Stamp duties were first introduced in England in 1694 by an Act of Parliament (5 & 6 William and Mary c.21). It was a form of taxation, originally levied on legal documents, which required them to use stamped paper. This was soon extended to other items, and became used as a method of social control, for example through the taxation of dice to prevent gambling. The creator is possibly James Harris (English philologist, 1709-1780). Trained as a lawyer. MP for the Borough of Christ Church from 1761-1780. Elected Lord of the Admiralty in 1762 and Lord of the Treasury in 1763 (to 1765). Made Secretary and Comptroller General to the Queen in 1774. Wrote Hermes, or a philosophical inquiry concerning universal grammar (1751).
No information was available at the time of compilation.
Charles Bell was born at Edinburgh in November 1774. He received his medical education from the University of Edinburgh. In 1799 he was elected a fellow of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and practised at the Edinburgh Infirmary. In 1804 he left Edinburgh for London to practise and to teach (1812-1836) at the William Hunter's School of Anatomy which was linked to the Middlesex Hospital. In 1828, he became the first Professor of Surgery at the University of London but was disappointed that there was no affiliation between the Middlesex Hospital and the University and resigned from the University in order to establish the medical school at the Middlesex. He continued to write on different aspects of anatomy. After spending the years 1821 to 1829 investigating the nervous system, Bell published The Nervous System of the Human Body in 1830. In 1838, he returned to Edinburgh where he became Professor of Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. In 1840, he made a three month tour of Italy. Bell became ill with heart disease and died on 28 April 1842.
No information available at present.
No information available at present.
John Stockdale was born in Cumberland in about 1749. Though trained as a blacksmith, he later became a porter in London to the publisher John Almon. When Almon's business was taken over by John Debrett, Stockdale set up his own publishing firm (c 1783). He became a well-known and successful publisher, bookseller and mapseller, with a shop in Picadilly, opposite the Burlington Arcade. He died in 1814.
Quebec, an important fur-trading settlement, was at the centre of struggles between France and Great Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Originally founded as a French colony, Quebec was captured by the British in 1629, who held it until 1632, when the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye restored Quebec to France. In 1690 the fleet of Sir William Phipps, governor of Massachusetts, attempted to take Quebec but was beaten back with troops led by its governor, the Count de Frontenac. In 1711 a second attempt to take the city also failed when a British armada crashed on the reefs of the St. Lawrence before reaching Quebec.
The city fell to the British in 1759 (during the Anglo-French Seven Years War, 1756-1763) and was ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
The Worshipful Company of Pewterers is one of the oldest livery companies in the City of London. The earliest reference to it dates from 1348, though the members of the craft had probably formed a guild some time before this. The Company's own records are extant from 1451, and its first Royal Charter was granted by King Edward IV on 20th January 1474. In the Middle Ages, the use of pewter was unrivalled as a material for plates, dishes and drinking vessels. The height of its popularity was the late seventeenth century, after which the trade slowly declined.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
Charles Barham was born at Truro on 9 March 1804. He was educated privately and then at Downs College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1821. He took his M B at Cambridge in 1827 and qualified for the higher degree of M D in 1860. In 1837 he settled in Truro, Cornwall, to practice medicine. He remained there for the rest of his life. In 1842 the Commission on the Employment of Children engaged his services. His report, with the evidence he collected, was printed in the published reports of the Commission. Barham died on 20 October 1884.
The company was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1812 and the first meeting of what was known as the Court of Directors was held at 27 Norfolk Street, Strand on 24 June 1812. Offices were set up at 96 Pall Mall and a wharf and house rented at Cannon Row, Westminster, became the site for the works. In 1818 the company leased premises at Orchard Street, Poplar to establish a tar works and the Brick Lane and Westminster works began their own ammonia products works so the company could make the most of coal burning by-products. This also led to a large Products Works being built at Beckton in 1868. Another by-product coke was sold on to a wide domestic market. The rapid expansion of the Gas Light & Coke Co. led to the need for a large transport fleet. Every type of transport was used and usually owned by the company. Shipping, barges and railway engines were often used for the import and export of coal and by-products at the works. Road transport ranging from horse drawn carts to wagons catered for other supplies and maintenance needs. The expansion of the company and competition from electricity in the late nineteenth century led to development of the domestic market. Lady Demonstrators were employed to promote gas cooking and the Home Service eventually developed into a full advisory service on domestic gas use. As a large employer the company took its social obligations seriously and provided various pension, sickness and benefit funds. Links were established with the Territorial Army and by the time of the Boer War in 1899, company employees were eligible for duty as reservists and volunteers were given leave of absence. The company was so large that after nationalisation of the gas industry in 1949 the area it covered, which stretched from Pinner in North West London to Southend-on-Sea in Essex, became a single regional Gas Board called North Thames.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
The Magistracy sat at Zeeland (also spelt Zealand) which constitutes the Southwest region of the Netherlands.
Excise are inland duties levied on articles at the time of their manufacture, notably, alcoholic drinks, but has also included salt, paper and glass. In 1643 a Board of Excise was established by the Long Parliament, to organise the collection of duties in London and the provinces. Excise duty was settled by statute in 1660. A permanent board of Excise for England and Wales was established in 1683 with separate boards for Ireland in 1682 and Scotland in 1707.
No information available at present.
Barbados was in British possession from its initial settlement in 1627, until its independence in 1966. The main export of the island was sugar, which was grown on plantations worked by slave labour.The Leeward islands are an arc of West Indian islands which include the Virgin Islands, Antiguilla, Saint-martin, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, Barbuda, Monserrat and Guadeloupe.A farm was the system of leasing out the rights of collecting and retaining taxes in a certain district.
During this period Hamburg was one of the most economically important towns in Germany. A stock exchange was founded in 1558 and the Bank of Hamburg in 1619; a convoy system for shipping was inaugurated in 1662, Hamburg's merchantmen being the first to be escorted on the high seas by men-of-war.
The Act of Union was a treaty (1 May 1707) that effected the union of England and Scotland under the name of Great Britain.
No information available at present.
Dixon was born in Manchester on 30 June 1821. He began contributing to magazines and journals in the early 1840s. In 1846 he moved to London, where he entered the Inner Temple. Dixon never practised law and decided instead to pursue a literary career. He contributed regularly to the Athenaeum and Daily News. He also published a series of articles on prisons and a book on the prison reformer John Howard. In 1850 Dixon published, The London Prisons. In 1853 Dixon became the editor of the Athenaeum, a post held until 1869. He also travelled widely in Europe, North Africa and North America and published books and articles on the countries he had visited. Dixon also served in public office as a deputy commissioner for the Great Exhibition 1851, Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster and as a member of the London School Board. He died on 26 December 1879.
Sir William Courten (1572-1636) was a highly successful silk and linen merchant, possessing a fleet of over 20 ships which traded with Guinea, Spain and the West Indies. He lent money to both James I and Charles I, and was rewarded with a knighthood and grants of Barbados (which had been discovered by one of his ships). Courten sent colonists to Barbados in 1625 and 1628, but they were forcibly ejected by the Earl of Carlisle in 1629. Courten's grandson, William Courten (1642-1702) was a naturalist, and sometimes went by the name of Charleton. He tried to enforce his grandfather's claim on the money lent to the crown and to lands in Barbados, and failed in both attempts. He opened a botanical museum in London in 1684.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
Henry Arthur Jones (1851-1929), British dramatist, was born at Grandborough, Buckinghamshire, England. He began working for a draper at the age of twelve, and later earned his living as a commercial traveller. After attending the theatre in London, he was inspired to write one-act plays. His first play to be produced, Its Only Round the Corner, was staged at the Theatre Royal, Exeter, in 1878. His first London production, A Clerical Error, premiered the following year. The Silver King which opened at the Princess Theatre, London, in 1882, established Jones's name as a dramatist. During his long career he wrote numerous plays, among his most successful were The Middleman (1889), The Dancing Girl (1891), The Tempter (1893), The Triumph of the Philistines (1895), Michael and his Lost Angel (1896), The Liars (1897) and The Hypocrites (1906). Jones also wrote numerous books and essays on the function of theatre, such as The renaissance of the English drama, 1883-94 (1895). He died in 1929.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
No information available at present.
Born in 1789, John Ramsay McCulloch was a prolific Scottish journalist, and one of the most ardent and doctrinaire expositors of the Classical Ricardian School of economics. He was economics editor for the whiggish Edinburgh Review, and used this platform to popularize Classical theories and promote the repeal of the Corn Laws. McCulloch was also the editor of the 1828 edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and the 1846 edition of David Ricardo's Works, and composed some of the earliest accounts of the history of economic thought. His main work was Principles (1825), perhaps the first successful "serious" textbook in economics.McCulloch served as a professor in political economy at University College, London from 1828 to 1832. In the later part of his life, he became the Comptroller of HM Stationary Office. He died in 1864.
A formulary is a book or other list of stated and fixed forms.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
No information available at present.
No information available at present.
Argenta is a town in the province of Ferrara, North-East Italy, situated on the Fiume Reno. Direct Papal rule was established in Ferrara in 1598.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
David Graham Drummond Ogilvy was born on 4 May 1826. He was a representative peer from 1850-1881 and Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland, 1872-1873.
Tithes were a tax of a tenth of the income from the agricultural yield of the land and livestock, which was paid to the etablished church for the support of the clergy, or for religious and charitable uses. When Henry VIII disestablished the monasteries in 1537, these tithes, which were mainly collected centrally by monasteries and churches, were effectively sold to the highest bidder and most of them passed into the hands of wealthy, and often absentee, landlords.
A farm was the system of leasing out the rights of collecting and retaining taxes in a certain district. The Compagnie des Fermiers-Généraux obviously played some national part in collecting taxes and duties.
The Charitable Association was born out of the need for those without good financial security to enter into loan agreements without the penalty of unreasonably high interest rates. The Association put into practice the charter licensed to them by George I in 1725.
James Orton was a poet who often published under the name of 'Alastor'. His published works include The enthusiast; or, the straying angel (London, 1852), Excelsior; or, the realms of poesy (London, 1851), and The three palaces and other poems (London, 1859). It appears that 'Reuben Manasseh' was never published.
George Grote was born on 17 November 1794. He was educated at a school in Sevenoaks, Kent and Charterhouse, where he remained for six years. At Charterhouse Grote received an entirely classical education with mathematics introduced after he had left the school. In 1810, Grote joined his father's bank and worked there until 1843. From 1832 to 1841 he was a member of parliament for the City of London. He wrote widely on the classics and Greek history. Between 1846 and 1856 he published History of Greece, which ran to twelve volumes. During the 1820s Grote was an advocate for the establishment of the London University (now University College London). In 1860 he became the University's treasurer and then its president in 1868. From 1862 until his death in 1871 he was the Vice Chancellor of the federal University of London.
The Land Tax Commissioners came into existence in 1657 in an attempt to implement a solid taxation system. Throughout the eighteenth century the Land Tax Commission was not considered effective and was even charged with irregularities and fraud. However, as the Commission moved into the nineteenth century it began the administration of income tax and attained a stronger and more efficient practice.
Charles Ryle Fay was born on 13 January 1884. He received his education from King's College, Cambridge and the London School of Economics, where he was a research student from 1906 to 1908. In the First World War he served in The Buffs and Machine Gun Corp from 1915-1918, reaching the rank Lieutenant. His academic posts were Fellow and Lecturer of Christ's College, Cambridge 1908-1922; Senior Proctor of Cambridge University 1920-1921 and Professor of Economic History at the University of Toronto 1921-1930. Fay published widely on economic history. His publications included, The Corn Laws and Social England, 1932, English Economic History Since 1700, 1951 and his last published work, The World of Adam Smith, 1960. Fay died on 19 November 1961.
Edward Burnell was a Professor of Greek at Rostock University in Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Germany). Rostock University was founded in 1419, making it the oldest university in Northern Europe.
The Court of Common Council forms part of the governing body of the City of London, along with the Court of Aldermen and the Court of Common Hall, and is responsible for local government and administration. Common councillors were first appointed during the reign of Edward I, and were formed into the Court of Common Council in 1384. The Court comprises the Lord Mayor, aldermen and councilmen, the latter two being elected from each ward of the city by local government electors.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
Arnold Edward Trevor Bax was born in Streatham, London on 8 November 1883. He received his musical education from the Hampstead Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music. Whilst at the Academy he won the Battison Haynes prize for composition in 1902, and the MacFarren scholarship for composition, which he held until he left the Academy in 1905. He gave his first public appearance as a composer at St. James Hall in 1902. In 1910 Bax was elected an associate and in 1920 a fellow of the Academy.
Bax composed many works including, The Garden of Sand 1916, The Tale the Pine Trees Knew, 1931 and the Cello Concerto, 1932. Bax's reputation as a composer brought him many honours. He was knighted in 1937. He also received honorary degrees from Oxford University 1934, Durham 1935 and the National University of Ireland 1947. He died in Cork, Ireland on 3 October 1953.
William Burton (1609-1657) was a philologist and antiquary. He published A commentary on Antoninus, his itinerary or jounies of the Romane Empire, so far as it concerneth Britain: wherin the first foundation of our cities, lawes and government, according to the Roman policy, are clearly discovered (Thomas Roycroft, London, 1658). The Commentary emphasised the antiquities of Britain in an attempt to place the origins of British cultural institutions in the context of the Roman Empire.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
Bridges was a wool-comber.
Langford is a village in Bedfordshire.
The Court Baron was the principal type of manorial court, and was the court of the chief tenants of a manor. It was responsible for the internal regulation of local affairs within the manor, and was attended by all those free tenants whose attendance at court was a condition of their tenure, and by customary tenants. Customary tenants held land by an agreement made at the manor court which was entered on its roll, a 'copy' of which was his regarded as proof of title.