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St James's Place
St James's Place is a street in the St James's district of London near Green Park. It was first developed around 1694, the historian John Strype describing it in 1720 as a "good Street ... which receiveth a fresh Air out of the Park; the Houses are well-built, and inhabited by Gentry ..." Henry Benjamin Wheatley wrote in 1870 that it was "one of the oddest built streets in London." Spencer House, London, Spencer House, which was commissioned by the John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer in 1756, stands at number 27 and is now Listed building#Categories of listed building, listed as Grade I. A further thirteen properties are Grade II listed; Number 4 is Grade II* listed. Notable residents * Joseph Addison (1672–1719), author and politician who founded ''The Spectator (1711), The Spectator'', lived here in 1710. * Eustace Budgell (1686–1737), English writer and politician. * Francis Burdett, Sir Francis Burdett (1770–1844), reforming politician known as "Old Glo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Delany
Mary Delany, earlier Mary Pendarves ( Granville; 14 May 1700 – 15 April 1788) was an English artist, letter-writer, and bluestocking, known for her "paper-mosaicks", botanic drawing, needlework and her lively correspondence. Early life Mary Delany was born at Coulston, Wiltshire, the daughter of Colonel Bernard Granville by his marriage to Mary Westcombe, loyal Tory supporters of the Stuart Crown. She was a niece of George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne, her father's brother. Mary had one older brother, Bernard (1699), known as Bunny; a younger brother Bevil, born between 1702 and 1706; and a sister, Anne (1707) who married John Dewes (D'Ewes). When Mary was young, her parents moved the family to London, and she attended a school taught by a French refugee, Mademoiselle Puelle. Mary came into close contact with the Court when she was sent to live with her aunt, Lady Stanley, who was childless – the intention being that she would eventually become a maid of honour.Hayde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Chichester
Sir Francis Charles Chichester KBE (17 September 1901 – 26 August 1972) was a British businessman, pioneering aviator and solo sailor. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for becoming the first person to sail single-handed around the world by the clipper route and the fastest circumnavigator, in nine months and one day overall in 1966–67. Biography Early life Chichester was born in the rectory at Shirwell near Barnstaple in Devon, England, the son of a Church of England clergyman, Charles Chichester, himself the seventh son of Sir Arthur Chichester, 8th Baronet. His mother was Emily Annie, daughter of Samuel Page. At the age of six he was sent as a boarder to The Old Ride Preparatory School for boys, then attended Marlborough College during World War I. At the age of eighteen Chichester emigrated to New Zealand where in ten years he built up a prosperous business in forestry, mining and property development, only to suffer severe losses in the Great Depression. Av ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term is used in the United Kingdom in two senses. It may be used narrowly and specifically to refer to the "official" scheme administered by English Heritage, and for much of its history restricted to sites within Greater London; or it may be used less formally to encompass a number of similar schemes administered by organisations throughout the UK. The plaques erected are made in a variety of designs, shapes, materials and colours: some are blue, others are not. However, the term "blue plaque" is often used informally to encompass all such schemes. History The "official" scheme traces its origins to that launched in 1866 in London, on the initiative of the politician William Ewart (British politician), Willi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wilkes
John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English Radicalism (historical), radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election affair, Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of his votersrather than the British House of Commons, House of Commonsto determine their representatives. In 1768, angry protests of his supporters were suppressed in the Massacre of St George's Fields. In 1771, he was instrumental in obliging the government to concede the right of printers to publish wikt:verbatim, verbatim accounts of parliamentary debates. In 1776, he introduced the first Bill (law), bill for parliamentary reform in the Parliament of Great Britain, British Parliament. During the American Revolutionary War, American War of Independence, he was a supporter of the rebels, adding further to his popularity with Patriot (American Revolution), American Whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwrights in London in the early 1890s. Regarded by most commentators as the greatest playwright of the Victorian era, Wilde is best known for his 1890 Gothic fiction, Gothic philosophical fiction ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', as well as his numerous epigrams and plays, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Literae Humaniores#Greats, Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers (30 July 1763 – 18 December 1855) was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. His recollections of these and other friends such as Charles James Fox are key sources for information about London artistic and literary life, with which he was intimate, and which he used his wealth to support. He made his money as a banker and was also a discriminating art collector. Early life and family Rogers was born at Newington Green, then a village north of Islington, and now in Inner London. His father, Thomas Rogers, a banker and briefly MP for Coventry, was the son of a Stourbridge glass manufacturer, who was also a merchant in Cheapside. Thomas married Mary, the only daughter of his father's partner, Daniel Radford, becoming himself a partner shortly afterwards. On his mother's side Samuel Rogers was connected with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Rigby
Richard Rigby PC (February 1722 – 8 April 1788), was an English civil servant and politician who sat in the British House of Commons for 43 years from 1745 to 1788. He served as Chief Secretary for Ireland and Paymaster of the Forces. Rigby accumulated a fortune serving the Crown and politician wheeler-dealers in the dynamic 18th-century parliament. Background and education The Rigby family took Mistley Hall in Essex as the site of their manor, but was descended from the Rigby of Burgh family. Rigby's father and immediate ancestors made a fortune as merchant drapers in the City of London, as merchants and colonial officers in the West Indies, and as speculators in the South Sea Bubble. Richard Rigby's father also had the same name, and was significant in the history of Jamaica, serving as its secretary, the provost marshal, and a member of the Royal Assembly in the late 17th and early 18th century. He was also part-owner of a plantation in Antigua and a slave trader. His el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl Of Iddesleigh
Stafford Henry Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh (27 October 1818 – 12 January 1887), known as Sir Stafford Northcote, 8th Baronet from 1851 to 1885, was a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1874 and 1880, First Lord of the Treasury between 1885 and 1886 and as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (UK), Foreign Secretary between 1886 and 1887. According to Nigel Keohane, historians have portrayed him "as a man who fell short of the ultimate achievement of being prime minister largely because of personal weakness, and lack of political virility and drive." Background and education Northcote (pronounced "Northcut") was born at Portland Place, Marylebone, London, on 27 October 1818. He was the eldest son of Henry Stafford Northcote (1792–1850), eldest son of Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, 7th Baronet and Jacquetta Baring, a member of the Baring family. His mother was Agnes Mary (died 1840), daughter of Thomas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir John Lubbock, 3rd Baronet
Sir John William Lubbock, 3rd Baronet, FRS (26 March 1803 – 21 June 1865), was an English banker, barrister, mathematician and astronomer. Life He was born in Westminster, the son of Sir John William Lubbock, of the Lubbock & Co bank. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1825. In the same year he became a partner in his father's bank. In 1828, he became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society; in 1829, a fellow of the Royal Society, and has been described as "foremost among English mathematicians in adopting Laplace's doctrine of probability." He joined the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in 1829, and was twice Treasurer (1830–1835, 1838–1845) and three times Vice-President (1830–1835, 1836–1837, 1838–1846) of the Royal Society. Lubbock carried out important studies of the tides in the 1830s. He was one of the first to present maps showing lines joining points where high tide occurred at the same time, and coin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Kennett
White Kennett (10 August 166019 December 1728) was an English bishop and antiquarian. He was educated at Westminster School and at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where, while an undergraduate, he published several translations of Latin works, including Erasmus' ''In Praise of Folly''. Kennett was vicar of Ambrosden, Oxfordshire from 1685 until 1708. During his incumbency he returned to Oxford as tutor and vice-principal of St Edmund Hall, where he gave considerable impetus to the study of antiquities. George Hickes gave him lessons in Old English. In 1695 he published ''Parochial Antiquities''. In 1700 he became rector of St Botolph's Aldgate, London, and in 1701 Archdeacon of Huntingdon. For a eulogistic sermon on the recently deceased William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, Kennett was in 1707 recommended to the deanery of Peterborough. He afterwards joined the Low Church party, strenuously opposed the Sacheverell movement, and in the Bangorian controversy supported with gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 – 4 June 1820) was an Irish politician and lawyer who campaigned for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century from Britain. He was a Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) from 1775 to 1801 and a Member of Parliament (MP) in Westminster from 1805 to 1820. He has been described as a superb orator and a romantic. With generous enthusiasm he demanded that Ireland should be granted its rightful status, that of an independent nation, though he always insisted that Ireland would remain linked to Great Britain by a common crown and by sharing a common political tradition. Grattan opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain, but later sat as a member of the united Parliament in London. Early life Henry Grattan was born in Fishamble Street, Dublin, and baptised in the nearby church of St. John the Evangelist in 1746. A member of the Anglo-Irish elite of Protestant background, Grattan was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
