title: Croydon

text: Historically an ancient parish in the Wallington hundred of Surrey, at the time of the Norman conquest of England Croydon had a church, a mill, and around 365 inhabitants, as recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. Croydon expanded in the Middle Ages as a market town and a centre for charcoal production, leather tanning and brewing. The Surrey Iron Railway from Croydon to Wandsworth opened in 1803 and was an early public railway. Later 19th century railway building facilitated Croydon's growth as a commuter town for London. By the early 20th century, Croydon was an important industrial area, known for car manufacture, metal working and Croydon Airport. In the mid 20th century these sectors were replaced by retailing and the service economy, brought about by massive redevelopment which saw the rise of office blocks and the Whitgift Centre, the largest shopping centre in Greater London until 2008. Historically, the town formed part of the County of Surrey but was amalgamated into Greater London in 1965.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon lies on a transport corridor between central London and the south coast of England, to the north of two high gaps in the North Downs, one taken by the A23 Brighton Road and the main railway line through Purley and Merstham and the other by the A22 from Purley to the M25 Godstone interchange. Road traffic is diverted away from a largely pedestrianised town centre, mostly consisting of North End. East Croydon is a major hub of the national railway transport system, with frequent fast services to central London, Brighton and the south coast. The town is also at the centre of the only tramway system in southern England.


title: Croydon

text: As the vast majority of place names in the area are of Anglo-Saxon origin, the theory accepted by most philologists is that the name Croydon derives originally from the Anglo-Saxon "croh", meaning "crocus", and "denu", "valley", indicating that, like Saffron Walden in Essex, it was a centre for the cultivation of saffron. It has been argued that this cultivation is likely to have taken place in the Roman period, when the saffron crocus would have been grown to supply the London market, most probably for medicinal purposes, and particularly for the treatment of granulation of the eyelids.


title: Croydon

text: There is also a plausible Brittonic origin for Croydon in the form "Crai-din" meaning "settlement near fresh water" (cf Creuddyn, Ceredigion), the name Crai (variously spelled) being found in Kent at various places even as late as the Domesday Book.


title: Croydon

text: Alternative, although less probable, theories of the name's origin have been proposed. According to John Corbet Anderson: "The earliest mention of Croydon is in the joint will of Beorhtric and Aelfswth, dated about the year 962. In this Anglo-Saxon document the name is spelt [here he uses Old English characters] "Crogdaene". Crog was, and still is, the Norse or Danish word for crooked, which is expressed in Anglo-Saxon by "crumb", a totally different word. From the Danish came our "crook" and "crooked". This term accurately describes the locality; it is a "crooked" or "winding valley", in reference to the valley that runs in an oblique and serpentine course from Godstone to Croydon." Anderson challenged a claim, originally made by Andrew Coltee Ducarel, that the name came from the Old French for "chalk hill", because it was in use at least a century before the French language would have been commonly used following the Norman conquest. However, there was no long-term Danish occupation (see Danelaw) in Surrey, which was part of Wessex, and Danish-derived nomenclature is also highly unlikely. More recently, David Bird has speculated that the name might derive from a personal name, "Crocus": he suggests a family connection with the documented Chrocus, king of the Alemanni, who allegedly played a part in the proclamation of Constantine as emperor at York in AD 306.


title: Croydon

text: The town lies on the line of the Roman road from London to Portslade, and there is some archaeological evidence for small-scale Roman settlement in the area: there may have been a "mansio" (staging-post) here. Later, in the 5th to 7th centuries, a large pagan Saxon cemetery was situated on what is now Park Lane, although the extent of any associated settlement is unknown.


title: Croydon

text: By the late Saxon period Croydon was the hub of an estate belonging to the Archbishops of Canterbury. The church and the archbishops' manor house occupied the area still known as "Old Town". The archbishops used the manor house as an occasional place of residence: as lords of the manor they dominated the life of the town well into the early modern period, and as local patrons they continue to have an influence. Croydon appears in Domesday Book (1086) as "Croindene", held by Archbishop Lanfranc. Its Domesday assets included 16 hides and 1 virgate of land; a church; a mill worth 5s; 38 plough-teams; of meadow; and woodland for 200 hogs. It had a recorded population of 73 households (representing roughly 365 individuals); and its value in terms of taxes rendered was £37 10s 0d..


title: Croydon

text: The church had been established in the middle Saxon period, and was probably a minster church, a base for a group of clergy living a communal life. A charter issued by King Coenwulf of Mercia refers to a council that had taken place close to the "monasterium" (meaning minster) of Croydon. An Anglo-Saxon will made in about 960 is witnessed by Elfsies, priest of Croydon; and the church is also mentioned in Domesday Book. The will of John de Croydon, fishmonger, dated 6 December 1347, includes a bequest to "the church of S John de Croydon", the earliest clear record of its dedication. The church still bears the arms of Archbishop Courtenay and Archbishop Chichele, believed to have been its benefactors.


title: Croydon

text: In 1276 Archbishop Robert Kilwardby acquired a charter for a weekly market, and this probably marks the foundation of Croydon as an urban centre. Croydon developed into one of the main market towns of north east Surrey. The market place was laid out on the higher ground to the east of the manor house in the triangle now bounded by High Street, Surrey Street and Crown Hill. By the 16th century the manor house had become a substantial palace, used as the main summer home of the archbishops and visited by monarchs and other dignitaries. However, the palace gradually became dilapidated and surrounded by slums and stagnant ponds, and in 1781 the archbishops sold it, and in its place purchased a new residence at nearby Addington. Nevertheless, many of the buildings of the original Croydon Palace survive, and are in use today as Old Palace School.


title: Croydon

text: The Parish Church (now Croydon Minster) is a Perpendicular-style church, which was remodelled in 1849 but destroyed in a great fire in 1867, after which only the tower, south porch, and outer walls remained. A new church was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, one of the greatest architects of the Victorian age, and opened in 1870. His design loosely followed the previous layout, with knapped flint facing and many of the original features, including several tombs. Croydon Parish Church is the burial place of six Archbishops of Canterbury: John Whitgift, Edmund Grindal, Gilbert Sheldon, William Wake, John Potter and Thomas Herring. Historically part of the Diocese of Canterbury, Croydon is now in the Diocese of Southwark. In addition to the suffragan Bishop of Croydon, the Vicar of Croydon is a preferment.


title: Croydon

text: Addington Palace is a Palladian-style mansion between Addington Village and Shirley, in the London Borough of Croydon. Six archbishops lived there between 1807 and 1898, when it was sold. Between 1953 and 1996 it was the home of the Royal School of Church Music. It is now a conference and banqueting venue.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon was a leisure destination in the mid 19th century. In 1831, one of England's most prominent architects, Decimus Burton, designed a spa and pleasure gardens below Beulah Hill and off what is now Spa Hill in a bowl of land on the south-facing side of the hill around a spring of chalybeate water. Burton was responsible for the Beulah Spa Hotel (demolished around 1935) and the layout of the grounds. Its official title was The Royal Beulah Spa and Gardens. It became a popular society venue attracting crowds to its "fêtes". One widely publicised event was a "Grand Scottish Fete" on 16 September 1834 "with a tightrope performance by Pablo Fanque, the black circus performer who would later dominate the Victorian circus and achieve immortality in The Beatles song, "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"" The spa closed in 1856 soon after the opening nearby of the Crystal Palace which had been rebuilt on Sydenham Hill in 1854, following its success at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. It was destroyed in a spectacular fire in 1936.


title: Croydon

text: Horse racing in the area took place occasionally, notably during visits of Queen Elizabeth I to the archbishop. Regular meetings became established first on a course at Park Hill in 1860 and from 1866 at Woodside, where particularly good prizes were offered for the races run under National Hunt rules. In that sphere its prestige was second only to Aintree, home of the Grand National. Increasing local opposition to the presence of allegedly unruly racegoers coupled with the need to obtain a licence from the local authority led to it being closed down in 1890.


title: Croydon

text: The Elizabethan Whitgift Almshouses, the "Hospital of the Holy Trinity", in the centre of Croydon at the corner of North End and George Street, were erected by Archbishop John Whitgift. He petitioned for and received permission from Queen Elizabeth I to establish a hospital and school in Croydon for the "poor, needy and impotent people" from the parishes of Croydon and Lambeth. The foundation stone was laid in 1596 and the building was completed in 1599.


title: Croydon

text: The premises included the Hospital or Almshouses, providing accommodation for between 28 and 40 people, and a nearby schoolhouse and schoolmaster's house. There was a Warden in charge of the well-being of the almoners. The building takes the form of a courtyard surrounded by the chambers of the almoners and various offices.


title: Croydon

text: Threatened by various reconstruction plans and road-widening schemes, the Almshouses were saved in 1923 by intervention of the House of Lords. On 21 June 1983 Queen Elizabeth II visited the Almshouses and unveiled a plaque celebrating the recently completed reconstruction of the building. On 22 March each year the laying of the foundation stone is commemorated as Founder's Day.


title: Croydon

text: The Grade II listed West Croydon Baptist Church was built in 1873 by J. Theodore Barker. It is a red brick building with stone dressings. Its three bays are divided by paired Doric pilasters supporting a triglyph frieze and panelled parapet.


title: Croydon

text: The Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels by John Loughborough Pearson in West Croydon was built between 1880 and 1885, and is Grade I listed.


title: Croydon

text: The development of Brighton as a fashionable resort in the 1780s increased Croydon's importance as a halt for stage coaches on the road south of London. At the beginning of the 19th century, Croydon became the terminus of two pioneering commercial transport links with London. The first, opened in 1803, was the horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway from Wandsworth, which in 1805 was extended to Merstham, as the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Railway. The second, opened in 1809, was the Croydon Canal, which branched off the Grand Surrey Canal at Deptford. The London and Croydon Railway (an atmospheric and steam-powered railway) opened between London Bridge and West Croydon in 1839, using much of the route of the canal (which had closed in 1836). Other connections to London and the south followed.


title: Croydon

text: The arrival of the railways and other communications advances in the 19th century led to a 23-fold increase in Croydon's population between 1801 and 1901. This rapid expansion of the town led to considerable health problems, especially in the damp and overcrowded working class district of Old Town. In response to this, in 1849 Croydon became one of the first towns in the country to acquire a local board of health. The Board constructed public health infrastructure including a reservoir, water supply network, sewers, a pumping station and sewage disposal works.


title: Croydon

text: The Surrey Street Pumping Station is Grade II listed; it was built in four phases. starting with the engine house in 1851, with a further engine house in 1862, a further extension in 1876–7 to house a compound horizontal engine and a further extension in 1912.


title: Croydon

text: In 1883 Croydon was incorporated as a borough. In 1889 it became a county borough, with a greater degree of autonomy. The new county borough council implemented the Croydon Improvement scheme in the early 1890s, which widened the High Street and cleared much of the "Middle Row" slum area. The remaining slums were cleared shortly after Second World War, with much of the population relocated to the isolated new settlement of New Addington. New stores opened and expanded in central Croydon, including Allders, Kennards and Grade II listed Grants, as well as the first Sainsbury's self-service shop in the country. There was a market on Surrey Street.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon was the location of London's main airport until the Second World War. During the war, much of central Croydon was devastated by German V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets, and for many years the town bore the scars of the destruction. After the war, Heathrow Airport superseded Croydon Airport as London's main airport, and Croydon Airport quickly went into a decline, finally closing in 1959.


title: Croydon

text: By the 1950s, with its continuing growth, the town was becoming congested, and the Council decided on another major redevelopment scheme. The Croydon Corporation Act was passed in 1956. This, coupled with national government incentives for office relocation out of Central London, led to the building of new offices and accompanying road schemes through the late 1950s and 1960s, and the town boomed as a business centre in the 1960s, with many multi-storey office blocks, an underpass, a flyover and multi-storey car parks. The redeveloped town centre has since been identified as an "edge city" – a significant urban and commercial centre in its own right, located on the outskirts of a larger metropolitan area (in this case, London).


title: Croydon

text: In 1960 Croydon celebrated its millennium with a pageant held at Lloyd Park and an exhibition held at the old Croydon Aerodrome.


title: Croydon

text: The growing town attracted many new buildings. The Fairfield Halls arts centre and event venue opened in 1962. Croydon developed as an important centre for shopping, with the construction of the Whitgift Centre in 1969. No. 1 Croydon (formerly the NLA Tower) designed by Richard Seifert & Partners was completed in 1970. The Warehouse Theatre opened in 1977.


title: Croydon

text: The 1990s saw further changes intended to give the town a more attractive image. These included the closure of North End to vehicles in 1989 and the opening of the Croydon Clocktower arts centre in 1994. An early success of the centre was the "Picasso's Croydon Period" exhibition of March–May 1995.


title: Croydon

text: The Prospect West office development was built in 1991 to 1992, and its remodelling planned in 2012 has now been completed. Renamed Interchange Croydon when it was reopened in 2014, the 180,000 square foot office development was the first new grade A office development of its size to open in Croydon for more than 20 years.


title: Croydon

text: Another large shopping centre, Centrale, opened in 2004 opposite the Whitgift Centre, and adjoining the smaller Drummond Centre. House of Fraser and Debenhams are the anchor stores in the combined centre. In addition, there are plans for a large, new one billion pound shopping centre, in the form of a new Westfield shopping mall to add to the two which the company currently has in Greater London; Westfield plans to work jointly with Hammersons and to incorporate the best aspects of the two companies' designs. In November 2017, Croydon Council gave permission for the new Westfield shopping centre to be built and in January 2018, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, approved the regeneration scheme. Work to demolish the existing Whitgift Centre was due to begin in 2018 and Westfield Croydon was initially to open by 2022. The Westfield plans were delayed and the planning permission elapsed: however, in 2021, Croydon Council confirmed they were committed to see the Westfield Centre proceed. There are several other major plans for the town including the redevelopment of the Croydon Gateway site; and extensions of Tramlink to Purley Way, Streatham, Lewisham and Crystal Palace.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon has many tall buildings such as the former Nestlé Tower (St George's House). The London Borough of Croydon's strategic planning committee in February 2013 gave the go-ahead to property fund manager Legal and General Property's plans to convert the empty 24-storey St George's House office building, occupied by Nestlé until September 2012, into 288 flats.


title: Croydon

text: In 2007, events were held under the label of Croydon Exp07 to promote billions of pounds of promised projects, including swimming pools and a library. However, plans for a new shopping centre, to be called Park Place, had already been abandoned amid a scandal about cash for peerages. Also abandoned were plans for an arena near the East Croydon station, after a compulsory purchase order was rejected in 2008 at Cabinet level.


title: Croydon

text: On 22 November 2011, then Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced £23m of additional funding to help redevelop the town at the Develop Croydon Conference.


title: Croydon

text: Several apartment developments, for instance Altitude 25 (completed 2010), have been built in recent years, and several more are being built or planned. The construction of Saffron Square, which includes a 43-storey tower, began on Wellesley Road in 2011 and was completed in 2016. Other developments with towers over 50 floors high have been given planning approval. These include the 54-storey "Menta Tower" in Cherry Orchard Road near East Croydon station, and a 55-storey tower at One Lansdowne Road, on which construction was set to begin in early 2013. The latter is set to be Britain's tallest block of flats, including office space, a four-star hotel and a health club.


title: Croydon

text: In May 2012 it was announced that Croydon had been successful in its bid to become one of twelve "Portas Pilot" towns, and would receive a share of £1.2m funding to help rejuvenate its central shopping areas.


title: Croydon

text: In November 2013, Central Croydon MP Gavin Barwell gave a presentation at a public meeting on the Croydon regeneration project, detailing various developments underway due to be completed in coming years.


title: Croydon

text: On 26 November 2013, Croydon Council approved a redevelopment of the Town Centre by The Croydon Partnership, a joint venture by The Westfield Group and Hammerson. London Mayor Boris Johnson approved the plan the following day. The Croydon Advertiser listed the approval as an "Historic Night for Croydon".


title: Croydon

text: At Ruskin Square, a Boxpark made of sea containers opened in 2016 as a temporary measure until new buildings are constructed for shops, offices and housing. The "London Evening Standard" said that this and other developments were reviving the town which was in the process of gentrification.


title: Croydon

text: A Croydon Vision 2020 plan was drawn up by the borough after a 1999 study by town planning consultants EDAW. The plan includes new office blocks, apartment buildings, shopping centres and other developments, some of which have already been built. More than 2,000 new homes are planned.


title: Croydon

text: A redeveloped Fairfield Halls has been planned to be the linchpin of a cultural quarter encompassing nearby College Green. Plans include an art gallery, a new college, shops and offices, with a multi-storey car park set for demolition to make space for 218 homes.


title: Croydon

text: As of 2011, Croydon's annual retail turnover from comparison goods was £353 million, the fifth-highest in Greater London behind the West End, Shepherd's Bush, Stratford and Kingston upon Thames. Croydon had as of 2012 of total town centre floorspace, the second highest in Greater London only behind the West End.


title: Croydon

text: Apart from its large central shopping district, Croydon has a number of smaller shopping areas, especially towards the southern end of the town in which are many restaurants. As of 2011, two of Croydon's restaurants were listed in "The Good Food Guide".


title: Croydon

text: In a 2015 study by CACI, Croydon was ranked 12th in the "Hot 100 UK retail locations" with a score of 90%.


title: Croydon

text: For centuries the area lay within the Wallington hundred, an ancient Anglo-Saxon administrative division of the county of Surrey. In the later Middle Ages – probably from the late 13th century onwards – residents of the town of Croydon, as defined by boundary markers known as the "four crosses", enjoyed a degree of self-government through a town court or "portmote", and a form of free tenure of property. These privileges set the area of the town apart from its rural hinterland, where the more usual and more restrictive rules of manorial tenure applied. However, Croydon did not hold any kind of formal borough status.


title: Croydon

text: In 1690, the leading inhabitants petitioned William III and Mary for Croydon to be incorporated as a borough. The application was initially approved, the king authorising the drafting of a charter, but the process was then abruptly halted, apparently through the intervention of Archbishop John Tillotson, who probably feared a threat to his own authority over the town. The application was revived the following year, when Queen Mary again authorised a charter, but once again it was abandoned. A second petition in 1707 was effectively ignored.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon's growth in the 19th century brought the issue of incorporation back on to the political agenda, and in 1883 the ancient parish of Croydon, apart from its exclave of Croydon Crook or Selsdon, was created a municipal borough within Surrey. In 1889, because the population was high enough, it was made a county borough, exempt from county administration.


title: Croydon

text: In 1965 (under the terms of the London Government Act 1963) the County Borough of Croydon was abolished and the area was transferred to Greater London and combined with the Coulsdon and Purley Urban District to form the London Borough of Croydon.


title: Croydon

text: The borough has on several occasions sought city status. (This would be a purely honorific change of title, making no practical difference to the borough's governance.) A draft petition was submitted by the County Borough to the Home Office in 1951, a more formal petition in 1954, and two more applications in 1955 and 1958. When the London Borough was created in 1965, the Council endeavoured to have it styled a City, as was the City of Westminster. Further bids for city status were made in 1977, 1992, 2000, 2002, and 2012. All have failed. The borough's predominant argument has always been its size: in 2000 it pointed out that it was "the largest town which does not have the title of City in the whole of Western Europe". The grounds on which it has been turned down have invariably been that it is (as was stated in 1992) merely "part of the London conurbation, rather than a place with a character and identity of its own". Undeterred, council representatives have more than once described Croydon as "a city in all but name". In 2008, Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, said he would support Croydon being awarded city status.


title: Croydon

text: The London Borough of Croydon has a Labour-controlled council with 41 Labour councillors and 29 Conservative councillors elected on 3 May 2018.


title: Croydon

text: Most of the town centre lies within the Addiscombe and Fairfield wards, which form part of the Croydon Central constituency. The rest of the town centre is in the Croham ward, which is part of the Croydon South constituency. These wards are all in the London Borough of Croydon, which is responsible for services along with other agencies such as education, refuse collection, road maintenance, local planning and social care. The Addiscombe ward is currently represented by Labour Councillors . The Fairfield and Croham wards have, by contrast, habitually elected Conservative members. The sitting Member of Parliament for Croydon Central is Sarah Jones, a member of the Labour Party. The sitting Member of Parliament for Croydon South is Chris Philp, a member of the Conservatives. The Member of Parliament for Croydon North is Steve Reed, for the Labour Party.


title: Croydon

text: The territorial police force is the Metropolitan Police. Their Croydon Police Station is on Park Lane opposite the Croydon Flyover .


title: Croydon

text: The statutory fire and rescue service in Croydon is the London Fire Brigade (LFB) who have a fire station in Old Town, with two pumping appliances.


title: Croydon

text: The nearest hospital is Croydon University Hospital (known from 1923 to 2010 as Mayday Hospital) in nearby Thornton Heath, which is part of Croydon Health Services NHS Trust. The London Ambulance Service provides the ambulance service.


title: Croydon

text: The town of Croydon includes its neighbourhoods Addiscombe, Addington, Broad Green, Coombe, Forestdale, New Addington, Sanderstead, Selsdon, Shirley, and Waddon. The 13 electoral wards that make it up together counted a population of 192,064 in the 2011 census, forming the majority of the borough overall (pop. 384,837).


title: Croydon

text: Croydon is ethnically diverse. Those who are from BAME minority background range from 19.5% in Sanderstead ward to 68.6% in Broad Green. West Thornton ward (part of Thornton Heath) is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of England.


title: Croydon

text: Fairfield ward, which is the major ward covering the central town, was ethnically 40% White British, 16% Indian, and 10% Other White in the 2011 UK Census. Religiously, 46% was Christian, 21% irreligious, 13% Hindu and 8% Muslim. The most common household tenure type was either owned or privately rented. The median age was 33. In addition, the Broad Green ward was ethnically 23% White British, 13% Indian, 13% Other Asian, and 11% Black African. About 41% of household tenures were owned, while privately and socially rented each made up 29% each. The median age was 31. The Addiscombe ward was ethnically 45% White British and 10% Other White. Religiously, 52% of the population was Christian, 24% irreligious, 7% Muslim and 6% Hindu. 52% of house tenures were owned. There are 10 other wards that cover Croydon's neighbourhoods.


title: Croydon

text: The median house price as of 2014 was £212,998 in Selhurst ward, one of London's lowest. The highest in the town was in Sanderstead ward, £392,500. The mean age in 2013 ranged from 32 years in Broad Green and Fieldway wards, to 43.2 years in Selsdon and Ballards ward.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon town centre is near the centre of the borough of Croydon, to the north of the North Downs and the Pilgrims' Way path. To the north of Croydon are typical London districts, whereas a short distance southeast (such as Coombe and Selsdon) is green, hilly and rural land. To the west are industrial areas, part of which are in the London Borough of Sutton. The southern suburbs are mainly affluent and also hilly.


title: Croydon

text: The town centre is bordered by Waddon immediately southwest of central Croydon. To the west, inside the London Borough of Sutton lies Beddington. To the north are Broad Green, Thornton Heath and Selhurst. To the south lies South Croydon, and going further south are Purley and Sanderstead. To the east lie Addiscombe and Shirley.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon High Street runs from South Croydon up to the point where it meets the street called North End. North End is the main shopping street, while Croydon High Street is the main restaurant quarter.


title: Croydon

text: The High Street is also home to Wrencote House, a Grade II* listed building. Dating from the late 17th or early 18th centuries, and probably built as a merchant's house, it has a distinctive "H" plan form over its four floors (including basement and attic storey). External features include a rich red brick facade with black headers, and a heavily carved and enriched wooden eaves cornice.


title: Croydon

text: Wellesley Road on the A212 road forms a north–south axis through the town centre. In line with London Plan policy, there have been a number of proposals to create greater integration between East Croydon station, which lies on one side of the A212, and the town centre of Croydon, which lies on the other side of it. Croydon Vision 2020 aims to tackle this though such solutions as making the road easier for pedestrians to cross by creating a centre island pathway.


title: Croydon

text: Topographically, central Croydon generally lies between (in the north) and (in the south) above sea level. Elevation significantly climbs towards the east of the town – Coombe Park peaks at about above sea level, whereas the Addington Hills, Coombe Wood and Addington Golf Course are as high as , with the southern end of New Addington having an elevation of over . To the south, Croham Hurst has a hill of , and the highest area of Croydon is the Sanderstead Plantation at . The lowest elevation is around Broad Green, about above sea level.


title: Croydon

text: The River Wandle is a tributary of the River Thames, flowing some 9 miles (14 km) to Wandsworth and Putney from its source in Croydon. It roughly forms the borough's western boundary with the London Borough of Sutton, and for part of its length also forms the boundary between the London Boroughs of Croydon and Lambeth. One of its tributaries rises in Selhurst.


title: Croydon

text: There are several arts venues. Foremost is the Fairfield Halls, opened in 1962, which consists of a large concert hall frequently used for BBC recordings, the Ashcroft Theatre and the Arnhem Gallery. Fairfield is the home of the London Mozart Players. Many famous faces have appeared at the Fairfield Halls, including The Beatles, Bucks Fizz, Omid Djalili, Robert Cray, JLS, Chuck Berry, BB King, Don McLean, The Monkees, Johnny Cash, Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Morecambe and Wise, Tom Jones, The Stylistics, Status Quo, Level 42, A-HA, John Mayall, Jools Holland, Kenny Rogers, James Last, and Coolio. The main concert hall was used for the conference scene in the Ron Howard film "The Da Vinci Code" (2006). The Fairfield Halls reopened in 2019, following a programme of modernisation and refurbishment.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon Clocktower, developed by the London Borough of Croydon in the mid-1990s, houses a state-of-the-art library, a performance venue in the old reference library, the David Lean Cinema (a small, independent, art-house cinema) and the Museum of Croydon, which details Croydon's history. The building links into Croydon Town Hall and some areas of the building, most notably the Braithwaite Hall, are part of the original town hall and library complex, built in 1892–1896 to a design by Charles Henman. A bronze statue of Queen Victoria was erected outside the buildings in 1903.


title: Croydon

text: The Warehouse Theatre (which closed in 2012), was a studio theatre known for promoting new writing, comedy and youth theatre. It had to close because of the major Ruskin Square redevelopment, but will re-open in the future in a new larger theatre building within the new development.


title: Croydon

text: There are several local and small venues for comedy and community events dotted around Croydon and its districts. Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation celebrated its 40th birthday in 2005. There are several community arts groups, particularly in the large Asian community.


title: Croydon

text: The Spread Eagle Theatre is a new 50-seat studio theatre. Opened in October 2013, it is situated in the town centre, 10 minutes' walk from East Croydon Station. The Spread Eagle works closely with its sister venue, the Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham. Both venues champion 'big plays for small spaces' with an emphasis on new writing, supporting emerging artists and theatre companies.


title: Croydon

text: A calendar titled "Rare Roundabouts of Croydon", with a picture of a different Croydon roundabout each month, has enjoyed some success.


title: Croydon

text: About 60 murals were added to Croydon town centre in 2018, as part of the Rise street art festival coordinated by the Rise art gallery in Croydon.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon is the setting of two poems by British Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, "Croydon" and "Love in a Valley".


title: Croydon

text: The borough has been the residence of many renowned authors and novelists, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who set up house in Norwood, D.H. Lawrence, and French novelist Émile Zola, who lived for a time in the Queen's Hotel, Upper Norwood. Cicely Mary Barker, author and illustrator of the Flower Fairies series of books, was born in Croydon.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon is the setting of novels. The now defunct airport lent itself to the mysteries "The 12.30 from Croydon" and "Death in the Clouds", and the town is mentioned in some Sherlock Holmes mysteries.


title: Croydon

text: In Jane Austen's unfinished novel "The Watsons" (written "c".1803–1805), the heroine, Emma Watson, has a brother and sister-in-law who live in Croydon, and who urge her to join them for an extended visit. Another sister, Elizabeth, encourages the idea, commenting "there is always something lively going on at Croydon". It would appear that the plot was intended to continue with Emma moving to Croydon.


title: Croydon

text: The composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) lived at 30 Dagnall Park, Selhurst, until his death. He grew up in Croydon and sang in the church choir at St George's and taught at the Crystal Palace School of Music and many other schools of music. He died from pneumonia after collapsing at West Croydon station. There is an impressive grave with a poem at Bandon Hill Cemetery, and exhibits about him in the Museum of Croydon.


title: Croydon

text: In addition to the Fairfield Halls, several venues in Croydon have hosted rock acts. Established in 1976, the Cartoon was a popular live music venue that closed in 2006. The Greyhound in Park Lane played host to acts such as Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, David Bowie, Queen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, The Boomtown Rats, A-ha in (1987) and others during the 1960s and '70s. Mott The Hoople paid tribute to the town's music scene in the song Saturday Gigs. The Greyhound also saw the debut of the Electric Light Orchestra in 1972.


title: Croydon

text: In 1993, "Music Week" reported that Croydon's record shops were thriving. The town centre was for 30 years home to Europe's largest second-hand record store, Beano's, offering rare vinyl, CDs and books. In November 2008, it was announced that Beano's would close. The premises, off Church Street near the Grant's cinema complex, became a "market place" with stalls for rent by small business and individuals.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon has been at the centre of the development of the dubstep genre, a relatively recent musical development that traces its roots from Jamaican dub music, UK Garage and drum and bass. Artists such as Benga and Skream, who honed their production and DJing skills whilst working at the now defunct "Big Apple Records" on Surrey Street, along with Norwood's Digital Mystikz, DJ Chef, Timi Korus and Thornton Heath's Plastician, form the core roster of dubstep DJs and producers. Moreover, UK rappers and grime artists Stormzy, Krept and Konan, Nadia Rose and Section Boyz all hail from or can trace their roots to the London Borough of Croydon.


title: Croydon

text: The oldest currently surviving shop in Croydon is 46 South End. Dating back to the 16th century, this Grade II listed building still retains all its original Tudor features. Records show that the premises has been a shop for at least 163 years, where street directories from 1851 give the names of E. C. Johnson & Thorpe. The building is currently in use as a music shop.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon is home to the BRIT School for performing arts and technology, based in Selhurst, which has produced stars such as Adele, Jessie J, Amy Winehouse, Leona Lewis, Katie Melua, Katy B, Kate Nash, Imogen Heap, Rizzle Kicks, Dane Bowers and members of the Feeling & the Kooks. Independent of such institutions, Croydon is also the home of artists such as Nosferatu D2.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon plays host to the popular Channel 4 show "Peep Show". The ITV police drama "The Bill", although set in East London, was filmed in Croydon and many of the town centre locations were filmed around Surrey Street and St George's House (the Nestle building). Sun Hill Police Station is in nearby Mitcham. The opening credit sequence for the sitcom "Terry and June" featured the eponymous stars walking around the Whitgift Centre and the Fairfield Halls. In 2007, the music video for pop star Mika's single "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" was shot in various locations around the town, including High Street and Surrey Street Market. The Delta Point building, close to West Croydon station appeared in the film "The Dark Knight Rises" as Gotham General Hospital. The 2018 interactive film, featured several scenes shot in Croydon, such as St George's Walk and No.1 Croydon.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon has its own fully independent television station: it does not receive any government or local authority grant or funding and is supported by donations, sponsorship and by commercial advertising. In 2012, Croydon Radio, an internet radio station, began in the area.


title: Croydon

text: The borough has many woods for walking in, which together account for 8.5% of Greater London's woodland resource (626.46 hectares). These include Lloyd Park and Croham Hurst.


title: Croydon

text: Among several other parks and open spaces around Croydon, there is an area of landscaped green space in the town centre called Queens Gardens; it is adjacent to the town hall and Clocktower art centre.


title: Croydon

text: The most prominent sports club in the borough is Crystal Palace Football Club, based in the north of the borough since 1918. Palace play at the purpose-built stadium of Selhurst Park, which the club moved to in 1924 from the Nest, its first Croydon-based stadium. The Nest had previously been the home of the defunct Croydon Common Football Club and sat next to Selhurst station. Palace won promotion to the Premier League (the top tier of football in England) at the end of the 2012–13 season. Croydon has a Non-League football club, Croydon F.C. who play at Croydon Sports Arena. Sunday League team Purley Saint Germain also play at Croydon Sports Arena.


title: Croydon

text: Streatham-Croydon RFC, founded in 1871, is one of Greater London's oldest extant rugby union clubs, playing just north of the town centre at Frant Road in Thornton Heath.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon Amphibians SC plays in Division 2 British Waterpolo League. In 2008, the team won the National League Division 3.


title: Croydon

text: The borough also has a women's roller derby team called Croydon Roller Derby, which trains in Carshalton. The team was established in the early part of this decade and has played both national and international teams including Roller Derby Madrid, Stuttgart Valley Rollergirlz and Oxford Roller Derby. The sport is full-contact and played on quad skates with players skating round an elliptical track.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon is served by East Croydon, South Croydon and West Croydon. East Croydon and South Croydon are served by Govia Thameslink Railway, operating under the Southern and Thameslink brands via the Brighton Main Line. West Croydon is served by London Overground and Southern services. The largest and busiest of the three stations is East Croydon, although West Croydon is located closer to Croydon's main shopping district.


title: Croydon

text: The Tramlink tram system opened in 2000; Croydon is its hub. Its network consists of two main lines, from Elmers End or Beckenham to Wimbledon, and from New Addington to West Croydon, with all trams running via a loop in central Croydon. It is the only tram system in Greater London. It serves Mitcham, Woodside, Addiscombe and the Purley Way retail and industrial area.


title: Croydon

text: The system was previously known as the "Croydon Tramlink", having been established under the Croydon Tramlink Act 1994.


title: Croydon

text: A few miles to the south of Croydon is a small gap in the North Downs, a route for transport from London to the south coast. The London to Brighton road used to pass through the town on North End before the A23 Purley Way was built to the west. Transport for London operates many bus routes in and around Croydon. Most buses serve West Croydon bus station, next to the railway station and tram stop.


title: Croydon

text: The horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway was an early public railway. It was opened in 1803, had double track, was some long and ran from Wandsworth to Croydon, at what is now Reeves Corner. In 1805 it was extended to Merstham as the Croydon, Merstham, and Godstone Railway. The railway boom of the 1840s brought superior and faster steam lines and it closed in 1846. The route is followed in part by the modern Tramlink. The last remaining sections of rail can be seen behind railings in a corner of Rotary Field in Purley.


title: Croydon

text: With the opening of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway line to London Victoria in 1860 extra platforms were provided at East Croydon, which the LBSCR treated as a separate station named "New Croydon". The South Eastern Railway (SER) was excluded from this station, which ran exclusively LBSCR services to London at fares cheaper than those the SER offered from the original station. In 1864, the LBSCR obtained authorisation to construct a -mile long branch line into the heart of the town centre near Katharine Street, where Croydon Central station was built. The line opened in 1868 but enjoyed little success and closed in 1871, only to reopen in 1886 under pressure from the Town Council before finally closing in 1890. The station was subsequently demolished and replaced by the Town Hall. In 1897–98, East Croydon and New Croydon were merged into a single station with three island platforms, which remain today, but the two stations kept separate booking accounts until 1924.


title: Croydon

text: The Croydon Canal ran for from what is now West Croydon station. It travelled north largely along the course of the present railway line to New Cross Gate, where it joined the Grand Surrey Canal and went on into the River Thames. It opened in 1809 and had 28 locks. It had a strong competitor in the Surrey Iron Railway and was never a financial success. It sold out to the London & Croydon Railway in 1836. The lake at South Norwood is the former reservoir for the canal.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon Airport on Purley Way was the main airport for London until it was superseded by Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport. It opened on 29 March 1920 by combining two smaller airfields used for defence in World War I. It developed into one of the great airports of the world during the 1920s and 1930s. It welcomed the world's pioneer aviators in its heyday. As aviation technology progressed and aircraft became larger and more numerous, it was recognised in 1952 that the airport would be too small to cope with increasing air traffic and its role was decreased.. The last scheduled flight departed on 30 September 1959. The air terminal, now known as Airport House adjoining Purley Way to the west of the town, has been restored and has a museum open one day a month. The name "Croydon Airport" is still used as a landmark and as a bus stop designation.


title: Croydon

text: The town is home to Croydon College, with its main site on Park Lane and College Road near East Croydon station. It has over 13,000 students attending one of its three sub-colleges. The sub-colleges were created in 2007. The three sub-colleges are the Croydon Sixth Form College, Croydon Skills and Enterprise College and the Croydon Higher Education College. The Higher Education College offers university-level education in a range of subjects from Law through to Fine Art. Croydon Skills and Enterprise College delivers training and education opportunities.


title: Croydon

text: The town has five fee-paying schools, three of which are part of the Whitgift Foundation. Two are boys' schools (though Trinity School has a co-educational sixth form): Whitgift School was situated near the Almshouses until 1931 when it moved to its current site in Haling Park in South Croydon, the Middle School (renamed Trinity School of John Whitgift in 1954) remained on the site until 1965 when it moved to Shirley Park. A direct grant grammar school until 1968, it is now a member of the Headmasters' Conference. Old Palace School, an independent girls' school situated in the old Summer Palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury, joined the Whitgift Foundation group of schools in 1993. Croham Hurst School, an independent girls' school in South Croydon, became part of Old Palace in 2007 and its old buildings are now used as the Old Palace junior school. The site of the old Whitgift grammar school is now the Whitgift shopping centre whose freehold is owned by the Whitgift Foundation.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon is also home to three single-sex Catholic state schools. The formerly independent John Fisher School in Purley has not charged fees since the late 1970s, but during the 1990s was selective, choosing boys via exams, interviews, tests, previous school reports and written statements. The school ended its selection policy in 1999, and now accepts pupils under a points system, which favours those who have high mass attendance and whose families are most involved in the Catholic Church. Coloma Convent Girls' School is one of England's Catholic girls' schools: formerly a grammar school, it has now, like John Fisher, adopted points-based admission criteria. St. Joseph's College, on Beulah Hill in Upper Norwood, is a boys' school with a mixed sixth form.


title: Croydon

text: Croydon High School for Girls is an independent girls' school in Selsdon, and a member of the Girls' Day School Trust. The Japanese Saturday School of London, a weekend Japanese programme, uses Croydon High School as its Croydon Campus (クロイドン校舎 "Kuroidon Kōsha").


title: Croydon

text: Royal Russell School is a co-educational independent boarding and day school in South Croydon and is a member of the Headmasters' Conference.


title: House of Lancaster

text: The House of Lancaster was a cadet branch of the royal House of Plantagenet. The first house was created when King Henry III of England created the Earldom of Lancasterfrom which the house was namedfor his second son Edmund Crouchback in 1267. Edmund had already been created Earl of Leicester in 1265 and was granted the lands and privileges of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, after de Montfort's death and attainder at the end of the Second Barons' War. When Edmund's son Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, inherited his father-in-law's estates and title of Earl of Lincoln he became at a stroke the most powerful nobleman in England, with lands throughout the kingdom and the ability to raise vast private armies to wield power at national and local levels. This brought himand Henry, his younger brotherinto conflict with their cousin King Edward II, leading to Thomas's execution. Henry inherited Thomas's titles and he and his son, who was also called Henry, gave loyal service to Edward's son King Edward III.


title: House of Lancaster

text: The second house of Lancaster was descended from John of Gaunt, who married the heiress of the first house, Blanche of Lancaster. Edward III married all his sons to wealthy English heiresses rather than following his predecessors' practice of finding continental political marriages for royal princes. Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster, had no male heir so Edward married his son John to Henry's heiress daughter and John's third cousin Blanche of Lancaster. This gave John the vast wealth of the House of Lancaster. Their son Henry usurped the throne in 1399, creating one of the factions in the Wars of the Roses. There was an intermittent dynastic struggle between the descendants of Edward III. In these wars, the term Lancastrian became a reference to members of the family and their supporters. The family provided England with three kings: Henry IV (r. 1399–1413), Henry V (r. 1413–1422), and Henry VI (r. 1422–1461 and 1470–1471).


title: House of Lancaster

text: The house became extinct in the male line upon the death or murder in the Tower of London of Henry VI, following the battlefield execution of his son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, by supporters of the House of York in 1471. Lancastrian cognatic descentfrom John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster's daughter Phillipacontinued in the royal houses of Spain and Portugal while the Lancastrian political cause was maintained by Henry Tudora relatively unknown scion of the Beaufortseventually leading to the establishment of the House of Tudor. The Lancastrians left a legacy through the patronage of the arts, most notably in founding Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. However, to historians' chagrin, it is Shakespeare's partly fictionalized history plays rather than medievalist scholarly research that has the greater influence on modern perceptions of the dynasty.


title: House of Lancaster

text: After the supporters of Henry III of England suppressed opposition from the English nobility in the Second Barons' War, Henry granted to his second son Edmund Crouchback the titles and possessions forfeited by attainder of the barons' leader, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, including the Earldom of Leicester, on 26 October 1265. Later grants included the first Earldom of Lancaster on 30 June 1267 and that of Earl Ferrers in 1301. Edmund was also Count of Champagne and Brie from 1276 by right of his wife. Henry IV of England would later use his descent from Edmund to legitimise his claim to the throne, even making the spurious claim that Edmund was the elder son of Henry but had been passed over as king because of his deformity.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Thomas and his younger brother Henry served in the coronation of their cousin King Edward II of England on 25 February 1308; Thomas carried Curtana, the Sword of Mercy, and Henry carried the royal sceptre. After initially supporting Edward, Thomas became one of the Lords Ordainers, who demanded the banishment of Piers Gaveston and the governance of the realm by a baronial council. After Gaveston was captured, Thomas took the lead in his trial and execution at Warwick in 1312. Edward's authority was weakened by poor governance and defeat by the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn. This allowed Thomas to restrain Edward's power by republishing the Ordinances of 1311. Following this achievement Thomas took little part in the governance of the realm and instead retreated to Pontefract Castle. This allowed Edward to regroup and re-arm, leading to a fragile peace in August 1318 with the Treaty of Leake. In 1321 Edward's rule again collapsed into civil war. Thomas raised a northern army but was defeated and captured at the Battle of Boroughbridge in March 1322. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered but because he was Edward's cousin he was given a quicker death by beheading.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Henry joined the revolt of Edward's wife Isabella of France and Mortimer in 1326, pursuing and capturing Edward at Neath in South Wales. Following Edward's deposition at the Parliament of Kenilworth in 1326 and reputed murder at Berkeley Castle, Thomas's conviction was posthumously reversed and Henry regained possession of the Earldoms of Lancaster, Derby, Salisbury and Lincoln that had been forfeit for Thomas's treason. His restored prestige led to him knighting the young King Edward III of England before his coronation. Mortimer lost support over the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton that formalised Scotland's independence, and his developing power in the Welsh Marches provoked jealousy from the barons. When Mortimer called a parliament to make his new powers and estates permanent with the title of Earl of March in 1328, Henry led the opposition and held a counter-meeting. In response, Mortimer ravaged the lands of Lancaster and checked the revolt. Edward III was able to assume control in 1330 but Henry's further influence was restricted by poor health and blindness for the last fifteen years of his life.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Henry's son, also named Henry, was born at the castle of Grosmont in Monmouthshire between 1299 and 1314. According to the younger Henry's memoirs, he was better at martial arts than academic subjects and did not learn to read until later in life. Henry was coeval with Edward III and was pivotal to his reign, becoming his best friend and most trusted commander. Henry was knighted in 1330, represented his father in parliament and fought in Edward's Scottish campaign. After the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War, Henry took part in several diplomatic missions and minor campaigns and was present at the great English victory in the naval Battle of Sluys in 1340. Later, he was required to commit himself as hostage in the Low Countries for Edward's considerable debts. He remained hostage for a year and had to pay a large ransom for his own release.


title: House of Lancaster

text: In 1345, Edward III launched a major, three-pronged attack on France. The Earl of Northampton attacked from Brittany, Edward from Flanders, and Henry from Aquitaine in the south. Moving rapidly through the country, Henry confronted the Comte d'Isle at the Battle of Auberoche and achieved a victory described as "the greatest single achievement of Lancaster's entire military career". The ransom from the prisoners has been estimated at £50,000. Edward rewarded Henry by including him as a founding knight of the Order of the Garter. An even greater honour was bestowed on Lancaster when Edward created him Duke of Lancaster. The title of duke was relatively new in England, with only Cornwall being a previous ducal title. Lancaster was also given palatinate status for the county of Lancashire, which entailed a separate administration independent of the crown. There were two other counties palatine; Durham was an ancient ecclesiastical palatinate and Chester was crown property.


title: House of Lancaster

text: In 1350, Henry was present at the naval victory at Winchelsea, where he saved the life of the Black Prince. He spent 1351–2 on crusade in Prussia where a quarrel with Otto, Duke of Brunswick, almost led to a duel between the two men, which was only averted by the intervention of John II of France. As campaigning in France resumed, Henry participated in the last great offensive of the Rheims campaign of 1359–60the first phase of the Hundred Years' Warbefore returning to England where he fell ill and died, most likely of the plague, at Leicester Castle.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Edward III of England married John of Gaunt, his third surviving son, to Henry's heiress Blanche of Lancaster. On Henry's death, Edward conferred on Gaunt the second creation of the title of Duke of Lancaster, which made Gaunt, after Edward, the wealthiest landowner in England. Gaunt enjoyed great political influence during his lifetime, but upon his death in 1399 his lands were confiscated by Richard II. Gaunt's exiled son and heir Henry of Bolingbroke returned home and gathered military support in clear contravention of Richard's treason act of 1397, which included a definition of treason of "or [to] ... raiseth People and rideth against the King to make War within his Realm ...". Although he claimed his aim was restoration of his Lancaster inheritance, this Act and Henry's knowledge of Richard's charactersuspicious and vindictiveprobably meant Henry knew that only by removing Richard from power could he be secure. Henry unified popular opposition to Richard II, took control of the kingdom and Richardrecognising that he had insufficient support to resistsurrendered to Henry's forces at Conwy Castle. Henry instigated a commission to decide who should be king. Richard was forced to abdicate and although Henry was not next in line, he was chosen by an unlawfully constituted parliament dominated by his supporters. After the first unrest of his reign and a revolt by the Earls of Salisbury, Gloucester, Exeter and Surrey, Richard reputedly starved to death. There is some debate as to whether this was self-inflicted or ordered by Henry to end the risk of restoration without leaving incriminating marks on the body.


title: House of Lancaster

text: There is much debate among historians about Henry's accession, in part because some see it as a cause of the Wars of the Roses. For many historians, the accession by force of the throne broke principles the Plantagenets had established successfully over two and a half centuries and allowed any magnate with sufficient power and Plantagenet blood to have ambitions to assume the throne. Richard had attempted to disinherit Henry and remove him from the succession. In response, Henry's legal advisors, led by William Thirning, dissuaded Henry from claiming the throne by right of conquest and instead look for legal justification. Although Henry established a committee to investigate his assertion that his mother had legitimate rights through descent from Edmund Crouchback, who he said was the elder son of Henry III of England but was set aside because of deformity, no evidence was found. The eight-year-old Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, was the heir general to Richard II by being the great-grandson of Edward III's second son, Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, and also the son of Richard's last nominated heir. In desperation, Henry's advisors made the case that Henry was heir male to Henry III and this was supported by thirteenth-century entails. Mortimer's sister Anne de Mortimer married Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, son of Edward III's fourth son Edmund of Langley, consolidating Anne's place in the succession with that of the more junior House of York. As a child, Mortimer was not considered a serious contender and, as an adult, he showed no interest in the throne. He instead loyally served the House of Lancaster. Mortimer informed Henry V when Conisburgh, in what was later called the Southampton Plot, attempted to place him on the throne instead of Henry's newly crowned sontheir mutual cousinleading to the execution of Conisburgh and the other plotters.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Henry IV was plagued with financial problems, the political need to reward his supporters, frequent rebellions and declining healthincluding leprosy and epilepsy. The Percy family had been some of Henry's leading supporters, defending the North from Scotland largely at their own expense, but revolted in the face of lack of reward and suspicion from Henry. Henry Percy (Hotspur) was defeated and killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury. In 1405, Hotspur's father Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, supported Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York, in another rebellion, after which the elder Percy fled to Scotland and his estates were confiscated. Henry had Scrope executed in an act comparable to the murder of another ArchbishopThomas Becketby men loyal to Henry II. This would probably have led to Henry's excommunication, but the church was in the midst of the Western Schism, with competing popes keen on Henry's support; it protested but took no action. In 1408, Percy invaded England once more and was killed at the Battle of Bramham Moor. In Wales, Owain Glyndŵr's widespread rebellion was only suppressed with the recapture of Harlech Castle in 1409, although sporadic fighting continued until 1421.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Henry V of England was a successful and ruthless monarch. He was quick to re-assert the claim to the French throne he inherited from Edward III, continuing what was later called the Hundred Years' War. The war was not a formal, continuous conflict but a series of English raids and military expeditions from 1337 until 1453. There were six major royal expeditions; Henry himself led the fifth and sixth, but these were unlike the smaller, frequent, provincial campaigns. In Henry's first major campaignand the fifth major royal campaign of the warhe invaded France, captured Harfleur, made a chevauchée to Calais and won a near-total victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt despite being outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and low on supplies. In his second campaign, he recaptured much of Normandy and in a treaty secured a marriage to Catherine of Valois. The terms of the Treaty of Troyes were that Henry's and Catherine's heirs would succeed to the throne of France. This condition was contested by the Dauphin and the momentum of the war changed. In 1421, Henry's brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, was killed at the Battle of Baugé, and Henry V died of dysentery at Vincennes in 1422.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Henry VI of England was less than a year old but his unclesled by Henry V's brother John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedfordcontinued the war. There were more victories, including the Battle of Verneuil, but it was impossible to maintain campaigning at this level given the relative economic and manpower resources of England against France. Joan of Arc's involvement helped the French remove the siege of Orleans and win the Battle of Patay before Joan was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried as a witch and burnt at the stake. The Dauphin was crowned and continued the successful Fabian tactics of avoiding full frontal assault and exploiting logistical advantage.


title: House of Lancaster

text: The Hundred Years' War caused political division between the Lancastrians and the other Plantagenets during the minority of Henry VI: Bedford wanted to maintain the majority of the Lancastrians' French possessions; Humphrey of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Gloucester wanted to hold only Calais; and Cardinal Beaufort desired a negotiated peace. Gloucester's attacks on Beaufort forced the latter from public life but brought him little advantage as the Earl of Suffolk's influence over the king enabled him to direct policy for the rest of the decade. Gloucester remained heir presumptive but in 1441 his ambitious wife, Eleanor Cobham, consulted astrologers on the likelihood of the king's death and was arrested for treasonable necromancyalthough Gloucester was not implicated he was discredited forced into retirement. In 1447 Suffolk had him arrested and within days he died in prison.


title: House of Lancaster

text: England's ally Philip III, Duke of Burgundy defected to Charles when the English ambassadors' refusal to renounce the claim to the French crown stalled negotiations, signing the Treaty of Arras (1435). The French reorganised the superior numbers of their feudal levies into a modern professional army and retook Paris, Rouen, Bordeaux and Normandy. Victories at the Battle of Formigny in 1450 and the Battle of Castillon in 1453 brought the war to an end with the House of Lancaster losing forever all its French holdings, except Calais and the Channel Islands.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Henry VI proved to be a weak king and vulnerable to the over-mighty subjects who developed private armies of retainers. Rivalries often spilled over from the courtroom into armed confrontations, such as the Percy–Neville feud. Without the common purpose of the war in France, Henry's cousin Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, and Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, used their networks to defy the crown. Henry became the focus of discontent as the population, agricultural production, prices, the wool trade and credit declined in the Great Slump. This led to radical demands from the lower classes. In 1450, Jack Cade raised a rebellion to force Henry to address the economic problems or abdicate his throne. The uprising was suppressed but conflict remained between villagers, gentry and aristocracy. Society remained deeply unsettled and radical demands continued to be suppressed such as those from the yeoman brothers John and William Merfold.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Henry's marriage to Margaret of Anjou prompted criticism from Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, because it included the surrender of Maine and an extended truce with France. York was Henry's cousin through his descent from Edward III sons Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, and Edmund, Duke of York. This gave York political influence but he was removed from English and French politics through his appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. On returning to England, York was conscious of the fate of Henry's uncle Humphrey at the hands of the Beauforts and suspicious that Henry intended to nominate Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, as heir presumptive, and recruited military forces. Armed conflict was avoided because York lacked aristocratic support and was forced to swear allegiance to Henry. However, when Henry later underwent a mental breakdown, York was named regent. Henry was trusting and not a man of war, but Margaret was more assertive and showed open enmity towards Yorkparticularly after the birth of a male heir that resolved the succession question and assured her position.


title: House of Lancaster

text: According to historian Robin Storey, "If Henry's insanity was a tragedy; his recovery was a national disaster". When Henry's sanity returned, the court party reasserted its authority but York and his relatives, the Nevilles, defeated them at the First Battle of St Albans. Historian Anthony Goodman suggests that around 50 men were killed; among them were Somerset and two Percy lords, Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, and Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron de Clifford, creating feuds that would confound reconciliation attempts despite the shock to the ruling class caused by the armed conflict. Threatened with treason charges and lacking support, York, Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, and Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, fled abroad. Henry was captured by the opposition when the Nevilles returned and won the Battle of Northampton. York joined them, surprising parliament by claiming the throne and then forcing through the Act of Accord stating that Henry would remain as monarch for his lifetime and that York would succeed him. The disinheriting of Henry's son Edward was unacceptable to Margaret so the conflict continued. York was killed at the Battle of Wakefield and his head was displayed at Micklegate Bar, York, along with those of Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisburyboth of whom were captured and beheaded.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Margaret gained the support of the Scottish queen Mary of Guelders, and with a Scottish army she pillaged into southern England. The citizens of London feared the city being plundered and enthusiastically welcomed York's son Edward, Earl of March. Margaret's defeat at the Battle of Towton confirmed Edward's position and he was crowned. Disaffected with Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and preferment of her formerly Lancastrian-supporting family, Warwick and Clarence defected to the Lancastrians. The alliance was sealed with the marriage of Henry's son Edward to Anne, Warwick's daughter. Edward and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, fled England. When they returned, Clarence switched sides at the Battle of Barnet and Warwick and his brother were killed. Henry, Margaret and Edward of Lancaster were caught at the Battle of Tewkesbury before they could escape back to France. Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was executed on the battlefield and John Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset, was killed in the fightingmeaning that when his brother Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset, was executed two days later, the Beaufort family became extinct in the legitimate male line. The captive Henry was murdered on 21 May 1471 in the Tower of London and buried in Chertsey Abbey, extinguishing the House of Lancaster.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Historians have been dismayed by Shakespeare's influence on the perception of the later medieval period exceeding that of academic research. While the chronology of Shakespeare's history plays runs from King John to Henry VIII, they are dominated by eight plays in which members of the House of Lancaster play a significant part, voicing speeches on a par with those in Hamlet and King Lear. These plays are:


title: House of Lancaster

text: According to the historian Norman Davies, the plays were constrained by the political and religious requirements of Tudor England. While they are factually inaccurate, they demonstrate how the past and the House of Lancaster are remembered in terms of myth, legend, ideas and popular misconceptions. Shakespeare avoided contentious political and religious issues to dubiously illustrate Tudor England as having rejected medieval conflict and entered an era of harmony and prosperity. The famous patriotic "sceptr'd isle" speech is voiced by John of Gaunt, a man who spent the majority of his life in Aquitaine, and is a piece of poetic licence that illustrates English prejudices. "Henry V" is one-sided with little sympathy for the French. Many of these historical lines illustrate historical myth rather than realism.


title: House of Lancaster

text: Lancastrian cognatic descent from John of Gaunt and Blanche's daughter Phillipa continued in the royal houses of Spain and Portugal. The remnants of the Lancastrian court party coalesced support around Henry Tudora relatively unknown scion of the Beauforts. They had been amongst the most ardent supporters of the House of Lancaster and were descended illegitimately from John of Gaunt by his mistress Katherine Swynford. However John of Gaunt and Katherine subsequently married and their children were legitimated by the Pope and by Parliament during the reign of Richard II. Henry IV had tried to debar them from the succession by use of his royal prerogative to avoid competition with the House of Lancaster's claims to the throne but this was of limited effect. By some calculations of primogeniture, there were as many as 18 peopleincluding both his mother and future wifewith what some might claim a better right to the throne. By 1510, this figure had increased with the birth of an additional 16 possible Yorkist claimants.


title: House of Lancaster

text: With the House of Lancaster extinct, Henry claimed to be the Lancastrian heir through his mother Lady Margaret Beaufort. His father was Henry VI's maternal half-brother. In 1485, Henry Tudor united increasing opposition within England to the reign of Richard III with the Lancastrian cause to take the throne. To further legitimise his claim, Henry married Elizabeth of YorkEdward IV of England's daughterand promoted the House of Tudor as a dynasty of dual Lancastrian and Yorkist descent.


title: House of Lancaster

text: The Lancastrians were both pious and well read. Henry IV was the first English king known to have possessed a vernacular Bible, supported the canonization of John Twenge, gave a pension to the anchoress Margaret Pensax and maintained close relations with several Westminster recluses. His household accounts as king record conventional payments to large numbers of paupers (12,000 on Easter day 1406) and the intercession for him of twenty-four oratores domini regis at 2d each per day. However, his reliance on the church was both personal and political. Archbishop Arundel gave the Lancastrians vital support and carried other bishops with him. In return the church required support for religious orthodoxy against heresy. Lollards were suppressed and heresy was made a capital offence in England under the statute of De haeretico comburendo even though Henry could not afford to overly antagonize his supporters with Lollard sympathies, including those among his Lancastrian retainers.


title: House of Lancaster

text: According to the author of the Gesta Henrici quinti, Henry V aimed "to promote the honour of God, the extension of the Church, the deliverance of his country and the peace and tranquillity of kingdoms". He was deeply religious, engaged with ecclesiastical issues and saw that his role as king was to honour God, extend the church, fight heresy and defend the established social order. All his victories, especially Agincourt, were attributed to divine intervention. Henry V founded Syon Abbey in 1415, as penance for his father's execution of Archbishop Scrope, and three monasteries in London: for Carthusian, Bridgettine and Celestine orders. The equally devout Henry VI continued the architectural patronage begun by his father, founding Eton College and King's College, Cambridge and leaving a lasting educational and architectural legacy in buildings including King's College Chapel and Eton College Chapel.


title: House of Lancaster

text: The Lancastrian regime was founded and legitimised by formal lying that was both public and official. This has been described as "a series of unconstitutional actions" based "upon three major acts of perjury". The historian K.B. McFarlane found it hard "to think of another moment of comparable importance in medieval English political history when the supply of information was so effectively manipulated as it was by Henry IV on this occasion". The Lancastrians patronised poets for panegyric purposes for years before Henry IV ascended the throne, including Geoffrey Chaucer who dedicated The Book of the Duchess to Blanche of Lancaster around 1368. In 1400, poets in the pay of Henry IV were directed to propaganda purposes. John Gower based his Cronica Tripertita on the official Lancastrian accounts of the usurpation:"The Record and Process of the Deposition of Richard II" from 1399. Gower also produced a number of further favourable works including "In praise of peace" which was dedicated to Henry IV.


title: House of Lancaster

text: The Red Rose of Lancaster derives from the gold rose badge of Edward I of England. Other members of his family used variants of the royal badge, with the king's brother, the Earl of Lancaster, using a red rose. It is believed that the Red Rose of Lancaster was the House of Lancaster's badge during the Wars of the Roses. Evidence for this "wearing of the rose" includes land tenure records requiring service of a red rose yearly for a manor held directly from Henry VI of England. There are, however, doubts as to whether the red rose was actually an emblem taken up by the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses. Adrian Ailes has noted that the red rose "probably owes its popular usage to Henry VII quickly responding to the pre-existing Yorkist white rose in an age when signs and symbols could speak louder than words."


title: House of Lancaster

text: It also allowed Henry to invent and exploit his most famous heraldic device, the Tudor Rose, combining the so-called Lancastrian red rose and the White Rose of York. This floral union neatly symbolised the restoration of peace and harmony and his marriage in January 1486 to Elizabeth of York. It was a brilliant piece of simple heraldic propaganda." The Tudor Rose is used as the plant badge of England (Scotland uses the thistle, Ireland uses the shamrock, and Wales uses the leek).


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: John Joseph Moehringer (born December 7, 1964), known by his pen name J. R. Moehringer, is an American novelist and journalist. In 2000 he won the Pulitzer Prize for newspaper feature writing.


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: Moehringer was born in New York City and raised by a single mother in Manhasset, New York and Scottsdale, Arizona. He graduated from Saguaro High School in Scottsdale in 1982 and from Yale University in 1986.


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: He began his journalism career as a news assistant at "The New York Times". In 1990 he moved to Breckenridge, Colorado where he worked at the "Rocky Mountain News". In 1994 he became a reporter for the Orange County bureau of the "Los Angeles Times".


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: In 1997, the "Los Angeles Times" sent him to Atlanta to report on the South as an on-the-scene reporter. His journalism work later took him to Denver, Colorado.


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: While at the "Los Angeles Times" he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing in 1998 for his article "Resurrecting the Champ", and received the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing in 2000 for his article "Crossing Over".


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, book editor Shannon Welch, and their two children.


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: Moehringer's memoir, "The Tender Bar", was published in 2005. It recounts his childhood through his early twenties, and tells of his coming-of-age experiences at a local bar called Publicans (previously called Dickens, subsequently renamed Edison's, and now renamed Publicans), which served as a sanctuary from his chaotic family life. A movie version of the memoir, "The Tender Bar", directed by George Clooney and starring Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan and Daniel Ranieri, was released on Amazon Prime on January 7, 2022. After retired tennis star Andre Agassi read "The Tender Bar", he asked Moehringer to collaborate with him on his own memoir. The resulting book, "Open: An Autobiography", was published in 2009.


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: Moehringer wrote an article for the "Los Angeles Times Magazine" about a homeless man who claimed he was Bob Satterfield. In 2007, it was adapted as the basis of the film "Resurrecting the Champ," directed by Rod Lurie and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett and Alan Alda.


title: J. R. Moehringer

text: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex chose Moehringer to ghostwrite his memoir, "Spare", which is planned for release in early 2023.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: After the release of the book, Murakami allowed for questions about the novel to be sent in, and responded to many of them. The novel was generally well-received, with positive reviews from John Updike and the "New York Times".


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: The title of the book, according to Alan Cheuse of NPR, is suggestive and mysterious to Japanese readers - Franz Kafka is categorized as a Western writer who is well-known by Americans but is not so in Japan. He compares it to titles such as "Genji on the Hudson". Psychoanalyst Hayao Kawai saw special meaning in the name "Kafka", as its Japanese version, "Kafuka" (), could be a combination of 可 ("ka", meaning possible or good) and 不可 ("fuka", meaning the opposite), thus giving the book liminality.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: The odd-numbered chapters tell the 15-year-old Kafka's story as he runs away from his father's house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister. After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming Oshima. There he spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of "One Thousand and One Nights" and the collected works of Natsume Sōseki until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with the murder of his father that he does not know he has committed. Oshima brings him to the forests of Kōchi Prefecture, where Kafka is ultimately healed.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: The even-numbered chapters tell Nakata's story. They start with military reports of a strange incident in Yamanashi Prefecture where multiple children, including Nakata, collapse in the woods - Nakata, after the incident, is the only one of the children who came out of the incident without any memory and unable to read and write. The incident is initially blamed on poisonous gas, but it is later revealed that it was the result of a lustful teacher beating Nakata. Later on in the book, it is shown that due to his uncanny abilities, Nakata has found part-time work in his old age as a finder of lost cats (Murakami's earlier work "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" also involves searching for a lost cat). Having finally located and returned one particular cat to its owners, Nakata finds that the circumstances of the case have put him on a path which, unfolding one step at a time before him, takes the illiterate man far away from his familiar and comforting home territory. Nakata kills a man named Johnnie Walker, a cat murderer. He takes a gigantic leap of faith in going on the road for the first time in his life, unable even to read a map and without knowing where he will eventually end up. He befriends a truck driver named Hoshino, who takes him on as a passenger in his truck and soon becomes very attached to the old man. He heads for Takamatsu, an unknown force driving him there.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: The power and beauty of music as a communicative medium is one of the central ideas of the novel—the very title comes from a song Kafka is given on a record in the library. The music of Beethoven, specifically the Archduke Trio, is also used as a redemptive metaphor. Metaphysics is also a central concept of the novel as many of the character's dialogues and soliloquy are motivated by their inquiry about the nature of the world around them and their relation to it. Among other prominent ideas are: the virtues of self-sufficiency, the relation of dreams and reality, the threat of fate, the uncertain grip of prophecy, and the influence of the subconscious.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: "Kafka on the Shore" demonstrates Murakami's typical blend of popular culture, mundane detail, magical realism, suspense, humor, an involved plot, and potent sexuality. It also features an increased emphasis on Japanese religious traditions, particularly Shinto. The main characters are significant departures from the typical protagonist of a Murakami novel, such as Toru Watanabe of "Norwegian Wood" and Toru Okada of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle", who are typically in their 20s or 30s and have rather humdrum personalities. However, many of the same concepts that were first developed in these and other previous novels re-occur in "Kafka on the Shore".


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: The character's true given name is never revealed to the reader. After having run away from home, he chooses the new name "Kafka", in honor of writer Franz Kafka. Kafka is described as being muscular for his age and a "cool, tall, fifteen-year-old boy lugging a backpack and a bunch of obsessions". He's also the son of the famous sculptor Koichi Tamura. His mother and sister left the family when he was four years old and he can't remember their faces. He occasionally interacts with his metaphysical alter ego "The boy named Crow" ("Kafka" sounds like "kavka", which means "jackdaw", a crow-like bird, in Czech). Crow tells Kafka throughout the novel that he must be "the toughest fifteen-year-old in the world" and thus motivates him to pursue the journey of running away from home. It is heavily suggested throughout the novel that he, Miss Saeki, and Nakata are somehow connected by an 'alternate reality' on which metaphysical objects from people's subconsciousness take form leading them to find an 'essence' to their lives in exchange for taking away a 'part' of their soul.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: Nakata lost many of his mental faculties when he was a child; as one of sixteen schoolchildren on a mushroom-gathering field-trip toward the end of World War II, they were rendered unconscious following a mysterious flash of light in the sky (although it is later revealed that the light wasn't the main cause). This event is referred to in the novel as the "Rice Bowl Hill incident". Unlike the other children, who recovered shortly after, Nakata remained unconscious for many weeks and, upon finally awakening, found that his memory and ability to read had disappeared, as well as his higher intellectual functions (i.e. abstract thinking), essentially making him a "blank slate". In their place, Nakata found he was able to communicate with cats, and from then on, he always referred to himself in the third person. It is hinted that Nakata and Miss Saeki have been through the 'alternate reality' before and it's where they left a 'part' of their 'soul', leading to their shadows being irregular compared to normal people's.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: Scholar Michael Seats compared the liminality of the novel to Jacques Derrida's exegesis of the concept of pharmakon. According to Seats, the novel's interpretations can be contradictory, and many can be correct.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: Through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, Kafka is a schizoid character suffering from a deep Oedipal curse. Kafka's heart is Kafka, his self-constructed personality, while his unconscious, the one who fulfilled the Oedipal prophecy of father-killing when he turned 15, is Crow. The character Sakura is interpreted as the embodiment of the "healed" personality, who is able to connect to the real world well. Kafka, stuck in the mirror stage, cannot cope with her care, as she has power over the symbolic order. The character Oshima represents the mind-body-spirit split within Kafka. The character Johnny Walker is a symbol of Julia Kristeva's concept of the partially constituted subject.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: After the story's release, Murakami's Japanese publisher invited readers to submit questions to its website on the meaning of the book. Murakami responded personally to around 1,200 of the 8,000 questions received.


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: In an interview posted on his English-language website, Murakami says that the secret to understanding the novel lies in reading it several times: ""Kafka on the Shore" contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead, several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It's hard to explain, but that's the kind of novel I set out to write".


title: Kafka on the Shore

text: John Updike described it as a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender". Since its 2005 English-language release (2006 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize-winning translation by Philip Gabriel), the novel has received mostly positive reviews and critical acclaim, including a spot on "The New York Times" 10 Best Books of 2005 and the World Fantasy Award.


title: John Schnatter

text: John Hampton "Papa John" Schnatter (born November 22 or 23, 1961), is an American entrepreneur who founded the Papa John's pizza restaurant chain in 1984. Schnatter started the business in the back of his father's tavern after selling his car and using the proceeds to purchase used restaurant equipment. As of 2017, his net worth was more than $1 billion.


title: John Schnatter

text: Schnatter stepped down as CEO on January 1, 2018, after controversy around his comments that the National Football League (NFL), who had a business affiliation with Papa John's, had not done enough to stop national anthem protests by NFL players, and that the protests had hurt his business. Before he stepped down, his comments had resulted in the NFL cancelling its association with Papa John's.


title: John Schnatter

text: After stepping down as CEO, Schnatter remained chairman of the board of directors until July 2018, when it was revealed that, during an internal sensitivity-training May 2018 conference call, he claimed without evidence that Colonel Sanders had used the word "nigger" without backlash. Schnatter resigned when the comment became public, but has since maintained that the board conspired against him and unfairly forced him out of his position.


title: John Schnatter

text: Schnatter was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana, in 1961, to Mary and Robert Schnatter. His mother was a real estate agent and his father was a judge in Jeffersonville. He has German ancestry. He graduated from Jeffersonville High School in 1980 and received a business degree from Ball State University in 1983.


title: John Schnatter

text: Schnatter founded Papa John's Pizza in 1984, when he converted a broom closet in the back of his father's tavern. Schnatter sold his 1971 Z28 Camaro to purchase $1,600 worth of used pizza equipment and began selling pizzas to the tavern's customers. His pizzas proved sufficiently popular that a year later he moved into an adjoining space. The company went public in 1993. A year later it had 500 stores, and by 1997 it had opened 1,500 stores. In 2009, Schnatter reacquired the Camaro after offering a reward of $250,000 for it.


title: John Schnatter

text: In early 2005, Schnatter stepped down as president and CEO of Papa John's, but remained chairman of the board. He returned as CEO in 2008 and briefly had a co-CEO in 2010.


title: John Schnatter

text: In October 2017, in a conference call with investors, Schnatter blamed the National Football League for poor financial performance, saying, "The NFL has hurt us ... We are disappointed the NFL and its leadership did not resolve this", referring to the U.S. national anthem protests by football players. Papa John's Pizza had a marketing agreement to be the NFL's "official pizza company" and also had marketing deals with 23 of its 32 teams, and Schnatter said the protests were hurting the company's sales. Later that day, Papa John's announced that the NFL shield or "official sponsor" designation on Papa John's commercials and advertising would be removed. On December 21, 2017, Schnatter announced that he would step down as CEO of Papa John's amid controversy over his comments. He was replaced as Chief Executive Officer by Chief Operating Officer Steve Richie, effective January 1, 2018. The company said Schnatter would still appear in the chain's commercials and on its pizza boxes, and was the company's biggest shareholder with approximately 9.5 million shares. He remained chairman of the company's board of directors at the time.


title: John Schnatter

text: In July 2018, Schnatter participated in an internal training conference call with marketing consultants in which there was a role-playing exercise to help Schnatter avoid making remarks that could cause public controversy and damage the company's reputation. During the conference call, Schnatter said, "Colonel Sanders called blacks niggers and Sanders never faced public outcry". Schnatter also said that people in his home state of Indiana used to drag African Americans from trucks until they died. After the call, the owner of the marketing agency moved to end its contract with Papa John's. Schnatter resigned as chairman of the board the same day the incident was reported. Later that day, he also stepped down from the University of Louisville board of trustees.


title: John Schnatter

text: On July 26, 2018, Schnatter filed a lawsuit in Delaware against Papa John's Pizza to give him access to the company's books and records; the company did not allow him to access its business records after he resigned in the wake of the teleconference call scandal. He described the company's procedures as an "unexplained and heavy-handed way" to cut ties between him and the company. In addition to preventing him from accessing information, the corporation also implemented a "poison pill" strategy to limit Schnatter's chances of buying back a majority stake in the company. Schnatter also filed a lawsuit against the company in Kentucky in a dispute over property ownership. In January 2019, a judge ordered the company to give Schnatter access to its records relating to his ouster. A settlement of the lawsuits was announced on March 5, 2019. Under the agreement, the company agreed to share all of its records with Schnatter and to remove a part of its "poison pill" plan that restricted his communication with other shareholders, and Schnatter agreed that he would not seek to stay on the company's board of directors after his term expired on April 30, 2019, and that if a mutually agreeable independent director was chosen to replace him, he would step down before the end of his term. Schnatter retained the right to sue if the records show wrongdoing by the company. The company also agreed to remove a requirement that the activist hedge fund Starboard Value, which owns about 10% of the company, must vote in favor of the incumbent board. As of March 2019, Schnatter remained the owner of 31% of the company's shares, but by May 23, he had sold 3.8 million shares and reduced his stake in the company to 19%. By November 2019, his stake was under 17%.


title: John Schnatter

text: In June 2019, the company was the fourth-largest take-out and pizza delivery restaurant chain in the world, with headquarters in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, part of the Louisville metropolitan area.


title: John Schnatter

text: In November 2019, Schnatter made his first public comments after leaving Papa John's to Louisville Fox affiliate WDRB. In the interview, he admitted he had used the word "nigger" during an internal conference call on diversity training, but said he did so to convey his hatred of racism and was quoting someone else. Schnatter said, "I've had over 40 pizzas in the last 30 days, and it's not the same pizza. It's not the same product. It just doesn't taste as good." He warned that "the day of reckoning will come". The interview subsequently went viral, with numerous parodies appearing online. In an interview three months later, Schnatter said he had not actually eaten over 40 pizzas in 30 days. Instead, he had tasted over 40 pizzas during that time, as a quality inspection activity. Schnatter also criticized the way the company had been run immediately after his departure by Steve Ritchie, who was described as his former protégé. Ritchie had replaced him as CEO, but had been dismissed after less than a year, and Schnatter said he saw more common ground with Jeff Smith, who became chairman of the board in February 2019. "The one thing he and I agree on is that Steve Ritchie is not a CEO," Schnatter said.


title: John Schnatter

text: In 1996, Schnatter started a Louisville-based real estate company called Evergreen Real Estate. The company owns a number of historic properties in Schnatter's home community of Anchorage, Kentucky.


title: John Schnatter

text: Schnatter launched a business called Calistoga Artisan Sandwiches in 2007. In 2008, he made a million-dollar contribution to the Louisville Zoo's Glacier Run expansion in exchange for Calistoga having naming rights to an adjacent water park. The Calistoga business was mostly shut down in 2012, although three locations continued to operate in Naples, Florida.


title: John Schnatter

text: In response to the unhealthiness of processed foods and the rise of commercial farms, Schnatter announced the creation of Papa Farms at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2022. The farm plans to grow crops without GMOs, pesticides and fertilizer.


title: John Schnatter

text: In 1983, Schnatter sold his 1971 Chevrolet Camaro to help his father's struggling business. He used the leftover funds to start Papa John's. Decades later, he offered a reward of $250,000 for the car, and on August 26, 2009, he bought it back for $250,000. The family he sold it to had sold it, but he still paid them a $25,000 finders' fee. In celebration, Papa John's offered a free pizza to anyone who owned a Camaro. Schnatter's original Camaro has been on display in the company's headquarters in Louisville. The company owns several replicas that are used on tours and for public and TV appearances. On August 15, 2015, Schnatter's original Camaro was stolen along with two other classic cars in Detroit, where they were slated to appear in the city's annual Woodward Dream Cruise. The Camaro was recovered two days later on the city's west side with minimal damage.


title: John Schnatter

text: Schnatter married Annette Cox in 1987. The couple lived in Anchorage, Kentucky, and had three children. Cox filed for divorce on December 5, 2019, and said they had been separated for eight months.


title: John Schnatter

text: In 1999, Schnatter was accused of stalking and groping a woman. He claimed the woman was trying to extort him for $5 million. The situation ended with a confidential settlement. In 2009, Schnatter was accused of sexual misconduct involving a 24-year-old female marketing employee, resulting in a confidential settlement.


title: John Schnatter

text: In 2012, Papa John's and Schnatter received media attention after he made critical comments about the Affordable Care Act to a class on entrepreneurship. In a shareholder conference call, Schnatter said that he opposed the ACA because "our best estimate is that the Obamacare will cost 11 to 14 cents per pizza".


title: John Schnatter

text: Schnatter hosted a fundraiser at his home for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in May 2012. Schnatter also contributed to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and made supportive comments about his administration in January 2017.


title: John Schnatter

text: Schnatter spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2022, attacking cancel culture and President Joe Biden's small business policies. He also pushed a conspiracy theory that Biden created the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis to serve as "a great distraction from all the real issues here that affect Americans."


title: John Schnatter

text: In December 2015, Schnatter's charitable foundation donated $8 million to the University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics to establish a research and teaching institute.