St Helens () is a large town in Merseyside, England, with a population of 102,629. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, which had a population of 183,200 at the 2021 Census.

The town is  north of the River Mersey, in the south-west part of historic Lancashire. The town was initially a small settlement within the historic county's ancient hundred of West Derby in the township of Windle but by the mid 1700s the had developed into a larger urban area beyond the townships borders. By 1838 the council was formally made responsible for the administration of Windle and the three other townships of Eccleston, Parr and Sutton that were to form the towns traditional shape. In 1868 the town was incorporated as a municipal borough, then later became a county borough in 1887. In 1974 the town was made a metropolitan borough within the new Metropolitan County of Merseyside by the Local Government Act 1972, with an expanded administrative responsibility for several nearby towns and villages.

The town was famous for its heavy industry, particularly its role in the coal mining industry, glassmaking, chemicals and copper smelting and sail making that drove its growth throughout the Industrial Revolution. Originally home to a large number of industrial employers such as Beechams, the Gamble Alkali Works, Ravenhead Glass, United Glass Bottles (UGB), Triplex, Daglish Foundry, Greenall's brewery, the glass producer Pilkington is the town's only remaining large industrial employer.

The town is today most famous for its Rugby League team St Helens R.F.C. who have won 3 World Club Challenge cups in recent years, and museums such as the North West Museum of Road Transport, the World of Glass and art installations such as Dream.

History

Pre-history
The southern part of what became the traditional county of Lancashire was at least partially settled by the Brigantes, a Celtic tribe, who were subjugated by the Romans during their 1st Century conquest, with nearby Wigan suggested as a location for the Roman settlement of Coccium. Eccleston in St Helens appears to derive its name from either the Latin ecclesia or the Welsh eglwys, both meaning "church", suggesting a common link to a place of worship although none is known in that township until the 19th century.

The first recorded settlements are the Manors, Parishes and Titled Lands listed in the Domesday Book in the 11th century. The titled lands would have encompassed the modern townships of Sutton, Windle and Parr as part of their fiefdoms, though it may be inferred from the listed tithes that the land was populated before then.

Formation

St Helens did not exist as a town in its own right until as late as the middle of the 18th century when it is referenced in Parliament. The development of the town has a complex history: it was spurred on by the rapid population growth in the region during the Industrial Revolution. Between 1629 and 1839, St Helens grew from a small collection of houses surrounding an old chapel, to a village, before becoming the significant urban centre of the four primary manors and surrounding townships that make up the modern town.

The Domesday Book of 1086 reveals that several manors existed at that time, although there are no specific references to "St Elyn", or mentions of the particular "vill" or villages. Windle is first recorded on some maps as "Windhull" (or variations thereof) in 1201, Bold in 1212 (as Bolde) and Parr (or Parre) in 1246, whilst Sutton and Ecclestone composed part of the Widnes "fee" (a hereditary entitlement of ownership) under a Knight or Earl. It is known that the Hospitallers held lands in the area of Hardshaw as early as 1292, known as Crossgate (which may be referred to by the long built-over Cross Street in the town centre beneath the modern College campus) and many of the original parishes, townships and local areas are named after the families that owned the land between the 11th and 18th centuries.

The Ecclestone family owned the Eccleston township. Their ancestral home dates to 1100; it was built by Hugh Ecclestone. The family is referred to throughout the period until the 18th century when they departed for nearby Southport.

The manor of Parr remained in control of the Parr family and their descendants from the 13th to the early 15th century when a distant relative of the original family line, William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton (brother of Henry VIII's wife Catherine Parr) sold the manor to the Byroms of Lowton. The family later supported the Royalists during the English Civil War, and Henry Byrom (son of the Lord of the Manor) died at the Battle of Edgehill.

The extensive lands of Sutton Manor stretched across the open and flat land leading towards the Mersey. The manor's name is of unknown origin, but the land within the estate referred to several leading families, including Eltonhead, Ravenhead, and Sherdley. In 1212, William de Daresbury was the title holder of the manors. The Sherdley family can be traced back to the Northales, who had been settled in the area since at least 1276 when they were referred to as plaintiffs in a boundary dispute with the Lords of Rainhill.

Windle contained the smaller Hardshaw, described as a berewick in the Domesday Book. It was in Hardshaw that Chapel Lane was constructed. The Windle Family were Lords of the Manor and Township from the Norman period onward before ceding control to the Gerards of Bryn.

In 1139, the earldom of Derby, in the Peerage of England, was created: Norman descendant Robert De Ferrers was the first Earl. Subsequently, the region passed to John of Gaunt, and eventually the Stanley family. Their ancestral home was eventually established in the nearby Knowsley area (to the west of the modern St Helens borough), with the foundation of a hunting lodge in the 15th century and subsequently Knowsley Hall in the 18th century. The Earl of Derby's lands encompassed a region from Liverpool to Manchester, and to the north beyond Lancaster and were primarily turned to meeting the pastoral needs of the people.

Throughout this period, the area was predominantly arable land and was noted for its large swathes of moss, heath and bog land while elsewhere in parts, it was covered by the greater Mersey Forest (the larger "Community Forest" was not established until much later).

The origin of the name "St Helens" stretches back at least to a chapel of ease dedicated to St Elyn, the earliest documented reference to which is in 1552. The first time the Chapel was formally referred to appears to be 1558, when Thomas Parr of Parr bequeathed a sum of money "to a stock towards finding a priest at St. Helen's Chapel in Hardshaw, and to the maintenance of God's divine service there for ever, if the stock go forward and that the priest do service as is aforesaid". Early maps show that it was originally in Chapel Lane, near the site of the modern pedestrianised Church Street. Historically this would have fallen within the berewick of Hardshaw, within the greater township of Windle (making up the southern border) abutting onto the open farmland of Parr to the east, and Sutton and Eccleston to the south and west respectively.

In 1552, the Chapel of St Elyn was noted as "consisting only of a challis and a lytle bell". The chapel was described as being at the crux of the four townships of Eccleston, Parr, Sutton and Windle, and lay on the intersecting roads that criss-crossed the area and linked Lancashire towns such as Liverpool, Ormskirk, Lathom and the Cheshire region south of the River Mersey. The transport link is attested to by the existence of Chester Lane (the modern B5419 is much foreshortened) that originally wound through the west of the town heading south to the Mersey crossing point of Warrington and beyond to the ancient Chester Road (that now makes up part of the modern A56) that stretched between the historic town of its name and the Manchester townships. The Chapel also sat directly between the port town of Liverpool, and the landlocked Manchester townships that would become important in the development of the greater area of both St Helens and Wigan.

As a busy thoroughfare it is suggested by historian and genealogist William Farrer that a village existed in the vicinity for centuries, later sharing the name of the Chapel. It is known from the diaries of a local Puritan by the name of Adam Martindale that by the time the King's Head Inn was constructed in 1629 on "the great road" (taken to refer to all or part of Chester Lane) between Warrington and Ormskirk, a number of houses, farms and manors counted amongst the properties in the local vicinity and general area.  Martindale notes that by 1618 that the original chapel had been demolished and rebuilt in the same vicinity. In 1678 a building was converted for use as a meeting place for the Society of Friends by George Shaw of Bickerstaffe. Local historians believe the building had been used for another purpose long before 1678. The Quaker Friends' Meeting House, as it is now known, is a Grade II listed building.

The strong link to Roman Catholicism in the area was maintained throughout this period by the eventual Lords of Sutton Manor, the De Holland family, starting in 1321. Thomas Holland, a local Jesuit priest, was arrested and tried for high treason in October 1642 as "taking orders by authority of the see of Rome and returning to England". The first step toward his beatification was allowed by Pope Leo XIII in 1886. Conversely Roger Holland was burnt at the stake for heresy when he continued his professed belief in the Reformed churches some 100 years earlier in 1558 during the persecution of Mary I. It is suggested that Ravenhead Hall was the site of a Catholic chapel during the most severe of Catholic persecutions during the 17th and 18th centuries. Whilst the Lathom family maintained Rainfords close connections, as did the Ecclestons.

Less well-known is the Windle connection to witches. In 1602, two women were sent to Lancaster for trial, while a decade later Isobel Roby was submitted to Sir Thomas Gerard, accused of upsetting the ship upon which James VI and I's Queen Consort Anne of Denmark was arriving. Roby was finally executed at Lancaster, along with the Pendle and Salmesburg witches, on 20 August 1612.

By 1746, St Helens, composed of the greater area of the four townships (and their collieries) beyond Prescot, was referred to in a statement in Parliament related to the extension of the Liverpool to Prescot Turnpike.

The rapid growth of St Helens at the centre of the townships is attested to by several authors. The Penny Cyclopaedia states in 1839 that "Saint Helen's, Lancashire, is in the township of Windle, in the chapelry of St Helen's, Prescott parish. The township contains , and had in 1831 a population of 5,825. The town has risen into importance of late years" In contrast by 1844 (30 years before the borough of St Helens was established) Cyrus Redding mentions a reversal of the roles: "St Helens, originally an inconsiderable village, is now a very thriving town"; and he later states that the town "... may be said to contain the four townships of Sutton, Parr, Windle and Eccleston". The composition of the town described by Redding largely mirrors those observations made by Samuel Lewis in 1848 and later still in 1874 by John Marius Wilson and John Bartholemew in 1887.

Census figures from 1801 suggest the population of the District Area of St Helens to be 12,500; by 1861 it was between 37,631 and 55,523 (John Marius Wilson gives the lower number, with total households at the specific figure of 6,539) in the wider area with St Helens itself comprising a population of 20,176 in 3,577 households. The Ordnance Survey map of 1843 shows St Helens as the significant urban centre

The original Town Hall was constructed in 1839 and described by Wilson in 1874 as "in the Italian style, with a Corinthian portico; and contains a lock-up, a newsroom, and a large hall for courts, concerts, balls, and public meetings". It was not until 1852 that the Civil Parish of St Helens was instituted (noted in 1874 by Wilson as "more extensive than the town"). The Mill Street Barracks were completed in 1861.

On 2 February 1868, Queen Victoria granted a Charter of Incorporation, defining St Helens officially as a Municipal Borough. The first election of Councillors took place on 9 May the same year, followed by the first Town Council meeting on 18 May. About 20 years later in 1887 St Helens became a County Borough, with two Members of Parliament.

In 1894, the Parish of St Helens was incorporated under the 1893 St Helens Corporation Act. This was achieved by the abolition of the Civil Parishes of Parr, Sutton and amalgamation of their townships. The Civil Parishes of Eccleston and Windle both ceded portions of their areas over to St Helens.

The modern Borough of St Helens includes areas historically not associated with the town. The 1974 creation of the Ceremonial County of Merseyside appended the former urban districts of Haydock, Newton-le-Willows and Rainford, and parts of Billinge-and-Winstanley and Ashton-in-Makerfield urban districts, along with part of Whiston Rural District, all from the administrative county of Lancashire. The urban sprawl of St Helens was already extended up to the boundary lines of places such as Haydock and Rainhill, where inhabitants may consider themselves either part of either both St Helens the 'Town' or 'Borough', or just the Borough.

Industrial development

Until the mid-18th century, the local industry was almost entirely based on small-scale home-based initiatives such as linen weaving. The landscape was dotted with similarly small-scale excavation and mining operations, primarily for clay and peat, but also notably for coal. It is the coal to which the town owes both its initial growth and development and the subsequent development of the coal-dependent industries of copper smelting and glass.

Sitting on the South Lancashire Coalfield, the town was built both physically and metaphorically on coal; the original motto in the borough council's coat of arms was "Ex Terra Lucem" ("From the Ground, Light") and local collieries employed up to 5,000 men as late as the 1970s. During the boom years of the British coal industry (1913 was the peak year of production, with 1 million employed in UK mining industry) the St Helens division of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation (the local miners' union) had the largest membership (10%) of that federation.

The discovery of winnable coal seams is mentioned in 1556, referred to as "Beds of cinders or coke ... have been discovered three feet thick" during the digging of a clay pit and is commonly attributed to the Eltonhead family (Elton Head Road, the modern B5204, shares the name of the family) whilst reference to the significant distribution of "potsherds" during excavation suggests that some light industry had been underway for some time before (perhaps as far back as the 13th century) and the clay and pottery industries lasted in the area through to the early 20th century. A dispute arose between the landlord Bolds and the tenant Eltonheads, eventually resulting in an agreement to compensate the Bold family.

The majority of the land had been turned over to arable farming since at least the 12th century, according to the historical family records of William De Daresbury. The township of Sutton was recorded as "by itself being assessed at four plough-lands". Plow or ploughlands are assessed at  apiece. The pastoral use of the local land was common even in 1901, with William Farrer noting of Eccleston that the "country is of an undulating nature and principally dedicated to agriculture, fields of rich and fertile soil being predominant" and describing the produce as "chiefly potatoes, oats, and wheat on a clayey soil which alternates with peat". Even so, Farrer also notes that several old quarries and shafts still existed within the area while also making reference to a "brewery at Portico, and a pottery near Prescot, while glass, watchmakers' tools, and mineral waters are also manufactured".

Two hundred years earlier, Farrer may well have seen a different sight: St Helens was scarred and pitted by shallow mining operations, often quickly abandoned, left to flood and exceedingly prone to collapse. The primitive mining techniques, and limited ability to bail out gathering water, meant many pits had short lifespans. Complaints are recorded in Sutton Heath in particular about the plans to expand mining across the town, but the lure of a stable income ultimately won out against the objections. 100 years later, the Council rejected a planning application for an open cast mine — underlining the finality of the decline of coal mining in the area.

In the 18th century, however, coal was an enabling force for the town that opened up opportunities for further commercial and industrial developments, which in turn drove demand for the rapid movement of raw goods not simply out of the town (coal to Liverpool to fuel its shipping and steel works for instance, but also its salt works) but also in promoting an influx of raw products for processing. The dependence of St Helens on its transport links is evident from claims made to Parliament in 1746 for maintenance and extension of the turnpike road after local flooding had damaged it.

It is clear that St Helens' development owes as much to its location on the south Lancashire Coalfield as it does the fact that Liverpool, Chester and other centres of industry were not, and yearned for the fossil fuel of choice.

It was essential therefore for the town to maintain, and invest further in, transport links and promote itself as a hub for the growth of Liverpool, with its provision of raw materials benefiting from its location and promising transport links. Liverpool, recognising the need for a ready supply of coal for its forges, responded with a petition for the extension of the Liverpool to Prescot Turnpike. This soon developed into a far more forward thinking development which was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution: canals.

It was originally proposed merely to make the Sankey Brook navigable, but the eventual outcome was a complete man-made canal linking St Helens to the River Mersey and the city of Liverpool. The Sankey Canal was opened in 1757, and extended in 1775, to transport coal from the pits in Ravenhead, Haydock and Parr to Liverpool, and for raw materials to be shipped to St Helens.

The transport revolution centred on the region encouraged an influx of industry to the hitherto sparsely populated area. With industry came job opportunities and population growth. Between 1700 St Helens grew from a sparsely populated array of manor houses and their tenants into a sprawling span of mining operations.

Owing primarily to the abundance of coal reserves, the quality of local sand, and the availability of salt in nearby Cheshire, glass making is known to have been ongoing in the Sutton area since at least 1688, when the Frenchman John Leaf Snr is recorded as paying the Eltonhead family £50 for a lease of 2½ acres (1 hectare) of Sutton's Lower Hey. The glass industry got a significant lift with the Crown-authorised "British Cast Plate Glass Company" established in Ravenhead in 1786; it latched onto the success of similar enterprises to set the region as the market leader for glass.

The foundation of the companies owed as much to industrial leaders from outside the town (and the finance they provided) as to its natural resources but the synchronous development of the steam engine was a significant development, with James Watt's stationary steam engine design leading the way. Water could be pumped from deeper than ever before, and mines could be driven to find even more dense seams. At the same time, the growth in use of machinery (e.g. for mills, forges, and ships) rapidly increased the demand for coal - to which the town responded.

Land exchanged hands in St Helens rapidly, as established families moved out of the growing towns filled with the working classes to more gentrified and less industrially developed places. In their place came self-made wealthy industrialists such as John Mackay (who first leased land in St Helens in the 1760s from King George III before buying the land constituting Ravenhead Farm from the Archbishop of York), Michael Hughes, the Gambles, and later Thomas Beecham, Thomas Greenall and the Pilkingtons. A few established families remained, such as the Gerards of Windle Hall. They made their land available for industrial use.

One of the first major industries to grow out of the transport innovations in the region was copper smelting. The Parys mining company, led by Michael Hughes, leased land from John Mackay close to the newly constructed Sankey Canal at Ravenhead (where Ravenhead Colliery had since been established). This allowed copper ore carried from the Parys Mountain mine in Amlwch in Anglesey, North Wales to arrive in the St Helens region via the Mersey directly at the point where coal was being excavated to fire the forges of industry. Some 10,000 tons of copper ore yielding over 1,300 tons of copper passed along this route. At the same time the Gerards were renting out land in Blackbrook to Patten & Co. from nearby Warrington. The company smelted using the Gerards 'own coal, then moved the coal downstream from a private wharf on the navigable brook.

The boom did not last: by 1783, coal industry leaders such as Mackay, Sarah Clayton and Thomas Case were all dead, penniless or both as a global constriction on coal shipments stifled the industry. An over-reliance on shipping to the USA during the American War of Independence (1775–1783) ruined many people, and led to the permanent loss of several smaller industries. It took partnership and coordination with other industries for the mining industry to recover; with the US embargo lifted, the town's troubles were soon overcome if not forgotten, although this was not the last troubling incident.

The demand for chemicals such as alkali from the glass industry soon led the Gamble family to start their lime and alkali pits, saving on import costs. The growing demand for chemical processing also contributed heavily to the growth of Widnes.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened in 1830. It passed through the southern edge of the town at Rainhill and St Helens Junction, and furthered its economic development as a centre of industry.

The decline of the mining industry
The last coal mine located close to the town centre (Ravenhead Colliery) and those located in the outlying districts of St Helens, including those that were just outside the original 1887 County Borough boundary, such as Clock Face (Clock Face Colliery), Sutton (Bold Colliery), Sutton Heath (Lea Green Colliery), Sutton Manor (Sutton Manor Colliery) and Haydock (Lyme Pit, Wood Pit, Old Boston), were all closed between the nationalisation of the deep coal mining industry in 1947 and 24 May 1991, when Sutton Manor Colliery, the last to go in the immediate St Helens area, finally closed its gates.

The coal mining industry in St Helens and elsewhere had collapsed because the government maintained that the deep mining of coal was no longer an economically viable proposition in most British coalfields. The closures were opposed by the National Union of Mineworkers during the year-long Miners' Strike of 1984–85. After the collapse of the miners' strike in March 1985, St Helens was just one of dozens of towns in the UK that was immediately set to lose a long-standing employer. In the case of both Sutton Manor and Bold Collieries, it was estimated by some that when they were closed they each still had up to 40 years of winnable coal reserves. The last colliery in the modern metropolitan borough, and in the St Helens area of the South Lancashire Coalfield, was Parkside, in Newton-le-Willows, which was closed in 1993.

Economy

The glass industry is no longer the major employer it once was; however, it still employs over a thousand people in the town. The large Pilkington Brothers works, founded in 1826, dominates the town's industrial quarter and still produces all the UK's output of flat glass.

In 1994, planning permission was sought out for a link road connecting the M62 directly with the town centre. The development included a £5m retail and commercial property project in the Ravenhead area that had seen successive business closures with the folding of UGB and Ravenhead Glass.

Retail

The town's shopping area is centred on the parish church of St Helens, the original site of St Mary's open market. The open market was later replaced by an awned covered market that populated Chapel Lane and the locale.

The current Church Square shopping centre surrounds St Helens on three sides. Church Street, the main high street, runs parallel to Church Square and is sandwiched by the town's second shopping centre known as The Hardshaw Centre.  The other main shopping streets in the town centre include the more traditional small store based Bridge Street, Duke Street and Westfield Street populated by independent specialists.   Church Square was bought by St Helens Council in 2017 for £26.6m as part of local regeneration plans.

The town centre has several supermarkets including mainstream stores such as Asda and Tesco, as well as smaller stores such as Lidl. Morrisons retain two stores located in the Eccleston and Sutton areas of the town.  There is also a Tesco superstore in Earlestown, which is on a former Safeway site and many smaller Tesco Express and Tesco Metro stores. A new Tesco Extra store opened in October 2011 on the outskirts of the town centre to replace the existing Chalon Way superstore, which has now been taken over by new retail Home & Leisure outlet, The Range.

St Helens has two major retail parks, one on either side of the St Helens Linkway. The older of these, St Helens Retail Park, is home to several discount stores and wholesale retailers.

The larger Ravenhead Retail Park houses more large-scale mainstream retail stores,  and a number of restaurants, fast food outlets and cafes. The same area (in particular the old United Glass Bottles site) has been used for development of the new St Helens RLFC stadium and the construction of a Tesco Extra supermarket, to replace the smaller Tesco supermarket in the town centre. At 140,000 square metres, this Tesco Extra store is one of the biggest in England

Major investment is transforming former industrial land for use as hotels, shopping areas and housing after an initial landscape grading and character assessment project was concluded in late 2005 by Land Use Consultants on behalf of St Helens Council.

Urban regeneration projects

Since the millennium St Helens has become a focus for a whole borough scheme of Urban Regeneration initiatives in coordination with local Housing Authorities, Business and Art Projects in addition to European, Regional and Central Government funding such as the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, the North West Regional Development Agency and The Mersey Partnership as part of the European Regional Development Fund

The whole project is coordinated by St Helens Council under their umbrella corporate branding "St Helens; The Heart of the North West" with an emphasis on promoting the location of the town as a vital hub of the region, to encourage investment and the development of business links.

In 2007, the Brand New St Helens project was launched and published their Development Review Document.  The report set out the achievements in the years since the millennium and set out the future development projects for the town including the wholly rebuilt College Campus, and Cowley Language College (formerly Cowley High). The document also lays out retail, leisure and tourism developments for the Town.

In 2009, a Multi Area Agreement (MAA) was made with the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens agreeing to form part of the Liverpool City Region, a cross boundary cooperation of 5 adjoining authorities in Merseyside and the Halton Borough on strategic policy areas such as economic growth, transport, tourism, culture, housing, and physical infrastructure.

Local Projects such as "Re:new St Helens" operated in conjunction with Helena Housing was originally set up in 2006 in an effort to initially "make the Parr area of St Helens a better place to live, work and be part of". The scheme's success led to it being expanded to other identified areas in need of redevelopment including Four Acre (in Clock Face), Thatto Heath and the North of the Town Centre.

The Re:new projects coordinate a Partnership Board to meet the needs of local residents in conjunction with local service providers such as the Council, Local Education Authority, Local Healthcare, Housing Associations and the Police to help improve services, identify local priorities and make changes with an aim to tackle "the quality of life issues which matter most to local people". The scheme has been responsible for the redevelopment of The Duckeries and Gaskell Park in Parr that both achieved Green Flag status in 2008

Historic and notable buildings

St Helens Town Hall built in 1876 to replace the original (damaged by a fire in 1871); its clock tower originally had a steeple but this was destroyed in a fire in 1913.

In the centre of the modern town centre, adjacent to the town hall, is the Gamble Institute, built in 1896 and named after Sir David Gamble, who was the first mayor and who also gifted the land for the building. Today, the Gamble Institute building serves as the central library and also houses other municipal offices and archives.

Other buildings of note are:

The Friends' Meeting House, Church Street. This attractive stone-built Grade II listed hall has been used for Quaker worship for over 300 years since its establishment, in 1678, by George Shaw of Bickerstaffe. A sign at the front of the building reads "so used" since 1678, partly leading local historians to believe the building had been used for another purpose for quite a number of years before 1678. The building and garden have been recently restored and are an important element of the George Street Conservation Area. The sundial over the door of the meeting house is dated 1753, while a curiosity in the garden is a huge glacial boulder, said to have been deposited from the Lake District following the last ice age.

The Beecham Clock Tower, Westfield Street - which is now part of St Helens College. This was the original headquarters of the Beecham pharmaceutical empire.

St Mary's Lowe House Catholic Church, North Road is a Grade II listed building, opened in 1929, the second on this site (the land having been donated by Winifred Gorsuch Lowe - hence the name 'Lowe House'). The church is an unusual and striking landmark with a 130 ft (40 m) tower and a dome of a mixed Romanesque and Gothic style. The major feature is the historic Carillon (bells playable using a keyboard, rather than by pulling ropes). It is the largest in the North West of England, housing 47 bells.

The Roman Catholic Church of St Anne and Blessed Dominic, Monastery Road, Sutton, is a pilgrimage site for Roman Catholics. The Victorian missionary Blessed Dominic Barberi is buried in the church. Alongside Blessed Dominic, Father Ignatius Spencer is buried. The son of the 2nd Earl Spencer, he was a famed convert to the Roman Catholic faith. Elizabeth Prout, foundress of the religious order, the Sisters of the Cross and Passion, is also buried with them.

Geography

The St Helens Borough covers roughly 30 km² (12 sq miles) of soft rolling hills used primarily for agricultural purposes, mainly arable. The highest point in the borough, and in the whole of Merseyside, is Billinge Hill,  north of the town centre. From the top of this hill the cities of Manchester and Liverpool are visible on a clear day, as well as the towns of Wigan, Bolton and Warrington. The Mill Brook/Windle Brook runs through Eccleston and connects with the disused St Helens branch/section of the Sankey Canal in the town centre. St Helens is around  above sea level.

Carr Mill Dam is Merseyside's largest body of inland water, with lakeside trails and walks. It is used for national competitive powerboating and angling events.

Moss Bank, a suburb of St Helens, is about  north of the town centre. It has a community library and St David's
church.

The Burgies are two tailings on the site of the old Rushy Park coal mine. They were created by dumping toxic chemical waste from the manufacture of glass; they have since been covered with tall grass and woodland.

St Helens was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day. Damage from the tornado occurred in St Helens town centre.

Location

St Helens is located  to the east of Liverpool and  from the centre of Manchester. The borough shares borders with the towns or boroughs of Prescot in Knowsley, Skelmersdale, Warrington, Widnes and Wigan; it has direct transport links by road and two main railway lines. Its centralised location has formed the basis of the local authority's promotional literature.

The town is considered part of the Liverpool Urban Area for ONS purposes.

Transport

Road
St Helens is well served by motorway links with the east–west corridors of the M58 and M62 to the north and south of the town respectively. The town is also served by the parallel-running north–south routes of the M57 and M6 to the east and west.

The M6 runs a few miles to the eastern side of the town centre, with J23 at Haydock serving both northbound and southbound traffic and J24 at Ashton in Makerfield serving southbound exit and northbound access.

The M62 runs a couple of miles to the south of the town with J7 at Rainhill Stoops. The M57's J2 lies several miles south-west of St. Helens, at Prescot. The M58 is several miles north, at the north-western end of the A570 Rainford by-pass dual carriageway.

The A580 East Lancashire Road runs north of the town centre alongside Eccleston, Moss Bank and through Haydock. It is a dual-carriageway former trunk road taking traffic from Manchester to the Liverpool Docks. It was built between 1929 and 1934 and was opened by King George V. It was intended to take pressure away from the A58, a major road running from Prescot (M57) through St Helens to the A1(M) at Wetherby, West Yorkshire.

The Rainford by-pass is a section of the A570, between the East Lancashire Road and the M58; it is part of the transport route from Southport, in Sefton, through west Lancashire and St Helens to the M62 J7 at Rainhill.

A major development in communication was the opening of the dual-carriageway St Helens Linkway (classified as part of the A570) in 1994, which linked the town centre directly with the M62 (at Rainhill). The A572 takes traffic from the town centre through Parr to Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows. In July 2020, the St Helens Linkway grass verge was chosen by St Helens Council as a site on which to plant yellow flowers in a large heart shape, in memory of all who had died during the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2010, St Helens was proclaimed "UK's most car-friendly town" measured on variables such as "petrol prices, parking costs and the number of speed cameras in an assessment carried out by Virgin Money Car Insurance" in research conducted by The Independent newspaper.

Buses

Bus services to Wigan (320, 352), Liverpool, Widnes and Warrington operate from the town centre. St Helens has a central bus station that sits between Bickerstaffe Street and Corporation Street. A Merseytravel office is located on Bickerstaffe Street, where bus passes and advice can be sought.

From 1890, St Helens Corporation Transport organised public network services throughout the area, providing bus and trolleybus services. Following local government re-organisation in 1974, the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive (Merseytravel) was expanded to cover St Helens. After privatisation in 1986, the town was served by several locally-branded operations under the umbrella of Merseyside Transport Limited (MTL), in which Merseytravel retained shares until 1993.

Arriva purchased MTL in 2000 and has operated the majority of the routes since. Several smaller operators run specific routes within the town area, such as Cumfybus, Hattons, HTL Buses, Red Kite Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire and local municipal bus companies. There were also three zero-fare services operated by battery-electric minibuses in and around the town centre, ferrying passengers to nearby retail parks such as Ravenhead, which were provided on behalf of Merseytravel by Selwyns Travel. From 22 February 2014, these buses were withdrawn from service as part of a Merseytravel programme of spending cuts and due to the buses being at end of their operational lives.

Railway

St Helens Central station serves the town centre. The stations of Thatto Heath, Eccleston Park and Garswood are on the Liverpool to Wigan Line that runs from Liverpool Lime Street to Wigan North Western.

The Liverpool to Manchester line serves the St Helens area at Rainhill, Lea Green and St Helens Junction before passing on to Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows. The St Helens Junction and Rainhill buildings are two of the original stations that were built when the line opened in 1830.

Collins Green railway station closed in 1951 and the old Lea Green station in 1955.

Until the 1950s, three railway lines ran through St Helens:

 the current line from Liverpool Lime Street, through Huyton and St Helens, to Wigan North Western;
 a line from Widnes, through St Helens, to Rainford;
 a line starting at St Helens, running east through Haydock, to  on the LNER Wigan Junction line.

A major redevelopment of St Helens Central station was completed in 2007 at a cost of £6.2 million, which the council hoped would encourage investment, create more jobs and improve the gateway into the town. The building has been constructed using copper on the fins, in reference to the town's early industrial heritage.

In 2010, it was confirmed by the government that electrification both of the Liverpool to Manchester and Liverpool to Wigan lines would be implemented, with national body Network Rail announcing a projected overall completion date of 2014. Electrification work was eventually completed in 2015 and Northern Rail, the train operating company, announced the introduction of electric services on the line from the commencement of the new timetable changeover on 17 May 2015. The Liverpool to Wigan service is now operated by 4-car Class 319 electric units.

St Helens Council has discussed the possibility of a new railway station at Carr Mill in Laffak.

Waterways

St Helens is a landlocked town, but it has easy access to the ports of Liverpool, on the River Mersey and Mostyn, and north Wales on the River Dee. The Sankey Canal, including the St Helens section, is no longer used for transporting goods; it consists of several short sections only, with the remainder being drained and filled.

Air
The nearest airport is Liverpool John Lennon Airport, located about 12 miles (19 km) south-west of the town and is connected by a frequent service from St Helens bus station (the 89 service). By road, it is accessed via the St Helens Linkway to M62 westbound J7 at Rainhill. There is no direct rail connection at present, although some trains calling at St Helens Central now go to Liverpool South Parkway station, which has shuttle buses connecting with the airport.

Manchester Airport is approximately 25 miles (40 km) away. By road, it is accessed via the St Helens Linkway to M62 eastbound J7 at Rainhill and by rail; the Manchester Airport train service serves St Helens Junction station.

Past links

An extensive tram and trolleybus system operated between 1880 and 1936. Trolleybus services commenced in 1927 and ceased 30 June 1958, when the last Prescot Circle trolleybus was replaced by a bus service. From 1919, the service was operated by the St Helens Corporation Tramways; prior to this, it had been operated by the St Helens and District Tramways Company and subsequently the New St Helens and District Tramways Company. Originally horse drawn, they became steam powered by 1890 and then electric by 1899. The original lines were all removed during the war for steel for the war effort. The only tram tracks left can be seen in the Transport Museum and one isolated trolleybus pole that carried the power lines can still be seen in Warrington Road, Peasley Cross.

A tram link also existed, to Windle and in Haydock, the latter serving Liverpool via Knotty Ash.

Governance

Civic history

St Helens first became responsible for the administration of the wider area in 1836 when made a Registration sub-district of the Prescot Parish as part of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 that devolved control down to the more localised Parish control (spurred on by the Reform Act 1832).

St Helens, in Hardshaw of Windle, constructed its original Town Hall in 1839 that served as a legal court, meeting house, and administrative centre. It also held Council meetings for Aldermen and Parishioners alike.

In 1868, St Helens was incorporated as a borough (covering the 4 Townships). In response to the old, smaller, hall suffering fire damage in 1872 a new hall was planned. This current town hall was built between 1872 and 1876. In 1889 St Helens was again reformed, this time as a county borough with greater responsibility over an increased area of land. This was part of an ongoing process of local government restructure during the Victorian era, this time as part of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882.

As a county borough, St Helens was, from 1889 to 1974, inside the administrative county of Lancashire. On 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, St Helens became the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens in the newly created Merseyside Metropolitan county. At this time St Helens Council replaced all the local Councils within the prescribed area.

Historic coat of arms

The old Town and Borough Council coat of arms were granted on 17 January 1876. The coat of arms is an Argent (white or silver) Field common to earlier coat of arms in the area. The black cross is referenced from the family of the Ecclestons. The saltires in the first and fourth quarters are from the arms of the Gerards of Windleshaw. The "second and third a griffon segreant" meanwhile are taken from the Bold family. The blue bars are from the arms of the Parr family, Marquises of Northampton. The lion is from the crest of the Walmsleys and the two fleurs-de-lys refer to Sir David Gamble, first Mayor and benefactor of the town, and the Haydock family.

As the council ceased to exist in 1974, these arms are since then no longer in use. The coat of arms of the present council of Metropolitan Borough of St Helens has taken over part of its design.

Motto
The motto was the Latin "Ex Terra Lucem". A literal translation would be "From the Ground, Light" whilst more descriptive translations might be "Light out of the earth" or "Out of the earth comes light". The phrase refers to both the abundant and winnable coal resources (which can be burnt, to produce "light") in addition to their use in local industry such as Glass (through which light passes).

The motto of the town and larger borough was changed in 1974 to "PROSPERITAS IN EXCELSIS" ("Success in the highest"or "Flourishing well"), which is included on the arms of the Metropolitan borough Council.

After the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, Frank Cottrell Boyce the creative writer behind Danny Boyle's opening ceremony revealed that the town motto was a significant influence to the Olympic cauldron designed by Thomas Heatherwick. The cauldron petals, once lit, started on the floor and rose up to form one torch.

The success and high profile of the games led the Council and local residents to consider re-adopting "Ex Terra Lucem". It was felt that it was more appropriate to the town's history and had more meaning for local people, representing hope for the future.  A number of people had raised this and requested that the Council consider replacing the motto.

A public consultation commenced on 17 January 2013 and at its meeting held on 17 April 2013, Council resolved to revert to the original motto of "Ex Terra Lucem". The Coat of Arms remained the same.

Parliamentary representation
St Helens is represented by the St Helens South and Whiston and St Helens North constituencies. Both contain areas outside of the town boundary, but within the greater Borough. Each constituency sends 1 representative to Parliament.

At the general election in 2015 both Dave Watts and Shaun Woodward stood down from their seats. David Watts MP (St Helens North) had been incumbent since 1997, whilst Shaun Woodward MP (St Helens South and Whiston) had retained his seat since 2001.  Watts received a life peerage and became Baron Watts in December 2015.

Conor McGinn (St Helens North) and Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) were selected as Labour Party candidates and both were elected as MPs in 2015.

Rimmer and McGinn both held their seats at the 2019 general election.

The town is considered a Labour stronghold and to have "safe (Labour) seats".

Local council representation

St Helens and its associated wards are represented by St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council.

The Council was run by the Labour party from the first election in 1973 until an alliance between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives took control after the 2006 election. Labour regained a majority at the 2010 election and as of the 2014 election the council was composed of the following councillors:

Following the 2022 local elections, the composition of St Helens Council was as follows:

Parish councils
St Helens is also served by several parish councils. Their activity is much reduced in the modern borough, but are still active in the communities and are recognised by the Borough Council as they may "undertake many duties such as street lighting, managing cemeteries, allotments, commons, village halls, war memorials and markets etc".

St Helens Council lists the parish councils as:

Billinge Parish Council
Bold Parish Council
Eccleston Parish Council
Rainford Parish Council
Rainhill Parish Council
Seneley Green Parish Council
Windle Parish Council

Demography
Christianity is the main religion in St Helens Borough. At the 2001 census this was reported at around 87%. This made St Helens the "most Christian town in Britain" at that time. St Helens also had second fewest people (out of 376 local authorities) that actively described themselves as having no religion at all.

There is very little ethnic minority representation in St Helens, amongst the lowest levels in the country. 98.84% of the St Helens population described itself as White British in 2001. The largest ethnic minority in St Helens in 2001 was recorded as Indian with 409.

By 2006, the otherwise transient gypsy and traveller community have overtaken that number and are now considered to "make up the largest identifiable ethnic minority group in St Helens".

Education

Primary schools
The Borough of St Helens has one nursery school, one infant school, one junior school, fifty-two primary schools and one independent school for pupils aged 3-16. Performance in the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 SATs has been consistently above national averages over the past 5 years.

Schools for children with special educational needs
There are three SEN schools in St Helens - Penkford, Mill Green and Lansbury Bridge.

Secondary schools
The Borough of St Helens has one independent and nine maintained secondary schools:

Cowley International College
De La Salle School
Hope Academy
Outwood Academy Haydock
Rainford High School
Rainhill High School
St Augustine of Canterbury Catholic Academy
St Cuthbert's Catholic High School
The Sutton Academy
Tower College

Further education
The town has seven educational institutions offering post-16 education in: Cowley International College, Rainford High Technology College, Rainhill High School and Sixth Form Centre, The Sutton Academy, Hope Academy - (all 11-18 secondary schools), Carmel College (a sixth form college) and St Helens College (a general FE college). Carmel College is a leading college in the country with a value added score of 328. The college is an associate of the University of Liverpool. St Helens College, which has recently rebuilt its Town Centre Campus, offers a wide variety of Higher and Further Education courses including degree courses, foundation degrees, BTECs and professional qualifications at the college's Business School. The college has a growing reputation for its standards and achievements. Recently, St Helens College has opened a University Centre. Locals who stay in the area and go to university often take advantage of the surrounding universities such as: Edge Hill (Ormskirk), Liverpool, Manchester, Salford and Chester. St Helen's Chamber is a strong provider of school leaver and post-16 apprenticeships and courses too.

Media
There is one local weekly newspaper, the St Helens Star, which is freely distributed and available to buy in supermarkets, and is published every Thursday.

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North West and ITV Granada. Television signals are received from the Winter Hill TV transmitter.

Local radio stations are BBC Radio Merseyside, Heart North West, Radio City, Greatest Hits Radio Wigan & St Helens (formerly Wish FM, named after Wigan (Wi) and St Helens (SH)) and, Relax Radio, an internet-based community radio station based in St Helens.

St Helens College has previously made temporary, limited service FM radio broadcasts from their Town Centre Campus. In December 2010, the St Helens College radio station re-commenced broadcasting under the banner 'Solar 1287 AM'.

Culture and leisure

Museums
Located in the town centre, The World of Glass Museum opened in 2000 incorporating the Pilkington Glass Museum and the St Helens Local Museum.

The North West Museum of Road Transport is another museum located in the town. The Smithy Heritage Centre is a small museum in Kiln Lane, Eccleston about the works of a local blacksmith.

Parks, open spaces and nature walks
The borough of St Helens has several major parks and open spaces. These include the Taylor Park, a listed Grade II Historic Park and Garden opened in 1893, as well as Victoria Park located near the town centre.

Sherdley Park is a modern park in Sutton which features a petting zoo and annually holds a funfair in the summer, usually in July, called the St Helens Festival (originally named the St Helens Show).

Parr has Gaskell Park in addition to the reclaimed open space known as The Duckeries (or Ashtons Green), and shares a boundary with boggy heathland known as "The Moss" or "Colliers Moss" (traditionally associated with Bold and its power station), and the area known as the "Flash" (remnants of the canal tributary system and fishing ponds) with a nature walk along part of the  route that makes up the Sankey Valley Country Park (part of the Trans Pennine trail).

A 20m tall sculpture, called Dream, has been erected on a former colliery in Sutton Manor in St Helens.

Gaskell Park, Taylor Park and The Duckeries all received Green Flag Award status in 2009. King George V Park received a Green Flag Award in 2012.

Theatre

The Citadel Theatre

The first Theatre Royal was built on Bridge Street, opening in 1847 and was a large wooden barn. This was open for several seasons until heavy snow caused the roof to collapse. It was replaced by a new Theatre Royal on Milk Street.

Revill built a new theatre on Corporation Street and transferred the Theatre Royal name to this instead.

The Milk Street theatre was then purchased by the Salvation Army where it was more or less completely re-built internally. It was renamed SA Citadel and was used for this purpose for nearly 90 years, until the Salvation Army moved to a newer site. It was then opened as The Citadel Arts Centre in 1988 and was refurbished in 2000.

In 2019 it was announced that the Citadel Arts Centre would close on 30 June 2019 but that the Citadel Arts Charity would continue working with the support of a crowdfunding campaign.

The Theatre Royal

The Theatre Royal opened by Revill on Corporation Street in 1889 was relatively short-lived as it was severely damaged by fire in 1901.  It was then reconstructed by revered theatre architect Frank Matcham. The Matcham theatre was designed in a baroque style with ornate balconies, chandeliers and boxes. In the 1960s the theatre was purchased by Pilkingtons and was gutted internally. The auditorium was refurbished removing all traces of the original interior design, whilst the ornate frontage was replaced with a plain glass façade. This was subsequently heavily refurbished in 2001.

The theatre is today a venue with touring acts and annual Pantomime. There are performances by local amateur operatic and dramatic societies, schools and dancing academies.

Sport

Rugby league

Professional
St Helens is home to St Helens R.F.C., known commonly in the sport as 'Saints', who play in British Super League. The club were founded in 1873, and were one of the founding teams of Rugby Football League in 1895. They played their home games at Knowsley Road in Eccleston from 1890, but in 2012 moved to a modern stadium at Langtree Park. The club has a historic rivalry with the Wigan Warriors. They have been one of the most successful teams of the modern Super League era.

Amateur

The town is also home to a large number of amateur rugby league teams comprising senior and youth teams. Most notable of these are Blackbrook A.R.L.F.C., Bold Miners, Clock Face Miners, Haresfinch Hawks, Haydock Warriors, Pilkington Recs and Thatto Heath Crusaders. Most of these teams and others in the area compete in the BARLA North West Counties competition (Pilkingtons in the Premier League, Haydock and Blackbrook in Division 1, Thatto Heath and Clock Face in Division 2). Thatto Heath compete in the higher ranked National Conference League.

The Blackbrook Royals have contributed 26 Lancashire Cup winning sides across 8 age ranges from U12 to U18, with two in the Open Age category and 10 National Cups. Pilkington Recs has 17 wins (and 6 times runner up) and Thatto Heath, 10.

The St Helens R.F.C. Under 18s and 16s and St Helens R.F.C. Academy teams serve as official feeders to Saints.

Rugby union
St Helens is home to several amateur rugby union teams. Liverpool St Helens F.C. are the most prominent union team in a town where the league code takes precedence. The team claims to be "the oldest open rugby club in the world" based on its origins in the formation of Liverpool Football Club (not to be confused with the later association football team of the same name) in 1857.

Liverpool St Helens operate, in addition to their first team, both multiple senior, colts and junior teams, and in addition have an U18 and U15 girls rugby team as part of their "open" and inclusive rugby approach. In 2008 the club announced an unveiling of its Centre of Excellence in coordination with Sportsmatch (a department of Sport England).

Several local social, sports and leisure clubs host their own teams, including the most successful club in the town of recent history West Park St Helens (commonly referred to simply as West Park), that currently play in National League 3 North, and Ruskin Park R.F.C That currently play in North Division 3 West.

Association football
St Helens Town FC is an amateur English football club, currently playing in the first division of the Liverpool County Premier League. The club formerly played their games at Knowsley Road they then moved to play at Ashton Athletic FC, and now play at Ruskin Drive Sports Ground. St Helens Town FC won the FA Vase in the 1986-87 season, defeating local rivals Warrington Town F.C. 3-2 in the final at Wembley Stadium.

F.C. St Helens are in the Division One North of the North West Counties Football League. Pilkington F.C. are also in the first division of the North West Counties League.

The town previously had its own amateur football league, the St Helens & District Football Combination which ran from the 1917–18 season to 2016.

In 2009, Brazilian Soccer Schools St Helens launched specialist soccer and futsal centres on the region to teach junior and youth players futsal.

Cricket
St Helens is home to several amateur cricket sides. St Helens Cricket Club, formed in 1843, was dissolved in 2012. St Helens Recreation Cricket Club formed in 1847 are now the most senior club in the town and play in the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition.

Sutton, Haydock, Rainhill and Newton le Willows also have their own local cricket clubs with representation from 11 to multiple senior teams.

Other sports
The town was formerly home to the amateur American football team St Helens Cardinals. The Cardinals were active between 1984 and 1998, winning the UKAFL Championship in 1987 with a 28-26 win over the Ipswich Cardinals. In 2019 the St Helens Cardinals were reformed to play the 8-on-8 format of the game under the British Gridiron League.

Greyhound racing took place at two venues; at the St Helens Greyhound Racing and Sports Stadium (1932-1993) and around the pitch at the Hoghton Road Stadium (1993-2001). The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club) and they were known as flapping tracks, which was the nickname given to independent tracks.

St. Helens Miners (later known as the Northwestern Miners) were an Australian rules football Club based in the town. Formed in 2002, the club took part in 3 seasons from 2002 to 2004.

Youth organisations

Scouts
The Scout have been active in St Helens since 1907 and the movement has been active continuously since then. The first official Scout Troop opened at the YMCA in 1908. The Group was opened following a visit to St Helens in 1908 by Lord Baden Powell himself.

In 2007, the District celebrated its Centenary of 100 Years of scouting across the town with a whole District Camp at the local Bispham Hall Scout Estate.

In 2018, the District adopted the new Skills For Life strategy and branding for the UK Scout Movement.

The District is Headquartered in Sutton Leach. The District owns a purpose built Scout Hut and surrounding land, open for all members of the District to use.

Current Scout Groups and Sections

 1st St Helens (YMCA)
 1st Knowsley (Earl of Derby's Own)
 1st Whiston - Formally 28th St Helens
 2nd St Helens (Eccleston Park)
 4th St Helens (St Anne's)
 5th St Helens (Rainhill Open)
 6th St Helens (Parr)
 8th St Helens (Sutton Parish)
 10th St Helens (Rainford)
 11th St Helens (Toll Bar)
 13th Knowsley (Huyton Parish Church)
 15th St Helens (St Andrews)
 16th St Helens (St Thomas's)
 18th St Helens (Haydock)
 21st St Helens (Newton-Le-Willows)
 23rd St Helens (Eccleston)
 25th St Helens (Billinge)
 26th St Helens (Blackbrook)

Scout Groups in development or planning

 Huyton Quarry - New group
 14th St Helens (Clock Face) - Reopening of a closed group
 9th St Helens (Carr Mill) - Reopening of a closed group
 24th St Helens (Garswood) - Reopening of a closed group

Cadet Forces
All three military cadet forces have a presence in St Helens; them being:
969 (St Helens) Squadron is the local squadron of the Royal Air Force Air Cadets
Merseyside Army Cadet Force, has a troop of cadets based at Jubilee Barracks, that are affiliated to the 103 Regiment, HQ of the Royal Artillery.
The Sea Cadet Corps, maintains Training Ship Scimitar, at Mill Street Barracks.

Cultural references

A famous Punch cartoon based on the painting Napoleon on Board the Bellerophon, exhibited in 1880 by Sir William Quiller Orchardson, had the caption "He's utterly convinced that he's being exiled to St. HELEN'S, poor devil!".  This was a pun on Saint Helena, the South Atlantic island to which Napoleon was exiled.

Notable people

International links
St Helens is twinned with:
 - Chalon-sur-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France
 - Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

See also
Listed buildings in St Helens
Sutton Mill Dam
St Helens power station

References

Bibliography

  Available online from British History Online

  Available online from Google Books

External links

St Helens Council
Visit St Helens tourist information

 St_Helens
Towns in Merseyside
Towns and villages in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens
Liverpool Urban Area
Unparished areas in Merseyside
Former civil parishes in Merseyside

St Helens, Merseyside


Nessia layardi, commonly known as Layard's snake skink or Layard's nessia, is a species of skink, a lizard in the family Scincidae. The species is endemic to the island of Sri Lanka.

Etymology
The specific name, layardi, is in honor of British naturalist Edgar Leopold Layard.

Habitat & geographic range
N. layardi is a poorly known skink from the hills of the Central Province and the wet zone coastal areas. Known localities include Millawa, Wellawatte, Lunava, and Polgahawela. It inhabits moist soil and decaying leaf litter, especially at the base of trees, at elevations up to .

Description
The snout of N. layardi is subconical. A single loreal is present. The limbs, an ear opening, and supranasals are absent. The dorsum is brown, each scale with a darker margin.

Reproduction
The eggs of N. layardi are deposited in heaps of coconut leaves or in silt over stony substratum. The eggs are soft-shelled, measuring , and two eggs are produced at a time around March.

References

Further reading
Boulenger GA (1887). Catalogue of the Lizards in the British Museum (Natural History). Second Edition. Volume III. ... Scincidæ ... London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xii + 575 pp. + Plates I-XL. (Acontias layardi, p. 246).
Boulenger GA (1890). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Reptilia and Batrachia. London: Secretary of State for India in Council. (Taylor and Francis, printers). xviii + 541 pp. ("Acontias layardii [sic]", p. 228).
Günther ACLG (1864). The Reptiles of British India. London: The Ray Society. (Taylor and Francis, printers). xxvii + 452 pp. + Plates I-XXVI. (Acontias layardi, p. 96).
Kelaart EF (1853). Prodromus Faunæ Zeylanicæ; being Contributions to the Zoology of Ceylon. Volume II. Colombo: E.F. Kelaart [self-published]. 251 pp. (Acontias layardi, new species, p. 12).
Smith MA (1935). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Reptilia and Amphibia. Vol. II.—Sauria. London: Secretary of State for India in Council. (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiii + 440 pp. + Plate I + 2 maps. (Nessia layardi, new combination, p. 359).

External links
http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Nessia&species=layardi
https://web.archive.org/web/20140714230756/http://www.arkive.org/nessia/nessia-layardi/image-G119901.html
https://www.gbif.org/species/5225308

Nessia
Reptiles of Sri Lanka
Endemic fauna of Sri Lanka
Reptiles described in 1853
Taxa named by Edward Frederick Kelaart

Nessia layardi


The 60th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on April 11, 1988, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. PDT. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 22 categories honoring films released in 1987. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and directed by Marty Pasetta. Actor Chevy Chase hosted the show for the second consecutive year. Two weeks earlier, in a ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on March 27, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Shirley Jones.

The Last Emperor won all nine awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bernardo Bertolucci. For their performances in Moonstruck, Cher and Olympia Dukakis won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. Michael Douglas won Best Actor for his role in Wall Street; and Sean Connery won Best Supporting Actor for The Untouchables, the latter becoming the first Scottish thespian to win an acting Oscar in any of the four categories. The telecast garnered 42.2 million viewers in the United States.

Winners and nominees

The nominees for the 60th Academy Awards were announced on February 16, 1988, at 5:38 PM PST (13:38 UTC) at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Robert Wise, president of the academy, and actress Shirley MacLaine. The Last Emperor received the most nominations with nine total; Broadcast News came in second with seven.

The winners were announced at the awards ceremony on April 11, 1988. The Last Emperor became the second film after 1958's Gigi to earn nine Oscar nominations and win all of them. For the first time in Oscar history, all five Best Director nominees were born outside the United States. Best Actor winner Michael Douglas became the second person to win Oscars for both acting and producing; albeit the first person to win the awards for two separate films, and in different years. He previously won a Best Picture award as co-producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

Awards

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger ().

Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
The award honors "creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production".
Billy Wilder

Special Achievement Award
 Stephen Hunter Flick and John Pospisil, for the sound effects editing of RoboCop.

Multiple nominations and awards

The following 15 films received multiple nominations:

The following two films received multiple awards:

Presenters and performers
The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or performed musical numbers.

Presenters

Performers

Ceremony information

In view of the 60th anniversary of the Academy Awards, the academy hired film producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. in October 1987 to oversee the telecast for the second straight year. Three months later, Goldwyn selected actor and comedian Chevy Chase to emcee the 1988 ceremony. In addition, after being held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for almost two decades, AMPAS decided to move the telecast to the Shrine Auditorium in order to accommodate more rehearsal time and take advantage of the large venue's seating capacity. This marked the first time the facility served as the site for the Oscars since the 20th ceremony held in 1948. Additionally, Goldwyn and Passetta originally planned to feature pre-recorded red carpet arrivals footage of actors who had roles in the 59 previous Best Picture winners. However, the segment was dropped altogether due to traffic problems amongst guests arriving to the ceremony.

Furthermore, the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, which began more than a month before the ceremony, affected the telecast and its surrounding events. Despite the Writers Guild of America refusing to grant a waiver permitting writers to work on the scripted dialogue for the gala, the three head writers for the telecast, Ernest Lehman, Melville Shavelson, and Jack Rose, assured to the academy and ABC that more than half of the material had already been completed. To compensate for the missing portions of the script, Goldwyn heavily utilized comedians such as John Candy, Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, and Robin Williams to ad lib and improvise jokes. During the show, many of the participants expressed support for the writers such as Best Supporting Actor winner Sean Connery who remarked in his acceptance speech, "If such a thing as a wish accompanied this award mine would be that we ended the writers' strike."

Box office performance of nominated films
At the time of the nominations announcement on February 16, the combined gross of the five Best Picture nominees at the US box office was $221 million with an average of $48.9 million. Fatal Attraction was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $142 million in the domestic box office receipts. The film was followed by Broadcast News ($36.7 million), Moonstruck ($25.4 million), The Last Emperor ($11.9 million), and Hope and Glory ($5.2 million).

Of the 50 highest-grossing movies of the year, 39 nominations went to 17 films on the list. Only Fatal Attraction (2nd), The Untouchables (4th), Good Morning Vietnam (10th), Throw Momma from the Train (14th), Full Metal Jacket (21st), Broadcast News (26th), Wall Street (30th), and Moonstruck (39th) were nominated for Best Picture, acting, directing, or screenwriting. The other top 50 box office hits that earned nomination were Beverly Hills Cop II (1st), Lethal Weapon (7th), The Witches of Eastwick (8th), Dirty Dancing (9th), Predator (11th), RoboCop (15th), Mannequin (23rd), The Princess Bride (38th), and Innerspace (45th).

Critical reviews
The telecast received a negative reception from media outlets. Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg commented, "Monday night's Academy Awards telecast on ABC was the Michael Dukakis and George Bush of TV awards programs: parched, drab and leaden. You kept hoping they'd draft Mario Cuomo." Tom Shales from The Washington Post wrote, "Of hope there was little and of glory almost none last night at the 60th annual Academy Awards, telecast live from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on ABC. Even considering the low standards set in previous years, the program seemed unusually lackluster from the word go." Columnist Matt Roush of USA Today quipped, "Chevy Chase stopped the show. Cold. Over and over. As the ever-unctuous host, he tried to get laughs by picking his nose and sneezing into his hand when his ad-libs failed, which was often." He also observed that The Last Emperor domination of the awards created a dull and anticlimactic atmosphere to the proceedings.

Ratings and reception
The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 42.2 million people over its length, which was a 13% increase from the previous year's ceremony. An estimated 70 million total viewers watched all or part of the awards. The show also drew higher Nielsen ratings compared to the previous ceremony with 29.2% of households watching over a 49 share.

In July 1988, the ceremony presentation received four nominations at the 40th Primetime Emmys. The following month, the ceremony won one of those nominations for Outstanding Variety Music Events Programming (Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.).

See also

 8th Golden Raspberry Awards
 30th Annual Grammy Awards
 41st British Academy Film Awards
 42nd Tony Awards
 45th Golden Globe Awards
 List of submissions to the 60th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

Notes
A: Laurence Olivier was the first person to accomplish this feat. He won Best Picture as one of the producers of Hamlet and won Best Actor for playing the titular role in that same film.

References

Bibliography

External links

Official websites
 Academy Awards Official website
 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Official website

Analysis
 1987 Academy Awards Winners and History Filmsite.org
 Academy Awards, USA: 1988 Internet Movie Database

Other resources

1987 film awards
1988 in Los Angeles
Academy Awards ceremonies
1988 in American cinema
April 1988 events in the United States
Academy
Television shows directed by Marty Pasetta

60th Academy Awards


The Isley Brothers are a very successful music group from the northeastern United States. They had many songs in the 1950s through the 2000s. Their songs included "Twist and Shout" and "Contagious". Their music is mixed R&B, funk and soul. The group is made of six African American brothers.

American R&B bands
Musical groups from Ohio
Musicians from Cincinnati

The Isley Brothers


William Robert Hardcastle (30 August 1874 – 11 July 1944) born in Wellington, New Zealand was a pioneer New Zealand and Australian rugby union player and an Australian rugby league footballer. He represented both countries in union and Australia in league. He was one of the first dual-code rugby internationals.

Rugby union career
Hardcastle commenced his club rugby in New Zealand with Petone and represented for Wellington from 1895 to 1897. He joined the Melrose club in 1897 and was selected in a North Island representative side from where he was selected for the All Blacks 1897 tour of Australia he played in seven tour matches but no Tests. He journeyed to Sydney in 1899 on hearing that the visiting British and Irish Lions would be not be travelling any further than Sydney. Australian rugby in those days had no residential rules and once they took the field with a Sydney club, players qualified as Australians for possible national selection.

He played for the Glebe rugby union club in Sydney from where he was chosen to play as flanker for the Australian representative team in the fourth test of 1899 against the first British side to tour Australia, at Sydney, on 12 August. He also played for Australia in 1903 in Sydney against New Zealand in the first official rugby union international between the countries.

Rugby league career
He became an early convert to the fledgling league code and played for the Ipswich club in Queensland. He was selected in the 2nd Test of 1908 against New Zealand. Five former Wallabies had debuted for the Kangaroos in the inaugural Test three weeks earlier, Hardcastle's league Test debut that day with George Watson made them the 6th and 7th Australian dual code internationals. He also played in the 3rd Test a week later.

Hardcastle toured with the pioneer 1908 Kangaroos and played for Australia on six occasions though he did not play in the Tests. On his return from the tour he joined the Glebe Dirty Reds in Sydney where he played the next two seasons before retirement.

WWI
Hardcastle served with the Australian Imperial Force in World War I. He was a Private in the 3rd Infantry Battalion seeing active service as a machine gunner. He embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A55 Kyarra on 3 June 1916 at age 42. He survived the war and was demobilised in the weeks immediately after the armistice.

Death

Hardcastle died in Randwick, New South Wales on 11 July 1944. He was buried at Botany Cemetery on 13 July 1944.

Sources
 Whiticker, Alan & Hudson, Glen (2006) The Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players, Gavin Allen Publishing, Sydney
 Andrews, Malcolm (2006) The ABC of Rugby League Austn Broadcasting Corpn, Sydney
 Fagan, Sean (2005) Colonial Rugby, RL1908, Sydney
 http://www.colonialrugby.com.au
 Bill Hardcastle at the AIF Project

References

1874 births
New Zealand rugby union players
New Zealand international rugby union players
Australian rugby league players
Dual-code rugby internationals
Australian rugby union players
Glebe rugby league players
Australia national rugby league team players
Australian soldiers
Australian military personnel of World War I
1944 deaths
Australia international rugby union players
Queensland rugby league team players
Rugby union flankers
Burials at Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park
Rugby union players from Wellington City

Bill Hardcastle


Robert Hunt (c. 1609 – 20 February 1680) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons  at various times between 1641 and 1660. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War, although he was mistakenly disabled from parliament as a Royalist.

Hunt was the eldest son of John Hunt of Forston, Charminster, Dorset and Compton Pauncefoot, Somerset and his wife Catharine Pepham, daughter. of Alexander Popham of Huntworth, North Petherton, Somerset. He was educated at Rampisham, Dorset under Mr Allott and was admitted at Caius College, Cambridge on 5 October 1625, aged 16. He entered Middle Temple in 1625 and was called to the bar in 1633. He was a J.P. for Somerset by the early 1640s.

In November 1640, Hunt was elected Member of Parliament for Ilchester, but his election was declared void. However he was re-elected in February 1641.  He was disabled from sitting in 1644 when the local sequestrator claimed that he had attended the King's Parliament. However he was able to prove that he had given £100 to support the parliamentary cause. He was cleared delinquency but did not resume his seat. He was JP for Somerset from 1654 to 1659, a commissioner for scandalous ministers in 1654, a commissioner for security in 1655, and a commissioner for assessment in 1657. As High Sheriff of Somerset for 1654–55 during the Interregnum he was in charge of the trial of the Royalists after the Penruddock uprising which he conducted with reliability and impartiality.  In 1659 he was elected MP for Somerset in the Third Protectorate Parliament. He was JP for Somerset from March 1660 until his death and a commissioner for militia in March 1660.

In April 1660 Hunt was elected MP for Ilchester in the Convention Parliament. He was commissioner for sewers in August 1660. He was  commissioner for assessment from 1661 until his death and Deputy Lieutenant from 1666. He was considered "the most reputed justice in Somerset" and personally uncovered "a hellish knot of witches" in spite of official discouragement. He was a commissioner for recusants 1675. In  the first general election of 1679 he stood for parliament together with Edward Phelips, but there was a double return and they never took their seats.

Hunt died at the age of 70 and was buried at Compton Pauncefoot.

Hunt married Elizabeth Browne, daughter of John Browne of Frampton, Dorset on 24 September 1635. They had three sons and five daughters. His wife died on 24 September 1675.

References

1600s births
1680 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Burials in Somerset
Commissioners for sewers
English MPs 1640–1648
English MPs 1659
English MPs 1660
High Sheriffs of Somerset
Members of the Middle Temple
Roundheads
Witch hunters
Witchcraft in England

Robert Hunt (Parliamentarian)


Pyramid Lake is a kidney-shaped lake in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. It lies at the foot of Pyramid Mountain, a natural landmark that overlooks the town of Jasper. It has a total area of  and discharges in Athabasca River through the  long Pyramid Creek.

Several picnic sites are established on the shores of the lake, as well as boat ramps. Pyramid Lake Lodge is located on the southeast point of the lake. Pyramid Island is a short distance from the resort, there is a small parking area which can be accessed by a road or hiking trails, then you cross a small wood foot bridge to the island itself, which has benches, picnic tables and a small open wooden shelter. Pyramid Lake is connected to the town of Jasper by Pyramid Lake Road and hiking trails, as well as hiking trails to other tourist sites such as Pyramid Mountain, Patricia Lake and Cabin Lake.

References

External links
 Pyramid Lake at Parks Canada website
 Walking paths near Pyramid Lake
 Pyramid Lake Alberta fishing guide
 Weather forecast for Pyramid Lake

Jasper National Park
Lakes of Alberta

Pyramid Lake (Alberta)


John Byron Van Hollen (born February 19, 1966) is an American lawyer and politician who served as Attorney General of Wisconsin from 2007 until 2015. A Republican, he was elected to the office in November 2006 and took office on January 3, 2007, succeeding Democrat Peg Lautenschlager. Van Hollen did not seek reelection in 2014 and left office on January 5, 2015.

Background
Van Hollen's father is John C. Van Hollen, a realtor and former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. The Van Hollen family lived near Chetek and later moved to Delta. He graduated from St. Olaf College in 1988 with an undergraduate degree in political science and economics. He earned his J.D. degree two years later from the University of Wisconsin Law School.

In 1993, Governor Tommy Thompson appointed Van Hollen District Attorney in Ashland County, where he served for six years. He was subsequently called to service again when Governor Thompson appointed him to serve as Bayfield County District Attorney. He was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for Wisconsin's Western District where he served in that role from 2002 to 2005.

Van Hollen won the Republican nomination for Attorney General in 2006 over then-Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher. In the general election, he narrowly defeated Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who had previously bested Lautenschlager in the Democratic primary. Van Hollen was the only Republican in Wisconsin to win a statewide race in 2006. In 2010, he defeated his Democratic opponent by a comfortable margin.

Attorney general
Upon taking office in 2007, Van Hollen took on a backlog of DNA evidence at the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory. The backlog had grown to thousands of cases. He worked with the Wisconsin Legislature to secure additional resources to solve the backlog and created new efficiencies at the Crime Lab. In 2008, Van Hollen announced changes made by his administration have reduced the backlog by 43% since he took office. His goal was to eliminate the backlog by December 2010.

In April 2010, Van Hollen reached that goal and eliminated the backlog of DNA evidence at the Crime Lab. He secured funding from the federal government to investigate cold case crimes. One of the cold cases led to the arrest of Walter Ellis, a suspected serial killer in Milwaukee.

In September 2008, Van Hollen sued the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the state elections agency, to force it check voter registrations for accuracy. Van Hollen said that the motivation for the lawsuit was that potentially illegal votes could sway the election. On October 23, 2008, a Dane County circuit judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Van Hollen did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, because only the United States Attorney General can enforce federal law. Van Hollen appealed the judge's ruling but later dropped it when the Government Accountability Board updated their voter check procedure.

On October 7, 2013, Van Hollen announced he would not seek reelection in 2014 for a third term as attorney general.

Electoral history

References

Living people
1966 births
People from Chetek, Wisconsin
District attorneys in Wisconsin
United States Attorneys for the Western District of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Attorneys General
St. Olaf College alumni
University of Wisconsin Law School alumni
Wisconsin Republicans
People from Waunakee, Wisconsin

J. B. Van Hollen


The roentgen equivalent man (rem) is a CGS unit of equivalent dose, effective dose, and committed dose, which are dose measures used to estimate potential health effects of low levels of ionizing radiation on the human body.

Quantities measured in rem are designed to represent the stochastic biological risk of ionizing radiation, which is primarily radiation-induced cancer. These quantities are derived from absorbed dose, which in the CGS system has the unit rad. There is no universally applicable conversion constant from rad to rem; the conversion depends on relative biological effectiveness (RBE).

The rem has been defined since 1976 as equal to 0.01 sievert, which is the more commonly used SI unit outside the United States. Earlier definitions going back to 1945 were derived from the roentgen unit, which was named after Wilhelm Röntgen, a German scientist who discovered X-rays. The unit name is misleading, since 1 roentgen actually deposits about 0.96 rem in soft biological tissue, when all weighting factors equal unity. Older units of rem following other definitions are up to 17% smaller than the modern rem.

Doses greater than 100 rem received over a short time period are likely to cause acute radiation syndrome (ARS), possibly leading to death within weeks if left untreated. Note that the quantities that are measured in rem were not designed to be correlated to ARS symptoms. The absorbed dose, measured in rad, is a better indicator of ARS.

A rem is a large dose of radiation, so the millirem (mrem), which is one thousandth of a rem, is often used for the dosages commonly encountered, such as the amount of radiation received from medical x-rays and background sources.

Usage
The rem and millirem are CGS units in widest use among the U.S. public, industry, and government. However, the SI unit the sievert (Sv) is the normal unit outside the United States, and is increasingly encountered within the US in academic, scientific, and engineering environments.

The conventional units for dose rate is mrem/h. Regulatory limits and chronic doses are often given in units of mrem/yr or rem/yr, where they are understood to represent the total amount of radiation allowed (or received) over the entire year. In many occupational scenarios, the hourly dose rate might fluctuate to levels thousands of times higher for a brief period of time, without infringing on the annual total exposure limits. The annual conversions to a Julian year are:
1 mrem/h = 8,766 mrem/yr
0.1141 mrem/h = 1,000 mrem/yr

The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) once adopted fixed conversion for occupational exposure, although these have not appeared in recent documents:
8 h = 1 day
40 h = 1 week
50 week = 1 yr
Therefore, for occupation exposures of that time period,
1 mrem/h = 2,000 mrem/yr
0.5 mrem/h = 1,000 mrem/yr

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) strongly discourages Americans from expressing doses in rem, in favor of recommending the SI unit. The NIST recommends defining the rem in relation to the SI in every document where this unit is used.

Health effects
Ionizing radiation has deterministic and stochastic effects on human health. The deterministic effects that can lead to acute radiation syndrome only occur in the case of high doses (> ~10 rad or > 0.1 Gy) and high dose rates (> ~10 rad/h or > 0.1 Gy/h). A model of deterministic risk would require different weighting factors (not yet established) than are used in the calculation of equivalent and effective dose. To avoid confusion, deterministic effects are normally compared to absorbed dose in units of rad, not rem.

Stochastic effects are those that occur randomly, such as radiation-induced cancer. The consensus of the nuclear industry, nuclear regulators, and governments, is that the incidence of cancers caused by ionizing radiation can be modeled as increasing linearly with effective dose at a rate of 0.055% per rem (5.5%/Sv). Individual studies, alternate models, and earlier versions of the industry consensus have produced other risk estimates scattered around this consensus model. There is general agreement that the risk is much higher for infants and fetuses than adults, higher for the middle-aged than for seniors, and higher for women than for men, though there is no quantitative consensus about this. There is much less data, and much more controversy, regarding the possibility of cardiac and teratogenic effects, and the modelling of internal dose.

The ICRP recommends limiting artificial irradiation of the public to an average of 100 mrem (1 mSv) of effective dose per year, not including medical and occupational exposures. For comparison, radiation levels inside the United States Capitol are 85 mrem/yr (0.85 mSv/yr), close to the regulatory limit, because of the uranium content of the granite structure.

History
The concept of the rem first appeared in literature in 1945 and was given its first definition in 1947. The definition was refined in 1950 as "that dose of any ionizing radiation which produces a relevant biological effect equal to that produced by one roentgen of high-voltage x-radiation." Using data available at the time, the rem was variously evaluated as 83, 93, or 95 erg/gram. Along with the introduction of the rad in 1953, the ICRP decided to continue the use of the rem. The US National Committee on Radiation Protection and Measurements noted in 1954 that this effectively implied an increase in the magnitude of the rem to match the rad (100 erg/gram). The ICRP officially adopted the rem as the unit of equivalent dose in 1962 to measure the way different types of radiation distribute energy in tissue and began recommending values of relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for various types of radiation. In practice, the unit of rem was used to denote that an RBE factor had been applied to a number which was originally in units of rad or roentgen.

The International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) adopted the sievert in 1980 but never accepted the use of the rem. The NIST recognizes that this unit is outside the SI but temporarily accepts its use in the U.S. with the SI. The rem remains in widespread use as an industry standard in the U.S. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission still permits the use of the units curie, rad, and rem alongside SI units.

Radiation-related quantities
The following table shows radiation quantities in SI and non-SI units:

See also
Roentgen equivalent physical
Banana equivalent dose
Health threat from cosmic rays
Orders of magnitude (radiation)

References

Units of radiation dose
Radiation health effects
Radiobiology
Non-SI metric units
Equivalent
Equivalent units

Roentgen equivalent man


Petit Bé is a tidal island near the city of Saint-Malo, France, close to the larger island of Grand Bé. At low tide one can walk to the island from the nearby Bon-Secours beach.

Fort
In 1667 the French government built a small fort on the island of Petit Bé. Construction on the present fort began in 1689.

The fort was part of the defenses that Vauban designed to protect Saint-Malo from British and Dutch fleets. The defensive works included the walls of Saint Malo, Fort National, Fort Harbourg, Fort de la Conchée, and the forts of Cézembre and Pointe de la Varde; these last two have been destroyed.

Construction began under the direction of the engineer Siméon Garangeau. The fort was still under construction in at the time of the British attack on Saint-Malo in November 1693. When an Anglo-Dutch force attacked Saint-Malo again in 1695, the fort helped repel the attack.

The fort consists of a horseshoe-shaped battery on the seaward side that has 19 embrasures for guns. In 1695 it held nine guns; two years later it was armed with 15 guns, including four 48-pounders and six 36-pounders, as well as two mortars. A garrison of 177 soldiers defended the fort and served its guns. On the landward side the fort consisted of two half-bastions that flank the entrance, which is a few metres above the level of the rocks. The bastions are loopholed for muskets to enable the defenders to resist attempts to scale the defences. Several different plans were advanced for a demi-lune outwork in front of the entrance but in the end none was built. Cross-fire from Petit Bé and Fort Harbourg in Dinard protected the estuary of the Rance. The fort was finally finished in 1707.

The French army occupied the fort until 1885. Later, the army turned the fort over to the city of Saint-Malo. It became a Monument historique in 1921, but was neglected until 2000, when the city gave it to a non-profit organization rent-free to renovate it and prepare it for tourism. Under the direction of Alain-Etienne Marcel, the fort has been restored. Brush was removed from the embrasures, some of which received period cannons. The cistern had to be emptied of garbage and it now retains storm water fed into it from the restored roof of the barracks building.

See also
Grand Bé

External links
 Petit-Be.com (French)
 Information about Petit Bé fort (French)

Saint-Malo Islands
Tidal islands of France
Forts of Saint-Malo
Forts in France
Vauban fortifications in France
Monuments historiques of Ille-et-Vilaine

Petit Bé


Tambo rugby (Japanese 田んぼラグビー tambo ragubii, from 田んぼ tambo 'rice field') is a Japanese form of tag rugby played in flooded (and muddy) rice fields. It is played by men and women, adults and children together. Smaller, lighter players have some advantages, as larger, heavier players tend to sink in the mud. A simple try is worth one point, a diving try is worth two. The playing season is May to August, between rice-harvest and planting.

The game was invented by Nobuyuki Nagate in Fukuchiyama, near the Inland Sea northwest of Kyoto, in 2015, after a typhoon had flooded local rice farms, and many of the first players were farm-women. From Fukuchiyama it spread to neighboring communities, and within a few years Japan's local and national rugby teams joined in, winning about half of their matches. In 2019, 15 events were held nationwide.

References

External links
Rice-field rugby in Japan! Video on tambo rugby from the website of the 2019 Rugby World Cup

Rugby football
Team sports
Japanese games

Tambo rugby


The BPost Bank Trophy 2012-2013 began on October 14 with the GP Mario De Clercq and finished on February 24 in Oostmalle. The men's elite competition was won by the Belgian Niels Albert while the women's elite was won by Sanne Cant, also of Belgium. The bank of the Belgian Post Group took over the sponsorship of this event, formerly known as Gazet van Antwerpen trofee.

Since this season, the ranking is no longer decided by points classification, but by time difference. This is a method well known from road racing. All riders that do not start in a race, do not finish the race or finish more than 5 minutes behind the winner receive 5 minutes delay on the winner in the ranking and are still in the race for the overall title. Time bonuses can be earned: during each race there is a sprint in which the first three riders gain 15, 10 and 5 seconds respectively. The same time bonuses are given at the finish.

Calendar

Ranking (top 10)

Results

Ronse

Oudenaarde

Hasselt

Essen

Loenhout

Baal

Lille

Notes

References

External links
 Website bpost bank Trofee

Cyclo-cross BPost Bank Trophy
2012 in cyclo-cross
2013 in cyclo-cross

2012–13 Cyclo-cross bpost bank trophy


Net interest income (NII) is the difference between revenues generated by interest-bearing assets and the cost of servicing (interest-burdened) liabilities. For banks, the assets typically include commercial and personal loans, mortgages, construction loans and investment securities. The liabilities consist primarily of customers' deposits. NII is the difference between (a) interest payments the bank receives on outstanding loans and (b) interest payments the bank makes to customers on their deposits.

NII = (interest payments on assets) − (interest payments on liabilities)

Depending on a bank's specific assets and liabilities (e.g., fixed or floating rate), NII may be more or less sensitive to changes in interest rates. If the bank's liabilities reprice faster than its assets, then it is said to be "liability-sensitive." Further, the bank is asset-sensitive if its liabilities reprice more slowly than its assets in a changing interest-rate environment. The exposure of NII to changes in interest rates can be measured by the dollar maturity gap (DMG), which is the difference between the dollar amount of assets that reprice and the dollar amount of liabilities that reprice within a given time period.

See also
Net interest spread
Net interest margin
Earnings at risk

References

Financial ratios
Banking
Interest
Income statement

Net interest income


Archeio-Marxism () was a radical left political movement that was active in interwar Greece. The main motto of its supporters was "first education and then action" and they were against mass demonstrations and unionism. They were named after the Archive of Marxism () magazine, that was published in 1921.

History
From 1930 to 1934, the organization was a member of Trotsky's International Left Opposition, renaming itself officially as the Bolshevist–Leninist Organization of Greece – Archeio-Marxists (Κομμουνιστική Οργάνωση Μπολσεβίκων Λενινιστών Ελλάδας - Αρχειομαρξιστών). With some 2,000 members, it constituted the ILO's largest member group, and its leader, Dimitris Giotopoulos (alias: "Witte") occupied an important position in its secretariat.

Following Giotopoulos' quarrel with Trotsky in 1933-1934, the Archeio-Marxists left the ILO, and by the late 1930s, they became affiliated with the so-called "London Bureau", having formed the Communist Archio-Marxist Party of Greece. The organization survived the repression of the Metaxas Regime, but its members came under increasing attack from both right-wing groups and the KKE-led EAM-ELAS resistance front at the end of World War II and during the Greek Civil War.

References
  ΣΠΑΡΤΑΚΟΣ, Κείμενα 1930-1932 - Εκδόσεις «Ουτοπία», Αθήνα, Δεκέμβρης 1986

1920s in Greece
1930s in Greece
Marxist organizations
Political history of Greece
Trotskyist organizations in Greece
Right Opposition
History of Greece (1924–1941)

Archeio-Marxism


HMS Challenger was a second-class protected cruiser of the  of the Royal Navy.

Construction
Challenger was designed by Sir William Henry White, Director of Naval Construction, and was built at the Chatham Dockyard, where she was laid down on 1 December 1900. She was launched there on 27 May 1902, when she was named by Eva Holland, wife of Rear-Admiral S. C. Holland, Admiral-Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard.

Her machinery was made by the Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Company, and there were 12 boilers of the Babcock & Wilcox type.

Service history

Challenger was commissioned on 30 May 1904, and commenced duty on the Australia Station. She was paid off into reserve on 10 October 1912 before recommissioning during the First World War. She initially served as part of the Ninth Cruiser Squadron off West Africa before serving in East African waters. She was sold in 1920 and was broken up for scrap.

Notes

References
 Bastock, John (1988), Ships on the Australia Station, Child & Associates Publishing Pty Ltd; Frenchs Forest, Australia.

External links

Challenger-class cruisers of the Royal Navy
Ships built in Chatham
1902 ships
World War I cruisers of the United Kingdom

HMS Challenger (1902)