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Old Wykehamist
Old Wykehamists are former pupils of Winchester College, so called in memory of the school's founder, William of Wykeham. He was Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England. He used the wealth these positions gave him to establish both the school in 1382 and a university college, New College, Oxford, in 1379; both of them were set up to provide an education for 70 scholars. Winchester College opened in 1394. William of Wykeham provided that up to two pupils a year who could prove they were his descendants could attend the school at its expense; they were known as ''Consanguineus Fundatoris'', "Founder's Kin". Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes records that the tradition ended in 1868, by which time fourteen members of his family had received a free education. At first only a small number of pupils other than scholars were admitted; by the 15th century the school had around 100 pupils in total, nominally the 70 scholars, 16 choirboys and the rest "commoners". Demand for p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Dowding
Air Chief Marshal Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding, (24 April 1882 – 15 February 1970) was a senior officer in the Royal Air Force. He was Air Officer Commanding RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain and is generally credited with playing a crucial role in Britain's defence, and hence, the defeat of Operation Sea Lion, Adolf Hitler's plan to invade Britain. Born in Moffat, Scotland, Dowding was an officer in the British Army in the 1900s and early 1910s. He joined the Royal Flying Corps at the start of the First World War and went on to serve as a fighter pilot and then as commanding officer of No. 16 Squadron. During the inter-war years he became Air Officer Commanding Fighting Area, Air Defence of Great Britain and then joined the Air Council as Air Member for Supply and Research. In July 1936, Dowding was appointed chief of the newly created RAF Fighter Command. During the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, Dowding's Fighter Command ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Howe
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, (20 December 1926 – 9 October 2015), known from 1970 to 1992 as Sir Geoffrey Howe, was a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of chancellor of the Exchequer, foreign secretary, and finally leader of the House of Commons, deputy prime minister and Lord President of the Council. His resignation on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated the leadership challenge that led to Thatcher's resignation three weeks later. Born in Port Talbot, Wales, Howe was educated at Bridgend Preparatory School, Abberley Hall School, Winchester College, and – after serving in the army as a lieutenant – Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read law. He was called to the bar in 1952 and practised in Wales, after whi ... [...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] |
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] |
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer by background, Cripps first entered Parliament at a 1931 Bristol East by-election, by-election in January 1931, and was one of a handful of Labour frontbenchers to retain his seat at 1931 United Kingdom general election, the October general election that year. He became a leading spokesman for the left wing and for co-operation in a Popular Front (UK), Popular Front with Communists before 1939, in which year the Labour Party expelled him. During this time he became intimately involved with Krishna Menon and the India League. During World War II (1939–1945), Cripps served from May 1940 to January 1942 as List of ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Russia, Ambassador to the USSR, with major responsibility for building rapport with Hitler's greatest foe. Back in London in early 1942, he became a member of the War cabi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two Major party, major List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs (British political party), Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites, and reformist Radicals (UK), Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century, it had formed four governments under William Ewart Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 United Kingdom general election, 1906 general election. Under Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed Liberal welfare reforms, reforms that created a basic welfare state. Although Asquith was the Leader of the Liberal Party (UK), party leader, its domin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lowe
Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke, GCB, PC (4 December 1811 – 27 July 1892), British statesman, was a Liberal politician who helped shape British politics in the latter half of the 19th century. He held office under William Ewart Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1868 and 1873 and as Home Secretary between 1873 and 1874. Lowe is remembered for his work in education policy, his opposition to electoral reform and his contribution to modern UK company law. Gladstone appointed Lowe as Chancellor expecting him to hold down public spending. Public spending rose, and Gladstone pronounced Lowe "wretchedly deficient"; most historians agree. Lowe repeatedly underestimated the revenue, enabling him to resist demands for tax cuts and to reduce the national debt instead. He insisted that the tax system be fair to all classes. By his own main criterion of fairness — that the balance between direct and indirect taxation remain unchanged — he succeeded. Even in his t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tory Party
The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed Whig efforts to exclude James, Duke of York from the succession on the grounds of his Catholicism. Despite their fervent opposition to state-sponsored Catholicism, Tories opposed his exclusion because of their belief that inheritance based on birth was the foundation of a stable society. After the succession of George I in 1714, the Tories had no part in government and ceased to exist as an organised political entity in the early 1760s (although the term continued to be used in subsequent years as a term of self-description by some political writers). About twenty years later, a new Tory party arose and participated in government between 1783 and 1830, with William Pitt the Younger followed by Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (30 May 175715 February 1844) was a British Tory statesman who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804 and as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1789 to 1801. Addington is best known for obtaining the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, an unfavourable peace with Napoleonic France which marked the end of the Second Coalition during the French Revolutionary Wars. When that treaty broke down, Addington resumed the war without allies. He conducted relatively weak defensive hostilities, ahead of what would become the War of the Third Coalition. He was forced from office in favour of William Pitt the Younger, who had preceded Addington as prime minister. Addington is also known for his reactionary crackdown on advocates of democratic reforms during a ten-year spell as Home Secretary from 1812 to 1822. He is the longest continuously serving holder of that office since it was created in 1782. Family Henry Addington was the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chancellor Of The Exchequer
The chancellor of the exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and the head of HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the chancellor is a high-ranking member of the British Cabinet. Responsible for all economic and financial matters, the role is equivalent to that of a finance minister in other countries. The chancellor is now always second lord of the Treasury as one of at least six Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, lords commissioners of the Treasury, responsible for executing the office of the Treasurer of the Exchequer the others are the prime minister and Commons government whips. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for the prime minister also to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer if he sat in the Commons; the last Chancellor who was simultaneously prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer was Stanley Baldwin in 1923. Formerl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford
Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford (12 August 1868 – 1 April 1933), styled the Lord Chelmsford until 1921, was a British statesman. He served as Governor of Queensland from 1905 to 1909, Governor of New South Wales from 1909 to 1913, and Viceroy of India from 1916 to 1921, where he was responsible for the creation of the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms. After serving a short time as First Lord of the Admiralty in the government of Ramsay MacDonald, he was appointed the Agent-General for New South Wales by the government of Jack Lang before his retirement. Early life Thesiger was born on 12 August 1868 in London, England, the son of the Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford and Adria Heath. He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating from the latter as Bachelor of Arts with first-class honours in law in 1891. Thesiger was elected as a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford (1892–1899). In 1893 he was called to the Bar of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
