Alice von Cotta (1842-1931) was born in Freiburg, Saxony in 1842. Her father was Bernhard von Cotta, the geologist. In 1876 she started studying at Newnham College and was granted the Clothworker's scholarship for the year 1877-1878. During her final year, in 1878, Alice and her friend, Penelope Lawrence, spent their time together at Newnham. Penelope had been a childhood friend as their families already knew one another from a trip the Lawrence family had taken in Freiburg in 1864. In Jul 1878 Alice was appointed to the post of Mistress of Studies at Bedford College. She was paid a salary of £75.00. In Oct 1878, she also spent time at the North London Collegiate School. Her resignation to Bedford College was tendered in Jul 1880. From 1884-1912, Alice von Cotta was Principal of the Victoria-Lyceum in Berlin. This school had been established by crown princess Victoria, wife of Frederick I. Its aim was to provide a higher education for German women, principally teachers, before a university education was available to them. Alice von Cotta died in Hanover in 1931.
Heythrop was originally a religious foundation, set up in 1614 by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) to train its own members. It was originally in Louvain but quickly moved to Liège where it remained until 1794 when the College moved to Stonyhurst, Lancashire. A new College was built near St Asaph, in North Wales in 1848. The Society of Jesus acquired Heythrop Hall, Oxfordshire, in 1923. Heythrop College was set up as a 'Collegium Maximum' - a Roman title indicating a college a little short of university status and issued degrees of the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome. It was opened to students, Aug 1926. In the 1960s a proposal was made for the College to become a 'Pontifical Athenaeum', an institution still rather less than a university, but a degree-granting body in its own right. For that purpose it needed to open its doors to students other than Jesuits, including lay people. This it did in 1965, with the approval of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales. Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, was installed as Chancellor of the new entity. Heythrop College became a constituent college of the University of London in October 1970 and moved to a new location in Cavendish Square. This allowed the College full integration within the British university system. With this move the College was self-governing and no longer a Jesuit institution. Nor was it any longer Roman Catholic. Nonetheless a large Jesuit presence remained, and the ethos continued to be Catholic. The College moved from Cavendish Square to Kensington Square in 1993 for financial reasons.
L[eonard] Bruce Archer (1922-2005) was an engineering designer and academic credited with helping to transform the process of design in the 1960s. As research fellow, and later professor of design research, at the Royal College of Art, Archer argued that design was not merely a craft-based skill but should be considered a knowledge-based discipline in its own right, with rigorous methodology and research principles incorporated into the design process. His initially controversial ideas would become pervasive and influential.
After early training at what is now City University, and a role as guest professor at Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm (1960-1), Archer went on to spend a majority of his career at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, until his retirement in 1988. From his initial appointment as research fellow within Misha Black's Industrial Design (Engineering) research unit, Archer ascended to head his own Department of Design Research (DDR) for 13 years (1971-84). Archer's innovative methods were first tested on a project in the 1960s to design improved equipment for the National Health Service. One strand of these studies, Kenneth Agnew's proposal for a hospital bed, culminated in the perfection of Agnew's design through a rigorous testing process and the inclusion of systems-level analysis and evidence-based design. The bed went on to become standard issue across the NHS. Archer's influence extended further through his series of articles in Design magazine in the 1960s, in which he advocated six basic stages of process: programming, data collection, analysis, synthesis, development and communication. In this, he anticipated and described concepts which would later be universally understood by designers in now-familiar terms such as 'quality assurance' or 'user-centred research'. Later successes included the DDR's influential study on the importance of design across the school curriculum (1976); from this the RCA established the Design Education Unit for teachers. The DDR itself was closed - peremptorily in Archer's view - by incoming Rector Jocelyn Stevens in 1984. Stevens instead hoped to give Archer College-wide responsibility for embedding research in all departments; to this end Archer was made Director of Research, a post he held until retirement in 1988. In retirement he remained active as president of the Design Research Society, and as a provider of short courses to various institutions, including a return to the RCA to deliver his Research Methods Course over several years.
Henry Wilson was born in Liverpool in 1864. He studied Art at Westminster School and the Royal College of Art and at various times he assisted John Oldrid Scott, John Belcher and John D Sedding, whom he succeeded in 1891. From 1895 on, he devoted himself to visionary church decoration schemes, metalwork, jewellery, lecturing and writing. He was associated with the circle of William Richard Lethaby in the Liverpool Cathedral Scheme of 1902. Wilson was both Master of the Art Workers Guild and President of the Arts and Crafts Society. He was a brilliant church interior designer who worked in a variety of styles.
No further information available at present.
The post of Bursar of the Royal College of Music was created in 1923, with responsibility, under the Council, for the financial administration, property and buildings of the College. Its first incumbent was Mr E J N Polkinghorne, previously Head of the office staff at the RCM, who held the office until 1946, to be followed by Ernest Stammers (1946-1956), Capt John T Shrimpton RN (1957-1971); Maj D A Imlay (1972-1984); Aidan P Miller (1984-1987) and Col W M Morgan (1987-1999). Following reorganisation the post was reconstituted as Head of Resources, with responsibility for the Secretariat, Finance Department, Personnel, Information Services, the Britten Theatre and Estates.
The Kirkmans were an English family of harpsichord and piano makers of Alsatian origin. Jacob Kirkman (b Bischweiler, 4 Mar 1710; d Greenwich, buried 9 Jun 1792) came to England in the early 1730s, and worked for Herman Tabel, whose widow he married in 1738. He took British citizenship on 25 Apr 1755, and in 1772 went into partnership with his nephew, Abraham Kirkman (b Bischweiler, 1737; d Hammersmith, buried 16 Apr 1794). Abraham Kirkman in turn took into partnership his son, Joseph Kirkman (i) (dates of birth and death unknown), whose son, Joseph Kirkman (ii) (c1790-1877), worked with his father on their last harpsichord in 1809. The firm continued as piano makers until absorbed by Collard in 1896.
Christian Burkard, one of the signatories of both documents (1) and (2) was a harpsichord builder living in Swallow Street, London and a cousin of Jacob Kirkman.
The action documented in (3) in 1771 by Jacob Kirkman against Robert Falkener was for Falkener's alleged attempts to sell harpsichords made by another maker as Kirkman instruments. Kirkman claimed £500 damages, though the outcome of the suit is not known.
Charles Thornton Lofthouse, born York, 12 Oct 1895; chorister, St Paul's Cathedral, 1904-1910; attended Royal Manchester College of Music; after World War One, studied the organ with Walter Parratt and conducting with Adrian Boult at the Royal College of Music; studied the piano with Alfred Cortot in Paris and the harpsichord with Aimee van der Wiele and Gustav Leonhardt; B Mus, 1930; D Mus, Trinity College, Dublin, 1935; accompanist to the London Bach Choir, 1921-1939; developed art of continuo playing, for which he was the first person to use a harpsichord in the Royal Albert Hall; professor at the RCM, 1922-1971; Director of Music at Westminster School, 1924-1939, and Reading University, 1939-1950; appointed examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1923, and acted as external examiner in music for several university institutes of education; created and conducted the University of London Music Society, 1934-1959; performed as a continuo, chamber or solo harpsichordist throughout Europe and in the USA; died London, 28 Feb 1974. Publications: Commentaries and Notes on Bach's Two- and Three-Part Inventions (London, 1956).
Charles Herbert Kitson, born, Leyburn, Yorkshire, 13 Nov 1874; took his arts degrees at Cambridge where he was organ scholar of Selwyn College, and his music degrees at Oxford as an external student; first major post was organist of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, 1913-1920; while there, was appointed Professor of Music, University College, Dublin, 1915; returned to England and joined the staff of the Royal College of Music, 1920; appointed Professor of Music, Trinity College, Dublin (then a non-resident post), 1920; retired, 1935; died London, 13 May 1944. Selected publications: The Art of Counterpoint, and its Application as a Decorative Principle (Oxford, 1907, 2nd edition, 1924); The Evolution of Harmony (Oxford, 1914, 2nd edition, 1924); Elementary Harmony (Oxford, 1920-1926, 2nd edition 1941).
H F Thornton was a horn student at the Royal College of Music. He subsequently played in the orchestra of the Royal Opera Company and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Wanda Landowska (1879-1959) was a Polish keyboard player and composer. She was a champion of 17th and 18th century music and the leading figure in the 20th century revival of the harpsichord. She first played the harpsichord in public in 1903 and subsequently made concert tours in Europe. In 1909 she published her book Musique ancienne, and in 1913 she began a harpsichord class at the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin. After World War One, she returned to Paris, where she lectured at the Sorbonne and gave classes at the Ecole Normale. In 1925 she settled at Saint-Leu-la-Foret (north of Paris) where she founded an Ecole de Musique Ancienne which attracted students from all over the world to private and public courses; the summer concerts held in its concert hall (built 1927) were to become celebrated. There, in 1933, she gave the first integral performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Liz Karger (née Rosenberg) was a student of Landowska in 1929-1930 who made notes of Landowska's lessons.
John Law Dennison, born 1911; educated, Brighton College; entered Royal College of Music, 1932; played the horn in various major orchestras in London and Birmingham, 1933-1939; served in the army, World War Two; appointed Assistant Director of the British Council's music department, and Music Director of the Arts Council, 1948; made CBE, 1960; appointed General Manager of the Royal Festival Hall, 1965; Director of South Bank Concert Halls, 1971-1976.
Born Plymouth, 12 Dec 1913; produced and conducted an opera in Plymouth at age 17; won open scholarship to Royal College of Music, 1932; studied there under Ralph Vaughan Williams, R.O. Morris, Gordon Jacob and Arthur Benjamin, one of his fellow students being Peggy Glanville-Hicks, whom he was later to marry; won various prizes and studied under Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Paul Hindemith in Berlin; returned to England and commissioned to write his Piano Concertino, first performed at the Eastbourne Festival, 1937; became associated with the London stage and composed incidental music for a number of plays; two of his ballets Perseus and Cap over mill were produced in London, 1938; visited Australia as a lecturer and a solo performer of his own piano works; toured USA and Brazil in the 1940s where his music was well received, including the premier of his Second Piano concerto under Sir Thomas Beecham with the New York Philharmonic and his Second Sinfonietta at the festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in California, 1943; received further commissions for ballet and film music; returned to London in 1949; visited Brussels and Amsterdam as a soloist, later performances included the premier of his Concerto Grosso in Paris and the premier of his Third Symphony at the Cheltenham Festival, 1954; became depressed at the lack of recognition his music received in the UK, and committed suicide, London, 19 Oct 1959.
John Whitridge Wilson was born 21 Jan 1905; educated at Manchester Grammar School and Dulwich College; read Natural Science at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; joined staff of Repton School; left to study piano and organ at Royal College of Music; appointed Assistant Director of Music, Tonbridge School, 1929; appointed Assistant Director of Music, Charterhouse, 1932, and Director, 1947-1965; taught keyboard and score reading, RCM, 1962-1980; resumed Sixth Form teaching, Charterhouse, 1980; died 16 Jul 1992. Hymns for Church and School was published by Novello & Co in 1964. It was the retitled fourth edition of the Public School Hymn Book (PSHB), first published by Novello in 1903. Each edition was edited by a committee of the Headmasters' Conference, established in 1869, and including heads of all the major public schools and others eligible for representation. The 1903 publication comprised some 349 hymns and included hymns by contemporary schoolmaster-composers. A Companion to the Public School Hymn Book by Dr W M Furneaux, Dean of Winchester, was published in 1904, giving biographical details of the authors and indicating the sources of the hymns. A second edition of PSHB appeared in 1919. The volume had increased to 426 hymns and many of those which had appeared in 1903 were excised. Work on a third edition started in 1937 but was interrupted by the war, and it was not published until 1949. Craig Sellar Lang and Ralph Vaughan Williams had collaborated on editing this edition, and which had a supplementary revision in 1958. Some 100 hymns of the 1919 edition were rejected, and 250 new hymns added in their place, to give some 554 hymns and 484 tunes grouped according to seasons and purposes. In 1960, following publication of an article by John Wilson on the 1949 edition in The Hymn Society Bulletin, it was decided to appoint Wilson as Organising Secretary of a Committee of the Headmasters' Conference responsible for publishing a new edition. This contained 346 hymns (with 20 new additions) and 389 tunes, including 23 newly written by among others Sir William Harris, Herbert Howells and John Gardner. The Methodist Hymns and Songs was edited by Wilson and published by the Methodist Publishing House in 1969, as a popular supplement to the 1933 Methodist Hymn Book.
Lucy Jane Gibbons, of Gosport, Hants, was born on 14 Aug 1887 and was a student at the Royal College of Music, 1908-1909, studying the organ and piano.
Frank Steward Howes, born 1891; educated at Oxford High School, St John's College, Royal College of Music; joined the staff of The Times in 1925 and succeeded H C Colles as chief music critic, 1943-1960; lectured on musical history and appreciation at the RCM, 1938-1970.
Sir Charles Santley, born Liverpool, 28 Feb 1834, son of William Santley, a music teacher; sang as a chorister and an amateur singer; studied with Gaetano Nava, Milan, 1855; made his debut at Pavia in 1857 as Dr Grenvil in La traviata; made his first professional English appearance at St Martin's Hall, London, singing Adam in Haydn's Creation, 16 November 1857; thereafter enjoyed a successful career as a baritone, appearing in major opera productions in England, Italy, Spain and the USA; after 1877 he was heard only in concert and oratorio; made Commander of St Gregory by Pope Leo XIII, 1887; celebrated his golden jubilee as a singer at the Royal Albert Hall, 1 May 1907; knighted, 1907; made his farewell appearance at Covent Garden, 23 May 1911; emerged from retirement to sing at the Mansion House, London, in a concert in aid of Belgian refugees, 1915; died London, 22 Sept 1922. Publications: Method of Instruction for a Baritone Voice, edited by G Nava (London, c1872); Student and Singer (London, 1892, 1893); Santley's Singing Master (London, c1895); The Art of Singing and Vocal Declamation (London, 1908); Reminiscences of my Life (London, 1909). Santley wrote a number of religious works for the Roman Catholic Church, and also composed several songs under the pseudonym of Ralph Betterton.
Tom Haigh was a student at the Royal College of Music in organ and piano, 1894-1898.
Stephen Moore was a student in percussion at the Royal College of Music, 1923-1926, and then Secretary of the Worcestershire Association of Music Societies.
Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) was an Austro-Hungarian violinist, composer, conductor and teacher. After education in Pest and Vienna, he studied under Mendelssohn in Leipzig and was an ardent advocate of Mendelssohn's works throughout his life. He later studied under Liszt in Weimar, but came to reject composition in the 1860s and concentrate on performance and instruction. He established a school of instrumental music in the Konigliche Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin, as well as giving concerts internationally over the next forty years. He was particularly renowned for his individual performances of the violin works of J S Bach and Beethoven, as well as the regular concerts given with colleagues from the Hochschule, who formed the Joachim Quartet which Joachim had established in 1869. For further details on Joachim and the Joachim Quartet see Grove Dictionary of Music. Anne Isabella Ritchie was born in 1837, and was the eldest daughter of the author William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863). She was married in 1877 to the civil servant Sir Richmond Thackeray Willoughby Ritchie (1854-1912), and was a novelist, biographer and renowned society hostess. She died in 1919. For further details on the Ritchies see the Dictionary of National Biography.
It is thought that some of this material may have been acquired by Sir George Grove on one of his research trips to Austria and Germany, particularly for material relating to his 'favourite trio', Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert. He wrote significant monographs on the three composers for the first edition of the Dictionary of Music and Musicians, first published in 1879. Two occasions are particulary likely to have provided him some of these letters. In 1867 he made a memorable journey to Vienna with the composer Arthur Sullivan to search for material on Schubert's life and works, and visited Berlin and Leipzig in the autumn of 1879 for research on Mendelssohn.
The original idea for a national music school based in London's South Kensington estate had been that of Albert, the Prince Consort. Shortly after the Prince's death, Henry Cole, the creator of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition had decided to create a scheme for its establishment by the Society of Arts (of which he was Honorary Secretary) on land at South Kensington provided by the Commissioners. The National Training School for Music (NTSM) opened on 17 May 1876 after a three-year planning period, with Arthur Sullivan as its first Principal (he was succeeded in 1881 by John Stainer). It was instituted as a five-year experiment supported by public subscription after which it was hoped to transfer management and funding to the State. Initially Cole had hoped to remodel the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) into a national free musical school in the mould of European conservatoires but this attempt had failed and the NTSM was instituted separately. It had been established with the grand intention of providing 300 free scholarships but this quickly proved impossible and a compromise was reached to provide 100 free scholarships for five years. When it opened there were only 70 scholarships and by 1878 it appeared the limited funding provided by private founders and corporate bodies would not suffice to enable the continuation of the School without government assistance. The School would have to seek some sort of alliance with the RAM in taking fee-paying students.
The Prince of Wales summoned a meeting in July 1878 to promote the establishment of a Royal and National College of Music, whose students, admitted on merit by examination, would enjoy full or partial scholarships. It was proposed that the College should emerge from an amalgamation of the RAM and the NTSM. The RAM initially seemed favourable to the union, and undertook negotiations with the Sub-Committee, under Prince Christian, of the Executive Committee appointed to oversee the establishment of the College. However in the same month the RAM rescinded its approval of the amalgamation, as the Honorary Secretary of the committee established at the RAM to look into the merger stated that according to its charter the RAM could not amalgamate with any other body. The NTSM was left to continue under difficult and uncertain circumstances, and took its first fee-paying students in autumn 1881. The Prince of Wales convened a national meeting of dignitaries at St James's Palace in February 1882 to promote the creation of a public fund to establish the Royal College of Music, which would become the state supported successor to the NTSM.
Since the opening of the Royal College of Music (RCM) building in 1894, the College has undergone a series of extensions and additions. Of particular note are the extension block, constructed 1963-1964, and officially opened in November 1965, and the new Dining Room, Library, and Britten Opera Theatre designed by the Casson Condor Partnership, 1982-1986. The bulk of the plans held by the RCM pertain to this latter scheme, but also represented are drawings by Norman and Dawbarn of the Concert Hall, existing floor plans and plans of extensions to the RCM, squash court [proposed but never built], vault practice rooms and Parry Opera Theatre, opera school and students' recreation room, 1960-1973; a new Opera School staircase by Building Design Workshop North West, 1979; the refurbishment of the RCM Concert Hall by the Essex Goodman Design Company, 1990.
The first Registrar of the Royal College of Music (RCM), George Watson, was appointed in 1882, to manage student admission, administration and awards. The post has since been held as follows: Frank Pownall, 1896-1913; Claude L C Aveling, 1914-1935; Basil C Allchin, 1935-1939; Hugo V Anson, 1939-1958; John R Stainer, 1959-1975; Michael Gough Matthews, 1976-1984; Jasper L Thorogood, 1984-1988. The registers of students of the RCM form the chief source of information on students for the period prior to 1977, giving details of student's background and academic progress and accomplishments. The registers of Scholarship applications give details of name, address, age, subject, and results of those who competed for open scholarships of the RCM. The registers of student applications give details of those who applied for admission as students of the RCM, and give addresses, subject of examinations taken and application fees.
The Sacred Harmonic Society was founded in London as an amateur choral society in 1832 for the weekly practice of music of an exclusively sacred character. The first home of the Society was the Gate Chapel in Lincoln's Inn Fields. In 1836 it was granted the use of the larger Exeter Hall, focus of London's dissenting community and designed for religious and charitable meetings. The works of Handel were part of its core repertoire and the society also performed the major new works of Spohr and Mendelssohn, including the London première of Elijah in 1847. At the Handel Festival of 1859 the Sacred Harmonic choir numbered 2765. The Sacred Harmonic Society provided the nucleus for the nationally represented choir of the Trial Festival of 1857 (numbering 2000, with an orchestra of about 400), prior to the Centenary Festival of 1859, which inaugurated the triennial Handel Festival. In 1882, the Society disbanded after losing the use of its Exeter Hall base.
The Society of Women Musicians was founded in London in 1911 by the singer Gertrude Eaton, the composer Katharine Eggar and the musicologist Marion M. Scott. It aimed to provide a focal point for women composers and performers to meet and enjoy the benefits of mutual cooperation. The 37 women at the inaugural meeting included musicians such as Ethel Barns, Rebecca Clarke, Agnes Larkcom, Anne Mukle and her sister, May Mukle, and Liza Lehmann, who became the society's first president. Later presidents included Cécile Chaminade, Fanny Davies, Rosa Newmarch, Myra Hess, Astra Desmond and Elizabeth Poston. Early members included Florence Marshall, Maude Valérie White and Ethel Smyth, who was honorary vice-president from 1925 to 1944. Among subsequent honorary vice-presidents were Nadia Boulanger, Imogen Holst, Elisabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy and Fanny Waterman. By the end of its first year the society had formed a choir and a library, given several private concerts and a public concert of members' works (which included the première of the first two movements of Smyth's String Quartet in E minor), hosted a variety of lectures, held a composers' conference and attracted 152 female members and 20 male associates, including Thomas Dunhill and W W Cobbett, who donated the Cobbett Free Library of Chamber Music to the Society in 1918. By 1913 the Society had also formed an orchestra.In the 61 years of its existence, the society campaigned vigorously for the rights of women musicians, especially as members of professional symphony orchestras, and awarded prizes to composers and performers, as well as continuing to organize concerts and meetings. In 1972, the year after its Diamond Jubilee had been celebrated at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the organization disbanded.
Betty Kurth was born 1878 and educated at the University of Vienna, where she was one of the earliest women students to be admitted; she studied art history and medieval literature and was awarded her doctorate in 1911. After moving to England, her research focused on English medieval art and she became an authority on medieval tapestry and embroidery. She died in an accident in 1948.
Ernst Hans Gombrich was born, 1909 and studied in Vienna. He moved to London in 1936, becoming a Research Assistant at the Warburg Institute. During the Second World War he worked for the BBC, before returning to the Warburg Institute as Senior Research Fellow (1945-1948), Lecturer (1948-1954), Reader (1954-1956), Special Lecturer (1956-1959) and eventually Director (1959-1976). Gombrich also held a chair at University College London (1956-1959), and numerous other appointments. He received a CBE in 1966 and a knighthood in 1972. After his retirement he was an Honorary Fellow of the Warburg Institute until his death in 2001.
Frances Yates was born in Hampshire, 1899 and studied at the University of London, receiving her MA in 1926. She spent 15 years as a private scholar before becoming successively Editor of Publications (1941-1944), Lecturer (1944-1957) and Reader (1956-1967) at the Warburg Institute. After her retirement she was an Honorary Fellow of the Institute until her death in 1981. Her wide research interests included Shakespeare, Renaissance thought, and many other aspects of European literature and culture. She was created OBE in 1972 and DBE in 1977.
Herbert Horne was born in London, 1864 and worked there as an architect, in partnership with A H Mackmurdo, during the 1880s and early 1890s. From the mid 1890s onwards he worked more on Italian art history, moving to Florence permanently in about 1904. He died in 1916.
Karl Krafft was born in Basel, Switzerland, 1900 and studied mathematics at university before becoming a well-known astrologer in the German-speaking world. From the mid-1930s he became popular with the leaders of the Nazi regime and moved to Germany, becoming personal astrologer to Rudolf Hess. He later published a pro-German interpretation of Nostradamus. Krafft fell out of favour during the early 1940s and died of typhus in January 1945.
Roberto Weiss was born in Milan, 1906 and studied at the University of Oxford, receiving his DPhil in 1938; excepting a period of military service, he taught in the Italian Department at University College London from 1938 (as Professor from 1946) until his death in 1969. He was naturalized as a British subject in 1934.
In 1899 a large number of wallpaper firms came together under the umbrella title of Wallpaper Manufacturers' (WPM) and subsequently some of their products were sold under the trademarkCrown'. The archive therefore consists largely of wallpaper pattern books by a variety of manufacturers, collected as part of the group's working records.
The King Edward VII Nautical School was founded in 1902 by the British Sailors' Society. The Directors of the Society acted as the first governing body of the School, which was based over a seamen's hostel at 680 Commercial Road, Stepney, London. In 1926 the school became a recognised school of technical instruction aided by the London County Council (LCC). In 1949 the LCC implemented a further education development plan for nautical education. Under this scheme, senior courses would be established at Sir John Cass College, while junior courses would be run at the King Edward VII School (and later at a new college at Greenhithe). Further rationalisation occurred in the 1960s when the Department of Navigation of Sir John Cass College merged with the King Edward VII Nautical College in 1969 and moved to a new building at Tower Hill, London.
The first Theatre Royal, Covent Garden was built by actor-manager John Rich, designed by the architect Edward Shepherd, and opened on 7 December 1732. It operated under the auspices of letters patent initially granted to Sir William Davenant, as one of only two recognised play houses in London.
It was mainly a playhouse, but music and dance were also performed there. George Frederic Handel wrote a number of operas and oratorios for this theatre, as well as bequeathing his organ to it. In 1791, Thomas Harris took over the management of the theatre and redesigned its interior several times before the building was accidentally burnt down in September 1808. A new theatre was constructed and opened in September 1809, under the joint management of Harris and John Kemble, designed by Robert Smirke.
The Theatres Act of 1843 ended the Theatre Royal's monopoly on drama production. In 1847, it became the Royal Italian Opera when the conductor Michael Costa, along with a number of singers including Giuseppe and Fanny Persiani, and Giulia Grisi, left the Italian Opera at the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, to establish a rival company. The building was redesigned as an Italian opera house and the Royal Italian Opera was opened. In 1856 the theatre again burnt down. A new theatre was designed by E M Barry, with a glass and iron arcade - the Floral Hall. It opened in May 1858, and its popularity grew, despite the poor access to the auditorium, which meant that the audience took so long to find their seats that the final act of the first performance was cancelled. The Italian Opera ceased in 1892, and the theatre became the Royal Opera House. The building underwent a number of alterations. In 1899, the Conservatory bar was added to the terrace above the portico, and later the stage was remodelled by Edwin O Sachs. Profits declined however, such that during World War 1, the building was used as a warehouse. In 1919, it was sold to the family company of Sir Thomas Beecham, interest revived and the Royal Opera House Company renovated the building in 1933, however the declaration of World War 2 had an adverse effect. During this period, no opera was staged, instead the building was lease to Mecca Cafes Ltd, who converted it for use as a ballroom, which proved very popular.
After the War, the music publishers Boosey and Hawkes acquired the lease of the building. Funding was secured from the Arts Council of Great Britain for the establishment of resident companies - the Covent Garden Opera Company, the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company under the direction of Ninette de Valois. The ballet company obtained its royal charter in 1956, and the opera company in 1968. The Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet remained as a company of the ROH performing at various theatres, until 1991, when it became the Royal Birmingham Ballet.
The building continued to undergo modification, in 1953, the floor was relayed and the angle altered, in 1964 the amphitheatre and gallery were combined into one space, and an extension was built in 1982. Major development undertaken in 1996, with the addition of a new wing along Russell St, and major development of the theatre and site was undertaken between 1996-1999
In 1980, the freehold of the building passed to the Government for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Ltd, which is the parent company of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the ROH.
John Clarke was a Baptist missionary who spent time in Fernando Po (Bioko, Equatorial Guinea), 1841-1847 and Havanna la Mar, Jamaica, 1854.
Born 1907; read history, Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Indian Civil Service, 1930; Deputy Commissioner of the Santal Parganas, 1942-1946; editor of Man in India, 1942-1949; Keeper of the Indian section of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1949; Royal Asiatic Society's Burton Memorial Medal, 1978; died, 1979.
Born, 1881; educated: Stirling high school; joined the Imperial Yeomanry at the outbreak of the South African War, 1899; joined Central African trading company, the African Lakes Corporation, 1902; posted Blantyre, Nyasaland and later Lilongwe; joined customs service of the West African colony of the Gold Coast, 1906; studied anthropology at Exeter College, Oxford: diploma, 1914, BSc, 1925, and DSc, 1929; assistant district commissioner in Ejura, in the northern region of Asante, 1913; captain in the Gold Coast regiment, 1914; saw action during the invasion of the German colony of Togoland; called to the bar in 1918; assistant colonial secretary and clerk to the legislative assembly, Accra, 1919; special commissioner and the first 'government anthropologist', Asante, 1920; retired from the colonial service, 1928; died, 1938.
Publications:
Folklore, Stories and Songs in Chinyanja (1907)
Hausa Folklore
Elementary Mole Grammar (1918)
Ashanti Proverbs (1916)
Ashanti (1923)
Religion and Art in Ashanti (1927)
Ashanti Law and Constitution (1929)
Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales (1930)
Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland (1932)
Born, 1801; in the summer of 1820, while still a student, he made a voyage to the Arctic regions in the capacity of surgeon to a whaling ship; qualified LSA, 1823; medical officer for the Stoke upon Trent district; parish medical officer in Shelton; MRCS, 1843; FSA, 1854; graduated MD at St Andrews, 1862; member of the Anthropolical Society, 1863; for many years Davis devoted himself to craniology, and gradually accumulated a huge number of skulls and skeletons of various races, most with carefully annotated histories; joint editor of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute and of Anthropologia; FRS, 1868; died, 1881.
Publications:
Crania Britannica (1865)
Thesaurus Craniorum (1867)
Born 1840; member of the Essex Field Club; Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), 1881-1923; RAI Council member, 1887-1901; died, 1923.
Born in Budapest, Hungary, 1875; educated in Hungary and Germany; worked for a time in a bank in Brussels; travelled and worked in equatorial Africa, 1900-1910; colonial administrative post at Lake Mweru in the south-east of Congo Free State, 1900-1904; employee of the Compagnie du Kasai, Belgian Congo; increasingly came to act as an agent of the British Museum; undertook ethnographic surveys of the people of the Kwango-Kwilu river basin and of the Kasai, formed comprehensive ethnographic collections, and created photographic and phonographic records; the centre point of Torday's ethnographic work was his engagement with the Kuba peoples; Torday was an excellent linguist who learned to speak fifteen languages, eight of them African; mounted his own expedition in the Belgian Congo, 1907; returned to Europe, 1909; awarded the Imperial gold medal for science and art by the Emperor of Austria, 1910; died, 1930.
Publications:
On the Trail of the Bushongo (1925)
Descriptive Sociology: African Races (1930)
Born, 1854; educated at Rugby; read law and qualified as a solicitor, but never practised; voyage in the Pacific, 1879-1881, where he visited Fiji, Tonga and Samoa and collected a large number of artefacts - he thus became interested in ethnography; worked as a supernumerary in the Ethnological Collections of the British Museum; second Pacific voyage, 1895; died, 1930.
Publications:
An Album of the Weapons, Tools, Ornaments, Articles of Dress of the Natives of the Pacific Islands, Drawn and Described from examples in public and private collections in England
Unknown
Aliston Blyth went on an expedition in Papua New Guinea with Mr Lyons in search of Drexler and Bell, 1920. Nothing further is known about him.
Born, Aberdeen, Scotland, 1849; educated at Kidd's school, Aberdeen, and at the Insch Free Church School; migrated to Queensland, Australia, 1864; became familiar with the language and culture of the Kabi and Wakka peoples; gold-digger at Imbil and Ravenswood, 1864-1866; teacher for Queensland Department of Public Instruction at Dalby, 1872-1875, and the Brisbane Normal School, 1875-1876; called to the priesthood; matriculated and graduated from the University of Melbourne (BA, 1884; MA, 1886); inducted to the parish of Ballan,1887; minister at the suburban charge of Coburg, 1889-1923; lifelong interest in Aboriginal ethnography, publishing two books and numerous papers and articles on the subject; died 1929.
Publications: Eaglehawk and Crow (1899)
Two Representative Tribes of Queensland (1910)
Born 1846; educated, Christ's College, Cambridge; Assistant Commissioner of Kachar, India, 1876; Deputy Commissioner of the Garo Hills, India, 1877; Political Officer of the Naga Hills, India; died 1879.
There was a clear need for a London exhibition gallery as early as 1949 to accommodate large international exhibitions, which other European capitals were able to do with ease. The Arts Council of Great Britain (ACGB) founded 1945, the incorporated successor of the Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), had made use of other galleries for large exhibitions.
In 1958, the London County Council announced its intention to build an exhibition gallery on the South Bank to provide a space for large exhibitions. They generously agreed to lease the gallery to the Arts Council at a peppercorn rent. The Gallery was designed by the Greater London Council's Department of Architecture and Civic Design led by Geoffrey Horsefall. It was completed by the end of 1967, and the Greater London Council (successor to the London County Council) named it the Hayward Gallery in honour of Sir Isaac Hayward whose personal initiative and was largely responsible for the complex of buildings devoted to the arts on the South Bank.
The Queen opened the Hayward Gallery and its first exhibition - a retrospective of paintings of Henri Matisse - on 9 July 1968.
In 1987 responsibility for managing the Hayward was transferred from the Arts Council to the South Bank Centre, along with the Council's Visual Arts Exhibition Department and the Arts Council Collection, and the Hayward became a client of the Arts Council. The Hayward continued to house and administer the Arts Council Collection, begun in 1946 and comprising more than 7000 works by British artists, on behalf of the Arts Council.
The Hayward's programme concentrates on four areas, including single artist shows, historical themes and artistic movements, art of other cultures and contemporary group shows, as well as running programmes of educational activities including tours, lectures and workshops. The Hayward also organises National Touring Exhibitions with about 25 shows annually touring all over Britain, and every five years mounts a large-scale exhibition known as The British Art Show.
Hayward exhibitions include: Matisse (1968); Frescoes from Florence (1969); Rodin (1970 & 1987); Bridget Riley (1971 & 1992); Lucian Freud (1974 & 1988); the series of Hayward Annuals (1977-1986); Dada & Surrealism Reviewed (1978); Thirties (1980); Edward Hopper (1981); Picasso's Picassos (1981); Renoir (1985); Leonardo Da Vinci (1989); Andy Warhol (1989); The Other Story: Afro-Asian artists in post-war Britain (1989); Art in Latin America (1989); Richard Long (1991); Toulouse-Lautrec (1992); Magritte (1992); The Art of Ancient Mexico (1992); Yves Klein (1995); Howard Hodgkin (1996); Art and Power (1995); Anish Kapoor (1998); Bruce Nauman (1998); Lucio Fontana (1999); Paul Klee (2002)