Yell () is one of the North Isles of Shetland, Scotland. In the 2011 census it had a usually resident population of 966. It is the second largest island in Shetland after the Mainland with an area of , and is the third most populous in the archipelago (fifteenth out of the islands in Scotland), after the Mainland and Whalsay.

The island's bedrock is largely composed of Moine schist with a north–south grain, which was uplifted during the Caledonian mountain building period. Peat covers two-thirds of the island to an average depth of .

Yell has been inhabited since the Neolithic times, and a dozen broch sites have been identified from the pre-Norse period. Norse rule lasted from the 9th to 14th centuries until Scottish control was asserted. The modern economy of the island is based on crofting, fishing, transport and tourism. The island claims to be the "Otter Capital of Britain" and has a diverse bird life including breeding populations of great and Arctic skuas. At times, whales and dolphins also appear off the coast.

Notable buildings on the island include the 17th-century Old Haa of Brough in Burravoe, a merchant's house now converted to a museum and visitor centre. There are various folk tales and modern literary references to island life.

Geography
Yell is  in length, with a maximum breadth of , and is swept all around by very impetuous tides. The island extends northward to within  of the northwestern extremity of Unst. It is divided by only the narrow Bluemull Sound from the south west of Unst.
On the eastern side the coast is generally low and sandy but there is an extensive rocky and partly precipitous coast on the west that rises slowly to elevations of . It is indented by seven or eight bays forming natural harbours. As Penrith's guide to Orkney and Shetland states:

"The island is roughly rectangular and nearly cut in two where the long voes of Whale Firth and Mid Yell almost meet."

In addition to these large indentations, there are a number of tombolos connecting peninsulas to the island. Many of these are very fragile, and can be damaged extremely easily by human erosion, or severe storms, creating new islands - or resurrecting old ones.

There is comparatively little farmland, but the coast is conducive to fishing. Much of the interior of Yell is covered in a peat blanket, often as much as  thick, which is the result of 3,000 years of deposits. The peat retains a great deal of water, but is easily eroded, particularly when it comes near to the coast. As Jill Slee Blackadder writes:

"Some streams carve deep sided gorges. Among these habitats, you can find a wealth of wild flowers and birds nest here in peace."

The island was anciently divided into the parishes of North Yell, Mid Yell, and South Yell. More recently the parish of North Yell was merged with that of Fetlar, and Mid Yell and South Yell were amalgamated. In 1991, North Yell was merged with Mid and South Yell to the new civil parish of Yell, leaving Fetlar a parish of its own. The island is still divided into the ecclesiastical parish Mid Yell and the quoad sacra parishes North Yell and South Yell.

As with the Shetland archipelago as a whole, the island can be seen as creating a barrier between the northern end of the North Sea (to the east) and the North Atlantic (to the west). To the north east is the Norwegian Sea, and the Arctic Ocean is several hundred km to the north.

Attractions on the island include the Sands of Breckon composed of crushed shells, and the Daal of Lumbister gorge.

Settlements
Settlements on Yell tend to be coastal and include Burravoe, home to the Old Haa Museum, Mid Yell, Cullivoe and Gloup, as well as Ulsta, Gutcher, Aywick, West Yell, Sellafirth, Copister, Camb, Otterswick, and West Sandwick.

There is little in the way of modern settlements on the west coast other than West Sandwick, mainly because of the prevailing wind and the high cliffs that border much of it. There are a few crofts along Whale Firth, including Windhouse (see notable buildings), and at Grimister there are the ruins of an old herring curing station, which closed just after World War II.

Surrounding islands

The following islands surround Yell: Aastack, Bigga, Black Skerry, Brother Isle, Brough, Burravoe Chest, Fish Holm, Gloup Holm, Gold Skerry, Green Holm, Grey Stack, Hascosay, Holm of West Sandwick, Horns of the Roe, Kay Holm, Linga, Muckle Holm, Neapback Skerries, Orfasay, Outsta Ness, Rug, Skerry Wick, Stacks of Stuis, Sweinna Stack, The Clapper, The Quidin, Whalegeo Stacks, Whilkie Stack, and Ern Stack.

Geology and soils

Yell lies to the east of the Walls boundary fault, which is probably a northern extension of the Great Glen fault. There are three main faults that dictate the geography of Yell - the first is the Bluemull Fault, which separates Yell from Unst by creating the Bluemull Sound; the second is the Arisdale Fault which forms the northern part of Whale Firth, and extends south to Arisdale, and out of Hamnavoe; and the third is the Nesting Fault, which more or less creates Yell Sound, and divides Yell from Mainland Shetland. A fourth fault helps create Gloup Voe, and there are some other minor ones. These faults may be seen as radiating branches of the Walls Fault, and were exacerbated by glacial activity.

The island's bedrock is largely composed of Moine schist with a north–south grain, a metamorphosed sedimentary rock originally laid down in shallow water 1,000-800 million years ago and then uplifted and deformed during the Caledonian orogeny 600-400 million years ago. The principal minerals are coarse quartzite, quartz-feldspar gneiss and mica schist.

In common with the rest of Scotland, Yell was covered in thick ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages. Some of the island's gorges, such as the Daal of Lumbister, may have originally been created by ancient meltwater streams escaping from underneath retreating glaciers, and it is also thought some of Yell's lochs were originally dammed by moraines.

After the ice melted the island would have experienced a large tsunami some 8,000 years BP associated with the Storegga Slides. The inundation would have reached  above normal high tides. There is also some evidence at Basta Voe in the north west of a more recent event of a similar nature. In modern times, the non-porous nature of the bedrock, the presence of boulder clay and the cool and damp climate have conspired to create large expanses of peat. This covers two-thirds of the island with an average depth of . Its main constituent materials are sphagnum moss, cotton grass, deer grass, heather and sedge. This peat is highly important to the islanders as a fuel source, and in some areas is even worked commercially. It is cut with a tushker (a type of peat spade, akin to the Highland cascrom), and according to Blackadder (2003) "Yell boasts some of the best peat stacking skills in Shetland."

There is also some dune habitat near West Sandwick, something pretty rare in the Shetland Islands; controversially, there has been some commercial extraction of the sand from this area, which may have had a significant environmental impact.

History

Origin of name

There are various possible derivations of the island's name. The name Yell, recorded in the 1300s as Iala, may be of Brittonic origin, deriving from *iala, meaning "unfruitful land" (c.f. Iâl, Wales). The Proto-Norse was Jala or Jela which may have meant 'white island' referring to the beaches. The Old Norse was Gjall signifying 'barren'. Neighbouring Unst may also have a pre-Norse name. The name was also recorded in 1586 as "Yella".
In early modern times, it was written as "Zell" (cf "Zetland"), a mistranscription of  "Ȝell", from an initial yogh. Shetland originates from "Hjaltland", and the "Ȝ" was used to symbolize the initial sound in the old pronunciation.
This makes another possible explanation plausible, connected to the Norse words "hjalli" or "hjallr", terrace in a mountainside or a ledge, scaffolding, even the ones used for drying fish. "Hjell" is the current spelling and pronunciation in Norwegian, and "hjallar" is the possessive singular or nominative plural form in Old Norse.

Early history

Yell has been inhabited since the Neolithic times. A petrosomatoglyph or stone footprint at North Yell, up Hena, is known locally as the 'Wartie' and was used to wash in dew or rain-water and standing in it was supposed to get rid of warts. In legend it was made by a giant placing one foot here and the other on the Westing of Unst.

Twelve broch sites are known of and fifteen early chapels. The evidence suggests a substantial population in the Pre-Norse period. One of the brochs is Burra Ness Broch. Only part of the wall remains, on the seaward side. This reaches around  high in places. There are traces of earthen ramparts on the landward side, and remains of a structure which may have been a guard's cell. There are also remains of an Iron Age blockhouse fort at Burgi Geos. Burravoe's name derives partly from a nearby broch - the element "Burra" frequently being a corruption of the Norse for one.

Yell's placenames reveal the presence of the Celtic Church, whose hermits were known to the Norse as papar. Examples of names related to them include Papil Ness, Loch of Papil and Papil Bay. However, it is unclear whether these names are all pre-Norse, or whether these Christian co-existed with the pagan Norsemen after they invaded. There is evidence of an early Culdee monastery at the Birrier in the west of Yell, near West Sandwick. The Birrier was almost certainly in contact with another monastic settlement directly opposite, across Yell Sound, at the Kame of Isbister on the Northmavine Peninsula of Mainland. A service was held in 2000, at the Birrier to commemorate two millennia of Christianity.

A cross slab from North Yell may also be from this period, but it has since been lost. It is presumed to be like the Bressay Stone.

Norse era
Yell Sound is mentioned in the Orkneyinga saga: "Earl Rögnvald... and the chiefs Sölmond and Jón with him... had a fine body of troops, though not too numerous, and five or six ships. They arrived at Hjaltland [Shetland] about the middle of summer, but heard nothing of Frákork. Strong and contrary winds sprung up, and they brought their ships to Alasund (Yell Sound), and went a-feasting over the country."

In the later Norse period Christianity flourished and foundations of 20 chapels dating from this period have been identified.

The primary Norse legacy is an array of placenames of potentially fully or sometimes partial Old Norse origin. For example, "Dalsetter" is a combination of dalr meaning a "dale" or "valley", either from Old Norse or Old English, possibly influenced by both; and setr meaning a "hill pasture" or shieling, or as a (potentially Norse) interpretation of Old English ("sǣte"). "Gossawater" is a combination of either Old English "gōs" and/or Old Norse "gás" (goose), á (river) and vatn (a lake/loch) anglicised as "water". Other potentially Norse elements on Yell include "firth" which is from either or possibly both the Old English ""Ford"" and Old Norse "fjörðr" as in Whale Firth, "voe" which is an Old Norse cognate with English 'way' (Old English 'weġ')(Old Norse vagr) as in "Gloup Voe", "sound" (Both Old English and Old Norse use sund) as in "Bluemull Sound" and "-a(y)" (ey) as in nearby Hascosay and Linga.

Hanseatic trade and early modern period

Although most of Shetland's Hanseatic trade was conducted from Scalloway, Burravoe was one of the most important of the other Hanseatic centres in the archipelago.

In the 17th century, the Dutch East Indian Ship, Lastdrager was wrecked on Yell, and the survivor, Jan Camphuis wrote favorably of his experiences on the island. He noted the generosity and kindness of the islanders to him while he was there, which he believed was disproportionate to their poverty. Yell is mentioned by Martin Martin in his 1695 A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland where he noted that "there are three churches, and several small chapels in it."

The Rev. Crutwell in the 18th century said of Yell that "the inhabitants have plenty of fuel, catch immense quantities of small fish, and live comfortably."

Modern history

Johnnie Notions successfully carried out early smallpox inoculations on Yell in the 18th century, at a time when many other places remained sceptical.

In the 1841 New Statistical Account the minister of Fetlar and North Yell noted that although smuggling had almost entirely disappeared the local population had "fallen into an abominable habit of smoking tobacco". In the same year the minister of Mid and South Yell observed a rise of 50% in the local price of black cattle due to the introduction of a fortnightly steamer service from Lerwick to Leith that had enabled exports of livestock to mainland Scotland. Fishing on Yell received a particularly vicious blow when 53 fishermen were killed in a storm off Gloup in 1881. There is a memorial to them there now.

Germans have claimed that during the First World War their U-boats used to shelter in Whale Firth – this is possible because of the very low population of the area.

During the Second World War the Luftwaffe bombed the post office at Gutcher in an attempt to disrupt the communications system. On 19 January 1942 a Catalina airplane crashed on the hill above Burravoe. Seven of her ten passengers were killed and one of the propellers can be seen outside the Old Haa Museum.

Just after the Second World War the old herring curing station at Grimister closed; this was to be one in a long line of economic difficulties including the loss of fishing.

Between 1953 and 1964 Dr Robert Hope-Simpson, a GP, carried out painstaking research establishing that shingles is the reactivation of previously acquired chickenpox (varicella) virus.

In 1961 a Soviet spy ship sank off Yell; the wreck was found by Lieutenant George Wookey, who had also investigated the wreck that inspired Whisky Galore in the Outer Hebrides. It was an undercover plain clothes mission; Lt. Wookey found the wreck  down in clear water.

During the 1960s Yell reached an impasse. It was in 1965 that the Orcadian novelist Eric Linklater said that Yell was "the problem child of the archipelago" due to its economic woes and burgeoning depopulation. Some blamed this on the islanders' "social egalitarianism", which supposedly prevented anyone from becoming a "leader or entrepreneur"; Haswell-Smith disagrees but believes that "airing the matter seems to have helped" It is certainly notable that the tiny remote Out Skerries seem to be wealthier and that Whalsay is better at retaining its population. Yell is neither near Lerwick like Bressay nor bridged to the mainland like Burra or Muckle Roe. Some Yell people do commute to work at Sullom Voe, but as this appears to be a declining industry this does not hold out hope for the future. Unlike neighbouring Fetlar, Yell never suffered large scale clearances, only some local ones, and has long had multiple ownership. Jim Crumley, himself an incomer, has noted the difficulties faced by Yell by both depopulation and repopulation.

Flora and fauna

The coastline of Yell includes numerous voes (narrow inlets) where otters and various seabirds are common. Brown trout can be found in the inland waters.

Mammals
Yell claims to be the "Otter Capital of Britain". The shore is low-lying and the peaty soil is soft, making it ideal for excavation burrows. The long days in summer also make spotting these largely nocturnal creatures in daylight more likely than on the British mainland. Hugh Miles' documentary The Track of the Wild Otter was shot on location at Burra Ness at the mouth of Busta Voe; it gained awards and was produced for the BBC. Grey and common seals are also regular visitors to Yell's coast. Yell occasionally receives the odd Arctic visitor besides the tern; in 1977, a stray bearded seal was recorded. Normally these creatures only live on the pack ice. Humans have introduced a number of animals including rabbits, and it has even been questioned whether otters could have arrived by themselves, although this is controversial. Porpoises are occasionally seen nearby too.

The island has its own subspecies of field mouse, as do some of the other Shetland Islands, and Hirta in St Kilda.

Birds
A population of Arctic terns, known locally as tirricks (stress on last syllable; an onomatopoeic word), migrates to Shetland from Antarctica during the summer. As swallows are sometimes seen as harbingers of summer elsewhere, in Yell and Shetland, it is the tirricks or terns that fulfil this role -

"On Yell [the Arctic tern] has the impact of August on a heather moor, and nothing draws the islander closer to nature's year than the first tern."

Other birds that regularly visit Yell include great and Arctic skuas, various terns, eider, Eurasian whimbrel, red-throated diver, dunlin, golden plover, twite, lapwing and merlin. The Eigg, and Ern Stack in the north west of Yell, is the last known nesting site of Shetland sea eagles, which were recorded there in 1910.

Flora
Yell has many of the usual plants found in northern European moorland, especially heather in abundance, including two carnivorous plants, the butterwort and the sundew. A substantial study of the flora of Yell's dry stone walls was undertaken in 1986–87. Lichens, especially
Ramalina species, were the most commonly found plants.

The gorges in the island, such as the Daal of Lumbister provide an important environment for some of the few trees on the island, since they are untouched by sheep grazing. Before human colonisation, it appears that Yell was wooded to some degree, at least with dwarf trees and shrubs. In the gorge at the head of Gloup Voe, dog roses and honeysuckle can be found. As the peat preserves old plants and pollen to some degree, due to its anaerobic nature, it is possible to get some sense of the former vegetation of the island. For example, it is known that 40,000 years ago, before the advent of the last ice age, and probably any human habitation, that oak, Scots pine and Mediterranean heathers were growing here. The remains of these plants have been preserved in layers of ancient peat, which were in turn buried by the boulder clay left by glacial moraines.

Transportation

Yell is a transport hub for the neighbouring islands of Unst and Fetlar.

The Yell Sound Ferry sails from Ulsta on the island to Toft on the Shetland Mainland. The service is operated by two ferries—Daggri (Norse for "dawn"), launched in 2003 and Dagalien (Norse for "dusk"), launched in 2004. These vessels, built in Gdańsk in Poland, can each carry 31 cars or 4 trucks, as well as 95 passengers. The crossing takes approximately 20 minutes, and ferries leave around every half-hour at peak times. The Bluemull Sound Ferry sails from Gutcher on Yell to Belmont on Unst and Oddsta on Fetlar. The ferries travel to Unst approximately every half-hour during the day, and to Fetlar a few times every day. The journey to Unst takes ten minutes, while travelling to Fetlar takes 25 minutes. The service is operated by Bigga and Geira.

There are two main roads, the A968 and the B9081. The A968 runs from Ulsta in the south west of the island to Gutcher in the north east, linking the ferry to and from Mainland, Shetland, with those going to Unst and Fetlar. Despite being a listed A road, it is single track in some stretches with passing places. The B9081 is single track with passing places. It runs along the south coast of Yell, and up its east, and part of the north east too. The stretch from Mid Yell to Gutcher is replaced by the A968, but it recommences after that.

Economy
Yell's industries include fishing, fish farming, farming (including commercial strawberry production in polytunnels, mainly for the Shetland market), peat cutting, transport and tourism.

Cullivoe had a new deep water harbour built in 1991, but the general decline in fish stocks in the North Sea and North Atlantic has not made it useful to fishing. It may however fulfil a transport role.

In January 2008, the Shetland Development Trust gave a loan worth £11,000 to Global Yell Ltd, in order to develop "creative industries", i.e. textile weaving and music.

The "world's first community-owned tidal power generator" became operational during April 2014 in Bluemull Sound. The turbine is a 30 kW device by Nova Innovation. North Yell Development Council believed that the project could make a significant contribution to the local economy.

Notable buildings and structures
Built in 1707, the now ruined stone building of Windhouse is claimed as the most haunted house in Shetland. In 1880, when Windhouse was renovated, skeletons were found under the floor of the building. After lying empty for over 80 years, it was bought in 2003 by an English couple intending to restore it. As of February 2015, no restoration has taken place and the property is back on the market.

Windhouse Lodge is the solidly built gatehouse to Windhouse and is run by Shetland Amenity Trust as a camping Böd. This is a well-equipped böd providing accommodation for up to eight people in three bedrooms. Facilities include a hot water heater, shower, crockery, basic cooking utensils, fridge, microwave, kettle, compact cooker with grill, oven and 2 hotplates.

The Old Haa of Brough in Burravoe is a substantial merchant's house built in 1672 now converted to a museum and visitor centre.

At Kirkabister, the remains of a former pony stud can be seen. The enclosure is unusual in appearance, having each of its four corners slightly elevated. There are only a handful of such enclosures in the archipelago.

Folklore
At Breckon it is said that when an eroding grave was excavated, a number of human skeletons were uncovered, one of which was not only at least seven-foot tall, but had small stumpy "horns" above the temples. Whether this man was a mutant or this is a tall story is unclear.

Like all good Nordic lands, Yell has its trolls (known in the Northern Isles as "trows" or "trowes"). The Trow of Windhouse was about as recently as the 1880s, when a shipwrecked sailor claimed he had been attacked by the mythical monster. However, the sailor was courageous enough to fight the creature, and saw it off with an axe. It is said that where he killed the trow, the grass turned a light green. This was not the only trow by any means, and there is another story of a Yell woman coming upon a family of trowes, who later woke up to find one in the house, asking who he was, he said "I am Trippa's son". The woman said a prayer, and the trowe disappeared.

Literature

George MacKay Brown
George Mackay Brown, an Orcadian poet, wrote a poem which has a Yell-man of 1263 as a narrator.

I am a farmer from Yell in Shetland.
Bjorn my mother called me.

Bjorn grows up amongst "seals and clouds and birds and women" on the island, but this idyll is contrasted with his father's disappearance, and profession as a Viking pirate covered in scars and "harvesting" silver.

Jim Crumley and Among Islands
Jim Crumley is a Dundonian who bought a semi-ruined cottage on Yell. He has written extensively on Yell in the book Among Islands (1994), which contains subject matter ranging from St Kilda and the Hebrides to Shetland. He says his original interest in islands sprung from seeing Inchcape out in the distance, as a teenager. He worked for over twenty years in various newspapers, usually writing about Scottish wildlife and landscapes; his later work has included a number of books on the Scottish islands, and mountains, often including his own photographs.

Crumley has said, "You could never argue with conviction that Yell is a beautiful place", but some others such as Jill Blackadder rate the Sands of Breckon and the cliff scenery of Gloup Voe as some of the best in Shetland. Despite issuing an apparent dismissal, Crumley still has a definite affection for the island, and its almost mechanical role in Shetland as a whole. In fact, the statement turns out to be a kind of a backhanded compliment:

"It looks the way Orkney must have in centuries past before that relentless greening began. The only green on a Yell moor in April is a boggy ooze. Yet Yell is the Shetland I carry with me, the Shetland I pack when I leave, the Shetland I am impatient for when I return. It works because of where it is, an island among islands, a perfectly sealed lynchpin, which makes geographical sense of Shetland, and without which the whole archipelago would slide out of kilter and slither uncontrollably into the sea."

As an incomer himself, he writes on the complications that this has caused the island:

"As elsewhere, the island has suffered from depopulation, and has been challenged by repopulation... good intentions do not turn an incomer into a son of the island soil. That is not to say that there is no place for the incomer [though]."

See also
 List of islands of Scotland

References

Sources
Nicolson, James R. (1972) Shetland. Newton Abbott. David & Charles.
The geography section incorporates text from Wilson, Rev. John (1882) The Gazetteer of Scotland Edinburgh. W. & A.K. Johnstone.

External links

 Shetlopedia.com – Yell
 Listen to recordings of a speaker of Yell Scots
 Haunted house to get makeover
 BBC Island Blogging, Blogs from Yell

Islands of Shetland
National Trust for Scotland properties
Parishes of Shetland
1881 disasters in the United Kingdom
Aviation accidents and incidents locations in Scotland

Yell, Shetland


Richard Bancroft (1544 –  2 November 1610) was an English churchman, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1604 to 1610 and "chief overseer" of the King James Bible.

Life

Bancroft was born in September 1544 at Farnworth, now part of Widnes, Cheshire, second son of John Bancroft, and his wife Mary. His mother was the daughter of James Curwen and niece to Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin from 1555 to 1567, then Bishop of Oxford until his death in November 1568.

He was initially educated at the local grammar school, founded by bishop William Smyth, also from Farnworth, before moving to Cambridge. He first attended Christ's College, followed by Jesus College; he took his degree of BA in 1567, then MA in 1570.

He was older than most students, reportedly due to money problems, and apparently more successful at sports than study; in 1564, his uncle Hugh obtained a sinecure for him at St Patrick's, Dublin. Ordained about that time, he was named chaplain to Richard Cox, then bishop of Ely, and in 1575 was presented to the rectory of Teversham in Cambridgeshire. The next year he was one of the preachers to the university.

He graduated BD in 1580 and DD five years later. In 1584 he was made rector of St Andrew, Holborn. In 1585 he was appointed treasurer of St Paul's Cathedral, London, and in 1586 was made a member of the ecclesiastical commission. On 9 February 1589 he preached at Paul's Cross a sermon, the substance of which was a passionate attack on the Puritans. He described their speeches and proceedings, caricatured their motives, denounced the exercise of the right of private judgment, and set forth the divine right of bishops in such strong language that one of the queen's councillors held it to amount to a threat against the supremacy of the crown.

In the following year Bancroft was made a prebendary of St Paul's; he had been canon of Westminster since 1587. He was chaplain successively to Lord Chancellor Hatton and Archbishop Whitgift. In June 1597, he was consecrated Bishop of London; and from this time, in consequence of the age and incapacity for business of Archbishop Whitgift, he was virtually invested with the power of primate, and had the sole management of ecclesiastical affairs. Among the more noteworthy cases which fell under his direction were the proceedings against "Martin Marprelate", Thomas Cartwright and his friends, and John Penry, whose "seditious writings" he caused to be intercepted and given up to the Lord Keeper.

In 1600 he was sent on an embassy, with others, to Emden, for the purpose of settling certain matters in dispute between the English and the Danes. This mission, however, failed. Bancroft was present at the death of Queen Elizabeth.

Archbishop of Canterbury

In March 1604 Bancroft, on Whitgift's death, was appointed by royal writ president of convocation then assembled; and he there presented a book of canons collected by himself. It was adopted and received the royal approval, but was strongly opposed and set aside by Parliament two months afterwards. In the following November he was elected successor to Whitgift in the see of Canterbury. He continued to show the same zeal and severity as before, and with so much success that Lord Clarendon, writing in his praise, expressed the opinion that "if Bancroft had lived, he would quickly have extinguished all that fire in England which had been kindled at Geneva."

In 1608 he was chosen chancellor of the University of Oxford. One of his last public acts was a proposal laid before Parliament for improving the revenues of the Church, and a project for a college of controversial divinity at Chelsea. In the last few months of his life he took part in the discussion about the consecration of certain Scottish bishops, and it was in pursuance of his advice that they were consecrated by several bishops of the English Church. By this act were laid the foundations of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Bancroft was "the chief overseer" of the authorized version of the Bible. He died at Lambeth Palace on 2 November 1610.

Discovery of his coffin

In 2016, during the refurbishment of the Garden Museum, which is housed at the medieval church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, 30 lead coffins were found; one with an archbishop's red and gold mitre on top of it. On one of these coffins, a metal plate served to identify it as being that of Bancroft.

See also

 John Bancroft, his nephew and Master of University College, Oxford
 Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin 1555 to 1567, Bishop of Oxford 1567 to 1568

References

Sources

 *

External links
 Bancroft, Richard. (1693.) A Survey of the Pretended Holy Discipline (in English). London: Richard Hodgkinson. This work is critical of the Puritan's doctrinal textbook, the Disciplina.

1544 births
1610 deaths
Translators of the King James Version
17th-century English Anglican priests
People from Widnes
16th-century Church of England bishops
17th-century Anglican archbishops
Bishops of London
Archbishops of Canterbury
Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge
Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge
Chancellors of the University of Oxford
Doctors of Divinity
Burials at St Mary-at-Lambeth
People from Farnworth
16th-century Anglican theologians
17th-century Anglican theologians

Richard Bancroft


Pita  is a type of flatbread. Sometimes it is called pitta  or pide (Turkish), pitka (Bulgarian) and pronounced "pitta" in Greek). Pita is often round, brown, wheat flatbread made with yeast.

Pita is traditionally made in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean. It is also used in the cuisines of these countries. It can also be found in North Africa and the Levant.

Possibly, it was spread by the Ancient Greek city states colonies, or by the spread of the Islam through the region.

In Turkish cuisine, pide may refer to thicker breads made with yeast, for example shish kebab pide. It may also refer to foods using many thin layers of dough, usually with many different ingredients in between. That way, pies such as tyropita and spanakopita or sweet pies such as baclava are made.

The Indian flatbread form of roti is sometimes referred to as "Indian pita".

References

Middle Eastern foods
Turkish food
Greek food
Azerbaijani food
Persian food
Flatbreads

Pita


The New York Harbor refers to waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay and port in New York City and New Jersey. The term is used to refer to the Upper New York Bay. The main port facilities are in Elizabeth, New Jersey and Newark, New Jersey. "New York harbor" sometimes refers to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the port district for New York metropolitan area, under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority.

Geography of New York City
Transport in New Jersey

New York Harbor


Warren Kendall Lewis (21 August 1882 – 9 March 1975) was an MIT professor who has been called the father of modern chemical engineering.  He co-authored an early major textbook on the subject which essentially introduced the concept of unit operations. He also co-developed the Houdry process under contract to The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil) into modern fluid catalytic cracking with Edwin R. Gilliland, another MIT professor.

Life
Lewis was born in Laurel, Delaware, on 21 August 1882 and went to MIT to study engineering.  He took the chemical engineering option from the department of chemistry, matriculating in 1901.  This so engaged him that he went for postgraduate study of physical chemistry in Breslau, Germany, receiving the degree of DSc in 1908.  Shortly after, he returned to MIT to join the teaching staff.

In 1909 Lewis published a paper on "The Theory of Fractional Distillation" which was the basis for subsequent chemical engineering calculation methods. (He later authored 19 patents on distillation.) In 1920 he became the first head of the newly formed department of chemical engineering at MIT a position he held for 13 years before returning to teaching and research.

In November 1942 Lewis was appointed to chair a committee to survey the Manhattan Project and review all aspects of the bomb research and development, partly because of du Pont's doubts about the plutonium process. Their report dated December 4 supported the plutonium project. It also recommended concentrating on the gaseous diffusion process for enriching uranium and building only a small electromagnetic plant. Conant supported building a large electromagnetic plant, which Nichols says was essential to dropping the bomb in August rather than months later. The committee also suggested suitable industrial organisations and ... furnished us with a blueprint for the complete industrial organization of the project which Groves mostly followed ... and gave us more confidence concerning the feasibility of producing sufficient quantities of fissionable material. In April–May 1944 another committee under Lewis recommended construction of the S-50 thermal diffusion plant developed by Philip Abelson of the US Navy.

He was made professor emeritus in 1948 and continued to work within the department until his death on 9 March 1975.

Honors
1936 Perkin Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry
1947 Lamme Medal of the American Society of Engineering Education
1947 Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society.  He was the first chemical engineer to achieve the Priestley Medal.
1949 American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal
1957 E. V. Murphree Award
He is commemorated in the Warren K. Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education of the AIChE and in the Warren K. Lewis Lectureship at MIT.

References

1882 births
1975 deaths
American physical chemists
American chemical engineers
American Congregationalists
American textbook writers
American male non-fiction writers
MIT School of Engineering faculty
Fluid dynamicists
National Medal of Science laureates
Manhattan Project people
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American chemists
20th-century American engineers

Warren K. Lewis


Nauplion is a Greek city. It is in the Argolida's prefecture, in the east of Peloponnese peninsula. Near Nauplio is the historical city of Argos. Nauplio was the first capital of Greece. Nauplio is a coastal city. It has three castles. The most famous are the Palamidi castle, and Bourtzi castle which is on the islet in front of the port. The population of Nauplion is 13,124 inhabitants.

History
Nauplion was the second capital of Greece. In 1834 the king Otto carried the capital to Athens. Nauplion was one of the first cities which were liberated during Greek War of Independence.

Sites of interest

Nauplion has many sites of interest. The most interest sites are its three castle. Its old neighborhoods are also very beautiful places for visit. In Nauplion there are many old beautiful buildings from previous century.

Cities in Greece

Nauplion


Matsui Keishirō (, 28 March 1868 - 4 June 1946) was a Japanese diplomat during the Showa period and later Minister of Foreign Affairs. He graduated from the Law School of Tokyo Imperial University in 1889, and entered the Foreign Ministry the same year. In 1890, he was given a post in the Japanese embassy in Seoul in 1890, and in 1895 was sent to the United States. In April 1889, he served in London. In 1902, he was re-assigned to Beijing. He returned to Japan in 1913.

During World War I, Matsui served as Japanese Ambassador to France from November, 1915. When he finished this mission, he was awarded with the title of baron (danshaku) under the kazoku peerage system. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 7 January to 11 June 1924 under the government of Kiyoura Keigo.

References

More readings
 Phillips Payson O'Brien 2004. The Anglo-Japanese alliance, 1902-1922, Routledge,

1868 births
1946 deaths
Japanese diplomats
Politicians from Osaka Prefecture

Matsui Keishirō


From its creation to the present day, London Underground's 150-year history has been an eventful one.

London Underground milestones
1843

Constructed by Sir Marc Brunel and his son Isambard, the Thames Tunnel opens

1863

On 10 January, The Metropolitan Railway opens the world's first underground railway, between Paddington (then called Bishop's Road) and Farringdon Street

1868

The first section of the Metropolitan District Railway, from South Kensington to Westminster (now part of the District and Circle lines), opens

1869

The first steam trains travel through the Brunels' Thames Tunnel

1880

Running from the Tower of London to Bermondsey, the first Tube tunnel opens

1884

The Circle line is completed

1890

On 18 December, The City and South London Railway opens the world's first deep-level electric railway. It runs from King William Street in the City of London, under the River Thames, to Stockwell

1900

The Prince of Wales opens the Central London Railway from Shepherd's Bush to Bank (the 'Twopenny Tube'). This is now part of the Central line

1902

The Underground Electric Railway Company of London (known as the Underground Group) is formed. By the start of WWI, mergers had brought all lines - except the Metropolitan line

1905

District and Circle lines become electrified

1906

Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (now part of the Bakerloo line) opens and runs from Baker Street to Kennington Road (now Lambeth North). Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (now part of the Piccadilly line) opens between Hammersmith and Finsbury Park

1907

Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (now part of the Northern line) opens and runs from Charing Cross to Golders Green and Highgate (now Archway). Albert Stanley (later Lord Ashfield) is appointed General Manager of the Underground Electric Railway Company of London Limited

1908

The name 'Underground' makes its first appearance in stations, and the first electric ticket-issuing machine is introduced. This year also sees the first appearance of the famous roundel symbol

1911

London's first escalators are installed at Earl's Court station

1929

The last manually-operated doors on Tube trains are replaced by air-operated doors

1933
 The Underground Group and the Metropolitan Railway become part of the London Passenger Transport Board, taking control of all the Capital's railway, bus, tram, trolleybus and coach services
 Harry Beck presents the first diagram of the Underground map
1940

Between September 1940 and May 1945, most Tube station platforms are used as air raid shelters. Some, like the Piccadilly line, Holborn - Aldwych branch, are closed to store British Museum treasures

1948

The London Passenger Transport Board was nationalised and now becomes the London Transport Executive

1952

The first aluminium train enters service on the District line

1961

Sees the end of the steam and electric locomotive haulage of London Transport passenger trains

1963

The London Transport Executive becomes the London Transport Board, reporting directly to the Minister of Transport

1969

The Queen opens the Victoria line

1970

The London Transport Executive takes over the Underground and the Greater London area bus network, reporting to Greater London Council

1971
 The last steam shunting and freight locomotive is withdrawn from service
 The Victoria line extends to Brixton
1975

A fatal accident on the Northern line at Moorgate kills 43 people. New safety measures were introduced

1977

The Queen opens Heathrow Central station (Terminals 1 2 3) on the Piccadilly line

1979

The Prince of Wales opens the Jubilee line

1980

A museum about the birthplace of modern urban transportation, called Brunel Engine House, opens to the public

1983

Dot matrix train destination indicators introduced on platforms.

1984

The Hammersmith & City and the Circle lines convert to one-person operation

1986

The Piccadilly line is extended to serve Heathrow Terminal 4

1987

A tragic fire at King's Cross station kills 31 people

1989

New safety and fire regulations are introduced following the Fennell Report into the King's Cross fire

1992

The London Underground Customer Charter is launched

1993
 Reconstruction work on Angel station ended
 Work started on the extended Jubilee line from Green Park to Stratford
1994
 Penalty fares are introduced
 London Underground takes over the Waterloo & City line and responsibility for the stations on the Wimbledon branch of the District line from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon Park
 Aldwych station, and the Central line branch from Epping to Ongar closes
1999
 London Underground is restructured in preparation for Public Private Partnership
 The extended Jubilee line opens, offering through services from Stanmore to Stratford
2003
 The Oyster card is introduced
 Busking is legalised
2005

52 people are killed in bomb attacks on three Tube trains and a bus on 7 July

2007
 The Tube carries one billion passengers in a year for the first time
 14 former Silverlink stations transfer to London Underground (LU)
 The East London line closes for rebuilding and extension as part of new London Overground network
2008
 Piccadilly line extension to Heathrow Terminal 5 opens
 Metronet transfers to TfL control
2009
 The Circle line changes shape
 LU is named Best Metro Europe
2010
 The Queen visits Aldgate station
 LU achieves Carbon Trust Standard
 The first air-conditioned, walk-through Underground train runs on the Metropolitan line
 Through services replace the Chesham shuttle
2011
 A full fleet of brand new Victoria Line trains become operational;
 Green Park becomes step-free to provide easier access to the Victoria, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines in time for the Olympics

History of London
history
History of rail transport
London-related lists
History-related lists
Rail transport timelines

History of the London Underground


Georges Auric (; 15 February 1899 – 23 July 1983) was a French composer, born in Lodève, Hérault, France. He was considered one of Les Six, a group of artists informally associated with Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. Before he turned 20 he had orchestrated and written incidental music for several ballets and stage productions. He also had a long and distinguished career as a film composer.

Early life and education
Georges Auric began his musical career at a young age, performing a piano recital at the Société musicale indépendante at the age of 14. Several songs that he had written were then performed in the following year by Société Nationale de Musique. Along with his early successes professionally, Auric studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as composition with Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert Roussel. Having gained recognition as a child prodigy both in composition and piano performance, he became a protégé of Erik Satie during the following decade. During the 1910s and 20s, he was a significant contributor of avant-garde music in Paris and was significantly influenced by Cocteau and the other composers of Les Six.

Career

Auric's early compositions were marked by a reaction against the musical establishment and the use of referential material. Because of this and his association with Cocteau and Satie, Auric was grouped into Les Six by music critic Henri Collet, and was friends with the artist Jean Hugo. His participation led to writing settings of poetry and other texts as songs and musicals. Along with the other five composers, he contributed a piece to L'Album des Six. In 1921, Cocteau asked him to write the music for his ballet, Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel. He found himself short of time, so he asked his fellow composers of Les Six to contribute some music. All except Louis Durey agreed. During this time, he wrote his one-act opera Sous le masque (1927) (an earlier opera, La Reine de coeur (1919), is lost). It was also in 1927 that he contributed the Rondeau for the children's ballet L'Éventail de Jeanne, a collaboration between ten French composers. In 1952 he participated in yet another collaboration, the set of orchestral variations La Guirlande de Campra. Les Six, though an informal and short-lived group, became known for its reaction against the musical establishment of the time and the promotion of absurdism and satire; the group rebelled similarly against Wagner as it did against Debussy. The music of these composers, including Auric, represented the specific cultural scene of Paris at the time and rejected the international styles brought by Russian and German music, as well as the impressionism and symbolism of Debussy. Auric's later development as a populist composer was prefigured by many of the techniques and ideals of Les Six, especially the use of popular music and situations. Music of the circus or the dance hall played a significant role in the music of Les Six, especially in their actual collaborations. However, Les Six soon drew apart, with Auric and others taking different approaches to their art.

Following his early successes as an avant-garde composer, Auric went through a transitional period during the 1930s. He began writing for film in 1930 and composed the music for À Nous la Liberté in 1931, which was well received; there was general approval of Auric's score for the film. While he was beginning a successful career as a film composer, his music went through a period of stagnation and change. His Piano Sonata (1931) was poorly received and was followed by a period of five years in which he wrote very little, including his first three film scores. His association with Cocteau continued through this period with his composition of the score to Cocteau's Le Sang d'un poète. However, he abandoned the elitist and highly referential attitudes of his earlier years by 1935 in favour of a populist approach. He became associated with leftist groups and publications, including the Association des Ecrivains et des Artistes Révolutionnaires (AEAR), the Maison de la Culture, and the Fédération Musicale Populaire. He adopted four strategies to composing; first, to participate in groups with other leftist artists; second, to reach a wider audience by writing in more genres; third, to write music aimed at a younger audience; and fourth, to express his political views more directly in his music.

The films that Auric chose to score in his career as a film composer were influenced by these new-found beliefs, as well as by old associations. He collaborated with Jean Cocteau, his longtime associate from the days of Les Six, on eleven films. He composed music for a large number of films over the years, including films produced in France, England, and America. Among his most popular scores is the score for Moulin Rouge. The song from that movie, "Where Is Your Heart?", became very popular. In 1962, he gave up writing for motion pictures when he became director of the Opéra National de Paris and then chairman of SACEM, the French Performing Rights Society. Auric continued to write classical chamber music, especially for winds, right up to his death.

Music criticism was another major facet of Auric's career. His criticism was focused on promoting the ideals of Les Six and Cocteau, known as esprit nouveau. Specifically, his criticism focused on the perceived pretentiousness of Debussy, Wagner, Saint-Saëns, and Massenet, as well as the music of those who followed their styles. Cocteau, Les Six, and Auric found the music of those composers to be divorced from reality and instead preferred music that was grounded in populism.

Personal life and politics
While Auric criticized Satie in the 1920s for joining the French Communist Party, he became associated with several leftist groups and contributed to the communist newspapers Marianne and Paris-Soir in the 1930s. The Association des Ecrivains et des Artistes Révolutionnaires (AEAR) was dedicated to bringing together Soviet and French communist artists to discuss their goals and approaches for disseminating their ideas to the public. It was through this group that Auric met many other far left artists and thinkers. These ideals transferred into Auric's concert music as well as his choices in which movies he scored. In 1930, Auric married the painter Eleanore Vilter, who died in 1982. Auric died in Paris on 23 July 1983 at the age of 84, and was interred at Montparnasse Cemetery, beside his wife.

Selected works
 Trois Interludes for piano and voice (1914)
 Huit Poèmes de Jean Cocteau for piano and voice (1918)
 Adieu, New-York! for piano (1919)
 Prélude for piano (1919)
 Les joues en feu for piano and voice (1920)
 Ouverture and Ritournelle from Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel for orchestra (1920)
 Pastorales for piano (1920)
 Sonatine for piano (1922)
 Les Fâcheux (Ballet) (1923)
 Cinq Bagatelles for piano 4 hands (1925)
 Les Matelots (Ballet) (1925)

Selected filmography
A more complete list is in the French Wikipedia article on Georges Auric .

 Le sang d'un poète (1930)
 À nous la liberté (1931)
 Lake of Ladies (1934)
 The Mysteries of Paris (1935)
 The Messenger (1937)
 The Alibi (1937)
 The Red Dancer (1937)
 A Picnic on the Grass (1937)
 Tamara (1938)
 The Lafarge Case (1938)
 His Uncle from Normandy (1939)
 Monsieur La Souris (1942)
 The Beautiful Adventure (1942)
 The Murderer is Afraid at Night (1942)
 L'Éternel retour (1943)
 François Villon (1945)
Farandole (1945)
 Dead of Night (1945)
 Beauty and the Beast (1946)
 Pastoral Symphony (1946)
 Hue and Cry (1947)
 The Seventh Door (1947)
 Desert Wedding (1948)
 To the Eyes of Memory (1948)
 Passport to Pimlico (1948)
 Ruy Blas (1948)
 Maya (1949)
 The Queen of Spades (1949)
 Silent Dust (1949)
 The Spider and the Fly (1949)
 Orpheus (1950)
 The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
 Darling Caroline  (1951)
 The Galloping Major (1951)
 Moulin Rouge (1952)
 Leathernose (1952)
 The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
 Roman Holiday (1953)
 The Slave (1953)
 The Wages of Fear (1953)
 The Divided Heart (1954)
 Chéri-Bibi (1955)
 Lola Montes (1955)
 Rififi (1955)
 The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956)
 Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
 The Night Heaven Fell (1958)
 Next to No Time (1958)
 Sergeant X (1960)
 Final Accord (1960)
 Goodbye Again (1961)
 The Innocents (1961)
 The Mind Benders (1963)
 The Poppy Is Also a Flower (1966)
 The Christmas Tree (1969)

See also
 List of French composers

References

External links

1899 births
1983 deaths
20th-century classical composers
French ballet composers
Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery
Conservatoire de Paris alumni
French male classical composers
French communists
French film score composers
French opera composers
Male opera composers
Les Six
French male film score composers
People from Lodève
Schola Cantorum de Paris alumni
Ballets Russes composers
Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium
Directors of the Paris Opera
20th-century French male musicians
Occitan musicians

Georges Auric


Before the unification in 872 A.D, Norway was made up of 22 small kingdoms.

They merged into larger kingdoms by the different kings (chiefs); Harald Gullskjegg, Gandalv Alvgerisson, Kjøte den rike. Vigbrand fra Agder, Vikar Haraldsson, Øystein Halvdansson in addition to Halvdan Svarte. Harald Fairhair (Harald den Hårfagre) the son of Halfdan the Black (Halvdan Svarte) unified Norway once and for all into one kingdom at the battle of Hafrsfjord. Where he fought against the five remaining Kings in the west of the country (Vestlandet).

History of Norway

Monarchy of Norway


The inch of mercury (inHg or "Hg) was a non-SI unit of pressure. It was used for measuring barometric pressure, (the thickness of air), in weather forecasts, and aviation (flying), but was replaced by the pascal.

It is the amount of pressure that a column of mercury that is one inch tall has at 0 °C at the standard acceleration of gravity, or how fast things speed up as they are falling because of gravity.

1 inHg at 0 °C = 3,386.389 Pa.

Units of pressure
Meteorology

Inch of mercury


The Reptile Room is a book written by Lemony Snicket (real name Daniel Handler) in 1999. It is the second book in A Series of Unfortunate Events. It is about three children whose parents die. They are placed in the care of Uncle Montgomery, but following them is a villain called Count Olaf who wants to steal their money.

Plot
Mr. Poe takes Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire to live with Montgomery Montgomery ("Uncle Monty"). He is a nice person and he works with snakes. He gives the children a bedroom each, and shows them the "Reptile Room." Made of glass, it is filled with snakes and reptiles. At the end of the room is a library. The children are very happy living with Uncle Monty.

The children are going to Peru in a few days with Uncle Monty. One day, he says his assistant will be coming to replace his former assistant. His assistant Stephano is really Count Olaf in disguise: he has covered his ankle tattoo and shaved off his eyebrow. Count Olaf kills Uncle Monty.

Olaf wants to take the children to Peru, where he can steal their money easily. When he is taking the children to a ferry in his car, it crashes into Mr. Poe's car. The Baudelaires try to tell Mr. Poe that Stephano is Olaf, but he does not believe them. They go back to Monty's house and look at his body; there are two bite marks in his face. A doctor called "Lucafont" comes and tells them Montgomery died of snakebite, but Violet unlocks Olaf's luggage and finds evidence that Olaf killed Monty; he used the very venomous Mambu du Mal poison. She tells Mr. Poe but Olaf runs away.

Reception
Publishers Weekly said:  "Luckily for fans"..." readers eager for more misfortune can turn to The Reptile Room, for an even more suspenseful tale". It has elegant "drawings of Gothic gargoyles and mischievous eyes" to illustrate the story.

References

A Series of Unfortunate Events
1999 books

The Reptile Room


Moksha is the ultimate goal of personal spiritual development for some schools of Hinduism.  It is the equivalent of Nirvana in Buddhism.  In the Sanskrit language, "moksha" means freedom.  It is as a state of eternal bliss and emptiness.  According to Vedanta life is an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth into a physical universe.   Hindu scriptures describe Moksha as the spiritual liberation from this cycle and the achievement of an eternal and blissful emptiness that transcends all of the joys, pain, and sorrow of the physical body or corporeal life. It is the goal of Hindu practitioners to achieve Moksha (freedom/liberation from the material world) through the practice of Yoga viz Jnana Yoga(knowledge), Karma Yoga(work), and Bhakti Yoga (through reciting prayers and worshipping God).

Moksha is a Vedic term. Scholars disagree about the precise relationship between the Moksha of Vedanta Hinduism and the Nirvana of Buddhism, but there is agreement that they are closely related historically and philosophically.  Similarities can be found between Moksha and some concepts found in the Upanishads.  Hindu texts explain the Moksha as Sat-Chit-Anand [True blissness of soul by separating the soul from the physical body by practising Dhyan and Yoga ].  Moksha originates from the Sanskrit word, moksa.

In short, moksha symbolizes something which is beyond comprehension; too great and too wondrous to be truly understood, it can only be felt when one attains it. The world is truly a beautiful place, but the greatness that lies within is even more so, since the power of the greatness is completely unknown.
After all, isn't that what beauty is; appreciation of the unknown!

For a more comprehensive explanation of this topic read the books:
 1. The complete works of Swami Vivekananda
 2.Philosophia Ultima(commentaries on Mandukyopanishad) by Osho
 3.Vedanta: Seven steps to Samadhi by Osho (Osho is the author of more than 650 books, his discourses are free to download on on<http://oshoworld.com>)

Moksha is the ultimate goal of a person to get liberated from the cycle of birth and death

Related pages
Bhagavad Gita

Hinduism

Moksha


A lens is a clear (transparent) object (like glass, plastic or even a drop of water) that changes the way things look by bending the light that goes through it. They may make things appear larger, smaller, or upside-down. Some places lenses are used include spectacles (eyeglasses), contact lenses, cameras, projectors, microscopes, telescopes, magnifying glasses, etc. Each eye also has a lens.

They work by refraction, or the bending of light.

Lenses have three main shapes. Each different shape changes the image (making it bigger or smaller). The three types are:
 Convex: the center part is thicker
 Concave: the center part is thinner
 Planar: flat

The power of a lens is the reciprocal of its focal length:
P = 1/focal length.

History

The word "lens" comes from the Latin word for "lentil," because the earliest convex lenses in common use were shaped like the bean.

The oldest written record of lenses is in the ancient Greek play by Aristophanes called "Clouds", where lenses were used with sunlight to make fire.

Galileo Galilei is commonly believed to have used lenses to make the first known refracting telescope. However, he merely adapted and improved a design he learned from Dutch lensmakers such as Hans Lippershey. He was probably the first to use telescopes to make accurate astronomical observations, though.

Related pages
 Camera lens
 Focal length

Optics

Lens (optics)


A black bass is a type of fresh water fish. The black basses are found throughout a large area east of the Rocky Mountains in North America, from the Hudson Bay basin in Canada to northeastern Mexico. Several species, notably the Largemouth and Smallmouth, have been very widely introduced throughout the world. Black bass of all species are highly sought-after game fish, and bass fishing is an extremely popular sport. These fish are well known as strong fighters, and taste good.

Species
 The Largemouth bass is a fish which generally has greenish to brownish sides with a dark line which goes from the head to the tail. It's the largest member of the sunfish family. The upper jaw of a largemouth bass extends back beyond the eye.

 The Smallmouth bass (also called the bronzeback, brownie, and smallie) is generally brown with red eyes. It has dark brown vertical bands, rather than a horizontal band along the side. There are 13–15 soft rays in the dorsal fin. The upper jaw of smallmouth bass extends to the middle of the eye.

 The Spotted bass (or Kentucky bass) resembles the largemouth bass in coloring, but has a smaller mouth. The upper jaw of spotted bass extends to the front of the eye.

Habitat

Black bass are found in running and still waters, with or without aquatic vegetation (plants that live in water). they need food and some form of cover. Generally, they can tolerate a wide range of water clarities and bottom types. Most prefer water temperatures from 20 to 30°C, and are often found at depths less than 20 feet. Smallmouth prefer clear water and usually like deeper water than Largemouth.

Feeding habits

The feeding habits of bass change with its size. Young fish mainly feed on microscopic animals (plankton). Fingerling bass eat insects and small fishes. Adult bass will eat whatever is available, including fish, crabs, frogs, salamanders, snakes, mice, turtles, and even birds.

Age and growth - Growth rates are highly variable with differences attributed mainly to their food supply and length of growing season. Female bass live longer than males and are much more likely to reach trophy size. By age two or three, females grow much faster than male bass. At five years of age females may be twice the weight of males. The oldest bass from Florida whose age has been determined by fisheries' biologists was 16 years of age.

Sporting qualities

The largemouth bass is a very popular fresh water game fish. Much of its popularity is due to its aggressive attitude and willingness to strike a bait with explosive force. They can be caught with almost every bait.  The value of the largemouth as a sport fish has prompted a movement toward catch and release fishing.

A bass of 22 pounds, 4 ounces was caught in Montgomery Lake, Georgia (U.S. state) in 1932.

Economic impact

Sport fishing for Black bass, particularly largemouth and smallmouth, has seen extraordinary growth in popularity. In Texas alone, fishermen spent $28 billion on equipment, licenses and fishing trips in 1996. That same year Texas sport fishing was responsible for creating 80,000 jobs and brought in over $180 million to the state in taxes. Many talented fishermen have turned the sport of bass fishing into a business by becoming a professional and competing in tournaments. Kevin VanDam is the top-rated money winner in professional bass fishing, having earned more than $5.6 million.

References

Centrarchidae
Freshwater fish
Edible fish

Black bass


George Sears Greene (May 6, 1801 – January 28, 1899) was a civil engineer and a Union general during the American Civil War. He was part of the Greene family of Rhode Island, which had a record of distinguished military service to the United States. He first served in the Army from 1823 to 1836 after graduating second from his class at West Point. As a civilian, he was one of the founders of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects and was responsible for numerous railroads and aqueduct construction projects in the northeastern United States.

After 25 years as a civilian, he rejoined the Army to fight in the American Civil War. Despite his age, he quickly rose up the ranks and was appointed a brigadier general in early 1862. During the war, he took part in the Northern Virginia Campaign, the Battle of Antietam, and the Battle of Chancellorsville. His most notable contribution during the war was his defense of the Union right flank at Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. He returned to engineering work after the war until his death in 1899.

Early life
Greene was born in Apponaug, Rhode Island, one of nine children of Caleb and Sarah Robinson (Greene) Greene. His family had roots in the founding of Rhode Island and in the American Revolutionary War, including General Nathanael Greene, George's second cousin. Caleb was a financially shrewd ship owner and merchant, but the Embargo Act of 1807, which prohibited U.S. vessels from carrying goods to other countries, and the War of 1812 left his family in financial difficulties. Young George attended Wrentham Academy and then a Latin grammar school in Providence and hoped to attend Brown University there, but his impoverished father could not afford it, so he moved to New York City and found work in a dry goods store on Pearl Street.

In the New York store, Greene met Major Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent of the United States Military Academy, who recommended him to the Secretary of War for appointment to the academy. Greene entered West Point at age 18 and graduated second of 35 cadets in the class of 1823. Top graduates of the academy generally chose the Engineers as their branch, but Greene decided on the artillery and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery Regiment. However, due to his excellent academic performance, he stayed at the academy until 1827 as an assistant professor of mathematics and as a principal assistant professor of engineering. One of the students he taught during this period was Cadet Robert E. Lee.

In the summer of 1828 Greene married Mary Elizabeth Vinton, sister of his best friend at West Point, David Vinton. Elizabeth gave birth to three children over the next four years: Mary Vinton, George Sears, and Francis Vinton Greene. While assigned to Fort Sullivan in Eastport, Maine, in 1833, tragedy struck Greene's family: Elizabeth and all three of their children died within seven months, probably from tuberculosis. To ease the pain on his mind and to escape the isolation and loneliness of peacetime Army garrison duty, he immersed himself in study of both the law and medicine, coming close to professional certification in both by the time he resigned his commission in 1836 to become a civil engineer.

Greene built railroads in six states and designed municipal sewage and water systems for Washington, D.C., Detroit, and several other cities. In New York City, he designed the Croton Aqueduct reservoir in Central Park and the enlarged High Bridge over the Harlem River. He was one of twelve founders in New York City of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects. While on a trip to Maine for railroad surveying, he met Martha Barrett Dana, daughter of Samuel Dana, a prominent Massachusetts politician. They were married in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on February 21, 1837. They had six children together, including four sons (three of them later served in the military), one daughter, and one son who died in infancy.

Civil War
Despite being over 60 years old and having been out of the Army for 25 years, the crisis of the Union compelled Greene to seek to rejoin the service. He was essentially apolitical and was not an abolitionist, but he was a firm believer in restoring the Union. He was appointed colonel of the 60th New York Volunteer Infantry on January 18, 1862. The regiment of upstate New Yorkers had been dissatisfied with their colonel and the company commanders had petitioned for his removal. Governor Edwin D. Morgan, although initially reluctant to appoint Greene because of his age, saw his 13 years of regular army experience as a solution to his political/military problem. During this period, Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts was also prepared to offer Greene a regiment, but Greene chose to serve New York. The officers of the 60th were dismayed when the elderly, gray-haired man reported for duty. They had requested that their lieutenant colonel be promoted, which would have raised many of them in rank themselves.

On April 28, 1862, Greene was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and served on the staff of Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks in the Shenandoah Valley campaign against Stonewall Jackson. At age 61, Greene was one of the oldest generals in the Union army and his troops took to calling him "Old Man" or "Pap" Greene. (There were actually 17 general officers in the Civil War older than Greene.) However, his age did not keep him from being one of the most aggressive commanders in the army. He commanded the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, II Corps, of the Army of Virginia at the Battle of Cedar Mountain during the Northern Virginia Campaign. Attacked by a Confederate force three times the size of his own, Greene and his men refused to give ground, holding out until the neighboring Union units were forced to withdraw. His division commander, Brig. Gen. John W. Geary, received a severe wound during the action and Greene took command of the division temporarily.

Greene was again temporarily elevated to command of his division, now designated part of the XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac, at the Battle of Antietam. His division's three brigades were led by junior officers who had survived Cedar Mountain. Even though XII Corps commander Brig. Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield was killed shortly after the fighting began, Greene led a crushing attack against the Confederates near the Dunker Church, achieving the farthest penetration of Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's lines of any Union unit. Under immense pressure, Greene held his small division (only 1,727 men engaged at the start of the day) in advance of the rest of the army for four hours, but eventually withdrew after suffering heavy losses. While the division was posted to Harpers Ferry, Greene took a three-week sick leave. Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard speculated that Greene, like many of his fellow officers, was sickened by the stench of dead and wounded at Antietam. When he returned, there was a new division commander, Brig. Gen. Geary. Greene was disgruntled that Geary, with only a few days seniority over him, was selected for the post; Geary had been wounded at Cedar Mountain and his combat record was not as good, but his political connections and a sentiment that a wounded officer should not be set back in his career unnecessarily, gave him the nod.

Greene resumed command of the 3rd Brigade, which was involved in minor skirmishes in northern Virginia and not engaged at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December. At the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, his brigade was in the center of the line. When the Union right—the XI Corps—collapsed, Greene's brigade was subjected to enfilade artillery fire and then infantry assaults. He had ordered his men to fortify their positions  to their front using abatis and trenches and they were able to hold out against several Confederate assaults, although losing 528 men of 2,032 engaged. During part of the battle, Greene once again assumed temporary command of the division when Geary was wounded again.

Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg was the highlight of Greene's military career. On July 2, 1863, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade shifted almost the entire XII Corps from the Union right to strengthen the left flank, which was under heavy attack. Greene's lone brigade of 1,350 New Yorkers (five regiments) was left to defend a one-half-mile line on Culp's Hill when an entire Confederate division attacked. Fortunately, Greene had previously demonstrated good sense (as befits a civil engineer) by insisting that his troops construct strong field fortifications, despite a lack of interest in doing so from his division commander, Geary, and corps commander, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum. In Greene's finest moment of the war, his preparations proved decisive and his brigade held off multiple attacks for hours. He was active the entire engagement rallying his men to defend their positions in the darkness. Brig. Gen. Alpheus Williams, acting corps commander on July 2, commended Greene for his "skill and judgment" in this defense, especially in his using the "advantages" of his position. Late at night, the rest of the XII Corps returned to Culp's Hill. The fighting resumed the next morning and raged for over seven hours, but the Union troops held Culp's Hill. They regained some of the lost ground and thwarted renewed Confederate attacks. The battle for Culp's Hill included the two oldest generals in each army, Greene at 62 and Brig. Gen. William "Extra Billy" Smith at 65.

The desperate fighting on the Union right flank was as important as the more famous defense of the Union left flank on July 2, by Col. Strong Vincent's brigade on Little Round Top. In fact, given that the Union line was only  from the vital Union supply line on the Baltimore Pike, it can be argued that it was more important. However, Greene's contributions to this critical battle have never been widely heralded, principally because of a dispute between Meade and Slocum over the filing of their official reports. But a member of Greene's brigade wrote:

Western Theater
In the fall of 1863, the XII Corps was transferred to the West to reinforce the Union forces besieged at Chattanooga. At the Battle of Wauhatchie, during a surprise night attack by the Confederate forces, Greene was wounded in the face, with his jaw crushed and some teeth carried away. Subsequent surgery was not able to correct his condition and he suffered from the effects of his wound for the rest of his life. After six weeks of medical leave, he was assigned to light court-martial duty until January 1865, when he was sent to join Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's army in North Carolina. Initially Greene voluntarily served on the staff of Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox participating in the battle at Kinston, where he had his horse shot out from under him. At the very end of the war Greene was in command of the 3rd Brigade in Absalom Baird's 3rd Division, XIV Corps, and participated in the capture of Raleigh and the pursuit of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army until its surrender.

Postbellum career

After the war, Greene served on court-martial duty for a year and then returned to civil engineering in New York and Washington, D.C. From 1867 to 1871 he was the chief engineer commissioner of the Croton Aqueduct Department in New York. At the age of 86, he inspected the entire 30-mile Croton Aqueduct structure on foot. He served as president of the American Society of Civil Engineers from 1875 to 1877 and president of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. He was appointed to West Point's Board of Visitors in 1881.

By 1892, Greene was the oldest surviving Union general and the oldest living graduate of West Point. He petitioned the United States Congress for an engineer captain's pension that would be of help to his family after his death. The best that Congress was willing to do was arranged by Congressman and Gettysburg veteran Daniel E. Sickles of New York, a first lieutenant's pension, based on the highest rank Greene had achieved in the regular army. On August 18, 1894, Greene took the oath of office as a first lieutenant of artillery and became, at 93, the oldest lieutenant in the U.S. Army for 48 hours. Veterans in the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) declared that he was the oldest lieutenant in world history.

Legacy

Greene died at age 97 in Morristown, New Jersey, and was buried in the Greene family cemetery in Warwick, Rhode Island, with a two-ton boulder from Culp's Hill placed above his grave. He is memorialized with a statue erected in 1906 by the State of New York on Culp's Hill in Gettysburg National Military Park.

Greene's wife Martha died in 1883 at an age of 74. Their oldest son, Lieutenant Samuel Dana Greene, was the executive officer on the ironclad ship USS Monitor during the Battle of Hampton Roads. Another of their sons, Francis V. Greene, commanded a brigade at the Battle of Manila during the Spanish–American War. A third, Charles Thurston Greene, was a lieutenant on his father's staff at Culp's Hill. Later in 1863, Charles was wounded by an artillery shell and his leg was amputated, but he remained on active service until 1870. George Sears Greene, Jr., volunteered to serve but was not allowed to do so by his father so he could survive and carry on the family name.

A memorial tablet honoring Greene was approved by the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1910 at a sum of 460 dollars. The bronze plaque hangs inside the south entrance of the Rhode Island State House.

A description of George Sears Greene from Lt. George K. Collins of the 149th New York Infantry sums up the general:

See also

List of American Civil War generals (Union)
Caleb Greene House

Notes

References
 Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher. Civil War High Commands. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. .
 Greene, George Sears, Louise Brownell Clarke, and F. V. Greene. The Greenes of Rhode Island: With Historical Records of English Ancestry, 1534–1902. Albany, NY: Knickerbocker Press, 1903. .
 Kuhl, Paul E. "George Sears Greene." In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, edited by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. .
 Motts, Wayne E. "To Gain a Second Star: The Forgotten George S. Greene." Gettysburg Magazine, July 1990.
 Murray, R. L. A Perfect Storm of Lead, George Sears Greene's New York Brigade in Defense of Culp's Hill. Wolcott, NY: Benedum Books, 2000. .
 Palmer, David W. The Forgotten Hero of Gettysburg. Xlibris, 2004. .
 Tagg, Larry. The Generals of Gettysburg. Campbell, CA: Savas Publishing, 1998. .

Further reading
 Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. .

External links
George Sears Greene Collection (Rhode Island Historical Society)

1801 births
1899 deaths
American civil engineers
Military personnel from Morristown, New Jersey
People from Warwick, Rhode Island
People of Maine in the American Civil War
People of New York (state) in the American Civil War
People of Rhode Island in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
United States Military Academy alumni
Engineers from New Jersey
Greene family of Rhode Island
Military personnel from Rhode Island

George S. Greene


This article is about a late 19th-century revolution. For a late 20th-century event, also called "Philippine Revolution", see EDSA Revolution of 1986 revolution of the philippine.

The Philippine Revolution (1896–1898) was an armed conflict between the Spanish colonial regime and the Katipunan. The goal of the revolution was for the Philippines to gain independence from Spain.

History of the Philippines
Wars of independence
Rebellions in Asia
19th-century rebellions
1890s in Asia

Philippine Revolution


London is a poem by Samuel Johnson, produced shortly after he moved to London. Written in 1738, it was his first major published work. The poem in 263 lines imitates Juvenal's Third Satire, expressed by the character of Thales as he decides to leave London for Wales. Johnson imitated Juvenal because of his fondness for the Roman poet and he was following a popular 18th-century trend of Augustan poets headed by Alexander Pope that favoured imitations of classical poets, especially for young poets in their first ventures into published verse.

London was published anonymously and in multiple editions during 1738. It quickly received critical praise, notably from Pope. This would be the second time that Pope praised one of Johnson's poems; the first being for Messiah, Johnson's Latin translation of Pope's poem. Part of that praise comes from the political basis of the poem. From a modern view, the poem is outshined by Johnson's later poem The Vanity of Human Wishes, as well as works like his A Dictionary of the English Language, his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, and his periodical essays for The Rambler, The Idler and The Adventurer.

Background
During March 1737, Johnson lived in London with his former pupil the actor David Garrick. Garrick had connections in London, and the two stayed with his distant relative, Richard Norris, who lived in Exeter Street. Johnson did not stay there long, and set out to Greenwich near the Golden Hart Tavern to finish his play, Irene. Later, in October 1737, Johnson brought his wife to London; they first lived at Woodstock Street and then moved to 6 Castle Street. Soon, Johnson found employment with Edward Cave, and wrote for his The Gentleman's Magazine.

According to Walter Jackson Bate, his work for the magazine and other publishers "is almost unparalleled in range and variety", and "so numerous, so varied and scattered" that "Johnson himself could not make a complete list". During this time, Johnson was exposed to the "imitations" of Horace composed by Pope and saw how they were used to attack contemporary political corruption. Both the form and subject were popular, and Johnson decided to follow Pope's lead by creating his own imitation.

In May 1738, London was published anonymously, and it went into a second edition that year. This was his first major work to be published to a wide audience and one of his longest "non-dramatic public poems". It was not written to be a general satire; instead, it was written to demonstrate Johnson's skill as a writer and to become popular to further his literary career.

London

London is part of the eighteenth-century genre of imitation, or Neoclassicism. The work was based on Juvenal's Third Satire which describes Umbricius leaving Rome to live in Cumae in order to escape from the vices and dangers of the capital city. In Johnson's version, it is Thales who travels to Cambria (Wales) to escape from the problems of London. Johnson chose Juvenal as a model based on his own appreciation for Juvenal's works. The epigraph from Juvenal, "Quis ineptae [iniquae] / Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se?" (Juv. 1.30-1) can be translated as "Who is so patient of the foolish [wicked] city, so iron-willed, as to contain himself?".

The poem describes the various problems of London, including an emphasis on crime, corruption, and the squalor of the poor. To emphasise his message, these various abstract problems are personified as beings that seek to destroy London. Thus, the characters of Malice, Rapine, and Accident "conspire" (line 13) to attack those who live in London.

The poem begins:

Who Thales represents is unknown, but it is possible that he represents Richard Savage, Johnson's friend who left London to travel to Wales.

The main emphasis of the poem comes to light on line 177: "Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed".

The poem is forced to cut short, and the narrator concludes:

Politics
The government under the Whig Sir Robert Walpole opposed to the content expressed in "London." The poem does not hide its political agenda, and the lines directed against George II follow a Jacobite political sentiment. Although it does not mention George in line 50 ("Let  live here, for  has learned to live"), the poem is referring to the king. Not until the end of the poem does the narrator directly address the government when he says:

It is through the "Ways and Means", or the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Commons, that the king is able to tax the people, and this function is part of many that Johnson satirises.

The city of London was seen as a means to attack the Whig political party run by Robert Walpole. In particular, Johnson compares the actions of George II and Walpole to those of the Roman emperors during the decline of the Roman Empire. Part of the attack included, as Brean Hammond puts it, "a nostalgic glorification of English history that went hand-in-hand with the representation of the present as in the grip of forms of corruption never previously encountered". This "nostalgic glorification" includes multiple references to Queen Elizabeth and her defeat of the Spanish invaders while simultaneously claiming that Walpole is seeking to allow Spain to conquer England's trade investments.

With England's rivalry with Spain, Johnson included the lines "Has heaven reserved, in pity to the poor,/No pathless waste or undiscovered shore,/No secret island in the boundless main,/No peaceful desert yet unclaimed by Spain?"  Modern Latin American historians have used the lines to illustrate Europeans' wonder at the sheer size of the Spanish Empire.

Critical response
Johnson judged his own poem harshly; he revised it in 1748 and came to depreciate the genre of poetic imitations of which London was an example. Another aspect of the poem that Johnson disliked in his later years was the pastoral bias of the poem, to prefer the countryside to the city. However, his contemporaries did not agree with his later assessment, and Alexander Pope from the first claimed that the author "will soon be déterré", although it did not immediately happen. This would be the second time that Pope directly praised a work of Johnson. Not everyone praised the work, as its political themes did cause controversy within the Hanoverian government and with the supporters of Walpole's administration. Johnson was not to receive recognition as a major literary figure until a few years later when he began to work on his A Dictionary of the English Language.

The printer and bookseller Robert Dodsley bought the copyright from Johnson for £10. Later, London would be rated as his second greatest poem, as The Vanity of Human Wishes would replace it in the eyes of Walter Scott and T. S. Eliot. The later critic Howard Weinbrot agreed with Scott's and Eliot's assessment, and says "London is well worth reading, but The Vanity of Human Wishes is one of the great poems in the English language." Likewise, Robert Folkenflik says: "It is not Johnson's greatest poem, only because The Vanity of Human Wishes is better". Some critics, like Brean Hammond, only see the poem as "no better than a somewhat mechanical updating of Juvenal's third Satire". Others, like Walter Jackson Bate, consider the poem as "masterly in its versification".

Notes

References
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External links

1738 poems
Christian poetry
Poetry by Samuel Johnson
Works about London
Poems about cities

London (Samuel Johnson poem)


Chris Black is a screenwriter and television producer, from Toledo, Ohio. Black is known for writing and producing mainly science fiction and action series, although he also was a part of the production team of the comedy-drama Desperate Housewives during its first two seasons.

Black has produced and written episodes of Cleopatra 2525, The Huntress, Sliders, Star Trek: Enterprise, Hawaii and Standoff. In addition, he has written episodes of several other shows, including Weird Science, Xena: Warrior Princess and Vanished. He also co-wrote the 1997 action movie Masterminds starring Patrick Stewart.

In 2022, Black and Matt Fraction co-created Monarch: Legacy of Monsters for Apple TV+. Black also serves as showrunner.

Accolades

References

External links

American male screenwriters
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American television producers
American soap opera writers
American male television writers
Writers Guild of America Award winners

Chris Black (screenwriter)


Rhythm King Records Ltd was a British independent record label, founded in the mid-1980s by Martin Heath, Adele Nozedar, DJ Jay Strongman and James Horrocks. It was based in Chiswick, London.

History

Beginnings
Starting out as an offshoot of Daniel Miller's critically acclaimed Mute Records, Rhythm King's initial focus was dance music - specifically house, acid house, acid jazz, sampling culture and hip hop/rap. Strongman's rap/funk offshoot, Flame Records, signed proto-gangsta rapper Schoolly D and Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers amongst others. James Horrocks left the label at the end of 1987, and subsequently went on to form React Music Limited in 1990, which also had a focus upon dance music. This left Martin Heath in sole charge of the label; however by the beginning of 1988, Rhythm King was to enjoy a period of short term success, which went hand in hand with the partial dominance dance music had on the UK Singles Chart, from the late 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s.

January 1988 - First UK Singles Chart breakthrough - The Beatmasters / Bomb the Bass
The breakthrough was the single "Rok da House" by The Beatmasters featuring The Cookie Crew. Initially reaching No. 78 when first released in July 1987, the single was re-released in January 1988 and reached No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1988.  It is acknowledged as not only one of the earliest British house tunes (recorded 1986), but also as the first record to merge hip-hop and house, into a style known as hip house. This was followed up by "Beat Dis" by Bomb The Bass. The identity of Bomb The Bass was shrouded in mystery until it was revealed that it was the work of London's Wag Club DJ Tim Simenon, and record producer Pascal Gabriel. Simenon brought his DJ experience, record collection and techniques gained from a music production course to create a cut and paste style which, with Gabriel's help, successfully merged sounds and samples from various genres within dance music.  These included old school hip hop, house, electro and funk with samples from film and TV - most notably The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Thunderbirds. The record reputedly cost £500 to make and debuted at No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1988 - what was then the highest debut position for an unknown artist. It eventually reached No. 2 for two weeks and was kept off the top spot by Kylie Minogue's debut single "I Should Be So Lucky".

Theme From S-Express and further hits
Rhythm King did not have to wait too long for its first UK Singles Chart No. 1. S-Express was the brainchild of London DJ Mark Moore who ,in collaboration with producer Pascal Gabriel (also in Bomb the Bass), put together the single, "Theme from S'Express". This mixed many of the contemporary dance music sounds of the time with a sample from Rose Royce's 1970s disco anthem "Is It Love You're After" to great success. Vocalist, David White aka Steam supplied vocals for the US release of the single. The single shot to No .1 in April/May 1988 and 1988 to 1991 would be a golden period for Rhythm King with its artists - in particular The Beatmasters, Betty Boo, Bomb The Bass, Merlin and S-Express doing well in the UK Album and Singles Charts.

Outer Rhythm and Renegade Software
With rave culture going mainstream from the late 1980s, Rhythm King also became interested in this and formed Outer Rhythm in 1989. The emphasis at Outer Rhythm was electronic dance music/techno and was influential in developing the initial music careers of Leftfield and, to a much lesser degree, Moby. Briefly Outer Rhythm was also associated with Sheffield's Warp Records - and the Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass scene which launched Warp, along with Belgium based R&S Records before the labels and their artists - including Aphex Twin, CJ Bolland, Dave Angel, Jam & Spoon, LFO and Nightmares on Wax went on to do big things in their own right. Martin Heath also diversified into computer games software in association with the Bitmap Brothers. Renegade Software was successful and some of Rhythm King's artists - including The Beatmasters, Betty Boo, Bomb The Bass and Nation 12 contributed music to some of Renegade's titles.

Deal with Sony Records
The commercial success of Rhythm King enabled it to link a distribution deal with Sony Records subsidiary Epic Records. Rhythm King was no longer associated with Mute Records from 1991 and towards the end of 1992 it closed down the Outer Rhythm offshoot. Coincidentally, Mute set up Novamute Records around this time - also with a focus on techno and electronic dance music.

Direction of Rhythm King in the 1990s
As the 1990s progressed, many of the established artists on Rhythm King's roster - including Baby Ford, The Beatmasters, Betty Boo, Bomb The Bass, Leftfield, Moby and S-Express either left the label and/or concentrated on producing for other artists - most notably Tim Simenon and The Beatmasters, the latter in particular immediately achieving success with their work on a string of singles taken from the 1992 Shamen album, Boss Drum.  The musical focus at Rhythm King in the mid 1990s shifted away from dance music and more towards indie and alternative rock. Acts signed during this period had varying levels of critical and commercial success, and included David Devant and his Spirit Wife, The Dharmas, Echobelly, Sheep on Drugs, The Sultans Of Ping and X-CNN.

Enter Arista exit Rhythm King
Rhythm King's distribution deal with Sony Records expired around 1995/96 so a new deal with BMG's Arista Records was signed in 1996. Rhythm King was subsequently closed down and merged into the main Arista concern when Martin Heath became head of the label.  However, this was not the end of Heath's involvement with an independent record label. Lizard King Records was formed by Heath and Dominic Hardisty in 2001, and its most notable artist was US act The Killers, who were signed to Lizard King in the UK and Ireland. In 2005, Hardisty bought out Heath and Heath moved to New York to set up a new label.  As part of the deal he was permitted to re-use the name Lizard King, but the Killers remain signed to the original company which has now been renamed Marrakesh Records.

Artists
Rhythm King had a varied roster of artists. Some of these had only a short-term relationship with the label and others had more of a longer term relationship releasing a number of singles and albums to varying degrees of commercial and critical success. The artist roster for the label therefore included the following:

 Ability 2 - Released on the Outer Rhythm offshoot.
 Aphex Twin - The releases Digeridoo and Selected Ambient Works 85-92 were released by Belgium-based R&S Records who had a distribution deal with Outer Rhythm for UK releases from 1990-92.
 Baby Ford - The third Baby Ford album BFORD9 was released on Rhythm King's offshoot label Transglobal. Since leaving Rhythm King in the mid '90s Peter Ford has had a nomadic relationship with a variety of other labels including; Black Market International, Force Inc, Ideal, Klang, Perlon, Plus 8 & Sender.
 Bailey & Bridges
 Bam Bam Musique - Released on the Splish offshoot label.
 The Beatmasters - After seven singles and two Rhythm King albums (Anywayawanna and Life & Soul), slimmed down to a duo and went on to a successful career as writers and producers. Still working to this day (2009)
 Joey Beltram - UK releases from 1990-92 were distributed by Outer Rhythm on behalf of Belgium-based R&S Records. Recorded under the aliases Beltram and Second Phase.
 Betty Boo - Signed with WEA in 1992.
 Bomb The Bass - Formed the label Stoned Heights in association with Island Records offshoot 4th & Broadway in 1994.
 CCP - Released on Transglobal. Signed with MCA Records in 1989.
 Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - Some releases on the Flame offshoot.
 CJ Bolland - UK releases from 1990-92 were distributed by Outer Rhythm on behalf of Belgium-based R&S Records.
 Congress - Released on the offshoot Inner Rhythm label.
 Cookie Crew - Released the single Females before signing with FFRR/London Records in 1988.
 D'Angel/Dave Angel - UK releases from 1990-92 were distributed by Outer Rhythm on behalf of Belgium-based R&S Records.
 David Devant and his Spirit Wife
 The Dharmas - Now named Steadman after frontman Simon Steadman. The band allow fans to download their music for free downloads on their website under a Creative Commons licence.
 Djum Djum - (Neil Cole) Pianist, keyboardist, drummer/percussionist, vocalist and songwriter, co-wrote and co-produced Difference in 1990 (cat no. FOOT 8) with Neil Barnes, prior to the formation of Leftfield (see below). Released on Outer Rhythm. Difference (Djum Djum/Barnes) also featured on the Leftfield compilation album Backlog. July 1995 saw the Leftfield/Djum Djum collaboration Afro Left (Leftism), released through Sony.
 Dr Fresh
 Echobelly - Released on the offshoot Favue label.
 Fat Planet
 Thomas Fehlmann - aka Readymade, released on Transglobal.
 Fluffy Toy I.Q. - Released on Splish.
 Forgemasters - On Warp distributed by Outer Rhythm 1989-91.
 Hard Corps
 Heaven WXI
 Hotline
 How II House - Released on Outer Rhythm.
 Human Resource - UK releases from 1990-92 were distributed by Outer Rhythm on behalf of Belgium-based R&S Records.
 Ital Rockers - Released on Outer Rhythm.
 Jam & Spoon - UK releases from 1990-92 were distributed by Outer Rhythm on behalf of Belgium-based R&S Records.
 Jaydee - UK releases from 1990-92 were distributed by Outer Rhythm on behalf of Belgium-based R&S Records.
 Joi - Released on Transglobal.
 KDFM - Released on Transglobal.
 King Sun D-Moet - Some releases on the Flame offshoot.
 Leftfield - The singles "Not Forgotten" and "More Than I Know" along with a compilation album Backlog were released on Outer Rhythm before Leftfield formed their own label Hard Hands in 1992. Since 1993 this was in association with Sony Music.
 Les Négresses Vertes
 LFO - On Warp distributed by Outer Rhythm 1989-91.
 Man Machine - Early '90s techno/electro project on Outer Rhythm from Ed Stratton. Stratton was also a member of Jack 'N' Chill best remembered for their 'one-off' top-ten hit, The Jack That House Built which reached #6 in the UK singles chart in January 1988. Stratton is also co-founder of Zero-G Ltd (formerly "Time+Space").
 Gwen McRae - Some releases on the Flame offshoot.
 Merlin - Signed with WEA in 1991/92.
 Moby - Moby's 1991 single Go was licensed by Outer Rhythm from New York-based Instinct Records. In 1992 Moby signed to Mute Records in the UK.
 Denise Motto
 Nation 12 - A collaboration between John Foxx and Tim Simenon of Bomb The Bass
 Nightmares on Wax - On Warp distributed by Outer Rhythm 1989-91.
 Nitzer Ebb - The single Murderous was released on Transglobal in 1986. The band signed a long term deal with Mute Records in the late 1980s.
 One Tribe - Released on the Inner Rhythm offshoot.
 Paradise
 Q-Pid Featuring Nikki Q
 Renegade Soundwave - Signed to Mute Records in 1988, after releasing their first 2 singles Kray Twins and Cocaine Sex on Rhythm King, having been spotted by Mudd Club DJ and S-Express main man Mark Moore.
 Kurt Rogers
 Robert & Tom Sanders - Released on the Flame offshoot.
 Schoolly D - Licensing agreement with Jive Records for UK releases from 1986-88. Some releases on the Flame offshoot.
 S-Express - aka S'Xpress. Mark Moore continues to produce music and is an Internationally known DJ.
 Shawnie 'G'
 She Rockers - Signed with Jive Records in late 1988.
 Sheep on Drugs - Released on Transglobal.
 Sludge Nation
 Jay Strongman "East West" single that sampled Red Army Choir.
 Sugar Ray Dinkie
 Sulphur (3) - Released on Transglobal.
 The Sultans Of Ping FC
 Survival Instinct - Released on Outer Rhythm.
 Sweet Exorcist - On Warp Distributed by Outer Rhythm 1989-91.
 Taffy - Released on Transglobal.
 Tanya
 Toney Rome
 Three Wise Men - aka Three Wize Men.
 Tiziana - Released on Splish.
 Tricky Disco - On Warp Distributed by Outer Rhythm 1989-91.
 Ugly - Which featured Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17.
 Underground Resistance - Released on Splish.
 Leslie Winer © - With Karl Bonnie, Jah Wobble, Kevin Mooney, Helen Terry, John Reynolds, Matthew Ashman and Marco Pirroni.
 Vice - aka Survival Instinct, released on Outer Rhythm.
 Victim Of The Ghetto
 Viola Wills
 Wolfman - Released on Splish.
 X-CNN - The band were originally called CNN but had to change their name to X-CNN after legal action from the television news channel. The line-up featured ex-All About Eve/Sisters of Mercy member Tim Bricheno on guitar and David Tomlinson on vocals. Released through Transglobal.
 YBU - Released on Splish.

See also
 List of record labels

References

External links
 Rhythm King Records
 Interview with Martin Heath, HitQuarters Dec 2005

British independent record labels
Defunct record labels of the United Kingdom
Electronic dance music record labels
Hip hop record labels
House music record labels

Rhythm King