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Anne Fleming (socialite)
Ann Geraldine Mary Fleming (, 19 June 1913 – 12 July 1981) was a British aristocrat and socialite. She had three husbands: Lord O'Neill, Lord Rothermere and Ian Fleming. Biography Anne Geraldine Mary Charteris was born to Frances Lucy Tennant (1887–1925) and Captain Guy Lawrence Charteris (1886–1967) in Westminster, London, on 19 June 1913. She was the eldest daughter; her grandfather was Hugo Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss. Her grandmother was Mary Constance Wyndham, Her sister was Laura Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and her brother was the novelist Hugo Charteris. She was educated by governesses after an unsuccessful term at Cheltenham Ladies' College. She had a good understanding of literature but her future was to be a debutante, and in 1932 she married Shane O'Neill, 3rd Baron O'Neill, who was both an aristocrat and a financier. The couple had two children before Ann began an affair with the influential Esmond Cecil Harmsworth in 1936. Harmswort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster
Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and much of the West End of London, West End cultural centre including the entertainment precinct of West End theatre. The name () originated from the informal description of the abbey church and royal peculiar of St Peter's (Westminster Abbey), west of the City of London (until the English Reformation there was also an Eastminster abbey, on the other side of the City of London, in the East End of London). The abbey's origins date from between the 7th and 10th centuries, but it rose to national prominence when rebuilt by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century. With the development of the old palace alongside the abbey, Westminster has been the home of Governance of England, Engla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton (17 September 190418 August 1988) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue. Determined to be a dancer despite the opposition of his conventional middle-class family, Ashton was accepted as a pupil by Léonide Massine and then by Marie Rambert. In 1926 Rambert encouraged him to try his hand at choreography, and though he continued to dance professionally, with success, it was as a choreographer that he became famous. Ashton was chief choreographer to Ninette de Valois, from 1935 until his retirement in 1963, in the company known successively as the Vic-Wells Ballet, the Sadler's Wells Ballet and the The Royal Ballet, Royal Ballet. He succeeded de Valois as director of the company, serving until his own retirement in 1970. Ashton is widely credited with the creation of a specifically English genre of ballet. Among his best-known works are ''Façade (ballet), Fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Quennell
Sir Peter Courtney Quennell (9 March 1905 – 27 October 1993) was an English biographer, literary historian, editor, essayist, journalist, poet and critic. He wrote extensively on social history. In his ''Times'' obituary he was described as "the last genuine example of the English man of letters".'Sir Peter Quennell', in ''The Times'', 29 October 1993, p. 23. Anthony Powell called him "The Last of the Mandarins".'Sir Peter Quennell', obituary, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 29 October 1993, p. 25 Life and work Born in Bickley, Kent, he was the son of architect C. H. B. Quennell and his wife Marjorie Quennell. After World War I the Quennells wrote a popular series of illustrated children’s books, '' A History of Everyday Things in England'' (four volumes, 1918–1934). Peter Quennell was educated at Berkhamsted School (where the headmaster was Graham Greene's father) and at Balliol College, Oxford, though he left Oxford before taking a degree. While still at school ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon (British magazine), Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote ''Enemies of Promise'' (1938), which combined literary criticism with an Autobiography, autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of fiction that he aspired to be in his youth. Early life Cyril Connolly was born in Coventry, Warwickshire. He was the only child of Major Matthew William Kemble Connolly (1872–1947), an officer in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, by his Anglo-Irish wife, Muriel Maud Vernon, daughter of Colonel Edward Vernon (1838–1913) J.P., D.L., of Clontarf Castle, County Dublin. His parents had met while his father was serving in Ireland, and his father's next posting was to South Africa.Jeremy Lewis, ''Cyril Connolly: A Life'', Jonathan Cape, 1997. Connolly's father was also a malacologist ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decline and Fall'' (1928) and ''A Handful of Dust'' (1934), the novel ''Brideshead Revisited'' (1945), and the Second World War trilogy ''Sword of Honour'' (1952–1961). He is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century. Waugh, the son of a publisher, was educated at Lancing College and then at Hertford College, Oxford. He worked briefly as a schoolmaster before he became a full-time writer. As a young man, he acquired many fashionable and aristocratic friends and developed a taste for country house society. He travelled extensively in the 1930s, often as a special newspaper correspondent; he reported from Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia at the time of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935 Italian inva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warneford Place
Warneford Place, also known as Sevenhampton Place, is a Grade II listed country house in Sevenhampton, south of Highworth, in Wiltshire, England. The main house is modern but is listed because it incorporates some features from the original 18th-century mansion. Warneford Place dates back to at least the 16th century during the reign of Elizabeth I, and was home to the Warneford family. That family, although often impoverished, had been established in the area since around the 12th century and owned much of its land. The house was often empty and neglected. In 1902, there was an auction of the Warneford Place Estate and its contents. The house has been Grade II listed (as Warneford Place) since 1979. It was home to the politician and animal rights activist Lord Banbury, who died there in 1936. In 1960, the James Bond author Ian Fleming bought the "demolished Warneford Place", and built a new house which he named Sevenhampton Place, incorporating some elements of the original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who was Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant, he was elected to Parliament in 1945 United Kingdom general election, 1945 and held office in Clement Attlee's governments, notably as Minister of Fuel and Power following the Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom, bitter winter of 1946–47, and eventually joining the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Facing the need to increase military spending in 1951, he imposed National Health Service charges on dentures and spectacles, prompting the leading left-wing politics, left-winger Aneurin Bevan to resign from the Cabinet. The perceived similarity in his outlook to that of his Conservative Party (UK), Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party, often referred to as Labour, is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. The party has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. It is one of the Two-party system, two dominant political parties in the United Kingdom; the other being the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party. Labour has been led by Keir Starmer since 2020 Labour Party leadership election (UK), 2020, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024 general election. To date, there have been 12 Labour governments and seven different Labour Prime Ministers – Ramsay MacDonald, MacDonald, Clement Attlee, Attlee, Harold Wilson, Wilson, James Callaghan, Callaghan, Tony Blair, Blair, Gordon Brown, Brown and Starmer. The Labour Party was founded in 1900, having e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casino Royale (novel)
''Casino Royale'' is the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming. Published in 1953, it is the first List of James Bond novels and short stories, ''James Bond'' book, and it paved the way for a further eleven novels and two short story anthology, collections by Fleming, followed by numerous continuation Bond novels by other authors. The story concerns the British secret agent James Bond (literary character), James Bond, gambling at the casino in Royale-les-Eaux to try to bankrupt Le Chiffre, the treasurer of a French union and a member of the Soviet secret service. Bond is supported in his endeavours by Vesper Lynd, a member of his own service, as well as Felix Leiter of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA and List of James Bond allies#René Mathis, René Mathis of the French Deuxième Bureau. Fleming used his wartime experiences as a member of the Naval Intelligence Division (United Kingdom), Naval Intelligence Division, and the people he met during his work, to provide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood (writer), Christopher Wood, John Gardner (British writer), John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd (writer), William Boyd, Anthony Horowitz and Charlie Higson. The latest novel is ''On His Majesty's Secret Service'' by Charlie Higson, published in May 2023. Additionally, Charlie Higson wrote a series on Young Bond, a young James Bond, and Samantha Weinberg, Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the The Moneypenny Diaries, diaries of a recurring series character, Miss Moneypenny, Moneypenny. The character—also known by the code nu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise"."Noel Coward at 70" ''Time'', 26 December 1969, p. 46 Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as ''Hay Fever (play), Hay Fever'', ''Private Lives'', ''Design for Living'', ''Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colony Of Jamaica
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was Invasion of Jamaica (1655), captured by the The Protectorate, English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British Empire, British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962. History 17th century English conquest In late 1654, English leader Oliver Cromwell launched the ''Western Design'' armada against Spanish West Indies, Spain's colonies in the Caribbean. In April 1655, Robert Venables, General Robert Venables led the armada in an attack on Spain's fort at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola. However, the Spanish repulsed this poorly-executed attack, known as the Siege of Santo Domingo (1655), Siege of Santo Domingo, and the English troops were soon decimated by disease, injured badly or possibly killed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
