No information available at present.
A tax on households employing male servants was levied in Britain from 1777-1852.
In 1764, the British government introduced various financial Acts into the American colonies, prompted by a need for greater revenue to support the growing empire. These acts forbade the importation of foreign rum; put a modest duty on molasses from all sources; and levied duties on wines, silks, coffee, and a number of other luxury items. To enforce them, customs officials were ordered to show more energy and strictness. British warships in American waters were instructed to seize smugglers, and "writs of assistance" (blanket warrants) authorized the King's officers to search suspected premises.
No information available at present.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
The Court of King's Bench exercised a supreme and general jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases as well as special jurisdiction over the other superior common-law courts until 1830.The Court of Common Pleas was the main court for cases between individuals about land and debt rather than prosecutions by the crown.
The Privy Chamber was created by Henry VII (reigned 1485-1509) as a new department of the Royal Household. It was run by the Lord Chamberlain and consisted of Gentlemen of the Chamber, chosen by the monarch as personal attendants. The roles of Gentlemen were given as political rewards, and were bestowed mainly on members of the aristocracy.
During the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713), Britain occupied Gibraltar (1704) and Minorca (1708). Both were officially ceded to Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) which ended the war.
No information available at present.
Isaac Rogers was Warden of the Company of Watchmakers 1810-12 and 1823. The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was founded by royal charter in 1631 in order to regulate the crafts of watch and clock-making. The Company had certain policing powers and actively sought out poorly made material, seizing and destroying it. The Company is still in existence.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
The hearth tax consisted of a half-yearly payment of one shilling for each hearth in the occupation of each person whose house was worth more than 20s a year, and who was a local ratepayer of church and poor rates. It was introduced by Charles II in 1662 and continued to be levied until 1688.
A Negro slave was not allowed to go beyond the confines of his owner's plantation without written permission. On this "pass" was written the name of the Negro, the place he was permitted to visit, and the time beyond which he must not fail to return.
Edmund Backhouse (1824-1906) came from a family of prominent Quaker bankers. He was MP for Durham from 1868-1880, and married Juliet Fox, daughter of Charles Fox, in 1848.
Frederick VI (1768-1839) was King of Denmark (1808-39) and Norway (1808-14). He was responsible for many liberal reforms in both countries, and had a peaceful and prosperous reign until the Napoleonic Wars, when, despite Danish neutrality, its opposition to the British ruling on neutral shipping resulted in an English attack on the Danish fleet (Battle of Copenhagen) in 1801. Again, in 1807, England attacked neutral Denmark and bombarded Copenhagen. Frederick thereupon allied himself with Napoleon I and was punished at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) by the loss of Norway to Sweden.
Thomas Grey, 2nd Earl of Stamford (1653-1720), was married to Elizabeth Harvey, daughter of Sir Daniel Harvey, Ambassador to Constantinople, some time between 1673 and early 1675. They separated for the first time in late 1675, though subsequently went on to have three children together, all of which died in infancy. Grey was imprisoned in the Tower of London for suspected treason from 1685-1686, and his accusations against his wife probably date from this time.
The Court of Arches was the consistory court belonging to the archbishop of Canterbury for the trial of spiritual causes, and heard cases relating to matrimonial affairs, correction of morals, parochial affairs, and defamation.
Benjamin Thompson was a dramtist who wrote plays including The Florentines, or Secret Memoirs of the noble family De C** (J. F. Hughes, London, 1808); Oberon's Oath; or, the Paladin and the Princess: a melodramatic romance, in two acts (London, 1816); The Recall of Momus. A bagatelle (G. Robinson, London, 1809); and The Stranger (J. Dicks, London, [1875]).
Merino sheep originated in North Africa descended from a strain of sheep developed during the reign of Claudius, from 14 to 37 A.D. They spread via the Spanish and French royal families to northern Europe. The original Merinos were a wool sheep, who sheared a very heavy, fine fleece.
The Harvey family were a well-to-do Quaker family connected with the textiles trade in Leeds.
Patrick Robertson (1794-1855) was a Scottish judge. He produced writings on legal and literary topics.
Niels Henrik Abel was born in Norway in 1802. His father was Soren Georg Abel, a political activist for Norwegian independence. In 1815 Niels Abel was sent to the Cathedral School at Christiania, where he studied mathematics under Bernt Holmboe, who encouraged him to go to Christiania University. He graduated in 1822, having undertaken work on the solution of quintic equations by radicals. In 1823 he published papers on functional equations and integrals, and a work proving the impossibility of solving the general equation of the fifth degree in radicals. For the next four years Abel travelled in Europe, visiting France, Italy and Germany to meet other mathematicians. He returned to Norway in 1827, where he earned a living through teaching until his death in May 1829. In 1830 he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Paris Academy.
The Lord Chamberlain is the senior member of the Royal Household. Originally the king's personal quarters were his 'chamber' - by the thirteenth century the chamber had developed into an office with clerks and servants. By the late fourteenth century the Chamberlain was one of the five main officers of the royal government, along with the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Keeper of the Privy Seal, and the Steward. The role of the Lord Chamberlain is to oversee the conduct and general business of the Royal Household and the private estates of the king.
The earliest surviving mention of a public official charged with auditing government expenditure is a reference to the Auditor of the Exchequer in 1314. The Auditors of the Imprest were established under Queen Elizabeth I in 1559 with formal responsibility for auditing Exchequer payments. This system gradually lapsed and in 1780, Commissioners for Auditing the Public Accounts were appointed by statute. From 1834, the Commissioners worked in tandem with the Comptroller of the Exchequer, who was charged with controlling the issue of funds to the government.
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (1794-1865) was a member of a younger branch of the family of the Earls of Warwick. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, before beginning his career as private secretary to Earl Bathurst. He was Clerk to the Privy Council from 1821 to 1859, where he came into contact with all of the leading politicians of the time. This knowledge informed his diaries, which are recognised as the best contemporary political commentary of the period. Greville's diaries were published with omissions between 1875 and 1887, and a full publication edited by Lytton Strachey and Roger Fulford was made in 1938.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
No information available at present.
Lady Beversham was the administrator of the estate of Sir William Beversham who owned land in Holebrook, Co. Durham; Kesale, Suffolk and property in London.
In 1695 William III appointed a new Committee of the Privy Council by the name of 'the Lords Commissioners for promoting the Trade of our Kingdom and for inspecting and improving our plantations in America and elsewhere'. The main concern of these 'Lords of Trade' was the American colonies, and following the American War of Independence they were abolished (1782), their responsibilities being assumed by the Privy Council and the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta on 6 May 1861. After his marriage in 1883, Tagore managed the family estates at Shileida, where he wrote many of his works. In 1901 he founded a school at Santiniketan, Bopur, Bengal, which later became the international institution, Visva-Bharati. In 1912 he visited England and translated some of his works into English. He also made visits to countries in Europe, Asia and North and South America. In 1913 he received the Nobel Prize for literature. At the age of 68 Tagore took up painting, some of which were exhibited in Europe and the United States. He died in Calcutta on 7 August 1942
The University of Copenhagen is the largest institution of research and education in Denmark, founded in 1479. In 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British bombarded Copenhagen and most of the University buildings were destroyed. The new main building was inaugurated in 1836, though building work continued for the remainder of the century.
The term 'customs' applied to customary payments or dues of any kind, regal, episcopal or ecclesiastical until it became restricted to duties payable to the King upon export or import of certain articles of commerce. Excise are inland duties levied on articles at the time of their manufacture, notably, alcoholic drinks, but has also included salt, paper and glass.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
Dr Cuthbert Christy was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated with a MB, CM in 1892. He served as a medical officer with the Army in Northern Nigeria from 1898 to 1900. He also served as a medical officer in India. From 1903 to 1914, Christy took part in several expeditions in India and Africa. Between 1911 and 1916 he conducted an expedition in the Congo for the Belgium government and from 1915 to 1916 he explored and mapped the Nile-Congo divide for the Sudan Government. During World War One he served in the Royal Army Medical Corp as an adviser on malaria in the East African Expeditionary Forces. He was also attached to the War Trade Intelligence (Africa) Staff at the War Office.
Christy was the representative for the League of Nations and Chairman of the International Commission of Enquiry to Liberia with reference to slavery and forced labour, which sat in 1930. He died in 1932.
The Republic of Venice was created around 1140. It was headed by the Doge, and led by the Great Council, who controlled all political and administrative business. Ludovico Manin, the last doge, was deposed by Napoléon Bonaparte on May 12, 1797. A provisional democratic municipality was set up in place of the republican government, but later in the same year Venice was handed over to Austria.
Herbert Spencer was born in Derby in 1820. He was educated at Hinton Charterhouse near Bath and returned to Derby at the age of 17 to take up a post as an assistant schoolmaster. After three months, he became a civil engineer with the London and Birmingham Railway. In 1842, he was appointed honorary secretary of the Complete Suffrage Movement - allied to the Chartist agitation - and became editor of The Pilot, the newspaper of the Chartist movement. He became sub-editor of The Economist in 1848 and in 1850 published his first book, Social Statistics, detailing theories of evolution. In 1855, he published his second book, The Principles of Psychology. From 1860 to 1893, Spencer worked on a series of volumes with the intention of applying evolution to all the sciences and developing an all-inclusive philosophical theory. His volumes covered biology, psychology, sociology, and ethics. He died in 1903.
William Paton Ker was born in Glasgow in 1855. He studied at Glasgow Academy, Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford University. He then became Professor of English Literature at the University College of South Wales, Cardiff in 1883 and in 1889 was appointed Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London (UCL). In 1879, Ker was appointed to a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford and in 1920 was appointed to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford. While at UCL, Ker was responsible for setting up an Honours School of English and organising the Department of Scandinavian Studies. He had a passion for mountain climbing and fell walking. He died in 1923.
Professor George Long was Professor of Greek at University College, London, from 1828 to 1831; Professor Henry Malden was also Professor of Greek at University College from 1831 to 1876.
Herbert Somerton Foxwell (1849-1936) was a dedicated book-collector and bibliophile, who formed a large collection of economic books printed before 1848. In 1901, Foxwell sold his library to the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (Goldsmith's Company) for £10, 000 in 1901. At that time it contained about 30,000 books. The Company also generously provided Foxwell with a series the wherewithal to make further acquisitions for addition to the Library, which was given to the University of London in 1903.
Josiah Charles Stamp was born in Kilburn, London on 21 June 1880. Stamp's formal education ended when he was sixteen. In 1896 he entered the Civil Service as a boy clerk in the Inland Revenue Department, where he rose to the position of assistant secretary to the Board of Inland Revenue at the age of thirty six. Stamp obtained an external degree in economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1916. His thesis was published as British Incomes and Property in 1916 and launched his academic career. In 1919 he served on the Royal Commission on Income Tax and in the same year he joined Nobel Industries Ltd as secretary and director. In 1926 he became the president of the executive of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and two years later he was appointed director of the Bank of England. He combined this work with serving on national and international committees, as well as boards of enquiry. In 1926 he served on the statutory commission of the University of London and in 1926 he served as a governor and vice chairman of the LSE. Stamp also held lectureships in economics at several universities, including Cambridge, Oxford and Liverpool. Throughout his working life he published widely on economics. Stamp was created CBE in 1918, KBE in 1920, GBE in 1924 and GCB in 1935. In 1938 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Stamp of Shortlands, Kent. He also received honorary degrees from numerous universities both at home and abroad. Stamp died on 16 April 1941.
Charles James Booth was born the son of a Merseyside coal merchant on 30 March 1840. He was educated at the Royal Liverpool Institution and became apprenticed to a trading company, Lamport and Holt. Charles went on to set up a steamship company trading between Liverpool and Northern Brazil. Beyond his commercial aspirations, Charles wished to do something for the under-privileged of Victorian England and he joined the Birmingham Education League, founded to promote secular education.
Charles married Mary Catherine Macaulay (1843-1939), on 29 April 1871. Charles decided to move the merchandising arm of Alfred Booth and Company, the family firm, to London and extended his trade in leather to New York where he spent three months of each year. These long voyages led to the daily correspondence between Charles and Mary. Mary, by this time, was a partner in the company in all but name.
In 1884, Charles assisted in the analysis of statistics for the allocation of the Lord Mayor's Relief Fund and attempted to establish a Board of Statistical Research. In Spring 1886 he presented a paper, The Occupation's of the People of London, 1841-1881, to the Royal Statistical Society. Mary helped her husband in his 'Inquiry' into poverty in London. She was also associated with a circle of intellectual women, many of whose husbands were MPs. In April 1889, Charles' first work, Volume 1 of the Poverty Series of Life and Labour of the People of London: Trades of East London, was published. The survey of Central and South London followed in volume 2, published in May 1891, while all the time Charles was involved in commerce and social science.
Charles was made President of the Statistical Society in 1892 and set about researching for a survey into the condition of industry in England and its impact on poverty. This was followed in 1899 by an investigation into old age pensions and The Aged Poor. In 1912, Charles ceded the chairmanship of Alfred Booth & Company to his nephew. On 23 November 1916, following a stroke, Charles died. A memorial to Charles Booth was erected in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral on 15 December 1920.
John Bradley, son of a Stourbridge ironmonger, Gabriel Bradley (1726-1771), was born in 1769. He established himself in the iron business in his own right by trading at the Stourbridge Forge in around 1795. In 1800 he founded a new company, John Bradley & Co. He was the managing partner and finance was obtained from Thomas Jukes Collier (1761-1845) and the trustees of his stepfather, Henry Foster (1743-1793), each with a third share in the company.
The company soon set up a forge, steam engine and mills and began by converting pig iron into wrought iron plates and rods for local industry. Expansion was rapid and leases were secured on further forges and land. In 1813, the Stourbridge Iron Works obtained a contract to purchase the entire production of pig iron from New Hadley Furnaces for seven years at a guaranteed price but, in 1818, James Foster (1786-1853), son of Henry Foster oversaw the construction of two new blast furnaces, thereby controlling all stages of iron production.
James went into partnership with John Urpeth Rastrick in 1819 to expand Bradley's involvement in machinery production. Rastrick was the resident managing engineer of a new company, Foster, Rastrick & Co., built alongside the Stourbridge Iron Works. A new foundry was built in 1821 to cope with the expansion of the business. The company produced: bedsteads, cooking plates, wheels and tools, rails and railway sleepers. Foster, Rastrick and Co. was formally dissolved on 20, June 1831.
The assets were transferred back into the Stourbridge Iron Works with the foundry business continuing under the management of John Bradley & Co. In 1837, James Foster became the sole owner of John Bradley & Co. The Stourbridge Iron Works continued to produce rods, bars and wires while the foundry worked on specialist rolling machines. James's nephew William Orme Foster (-1899), inherited the £700,000 estate and under his stewardship, John Bradley & Co. continued to grow. A revolution in iron manufacture occurred in 1856 with the development of cheap steel but Foster failed to invest in new machinery and when the iron industry entered a slump in the 1870s, the productivity of the company declined. After the death of William Orme Foster, the company fell into the hands of his son, William Henry Foster (1846-1924). Preferring other pursuits, William sold the company's collieries to Guy Pitt and Company in 1913 and the remaining portion of the Stourbridge Iron Works was sold to Edward J Taylor Ltd. in 1913.
(Compiled from information extracted from: Ed. Paul Collins, Stourbridge & Its Historic Locomotives (Dudley Leisure Services. 1989))
Robert Mylne (1734-1811) was born in Edinburgh and studied as an architect and engineer in Paris and Rome. His work includes the building of Blackfriars Bridge and the Stationers' Hall in London, St Cecila's Hall in Edinburgh, and the village and castle of Inveray. He was the architect of the new River Company until 1810, when his son William Chadwell Mylne took over the post, and was involved in the construction of several canals in England. He is buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London.
Emile Cammaerts was born in Brussels in 1876 (he was baptised Emile Pieter at the age of 34). He received education at the University of Brussels and later at the revolutionary Université Nouvelle where he was a student of geography.
Cammaerts held the post of Professor of Belgian Studies and Institutions in the University of London, 1931-47, and became Professor Emeritus after his retirement from the university in 1947. He also received an honorary LL.D. from the University of Glasgow and a CBE. He was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
During his life, Emile Cammaerts was a cartographer, geographer, journalist, poet, playwright, historian, art critic and devoted Anglican. He was Belgian by nationality, and deeply immersed in Belgian politics and culture, but after his marriage he spent his life in England, at Radlett, Hertfordshire, from where he commuted to his office in London. He was naturally concerned with Anglo-Belgian relations and with the Anglo-Belgian Union.
Charles Stewart Loch was born in Bengal on 4 September 1849. He was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond and Balliol College, Oxford. From 1873 to 1875 he was a clerk at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a member of the Commission on Aged Poor, 1893-1895, Durkin Trust Lecturer at Manchester College Oxford 1896 and 1902. He was also a member of the Institut International de Statistique, Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble Minded and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. Loch was the Tooke Professor of Economic Science and Statistics at King's College, London between 1904 and 1908 and Secretary to the Council of the London Charity Organisation Society 1875 to 1914. He published works on charities and the poor. His publications include, Charity and Social Life ; 1910, Aspects of the Special Problem, 1895 and Methods of Social Advance, 1904. He also contributed to academic journals. Loch died on 23 January 1923.
William Brenchley Rye was born on 26 January 1818. He was educated at the Rochester and Chatham Classical and Mathematical School. In 1834 he came to London and entered the office of a solicitor, where he met John Winter Jones, principal librarian of the British Museum. After working at several posts in the British Museum, he became the supernumerary assistant in 1844. Rye was responsible for supervising the removal and subsequent arrangement of the Thomas Grenville Library at the British Museum. In 1857, Rye became the assistant keeper in the department of printed books, where he remained until his retirement in 1875. Rye's principal published work was England as seen by foreigners in the days of Elizabeth and James I, 1895. This work comprised of a collection of narratives by foreign visitors. Rye died on 21 December 1901. Rye's younger son, Reginald Arthur Rye became the Goldsmith's Librarian at the University of London.
Rolland was born in 1866 in the district of Nièvre, France. He studied literature, music and philosophy, going on to publish two doctoral theses. After some years as a school teacher he went on to teach at the Sorbonne. His interest in music motivated him to publish numerous critical pieces on famous composers as well as artists and writers. As well as being a critic he began to publish his own literature, culminating in the winning of the Nobel Prize in 1915 for his Jean-Christophe. The themes of truth, humanism and altruism are identified most explicitly within his literary work. He died in Vézelay, 1944.
Samuel Jones Loyd was born on 25 September 1796. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in 1818 and an MA in 1822. Loyd's father, the Reverend Lewis Loyd, accepted a partnership in Jones' Manchester Bank to form Jones, Loyd & Co. On Lewis Loyd's retirement in 1844, Samuel Loyd took control of the bank which merged with the London and Westminster Bank in 1863. Samuel Loyd was also involved in politics. He sat as the Liberal member for Hythe from 1819 to 1826 and in 1832 he unsuccessfully contested Manchester as a Liberal. In 1832, Loyd gave evidence before a parliamentary committee which was working on the Bank Act. Loyd warned against multiplying the issue of paper and permitting more than one bank of issue. He later went on to publish his evidence in 1837 in a work entitled Reflections on the State of the Currency. He again gave evidence before the committee of the House of Commons upon the banks of issue in 1840. The Bank Act, 1844, incorporated many of the ideas expressed by Loyd. During the 1840s and 50s Loyd published many pamphlets on financial matters and became a parliamentary advisor. Loyd was chairman of the Irish Famine Committee of 1846-9, received a peerage as Baron Overstone of Overstone and Fotheringhay in 1850. That same year he became a trustee of the National Gallery and, in 1851, he was a Commissioner of the Great Exhibition. He died at his house, 2 Carlton Gardens, London on 17 November 1883.
Louis René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais (1701-1785) was a French magistrate, who served as Advocate General (1730-1752) and Attorney General (from 1752) of the Breton Parlement. He led a protracted personal and political battle with the Duke of Pivot, who was Governor of Brittany and the King's representative, concerning the influence and fate of the Jesuit order. This led him to be seen as the head of the parliamentary opposition, and in 1765 he was imprisoned by Louis XV and later exiled. He was restored by Louis XVI in 1775.For an account of the circumstances in which his memoir was originally composed see Nouvelle Biographic Générale sub La Chalotais. The work was printed in several editions.
Francis Wormald was born on 1 June 1904. He was educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge. From 1927 to 1949 he served as Assistant Keeper at the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum. During the Second World War Wormald served in the Ministry of Home Security, producing Civil Defence training films. He was Professor of Paleography at the University of London between 1950 and1960. In 1960 he was appointed Professor of History and Director of the Institute of Historical Research (IHR). Wormald was a member of the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton University, USA, from 1955 until 1956; the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in 1957; the Advisory Council on Public Records from 1965 to 1967 and President of the Society of Antiquaries from 1965 to 1970. In 1967 he became a Trustee of the British Museum and Governor of the London Museum in 1971. His major publications include English Kalendars before AD 1100 (1934); English Benedictine Kalendars after 1100 (2 volumes, 1939 and 1946) and English Drawings of the 10th and 11th Centuries (1952). He also contributed articles to Archaelogia, Antiquaries Journal and the Walpole Society. He was appointed Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1961 and awarded a CBE in 1969. He died on 11 January 1972.
Henry Austin Dobson, civil servant and poet, was born on 18 January 1840. After leaving school at the age of 16, he joined the Board of Trade where he remained until his retirement as Principal in 1901. He had an enduring enthusiasm for the eighteenth century and for poetry. He composed a large quantity of his own poetry and was well known for his adaptation of old French verses. His earliest volume of poetry was Vignettes in Rhyme, (1873). Later in his life, Dobson turned his attention increasingly to prose, resulting in several volumes of essays including Eighteenth Century Prose (in 3 series; 1892, 1894 and 1896). He died in 1921.