City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the monarch of the United Kingdom to specific centres of population, which might or might not meet the generally accepted definition of cities. , there are 76 cities in the United Kingdom—55 in England, seven in Wales, eight in Scotland, and six in Northern Ireland. Although it carries no special rights, the status of city can be a marker of prestige and confer local pride.

The status does not apply automatically on the basis of any particular criterion, though in England and Wales it was traditionally given to towns with diocesan cathedrals. This association between having an Anglican cathedral and being called a city was established in the early 1540s when King Henry VIII founded dioceses (each having a cathedral in the see city) in six English towns and granted them city status by issuing letters patent. A city with a cathedral is often termed a cathedral city.

City status in Ireland was granted to far fewer communities than in England and Wales, and there are only two pre-19th-century cities in present-day Northern Ireland. In Scotland, city status did not explicitly receive any recognition by the state until the 19th century. At that time, a revival of grants of city status took place, first in England, where the grants were accompanied by the establishment of new cathedrals, and later in Scotland and Ireland. In the 20th century, it was explicitly recognised that the status of city in England and Wales would no longer be bound to the presence of a cathedral, and grants made since have been awarded to communities on a variety of criteria, including population size.

The abolition of some corporate bodies as part of successive local-government reforms, beginning with the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, has deprived some ancient cities of their status. However, letters patent have been issued for most of the affected cities to ensure the continuation or restoration of their status. At present, Rochester and Elgin are the only former cities in the United Kingdom. The name "City" does not, in itself, denote city status; it may be appended to place names for historic association (e.g. White City) or for marketing or disambiguation (e.g. Stratford City). A number of large towns (such as those with over 200,000 residents) in the UK are bigger than some small cities, but cannot legitimately call themselves cities without the royal designation.

History

England and Wales

Pre-19th century
The initial cities () of Britain were the fortified settlements organised by the Romans as the capitals of the Celtic tribes under Roman rule. The British clerics of the early Middle Ages later preserved a traditional list of the "28 Cities" () which was mentioned by Gildas and listed by Nennius.

In the 16th century, a town was recognised as a city by the English Crown if it had a diocesan cathedral within its limits, for which 22 dioceses existed in England & Wales (see City status conferment further in the article). This association between having a cathedral and being called a city was established when Henry VIII founded new dioceses (each having a cathedral in the see city) in six English towns and also granted them city status by issuing letters patent, demonstrating these were discrete procedures. Some cities today are very small because they were granted city status in or before the 16th century, then were unaffected by population growth during the Industrial Revolution—notably Wells (population about 10,000) and St Davids (population about 2,000). After the 16th century, no new dioceses (and no new cities) were created until the 19th century in England (a further city was created in Ireland during the rule of King James I in the 17th century).

1836–1888
A long-awaited resumption of creating dioceses began in 1836 with Ripon. Ripon Town Council assumed that this had elevated the town to the rank of a city, and started referring to itself as the City and Borough of Ripon. The next diocese formed was Manchester and its Borough Council began informally to use the title city. When Queen Victoria visited Manchester in 1851, widespread doubts surrounding its status were raised. The pretension was ended when the borough petitioned for city status, which was granted by letters patent in 1853. This eventually forced Ripon to regularise its position; its city status was recognised by Act of Parliament in 1865. From this year Ripon bore city status whilst the rapidly expanding conurbation of Leeds – in the Ripon diocese – did not. The Manchester case established a precedent that any municipal borough in which an Anglican see was established was entitled to petition for city status. Accordingly, Truro, St Albans, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Wakefield were all officially designated as cities between 1877 and 1888.

This was not without opposition from the Home Office, which dismissed St Albans as "a fourth or fifth rate market town" and objected to Wakefield's elevation on grounds of population. In one new diocese, Southwell, a city was not created, because it was a village without a borough corporation and therefore could not petition the Queen. The diocese covered the counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and the boroughs of Derby and Nottingham were disappointed that they would not be able to claim the title of city.

1889–1907

The link with Anglican dioceses was broken within England in 1889 when Birmingham successfully petitioned for city status (it was pre-empted in Ireland by Belfast in 1888) on the grounds of its large population and history of good local government. At the time of the grant, Birmingham lacked an Anglican cathedral, although the parish church later became a cathedral in 1905. This new precedent was followed by other large municipalities: Leeds and Sheffield became cities in 1893, and Bradford, Kingston upon Hull and Nottingham were honoured on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The last three had been the largest county boroughs outside the London area without city status.

Between 1897 and 1914, applications were received from a number of other boroughs, but only Cardiff was successful in being designated a city in 1905 and granted a Lord Mayoralty as "the Metropolis of Wales".

The status of Westminster
The London Government Act 1899 abolished the existing local authorities within the County of London and replaced them with 28 metropolitan boroughs. Among the bodies to be dissolved was the Court of Burgesses of the City of Westminster. William Burdett-Coutts, one of Westminster's members of parliament, brought forward an amendment to rename the proposed borough of Greater Westminster to City of Westminster. This was intended to give "recognition to the title which the area ... had possessed for over three and a half centuries". He felt that if the status was not retained for the new borough it "must necessarily disappear altogether". The amendment was rejected by the government, however, with the First Lord of the Treasury, Arthur Balfour, believing it would be "an anomaly which, I think, would be not unnaturally resented by other districts which are as large in point of population as Westminster, although doubtless not so rich in historical associations". The government eventually relented, with Balfour stating that "as soon as the necessary arrangements under the London Government Act have been completed, there will be conferred on the borough of Westminster, as constituted under the Act, the title of city, originally conferred in the time of Henry VIII". Letters patent were duly issued granting the title of "city" to the newly created Metropolitan Borough of Westminster.

1907–1953
In 1907, the Home Office and King Edward VII agreed on a policy that future applicants would have to meet certain criteria. This policy, which was not at the time made public, had the effect of stemming the number of city creations.

The 1907 policy contained three criteria:
 A minimum population of 300,000.
 A "local metropolitan character"—this implied that the town had a distinct identity of its own and was the centre of a wider area.
 A good record of local government.

However, well into the 20th century it was often assumed that the presence of a cathedral was sufficient to elevate a town to city status, and that for cathedral cities the city charters were recognising its city status rather than granting it. On this basis, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica said that Southwell and St Asaph were cities.

The policy laid down by Edward VII was continued by his successor, George V, who ascended the throne in 1910. In 1911, an application for city status by Portsmouth was refused. Explaining the Home Secretary's reason for not recommending the King to approve the petition, the Lord Advocate stated:

...during the reign of his late Majesty it was found necessary, in order to maintain the value of the distinction, to lay down a rule as to the minimum population which should ordinarily, in connexion with other considerations, be regarded as qualifying a borough for that higher status."House of Commons – Status of Portsmouth", The Times, 21 June 1911.

Following the First World War, the King made an official visit to Leicester in 1919 to commemorate its contributions to the military victory. The borough council had made several applications for city status since 1889, and took the opportunity of the visit to renew its request. Leicester had a population of approximately 230,000 at the previous census, but its petition was granted as an exception to the policy, as it was officially a restoration of a dignity lost in the past. When the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent applied for city status in 1925, it was initially refused as it had only 294,000 inhabitants. The decision was overturned, however, as it was felt to have outstanding importance as the centre of the pottery industry. The effective relaxation of the population rule led to applications from Portsmouth and Salford. The civil servants in the Home Office were minded to refuse both applications. In particular, Salford was felt to be "merely a scratch collection of 240,000 people cut off from Manchester by the river". Salford's case, however, was considered favourably by the Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, who had once been a Member of Parliament (MP) for a neighbouring constituency of Manchester North West. Following protests from Portsmouth, which felt it had better credentials as a larger town and as the "first Naval Port of the kingdom", both applications were approved in 1926.

In 1927, a Royal Commission on Local Government was examining local council areas and functions in England and Wales. The question arose as to which towns were entitled to be called cities, and the chairman, the Earl of Onslow, wrote to the Home Office to seek clarification. The Home Office replied with a memorandum that read:

The title of a city which is borne by certain boroughs is a purely titular distinction. It has no connexion with the status of the borough in respect of local government and confers no powers or privileges. At the present time and for several centuries past the title has been obtained only by an express grant from the Sovereign effected by letters patent; but a certain number of cities possess the title by very ancient prescriptive right. There is no necessary connexion between the title of a city and the seat of a bishopric, and the creation of a new see neither constitutes the town concerned a city nor gives it any claim to the grant of letters patent creating it a city.

In 1928, Plymouth submitted an application for city status. As the borough had more inhabitants than Portsmouth and had absorbed Devonport and East Stonehouse, the King agreed to the request. However, he indicated that he had "come to an end of city making", and Southampton's application in the following year was turned down. The next city to be created was Lancaster in 1937 as part of the celebrations of the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. With a population of a little over 50,000, Lancaster was stated to be an exception due to the town's "long association with the crown" and because it was "the county town of the King's Duchy of Lancaster". Following the Second World War, members of Cambridge Borough Council made contact with Lancaster officials for assistance in their application. Cambridge became a city in 1951, again for "exceptional" reasons, as the only ancient seat of learning in the kingdom not a city or royal burgh and to coincide with the 750th anniversary of the borough's first charter of incorporation. Croydon also applied in 1951, but failed as it was felt not to have a sufficient identity apart from Greater London, and reports on the conduct of local government in the town were unfavourable.

1953–1974
It was anticipated that the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 would lead to the creation of a city, and Wolverhampton, Preston and Southampton made approaches; the only civic honour given was that of a lord mayoralty to Coventry. Derby and Southwark made unsuccessful applications in 1955. The planned reorganisations by the Local Government Commissions for England and Wales from 1958 effectively blocked new city grants. Southampton lodged a petition in 1958. Initially refused in 1959, pending the decision of the commission, it was eventually allowed in 1964. In the meantime, the administration of London was reformed under the London Government Act 1963. While the City of London was permitted to continue in existence largely unchanged, Westminster was merged with two neighbouring authorities to form a new London borough from 1 April 1965. In December 1963 it was announced that a charter was to be granted incorporating the new authority as "Westminster", and that the Queen had accepted the advice of the Home Secretary to raise the London borough to the title and dignity of city. This example, of a successor local authority to a merged local government entity taking on that former entity's city status, was to be replicated in many instances as a result of the 1972/74 local government reforms across England and Wales (see below).

With the establishment of the Royal Commission on Local Government in England in 1966, city grants were again in abeyance in England. Attempts by Derby, Teesside and Wolverhampton to become cities were not proceeded with. In Wales, Swansea campaigned for city status throughout the 1960s. The campaign came to a successful conclusion in 1969, in conjunction with the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales.

1974 reorganisation and new cities
The Local Government Act 1972 abolished all existing local authorities outside London (other than parish councils) in England and Wales. This meant that the various local authorities that held city status ceased to exist on 1 April 1974. To preserve city status new letters patent were issued to the most relevant metropolitan borough, non-metropolitan district or successor parish councils created by the Act. Some of these came to cover local government districts many times wider than the previous city, even taking in many square miles of rural land outside the urban areas, for example the cities of Bradford, Leeds and Winchester. Three non-local authority preservations arose: here charter trustees were established for the cities of Lichfield and Salisbury (or New Sarum) being neither districts nor civil parishes, and special letters patent for a time preserved the city of Rochester.

In 1977, as part of the celebrations of the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, the Home Office identified nine candidates for city status: Blackburn, Brighton, Croydon, Derby, Dudley, Newport, Sandwell, Sunderland and Wolverhampton. Ultimately, Derby received the award as the largest non-metropolitan district not already designated a city. In April 1980 a parish council was created for Lichfield, and the charter trustees established six years earlier were dissolved. City status was temporarily lost until new letters patent were issued in November of the same year. In 1992, on the fortieth anniversary of the monarch's accession, it was announced that another town would be elevated to a city. An innovation on this occasion was that a competition was to be held, and communities would be required to submit applications. Sunderland was the successful applicant. This was followed in 1994 by the restoration of the dignity to St David's, historic see of a bishop. Since 2000, city status has been awarded to towns or local government districts by competition on special occasions. A large number of towns have applied for the honour in recent decades including Blackpool, Colchester, Croydon, Gateshead, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Reading, Swindon and Warrington. Four successful applicants in England have become cities, as well as two in Wales; in 2000 for the Millennium celebrations, the new cities were Brighton and Hove and Wolverhampton; in 2002 for the Queen's Golden Jubilee it was Preston and Newport, and in 2012 for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee it was Chelmsford and St Asaph.

2021 bids for city status

From June 2021, submissions for city status were invited to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2022. Places submitting bids (some for a second or subsequent time) included Bangor (Northern Ireland), Bournemouth, Doncaster, Dunfermline, Dudley, Marazion, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Reading, St Andrews and Wrexham. Bids were also accepted from overseas territories and crown dependencies for the first time. The competition closed on 8 December 2021 with 39 locations on the shortlist, and the winners were to be announced in June 2022.

On 18 October 2021, the Prime Minister announced in Parliament that the Queen, in advance of the closing date, would accord city status to one of the applicants, Southend-on-Sea. This was in memory of Sir David Amess, the town's MP who was murdered three days earlier and had long pressed for the status. City status was officially granted by letters patent dated 26 January 2022. They were presented to Southend Borough Council by Charles, Prince of Wales, on 1 March 2022.

An announcement on 20 May 2022 declared that eight new cities were to be created from the shortlist, with at least one in every UK country as well as in overseas locations. In England, Milton Keynes, Colchester and Doncaster were to be the recipients of the honour. Dunfermline, a previous royal capital of Scotland, was granted the privilege. Bangor in Northern Ireland was also a recipient, and the title in Wales was granted to Wrexham. These awards increased the number of official mainland cities to 76, with 55 in England, eight in Scotland, seven in Wales, six in Northern Ireland.

Greater London
Other than the cities of London and Westminster, no local authorities in the Greater London area have been granted city status. The Home Office had a policy of resisting any attempt by metropolitan boroughs to become cities even when their populations, and other proposed claims as qualifying criteria, might otherwise have made them eligible. It was felt that such a grant would undermine the status of the two existing cities in the capital. The Metropolitan Borough of Southwark made a number of applications, but in 1955 the borough's town clerk was told not to pursue the matter any further. Outside the boundaries of the county, the County Borough of Croydon made three applications, all of which were dismissed as it was not seen as being sufficiently separate from London. When the successor London Borough of Croydon applied in 1965 the Assistant Under Secretary of State summarised the case against Croydon: "...whatever its past history, it is now just part of the London conurbation and almost indistinguishable from many of the other Greater London boroughs".

The same objections were made when the London Boroughs of Croydon and Southwark unsuccessfully entered the competition for city status to mark the millennium: Croydon was said to have "no particular identity of its own" while Southwark was "part of London with little individual identity". When the competition was held to mark the Golden Jubilee of 2002, Croydon made a sixth application, again unsuccessful. It was joined by the London Borough of Greenwich, which emphasised its royal and maritime connections, while claiming to be "to London what Versailles is to Paris". In this vein Greenwich joined Kingston-upon-Thames and Kensington and Chelsea in London in having the title of Royal Borough in 2012.

Rochester
Rochester was recognised as a city from 1211 to 1998. On 1 April 1974, the city council was abolished, becoming part of the Borough of Medway, a local government district in the county of Kent. However, under letters patent the former city council area was to continue to be styled the "City of Rochester" to "perpetuate the ancient name" and to recall "the long history and proud heritage of the said city". The city was unique, as it had no council or charter trustees and no mayor or civic head. In 1979, the Borough of Medway was renamed as Rochester-upon-Medway, and in 1982 further letters patent transferred the city status to the entire borough.

On 1 April 1998, the existing local government districts of Rochester-upon-Medway and Gillingham were abolished and became the new unitary authority of Medway. Since it was the local government district that officially held city status under the 1982 letters patent, when it was abolished, it also ceased to be a city. Whilst the two other local government districts with city status (Bath and Hereford) that were abolished around this time decided to appoint charter trustees to maintain the existence of the city and the mayoralty, Rochester-upon-Medway City Council did not do so. Medway Council apparently only became aware of this when, in 2002, they discovered that Rochester was not on the Lord Chancellor's Office's list of cities. In 2010, it started to refer to the "City of Medway" in promotional material, but it was rebuked and instructed not to do so in future by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Scotland
Scotland had no cities by royal charter or letters patent before 1889. The nearest equivalent in pre-Union Scotland was the royal burgh. The term city was not always consistently applied, and there were doubts over the number of officially designated cities. The royal burghs of Edinburgh and Perth anciently used the title civitas, but the term city does not seem to have been used before the 15th century. Unlike the situation in England, in Scotland there was no link between the presence of a cathedral and the title of city. Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh were accepted as cities by ancient usage by the 18th century, while Perth and Elgin also used the title. In 1856, the burgh of Dunfermline resolved to use the title of city in all official documents in the future, based on long usage and its former status as a royal capital. The status was not officially recognised until 2022.

In 1889, Dundee was granted city status by letters patent. The grant by formal document led to doubts about the use of the title city by other burghs. In 1891, the city status of Aberdeen was confirmed when the burgh was enlarged by local Act of Parliament. The Royal Burgh of Inverness applied for promotion to a city as part of the Jubilee honours in 1897. The request was not granted, partly because it would draw attention to the lack of any charter granting the title to existing cities. Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow were constituted "counties of cities" by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929. The Act made no statement on the title city for any other burgh. In 1969, the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, stated that there were six cities in Scotland (without naming them) and Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Elgin, Glasgow and Perth were the only burghs listed as cities in 1972.

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 completely reorganised Scotland's local administration in 1975. All burghs were abolished, and a system of districts created. The four districts of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow had City included in their titles by the Act. The 1975 districts were replaced with the present council areas in 1996 by the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, and the same four cities were designated. Since the 1996 reorganisation, four more Scottish cities have been designated: Inverness as part of the millennium celebrations, Stirling in 2002 to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee, Perth in 2012 to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and Dunfermline in 2022 to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. In the case of these four cities, there are no city councils and no formal boundaries. In January 2008, a petition to matriculate armorial bearings for the City of Inverness was refused by Lord Lyon King of Arms on the grounds that there is no corporate body or legal persona to whom arms can be granted.

Ireland and Northern Ireland

City status in Ireland tended historically to be granted by royal charter. There are many towns in Ireland with Church of Ireland cathedrals that have never been called cities. In spite of this, Armagh was considered a city, by virtue of its being the seat of the Primate of All Ireland, until the abolition of Armagh's city corporation by the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840. The only historic city with a charter in present-day Northern Ireland is Derry. Derry was given its first charter by James I in 1604, but the garrison was attacked and destroyed by Cahir O'Doherty in 1608. The present city is the result of a second charter granted in 1613 to members of the London guilds, as part of the Plantation of Ulster, providing for the building of a walled city, which was renamed Londonderry.

In 1887, the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated, and the Borough of Belfast submitted a memorial to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland seeking city status. Belfast based its claim on its similarity to two English boroughs that had received the honour—the seaport of Liverpool and the textile centre of Manchester—and the fact that it had (at the time) a larger population than the City of Dublin. Following some legal debate, city status was conferred in 1888. The grant of the honour on the grounds of being a large industrial town, rather than a diocesan centre, was unprecedented. Belfast's example was soon followed by Birmingham in England and Dundee in Scotland.

In 1994, Armagh's city status was restored. In 2002, Lisburn and Newry were two of the five towns in the UK that were granted city status by Queen Elizabeth II to mark her Golden Jubilee. In the case of Lisburn, the status extends to the entire local government district. Newry, like Inverness and Stirling in Scotland, has no formal boundaries or city council. The letters patent were presented to representatives of Newry and Mourne District Council on behalf of the city.

Crown colonies and British Overseas Territories
During the British Empire, the Colonial Office had the power to declare cities in Crown colonies by letters patent when appointing bishops. When the Bishop of Guyana was created in 1842, Georgetown (then part of British Guiana) was officially declared the "City of Georgetown". The same process was followed for Gibraltar, Jamestown, St Helena, Bridgetown, Barbados, St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda, Victoria, Hong Kong and Nassau, Bahamas.  Most of these have since gained independence from the United Kingdom, but Gibraltar and St Helena remain British Overseas Territories. This practice ended in 1865, and led to legal disputes about whether these letters patent were valid or not in territories with responsible government (primarily those in present day Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa). Goulburn in Australia for example found itself declared a city twice - once by letters patent in 1863 and once by law in 1885 after doubts arose to its status.

Hamilton, Bermuda was named as a city in 1897 as part of the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Since the second Millennium, competitions have been arranged by the UK government to grant the status to settlements. In 2021 submissions for city status were invited to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II, with Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories being allowed to take part for the first time. The applicants were George Town (in the Cayman Islands), Gibraltar, Stanley (in the Falkland Islands), Douglas and Peel (both in the Isle of Man).  It was later discovered that Gibraltar had been previously named a city, researchers at The National Archives confirming that Gibraltar's city status was still in effect, with the territory missing from the official list of cities for the past 140 years. Stanley and Douglas were later granted the honour, and after confirmations this will take the overseas total to five cities.

Current practice of granting city status
According to a Memorandum from the Home Office issued in 1927,

If a town wishes to obtain the title of a city the proper method of procedure is to address a petition to the King through the Home Office. It is the duty of the Home Secretary to submit such petitions to his Majesty and to advise his Majesty to the reply to be returned. It is a well-established principle that the grant of the title is only recommended in the case of towns of the first rank in population, size and importance, and having a distinctive character and identity of their own. At the present day, therefore, it is only rarely and in exceptional circumstances that the title is given.

A town can now apply for city status by submitting an application to the Lord Chancellor, who makes recommendations to the sovereign. Competitions for new grants of city status have been held to mark special events, such as coronations, royal jubilees or the Millennium.

Lord mayors

Some cities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have the further distinction of having a lord mayor rather than a simple mayor – in Scotland, the equivalent is the lord provost. Lord mayors have the right to be styled "The Right Worshipful The Lord Mayor". The lord mayors and provosts of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, the City of London and York have the further right to be styled "The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor" (or Provost), although they are not members of the Privy Council as this style usually indicates. The style is associated with the office, not the person holding it, so "The Right Worshipful Joseph Bloggsworthy" would be incorrect.

There are currently 70 recognised cities (including 31 lord mayoralties or lord provostships) in the UK: 52 cities (23 lord mayoralties) in England, six cities (two lord mayoralties) in Wales, seven cities (four lord provostships) in Scotland and five cities (two lord mayoralties) in Northern Ireland.

In the Republic of Ireland, the ceremonial head of the city government of Dublin is the Lord Mayor of Dublin. This title was granted by Charles II in 1665 when Dublin was part of the Kingdom of Ireland. Whilst the 1665 letters patent provided for the Lord Mayor to hold the formal title of Right Honourable, this was repealed in 2001. There is also a Lord Mayor of Cork, a title granted in 1900 when Cork was part of the (then) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

In modern practice, competitions are held for cities that wish to gain the distinction of a lord mayor. The 2002 competition was entered by Bath, Cambridge, Carlisle, Chichester, Derby, Exeter, Gloucester, Lancaster, Lincoln, St Albans, St Davids, Salford, Southampton, Sunderland, Truro, Wolverhampton and Worcester; the successful candidate was Exeter. In 2012 a further competition was held, as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, with Armagh receiving the distinction. Other than Armagh, eleven cities had entered the contest in 2012, namely: Cambridge, Derby, Gloucester, Lancaster, Newport, Peterborough, Salford, Southampton, St Albans, Sunderland, and Wakefield.

Local government districts
Since local government reorganisation in 1974 city status has been awarded to a number of local government districts which are not themselves towns. Each includes a number of towns and villages outside the urban area from which the district takes its name. In some of these cases city status was awarded to districts where the largest settlement had city status before 1974. In other cases a borough was formed to govern an area covering several towns and then city status was granted to the borough. The largest "city" district in terms of area was until 1 April 2023 the City of Carlisle, which covered some  of mostly rural landscape in the north of England, and was larger than smaller counties such as Merseyside or Rutland. (The largest now is the City of Winchester at .) Such cities include:

 City of Bradford, including the towns of Bingley, Ilkley, Keighley and Shipley as well as Bradford
 City of Canterbury, including the towns of Herne Bay and Whitstable as well as Canterbury
 City of Lancaster, including the towns of Carnforth, Heysham and Morecambe as well as Lancaster and surrounding rural areas.
 City of Leeds, including the towns of Otley, Pudsey and Wetherby as well as Leeds
 City of Peterborough, including rural areas as well as Peterborough
 City of Preston, including rural areas as well as Preston
 City of St Albans, including the town of Harpenden as well as St Albans
 City of Salford, including the towns of Eccles, Pendlebury and Swinton as well as Salford
 City of Sunderland, including the towns of Hetton-le-Hole, Houghton-le-Spring and Washington as well as Sunderland
 City of Wakefield, including the towns of Castleford, Normanton, Ossett and Pontefract as well as Wakefield
 City of Winchester, including the towns of Bishop's Waltham and New Alresford as well as Winchester

There are some cities where the local government district is in fact smaller than the historical or natural boundaries of the city. Examples include: Manchester, where the traditional area associated includes areas of the neighbouring authorities of Trafford, Tameside, Oldham, Bury and the City of Salford; Kingston upon Hull, where surrounding areas and villages that are effectively suburbs, such as Cottingham, come under East Riding of Yorkshire Council; Glasgow, where suburban areas of the city are located in East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire; Wolverhampton and London.

City councils

The holding of city status gives a settlement no special rights other than that of calling itself a "city". Nonetheless, this appellation carries its own prestige and, consequently, competitions for the status are hard-fought.

Historically, city status could only be granted to incorporated towns. The grant was specifically awarded to the relevant local government area such as a civil parish or borough. However, recent grants have used a looser wording, where the status is awarded to the "town". In most cases the "town" is held to be coterminous with the relevant local government area, such that the city status holder is the corporate body of the council. Examples include the Letters Patent awarded to the "Towns of Brighton and Hove", the "Town of Wolverhampton" and the "Town of Newport in the County Borough of Newport". In each case the existing borough council became the city council.

Most cities have city councils, which have varying powers depending on the country and type of settlement.

England
Thirteen of the 55 cities in England are in metropolitan counties and their city councils are single-tier metropolitan district councils. Outside the metropolitan counties fourteen cities are unitary authorities, and fifteen have ordinary district councils, which are subordinate to their local county council. In London the Westminster City Council functions as a London borough council, and the City of London Corporation is the council for the City of London. Eight smaller episcopal cities such as Ripon and Wells are neither local government districts nor within a 'local government district with city status', and have city councils which are parish councils, with limited powers. Two cities (Bath and Chester) have no city council, while Durham has a 'city' parish council – these however, maintain the status through charter trustees on behalf of their prior district areas which held city status before being abolished in 1996 and 2009.

Scotland
Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow are themselves council areas and have their own city councils. The cities of Dunfermline, Perth, Stirling and Inverness are part of council areas which do not have city status, and have no city councils. Stirling Council's application for city status was specifically for the urban area of the (now former) Royal Burgh of Stirling and included proposed city boundaries which are much smaller than Stirling council area.

Wales
Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea are principal areas and have city councils. Wrexham, being awarded the status in 2022, still maintains its county borough council as of April 2023. The city councils of Bangor, St Asaph and St Davids are community councils with limited powers.

Northern Ireland
Belfast City Council is a local government district council. Since the local government reforms of 2015 the four other cities of Armagh, Derry, Lisburn and Newry form parts of wider districts and do not have their own councils.

City status conferment
City status is conferred by letters patent and not by a royal charter (except historically in Ireland). There are twenty towns in England and Wales that were recognised as cities by "ancient prescriptive right"; none of these communities had been formally declared a city, but they had all used the title since "time immemorial", that is, before 3 September 1189, and had been granted some form of privilege such as freedoms by way of a charter or being given borough or corporation status. A list of these ancient cities was produced by the Home Office in 1927 and is:

 Bangor (Wales)
 Bath
 Canterbury
 Carlisle
 Chichester
 Coventry
 Durham
 Ely
 Exeter
 Hereford
 Lichfield
 Lincoln
 City of London
 Norwich
 Rochester (status lost in 1998)
 Salisbury
 Wells
 Winchester
 Worcester
 York

These twenty cities were concurrent with 22 ancient diocese (pre-English Reformation) locations. Bath and Wells being one diocese, the remaining three are in Wales:

 Llandaff — had not been incorporated as a borough or granted privileges so was not deemed a city. It was merged into the existing city of Cardiff in 1922;
 St Asaph — was never considered to be a city due to a lack of honours or charters, however it was later awarded the status in 2012;
 St Davids — had been a borough, yet lost the status in 1886 (so did not appear in the above list). The title of city was restored in 1994.

The holding of city status brings no special benefits other than the right to be called a city. All cities where a local government unit that holds that status is abolished have to be re-issued with letters patent reconfirming city status following local government reorganisation where that holder has been abolished. This process was followed by a number of cities since 1974, and York and Hereford's status was confirmed twice, in 1974 and again in the 1990s. Failure to do so leads to the loss of city status as happened at Rochester in 1998 (see above), and also previously in St David's and Armagh, although both of these latter have regained city status since losing it. These three had been cities since time immemorial before the loss of city status.

Officially designated cities
There are currently 76 officially designated cities in the UK, of which 17 have been created since 2000 in competitions to celebrate the new millennium and Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee in 2002, Diamond Jubilee in 2012, and Platinum Jubilee in 2022. The designation is highly sought after, with over 40 communities submitting bids at recent competitions.

List of officially designated cities
 City status has been applied to a variety of entities including towns, local government districts and civil parishes.
 See List of cities in the United Kingdom for a list of entities holding the status for each city, and a map of all of them.
 Each icon below leads to a map of the area with city status.

England

 Bath
 Birmingham
 Bradford
 Brighton and Hove
 Bristol
 Cambridge
 Canterbury
 Carlisle
 Chelmsford
 Chester
 Chichester
 Colchester
 Coventry
 Derby
 Doncaster
 Durham
 Ely
 Exeter
 Gloucester
 Hereford
 Kingston upon Hull
 Lancaster
 Leeds
 Leicester
 Lichfield
 Lincoln
 Liverpool
 City of London
 Manchester
 Milton Keynes
 Newcastle upon Tyne
 Norwich
 Nottingham
 Oxford
 Peterborough
 Plymouth
 Portsmouth
 Preston
 Ripon
 Salford
 Salisbury
 Sheffield
 Southampton
 Southend-on-Sea
 St Albans
 Stoke-on-Trent
 Sunderland
 Truro
 Wakefield
 Wells
 City of Westminster
 Winchester
 Wolverhampton
 Worcester
 York

Scotland

 Aberdeen
 Dundee
 Dunfermline
 Edinburgh
 Glasgow
 Inverness
 Perth
 Stirling

Wales

 Bangor
 Cardiff
 Newport
 St Asaph
 St Davids
 Swansea
 Wrexham

Northern Ireland

 Armagh
 Bangor
 Belfast
 Derry
 Lisburn
 Newry

Smallest and largest cities
While cities are regularly ranked by the number of residents, this is not an ideal measure. Population can vary based on the number and type of residences present, and has to be limited to an area. As mentioned earlier in the article, the official area of a city in the UK is typically the coverage up to a local government/council boundary, there being a variety of council bodies. However, there are exceptions depending on the UK constituent country and whether the council has since been abolished.

Such a boundary can typically contain a built up (urban) area, and a surrounding, less populated rural landscape. Inversely, the area of a city can be entirely built up, with that urban environment spilling over a boundary into another area which does not have city status. That wider urban area can still be considered in everyday parlance locally as a whole 'city' although it is not a formal designation.

With the 'square mile' City of London being in the middle of a huge urban area, it can be suggested that 'small' should be applied to only cities with minimal urban areas that have nearby surrounding areas of countryside and so is visibly representative of the term, the city of Wells being more suitable in this regard as the smallest standalone city council area. Therefore, sizing can be interpreted in a number of ways, and below are top 5 lists of the smallest and largest cities ranked by population, city council area, and urban area.

All statistics are 2021 census figures.
Population is of the total residents in the city council area. Armagh (no local council) and the Largest Urban Area table both use urban population figures.

Smallest

† Urban areas which extend beyond the city council boundary. It is not always possible to obtain the urban area size of a city alone when the total built-up area (BUA) extends beyond the council boundary. The ONS does sometimes isolate an approximate city urban portion as a built-up area subdivision (BUASD) but those can also spill over borders. To maintain consistency, BUA figures are given, which tend to be not much larger than BUASDs for the smallest of cities, and both Wells and Bangor's rankings in the table would remain the same if BUASDs were substituted instead.

The least populous cities on all of British territory are Jamestown in St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (pop. 629) and Hamilton in Bermuda (pop. 854).

Largest

‡ Excludes cities that do not have their own councils or have other settlements in their council name.

Towns not cities

Populous towns

As noted above, in ordinary discourse, city can refer to any large settlement, with no fixed limit.

There are certain towns with large urban areas that could qualify for city status on the grounds of population size. Some have applied for city status and had the application turned down.

The report "Key Statistics for Built-Up Areas 2011" published by the Office for National Statistics shows that, at the 2011 Census, the following were the largest urban areas in the United Kingdom not having a city as a component:

The largest local authorities to have been unsuccessful in applying for city status in recent competitions are:

 London Borough of Croydon – 390,719
 Metropolitan Borough of Dudley – 312,925
 Metropolitan Borough of Wirral – 312,293
 Metropolitan Borough of Stockport – 284,528
 Metropolitan Borough of Bolton – 261,037
 Borough of Medway – 249,488
 London Borough of Southwark – 244,866
 London Borough of Tower Hamlets – 220,500
 London Borough of Greenwich – 214,403 (became a Royal Borough on 3 February 2012)
 Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead – 200,300
 Borough of Northampton – 194,458
Borough has now been abolished and now forms part of West Northamptonshire, Prior to the 2021 dissolution of its borough council, it was one of the most populous districts not to be a London borough, metropolitan borough, unitary authority or city; on this basis, the former borough council claimed that it is the largest town in England. Today, the town remains the most populous civil parish in the UK.
 Borough of Warrington – 191,084
 Borough of Luton – 184,371
 Borough of Bournemouth – 183,491 (Borough has now been abolished and now forms part of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole)
 Borough of Swindon – 180,051
 Borough of Telford and Wrekin – 161,600
 Borough of Reading – 155,300
 Borough of Blackpool – 142,100
 Borough of Middlesbrough – 138,400

Cathedral towns

A "cathedral city" is a place designated as a city which has a cathedral.

England and Wales
Since being the seat of an Anglican diocese is no longer sufficient or necessary to gain city status, some cathedral towns exist:

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica refers to Southwell as a city, and in 1949 Bury St Edmunds is referred to as a city.

There are 16 English and Welsh cities that have never had Anglican cathedrals within their borders – Brighton and Hove, Cambridge, Hull, Lancaster, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Plymouth, Preston, Salford, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland, Swansea, and Wolverhampton.

Bath Abbey was once a diocesan cathedral, as was Westminster Abbey briefly during the reign of Henry VIII. These cities retained their city status despite their cathedrals losing that status.

Scotland
The national church of Scotland, the Church of Scotland, is presbyterian in governance (not recognising authority of bishops), and thus has high kirks rather than cathedrals. However, the pre-Reformation dioceses do have extant cathedrals, most notably at Glasgow and Aberdeen, which remain in use by the Church of Scotland and continue to bear the honorific title of cathedral. Others (such as that of St Andrews) are now in ruins.

As noted above, both Perth and Elgin were recognised as cities before 1975; Perth's city status was restored in 2012. Additionally, five other pre-Reformation sees—Brechin, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Kirkwall and St Andrews—are often referred to as cities, notably in names associated with the settlements (e.g. 'City of Brechin and District' community council. and Brechin City F.C., City Road in St Andrews). Dornoch, Fortrose, Lismore, Saddell and Whithorn also possess pre-Reformation cathedrals but have never been described as cities.

Towns with non-Church of Scotland, post-Reformation cathedrals which are not recognised as cities are Ayr (R.C.), Millport (Episcopal), Oban (R.C.), Motherwell (R.C.) and Paisley (R.C.). Of these, Ayr, Motherwell and Paisley have larger populations than Perth, Stirling and Inverness, and both Ayr and Paisley have formally made a bid for city status during the millennium competition.

Of settlements granted city status in the 21st century, Inverness (awarded 2001) possesses an Episcopal cathedral (1866), but none under the auspices of the Church of Scotland. Stirling (awarded 2002) has never had a cathedral of any kind. Perth (reinstated 2012) has an Episcopal cathedral dating from 1860, but no pre-Reformation establishment.

Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, as noted above, possession of a diocesan cathedral has never (except in the anomalous case of Armagh) been sufficient to attain this status. In addition, the Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871.

In spite of this, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica refers to Armagh (which lost city status in 1840) and Lisburn as cities. Armagh subsequently regained city status formally in 1994, and Lisburn achieved city status in 2002.

There are four towns in Northern Ireland with Church of Ireland cathedrals that do not have city status—Clogher, Downpatrick, Dromore and Enniskillen.

Newry is the only city in Northern Ireland that does not have a Church of Ireland cathedral within its borders.

Claimants
A number of towns describe themselves as cities (at least in some contexts), despite not having the requisite Charter.
 Ballymena in Northern Ireland has been known informally as "The City of the Seven Towers" since the nineteenth century.
 The community council for Brechin is called City of Brechin & District Community Council. The local football team is known as Brechin City F.C. (they were formed at a meeting on City Road in the town). Brechin also possesses a cathedral, and was the ancient seat of the see of Brechin.
 Dunkeld, the see of a bishop until the seventeenth century is sometimes referred to as a city. A "City Hall" was built in 1877, since converted into a holiday accommodation.
 The community council for Elgin is called City and Royal Burgh of Elgin Community Council. The local football team is known as Elgin City F.C.
 Guildford possesses a cathedral and the local football team is named Guildford City F.C. In 2013 the local council did not submit an application, citing low chance of success, and high time and resource against low benefits ratio.
 Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City are medium-sized New Towns in Hertfordshire established to reduce the overcrowding of London as part of the Garden city movement.
 After its unsuccessful attempts to gain city status, the town of Reading, Berkshire, started using the phrase "City Centre" on its buses and car-park signs. Reading's urban area has in excess of 350,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest urban areas in the UK and larger than many sizeable cities including Southampton, Kingston upon Hull and Derby. However, the population of the Borough of Reading was estimated as 142,800 in 2006 by the Office for National Statistics, as a number of the town's large eastern and southern suburbs (such as Earley and Woodley) lie within neighbouring local authorities.

See also

 List of cities in the United Kingdom
 Borough status in the United Kingdom
 List of towns in the United Kingdom
 List of place names with royal patronage in the United Kingdom
 List of urban areas in the United Kingdom
 List of smallest cities in the United Kingdom
 City status in Ireland
 City status

References

External links

 House of Commons Library blog on city status
 Government list of UK cities
 Images and text from British Towns and Cities

Local government in the United Kingdom
Types of subdivision in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

City status in the United Kingdom


Eugenio Giraldoni (20 May 1871, Marseille – 23 June 1924, Helsinki) was an Italian operatic baritone who enjoyed a substantial international career. In 1900, he created the role of Baron Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.

He was the son of another leading baritone, Leone Giraldoni, and the soprano and violinist Carolina Ferni. His mother gave him voice lessons and he made his opera debut in Barcelona, as Escamillo in Carmen, in 1891.

Giraldoni consolidated his career by appearing at various operatic venues in Italy and, in 1898, visiting South America. Then, in 1900, he earned a place in operatic history when he created the part of Baron Scarpia in Tosca, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. He also appeared in the first performance of Alberto Franchetti's La figlia di Jorio at Italy's foremost opera house, La Scala, Milan, in 1906.

He sang in Russia and Poland from 1901 until 1907 and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City during the 1904–05 season. In 1913, he appeared at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, as Scarpia and Sharpless.

Giraldoni had a dark, resonant voice and a strong (if unsubtle) stage presence, according to contemporary descriptions of his performances. Apart from Scarpia, his notable roles included: Don Carlo, Amonasro, Telramund, Hamlet, Berlioz's Méphisto and Onegin. But like his direct rival, the Sicilian baritone Mario Sammarco, Giraldoni's vehement style of singing was best suited to operas by verismo composers such as Ruggero Leoncavallo, who composed Pagliacci, Umberto Giordano, who composed Andrea Chénier,  and  Alberto Franchetti, who composed Germania and Cristoforo Colombo.

After World War I, Giraldoni sang on the Italian provincial-theatre circuit. He retired from the stage in Trieste in 1921 and died three years later in Finland, where he had gone to teach. His last operatic appearance had been as the Father in Louise.

Giraldoni made a number of recordings prior to World War I, some of which have been reissued on CD.

Sources

 Le guide de l'opéra, Mancini & Rouveroux, (Fayard, 1986);
 The Record of Singing, Michael Scott, (Duckworth, 1977).

1871 births
1924 deaths
Italian operatic baritones
Musicians from Marseille
Italian expatriates in Finland
19th-century Italian male opera singers
20th-century Italian male opera singers
French emigrants to Italy

Eugenio Giraldoni


Act of War is a 2014 USA Today and New York Times bestselling thriller spy novel by American author Brad Thor and the thirteenth book in the Scot Harvath series. It was preceded by Hidden Order and was followed by Code of Conduct.

Of the book, Thor stated that his "No. 1 goal is to entertain people. I'm an entertainer and I'm gonna give them a great summer read. But if you close the book with questions or wanting to learn more about something or just a little bit smarter, than I think that's a neat kind of value add."

Plot
The President of the United States Paul Porter and the United States attempt to stop a catastrophic attack on the country by the Chinese. The name of the Chinese plot is Snow Dragon.

A division of the Chinese government is planning of Snow Dragon. When one of the cell members of the plot in the United States continually fails to make contact, that division of the Chinese government sends in a known killer and super spy into the U.S. to check things out. The Chinese contracted out the completion of Snow Dragon to Muslims and other extremists in the Middle East. If the U.S. government wants any information or any hope of stopping Snow Dragon they must find anyone and everyone involved in pulling off this catastrophic event.

Meanwhile, a team of three Navy SEALS and a CIA officer that are dispatched to spy on North Korea. This is being done because intelligence has told the United States that the Chinese are conducting training missions in the country. Former Navy SEAL, Secret Service member and U.S. hero Scot Harvath. Harvath, who is working with the Carlton Group, a specialized intel and operations group, does whatever it takes to stop the Chinese and keep the U.S. safe.

Reception
Tulsa World praised Act of War and compared it favorably to the television series 24. The Nashville Scene also gave a positive review, writing "With Act of War, Thor has proven once again why he is a favorite of the genre — and of the political right."

References

External links

2014 American novels
American spy novels
Atria Publishing Group books

Act of War (novel)


The Man Who Talked Too Much is a 1940 American drama film directed by Vincent Sherman and written by Walter DeLeon and Earl Baldwin. Starring George Brent, Virginia Bruce, Brenda Marshall, Richard Barthelmess, William Lundigan, George Tobias and John Litel, the film was released by Warner Bros. on July 16, 1940.

The Man Who Talked Too Much is the second of three films adapted from the 1929 play The Mouthpiece by Frank J. Collins, in which a former prosecutor, disillusioned by sending an innocent man to the electric chair, takes the saying "Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer the death penalty" one step further by becoming a defense attorney for gangsters and adroitly tightrope walking legal ethics. Collins based his protagonist on Manhattan defense attorney William Joseph Fallon, dubbed "The Great Mouthpiece" in the New York press, who had a short but spectacularly successful career before succumbing to the effects of his own dissoluteness at the age of 41.

Plot
Steve Forbes prosecutes a case so convincingly, an innocent man ends up sentenced to die in the electric chair. He quits the district attorney's office and opens a private practice, resulting in racketeer J.B. Roscoe becoming a client.

The money he makes allows Steve to put younger brother Johnny through law school. After a while, Joan Reed, his secretary, and Johnny both become appalled by how unethical Steve has become in his profession. Johnny informs on Roscoe, after which the gangster frames him for a murder. Unable to save him in court, Steve works desperately to prove Johnny's innocence before his brother's execution.

Cast
 George Brent as Stephen M. Forbes
 Virginia Bruce as Joan Reed
 Brenda Marshall as Celia Farrady
 Richard Barthelmess as J.B. Roscoe
 William Lundigan as John L. Forbes
 George Tobias as Slug 'Canvasback' McNutt
 John Litel as District Attorney Dickson
 Henry Armetta as Tony Spirella
 Alan Baxter as Joe Garland
 David Bruce as Gerald Wilson
 Clarence Kolb as E.A. Smith
 Louis Jean Heydt as Barton
 Marc Lawrence as Lefty Kyler
 Edwin Stanley as District Attorney Nelson
 Kay Sutton as Mrs. Knight
 Elliott Sullivan as Bill
 Dick Rich as Pete
 Phyllis Hamilton as Myrtle
 John Ridgely as Brooks
 William Forrest as Federal District Attorney Green
 Maris Wrixon as Roscoe's Secretary
 Margaret Hayes as Governor's Secretary

Reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said, "Garrulity is a social evil which very few people can abide, and the truth of the matter is that The Man Who Talked Too Much talks too much, too. For a straight gangster picture, which should be fast and concise, it is ponderously slow and windy and as transparent as a goldfish bowl. There are two identically suspenseful sequences, at the beginning and at the end, when innocent men linger painfully in the shadow of the electric chair while people rush around madly to save them. And that's about all the suspense there is."

References

External links

1940 films
Warner Bros. films
American drama films
1940 drama films
Films directed by Vincent Sherman
Films scored by Heinz Roemheld
American black-and-white films
American films based on plays
1940s English-language films
1940s American films

The Man Who Talked Too Much


The Special Boat Service (SBS) is the special forces unit of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. The SBS can trace its origins back to the Second World War when the Army Special Boat Section was formed in 1940. After the Second World War, the Royal Navy formed special forces with several name changes—Special Boat Company was adopted in 1951 and re-designated as the Special Boat Squadron in 1974—until on 28 July 1987 when the unit was renamed as the Special Boat Service after assuming responsibility for maritime counter-terrorism. Most of the operations conducted by the SBS are highly classified, and are rarely commented on by the British government or the Ministry of Defence, owing to their sensitive nature.

The Special Boat Service is the maritime special forces unit of the United Kingdom Special Forces and is described as the sister unit of the British Army 22 Special Air Service Regiment (22 SAS), with both under the operational control of the Director Special Forces. In October 2001, full command of the SBS was transferred from the Commandant General Royal Marines to the Commander-in-Chief Fleet. On 18 November 2003, the SBS were given their own cap badge with the motto "By Strength and Guile". The SBS has traditionally been staffed mostly by Royal Marines Commandos.

Role
The principal roles of the SBS are Surveillance and Reconnaissance (SR), including information reporting and target acquisition; Offensive Action (OA), including the direction of air strikes, artillery and naval gunfire, designation for precision guided munitions, use of integral weapons and demolitions; and Support and Influence (SI), including overseas training tasks. The SBS also provide immediate response Military Counter Terrorism (CT) and Maritime Counter Terrorism (MCT) teams.

The operational capabilities of the SBS and the SAS are broadly similar. However, the SBS (being the principal Royal Navy contribution to UKSF) has the additional training and equipment required to lead in the maritime, amphibious and riverine environments. Both units come under the operational command of HQ Directorate of Special Forces (DSF) and undergo an identical selection process.

History

Origin: Second World War
Roger Courtney became a commando in mid-1940 and was sent to the Combined Training Centre in Scotland. He was unsuccessful in his initial attempts to convince Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes and later Admiral Theodore Hallett, commander of the Combined Training Centre, that his idea of a folding kayak brigade would be effective. He decided to infiltrate , an infantry landing ship anchored in the River Clyde. Courtney paddled to the ship, climbed aboard undetected, wrote his initials on the door to the captain's cabin, and stole a deck gun cover. He presented the soaking cover to a group of high-ranking Royal Navy officers meeting at a nearby Inveraray hotel. He was promoted to captain and given command of twelve men as the first Special Boat Service/Special Boat Section.

The unit, on the shores of Sannox, Isle of Arran, was initially named the Folboat Troop, after the type of folding canoe employed in raiding operations and then renamed No. 1 Special Boat Section in early 1941. One training exercise required SBS members to navigate folboats  over 3 days and 3 nights from Ardrossan to Clachan, via the Isle of Kerrera, where they reconnoitred and sketched RAF Oban. Attached to Layforce, it moved to the Middle East. The unit worked with the 1st Submarine Flotilla based at Alexandria and did beach reconnaissance of Rhodes, evacuated troops left behind on Crete, and carried out a number of small-scale raids and other operations. In December 1941 Courtney returned to the United Kingdom where he formed No2 SBS, and No1 SBS became attached to the Special Air Service (SAS) as the Folboat Section. In June 1942 they took part in the Crete airfield raids. In September 1942 eight men of the SBS carried out Operation Anglo, a raid on two airfields on the island of Rhodes; all but two of the men were captured after carrying out their mission. Destroying three aircraft, a fuel dump and numerous buildings, the two uncaptured SBS men had to hide in the countryside for four days before they could reach the waiting submarine. After the Rhodes raid, the SBS was absorbed into the SAS due to the heavy casualties they had suffered.

The Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment (RMBPD) was formed on 6 July 1942, and based at Southsea, Portsmouth. The RMBPD was under the command of Royal Marines Major Herbert 'Blondie' Hasler with Captain J. D. Stewart as second in command. The detachment consisted of 34 men and was based at Lumps Fort, and often exercised in the Portsmouth Harbour and patrolled the harbour boom at nights.

In April 1943, 1st SAS was divided, with 250 men from the SAS joining the Small Scale Raiding Force to form the Special Boat Squadron under the command of Major the Earl Jellicoe. They moved to Haifa and trained with the Greek Sacred Regiment for operations in the Aegean.

They later operated among the Dodecanese and Cyclades groups of islands in the Dodecanese Campaign and took part in the Battle of Leros and the Battle of Kos. They, with the Greek Sacred Band, took part in the successful Raid on Symi in July 1944 in which the entire German garrison was either killed or captured. In August 1944 they joined with the Long Range Desert Group in operations in the Adriatic, on the Peloponnese, in Albania, and, finally, in Istria. So effective were they that, by 1944, the 200–300 men of the SBS were holding down six German divisions.

Throughout the war, No.2 SBS did not use the Special Boat Squadron name but instead retained the name Special Boat Section. They accompanied US Major General Mark Clark ashore before the Operation Torch landings in October 1942 on Operation Flagpole. Later, one group, Z SBS, which was based in Algiers from March 1943, carried out the beach reconnaissance for the Salerno landings and a raid on Crete, before moving to Ceylon to work with the Special Operations Executives, Force 136 and later with Special Operations Australia. The rest of No. 2 SBS became part of South-East Asia Command's Small Operations Group, operating on the Chindwin and Irrawaddy rivers, and in the Arakan, during the Burma campaign.

Although their roles always overlapped to some extent, the various canoe and boat units became more specialised from late 1942 onwards. The RMBPD focused on ship attack and harbour sabotage, the Special Boat Section and COPP undertook covert beach surveys, and the Special Boat Squadron engaged in raiding, sabotage and reconnaissance above the high-water mark.

Post-war era
In 1946, the SBS, whether of Commando or SAS parentage, was disbanded. The RMBPD was the only British Special Forces unit to survive the end of World War II intact, and one of three Special Service units to survive (the other two being the RM Commandos and the Parachute Regiment). In 1946, the RMBPD became the School of Combined Operations Beach and Boat Section (SCOBBS) at Fremington, Devon. Lt-Col "Blondie" Hasler RM became the adviser to SCOBBS and wrote the pamphlet "General Notes on the Use of Special Parties". The basic SCOBBS course of fourteen weeks covered the range of skills of the wartime COPPS, SRU, SBS and Detachment 385. In October 1947 SCOBBS dropped the word School from its name and moved to RM Eastney to become the Small Raids Wing (SRW) of the Amphibious School, Royal Marines. The school's Chief Instructor Norman Tailyour established the Royal Marines Special Boat Sections taking on the roles proposed in Hasler's paper. Their first missions were in Palestine, involving ordnance removal, and limpet mine removal from ships in Haifa. The SBS went on to serve in the Korean War deployed on operations along the North Korean coast as well as operating behind enemy lines destroying lines of communication, installations and gathering intelligence. During the Korean War the SBS operated from submarines like their wartime predecessors.

In the early 1950s, NATO doctrine for the defence of Western Europe called for a rapid fall-back to the west bank of the Rhine River, a natural defensive barrier. Royal Navy Rhine Flotilla's SBS detachment had the task of demolishing the bridges over the river as well as destroying the many river barges on the river. The SBS teams of a radio operator and two SBS swimmer-canoeists would then stay behind on the eastern side of the river providing reconnaissance and intelligence and to sabotage Warsaw Pact forces logistics. 2 SB Section, and later also the newly formed 3 SB Section, were part of the Rhine Squadron until around 1958 and took part in all major British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) exercises when they would be joined by 4 and 5 SB Section, formed from the Royal Marines Reserve.

In 1952, SBS teams were held at combat readiness in Egypt in case Gamal Abdel Nasser's revolution turned more violent than it did. The SBS were also alerted during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and coup against King Idris I of Libya (1959), but in both cases they did not see action. In 1961, SBS teams carried out reconnaissance missions during the Indonesian Confrontation (see Operation Claret). In the same year, Iraq threatened to invade Kuwait for the first time, and the SBS put a detachment at Bahrain. In 1972, the SBS came into prominence when members of a combined SBS and RAOC team parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean after a bomb threat on board the cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2. A thorough search of the ship found no evidence of any device drawing the conclusion that it was a hoax. The SBS conducted operations in Northern Ireland during The Troubles including with submarines. In January 1975, two SBS kayak teams were inserted from HMS Cachalot to conduct an anti gun running operation in the area between Torr Head and Garron.

Special Boat Squadron
In 1973, their name was changed to the Special Boat Squadron and in 1980 the SBS relinquished North Sea oil rig protection to Comacchio Company, Royal Marines. In 1982, after the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, they deployed to South Georgia. The only losses to the SBS during the Falklands War occurred when the SBS and SAS were operating behind the lines and two members of the SBS were shot, one fatally, by an SAS patrol, who had mistaken them for Argentinians.

Special Boat Service
In 1987, they were renamed Special Boat Service, and became part of the United Kingdom Special Forces Group alongside the Special Air Service and 14 Intelligence Company. In the Gulf War, there was no amphibious role assigned to the SBS. An "area of operations line" was drawn down the middle of Iraq; the SAS would operate west of the line and the SBS to the east. As well as searching for mobile Scud missile launchers, the SBS's assigned area contained a mass of fibre-optic cable that provided Iraq with intelligence; the location of the main junction of the network was 32 miles from Baghdad. On 22 January 1991, 36 SBS members were inserted by two Chinook helicopters from No. 7 Squadron RAF into an area full of Iraqi ground and air forces as well as spies and nomads. The SBS team managed to avoid these and destroyed a 40-yard section of the cable with explosives, neutralising what was left of the Iraqi communication grid. The SBS also carried out one of its most high-profile operations when it liberated the British Embassy in Kuwait, abseiling from helicopters hovering above the embassy. They also carried out diversionary raids along the Kuwaiti coast which diverted a number of Iraqi troops away from the main thrust of the coalition buildup, to the SBS area of operations.

In September 1999, about 20 SBS members contributed to the Australian-led International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) in East Timor. Together with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment and the New Zealand Special Air Service they formed INTERFET's special forces element, named Response Force. Response Force departed from Darwin by C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and flew into Dili tasked with securing the airport, a seaport and a heli-port to enable regular forces to land and deploy. The SBS were filmed driving a Land Rover Defender out of a Hercules. Response Force was then used to perform a variety of tasks including direct action and special reconnaissance throughout East Timor. The British forces, including the SBS, withdrew in December 1999. Sergeant Mark Andrew Cox was awarded the Military Cross after his patrol came under fire from pro-Indonesian militia.

21st century

Sierra Leone
In September 2000, the SBS, integrated with the SAS, were involved in Operation Barras, a hostage rescue operation in Sierra Leone that successfully rescued five captured Royal Irish Regiment soldiers.

Afghanistan

In November 2001, C and M squadron SBS had an extensive role in the invasion of Afghanistan at the start of the War in Afghanistan, notably, members of M squadron, alongside members of SIS, were involved in the Battle of Tora Bora. The SBS was integrated directly into Task Force Sword – a Black unit, under direct command of JSOC, this was a so-called hunter-killer force whose primary objective was capturing or killing senior leadership and High-value targets within al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Troops from C squadron (reinforced by teams from X and Z squadron, with at least one SEAL attached to them) were tasked with several missions, some with Abdul Rashid Dostum's Northern Alliance forces at Mazar-e-Sharif. On 10 November, C squadron inserted into the recently captured Bagram Airbase, which caused an immediate political quandary with the Northern Alliance leadership which claimed that the British had failed to consult them on it before the deployment, in addition to fighting with Dostum's forces, they worked alongside TF Sword in Shah-i-Kot Valley.  Members of M squadron SBS, were involved in a prison revolt during the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi, members of the SBS along with US and Northern Alliance troops eventually quelled the uprising, however during one close air support mission, a misdirected JDAM bomb wounded four SBS personnel to various degrees. In appreciation for the SBS contribution to the battle, the CIA attempted to recognise the personnel with US decorations, but due to military and political bureaucracy, the decorations were never awarded. The SBS continued to work with Task Force Sword and the CIA.

In Spring 2005, the Director of Special Forces re-balanced British special forces deployments so that Afghanistan would be the responsibility of the SBS and Iraq would be the 22 SAS Regiment's. In Spring 2006, the British military deployed over 4,000 troops to southern Afghanistan and the SBS were assigned to take the lead in supporting the deployment. The SBS were part of Task Force 42 the British contingent in the Joint Special Forces command; their deployment with other British special forces units was codenamed Operation Kindle (similar to the SAS and other British SF deployment in Iraq, known as Operation Crichton); the SBS carried out missions all over southern Afghanistan with AgustaWestland Apache helicopters. Along with training and mentoring Afghan Provincial Response Companies, Afghan police tactical units the operated jointly with Coalition SOF, TF 42 conducted operations in direct support of the British Battle Group deployed in Helmand Province and for ISAF SOF Command and operations directly for the Americans in pursuit of high-value targets. The main objective of the SBS (and later on other British special forces units with Afghan forces) was targeting Taliban leaders and drug barons using "Carrot and stick" tactics. On 27 June 2006, a 16-man unit from C Squadron and members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) carried out Operation Ilois: an operation that silently captured four Taliban leaders in compounds on the outskirts of Sangin, Helmand province. As they returned to their Land Rover vehicles, they were ambushed by an estimated 60–70 Taliban insurgents, with one vehicle disabled by RPG fire, the team took cover in an irrigation ditch and requested assistance while holding off the Taliban force. The Helmand Battle Group had not been informed of the operation until it went wrong; a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) made up of a platoon of Gurkhas responded but ran into another insurgent ambush; one SBS member was seriously injured in the ambush. After an hour-long gunfight (some sources say three hours), Apache attack helicopters, the Gurkha QRF and the 16-man unit, supported by a US A-10 Thunderbolt and two Harrier GR7s managed to break contact and return to the closest FOB; two of the four Taliban leaders were killed in the firefight while the other two escaped in the chaos. Upon reaching the FOB it was discovered that Captain David Patton, SRR, and Sergeant Paul Bartlett, SBS were missing—one was helping wounded out of a vehicle when he was shot and assumed killed, and the other went missing during the firefight. An RAF Chinook carrying a company from the Parachute Regiment took off to find them, a pair of Apaches spotted the bodies and the Paras recovered them. One SBS member was awarded the MC for his actions in the ambush.

On 12 May 2007, an SBS team killed the Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah after JSOC and the ISA tracked him to a compound—where his associates were meeting—near Bahram Chah, Helmand province. The ISA confirmed he was there and an SBS reconnaissance element carried out reconnaissance of the compound which showed that Dadullah was protected by 20 insurgents. That night, with the ISA monitoring the target, the majority of C Squadron were inserted by RAF Chinook HC.2 helicopters while Apache helicopters provided cover. The troops stormed the compound and an hour long firefight took place as small groups of Taliban were hunted down and killed. Four SBS personnel were wounded (one seriously). Eventually Dadullah was shot in the chest and head, a brief site exploitation was conducted and the assault force was picked up by helicopter. On 29 July 2007, members of the SBS were carrying out a special mission in Nimruz when they were involved in a firefight with Taliban insurgents, Lance Corporal Michael Jones was killed and three other members were wounded. On 24 September 2007, members of C squadron SBS and the Italian SOF unit Col Moschin rescued two Italian intelligence agents who were kidnapped two days before by the Taliban in Herat province near Farah. Col Moschin parachuted onto a drop zone and marched overnight to surround the target compound, while the SBS were standing by in Lynx and Chinook helicopters to provide cut off groups in case the insurgents attempted to escape. A US Predator drone also supported the British and Italians. The insurgents brought the hostages out of the compound and loaded them into vehicles before the Italians were in position to rescue them, but the SBS closed in on the vehicles: aerial snipers using M82A1 anti-materiel rifles forced the vehicles to stop. A Chinook dropped off more than a dozen SBS personnel who engaged the Taliban who were disembarking the vehicles. Eight Taliban insurgents were killed and the hostages were rescued, although one died of gunshot wounds.

On 18 February 2008, Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Matin and one of his sub-commanders, Mullah Karim Agha, along with several bodyguards were travelling through the desert near Gereshk, Helmand province on motorbikes when they were ambushed and killed by an SBS unit dropped into his path by helicopter. In February 2009, members of the SBS took part in Operation Diesel, which resulted in the seizure of £50 million of heroin and the killing of at least 20 Taliban insurgents. On 29 August 2009, Sergeant Lee Houltram of the SBS was killed by an IED during a Special Forces operation to destroy a bomb factory near Gereshk in Helmand province. On 9 September 2009, an SBS team supported by the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) rescued Times journalist Stephen Farrell from a Taliban safe house in Char Dara District, Kunduz Province after he and his Afghan interpreter had been captured by the Taliban while reporting on the Kunduz airstrike. The British special forces were forced to act when intercepted communications of the Taliban leader showed them discussing moving the hostages into Pakistan. They were inserted before dawn by 160th SOAR helicopters directly onto the target building. While the SFSG set up a cordon, the Afghan interpreter was accidentally shot and killed, and two civilians were killed by an explosive breaching charge on the compound. Although an SFSG soldier was killed, Farrell was successfully rescued. On 1 July 2010 during an operation against insurgents in Haji Wakil, Helmand Province, Corporal Seth Stephens of the SBS was killed during a heavy firefight while clearing a compound, as a result of his actions during that operation, he was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross.

On 15 April 2012, during the Taliban attack on Kabul, SBS members cleared Taliban militants from a central location overlooking foreign embassies. A heavily armed insurgent suicide squad occupied a six-storey, half-built tower block, and began firing small arms and RPGs on nearby buildings including the British and German embassies. SBS and Afghan troops fought a close quarters battle for eight-and-a-half hours to eventually clear the militants from the structure. The mission to end the siege is thought to have been one of the most decorated actions of Britain's involvement in Afghanistan, with several gallantry awards given to the participants. A combat assault dog, a Belgian Malinois known as Mali, received the Dickin Medal for his actions during the battle. Despite being badly injured by grenade shrapnel, Mali stayed by the side of his handler and continued to find safe routes for the British and Afghan troops as they fought their way up the tower floor-by-floor, preventing the operators from suffering major casualties. On 23 December 2013, Captain Richard Holloway was serving with the SBS when he was killed by Taliban small arms fire while conducting an operation to suppress the Taliban in a joint SBS-Afghan forces raid (with air support) on Taliban insurgents in a valley east of Kabul ahead of the Afghanistan elections.

Iraq
In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, M Squadron deployed to Jordan as Task Force 7, which was part of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - West (CJSOTF-West) and were earmarked for a heliborne assault on several Iraqi oil facilities that had their own desert airstrips that once captured would be used for special operations forces' staging areas. In northern Iraq in early March, a small reconnaissance team from M Squadron mounted on Honda All-terrain vehicles inserted into Iraq from Jordan, its first mission was to conduct reconnaissance of an Iraqi air base at al-Sahara. The team was compromised by an anti-special forces Fedayeen unit and barely escaped thanks to a US McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle that flew air cover for the team and the bravery of an RAF Chinook that extracted the team under the Fedayeen's 'noses'.

M Squadron launched a second operation at full strength ("Zero Six Bravo") in a mix of land rovers and ATVs into northern Iraq from H-2 Air Base, the objective was to locate, make contact and take the surrender of the Iraqi 5th Army Corps somewhere past Tikrit and to survey and mark viable temporary landing zones for follow-on forces. However the Squadron was compromised by a goat herder; the SBS drove for several days while unknown to them anti-special forces Fedayeen units followed them. At an overnight position near Mosul the Fedayeen ambushed the Squadron with DShK heavy machine guns and RPGs, the SBS returned fire and began taking fire from a T-72, the Squadron scattered and escaped the well-constructed trap. A number of Land Rovers became bogged down in a nearby wadi, so the troops mined the vehicles and abandoned them—though several did not detonate and were captured and exhibited on Iraqi television. The SBS was now in three distinct groups: one with several operational Land Rovers was being pursued by the Iraqi hunter force, a second mainly equipped with ATVs was hunkered down and trying to arrange extraction, the third with just 2 personnel on an ATV raced for the Syrian border. The first group tried to call in coalition strike aircraft but the aircraft could not identify friendly forces because the SBS were not equipped with infra-red strobes—although their vehicles did have Blue Force Tracker units, they eventually made it to an emergency rendezvous point and were extracted by an RAF Chinook. The second group was also extracted by an RAF Chinook and the third group made it to Syria and was held there until their release was negotiated, there were no SBS casualties.

M Squadron also had a 3-month tour in early 2003. Corporal Ian Plank, an SBS member attached to the SAS was killed by Iraqi insurgents during a house-to-house search for a wanted high-ranking Islamist terrorist in an insurgent compound in Ramadi on 31 October 2003, he was the first UKSF combat casualty of the Iraq War. The SBS was also very active as part of Task Force Black, C squadron deployed to Baghdad as part of the task force in 2004, in its four-month deployment it mounted 22 raids. On 23 July 2005, M squadron, supported by troops from the SAS and US forces carried out Operation Marlborough, killing three members of AQI.

Libya
On 27 February 2011, during the First Libyan Civil War, the BBC reported that C Squadron assisted in the evacuation of 150 oil workers in three flights by RAF C-130 Hercules from an airfield near Zella to Valletta in Malta.

Nigeria

On 8 March 2012, a small SBS team, attempted to rescue two hostages, Chris McManus (British) and Franco Lamolinara (Italian), who were being held in Nigeria by members of the Boko Haram terrorist organisation that was loyal to al-Qaeda. The two hostages were killed by their captors before or during the rescue attempt. All the hostage takers were reportedly killed.

United Kingdom
On 21 December 2018, SBS personnel resolved a situation by storming the container ship Grande Tema where four stowaways hijacked the ship, demanding to enter the UK.

On 25 October 2020, SBS personnel stormed the oil tanker Nave Andromeda south-east of the Isle of Wight. The vessel was suspected to have been hijacked by seven Nigerian stowaways seeking asylum in Britain, who were later handed over to Hampshire Police.

Present day

Organisation

The Ministry of Defence does not comment on special forces matters, and there is consequently little verifiable information in the public domain. The SBS is under the Operational Command of Director Special Forces and is based in Hamworthy barracks, Poole, Dorset.

According to military sources in 2020, the SBS numbers about a couple of hundred personnel. Members are on standby at all times. While women have been eligible to join since 2018, there is no official information on women serving on the frontline.

In 1987, when renamed the Special Boat Service, the SBS was also reformed along SAS lines, with 16-person troops (each equivalent to a platoon) instead of the traditional sections.
About 200–250 commandos make up the SBS at any one time, and once qualified, personnel are known as "Swimmer Canoeists". They are experts in swimming, diving, parachuting, navigation, demolition and reconnaissance.

Since the SBS joined the UKSF Group in the 1980s, it has been restructured. Instead of one squadron being tasked with a permanent role the unit adopted the same system of squadron rotation as the SAS. Each Squadron rotates through counter terrorism duties and conventional operations and tasking. For example, in December 2001 C squadron was on MCT Role, and was called in to intercept the MV Nisha while M and Z Squadron were deployed in Afghanistan.

The SBS Reserve (SBS(R)) provides individual reservists to augment the regular SBS. Recruits need to be serving members of UK reserve forces and a high level of commitment is required. The SBS(R) is based at various locations throughout the United Kingdom, but training is carried out in the South of England.

Structure

The structure of the SBS is as follows:

 SBS
 4 squadrons
 C Squadron
 M Squadron
 HQ Troop, 4 Troop, 5 Troop, 6 Troop
 X Squadron
 Z Squadron
 SBS(R)

The SBS has a subunit dedicated to operating Swimmer Delivery Vehicles (SDVs) known as the SDV Troop.

Equipment

In 2019, the SDV Troop operated three Mk8 Mod 1 SDVs, with an order to replace them with three new Mk11 SWCS SDVs. A SDV can be housed in an Astute-class submarine's dry deck shelter. SBS members are provided with assistance by Chalfont Diving Group divers when using dry deck shelters.

Fast Insertion/Interceptor Craft (FIC) are also in use with the SBS. They have a reported maximum speed of up to 55 knots and the hull features a highly stealthy design and advanced 'wave piercing' qualities. They are similar to the American Mark V Special Operations Craft. The SBS use Klepper Aerius folding canoes, Rigid Raiders, Avon Searider Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIBs), and Dräger LAR-V rebreathers.

Recruitment, selection and training

Pre-selection aptitude test

Before progressing to joint UKSF selection, SBS aspirants must pass a 2-week aptitude test, which involves the following:
 Boating phase (1 week)
 Combat fitness test
 SBS swimming test
 Swim 600 metres in 15 minutes
 Swim 50 metres clothed with a weapon and belt
 Swim 25 metres underwater while holding your breath
 Multiple canoe trials including:
 Carrying a folding canoe and fully loaded bergen for
  canoe paddle
 Diving phase (1 week)
 Complete a number of dives with confidence and willingness
 Learn and demonstrate diving drills with sufficient quality

UKSF selection

SBS candidates take part in Joint Special Forces Selection alongside SAS candidates, with their selection and training diverging after the end of the JSFS course. JSFS lasts . It is broken down into multiple phases, including cross-country marches in the aptitude phase and teaching and testing soldiering skills in the jungle phase. It also involves training in other fields, such escape and evasion and resistance to interrogation (RTI).

Originally, the SBS had its own independent end-to-end selection programme to qualify as a Swimmer Canoeist, but its selection course was integrated into the joint UKSF selection course with candidates for the SAS. In the past, the SBS was staffed almost entirely by the Royal Marines. Today, all members of His Majesty's Armed Forces can be considered for special forces selection. Approximately 40% of all UK Special Forces are recruited from the Royal Marines.

There are two selection courses each year: one in Winter and the other in Summer. Candidates wishing to serve with the Special Boat Service must have completed at least two years regular service and are only accepted into the SBS after completion of the selection process.

SC3 course

After passing joint UKSF selection, at which point SAS aspirants have passed, SBS aspirants continue to the Swimmer Canoeist, Third Class (SC3) course, sometimes called the boating and diving course. It lasts eight weeks and covers specialist maritime skills such as canoeing, diving, boating, underwater navigation and demolition, negotiating surf zones, and submarine infiltration. The course includes a  course in a canoe. After passing the SC3 course, SBS aspirants have passed selection as a whole and join an operational troop on probation. As SBS marines grow in experience and rank, they take the more advanced SC2 and then SC1 courses.

Reserve selection
For SBS(R) selection, only candidates with previous military experience are eligible to enlist. Training is carried out in the South of England and candidates are required to complete the following tests over the four-day initial selection course:
 Combat Fitness Test (CFT) –  carrying  within 1 hour 50 minutes.
 Swim test –  using any stroke in uniform and retrieve an object from .
 Gym tests.
 Advanced CFT 1 –  carrying .
 Advanced CFT 2 –  carrying .

See also
 British commando frogmen
 List of military special forces units
 TV Sir Tristram, UKSF training ship
 SD Northern River, Marine services vessel reportedly employed in UKSF operations
 SD Victoria, Marine services vessel reportedly employed in UKSF operations
 List of military diving units (including special forces)
 22 Special Air Service Regiment Boat Troop

Notes and references
Footnotes

Citations

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

 Special Boat Service at Britain's small wars
 Video of SBS in action at Qala-i-janghi

Special Boat Service

Special Boat Service


Sechelt Inlet formerly Seechelt Inlet is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. The inlet is significant in that it almost makes an island of what is instead the Sechelt Peninsula, whose isthmus is at the town of Sechelt at the head of the inlet. The isthmus is less than  in length. Sechelt Inlet's mouth is at Jervis Inlet, inland from the Malaspina Strait.

Also significant about Sechelt Inlet are, near the inlet's mouth, the Sechelt Rapids within the Skookumchuck Narrows, which rage with near waterfall-like fury during tidal flow, both incoming and outgoing. Other fjords on the British Columbia Coast have similar rapids, also called skookumchucks (strong waters in the Chinook Jargon, the old coastal trade language), which like Sechelt Inlet are caused by the typical shallows and narrows near the mouth of a fjord as the volume of water inside the fjord's depths tries to pour out to, or in from, the more open waters beyond. In Sechelt Inlet's case, the Skookumchuck Narrows are exactly as its name describes - narrow - forcing the water to an even greater torrent than is typical elsewhere.

Sechelt Inlet has two side-inlets, Salmon Inlet, which ends at a small power dam at the mouth of the Clowhom River and is about  in length, and Narrows Inlet, which ends at the mouth of the Tzoonie River and includes the Tzoonie Narrows. The latter is about  in length and emerges on the main inlet just inside the inner mouth of the Skookumchuck Narrows.

From early April to late September 2007, the inlet was a habitat for over 200 Pacific white-sided dolphin. These social mammals seemed to enjoy seeking the attention of their human observers.

See also

List of fjords in Canada
Mount Richardson Provincial Park
Porpoise Bay Provincial Park
Lighthouse Pub

References

Fjords of British Columbia
Sunshine Coast (British Columbia)
Sunshine Coast Regional District
Inlets of British Columbia
Sechelt

Sechelt Inlet


Permanent used as an adjective usually means that something will stay for a long time or forever. Its opposite is temporary. Permanent may also mean other things.

Permanent is a mathematics function used in working with Matrix theory.
A permanent wave is a hair style.
In the card game, Magic: The Gathering, a permanent is any card that is put into play and stays there.

Permanent


The Justice League Dark is a fictional superhero team featured in the DC Comics. It is a team that is filled with Justice League's supernatural world.

Justice League Dark originally featured John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, Shade the Changing Man, and Zatanna, eventually being joined by prominent members such as Swamp Thing and Wonder Woman.

The team debuted in Justice League Dark #1 (September 2011) and was created by Peter Milligan.

DC Comics characters

Justice League Dark


The Tarantula nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is an H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). It was originally thought to be a star, but in 1751 Lacaille recognized it was a nebula.

The Tarantula nebula has an apparent magnitude of 8. Considering its distance of 49 kpc (160,000 light-years), this is an extremely luminous object. Its luminosity is so great that if it were as close to Earth as the Orion Nebula, the Tarantula nebula would cast shadows.

It is the most active starburst region known in the Local Group of galaxies. It is also one of the largest such regions in the Local Group with an estimated diameter of 200 pc.

30 Doradus has at its centre the star cluster NGC 2070 which includes the group of stars known as R136. This group puts out most of the energy that makes the nebula visible. The estimated mass of the cluster is 450,000 solar masses. It may become a globular cluster in the future.

In addition to NGC 2070, the Tarantula nebula has other star clusters, including the much older Hodge 301. The most massive stars of Hodge 301 have already exploded in supernovae. The closest supernova observed since the invention of the telescope, Supernova 1987A, occurred in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula. The remnants of many other supernovae are difficult to detect in the complex nebulosity.

References

Nebulae

Tarantula nebula