small English garrisons. The word soon spread through out Scotland and in a short time Wallace soon had enough followers to defend Scotland. When Edward heard of Wallace and his followers, he decided to send a large English army to wipe out Wallace before he got too big. When the word got out that a large English army was heading for Stirling to meet Wallace, thousands of Scots came down from the Highlands to join Wallace and confront the advancing English army. They met at Stirling. The Scots heavily defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297) which brought most of Scotland back to the Scots.

Battle of Falkirk – 1298 AD Wallace was knighted in 1298 and became a Guardian of Scotland, Wallace's army then continued over the border to ravage the north of England, sacking many towns and causing mayhem before returning back to Scotland. This prompted Edward into invading Scotland again. Edward's army advanced back into Scotland in 1298, and met Wallace at Falkirk.

Battle of Bannockburn – 1314 AD By 1314, only Stirling Castle was held by the English, and was not long till the Scots took it back. In a last attempt to stay in control of Scotland, Edward II and a large army marched north to relieve the castle. But was met by the Scots led by Robert the Bruce just outside of Stirling at Bannockburn.

The Hundred years War 1337 to 1453 AD The Hundred Years' War (French: Guerre de Cent Ans) was a series of separate wars lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings.

The Battle of Crecy 1346 AD France, August 26, 1346: after a long march from Cherbourg to the town of Crécy, the invading English forces faced off against an overwhelmingly larger French and Genoese army. It was a battle royale that shook France and showed the lasting ability of the English to defeat overwhelming odds.

Battle of Stalling Down – 1405 ADOwain Glyndwr (variously called Glendower, Glyn Dwr, and Owain ap Gruffydd) was a noble Welshman and a descendent of Llewelyn the Last. For most of his life he lived - and fought - as an Englishman, but by 1400 his growing sense of Welsh patriotic pride - and a squabble over land with his English neighbour - led him to raise an insuurection against the English in Wales.

Battle of Agincourt 1415 AD On 11 August 1415, Henry V, the English king for two years, set sail for France with an army to substantiate his claim to the French Throne. His plan was to take Harfleur as a bridgehead before marching down the Seine to Paris and Bordeaux. There are a number of possible reasons for this campaign. It was an attempt not only to reclaim what Henry believed to be his lawful birthrights, the Duchy of Normandy and the French Throne, but also as a means of securing his reign by diverting attention from the problems at home. Moreover, it was not without provocation by the French who had raided the English coast. After a generation of defeats and setbacks, this English force held three main strengths. If properly deployed, the English archer was one of the most formidable fighting forces in Europe, the strength of Henry as a general and the disorder of the French leadership under the frequent insanity of a weak king.

List of Battles during War of The Roses: Yorkshire V Lancashire 1455 - 1487

1.  The first Battle of St. Albans 1455

2.  The Battle of Blore Heath 1459

3.  The Battle of Northampton 1460

4.  The Battle of Wakefield 1460

5.  The Battle of Mortimer's Cross 1461

6.  The Second Battle of St Albans – 1461 AD

7.  The Battle of Ferry Bridge – 1461 AD

8.  Battle of Towton – 1461 AD

9.  The Battle of Hedgeley Moor 1464 AD

10.                The Battle of Hexham 1464 AD

11.                The Battle of Edgecote Moor 1469 AD

12.                The Battle of Losecote Field 1470 AD

13.                Battle of Barnet – 1471 AD

14.                Battle of Tewkesbury – 1471 AD

15.                Battle of Bosworth – 1485 AD

16.                The Battle of Stoke – 1487 AD

Battle of Flodden – 1513 AD Even before the political significance of England's resounding thumping of the Scots at Flodden Field, where almost a third of the Scottish army were slaughtered in Northumbria, military historians have cause to note the Battle Of Flodden Field. The most disastrous battle in Scotland's history was a watershed for medieval combat, where the decisive thrust of the longbow, so favoured by England, began to cede, giving way to a new weapon more suited to lusty battle at close quarters.

The Spanish Armada 1588 AD The spectacular but unsuccessful attempt by King Philip II of Spain to invade Elizabethan England. The Armada is for the us English the classic foreign threat to our country.

The English Civil War 1641 – 1651 AD The English Civil War (1641–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

Battle of Edgehill 1642 ADEdgehill was the first major set-piece battle of the Civil War. A clear victory for either side at this point could have meant a rapid end to the conflict. Instead a combination of the particular circumstances surrounding the battle and poor leadership of both armies saw the clash end indecisively. The war would drag on for four bloody years yet.

Battle of Marston Moor – 1644 ADMarston Moor has some claim to being the biggest battle ever fought on British soil, and it was certainly one of the most decisive in our history, tipping the scales in the Civil War very much the way of the Parliamentary cause.

Battle of Naseby 1645 AD The Battle of Naseby was the key battle of the first English Civil War. On the 14th of June 1645, the main army of King Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.

Battle of Worcester – 1651 AD in August 1651 Charles and his largely Scottish forces found themselves in Worcester, resting before either moving further south, or meeting Parliament's New Model Army in battle.

The Monmouth Rebellion 1685 AD The Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, was an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England, King of Scots and King of Ireland at the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685. James II was unpopular because he was Roman Catholic and many people were opposed to a papist king. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, claimed to be rightful heir to the throne and attempted to displace James II.The rebellion ended with the defeat of Monmouth's forces at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. Monmouth was executed for treason on 15 July, and many of his supporters were executed or transported in the "Bloody Assizes" of Judge Jeffreys.

Battle of Sedgmoor - 1685 AD took place at Westonzoyland near Bridgwater in Somerset, England.It was the final battle of the Monmouth Rebellion and followed a series of skirmishes around south west England between the forces of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and the crown he was trying to take. The royalist forces prevailed and about 500 troops captured. Monmouth escaped from the battlefield but was later captured and taken to London for trial and execution.

The War of the Spanish Succession (the Duke of Marlborough) 1701-1714 AD Battle of Blenheim 1704 , Battle of Ramillies 1706

The War of the Austrian Succession 1742 to 1748 AD
Battles of: Dettingen 1743, Fontenoy, Roucoux and Lauffeldt.

The Jacobite Rebellion 1745 to 1746 AD
The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in the British Isles occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by Parliament during the Glorious Revolution. The series of conflicts takes its name from Jacobus, the Latin form of James. Battles of: Prestonpans, Falkirk and Battle of Culloden 1746.

The Seven Years War 1756 to 1763 AD
The Seven Years War was the first global conflict. It had two main fronts. The first, in Europe, was the hostility between Prussia and Austria, still simmering after the War of the Austrian Succession , which expanded through alliances to include all of Europe.

Battles of : Rossbach 1757, Minden 1759, Quebec 1759, Emsdorff 1760, Warburg 1760, Kloster Kamp 1760, Vellinghausen 1761 and Wilhelmstadt 1762.

The French and Indian War 1755 to 1763 AD
Braddock on the Monongahela, Ticonderoga 1758, Louisburg and Quebec 1759.

The American Revolutionary War 1775 to 1783 AD
Battles of: Concord and Lexington, Bunker Hill, Quebec 1775 - 1776, Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, Fort Washington, Trenton, Princeton, Ticonderoga 1777, Hubbardton, Bennington 1777, Brandywine Creek, Freeman's Farm, Paoli, Germantown, Saratoga, Monmouth 1778, Camden, King's Mountain, Cowpens, Jersey 1781, Guilford Courthouse and Yorktown.

Battle of The Nile 1798 AD

The Battle of the Nile was Nelson's famous victory over the French fleet on 1st August 1798, leaving Napoleon stranded with his army in Egypt. It was fought in Aboukir bay near Alexandria, Egypt, on the 1st and 2nd of August 1798. The British fleet was under the command of Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson and the French fleet under Admiral Paul D'Brueys.

Battle of Trafalgar 1805 AD
The Battle of Trafalgar was fought on the 21st of October 1805 off Cape Trafalgar on the Spanish coast, between the combined fleets of Spain and France and the Royal Navy. It was the last great sea action of the period and its significance to any invasion of England by the French and Spanish was ended and helped in the dominance of the Seas by us British for over 100 years.

The Napoleonic Wars 1802 to 1814 AD
Trafalgar and Quatre Bras.

The Peninsular War 1808 to 1814 AD
Vimeiro, Corunna, Douro, Talavera, Busaco, Barossa, Fuentes de Onoro, Albuera, Salamanca and Vitoria.

The War of 1812 AD between USA and GB On June 18, 1812, the United States stunned the world by declaring war on Great Britain. Supporting its allies in Spain and Portugal, Britain's army was on the Iberian Peninsula, involved in a struggle with Napoleon Bonaparte, who had marshaled the forces of Revolutionary France under his penumbra.

Despite losing the Thirteen Colonies to George Washington and the American revolutionaries twenty-five years earlier, England, like many on the European continent, did not take the United States that seriously. Despite the fact that most of Britain's supplies for the Napoleonic war came from America and Canada -from beef to feed the Duke of Wellington's army, to the oak trees essential to maintain Britain's majestic navy. Britain found itself faced with another war, a war they had assiduously tried to avoid.

The Battle of Waterloo AD 1815
The Battle of Waterloo took place near Waterloo, Belgium on June 18, 1815. In this battle, the forces of the French Empire under the leadership of Michael Ney and the Dictator Napoleon Bonaparte were defeated by an Anglo-Allied Army commanded by the Duke of Wellington.

The First Afghan War 1839 to 1842 AD in which Britain suffered the humiliation of a British and Indian force massacred by Afghan tribesmen as they struggled to reach India from Kabul and saw an Army of Retribution exact revenge.
Battles: Ghuznee, Kabul and Gandamak, Jellalabad and Kabul 1842.

The Second Afghan War 1879 to 1882 AD which saw three British/Indian armies invade Afghanistan, fighting the battles of Ali Masjid and Peiwar Kotal, the death of the British envoy Cavagnari in the Billa Hissar citadel at Kabul and the second invasion of Afghanistan by General Roberts, leading to the battles of the Sherpur Cantonment (Kabul), Ahmed Khel, the disaster of Maiwand and the final victory of Kandahar, following Roberts' spectacular march from Kabul. Battles: Ali Masjid, Peiwar Kotal, Charasiab, Kabul 1879, Ahmed Khel, Maiwand, Kandahar.

The First Sikh Wars 1845-1846 AD The Sikhs fought First Anglo Sikh War with the British and lost Kashmir as they were defeated in the battle.

The Second Sikh War 1848-1849 AD
The Second Anglo-Sikh War fell out between the Sikh Empire and the British Empire. The war led to the subjugation of the Sikh kingdom and the annexation of Punjab and what subsequently became the North-West Frontier Province by the British East India Company.

The Crimean War 1854 to 1856 AD Everyone interested in history has an impression of the Crimean war, if only because of the famous battle of the Charge of the Light Brigade, mistakenly charging the Russian cannon at the battle of Baklava in the aftermath of the Heavy Brigade's triumph in breaking the Russian line. The latter passed into oblivion but the former took on immortality after Alfred Tennyson, doing a good day's work as Poet Laureate. The battles included: Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sevastopol.

World War One 1914 – 1918 The start of World War 1 was caused by the assasination of Archduke Francis Ferdinandon on June 14th. 1914 and the alliances throughout Europe which led to the first World War.

World War Two 1939-1945 Europe : Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany 1933. He rearmed the country, in violation of a treaty signed after World War One, and soon began to threaten other European nations. After the invasion of Poland in 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany and Italy declared war on Britain and France. At this time in 1939 the Soviet Union had a pact with Germany. After the fall of France, Britain and its Commonwealth stood alone for 18 monthe against Hitler and Stalin. Once Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Britain signed an accord with the Soviet Union against Hitler. The end of the war came shrotly after Hitler commited suicide at the end of April 1945.

World War Two 1941-1945 Japan In December 1941 The japenese bombed pearl Harbour and declared war on the USA. Hitler shortly afterwards declared war on the USA. This led to Britain to declare war on japan.

The Soviet Union joined Britain and its Commonwealth plus the USA in the war against Japan, and shortly after the soviets joining war against Japan the USA dropped a second Atom Bomb and shortly afterwards Tokyo surrendered within days, with V-J Day declared on 15 August 1945. On 2 September 1945 World War II ended when representatives of Japan signed the instruments of surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri (BB 63) in Tokyo Bay.

The Korean War 1950-1957 The first British units to arrive at Pusan on 28 August 1950 were the 1st Battalion The Middlesex Regiment and 1st Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders under the 27th British Infantry Brigade.

The Suez Conflict 1956 AD In 1956, the Suez Canal became the focus of a major world conflict. The canal represents the only direct means of travel from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, making it vital to the flow of trade between Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. Normally, free passage was granted to all who used the canal, but Britain and France desired control of it, not only for commercial shipping, but also for colonial interests. The Egyptian government had just been taken over by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who felt the canal should be under Egyptian control. The United States and Britain had promised to give aid to Egypt in the construction of the Asw_n High Dam in the Nile. This aid was retracted however, and in retaliation Nasser nationalized the canal. He intended to use the funds raised from the operation of the canal to pay for the Dam.

The Falklands War 1982 AD The Falklands War started on Friday, 2 April 1982 with the Argentine invasion and occupation of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982. The war lasted 74 days, and resulted in the deaths of 255 British and 649 Argentine soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and three civilian Falklanders. It is the most recent conflict to be fought by the UK without any allied states and the only external Argentine war since the 1880s.

The First Iraq War 1990-1991 AD international conflict that was triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Iraq's leader, Ṣaddām Ḥussein, ordered the invasion and occupation of Kuwait with the apparent aim of acquiring that nation's large oil reserves, canceling a large debt Iraq owed Kuwait, and expanding Iraqi power in the region.

The Second Gulf War 2003 AD to 2008 Prior to the war, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed a threat to their security and that of their coalition/regional allies. These were lies by Tony Blair and George W. Bush just to get the support of the UN and the populations of the Brits and Yanks.

The ongoing Afghan War 2001 to Present the War in Afghanistan is an ongoing coalition conflict which began on October 7, 2001, as the US military's Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) that was launched, along with the British military, in response to both the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. The UK has, since 2002, led its own military operation, Operation Herrick, as part of the same war in Afghanistan. The character of the war evolved from a violent struggle against Al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters to a complex counterinsurgency effort.

 

Please visit my Funny Animal Art Prints Collection @ http://www.fabprints.com

My other website is called Directory of British Icons: http://fabprints.webs.com

The Chinese call Britain 'The Island of Hero's' which I think sums up what we British are all about. We British are inquisitive and competitive and are always looking over the horizon to the next adventure and discovery.

Copyright © 2011 - 2012 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

 

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