Siena ( , ; ) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. Siena is the 12th largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 53,062 as of 2022.

The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuries. Siena is also home to the oldest bank in the world, the Monte dei Paschi bank, which has been operating continuously since . Several significant Renaissance painters were born and worked in Siena, among them Duccio, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Simone Martini and Sassetta, and influenced the course of Italian and European art. The University of Siena, originally called Studium Senese, was founded in 1240, making it one of the oldest universities in continuous operation in the world.

Siena was one of the most important cities in medieval Europe, and its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which contains several buildings from the 13th and 14th centuries. The city is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and the Palio, a horse race held twice a year in Piazza del Campo.

History

Antiquity

Siena, like other Tuscan hill towns, was first settled in the time of the Etruscans (c. 900–400 BC) when it was inhabited by a tribe called the Saina. A Roman town called Saena Julia was founded at the site in the time of the Emperor Augustus.

According to local legend, Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, two sons of Remus and thus nephews of Romulus, after whom Rome was named. Supposedly after their father's murder by Romulus, they fled Rome, taking with them the statue of the she-wolf suckling the infants (Capitoline Wolf), thus appropriating that symbol for the town. Additionally they rode white and black horses, giving rise to the Balzana, or coat of arms of Siena with a white band atop a dark band. Some claim the name Siena derives from Senius. Other etymologies derive the name from the Etruscan family name Saina, the Roman family name Saenii, or the Latin word senex "old" or its derived form seneo "to be old".

The first known document of the Sienese community dates back to 70 AD: The Roman Senator Manlio Patruito reported to Rome that he had been ridiculed with a fake funeral during his official visit to Saena Iulia, a small military colony in Tuscia. The Roman Senate decided to punish the main culprits and to severely call the Sienese to greater respect for Roman authority.

At the end of the third century the Christianization of the territory also took place by Sant'Ansano, known precisely as the "Baptizer of the Sienese", who was in fact punished by the Roman authorities governing Siena with the test of fire and boiling oil, imprisonment and finally beheading. During the Middle Ages he will therefore be named patron saint of Siena and the day of his liturgical anniversary will mark the beginning of the "Contrada Year".

Middle Ages

Feudal power waned, however, and by the death of Countess Matilda in 1115 the border territory of the March of Tuscany which had been under the control of her family, the Canossa, broke up into several autonomous regions. This ultimately resulted in the creation of the Republic of Siena.

The Republic existed for over four hundred years, from the 12th century until 1555. During the golden age of Siena before the Black Death in 1348, the city was home to 50,000 people. A major economic centre and among the most important cities in Europe, as well as the main political, economic, and artistic rival of its neighboring city of Florence.

From 1547 to 1552, the Spanish-installed governor of Siena was Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, until he was ousted by a Sienese revolt, which reestablished the Sienese Republic. In the Italian War of 1551–59, the republic was defeated by the rival Florence in alliance with the Spanish crown. After 18 months of resistance, Siena surrendered to Spain on 17 April 1555, marking the end of the republic.

Medicean period

After the fall of the Republic, a few Sienese led by the Florentine exile Piero Strozzi, not wanting to accept the fall of the Republic, took refuge in Montalcino, creating the Republic of Siena sheltered in Montalcino. It lived until 31 May 1559 when it was betrayed by the French allies, whom Siena had always supported, concluding with the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis with Charles V, which effectively ceded the Republic to the Medici.

The House of Medici, apart from the brief parenthesis of Ferdinando I, who tried to create an organized state, were not able to give a stable structure to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, keeping almost unchanged the division between the so-called Old State, i.e. Florence, and the New State, i.e. Siena and the southern part up to Pitigliano, with different laws and taxes. With the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici, (1737), who had no children, the Medici dynasty ended and the Grand Duchy passed into the hands of the Habsburg-Lorraine dinasty who kept it until 1799.

Late modern period
After the Napoleonic period and the Risorgimento uprisings, Siena was the first city in Tuscany, in 1859, to vote in favour of annexation to the Kingdom of Italy.

Geography
Siena is located in the central part of Tuscany, in the middle of a vast hilly landscape between the Arbia river valley (south), the Merse valley (south-west), the Elsa valley (north), the Chianti hills (north-east), the Montagnola Senese (west) and the Crete Senesi (south-east). The city lies at  above sea level.

Climate
Siena has a typical inland Mediterranean climate. Average rainfall is , with the maximum in November and the minimum in July. July is the hottest month, with an average temperature of , and January the coldest.

Economy
The main activities are tourism, services, agriculture, handicrafts and light industry.

In 2009 agricultural activity comprised 919 companies with a total area of  for a usable agricultural area of  or about  of the total municipal area (data ISTAT for the 2000 Agriculture Census V).

There is little manufacturing in the city. One exception is the seasonal confectionery industry, which produces local specialities including panforte, ricciarelli and cavallucci at Christmas, and pane co' santi for I Santi on 1 November and I Morti on the following day.

The area has also seen a growth in biotechnology. The Centenary Institute Sieroterapico Achille Sclavo used to be Swiss-owned, operating under the company name, Novartis Vaccines. Novartis developed and produced vaccines and employed about a thousand people. In 2015, the research plant in Siena became part of Glaxo Smith Kline, as part of a deal between Novartis and this firm.

Government

Culture

Contrade

Siena retains a ward-centric culture from medieval times. Each ward (contrada) is represented by an animal or mascot and has its own boundary and distinct identity. Ward rivalries are most rampant during the annual horse race (Palio) in the Piazza del Campo. There are 17 wards (contrada): Aquila, Bruco, Chiocciola, Civetta, Drago, Giraffa, Istrice, Leocorno, Lupa, Nicchio, Oca, Onda, Pantera, Selva, Tartuca, Torre, Valdimontone.

The Palio

The Palio di Siena is a traditional medieval horse race run around the Piazza del Campo twice each year, on 2 July and 16 August. The event is attended by large crowds, and is widely televised. Ten randomly selected from 17 Contrade (which are city neighbourhoods originally formed as battalions for the city's defence) vie for the trophy: a painted banner, or Palio bearing an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Art

Over the centuries, Siena has had a rich tradition of arts and artists. The list of artists from the Sienese School include Duccio and his student Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti and Martino di Bartolomeo. A number of well-known works of Renaissance and High Renaissance art still remain in galleries or churches in Siena.

The Church of San Domenico contains art by Guido da Siena, dating to the mid-13th century. Duccio's Maestà, which was commissioned by the City of Siena in 1308, was instrumental in leading Italian painting away from the hieratic representations of Byzantine art and directing it towards more direct presentations of reality. And his Madonna and Child with Saints polyptych, painted between 1311 and 1318, remains at the city's Pinacoteca Nazionale.

The Pinacoteca also includes several works by Domenico Beccafumi, as well as art by Lorenzo Lotto, Domenico di Bartolo and Fra Bartolomeo.

Main sights

The Siena Cathedral (Duomo), begun in the 12th century, is a masterpiece of Italian Romanesque–Gothic architecture. Its main façade was completed in 1380 with a nave oriented northeast–southwest. A proposed expansion of the eastern transept would have transformed the church into an ambitiously massive basilica, the largest then in the world, with an east–west nave. However, the scarcity of funds, in part due to war and the Black Death, truncated the project. Two walls of this expanded eastern transept remain; through an internal staircase, visitors can climb for a grand view of the city.

The Siena Cathedral Pulpit is an octagonal 13th-century masterpiece sculpted by Nicola Pisano with lion pedestals and biblical bas-relief panels. The inlaid marble mosaic floor of the cathedral, designed and laboured on by many artists, is among the most elaborate in Italy. The Sacristy and Piccolomini library have well-preserved Renaissance frescos by Ghirlandaio and Pinturicchio respectively. Other sculptors active in the church and in the subterranean baptistry are Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Jacopo della Quercia and others. The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo contains Duccio's famous Maestà (1308–11) and various other works by Sienese masters. More Sienese paintings are to be found in the Pinacoteca, e.g. 13th-century works by Dietisalvi di Speme.

The Piazza del Campo, the shell-shaped town square, unfurls before the Palazzo Pubblico with its tall Torre del Mangia. This is part of the site for the Palio horse race. The Palazzo Pubblico, itself a great work of architecture, houses yet another important art museum. Included within the museum is Ambrogio Lorenzetti's frescoes depicting the Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government and also some of the finest frescoes of Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti.

The Palazzo Salimbeni, located in a piazza of the same name, was the original headquarters and remains in possession of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena, one of the oldest banks in continuous existence in Europe.

Housed in the notable Gothic Palazzo Chigi-Saracini on Via di Città is the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena's conservatory of music.

Other churches in the city include:
 Basilica dell'Osservanza
 San Domenico
 San Francesco
 San Martino
 Santa Maria dei Servi
 Santa Petronilla
 Santi Niccolo e Lucia
 Santo Spirito
 Sant'Andrea Apostolo
 Sanctuary of Santa Caterina, incorporating the old house of St. Catherine of Siena. It houses the miraculous Crucifix (late 12th century) from which the saint received her stigmata, and a 15th-century statue of St. Catherine.

The historic Siena synagogue is also preserved and open to visitors.

The city's gardens include the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Siena, a botanical garden maintained by the University of Siena.

The Medicean Fortress houses the Siena Jazz School, with courses and concerts throughout the year, and a festival during the International Siena Jazz Masterclasses.

In the neighbourhood are numerous patrician villas, some of which are attributed to Baldassarre Peruzzi:
 Villa Chigi
 Castle of Belcaro
 Villa Celsa
 Villa Cetinale
 Villa Volte Alte

Sports

Football
Associazione Calcio Siena (football) was founded in 1904 and fully established in 1908. It was first promoted to Italy's top league, Serie A, for the 2003–04 season and stayed in this serie for nine seasons. After the club's bankruptcy in 2014, a new club named Società Sportiva Robur Siena took its place and had to restart from Serie D. Currently, it is in Lega Pro league. The club hosts its games at the Stadio Artemio Franchi.

Basketball
The premier society of men's basketball in Siena was called Mens Sana Basket (also referred to by its sponsored name of Montepaschi Siena). It is also the oldest sports society in Siena. Mens Sana Basket participated in the highest level of play in Italy, Lega Basket Serie A, and it has won the national championship eight times, with a streak of seven (2004 and 2007–13). The team host their home games at PalaEstra indoor arena. Like the local football team, the club went through financial issues in 2014, and its place was taken by the new club Mens Sana 1871, currently in the Serie A2 league. The city co-hosted the EuroBasket 1979.

Cycling

Siena hosts the start and finish of the Strade Bianche, a professional cycling race famous for its historic white gravel roads, called strade bianche or sterrati in Italian. More than  of the race is run over dirt roads, usually country lanes and farm tracks twisting through the hills and vineyards of the Chianti region. The finish is on the Piazza del Campo, after a steep and narrow climb on the roughly paved Via Santa Caterina leading into the center of the medieval city.

Transport
Buses
Siena Mobilità was a consortium established in 2005, formed by Tiemme Toscana Mobilità, Busitalia Sita Nord e ByBus, to manage the local public transport in Siena, in its province and regional service to Florence and Arezzo. From 1 January 2018 Siena Mobilità operated by virtue of the bridge contract between the Regione Toscana and the company ONE Scarl.

Since 1 November 2021 the public local transport is operated by Autolinee Toscane.

Twin towns

Siena is twinned with:
 Avignon, France
 Concord, North Carolina, US, since 2016
 Weimar, Germany, since 1994
 Wetzlar, Germany, since 1987

Gallery

References

Sources

 A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena under the Nine, 1287–1355  by Professor William M. Bowsky (1982)
 McIntyre, Anthony Osler. Medieval Tuscany and Umbria (1992)

External links

Populated places established in the 1st millennium BC
Roman sites of Tuscany
World Heritage Sites in Italy
1st-millennium BC establishments
Capitals of former nations
Cities and towns in Tuscany
Tuscany

Siena


The Hebrew Orphan Asylum is a historic institutional orphanage and former hospital building located in the Mosher neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, United States.  It has also been known as West Baltimore General Hospital, Lutheran Hospital of Maryland and is currently being redeveloped by Coppin Heights Community Development Corporation to be a Center for Healthcare & Healthy Living.

Built in 1875, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in Baltimore, Maryland replaced the old Calverton Mansion (built in 1815) when a fire destroyed the mansion in 1874. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, which started in 1872 in the Calverton Mansion depended on donations from people within the Baltimore Jewish community, including the wealthy German Jewish community that had settled within the city. The history of the asylum follows the history of the Jewish community in Baltimore, which increased rapidly with immigration from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building transitioned to serve as the West Baltimore General Hospital from 1923 through 1950 and finally the Lutheran Hospital of Maryland from 1950 to 1989. While associated structures associated with the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the West Baltimore General Hospital, and the Lutheran Hospital of Maryland were demolished in 2009, the original four-story brick Romanesque structure still stands.

The building is a south-facing Victorian Romanesque red brick structure.  Its central block is four stories high and five bays wide, with a large porch and projecting turrets at each corner.  The central block is flanked by three-story wings, each four bays wide, on the west and east.  The Hebrew Orphan Asylum was designed by Lupus & Roby, the partnership of Edward Lupus (1834–1877) and Henry Albert Roby (1844–1905), and constructed by Edward Brady (1830–1900).

The history of the development at the site of the current building began in 1815 with the construction of "Calverton," the country home of Baltimore banker Dennis Smith. This building was re-purposed and expanded for use as the Baltimore City and County Almshouse from 1820 through 1866. Calverton featured a central mansion for caretakers, large wings on either side for male and female dormitories and a "lunatic" hospital. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum was established in 1872 and operated in the Calverton mansion until displaced by a fire in 1874. After some deliberation, the leaders of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum decided to rebuild at the same location following a design by architects Lupus & Roby.

The Hebrew Orphan Asylum moved to a new facility in 1923 and the building transitioned to serve as the West Baltimore General Hospital from 1923 through 1950. The facility then became the Lutheran Hospital of Maryland and remained in use from 1950 to 1989. The history of the building as a hospital included the addition of several related structures to the campus only one of which, a 1945 maternity ward, remaining extant. This building, designed by Henry Powell Hopkins and built by the John K. Ruff Company, now operates as the Tuerk House, a residential drug and alcohol rehab facility. The original Hebrew Orphan Asylum building has been vacant since 1989 and has been owned by Coppin State University since 2003.

Baltimore Heritage, a nonprofit historic preservation advocacy organization, nominated the Hebrew Orphan Asylum to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 in partnership with Coppin Heights Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit CDC originally formed by Coppin State University.

The building was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on October 28, 2010. The listing was announced as the featured listing in the National Park Service's weekly list of November 5, 2010.

References

External links

Hebrew Orphan Asylum at Explore Baltimore Heritage
 Hebrew Orphan Asylum, National Park Service page
Friends of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Facebook Page
Lupus & Roby (1871-1877), Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
Hebrew Orphan Asylum  on the Baltimore Heritage website
Tuerk House

Buildings and structures in Baltimore
Residential buildings completed in 1876
German-Jewish culture in Baltimore
Romanesque Revival architecture in Maryland
Colonial Revival architecture in Maryland
Mondawmin, Baltimore
Hospital buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore
Jewish orphanages
Coppin State University
Orphanages in Maryland

Hebrew Orphan Asylum (Baltimore, Maryland)


Epes  is a town in Sumter County, Alabama, United States. Initially called Epes Station, it was incorporated as Epes in 1899. At the 2010 census the population was 192, down from 206 in 2000.

Geography
Epes is located near Jones Bluff, overlooking the Tombigbee River. It is located at  (32.690497, -88.124182). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all land.

History

18th century

Epes has its origins in Fort de Tombecbé (Fort Tombecbe), one of the major fortifications built under Louis XIV of France, in what is now the American south, in the early eighteenth century. In January 1736, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, governor of Louisiana, recruited a Swiss officer serving with the French, Joseph Christophe de Lusser, to construct a fort on the Tombigbee River, "atop an 80-foot bluff to support his campaign against the Chickasaws" that was to proceed in the year following; Bienville visited the site in April of the same year, and took control of the construction, leading to its completion and its support of his martial efforts against the Native Americans. After a 26-year stay, during which the French used this and other holdings to check "westward expansion by the British into the French colony of Louisiana," and to serve "as a trading post, solidifying France's relations with the Choctaws... the most powerful French ally in the area," the French ceded the fort, with most of its North American territory, to Great Britain under the Treaty of Paris, surrendering Tombecbé in November 1763; the British inspected and renamed it Fort York, although its actual inhabitation would await a recurrence of hostilities between the Choctaw and Creek Indians in 1766. Records of those overseeing the fort in this period document the challenge of supplying such a remote location, and after a 1768 truce ended the hostilities between the Choctaw and Creeks, the British abandoned Fort York, with Choctaws being the remaining inhabitants of the area until this tribe ceded a small parcel of land that included the fort to the Spanish in 1792/1793, under the Treaty of Boucfouca. As little of the original fortification structures remained when Spain arrived to take control in 1794, the Spanish chose to construct "a smaller but more substantial earthen structure" (rather than building further wooden fortifications); they renamed the site and their resulting structure Fort Confederacion, in recognition of the alliance the Spanish had struck with Native American groups to assist them in resisting encroachment by commerce and settlements from the United States. Fortifications were completed before the beginning of 1796, in time to provide support to the Spanish when war broke out with the United States, and when hostilities began again between the Chickasaw and Creek Indians; the Treaty of San Lorenzo, between Spain and the young U.S., ended that part of the hostilities, and ceded Spanish territory "above the 31st parallel," including the Fort, to the U.S, "thus marking the end of the European colonial era in Alabama."

19th and 20th centuries

Epes was incorporated in 1899 and named for Dr. John W. Epes, who donated the right-of-way for Southern Railroad (if the town would be named Epes). The town is located on the high bluffs of the Tombigbee River.  Standing on the bluffs, you could hear the ferries and steamboats traveling down river. During its prime, it was known as the transportation and business and service center. It had three cotton gins, a cotton compress, cotton seed oil mill, creamery, handle company, The Casey Hotel, The Bowers Boarding House, a school, two grocery stores, a drug store,  general merchandising stores, and two livery stables.  The second stockyard in Alabama opened in Epes in 1936.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 192 people living in the town. The racial makeup of the town was 91.1% Black and 8.9% White.

As of the census of 2000, there were 206 people, 80 households, and 46 families living in the town. The population density was . There were 105 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 15.53% White, 83.98% Black or African American and 0.49% Native American.

There were 80 households, out of which 30.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.5% were married couples living together, 15.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.5% were non-families. 38.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.65.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 31.1% under the age of 18, 4.4% from 18 to 24, 26.2% from 25 to 44, 24.8% from 45 to 64, and 13.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 104.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102.9 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $25,625, and the median income for a family was $38,125. Males had a median income of $25,833 versus $14,583 for females. The per capita income for the town was $10,404. About 22.2% of families and 25.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 31.6% of those under the age of eighteen and 15.0% of those 65 or over.

Notable people
Carol Forman, actress
Willie James Hodges, murderer and suspected serial killer
Bill Oliver, former University of Alabama football player and Assistant Coach also University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Auburn University football coach

Climate
The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.  According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Epes has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps.

References

External links
Official Site

Towns in Sumter County, Alabama
Towns in Alabama
U.S. Route 11
French-American culture in Alabama

Epes, Alabama


Kofi S. Bonner is an American architect and planner who is known for the heading the redevelopment of the city of Emeryville, California. Bonner also has served as deputy executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency; the director of community & economic development and interim city manager for the city of Oakland, California; and chief economic policy advisor to San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. In 1998, Bonner became executive vice president and chief administrative officer for the Cleveland Browns football organization of the National Football League. In 2004, Bonner was hired by MBNA and then in 2006 became director of urban land for Lennar. Currently he is regional president at FivePoint, a position he assumed when his previous role as president in Lennar's Bay Area Urban division transitioned into FivePoint in July 2016. In this role, Bonner oversees all land acquisition and urban development activities for FivePoint in northern California, including The San Francisco Shipyard and Candlestick Point, Treasure Island, and the Concord Naval Weapons Station.

Early life and career
Born in Ghana, Bonner received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Science and Technology in Ghana. He then earned a Master of City Planning and a Master of Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987. Bonner then worked for the housing development company then known as Fei Tsen and Associates in Oakland and served as a member of the San Francisco city planning group called "SPUR" (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research). In 1988, Bonner was hired to replace out-going Steve Kaplan as redevelopment director for the City of Emeryville. It was there that Bonner captured local and national attention with several economic development efforts.

Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente was seeking land for a planned new headquarters facility in 1994. While the firm wished to remain in Oakland, finding land for Kaiser's plans proved politically and economically difficult. Observing these developments, Bonner courted Kaiser land development officials and eventually offered a  plot of land at 41st and San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville as the place where Kaiser could build its new home. Eventually Kaiser ended its plans, citing changes in the health care industry as the reason.

The Kaiser affair drew much praise and attention to Bonner, who continued to negotiate with developers to sell land and attract retailers like IKEA. Bonner also successfully established a reuse plan for the former Emeryville Judson Steel plant, which is now the Bay Street Shopping Center. And while Kaiser backed away from its plans to build a northern California headquarters in Emeryville, Bonner and the Redevelopment Agency attracted Pixar Animation Studios, which constructed its new home on the same property that was originally slated for Kaiser.

Bonner later held the positions of deputy executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and director of community and economic development for the City of Oakland. He was appointed interim city manager for the City of Oakland in 1995. He served as chief economic policy advisor during the term of Mayor Willie L. Brown.

In 1998, Cleveland Browns President Carmen Policy offered the position of chief administrative officer of the Cleveland Browns to Bonner, who became the first African-American to hold such a title in the NFL. With the Browns, Bonner was responsible for the construction of the new Cleveland Browns Stadium and spearheaded the creation of the organization's website.  Bonner also sat on the NFL's Internet Committee.

In 2004, Bonner was hired to a business development position with MBNA, the credit card company. Expressing a desire to return to his city planning roots, Bonner became Director of Urban Land for Lennar in San Francisco. His role as President in Lennar's Bay Area Urban division transitioned into his current position as regional president for FivePoint in July 2016.

Bonner is a 2011 UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design Distinguished Fellow and a Member of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Leadership Council, a non-profit public Policy "think tank" organization based in Washington, DC. He is also a member of Lambda Alpha International, a Land Economics society where he recently received the "2010 Member of the Year" Award. He currently serves on the boards of Bay Area Council where he co-chairs the Housing Committee, UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design Advisory Council, UC Berkeley Foundation's board of trustees, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, and Museum of the African Diaspora.

Bonner is married and has three children.

References

Sources

External links
Faces of Business: Kofi Bonner

American architects
American city managers
Ghanaian emigrants to the United States
Living people
People from Emeryville, California
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)

Kofi Bonner


Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch  (19 October 174818 December 1843) was a Scottish aristocrat, politician and British Army officer. After his education at Oxford, he inherited a substantial estate in Scotland, married and settled down to a quiet career as a landowning gentleman. However, with the death of his wife, when he was aged 42, he immersed himself in a military (and later political) career, during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

Taylor described Graham as "tall, square-shouldered, and erect, his limbs sinewy and remarkably strong. His complexion was dark, with full eyebrows, firm-set lips, and an open, benevolent air. His manners and address were frank, simple, and polished".

Early life and education
Thomas Graham was the third and only surviving son of Thomas Græme of Balgowan, in Perthshire and Lady Christian Hope, a daughter of the first Earl of Hopetoun. He was born in 1748, and was educated at home by the Reverend Fraser, minister of Moneydie, and afterwards by James Macpherson, the collector and translator of Ossian's poems. He went up to Christ Church, Oxford in 1766, and the following year he inherited the family estate following the death of his father.

On leaving college, he spent several years on the Continent, where he learnt French, German and Spanish. On his return to Scotland he applied himself to the management and improvement of his estate, enclosing his lands, erecting farmhouses and offices, granting leases to his tenants, encouraging them to implement improved methods of husbandry, and to cultivate potatoes and turnips on a large scale, which had hitherto been regarded as garden plants. He also set himself to cultivate improved breeds of horses, cattle, and sheep.

In 1785, he purchased the estate of Lynedoch or Lednock, situated in the valley of the Almond, where he planted trees and oak coppices, and improved the sloping banks bordering the stream. Fond of horses and dogs, and distinguished for his skill in country sports, he rode with the foxhounds, and accompanied the Duke of Atholl—who subsequently became his brother-in-law—in grouse-shooting and deer-stalking on the Atholl moors. He later said that he owed much of that education of the eye with reference to ground and distances, a useful talent for a military man, to his deer-hunting at this period of his life in the Forest of Atholl.

Early political career and marriage

In a 1772 by-election, Graham stood as a Whig a candidate for Perth, in opposition to James Murray of Strowan, brother of the Duke of Atholl, but was defeated by a majority of only six votes out of 100. He remained active in the political field but withdrew shortly before the general election of 1774, having become engaged to the Honorable Mary Cathcart, second daughter of the 9th Lord Cathcart, whose sister was betrothed to the 3rd Duke of Atholl's son and heir.

Two years later in 1774 he married Mary and on the same day her elder sister became Duchess of Atholl. "Jane," wrote Lord Cathcart, "has married, to please herself, John, Duke of Atholl, a peer of the realm; Mary has married Thomas Graham of Balgowan, the man of her heart, and a peer among princes." A solicitous husband, when his wife discovered on the morning of an Edinburgh ball that she had left her jewel-box at Balgowan, Graham rode the  to and from Balgowan using relays of horses to ensure that she would have her jewellery at the ball.

Her portrait by Thomas Gainsborough was highly acclaimed when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1777. The painting Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham was covered over by Graham after her death. The painting now hangs in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Graham spent the next eighteen years as a quiet country gentleman, spending his time on riding and sports, studying the classics and making occasional visits to London and Edinburgh. When his carriage was stopped in Park Lane, London by a highwayman demanding money, jewels, and watches at gunpoint, while two accomplices seized the horses' heads, Graham, who was on the opposite side of the carriage, leapt across the ladies to the carriage-door, and collaring the assailant, threw him to the ground. Then, drawing his sword, which at the time formed part of a dress suit, he threatened to run the man through if his associates, who were holding the horses' heads, attempted to come to his assistance. They immediately fled, and the prostrate highwayman was arrested.

Death of his wife

Mary Graham's health began to decline, and in the spring of 1792, on the recommendation of her medical adviser, she went to the south of France with her husband and sister. However, during the voyage she died off the coast near Hyères, France, on 26June 1792. Her sorrowing husband hired a barge to take the casket to Bordeaux but near Toulouse a group of French soldiers opened the coffin and disturbed the body. He closed the casket and returned home to deposit her remains in a mausoleum, which he built in the churchyard of Methven. Graham would himself be laid in the same tomb fifty years later.

Mary Graham is commemorated in a four-part Scottish fiddle tune composed in her honor, entitled "The Honourable Mrs. Graham of Balgowan."

The loss of his wife preyed deeply upon Graham's mind, and first he set out for twelve months of foreign travel. However, still overwhelmed by great sorrow, and now in his forty-third year, he tried to drown the thought of his loss by adopting a military career. Before the incident with Mary's coffin near Toulouse, Graham had sympathised with the French and their revolutionary ideals but from that point on he detested them and saw his military career as a way to take revenge.

Sir Walter Scott, in his The Vision of Don Roderick, refers to the romantic motive which led the grieving husband of Mrs. Graham to devote himself to a military career:

Career

Defence of Toulon
In early 1793 he wrote to Charles O'Hara, seeking passage to Gibraltar, of which the latter was lieutenant-governor and sailed aboard the Resistance with Lord St Helens, ambassador to Spain. After France declared war on Great Britain and the Dutch Republic on 1February 1793, the British fleet under Admiral Samuel Hood assembled at Gibraltar. On his arrival there, Graham volunteered and went with the navy to Toulon, where he acted as aide-de-camp to Lord Mulgrave and fought in the defence of the town. According to Sir Gilbert Elliot, Graham "left the highest character possible both for understanding and courage".

At Toulon, Graham distinguished himself by his courage and energy: for instance, on one occasion, when a private soldier was killed, Graham snatched up his musket and took his place at the head of the attacking column. In a general order referring to the repulse of an attack by the French on an important fort, Mulgrave expressed "his grateful sense of the friendly and important assistance which he had received in many difficult moments from Mr. Graham, and to add his tribute of praise to the general voice of the British and Piedmontese officers of his column, who saw with so much pleasure and applause the gallant example which Mr. Graham set to the whole column, in the foremost point of every attack".

It was also at Toulon that Graham first became acquainted with his lifelong friend, Rowland Hill, then a captain, who ultimately became Viscount Hill, and commander-in chief of the British army.

Campaign of 1796 and return to Parliament
After returning home in November 1793, with the support of Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for War, who had married his first cousin the previous year, he was given the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel and raised the first battalion of the 90th Regiment of Foot (Perthshire Volunteers), (Balgowan's 'Grey Breeks,' as they were called), although the addition of a second battalion was to put significant pressure on his finances. Rowland Hill became a major in the regiment, which was first deployed as part of the 1795 Quiberon Expedition. The following year they were dispatched to support the French Royalist Lieutenant-general François de Charette in his struggle with the Republicans.

In late 1795 the regiment went to Gibraltar on garrison duty, a role Graham soon tired of. He obtained permission to join the Austrian army on the Rhine as British Commissioner. In this capacity he shared in the disastrous campaign of 1796, and afterward assisted Wurmser in the defence of Mantua, when it was besieged by the French under Napoleon. The garrison was reduced to the greatest extremities from want of provisions, and Graham undertook the perilous duty of conveying intelligence to the Imperial General Alvinzi, at Bassano,  distant, of their desperate situation.

He left the fortress wearing a country cloak over his uniform and on 24December, amid rain and sleet, he crossed the Mincio in a boat that was repeatedly stranded due to the darkness. He travelled by foot during the night, wading through deep swamps, and crossing numerous watercourses and the Po, in constant danger of losing his way, or of being shot by the French pickets. At daybreak he concealed himself until nightfall, when he resumed his journey. After surmounting numerous hardships and perils, he at length reached in safety, on 4January, the headquarters of the Austrian general. However, on the 14th the Austrians were defeated and soon after Mantua was forced to surrender.

On the political front, with the support of the Duke of Atholl, in 1796 he was returned to parliament unchallenged, despite Dundas' wishing to secure the seat for his own son. Graham insisted that Atholl's support had no effect on his independence and he later wrote that at the time he remained firmly in support of the war but "at the same time never to abandon those Whig principles which had brought about the revolution of 1688."

1797–1806

Colonel Graham now returned to Scotland, but in the autumn of 1797 he rejoined his regiment at Gibraltar. In the following year he took part, under Sir Charles Stuart, in the capture of Minorca, where he greatly distinguished himself.

He then repaired to Sicily, and obtained the warmest acknowledgements of the King and Queen of Naples for his effective exertions on their behalf. In 1798 he was entrusted with the charge of the operations against the important island of Malta, which was at that time in the possession of the French. With the local rank of brigadier-general, he had under his command the 30th and 89th Regiments of foot, Alexander Hamilton as his Brigade Major and some corps embodied under his immediate direction.

Owing to the great strength of the island, he was obliged to resort to a blockade, and after a siege lasting nearly two years, the garrison were compelled by famine to surrender in September 1800. Thereafter the island remained an important part of the British Empire until it achieved independence in 1964. Colonel Graham's services were very shabbily acknowledged by the Government of that day, who reserved their patronage and honours for the officers belonging to their own political party.

In the summer of 1801 he proceeded to Egypt, where his regiment (the 90th) had greatly distinguished itself under Sir Ralph Abercromby, but he did not arrive until the campaign had terminated by the capitulation of the French army. He availed himself of the opportunity, however, to make a tour in that country and in Turkey. He spent some time in Constantinople, whence he travelled on horseback to Vienna—a journey which in later years he used to mention as one of the most agreeable rides he had ever enjoyed.

1807
After spending some time in the discharge of his parliamentary duties, and in attending to the improvement of his estates, Colonel Graham was stationed with his regiment in Ireland, and was then sent to the West Indies, where he remained for three years. When the Ministry of "All the Talents" was dismissed in 1807, on account of the favour they had shown for the Roman Catholic claims to equal privileges, Colonel Graham supported their policy, and denounced as hypocrisy the cry of "No Popery" raised by Mr. Perceval. But his approval of the proceedings of the Whig Ministry, and of Roman Catholic emancipation did not find favour with the Perthshire electors—a small body in those days—and on the dissolution of Parliament in May 1807, Colonel Graham declined to seek re-election, and Lord James Murray was returned without opposition in his stead.

1808
In 1808 Colonel Graham accompanied Sir John Moore as his aide-de-camp to Sweden, and then to Spain. He served with Moore throughout the whole of his campaign, terminating in the arduous and trying retreat to Corunna, in which Graham's services were especially valuable to the harassed troops. As Sheridan said in the House of Commons, "In the hour of peril Graham was their best adviser; in the hour of disaster Graham was their surest consolation".

When Sir John Moore received his death-wound at the battle of Corunna, Colonel Graham was at his right hand, and had his left hand on the mane of Sir John's horse. He at once rode away for medical assistance. Before he returned his dying general missed him, and anxiously asked, "Are Colonel Graham and my aides-de-camp safe?"—one of his last inquiries. Moore's body was carried to Colonel Graham's quarters, and Graham was one of the select company who witnessed Moore's burial on the rampart of the citadel of Corunna.

1809–11

After his return to England, Colonel Graham was promoted to the rank of major general, and was appointed, in the summer of 1809, to command a division under Lord Chatham, in the fatal Walcheren expedition. An attack of malaria fever, however, compelled him to return home.

On his recovery he was raised to the rank of lieutenant general, and was sent to Spain, to take command of the British and Portuguese troops in Cádiz, which was at that time closely invested by the French. The British Government attached great importance to the possession of Cádiz, as it was Britain's last stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula. But, as William Napier remarked, while "money, troops, and a fleet—in fine, all things necessary to render Cádiz formidable—were collected, yet to little purpose, because procrastinating jealousy, ostentation, and a thousand absurdities, were the invariable attendants of Spanish armies and government".

General Graham resolved to make an effort to raise the siege by attacking the rear of the besieging army, and in February 1811, he sailed from Cádiz with a force of upwards of 4,000 men, accompanied by 7,000 Spanish troops, under General La Pena, to whom, for the sake of unanimity, the chief command was conceded. The allied troops assembled at Tarifa, in the Straits of Gibraltar, and, moving northward, they arrived, on the morning of 5 March, at the heights of Barrosa, which were on the south of Cádiz and of the lines of the besieging army.

On the instructions of the Spanish general, Graham's force moved down from the position of Barossa to that of the Torre de Bermeja, about half-way to the Santi Petri river, in order to secure the communication across that river. While marching through the wood towards the Bermeja, Graham received notice that the enemy was advancing in force towards the height of Barrosa. As that position was the key of that of Santi Petri, Graham immediately countermarched, in order to support the troops left for its defence; but before the British force could get themselves quite disengaged from the wood, he saw to his astonishment the Spanish troops under La Pena abandoning the Barrosa hill, which the French left wing was rapidly ascending.

At the same time their right wing stood in the plain on the edge of the wood, within cannon-shot. "A retreat," as he says, "in the face of such an enemy, already within reach of the easy communication by the sea-beach, must have involved the whole allied army in all the danger of being attacked during the unavoidable confusion of the different corps arriving on the narrow ridge of the Bermeja at the same time. Trusting", as he says, "to the known heroism of British troops, regardless of the numbers and position of the enemy", General Graham determined on an immediate attack.

In the centre a powerful battery of ten guns, under Major Duncan, opened a most destructive fire upon General Leval's division, which, however, continued to advance in very imposing masses, but was completely defeated by a determined charge of the British left wing; and the eagle of the 8th regiment of light infantry, and a howitzer, were captured by the British. A reserve formed up beyond the narrow valley, across which the French were closely pursued, were the next to share the same fate. Meanwhile, the right wing was no less successful. The French General Ruffin's division, confident of success, met it on the ascent of the hill, and, after a sanguinary conflict, was driven from the heights in confusion, leaving two pieces of cannon in the hands of the British.

"No expressions of mine", said General Graham, in his despatch to the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, the Earl of Liverpool, "could do justice to the conduct of the troops throughout. Nothing less than the almost unparalleled exertions of every officer, the invincible bravery of every soldier, and the most determined devotion to the honour of his Majesty's arms in all, could have achieved this brilliant success against such a formidable enemy so posted".

"The contemptible feebleness of La Pena", according to William Napier, "furnished a surprising contrast to the heroic vigour of Graham, whose attack was an inspiration rather than a resolution—so sure, so sudden was the decision, so swift, so conclusive was the execution".

The French lost about three thousand men in this action, and six pieces of cannon and an eagle were captured, along with nearly five hundred prisoners, among whom were Generals Ruffin and Rosseau. The loss on the side of the victors was two hundred killed, and upwards of nine hundred were wounded. Had it not been for the actions of the Spanish general, the victory might have had the effect of raising the blockade of Cádiz. "Had the whole body of the Spanish cavalry", wrote Graham, "with the horse artillery, been rapidly sent by the sea-beach to form on the plain, and to envelop the enemy's left; had the greatest part of the infantry been marched through the pine wood to the rear of the British force, to turn his right, he must either have retired instantly, or he would have exposed himself to absolute destruction; his cavalry greatly encumbered, his artillery lost, his columns mixed and in confusion; and a general dispersion would have been the inevitable consequence of a close pursuit. But the movement was lost".

Lord Wellington, in a dispatch to General Graham, says "I beg to congratulate you and the brave troops under your command on the signal victory which you gained on the 5th instant. I have no doubt whatever that their success would have had the effect of raising the siege of Cádiz, if the Spanish troops had made any effort to assist them; and I am equally certain, from your account of the ground, that if you had not decided with the utmost promptitude to attack the enemy, and if your attack had not been a most vigorous one, the whole allied army would have been lost".

The Spanish general, in order to screen himself from criticism, circulated less damning accounts of his own role in the battle, which General Graham refuted by publishing in Spanish, as well as in English, his dispatch to Lord Liverpool, along with a letter to the British envoy, in vindication of his conduct. Lord Wellington mentions that La Pena was to be brought to a court-martial, where he was acquitted but stripped of command. The Cortes voted to General Graham the title of grandee of the first class; he, however, declined the honour. For his brilliant victory at the Battle of Barrosa he received the thanks of Parliament, in his place as a member of the House of Commons.

1812
Shortly afterwards Graham joined the army under Wellington, and was appointed second in command. In January 1812, he took part in the siege and capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, and Wellington declared that he was much indebted to him for the success of the enterprise. Three months later he and his friend General Hill received the Order of the Bath. A problem with his eyes, from which he had been suffering for some time, made it necessary for Graham to return home at this juncture.

"I cannot avoid feeling the utmost concern," wrote Wellington to him, "that this necessity should have become urgent at this moment, and that I should now be deprived of your valuable assistance".

At the general election in October 1812, Graham contested the county of Perth with Mr. Drummond (afterwards Viscount of Strathallan), but though he was supported by a number of influential Tories, he lost the election by seven votes.

1813
His visit to Scotland had the effect of restoring his eyesight, and in May 1813, he rejoined the army at Frinada, on the frontiers of Portugal, bringing with him the insignia of the Order of the Garter to Lord Wellington. On 22May the British force quit Portugal and moved upon Vitoria in three divisions. The left wing, which was commanded by Sir Thomas Graham, had to cross three large rivers—the Douro, the Esla, and the Ebro—and had to force positions of great strength among the passes of the mountains, continually pressing round the right wing of the retiring French army. General Graham took a prominent part in the battle of Vitoria (21 June), when the French were beaten "before the town, in the town, about the town, and out of the town"; and, by carrying the villages of Gamarra and Abechuco at the point of the bayonet, he intercepted the retreat of the enemy by the high road to Bayonne, and compelled them to turn to that leading to Pampeluna.

He was shortly after directed to conduct the siege of the strong fortress of San Sebastian, which was defended with great gallantry and skill by General Rey. The first assault, which took place on 25 July, was repulsed with heavy loss, and the siege had in consequence to be raised for a time. It was renewed, however, after the defeat of Marshall Soult in the battles of the Pyrenees, and a second attempt to carry the fortress by storm was made on 31August. The breach was found to present almost insuperable obstacles, and the storming party strove in vain to effect a lodgement. In this almost desperate state of the attack, General Graham ordered a heavy fire of artillery to be directed against the curtain wall, passing only a few feet over the heads of the British troops in the breach. This novel expedient was completely successful. Taking advantage of an explosion on the rampart caused by the fire of the guns, which created confusion among the enemy, the assailants gained a footing on the wall, and after a bloody struggle, which lasted two hours, forced their way into the town.

On 31August the French troops were forced to retreat from the town to their stronghold on the hill and fortress Urgull. When it seemed that damage to the town and its dwellers was limited, many of the allied rank-and-file as evidenced by local witnesses went on a rampage spree, taking to killing (estimated 1,000 civilians), looting, raping the women and burning almost the whole town to the ground, a mayhem lasting for a week. On 9 September the Governor Rey surrendered the citadel, and the garrison, reduced to one-third of their number, marched out with the honours of war. The reduction of this important place cost the British three thousand eight hundred men in killed and wounded. A candle-lit memorial event is held nowadays every 31 August, mourning these tragic days.

At the crossing of the Bidasoa separating France and Spain, General Graham commanded the left wing of the British army, and, after an obstinate conflict, succeeded in establishing his troops on French territory. However, the return of the complaint in his eyes, and the general state of his health, obliged him to resign his command and return home. In return for his services, for the third received the thanks of Parliament, and the freedom of the cities of London and Edinburgh was conferred upon him.

1814

His eyes and general health recovered and in 1814 he was able to take the command of the British forces in the Netherlands, during which period he successfully supported Bülow's attack on Hoogstraten. On 8March Graham's attempt to carry the strong fortress of Bergen op Zoom by a night attack ended in failure. In his dispatch to Downing Street he wrote:
"My Lord, It becomes my painful task to report to your Lordship, that an attack on Bergen-op Zoom, which seemed at first to promise complete success, ended in failure, and occasioned a severe loss to the 1st Division, and to Brigadier-General Gore's brigade. It is unnecessary for me to state the reasons which determined me to make the attempt to carry such a place by storm, since the success of two of the columns, in establishing themselves on the ramparts, with very trifling loss, must justify the having inclined the risk for the attainment of so important an object, as the capture of such a fortress."

Later life

On 3May 1814, he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Lynedoch of Balgowan in the County of Perth, but, in keeping with his disinterested and high-minded character, he declined the grant of £2,000 a year, to himself and to his heirs, which was voted as usual to accompany the title. British and foreign honours followed: a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, of the Spanish Order of St. Ferdinand, and of the Portuguese Order of the Tower and Sword. He was raised to the full rank of general in 1821 and nominated colonel of the 58th Foot in 1823, followed by the 14th Foot in 1826, which he exchanged in 1834 for the colonelcy of the Royals. He was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1813, and in 1829 appointed Governor of Dumbarton Castle.

He was noted for his vigour in his old age. He travelled frequently, visiting Italy, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. In 1841, aged 94, he travelled through France to Genoa and Rome. His riding-horses were sent on to Rome, and he rode frequently in the Campagna. He died at his London home in Stratton Street on 18 December 1843, aged 95, after a very short illness: he rose and dressed himself on the day of his death. He was buried near his family home in a large and specially commissioned stone vault in Methven churchyard.

The barony of Lynedoch died with him.

Bessie Bell and Mary Gray

In 1645, Bessie Bell, daughter of the Laird of Kinvaid, was on a visit to Mary Gray, at her father's house at Lednock, now called Lynedoch, when the plague broke out in the country. Taking alarm at the report, the two young ladies, in order to avoid the deadly infection, set to work and built themselves a bower, which they "theekit wi' rashes" according to the ballad, in a very retired and romantic spot known as the Burn Braes, about three-quarters of a mile west from Lynedoch House. Here they lived in safety for some time, whilst the plague raged with great fury. But, ultimately, they caught the infection from a young gentleman of Perth, who, it is said, was in love with the one or the other. According to custom in cases of plague, the bodies did not receive the ordinary form of sepulture. It seems that they were allowed to lie in the open and "beik fornenst the sun", as the ballad avers, until the flesh had disappeared and only the bone skeletons remained, when these were taken with safety and put beneath the green sod of the Dronach-haugh, at the foot of the brae of the same name, and near to the bank of the river Almond.

After the Lynedoch estate passed into Graham's possession in 1787, on his return from a pilgrimage abroad he found that the wall erected round the graves by Major Barry half a century before had fallen into a dilapidated state. He had the remains of the wall removed and a neat stone parapet and iron railings, 5 feet high, placed round the spot and covered the graves with a stone slab, on which was inscribed the words, "They lived, they loved, they died".

References in popular culture

The names of Lyndoch township and the Barossa Valley in South Australia are derived from "Lynedoch Vale" and the "Barrosa Ranges", named by Colonel William Light, Surveyor General of South Australia, in December 1837 in recognition of his esteemed friend, Lord Lynedoch, who was his commander at the Battle of Barrosa. Both names were mis-spelt on early maps, resulting in the unique names Lyndoch and Barossa.

Graham has a house named after him at the English Private school Wellington College.

Graham is portrayed as a major character in Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Fury published in 2006. Cornwell portrays him as an affable Scottish patriot, who lends assistance to fictional hero Richard Sharpe throughout the novel.

He was fictionally represented by name in Patrick Graham's Bollywood television series Betaal (2020). He was shown as being a practitioner of black magic in the series. In it, he raises his Zombie Army of the fictionally taken regiment of 90th Taunton Volunteers after 160 years. The regiment storms centuries-old barracks and fights a fictional state force ultimately to protect their land from outsiders. In the starting prelims of the first episode it shows a backscript as — 17 June 1857 "The Journal of Colonel Lynedoch" reads: "We came to help these people but they resist. The mutiny has reached us. How dare they? I will use their own guardians against them. I will harness the Betaal's curse and grind these savages into the dirt. It seems there are rebels in the tunnel. I must go...." As to display the anger of the Colonel against the mutineers in the 1857 rebellion of which the Colonel and his regiment had become a victim.

See also
 was a merchant vessel launched in 1814 at Calcutta. After she sailed to England she made one voyage for the British East India Company (EIC). Between 1831 and 1841 she made five voyages transporting convicts to Australia, three to Hobart and two to Sydney. She became a transport and suffered a maritime incident in 1844. She was last listed in 1847.

Arms

Notes

References
Grant, Philip R (2019), A Peer Among Princes - The Life of Thomas Graham, Victor of Barrosa, Hero of the Peninsular War, Pen and Sword 2019,

Attribution:

Further reading

External links

|-

|-

|-

|-

1748 births
1843 deaths
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Peers of the United Kingdom created by George III
British Army generals
British Army personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars
British Army commanders of the Napoleonic Wars
Rectors of the University of Glasgow
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Cameronians officers
Royal Scots officers
Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Scottish constituencies
British MPs 1790–1796
British MPs 1796–1800
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies
UK MPs 1801–1802
UK MPs 1802–1806
UK MPs 1806–1807
UK MPs who were granted peerages
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford

Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch


Dominic Behan ( ; ; 22 October 1928 – 3 August 1989) was an Irish writer, songwriter and singer from Dublin who wrote in Irish and English. He was also a socialist and an Irish republican. Born into the literary Behan family, he was one of the most influential Irish songwriters of the 20th century.

Biography

Early life
Behan was born in inner-city Dublin into an educated working-class family.  His father, Stephen Behan, fought for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Anglo-Irish War. Dominic was the brother of Brendan Behan. His mother, Kathleen, a collector of songs and stories, took the boys on literary tours of the city. Behan's maternal uncle, Peadar Kearney, wrote "A Soldier's Song", the song the Irish National Anthem was based on. Another brother, Brian was also a playwright and writer.

At the age of thirteen, Dominic left school to follow in his father's footsteps in the housepainting business. The family house in which Behan lived was the property of Christine English, Dominic's grandmother, who owned several properties in the city. His father Stephen was a member of the IRA and had been one of Michael Collins' "Twelve Apostles", who were responsible for the deaths of several officers from the British Army during the Irish War of Independence. He was banned from a professional future career for refusing to swear allegiance to the British Crown during the war of independence .

Republican and political activities
In 1937, the family moved to a new local council housing scheme in Crumlin. Here, Behan became a member of Fianna Éireann, the youth organisation of the IRA and published his first poems and prose in the organisation's magazine Fianna: the Voice of Young Ireland. In 1952, Behan was arrested in Dublin for leading a civil disobedience campaign in protest against the ruling government's failure to tackle unemployment and other critical economic issues. Behan was subsequently jailed for his part in other campaigns protesting the government's treatment of the working class in Ireland.

Behan the writer
On release from jail, Behan moved to Scotland for a time, living with the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid in the South-side of Glasgow; Behan always credited MacDiarmid with much of his early development as a writer, coming to view verse as a more agile medium for his thoughts at that time – it would only be some years later that Behan would write his first play. Whilst living with MacDiarmid, Behan became involved in what is now known as the "Scottish Republican Army", channelling arms from the IRA with whom he had historical links, to the SRA. It was during this time that Behan met his future wife, Josephine Quinn, the daughter of John Quinn, a cabinet maker and part-time journalist from Glasgow, and Bridget Quinn who ran a safe house for various revolutionary organisations. It was in Bridget Quinn's house that Behan was first introduced to Josephine, who married Behan in 1955.

Behan migrated to London, where he found work with the BBC, writing radio scripts, mainly for the Third Programme. His play Posterity Be Damned, produced in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, in 1959, dealt with republican activity after the Civil War of 1922–23. An autobiographical novel Teems of Times (1961) was received to critical acclaim, (particularly from the Observer theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, who was uncharacteristically effusive in his praise); the book was subsequently dramatised for television in 1977 by RTÉ.  His autobiography, Tell Dublin I Miss Her, was also published in 1961 and sold well in the USA. A biography of his brother entitled My Brother Brendan appeared in 1965, but due to a legal wrangle Behan received virtually none of the proceeds of this book.

During the 1960s and 1970s Behan wrote almost 20 television plays for British television in showcases such as Play for Today and Armchair Theatre. One of these plays, The Folk Singer (1972) – a story that focused on the sectarian roots of the Northern Ireland conflict, was restructured for the theatre and presented during the height of the Troubles at Belfast's Lyric Theatre starring a young Scottish actor Ken Stott.

Also during the late sixties and into the early 1970s, along with writing many TV plays, poems and songs, Behan worked with the leadership of the Official IRA to raise funds (mostly raised during extended lecture tours in the United States) to establish a permanent summer school in Mornington (County Meath) the aim of which was to bring Protestant and Catholic working class youths together in an adventure setting intended to break down sectarian barriers by fostering team work. The school ran courses every year through most of the 1970s and was a tribute to Behan's belief that the troubles in Northern Ireland would be resolved only by dialogue and respect.

Behan was a self-educated man whose intellect was such that he numbered many respected thinkers among his friends including the likes of Hugh MacDiarmid the Scots poet with whom he lived for three years, Louis MacNeice who became for a time a writing partner – mostly for the BBC overseas program and H. A. L. Craig the screenwriter who produced the script for the film Waterloo. Behan  also found time to work in education, having been identified by the Strathclyde Region education dept as the "Writer in residence" for the Region's secondary schools. Behan enjoyed this role for more than five years, Behan always expressed a conviction that the youth were worth investing in and the role with Strathclyde Region allowed him to reach out and help aspiring talent get recognition and encouragement.

Through relationships with various people in the music industry including Phil Solomon (one of the owners of Radio Caroline), Behan found himself to be often involved in helping performing artists (e.g. The Dubliners, David McWilliams, Christy Moore and many others) to develop their acts, establish an appreciation of stage craft and (especially so in the case of The Dubliners) write material. In this way, Behan made some long-lasting friendships that spanned musical genres and included friendships with Eric Burdon, Jimi Hendrix, Chas Chandler and many other artists.

Songwriting
Behan was a prolific composer and had more than 450 songs published during his lifetime. Many of his songs were very popular in Ireland and among the Irish living in Britain and elsewhere, especially "The Patriot Game", "McAlpine's Fusiliers" (originally written by Martin Henry but adapted by Behan), "Avondale", and "Liverpool Lou". In 1958, he released The Singing Streets: Childhood Memories of Ireland and Scotland on Folkways Records along with fellow folksinger Ewan MacColl with whom he collaborated for a number of years. Behan, who was unequivocal in the defence of his copyright, publicly accused Bob Dylan of plagiarising "The Patriot Game" in writing his own "With God on Our Side".

In 2009 The Patriot Game from Easter Week and After: Songs of the IRA originally issued by Topic in 1960 was included in their 70-year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten as track twenty-two on the third CD.

Pop culture references
Dave Cousins of the band Strawbs wrote his song "Josephine, for Better or for Worse" in honour of Josephine and Dominic Behan. This song has been recorded several times; the best-known version is on the album Dragonfly by Strawbs in 1970. Bob Dylan's 1963 song "With God on our Side" uses the melody and narrative framework of Behan's "The Patriot Game", as well as being influenced by its theme. The melody, as Behan admitted during a correspondence in The Guardian with Michael Grosvenor Myer, was actually derived and adapted from a version of the traditional song known as "The Nightingale", "The Grenadier and the Lady", "The Month of May", though had been significantly changed in both tempo and mood to serve the narrative of the song the Patriot Game.

The Liverpool folk/poetry band The Scaffold produced a version of Behan's song "Liverpool Lou" in 1974 which became a top 10 hit in the UK and spawned covers in various languages across Europe. On the original Scaffold pressing, the writing credits were incorrectly attributed to Paul McCartney who had produced the record on behalf of his brother Mike McGear; Behan advised the relevant authorities and had his rights to the song reinstated quickly receiving an apology from McCartney; Behan accepted McCartney's explanation that his mother had sung the song and he thought it was a traditional work. Later pressings of the song were then correctly credited to Behan; the early McCartney-labeled pressings are particularly rare and collectible.

In a well-publicised interview, John Lennon dismissed the 1960s folk scene in his own country, describing it as "College students with pints of beer going hay-nonny nonny" but in the same breath, he praised Behan, from neighbouring Ireland, whom he said he liked. On Desert Island Discs in 2007, Yoko Ono selected Behan's "Liverpool Lou" as her husband had sung it to their son as a lullaby.

Behan is discussed briefly in Bob Dylan's documentary film Dont Look Back but it is clear that the enmity between them was palpable. Behan held a number of artists in contempt, particularly when they changed the lyrics of his works to mitigate political embarrassment; for example Behan had a well-publicised spat with Liam Clancy whose recording of "The Patriot Game" omitted the verse in which Behan blamed Éamon de Valera for the long-term unrest in the six counties of Northern Ireland. Behan took the view that almost all of his work was written to make some form of social, historical or political statement and should either be used as an entire piece of work or not at all. The relationship between Behan and Clancy was never repaired.

Behan's death
Dominic Behan died at home in Glasgow, aged 60, on 3 August 1989 of complications arising from pancreatic cancer, shortly after the publication of his critically acclaimed novel The Public World of Parable Jones. He was survived by his widow Josephine and two sons, Fintan and Stephen. He was cremated in Glasgow and his ashes were scattered at the Royal Canal Dublin, near his birthplace, by May MacGiolla the wife of the Workers' Party Dublin West TD Tomás MacGiolla. His oration was given by his lifelong friend Seán Garland, general secretary of the Workers' Party of which Behan had been a staunch supporter for many years.

Works

Plays
Posterity Be Damned (1959)
The Folk Singer (1969)
Ireland Mother Ireland (1969)
Tell Dublin I Miss Her (1998)

Books
Teems of Times (1961)
Tell Dublin I Miss Her (1961)
My Brother Brendan  (1965)
Ireland Sings! (1966)
The Singing Irish (1969)
The Life and Times of Spike Milligan (1987)
The Public World of Parable Jones (1988)
The Catacombs (1989)

Discography
1	1958	Irish Songs (Recalled)	10"	Topic 10T28
2	1958	The Singing Streets: Childhood Memories Of Ireland and Scotland	LP Folkways FW 8501 issued on Topic 12T41 in 1959 as 'Streets of Songs' (Ewan MacColl and Dominic Behan)
3	1958	Easter Monday, 1916 Songs of the I.R.A. (Irish Republican Army)	LP Riverside 12-820 US release (Recorded Nov. 1957)
4	1959	Finnegan's Wake	EP Collector JEI 1
5	1959	McCafferty	EP Collector JEI 2
6	1959	Songs Of The Street	EP Collector JEI 3
7	1959	Mrs Holligan's Christmas Cake	EP Collector JEI 4
8	1960	Finnegan's Wake & Other Irish Folk Songs LP Folk-Lyric FL 113 [This is a US release (Side A is Collector EPs JEI 1/2; Side B is Collector EPs JEI 3/4)]
9	1959	The Bells of Hell	7"	Decca 45-F 11147
10	1959	Down By The Liffeyside	LP	Topic 12T35	w/ Peggy Seeger and Leon Rosselson
11	1960	The Irish Rover	LP	Folklore F-LEUT-2
12	1960	The Patriot Game	7"	Topic STOP 115
13	1960	Easter Week And After: Songs of the IRA	LP	Topic 12T44	As Riverside LP, but drops 4 tracks. Add 4 different tracks.
14	1962	Cosmopolitan Man	LP	Folklore F-LEUT-4
15	1963	Peelers And Prisoners	EP	Topic TOP 85
16	1963	Irish Rebel Songs	LP	Ace of Clubs ACL-1136	Enoch Kent/Diarmuid O'Neill/Patrick O'Malley (O'Neill/O'Malley are Dominic Behan!)
17	1964	Dominic Takes The Floor	EP	Topic TOP 101
18	1964	Liverpool Lou - EP	EP	Piccadilly NEP 34040 EP
19	1964	Liverpool Lou - single	7"	Piccadilly 7N.35172	#8 in Ireland in May 1964, #7 in UK in June 1974 for The Scaffold (Warners K 16400)
20	1964	When I'm Twenty	7"	Piccadilly 7N.35198
21	1965	Arkle	LP	Marble Arch MAL 1123
22	1965	Ireland Sings	LP	Pye NPL 18134
23	1965	Folksound of Britain	LP	HMV CLP 1910 [Dominic Behan was MC for this live concert]
24	1966	Rebellion	LP	Pye NPL 18139
25	1967	Dominic Behan	LP	Major Minor MMLP6
26	1972	Unity Creates Strength	LP	Nevis NEV R007	one track - Connolly Was There plus Finale (all feature)
27	1975	A Better Class of Folk	LP	Lismor LILP 5022 with Mike Whellans, Iain MacKintosh, Billy Davidson & Allan Barty
28	2000	Sing Christmas & The Turn Of The Year	CD Rounder ROUN1850 one track with the Hollinwood Girls Choir (T'was Mary Conceived) year -1957

Songs

"Arkle"
"Avondale"
"Building Up and Tearing England Down"
"Come Out Ye Black and Tans"
"Connolly Will Be There"
"Hand me Down me Petticoat"
"Liverpool Lou"
"Maloney Wants a Drink"
"McAlpine's Fusiliers"
"The Merry Ploughboy"
"Our Last Hope"
"Paddy on the Road"
"The Patriot Game"
"The Sea Around Us"
"Take It Down from the Mast"

Standalone poems
"Bás, Fás, Blás"

References

External links
Dominic Behan Collection at the Harry Ransom Center

The Singing Streets: Childhood Memories of Ireland and Scotland Album Details at Smithsonian Folkways

1928 births
1989 deaths
Writers from Dublin (city)
Irish male dramatists and playwrights
Irish socialists
Irish male songwriters
Irish Republican Army (1922–1969) members
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
Deaths from cancer in Scotland
House painters
Irish-language writers
20th-century Irish novelists
20th-century Irish male writers
20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights
Irish male novelists
Micronational leaders
Topic Records artists
20th-century Irish songwriters

Dominic Behan


The Eastern Roman Empire was ruled by the House of Leo from AD 457, the accession of Leo I, to 518, the death of Anastasius I. The rule of the Leonid dynasty coincided with the rapid decline, collapse and eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire. Following the end of the Western Empire, Emperor Zeno abolished the position of Western Roman Emperor and declared himself the sole Roman Emperor. The Eastern Roman Empire would come to last for several more centuries, and subsequent dynasties would invest large amounts of resources in attempts to retake the western provinces.

The Leonid dynasty also ruled the Western Roman Empire from 474 to its abolishment in AD 480.

Leo I and Leo II, 457-474
After the death of Marcian and the end of the Theodosian dynasty, Leo I was placed upon the throne by the Alan general Aspar, who served as commander-in-chief of the Eastern Roman army and enjoyed a role similar to that of Ricimer in the Western Roman Empire, appointing puppet emperors. Aspar had believed that Leo I would be a weak puppet, but Leo grew increasingly independent of him and after Aspar and his son Ardabur were murdered in a riot in 471, the Eastern Empire was restored to fully Roman leadership, which it would retain for centuries to come.

By the time of Leo's accession, the Western Roman Empire had nearly collapsed entirely. Though it enjoyed a brief restoration of power under Emperor Majorian, the West had become restricted to northern Gaul, Italy and parts of Illyria by the late 460s. Leo attempted to reconquer North Africa from the Vandals. The campaign was unsuccessful and Northern Africa would remain outside of imperial control until the reign of Justinian I in the early 500s.

Leo I was the earliest emperor to be crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople and not by a military leader, representing the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This change would eventually become permanent and the religious nature of the coronation had completely replaced the military version in the Middle Ages.

As condition for an alliance with the Isaurians, Leo married his daughter Ariadne to Tarasicodissa, who took the name Zeno, in 466. The son of Ariadne and Zeno, Leo II, succeeded upon the death of Leo I in 474 but he died after only 11 months of rule and was succeeded by Zeno.

Zeno and Basiliscus, 474-491
The reign of Zeno saw the end of the Western Roman Empire. The dating of the end is somewhat controversial. It is sometimes dated to 476, early in Zeno's reign, when the Germanic Roman general Odoacer deposed the titular Western Emperor Romulus Augustulus, but declined to replace him with another puppet. Odoacer accepted Julius Nepos, the previously deposed Western Emperor supported by Zeno, as his sovereign and acted as his viceroy of Italy. Nepos did not return to Italy but continued to reign as Western Emperor from Dalmatia until his death in 480.

After the death of Julius Nepos, Zeno became the sovereign of Odoacer and he did not appoint another Western Emperor, instead proclaiming himself as the sole Emperor of the Roman Empire, juridically reuniting West and East for the first time in 85 years. The position would never again be divided.

With Odoacer acting increasingly independent, Zeno negotiated with the Ostrogoths of Theoderic, who had settled in Moesia. He sent the gothic king to Italy as magister militum per Italiam ("commander in chief for Italy"). After the fall of Odoacer in 493, Theoderic, who had lived in Constantinople during his youth, ruled Italy on his own. Thus, by suggesting that Theoderic conquer Italy as his Ostrogothic Kingdom, Zeno maintained at least a nominal supremacy in the West land while ridding the Eastern Empire of an unruly subordinate.

Zeno was briefly deposed by Basilicus in 475 for twenty months, but regained his throne and imprisoned Basilicus and his family in a dry cistern, where they would die from exposure.

Anastasius I, 491-518
Anastasius I, an aged civil officer of Roman origin, became Roman Emperor through marriage with the widow of Zeno, Ariadne, in 491. Anastasius was a competent reformer and administrator, perfecting the coinage system introduced by Constantine I by setting the weight of the copper follis, the most commonly used coin throughout the Empire. Anastasius also abolished the chrysargyron tax, a tax that was hated due to it being collected in lump sums every four years. The monetary reforms of Anastasius lead to the State Treasury containing an enormous 145,150 kg (320,000 lbs) of gold upon his death.

Anastasius would be succeeded by Justin I, the first Emperor of the Justinian dynasty.

See also
 Family tree of Byzantine emperors

References

Sources
 Grierson, Philip (1999). Byzantine Coinage (PDF). Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks. . Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2007.
 .

States and territories established in the 450s
States and territories disestablished in the 6th century
6th century in the Byzantine Empire
5th century in the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire under the Leonid dynasty