For accounts of Hamerton's life and career, see Who Was Who, Drew's Medical Officers in British Army Services, 1660-1960 Vol II, obituaries in the British Medical Journal and the Lancet.
In 1745 a split in the Company of Barber-Surgeons [est. 1540] led to the formation of The Company of Surgeons. The Company of Surgeons obtained a Royal Charter in 1800 and became the Royal College of Surgeons of London. A new charter in 1843 led to the current name The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
The pharmacy in Fulham Road was purchased in 1942 by Dr Sheridan's father, Anthony M Sheridan, which he sold in 1988, and which now trades under the name CE Harrod. When Mr Sheridan purchased the pharmacy it was situated at 273 Fulham Road, but during the 1970s he swapped premises with an optical practice he had purchased at 307 Fulham Road.
Professor of Clinical Anatomy, University College London, 1931-1934, and Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge University, 1934-1951. For further details of career see obituaries in The Lancet and British Medical Journal.
Sir Francis Avery Jones was known amongst his contemporaries as the "Father of Modern Gastroenterology". Born in Briton Ferry, Carmarthenshire on 31st May 1910, he graduated from St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical school in 1934, and received his MD and MRCP in 1936. In 1940 he became Consulting Physician and Gastroenterologist at Central Middlesex Hospital, London, remaining in this position until 1974. Other positions of note include: Honorary Consulting Gastroenterologist at St Mark's Hospital, London, Emeritus Consultant in Gastroenterology to the Royal Navy and Honorary Consultant Physician at St Bartholomew's, London. Avery Jones was a pioneer in the development of the modern approach to the treatment of peptic ulcer disease, publishing a series of important papers on the subject in association with Richard Doll. Doll and Avery Jones identified a number of factors which accelerated the healing of peptic ulcers, including bed rest, cessation of smoking and use of the drug carbenoxolene.
Throughout his illustrious career, Avery Jones was actively involved with a number of medical societies, presiding over several, including the British Society of Gastroenterology, the British Digestive Foundation and the Medical Artists Association. Further honours and appointments include a seat on the council of the University Of Surrey; the presidency and gold medal of The Medical Society of London; the vice presidency and gold medal of the Royal College of Physicians; and the Mastership of the Worshipful Company of Barbers, for whom he also held the title of Barber Emeritus. He was made a CBE in 1967 and knighted in 1970. Avery Jones was a strong supporter and constructive critic of the NHS, and his many achievements include setting up the Meals on Wheels service, his involvement in the King's Fund (a medical think tank), and his strong support for nutritional studies. He was also responsible for galvanising his colleagues into official action on cigarette smoking. Towards the end of his career he arranged for the funding and building of the Avery Jones Postgraduate Medical Centre at Central Middlesex Hospital. He died in May 1998 in Chichester, West Sussex.
Rowland Hill was consulting neurologist and physician to the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, London. During the 1939-1945 war he was a medical specialist in the Royal Army Medical Corps serving in Africa. He attained the rank of Major, relinquishing his commission in 1942 and subsequently was deputy regional adviser in medicine in the Emergency Medical Service (EMS). He played an active role in the medico-political discussions concerning the National Health Service and was elected Vice-President of the BMA in 1966 in recognition of his services.
Sir Robert McCarrison served in the Indian Medical Service 1901-1935, in research apart from active service in the First World War. From 1918 until his retirement in 1935 he worked in a unit, known from 1929 as the Nutrition Research Laboratories, at the Pasteur Institute at Coonoor, one of the smaller hill stations lying in the Doddabetta Ranges of the Blue Mountains, Nilgiri District (now part of the Tamilnadu state), Southern India (The Nilgiris, or Blue Mountains, are famous for their horticulture, coffee and tea plantations, and are inhabited by ancient tribes such as the Todas, Kotas, Kurumbas and Irulus - see C.1).
The Cholera Advisory Committee, headed by Dr Joseph Smadel, Associate Director of the NIH, was established to aid in developing a cholera research project in nations of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) as a result of the epidemic of cholera in Thailand in 1958. Initially the plan was to set up a research programme in Bangkok for a year, then arrangements would be made to establish a permanent SEATO research laboratory in Dacca, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The laboratory in Bangkok was funded by both the Thai and US governments, and in the event continued until 1970 when it was replaced by a US Army Medical Research Laboratory. This was completely separate from the Pakistan-SEATO Cholera Research Laboratory (PSCRL). The PSCRL remained functioning throughout the war for indepedence in Bangladesh, although most of the US staff were evacuated. The CRL (Pakistan-SEATO was dropped) existed with no status and funding was affected. Negotions with the Governement of Bangladesh could only begin after the US had recognised the Government's independence. In 1978 the CRL became the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Research.
For fuller details of the background and the history of the project, see section E.
This volume is one of a few typed copies of Miss Nellie Insley's account, written in 1915, with a 'Prefatory Note' by Henry Curtis, FRCS, written in 1923 giving both details of Miss Insley and her family and a note on the subsequent history of the hospital at St Malo.
The Pickett-Thomson Laboratory was established at St Paul's Hospital, Endell Street, London, in 1922, with David Thomson as Director and Sir Ronald Ross as its President. It produced 10 volumes of 'Annals', 1924-1934, recording its work on bacteria and other microorganisms using the techniques of microphotography. Some of the papers published in these volumes deal with the same subject as this manuscript but it does not appear to have been published in exactly the same form; also, it incorporates an account by Thomson of his career prior to the inauguration of the Pickett-Thomson Laboratory and his earlier work in microphotography.
Mary Louisa Drabble graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in medicine on 24 July 1925. She became a general practitioner in Westlea, Derbyshire.
Florence Fenwick Miller was a leading late Victorian feminist. She was one of the first women to qualify in medicine in the United Kingdom, having been part of Sophia Jex-Blake's first doomed attempt to obtain medical education for women at the University of Edinburgh, then studying at the short-lived Medical College for Women in London, and finally achieving registration when this was ultimately conceded to women in 1878. She practised only briefly, subsequently becoming a popular writer and speaker on popular physiology as well as feminist and political subjects, and a prolific journalist and editor. In 1876 she was elected to represent Hackney on the London School Board, and served three consecutive terms, 1877-1885. In 1877 she married Frederick Alfred Ford, but retained her own name, being addressed as Mrs Fenwick Miller.
The PARTHIA was one of the first passenger ships entering service for Cunard from their pos-war building programme, launched on 25 Feb 1947 and making her maiden voyage, from Liverpool to New York, on 10 Apr 1948. In Jul 1961, following the decline of sea-travel to the USA, she was sold to the New Zealand Shipping Co, a P and O subsidiary, and renamed the REMURA, in 1965 sold on to the Eastern Australian Steamship Co and renamed the ARAMAC, and sold finally in 1969 when it to Kaohsiung for scrap.
Contact the Archive for further information.
No history available
The Royal Festival Hall opened on 3 May 1951, providing London a replacement major concert hall to the Queens Hall destroyed in 1941. It was built by the London County Council as a contribution to the Festival of Britain, May-September 1951, and was the only structure planned to remain permanently on the site.
Responsibility for the design was given to a team at the London County Council architectural department. Robert H Matthew, Architect to the Council and J L Martin, Deputy Architect, were primarily responsible for the planning and design of the building. Edwin Williams, Senior Architect, was in charge of general organisation and progress and Peter Moro, was Associated Architect. In April 1988 Royal Festival Hall became the first post-war public building awarded Grade I listing.
The Hall initially included a large rectangular concert auditorium, which seats 2900 patrons, and a smaller recital hall. The building has been subject to ongoing development. In 1954, the organ was completed in main auditorium, and between 1962 and 1968 further building was undertaken on the site. Royal Festival Hall reopened in 1965, after eight months closure, with exterior walls slightly extended and refaced. In March 1967 two additional concert spaces were opened: the Queen Elizabeth Hall, seating over 900, and the Purcell Room seating more than 370. The adjacent Hayward Gallery opened in July 1968.
In 1983 the Greater London Council, successor administrative body to the London County Council, extended opening of the foyers of Royal Festival Hall to the public all day, seven days a week with free events and exhibitions being offered. In April 1986, the South Bank Board, a constituent part of the Arts Council of Great Britain, took over administration of the Southbank Centre concert halls following abolition of the Greater London Council.
In 1988 the Arts Council's Poetry Library, a collection of modern British poetry established in 1953, took up residency on level five of Royal Festival Hall.
From its beginning Southbank Centre concert halls have included a varied programme of musical and artistic events including orchestral, jazz and contemporary music, ballet, opera, lectures, recitals, readings and visual exhibitions.
Paul Peter Piech was born in Brooklyn in 1920. He studied at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York and the Chelsea School of Art in London. After working in advertising, Piech returned to Chelsea to teach graphic design, also teaching at the London College of Printing and Middlesex Polytechnic. In 1959 Piech set up The Taurus Press at his home in Bushey Heath. This private press produced books which defied usual printing conventions of setting, spacing and layout, often reflecting Piech's deeply held pacifist views, and were illustrated with his trademark linocuts and woodcuts. Piech died in 1996. Further information on the Taurus Press may be found in Kenneth Hardacre, 'The private press of Paul Piech', The Penrose annual 1976: the international review of the graphic arts (ed) Stanley greenwood and Clive Goodacre (Northwood Publications, London, 1976).
The Howard de Walden Estate dates from 1715 when Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, began the development of Cavendish Square and the streets around it. This land had previously formed part of the Marylebone Estate of the Dukes of Newcastle. It had passed from Margaret Holles, nee Cavendish, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Newcastle, to her daughter Henrietta Cavendish Harley. At the death of Henrietta's husband, Edward Harley, in 1741, this new Harley Estate passed to his only daughter, Margaret Cavendish Harley, who in 1734 had married William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland. It was subsequently known as the Portland Estate, and was handed down to successive Dukes of Portland. In 1879, the 5th Duke of Portland died without issue and his estates were divided between his sisters, (according to the terms of the 4th Duke's will), and his cousin, who succeeded him as the sixth Duke. The Portland Estate eventually passed to the last surviving sister, Lucy Joan Ellis, who was the widow of the 6th Lord Howard de Walden, and has remained in this family since then.
The Estate's first business trust, General Real Estates Investment and Trust Limited (GREIT), was formed in 1918, changing its name to Howard de Walden Estates Limited (HDWEL) in 1953.
The company was incorporated in its present form in 1963, but the estate is still owned by the family.
During the twentieth century two major portions of the Estate were sold: in 1914 Portland Town, an area east of St John's Wood High Street around 60 acres in extent, and in 1925 another 40 acres, much of it along Oxford Street, south of Cavendish Square and east of Great Portland Street.
The collection currently consists of materials dating from the three decades that followed the 1959 revolution. Many of the items are official publications originating from either the Communist Party of Cuba or from various government ministries, though in practice the distinction between party and state became increasing blurred. There are also a large number of pamphlets featuring speeches by Fidel Castro. Given Cuba's situation during this period as it faced the antagonism of the United States, sought to maintain a degree of independence within the Soviet orbit and championed the non-aligned movement it is unsurpising that many of these speeches are concerned with foreign policy and foreign affairs (including the wars in Vietnam and Angola and the problems of debt that increasingly faced the whole of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s). Other materials deal with the transistion of Cuba to a state-controlled planned economy and the problems of reconciling this with civil and human rights, though it must be noted that the majority of the items held here (whether produced internally or externally) are broadly in sympathy with the Castro regime.
Costa Rica's political stability during the period covered here stands in marked contrast to the situation in other countries in the region. Since 1949 it has been a relatively successful presidential democracy. The materials here tend not to originate from the major political parties but instead mainly come from organisations concerned with social and economic conditions in Costa Rica, particularly the problems of land reform and the countryside. Internal and external, academic and practical and Christian and secular bodies are all represented.
The majority of the materials in the collection at present date from the 1970s and 1980s, during which time Panama, despite a democratic façade, was effectively ruled by the military. During the 1970s increasing Panamanian discontent with the 1903 Hay-Bunau-Varilla Canal Treaty led eventually to its renegotiation with the United States in 1977, and it is the canal, these treaties and their consequences for the economy, society and independence of Panama which dominate the content of these items. Bodies from which the items originate include the military junta, the US government, NGOs and homegrown oppositional movements. The increasing repressiveness of the Panamanian regime under Noriega coupled with the post-1982 economic problems of the country are also alluded to in the materials held here, with the plight of the indigenous population in particular being highlighted.
The majority of the materials held in the collection here date from the period of military rule over Brazil between 1964 and 1985. Following the overthrow (with the alleged support of the United States) of the Goulart administration a series of generals presided during a period characterised by unprecedented economic growth and social repression. The former phenomenon, driven by huge state-backed industrialising projects such as the construction of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam and later by external borrowing culminating in the 1980s debt crisis, failed to bridge the inequalities of Brazilian society, as testified to here in the materials produced by development groups such as the Federação de Orgaos para Assistência Social e Educacional (FASE) as well as those of Christian organisations both indigenous and foreign. The latter is evinced here in the items produced by human rights and Latin American solidarity groups, whilst the restictions on organised labour which appeared to tie together authoritarianism and economic progress were increasingly challenged by the late 1970s by strikes particularly in the São Paulo industrial region, strengthening both the union confederations that are represented here and their political offshoot, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). The grievances of rural and urban organisations working for land and labour reform continued to be expressed as Brazil transferred to civilian government after 1985, with the holdings here from this period being dominated by the Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT) rather than the burgeoning number of political parties emerging in the post-military scene.
The period of Venezuelan history covered by the majority of the pamphlets currently held in this collection is one dominated politically by the consequences of the 1958 Pact of Punto Fijo. This was an agreement between the main civilian parties of the day, Accion Democrática (AD), the Partido Social Cristiano de Venezuela (COPEI) and the Unión Republicana Democrática (URD) on a common programme and an informal sharing power sharing arrangement, which basically saw AD and COPEI alternate in government until 1989. Though this system provided electoral stability, it gradually eroded trust in the democratic process and in the accountability of Venezuela's leaders to the needs of its people, culminating in the 1989 riots precipitated by AD President Carlos Andrés Peréz's economic reforms. As well as materials produced by the mainstream parties there are also items originating from left-wing groups and guerrilla organisations ostracised from the political process, trade unions and pressure groups concerned with issues such as the rights of women and indigenous peoples. Venezuela's economy is largely sustained by its state-owned oil industry, and there are several government-produced pamphlets here appertaining to that.
A comic book is a magazine or book containing sequential art. Although the term implies otherwise, the subject matter in comic books is often serious and action-oriented and can cover a range of genres from religion to super heroes. Comic books are so called because some of the earliest comic books were simply collections of comic strips printed in newspapers. The commercial success of these collections led to work being created specifically for the comic book form, which fostered specific conventions such as splash pages.
Long-form comic books, generally with hardcover or trade-paper binding came to be known as graphic novels, but the term's definition is vague.
American comic books have become closely associated with the superhero tradition. In the United Kingdom, the term comic book is used to refer to American comic books by their readers and collectors. The term used in the Britain is a comic, short for comic paper or comic magazine.
Since the introduction of the modern comic book format in the 1934 with Famous Funnies, the United States has been the leading producer, with only the British comic and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles. The majority of all comic books in the US are marketed to young adult readers, though they also produce titles for young children as well as adult audiences. This readership is reflected in the colours and themes used.
The history of the comic book in the United States is divided into several ages or historical eras: The Platinum Age, The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, and The Modern Age.
The Golden Age is generally thought as lasting from the introduction of the character Superman in 1938 until the early 1950's. During this time, comic books enjoyed considerable popularity; the archetype of the superhero was invented and defined, and many of the most popular superheroes were created. The Platinum Age refers to any material produced prior to this, these were simply reprints of newspaper strips.
The Silver Age of Comic Books is generally considered to date from the first successful revival of the dormant superhero form in 1956 through to the early 1970's, during which time Marvel Comics revolutionised the medium with naturalistic superheroes as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. There is less agreement on the beginnings of the Bronze and Modern ages. Some suggest that the Bronze Age is still taking place but it is generally accepted that it started 1970-1971. The start of the Modern Age (occasionally referred to as the Iron Age) has even more potential starting points, but is generally agreed to be the publication of Alan Moore's Watchmen by DC Comics in 1986.
comics published after World War II in 1945 are sometimes referred to as being from the Atomic Age (referring to the dropping of the atomic bomb), while titles published after November 1961 are sometimes referred to as being from the Marvel Age (referring to the advent of Marvel Comics).
American comic books are generally noted to be mainstream: meaning they have mass appeal and focus on socially acceptable issues and genres, such as good verses evil.
Originally the same size as a usual comic book in the United States, although lacking the glossy cover, the British comic has adopted a magazine size, with The Beano and The Dandy the last to adopt this size in the 1980s. Although generally referred to as a comic, it can also be referred to as a comic magazine, and has also been known historically as a comic paper. Some comics, such as Judge Dredd and other 2000 AD titles, have been published in a tabloid form. It is also not uncommon for gifts to accompany comic magazines such as, badges or cigarette card holders.
Popular titles within the UK have included The Eagle and 2000 AD. Underground comics and titles have also been published within the United Kingdom, these often have a genre specific angle or message such as, women's rights or sexual education.
Marvel Comics established a UK office in 1972. DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics also opened offices in the 1990s. These repackage American titles for a UK audience, they are often less glossy and colourful than their US counterparts.
At Christmas time, publishers repackage and commission material for comic annuals, printed and bound as hardcover A4-size books. A famous example of the British comic annual is Dr Who.
France and Belgium are two countries that have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are called Bande Dessine (BD for short) in French and strips in Dutch. Belgian comic books originally written in Dutch are influenced by the Francophone comics, but have their own distinct style.
La bande dessine is derived from the original description of the art form as drawn strips (the phrase is literally translated as the drawn strip).
In France, most comics are published at the behest of the author, who works within a self-appointed time frame, and it is common for readers to wait six months or as long as two years between installments. Most books are first published as a hard cover book, typically with 48, 56 or 64 pages. In Italy, comics are known as fumetti and began as humouristic strips and then evolved into adventure stories inspired by those coming from the US in the 1940's.
Mainstream comics are usually published on a monthly basis, in a black and white digest size format, with approximately 100 to 132 pages. Collections of classic material for the most famous characters, usually with more than 200 pages, are also common. Author comics are published in the French BD format.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's, a surge of underground comics occurred and has continued. These comics were published and distributed independently of the established comics industry, and most titles reflected the youth counterculture and drug culture of the time. Many were notable for their uninhibited, often irreverent style; the frankness of their depictions of nudity, sexual content, and politics had not been seen in comics before. Underground comics were almost never sold at newsstands, but rather in such youth-oriented outlets such as record stores and by mail order.
The term graphic novel was first used in 1964. Graphic novels tend to be bound and longer in length than comics. They often represent known prose stories such as, Treasure Island or plays such as Othello in a comic strip format. Thus, they make these stories accessible to new and often younger audiences.
Stanley Kubrick was born in New York City in 1928. At the age of 16 Kubrick took a photograph of a newsvendor the day after President Roosevelt died. Look magazine printed the photo and hired him as a freelance photographer, he worked on over 300 jobs. After creating a boxing photo essay for Look, he used his savings to make his first short film 'Day of the Fight' in 1950, a 16-minute documentary. Two other shorts and thirteen feature films followed. Compared to many directors Kubrick did not produce many films. However, he successfully spanned a plethora of genres from science fiction to costume drama.
Kubrick's influence on film is manifested in numerous ways, from lighting to special effects to film content to music. For example, his pioneering use of long takes, first used in Lolita using a high Average Shot Length, have inspired cinematographers since, as seen in the opening shot of 1997's Boogie Nights. Kubrick had a high level of artistic control and kept many items and papers relating to his film making. At the completion of a project Kubrick would box up items relating to it and store them.
Kubrick's influence goes beyond that of the film world to popular culture. The content of his films have been responsible for sparking public debate and discourse for example, Clockwork Orange (1971) is a dystopia featuring violence and sexual content that provoked debate on the nature of society and the portrayal of violence on screen.
Kubrick had an unprecedented level of control over his films and was interested in every aspect of the film making process. Therefore, his collection can inspire not only film makers but costume designers, advertisers, graphic artists and photographers to name but a few.
Kubrick and his family moved to England in 1969, where he lived until his death in 1999.
Stanley Kubrick: Filmography:
1953 'Fear and Desire' (not on general release)
1955 'Killer's Kiss'
1956 'The Killing'
1957 'Paths of Glory'
1960 'Spartacus'
1962 'Lolita'
1964 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'
1968 '2001: A Space Odyssey'
1971 'A Clockwork Orange'
1975 'Barry Lyndon'
1980 'The Shining'
1987 'Full Metal Jacket'
1999 'Eyes Wide Shut'
Kubrick planned to make two further films, 'Napoleon' and 'The Aryan Papers' (a holocaust film), but these were not made. He also played an important role in the conception of 'AI: Artificial Intelligence', which was made after his death by Steven Spielberg.
The CTA Archive is the work of the Association’s Hon Librarian, Mr A G Brown. Mr Brown’s order and classification system have been retained throughout. Each accession is divided into three sections:
Section A Books and Published reports, arranged alphabetically by author
Section B Pamphlets, Government Publications, and lectures (arranged alphabetically by author) including letters to the press arranged chronologically.
Section C Articles in press and magazines arranged chronologically
127 boxes arrived from Churchill Archives Centre; there are now 172 boxes.
An additional section of the collection is the CTUN Archive which consists of eighty two boxes.
The collection covers the history of tunnels under the Channel: Brief chronology of the history of the Channel Tunnel:
1802: Albert Mathieu, a French engineer, proposed a tunnel to link France with England, through the chalk under the Channel and using an artificial island on the Varne Bank. The scheme was impractical for Mathieu had little knowledge of the geology of the sea bed nor did he suggest any method of construction. Napoleon Bonaparte expressed some interest and during the fragile Peace of Amiens the plan was a symbol of friendship between the two countries.
1803: An Englishman called Mottray suggested that a submerged steel tube could be built across the sea bed, as opposed to a tunnel through the chalk. Both plans were short lived because hostilities were resumed later in the year.
1830: interest in a fixed link across the Channel was revived by Thome de Gamond, a French civil engineer, who during the following 25 years came up with several plans for tunnel and bridge schemes.
1868: Anglo-French Channel Tunnel Committee founded.
1872: Channel Tunnel Company incorporated and registered in London. The Company remained dormant for several years due to lack of funds.
1878-9: Tunnelling commenced on both sides of the Channel, at Sangatte on the French side, and at Shakespeare Cliff near Dover, where two shafts were sunk and a 2,000 yard tunnel bored out under the sea. Work was halted in 1882 mainly for reasons of defence. Leading military strategists of the day imagined a French army marching unimpeded through the tunnel.
1883: A scheme was finally killed off by the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by Lord Lansdowne.
1900-1914: A number of plans in the early years of the century had to be shelved due to the outbreak of the First World War.
1918-1930: Interest in the project was revived after the war. Most military experts were agreed that a tunnel would have been disastrous to Germany and a boon to the Allies. Marshal Foch considered that a Channel Tunnel would have shortened the war by two years. The Parliamentary Channel Tunnel Committee was revived under the Chairmanship of Sir William Bull. In 1930 a Royal Commission came out in favour of the tunnel by a majority vote, but the House of Commons turned down the project by seven votes. However, even if the Commons had been in favour, the committee of Imperial Defence would have prevented the tunnel being built on the grounds that it would have caused some South Coast ports to become redundant.
1947: Formation of the Parliamentary Channel Tunnel Study Group.
1953: Harold Macmillan as Minister of Defence said that there were no longer any strategic objections to the tunnel, thus ending the military veto that had loomed over the tunnel since the 1880’s.
1964: Ernest Marples, Minister of Transport, announced that the British and French Governments had agreed that the construction of a rail Channel Tunnel was technically possible and would represent a sound investment. The two Governments decided to proceed with the project subject to further legal and financial discussions.
1970s: Work started again at Sangatte and at Shakespeare Cliff, but was abandoned in 1975 due to unacceptably high costs.
1984: The British and French Government announced their intention to seek private promoters for the construction and operation of a fixed link without public funding. The Eurotunnel bid was selected.
July 1987: Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand ratified the Fixed Link Treaty.
1994: The Channel Tunnel was opened.
The National Gallery houses the national collection of Western European painting from the 13th to the 19th centuries. The Gallery's aim is to care for the collection, to enhance it for future generations, primarily by acquisition, and to study it, while encouraging access to the pictures for the education and enjoyment of the widest possible public now and in the future.
The Gallery was established in 1824 when the Government purchased the picture collection of the late banker, John Julius Angerstein. The collection of 38 paintings was placed on public display at Angerstein’s house in Pall Mall. The Gallery was managed by the Keeper, William Seguier, who reported to a 'Committee of six gentlemen'. Both the Keeper and the Committee (which later evolved into the Board of Trustees) were appointed by the Treasury but their exact responsibilities were left undefined. Dissatisfaction with this situation and public criticism of the Gallery’s management led to the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1853. Its report resulted in the reform of the Gallery’s administration as defined in a Treasury Minute of 27 March 1855. The minute created a new post of Director with wide powers to acquire paintings for the collection. The Director was assisted by a Keeper who managed the day-to-day affairs of the Gallery. The Board of Trustees was retained ‘to keep up a connexion between cultivated lovers of art and the institution, and to form an indirect channel of communication [with] the Government.’ The reforms improved the administration of the Gallery and, from this time on, annual reports were presented to the Treasury detailing the management of the Gallery and Collection, including pictures purchased and cleaned or repaired. This system of governance continued until 1894 when the balance of power shifted in favour of the Board of Trustees following the so-called Rosebery Minute that altered the Gallery’s constitution. This did not affect the two acts of parliament passed during the 19th century that specifically related to the Gallery and concerned de-accessioning and loans: the National Gallery Act 1856 and the National Gallery (Loan) Act 1883.
In 1897 the National Gallery assumed responsibility for the newly opened Tate Gallery. In the years that followed the division of the national collection between the two galleries was vigorously debated and led to a committee of inquiry headed by Lord Curzon. The ensuing Curzon Report of 1915 recommended that the Tate should house the collection of British and modern foreign art while the National Gallery should retain the collection of Old Master paintings. The Tate became partially independent from the National Gallery in 1917 when it acquired its own Board of Trustees; however, it was not until 1955 and the implementation of the National Gallery and Tate Gallery Act 1954 that the Tate became fully independent. The post-war period also saw an increase in the range of activities carried out by the Gallery and a growing professionalisation of those activities. In the late 1980s responsibility for managing the buildings was transferred to the Gallery and it acquired the freehold of the site in 1992. In the second half of the 20th century the Gallery developed a range of specialised departments: Conservation, Scientific, Curatorial, Framing, Education, Photographic, Library and Archive, Art Handling, Audio-Visual, Development, Finance, Human Resources, Buildings, Design, Digital Media, Marketing, Exhibitions, Information, Information Systems, Press, Registrars, Visitor Services and Security. The governance of the Gallery was further changed by the Museums and Galleries Act 1992 which incorporated the Board of Trustees and provides the current constitution of the National Gallery.
The Society has its origins in a series of meetings convened at the beginning of 1807 by four amateur mineral enthusiasts - physician William Babington, pharmaceutical chemist William Allen and the Quaker brothers William and Richard Phillips - to organise the publication of Jacques-Louis, Comte de Bournon's monograph on mineralogy. Meeting in Babington's house the group, along with ten other friends who were also active in London's flourishing scientific scene, resolved to each contribute the sum of 50 pounds to cover the cost of the monograph's publication. (Published in the three volumes as 'Traite complet de la Chaux Carbonatee et de l'Arragonite', in 1808.)
Having enjoyed the meetings so much, many of the group continued to hold mineralogical discussions at Babington's house in Aldermanbury, London, usually at 7am before the physician began his rounds at Guy's Hospital. Other interested parties also joined the meetings and on the 13 November 1807, the new society was inaugurated at a dinner at the Freemasons Tavern, Great Queen Street, Covent Garden (the meetings being moved from breakfast to dinner time at the suggestion of Humphry Davy).
The minutes of the meeting record that there were thirteen founder members: Arthur Aikin (1773-1854), William Allen (1770-1843), William Babington (1756-1833), Humphry Davy (1778-1829), Comte Jacques-Louis de Bournon (1751-1825), James Franck (1768-1843), George Bellas Greenough (1778-1855), Richard Knight (1768-1844), James Laird (1779-1841), James Parkinson (1755-1824), William Hasledine Pepys (1775-1856), Richard Phillips (1778-1851) and William Phillips (1773-1828). The meeting resolved 'That there be forthwith instituted a Geological Society for the purpose of making geologists acquainted with each other, of stimulating their zeal, of inducing them to adopt one nomenclature, of facilitating the communications of new facts and of ascertaining what is known in their science and what remains to be discovered.' These aims were incorporated in the first constitution of the Society, formally adopted at a meeting on 1 January 1808.
Soon after its foundation the Society began to accumulate a library and a collection of minerals, rocks and fossils. In 1809 the Society moved into rented premises at 4 Garden Court, Temple, and in 1810 to 3 Lincoln's Inn Fields, where it shared larger premises with the Medical and Chirurgical Society, another society which Babington co-founded.
On 1 June 1810 the Society's first Trustees were appointed and later in the same month, 14 June, the first meeting of the Council took place. The Council resolved that the most important communications made to the Society should be published. Accordingly the first volume of the 'Transactions of the Geological Society' was issued in 1811.
With the increase in membership and activities of the Society it was found necessary to appoint the first permanent officer, Thomas Webster, in 1812. Although only part time, his duties included care of the Society's Library and Museum collections as well as those of draughtsman and secretary to the Council and Committees. The continual growth in the membership and of the collections of maps, sections and mineral specimens necessitated a further move in 1816 to 20 Bedford Street, Covent Garden.
In 1824 the Council decided to apply for a Royal Charter in order to allow it to bestow fellowships of the Society. The charter was granted on 23 April 1825 and the Rev William Buckland, Arthur Aikin, John Bostock MD, George Bellas Greenough and Henry Warburton were nominated as the first Fellows. At the following meeting of Council, the other 367 Society members were also granted Fellow status. Ironically many of these new Fellows, such as Greenough, held republican views hence why 'Royal' was never adopted into the Society's name.
The Society continued to meet at 20 Bedford Street until 1828 when it moved to apartments in Somerset House, Strand, which had recently been rebuilt by the Government for use as public offices and to house the Royal Academy and the Royal Society. The Society's apartments, including the two rooms of the museum, were fitted out to designs of Decimus Burton, architect of the Temperate House at Kew Gardens and Fellow of the Geological Society. The first meeting at Somerset House was held on 7 November 1828, and the Society remained there until removal to the present apartments at Burlington House in 1874.
The care of the Society's large mineral and fossil collections was always problematic. The Museum's first Keeper, Thomas Webster, was unhappy with the work load and also unpopular with the other Fellows. He was replaced in 1827 by the first official Curator, William Lonsdale, whose health broke down from overwork in 1836. During the following nine years there were another five curators who all resigned. In 1869, it was decided to abandon attempts to form a comprehensive collection, instead specimens should directly relate to papers read at the Society. Although the move to Burlington House meant that the collection was thoroughly weeded and catalogued again, after 1876 (after another resignation) the collection received only cursory attention. A Special General Meeting was called by a group of palaeontologists in 1901 to try and force the Council to take better care of the Museum. However their plan backfired and instead a motion was carried that the Museum should be disposed of. The contents were divided in 1911 between what we now know as the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Practical Geology (part of the Geological Survey) in Jermyn Street. The British Museum (now Natural History Museum) received the foreign specimens, while the domestic collection was given to the other institution.
The Society officially started its existence as a dining club but with the steady increase in the number of members (341 in 1815 to 400 in 1818), this aspect of its activities soon fell into abeyance. It was revived in 1824 with the foundation of the Geological Society Club which continues to hold dinners to the present day.
Today, the Geological Society of London is the UK national professional body for geoscientists. It provides a wide range of professional and scientific support to its c 9500 Fellows, about 2000 of whom live overseas. As well as boasting one of the most important geological libraries in the world, the Geological Society is a global leader in Earth science publishing, and is renowned for its cutting edge science meetings. It is a vital forum in which Earth scientists from a broad spectrum of disciplines and environments can exchange ideas, and is an important communicator of geoscience to government, media, those in education and the broader public.
Until 1979, the archives of the Geological Society were spread throughout the offices of Burlington House. Aided with an initial grant subsidy from the British Library which ran between 1979-1982, the Society was able to appoint an archivist and a conservator to at last look after the collections professionally. An archives store was constructed in 1981/1982 funded by the work of the Appeals Committee.
A further grant subsidy from the British Library was awarded at the end of 1983 for what became known as the Burlington House Conservation Project, which involved the conservation studio taking on work from local learned societies and the Royal Academy. However the external funding ended in 1986 and with the Society unable to finance the costly facility itself, the studio closed. Most of the equipment was later exchanged in lieu of conservation services.
At the second meeting of the Society in December 1807, a Committee of Trustees was appointed to draw up the rules for the regulation of the fledgling body and instructions to the honorary members to accompany notice of their election. Proposals by this Committee and the various sub-committees which were in existence at the time, were submitted to its Members for discussion at the regular Ordinary General Meetings. However in 1810 it was decided to replace the Committee of Trustees with a more formal Council, leaving the OGMs solely for the discussion of papers and the election of new members. The first members of Council were appointed on 1 June 1810, holding their inaugural meeting two weeks later on the 14 June.
Council is still responsible for the management and direction of all the affairs of the Society.
The Geological Society had originally formed as a 'Geological Dinner Club' at the Freemason's Tavern, Great Queen Street, London, on the 13 November 1807. However whilst the Society flourished, attendance at the Dining Club rapidly declined. A fine of 10s 6d was imposed for non attendance without prior warning, but by 1809 the total stood at £37 16s of which only £6 6s had been received. By around 1811, meetings of the Club had ceased.
The present Club was revived in 1824 by 30 members of the Society, some of whom had attended the previous Club. The first meeting was held at the Thatched House Tavern, St James' Street, on 5 November 1824. The rules on establishment limited membership to 40, however this number was never achieved during its early years and was reduced to 36 members in 1836. From 1904, the membership was gradually raised and by 1999 stood at 202 members.
Fellowship of the Society was, from the first, an essential qualification, however subsequent classes of supernumerary and honorary ranks were introduced later. Guests could be invited, unless the dinners were 'closed meetings' which could only be attended by Club members. In 1973, it was decided that most of the dinners, except for closed meetings, could be open events, that is attended by any Fellow of the Society.
Traditionally, meetings were held on the evenings of every Ordinary Meeting of the Society, but are now monthly.
From the beginnings of the Society, Members donated specimens, books and illustrations to the Library and Museum collections. The earliest mention of a portrait image being given was Louis Albert Necker's donation of an engraving of his maternal grandfather Horace Benedict de Saussure in December 1811 [no longer extant].
The Society also holds larger oil paintings and portrait busts of its Fellows, again acquired through donation or by purchase. However from the 1860s onwards, when commercial photography became more available, the Society actively sought to collect images of its Fellows probably inspired by a printed notice issued by the photographer's studio Maull and Polyblank announcing the formation of a carte de visite series of Geological Society Fellows (LDGSL/332). The majority of the images in the portrait collection derive from this series, stopping around the First World War. After the 1930s, and up until the 1990s, portraits were generally only collected of Presidents of the Society.
A Special General Meeting (SGM) could be called at any time for the purpose of taking special matters relating to the business of the Society into consideration. A certain period of notice had to be given to all Fellows who were resident in the United Kingdom, and no other business could be discussed other than that for which the meeting was called. Special General Meetings were mostly concerned with establishing, modifying or repealing orders or byelaws.
SGMs were abolished in 2001.
At the Geological Society's Council meeting on 1 November 1972 it was decided to set up a working party to study the feasibility of maintaining a professional register of geologists. The Society's Council established a 14-strong Working Party on Professional Recognition which first met on 2 January 1973 and reported to Council in March 1974. Their report recognized that professional bodies carried out important functions in regulating the professions, however no existing professional body was deemed an appropriate institution for all geologists to become members. Consequently, the Working Party recommended that a professional body should be established for all geologists.
The Association for the Promotion of an Institution of Professional Geologists, more usually known by its initial letters APIPG, was established by the members of the Working Party, by now acting independently of the Society's Council but with its support. The first meeting of APIPG was a regional meeting held in Plymouth on 3 January 1975. It was followed by a series of eight more regional meetings held in locations around the country. The formal Inaugural Meeting of the Association took place on 24 March 1975 at the Scientific Society's Lecture Theatre in Savile Row, London. At this meeting, a Committee was formally elected to serve for two years with the sole objective of forming an Institution for Professional Geologists. In the event the process took a little longer with the new professional body being created 35 months after the Savile Row meeting. Over that period support from the geological community grew steadily from 620 members in mid-1975 to 963 in mid-1976, and by the end of APIPG's existence there were 1146 members.
By the end of 1977 the Institution of Geologists was fully established in embryonic form. The Institution of Geologists registered as a company limited by guarantee without share capital, a form of organization shared by a number of other professional institutions. It was incorporated in August 1977 with the subscribers being the APIPG Committee. The membership of APIPG voted for the organization to be disbanded and replaced by the Institution of Geologists at a meeting held in the Midland Hotel Birmingham on 24 February 1978.
The highest grade of membership in most professional institutions is termed "Fellow". Initially, IG had only one grade of corporate member (that of Member). By June 1985 however, Council decided to initiate a higher grade of corporate and nominated the former Presidents and Chairmen of Council as six Founding Fellows. A further fourteen members of IG were nominated by this group to form a Founding Fellows "college" of twenty. A Trust Fund was established in 1986 to commemorate the memory of three distinguished geologists who were also Founding Fellows of the Institution and died within a relatively short time of each other. The fund, known as the Distinguished Fellows Memorial Trust, was used to assist young geologists, particularly those in industrial employment, in their professional development by contributing towards travel costs to attend conferences or to gain experience in other appropriate ways.
In 1983, the IG Council decided to enquire of its members what they expected from the Institution in order to establish priorities in planning the development of IG. A questionnaire was sent to the regional groups to ask them to canvas opinion and provide a response to Council. The unanimous answer was that the prime objective should be the acquisition of a Royal Charter which would bestow on the Institution the ability to create the title Chartered Geologist. In January 1984 a committee was established under the chairmanship of Howard Headworth, to investigate how this goal could be achieved. In January 1986 a draft charter was sent to the Privy Council for informal comment. As the document referred to the possibility of a future unification between the IG and the Geological Society, the Privy Council refused to consider the petition as the Geological Society already had its own Royal Charter. Instead they recommended that the petition should be placed on hold until the possibility of any merger between the two organizations was resolved.
The Institution approached the Geological Society to explore a possible merger. A joint Co-operation Committee was established, comprising three senior members of each organization and chaired by Professor Howel Francis as someone seen as neutral by both sides. The first meeting of the joint Co-operation Committee was held in January 1987 and agreed that the unification of the Geological Society and the Institution of Geologists was the proper goal for the two organizations, both in their own interests and that of the geological community in Britain. Negotiations between the IG and GS even included the concept that the new body should have a new name but that was not possible without changing the Society's Royal Charter. In the end, the IG merged with the Society losing some of its identity in the process and with its name disappearing altogether.
With the reunification 259 members of the Institution who had not been Fellows of the Society applied for and were granted fellowship, and some 586 corporate members of the Institution became the first Chartered Geologists even before the reunification process was completed. The total membership of IG at the time of the reunification was 1745, comprising 32 Fellows, 731 Corporate Members, 674 Associate Members, 9 Technician Geologists, 6 Technical Associates, 42 Affiliates and 251 Students.
A vote at IG's AGM on 10 March 1990 at the University of Birmingham saw the demise of IG as a separate organization, and at the beginning of 1991 the Institution of Geologists formally unified with the Geological Society.
Charles Henry Lardner Woodd was elected a Fellow on 20 May 1846 but despite being a member until his death in 1893, never submitted a geological paper to the Society. However he was a gifted artist and the eight drawings in this series show the geological features around Cromarty and Assynt in Scotland which were recorded throughout the month of August 1847 when he appears to have been following in the footsteps of the famous Scottish geologist Hugh Miller (1802-1856). At least two of the drawings make reference to 'Miss Allardyce' who is likely to be Catherine Allardyce, one of Miller's social circle in the town of Cromarty.
James Ford was a mining engineer and colliery agent, often working as a consultant. Working in the Midlands and having premises in Doncaster, Newark, and Mold (Wales) between the early 1900s and the late 1920s, he claimed to be the first man to discover the oil strata in England while superintending coal borings in Kelham, Nottinghamshire, in August 1911, at which time he was in a syndicate with Maurice Deacon and C R Hewitt, and advising The Newark Collieries and The Newark Coal and Oil Company. These borings also provided evidence for the eastern extension of the Nottinghamshire Coalfield. The discovery does not appear to have amounted to anything at the time, though oil was later extracted from the area in the 1940s.
In the mid-1920s he became part of a company named the Lincolnshire Coal Boring Syndicate, which had plans to bore for coal and build a power station nearby, thus minimising the expense needed to transport the coal to the power station and resulting in cheap electricity production.
He was a member of the Midlands chapter of the Institution of Mining Engineers (now part of IOM3), and a Fellow of the Geological Society between 1911 and 1936.
Janet Vida Watson was born in London on 1 September 1923, the daughter of D. M. S. Watson FRS, the palaeontologist, and K. M. Watson (née Parker) D.Sc. She was educated privately and at South Hampstead High School, a school chosen by her parents for the high quality of its science teaching for girls. She studied for her B.Sc. in General Science at Reading University 1940-1943, graduating with first class honours. Watson spent 1943-1944 working at the National Institute for Research in Dairying at Reading and 1944-1945 teaching biology at Wentworth School, Bournemouth. In 1945 she entered Imperial College London to study for a B.Sc. in Geology. She graduated in 1947, again with first class honours.
In 1946, on the advice of Professor H. H. Read, she undertook a mapping project in the Highlands of Scotland, initiating her lasting interest in Highland geology. On graduation she registered as a Ph.D. student supported by a Department of Scientific and Industrial Research studentship and, again on the advice of Professor Read, studied the Lewisian complex in the Scourie area of north west Scotland. At the same time John Sutton, another postgraduate student of Read, was working on the Lewisian complex in the Torridon area. Watson and Sutton reached very similar conclusions and the results of their work were written up in a joint paper. Watson and Sutton married in June 1949.
After receiving her Ph.D. in 1949 Watson was awarded a three year Senior Research Fellowship by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. In 1952 she took up a Research Assistantship under H. H. Read at Imperial College, a post she held until 1973 when she was appointed Senior Lecturer. She was employed on a part-time basis 1956-1974, having also to look after her elderly parents and parents-in-law. In 1974 Watson was appointed to a personal Chair in Geology at Imperial College and on her retirement in 1983 became Professor emeritus and Senior Research Fellow.
Watson's professional and public responsibilities also included service as President of Section C of the British Association 1972, membership of the National Water Council 1973-1976 and service on project 86 of the International Geological Correlation Programme surveying the south western border of the East European platform. In connection with the latter she made a number of visits to East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.
Watson's first geological research was undertaken as an undergraduate at Imperial College on the Moine metamorphic rocks of the Strath Kildonan area in Scotland. This was followed by her postgraduate work with John Sutton on the Lewisian granite of north west Scotland. This research, which identified two successive Pre-Cambrian tectonic provinces, initiated a new stage in studies of Lewisian rocks and Watson continued to work on Lewisian rocks during her tenure of the 1851 Senior Research Fellowship. From this developed a more general study of the geology of northern Scotland, with which Sutton was involved, but Watson moved on to study of the evolution of the Scottish Caledonides. This research was concentrated on the north east Scottish coast (Banffshire). In the later 1960s Watson returned to work on the Lewisian rocks of Scotland (with particular reference to the Outer Hebrides), and she and her research students collaborated with the Highlands Unit of the Institute of Geological Sciences (IGS, later British Geological Survey) on geological mapping of the Outer Hebrides. The late 1970s saw Watson move into new fields of research. She studied ore-forming processes as an aspect of Pre-Cambrian crustal evolution and from 1977 was involved with joint work with Jane Plant of the IGS on the regional distribution of uranium in relation to the structural evolution of northern Scotland. This work took the well-known technique of stream sediment sampling and used it for investigation of fundamental geochemical problems. In addition from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s Watson also undertook collaborative research with IGS staff on the effects of diagenesis and hydrothermal activity in the post-Caledonian evolution of Scotland.
In recognition of her contributions to geology the Geological Society of London awarded her the Moiety of the Lyell Fund (jointly with Sutton) in 1954, the Bigsby Medal (again jointly with Sutton) in 1965 and the Lyell Medal in 1973. From 1982 to 1984 she was President of the Geological Society, the first woman to hold this office. In 1979 Watson was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society and was appointed a Vice President of the Society in 1983.
Born in Stoke Newington, London, John Lucas Tupper was the son of the lithographer George Frederick Tupper. He attended the Royal Academy Schools from about 1844 and at the same time became an anatomical draftsman at Guy's Hospital, London. This not only provided an income but reflected his lifelong interest in science. Tupper remained working at Guy's until 1863 and two years later became master of drawing at Rugby School. His teaching at Rugby pioneered '...teaching art from the human form, as shown in the skeleton, the anatomical figure and the best antiques...'. The 'Athenaeum' considered him one of the ablest 'draughtsmen of the day' and that his experiment to make the study of drawing more than 'a genteel accomplishment' was 'fully attained'. In recognition of his achievements, Tupper was appointed curator of the museum at Rugby School.
Tupper was an early member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and was particularly close to William Holman Hunt (later godfather to one of his children) and to William Michael Rossetti who edited a published volume of his poems in 1897. Tupper was not only a poet but also contributed letters and articles on literature, art and art education to: 'The Germ'; 'Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature Conducted principally by Artists'; 'The Crayon'; and 'The Portfolio'. In 1866 he published under the name of "Outis" 'Hiatus, the Void in Modern Education, its cause and Antidote' (Macmillan). Demonstrating his versatility, Tupper also wrote an article 'On the Centre of Motion in the Human Eye' which was published in the 'Royal Society Proceedings', vol. 22 (1874), pp. 429-30.
His interest in science is reflected in the subjects of his work. In the 1850s and early 1860s Tupper made a number of portraits of his colleagues at Guy's Hospital. He was also commissioned (c.1858) to make a statue of Linnaeus for the Natural History Museum at Oxford designed by the Dublin based practice of Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward.
Lewis Leigh Fermor was born in Peckham on 18th September 1880, the eldest of six children of a bank clerk. After gaining a National Scholarship to attend the Royal College of Science in 1898, Fermor began studying metallurgy with the aim of working at the Royal Mint. He was eventually encouraged to apply to the Geological Survey of India by Professor J W Judd, and departed for India in 1902.
There followed a long and successful career at the Geological Survey of India. In 1909, after discovering six manganese minerals, his report on the manganese deposits of the country earned him his DSc. During WW1 he assisted the Railway Board and the Indian Munitions Board, for which he received an OBE in 1919. He lead the surveying of the Archaean rocks of Madhya Pradesh both before and after the First World War. Although he officially became director of the Survey in 1932, he had previously acted as such for several years in the 1920s and from 1930 onwards. He retired from the directorship in 1935, but continued to live in India until 1939 as a consulting geologist.
Fermor eventually retired to Bristol, and died on 24th May 1954. His knighthood came in 1935, with other honours including the presidency of the Indian Science Congress (1933), first President of the National Institute of Sciences of India (1935), FRS (1934) and President of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (1951-1952). He became a fellow of the Geological Society in 1902, received the Bigsby Medal in 1921 for his earlier work on garnets, and served on Council from 1943-1947. He married his first wife, Muriel Ambler, in 1909, with whom he had two children (Vanessa and the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor) before divorcing, and his second wife, Frances Mary Case, in 1933.
William Hutton was born in on 26 July 1797 in Sunderland. He had little formal education, but by 1818 Hutton had joined the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne and in 1825 the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. By this time he had already become honorary curator of the George Allan Museum, which had been purchased by the Literary and Philosophical Society in 1822, and had began to amass his own collection of minerals and fossil plants.
He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1828, and the next year helped found the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne, of which he also acted as secretary and curator. From 1830 until 1835 he was also co-secretary of the Newcastle Literary, Scientific and Mechanical Institution and from 1835 served as one of its vice-presidents.
Hutton's major contribution was his work on palaeobotany, publishing The Fossil Flora, between 1831 and 1837 which was co-authored by John Lindley (1799-1865). His other significant contribution was his work on the nature of coal. The fossil plant Huttonia was named after him in 1837 by Sternberg in recognition of his achievements and in 1840 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.
By 1845, Hutton had also taken on the post of treasurer for the Natural History Society, the extra work possibly contributing to the breakdown in his health which occurred the following year. For the next few years he lived in Malta, returning to Britain in 1851. He later moved to West Hartlepool, becoming involved with the local Literary and Mechanics Institution and the plan to establish a museum at the Athenaeum. He died on 20 November 1860.
John Robert Mortimer was born on 15 June 1825 in Fimber, a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at the village school in Fridaythorpe. He started a business as a corn merchant in Fimber, later moving to Driffield where he remained for the rest of his life.
Mortimer's interest in scientific enquiry was inspired by the Great Exhibition of 1851. Later visits to Edward Tindall's archaeological and geological collections at Bridlington spurred him to develop a collection of his own, indeed he purchased one of his first specimens from Tindall. At first he collected chalk fossils and flint implements from the Yorkshire wolds, training the local farm workers to recognise any potential specimens for himself and the small band of other collectors in the neighbourhood. However competition for collecting grew with other enthusiasts descending on the area and paying the same farm workers to find material for them instead. Faced with a dearth of material, particularly those which were archaeological in nature, Mortimer turned to excavation himself - concentrating on Bronze Age burial mounds.
Concerned that other local collections were being sold to or broken up by collectors outside of the area, Mortimer offered his collection at half its value to East Riding county council. The local council were not keen, but with the aid of Colonel G H Clarke the collection was purchased in its entirety in 1914, where the majority of it is still held by Hull Museum. Mortimer died in 1911.
John Percy was born in Nottingham on 23 March 1817, the son of a solicitor. Initially studying medicine in Paris and Edinburgh, followed by being elected physician in Birmingham, he became increasingly interested in chemistry, specifically metallurgy.
He gave up medicine in 1851 to lecture in metallurgy at the newly established Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, remaining there until the School moved to South Kensington in 1879. He wrote on many subjects, including medical science and social and political issues, as well as metallurgy. Intending to produce the first comprehensive work on metallurgy in English, he published four volumes between 1861 and 1880, but the work remained unfinished. He was highly regarded in his field, receiving awards such as the Bessemer medal from the Iron and Steel Institute (now IOM3) and the Albert Medal from the Royal Society of Arts, which was conferred on him two days before his death.
He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1851, serving on the Society's Council between 1853 and 1856, and died on 19 June 1889.
The Froebel Educational Institute was inaugurated at a meeting held in the Westminster Palace Hotel on the 25th October 1892, through the initiative of Mrs Julia Salis Schwabe and a group of liberal-minded men and women who formed the membership of the Froebel Society (to give it its full title, Froebel Society for the Promotion of the Kindergarten System) which had come into being in London in 1874. The Froebel Educational Institute (FEI) was inaugurated as a non-denominational college, and was intended to promote the kindergarten system in Britain. One of their most strongly held convictions was that the training of teachers should include practical experience, and consequently the FEI was provided from its inception with a co-educational Demonstration School with a Kindergarten.
On 20th September 1894, the College formally opened in Talgarth Road, West Kensington, and Madame Emilie Michaelis was appointed as the first Principal. FEI's first school, the fee-paying Colet Gardens Demonstration School, was opened in 1895, and was followed by the Challoner Street Practising School in 1899 (the latter survived until 1918, when its pupils were transferred to Colet Gardens). In 1896, the Michaelis Guild was formed as the alumni organisation for ex-Froebel College students.
In 1900, the FEI became the 'Incorporated Froebel Educational Institute', a registered company under the Board of Trade; the governing body was known as the Committee of Members. Esther Lawrence succeeded Emilie Michaelis as Principal in 1901: she remained in the post until 1931, overseeing the growth and development of FEI into a residential college based at Roehampton. Esther Lawrence was closely involved in the founding of two of the oldest nursery schools in London - the Michaelis Free Kindergarten in Notting Dale (founded in 1908, later the Notting Hill Nursery School) and the Somers Town Nursery School near St Pancras (1910).
In 1921, the FEI purchased Grove House at Roehampton and moved the students there in 1922. Colet Gardens School remained in Talgarth Road and expanded into the old College accommodation. As the Roehampton site developed, there was a need for a school in the grounds, and Grove House School was opened in 1929 (it closed in 1939). Student numbers were growing so rapidly that the FEI purchased Templeton, a listed building in Priory Lane, Roehampton, in 1930. A new Principal, Eglantyne Mary Jebb, continued the policy of expansion and growth, overseeing major extensions to the Grove House property designed by Verner Rees. During World War Two, the College was evacuated to Knebworth and Offley Place, Hertfordshire, while the Demonstration School was moved to Little Gaddesdon nearby. When the war ended, the Demonstration School moved to new premises at Ibstock Place in Roehampton. Offley Place was retained as a rural training centre until 1953.
On the establishment of the University of London Institute of Education, FEI became one of its constituent colleges. Eglantyne Mary Jebb retired as Principal in 1955 and was succeeded by Molly Brearley, who oversaw some major changes, not least the requirement in 1960 that all teachers take a three-year training course. The following year, Molly Brearley introduced the pioneering one-year Diploma in Education, the first offered in a College of Education. More expansions to the College took place under the direction of the firm Norman and Dawbarn, notably several halls of residence and the Olive Garnett Building. Molly Brearley retired in 1970. Further course developments included the introduction of the Postgraduate Certificate of Education in 1971, and an MA in Education in 1974. A joint project with Queen Mary Hospital came to fruition in 1989, when the Redford House Nursery was opened, once again providing a school on-site.
Plans to form a union of the four voluntary teacher-training colleges in the south-west of London began to take shape in the early 1970s, with the four acting as an academic unity to offer BA, BSc and B Humanities degrees, validated by the University of London, from 1974. The Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE) was formally incorporated in 1975, with each of the constituent colleges - Froebel, Whitelands, Southlands and Digby Stuart - retaining its own corporate identity. The title Roehampton Institute London was subsequently adopted. Though its degrees were validated by the University of Surrey from 1985, full university status was achieved in 2000, when the Roehampton Institute formally entered into federation with the University of Surrey and became known as the University of Surrey, Roehampton.
Methodist teacher training for women began in Glasgow Normal Seminary in 1841, and in 1851 Westminster College for Men and Women Students was founded. As a separate college for the training of women teachers, Southlands Wesleyan Training College was opened on 26th February 1872 by the Wesleyan Education Committee. The Committee had chosen a site at Battersea known as the 'Southlands Estate', which contained a large mansion, and proceeded to build practising schools, and later a Principal's House, within the grounds. The first Principal was the Reverend G.W. Olver, and the Headmaster was Mr James Bailey. The government of the College was closely linked to Westminster College, and both institutions shared a Governing Body until 1929. Moreover, the Chairman of the Governors was, until 1921, also the President of the Wesleyan Conference.
The College continued to grow in numbers and reputation, and in 1886 was reckoned the second-best womens' college in the country by the Wesleyan Education Committee. Building work was undertaken to provide a new library, and art room, a laboratory, a new hall and more student accommodation. Several students worked towards degree qualifications. In 1908 the staff was organised into Departments which consisted of Religious Instruction, Principles and Practise of Teaching, English, History and Geography, Mathematics, Science, Latin and Greek, French, Music and Needlework. Various student societies had been in existence from 1872 and the Southlands Student Society was formed c1898/1899 formally as an alumni association, and local branches were set up, although reunions and events had been taking place since the college beginnings.
Though they had initially been used as practising schools, during the 1920s the attached schools were changed to demonstration schools, and were eventually taken over by the local authority when the College moved. This it did in 1929, following its purchase of the 'Belmont Estate' at Wimbledon. The years 1927-1929 were spent at the Burlington Hotel in Dover whilst the Belmont site was prepared for occupation. Three accommodation and teaching blocks were added, and the official opening was held on 7th May 1930.
The College was evacuated to Weston-super-Mare during World War Two, returning in 1946. In 1948 Southlands was made a constituent college of the University of London Institute of Education.
Several properties were bought to house the growing student numbers, including a house on Queensmere Road in 1946, and a new Hall was completed in 1953. Building continued apace, with the Rank block in 1957 and Osborn and Roberts blocks at Queensmere in 1963, and continued well into the 1980s.
With the introduction of the three-year training course in 1960, and the growth in student numbers, went an increased range of courses including a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in 1962 and the BEd degree in 1965 (validated by the University of London). Male students were admitted in 1965.
In 1969, the governance of the College was changed: the old Belmont Trust was replaced by a new Trust Deed approved by the Methodist Conference, and a new Instrument of Government for the College was approved by the Methodist Education Committee. This allowed the Governors more complete and effective control over the running of the College.
Plans to form a union of the four voluntary teacher-training colleges in the south-west of London began to take shape in the early 1970s, with the four acting as an academic unity to offer BA, BSc and B Humanities degrees, validated by the University of London, from 1974. The Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE) was formally incorporated in 1975, with each of the constituent colleges - Froebel, Whitelands, Southlands and Digby Stuart - retaining its own corporate identity. The title Roehampton Institute London was subsequently adopted. Though its degrees were validated by the University of Surrey from 1985, full university status was achieved in 2000, when the Roehampton Institute formally entered into federation with the University of Surrey and became known as the University of Surrey, Roehampton. The move to Roehampton Lane took place in August/September 1997, and Mount Clare House and the student hostels at Roehampton were purchased in 2002.
The Carnival Resource has been collected by Ruth Tompsett, Principal Lecturer, for use by students studying Carnival on the BA in Performing Arts at Middlesex University.
Staff College, Camberley, was inaugurated in 1862 to provide Staff training to British Army officers, and remained in existence until 1997 when single-Service Staff training was ended. Staff Training for the British Army is now conducted by the Joint Services Command and Staff College.
Vanessa Bell was born in 1879, daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen and sister of Virginia Woolf. She studied art under Sir Arthur Cope and at the Royal Academy Schools under John Singer Sargent. In 1907 she married Clive Bell and worked mainly in London, Sussex and France. Vanessa Bell exhibited first at the New Gallery in 1905, and at the New English Art Club, the Allied Artists Association and at numerous London galleries. She became a member of the London Group in 1919 and her work was exhibited at the second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912. A central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, she founded the Friday Club in 1905, and was influenced by Roger Fry and by Duncan Grant. As co-director of the Omega Workshops she carried out many decorative projects, particularly with Grant. The impact of Post-Impressionism caused a radical change in her work. Influenced by Matisse she established a leading role as a colourist before 1920. Between 1914-15 she produced some pure abstracts but later returned to a more traditional naturalism and greater realism in works that centred around her friends, still-life and landscapes. Vanessa Bell died in 1961.