HMS Belfast is a Town-class light cruiser that was built for the Royal Navy. She is now permanently moored as a museum ship on the River Thames in London and is operated by the Imperial War Museum.

Construction of Belfast, the first ship in the Royal Navy to be named after the capital city of Northern Ireland and one of ten Town-class cruisers, began in December 1936. She was launched on St Patrick's Day 1938. Commissioned in early August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Belfast was initially part of the British naval blockade against Germany. In November 1939, Belfast struck a German mine and, in spite of fears that she would be scrapped, spent more than two years undergoing extensive repairs. Belfast returned to action in November 1942 with improved firepower, radar equipment, and armour. Belfast saw action escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during 1943 and in December 1943 played an important role in the Battle of North Cape, assisting in the destruction of the German warship . In June 1944, Belfast took part in Operation Overlord supporting the Normandy landings. In June 1945, she was redeployed to the Far East to join the British Pacific Fleet, arriving shortly before the end of the Second World War. Belfast saw further combat action in  during the Korean War and underwent an extensive modernisation between 1956 and 1959. A number of further overseas commissions followed before she entered reserve in 1963.

In 1967, efforts were initiated to avert Belfast expected scrapping and to preserve her as a museum ship. A joint committee of the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Ministry of Defence was established and then reported in June 1968 that preservation was practical. In 1971, however, the government decided against preservation, prompting the formation of the private HMS Belfast Trust to campaign for her preservation. The efforts of the Trust were successful, and the government transferred the ship to the Trust in July 1971. Brought to London, she was moored on the River Thames near Tower Bridge in the Pool of London. Opened to the public in October 1971, Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978. Since 1973 she has been home to City of London Sea Cadets who meet on board twice a week. A popular tourist attraction, Belfast received over 327,000 visitors in 2019. As a branch of a national museum and part of the National Historic Fleet, Belfast is supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, admissions income, and the museum's commercial activities.

Design

Belfast is a cruiser of the third Town class. The Town class had originated in 1933 as the Admiralty's response to the Imperial Japanese Navy's , an -ton cruiser mounting fifteen  guns with a top speed exceeding . The Admiralty's requirement called for a 9,000-ton cruiser, sufficiently armoured to withstand a direct hit from an  shell, capable of  and mounting twelve 6-inch guns. Seaplanes carried aboard would enable shipping lanes to be patrolled over a wide area, and the class was also to be capable of its own anti-aircraft defence. Under the Director of Naval Construction the new design evolved during 1933. The lead ship of the new class, the 9,100-ton , and her sister , were ordered under the 1933 estimates. Three more cruisers were built to this design, with a further three ships built to a slightly larger 9,400-ton design in 1935–36. By 1935, however, the Admiralty was keen to improve the firepower of these cruisers to match the firepower of the Japanese Mogami and American s; both were armed with fifteen 6-inch guns. The Admiralty rejected a design featuring five triple turrets as impractical, while an alternative design fitting four quadruple turrets was rejected as an effective quadruple turret could not be developed. In May 1936 the Admiralty decided to fit triple turrets, whose improved design would permit an increase in deck armour. This modified design became the 10,000-ton Edinburgh subclass, named after Belfasts sister ship . Belfast was ordered from Harland and Wolff on 21 September 1936, and her keel laid on 10 December 1936. Her expected cost was £2,141,514; of which the guns cost £75,000 and the aircraft (two Supermarine Walruses) £66,500. She was launched on Saint Patrick's Day, 17 March 1938, by Anne Chamberlain, the wife of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The launch was filmed by Pathé News. From March to August 1939, Belfast was fitted out and underwent sea trials.

When completed, Belfast had an overall length of , a beam of  and a draught of . Her standard displacement during her sea trials was . She was propelled by four three-drum oil-fired Admiralty water-tube boilers, turning Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. She was capable of  and carried  of fuel oil. This gave her a maximum range of  at .

Belfasts main armament comprised twelve Mk XXIII 6-inch guns in four triple turrets directed by an Admiralty Fire Control Table. With a rate of fire of up to eight rounds per gun per minute, her main battery was capable of a total maximum rate of fire of 96 rounds per minute. Her secondary armament comprised twelve 4-inch guns in six twin mounts. Her initial close-range anti-aircraft armament was sixteen 2-pounder "pom-pom" guns in two eight-barrel mountings, and two quadruple Vickers .50 machine guns. She also mounted six Mk IV 21-inch torpedo tubes in two triple mounts, and fifteen Mk VII depth charges.

Belfast was protected by a  main armour belt, with deck armour of  over her magazines, and  over her machinery spaces. Her six-inch turrets were protected by up to  of armour.

Belfasts aviation capability was provided by two catapult-launched Supermarine Walrus amphibious biplanes. These could be launched from a D1H catapult mounted aft of the forward superstructure, and recovered from the water by two cranes mounted on either side of the forward funnel. The aircraft, operated by the Fleet Air Arm's HMS Belfast Flight of 700 Naval Air Squadron, were stowed in two hangars in the forward superstructure.

Second World War

1939–1942: Commissioning, prize capture, mining, and repairs
Belfast departed for Portsmouth on 3 August 1939, and was commissioned on 5 August 1939, less than a month before the outbreak of the Second World War. Her first captain was Captain G A Scott with a crew of 761, and her first assignment was to the Home Fleet's 2nd Cruiser Squadron. On 14 August, Belfast took part in her first exercise, Operation Hipper, in which she played the role of a German commerce raider attempting to escape into the Atlantic. By navigating the hazardous Pentland Firth, Belfast successfully evaded the Home Fleet.

On 31 August 1939 Belfast was transferred to the 18th Cruiser Squadron. Based at Scapa Flow in the Orkney islands, 18th Cruiser Squadron was part of the British effort to impose a naval blockade on Germany. Germany invaded Poland the following day, and Britain and France declared war on 3 September. At 11:40 that morning, Belfast received the message 'Commence hostilities at once against Germany'. On 8 September Belfast put to sea from Scapa Flow with the battlecruisers , , her sister ship Edinburgh and four destroyers, on a patrol intended to intercept German ships returning from Norway. In particular, they were to search for the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner . No enemy vessels were found. On 25 September, Belfast took part in a fleet operation to recover the submarine , during which the ship was attacked by German aircraft, but suffered no damage. On 1 October 1939 Belfast left Scapa Flow for a patrol in the North Sea. On 5 October Belfast intercepted and boarded a neutral Norwegian factory ship that was sailing in company with six whaling ships.  On 8 October the ship sighted the Swedish merchant ship C. P. Lilljevach but, in poor weather, did not intercept or board her. The following day she boarded Tai Yin, a Norwegian ship. Tai Yin had been listed by the Admiralty as suspicious, so a prize crew from Belfast sailed her to Kirkwall for investigation. On 9 October Belfast intercepted a German liner, the 13,615-ton Cap Norte,  north-west of the Faroe Islands. Disguised as a neutral Swedish vessel, SS Ancona, Cap Norte was attempting to return to Germany from Brazil; her passengers included German reservists. Under the Admiralty's prize rules, Belfasts crew later received prize money. On 12 October Belfast boarded the Swedish ship Uddeholm, which was also sailed to Kirkwall by a prize crew. Returning to harbour, on the night of 13–14 October, Belfast was among the few ships anchored in Scapa Flow, following intelligence reports of an expected air raid. That night, the battleship  was torpedoed by German submarine , which had infiltrated the anchorage. On the morning following the sinking, Belfast left for Loch Ewe.

On 10 November Belfast was taken off the northern patrol and reassigned to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron. This squadron was to form an independent striking force based at Rosyth. On 21 November, Belfast was to take part in the force's first sortie, a gunnery exercise. At 10:58 am she detonated a magnetic mine while leaving the Firth of Forth. The mine broke Belfasts keel, and wrecked one of her engine and boiler rooms. Twenty officers and men required hospital treatment for injuries caused by the explosion, and a further 26 suffered minor injuries. One man, Painter 2nd Class Henry Stanton, was hospitalised but later died of a head injury, having been thrown against the deckhead by the blast. The tugboat Krooman, towing gunnery targets for the exercise, released her targets and instead towed Belfast to Rosyth for initial repairs.

Initial assessments of Belfasts damage showed that, while the mine had done little direct damage to the outer hull, causing only a small hole directly below one of the boiler rooms, the shock of the explosion had caused severe warping, breaking machinery, deforming the decks and causing the keel to hog (bend upwards) by three inches. On 4 January 1940 Belfast was decommissioned to Care and Maintenance status, becoming the responsibility of Rosyth Dockyard, and her crew dispersed to other vessels. By 28 June she had been repaired sufficiently to sail to Devonport, arriving on 30 June under the command of Lt Cdr H W Parkinson.

During her repairs, work was carried out to straighten, reconstruct and strengthen her hull. Her armour belt was also extended and thickened. Her armament was updated with newer 2-pounder pom-pom mountings, and her anti-aircraft armament improved with eighteen 20 mm Oerlikon guns in five twin and eight single mountings, replacing two quadruple 0.5-inch Vickers guns. Belfast also received new fire control radars for her main, secondary and anti-aircraft guns. Her November 1942 radar fit included one Type 284 set and four Type 283 sets to direct the main armament, three Type 285 sets for the secondary guns, and two Type 282 sets for the 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns. She also received a Type 273 general surface warning radar, Type 251 and 252 sets for identification friend or foe (IFF) purposes, and a Type 281 and Type 242 for air warning. Her 1942 electronics suite also included a Type 270 echosounder. Due to her increased topweight, a bulge was introduced into her hull amidships to improve stability and provide extra longitudinal strength. Her beam had increased to  and her draught to  forward and  aft. Her displacement had risen to  tons.

1942–1943: Recommissioning, Arctic convoys and Battle of North Cape

Belfast was recommissioned at Devonport on 3 November 1942, under the command of Captain Frederick Parham. On her return to the Home Fleet Belfast was made flagship of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Robert Burnett, who had previously commanded the Home Fleet's destroyer flotillas. The squadron was responsible for the hazardous task of escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union, operating from Scapa Flow and bases in Iceland. Her radar suite reduced Belfast need for aerial surveillance, and her aircraft were disembarked in June 1943. Belfast spent 1943 engaged on convoy escort and blockade patrol duties, and on 5–6 October of the same year, formed part of the covering force during Operation Leader, an airstrike against German shipping in the waters of northern Norway near Bodø by the aircraft carrier .

On 26 December 1943, Belfast participated in the Battle of North Cape. This battle, which occurred during the Arctic night, involved two strong Royal Navy formations; the first, Force One, comprised the cruisers  (with 8-inch guns),  and Belfast (the 10th Cruiser Squadron) with three destroyers, and the second, Force Two, comprised the battleship  and the cruiser  with four destroyers. Bruce Fraser, C-in-C Home Fleet, expected and hoped that the German battleship  would sortie from its Norwegian base and attempt to attack Convoy JW 55B sailing from Scotland to Murmansk in the USSR. On 25 December 1943, Christmas Day, Scharnhorst left port in northern Norway to attack Convoy JW55B. The next day Force One, which had left Murmansk on the 23rd, encountered Scharnhorst, prevented her from attacking the convoy, and forced her to retreat after being damaged by the British cruisers. As Scharnhorst attacked again at noon she was intercepted by Force Two and sunk by the combined formations. Belfast played an important role in the battle; as flagship of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, she was among the first to encounter Scharnhorst, and coordinated the squadron's defence of the convoy. After Scharnhorst turned away from the convoy, Admiral Burnett in Belfast shadowed her by radar from outside visual range, enabling her interception by Duke of York.

1944: Tirpitz and D-Day
After North Cape, Belfast refuelled at Kola Inlet before sailing for the United Kingdom, arriving at Scapa to replenish her fuel, ammunition and stores on New Year's Day 1944. Belfast sailed to Rosyth on 10 January, where her crew received a period of leave. February 1944 saw Belfast resume her Arctic convoy duties, and on 30 March 1944 Belfast sailed with the covering force of Operation Tungsten, a large carrier-launched Fleet Air Arm airstrike against the German battleship . Moored in Altafjord in northern Norway, Tirpitz was the German navy's last surviving capital ship. Forty-two Fairey Barracuda dive-bombers from  and  made up the strike force; escorted by eighty fighters. Launched on 3 April, the bombers scored fourteen hits, immobilising Tirpitz for two months, with one Barracuda shot down. Belfast underwent minor repairs at Rosyth from 23 April to 8 May, while her crew received a period of leave. On 8 May Belfast returned to Scapa Flow and carried the King during his pre-invasion visit to the Home Fleet.

For the invasion of Normandy Belfast was made headquarters ship of Bombardment Force E flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton, and was to support landings by British and Canadian forces in the Gold and Juno Beach sectors. On 2 June Belfast left the River Clyde for her bombardment areas. That morning Prime Minister Winston Churchill had announced his intention to go to sea with the fleet and witness the invasion from HMS Belfast. This was opposed by the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the First Sea Lord, Sir Andrew Cunningham. An intervention by the King eventually prevented Churchill from going.

The invasion was to begin on 5 June but bad weather forced a 24-hour delay. At 5:30 am on 6 June, Belfast opened fire on a German artillery battery at Ver-sur-Mer, suppressing the guns until the site was overrun by British infantry of 7th Battalion, Green Howards. On 12 June Belfast supported Canadian troops moving inland from Juno Beach and returned to Portsmouth on 16 June to replenish her ammunition. She returned two days later for further bombardments. On the night of 6 July Belfast was threatened at anchor by German motor torpedo boats ("E-boats"). She evaded them by weighing anchor and moving to the concealment of a smoke screen. Belfast fired her last round in anger in European waters on 8 July, in company with the monitor  and the battleship , as part of Operation Charnwood. On 10 July she sailed for Scapa, the fighting in France having moved inland beyond the range of her guns. During her five weeks off Normandy, Belfast had fired 1,996 rounds from her six-inch guns.

1945: Service in the Far East
On 29 July 1944, Captain Parham handed over command of HMS Belfast to Captain R M Dick, and until April 1945 Belfast underwent a refit to prepare for service against Japan in the Far East which improved her accommodation for tropical conditions, and updated her anti-aircraft armament and fire control in order to counter expected kamikaze attacks by Japanese aircraft. By May 1945, Belfast mounted thirty-six 2-pounder guns in two eight-gun mounts, four quadruple mounts, and four single mounts. She also mounted fourteen 20 mm Oerlikons. Her two aftmost 4-inch mountings were removed, and the remainder fitted with Remote Power Control. Her empty hangars were converted to crew accommodation, and her aircraft catapult was removed.

Her radar fit now included a Type 277 radar set to replace her Type 273 for surface warning. Her Type 281 air warning set was replaced by a single-antenna Type 281B set, while a Type 293Q was fitted for close-range height-finding and surface warning. A Type 274 set was fitted for main armament fire direction. On 17 June 1945, with the war in Europe at an end, Belfast sailed for the Far East via Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Port Said, Aden, Colombo and Sydney. By the time she arrived in Sydney on 7 August Belfast had been made flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the British Pacific Fleet. While in Sydney Belfast underwent another short refit, supplementing her close-range armament with five 40 mm Bofors guns. Belfast had been expected to join in Operation Downfall, but this was forestalled by the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945.

Post-war service 19451950

With the end of the war, Belfast remained in the Far East, conducting a number of cruises to ports in Japan, China and Malaya and sailing for Portsmouth on 20 August 1947. There she paid off into reserve, and underwent a refit during which her turbines were opened for maintenance. She also received two more single Bofors guns, in place of two of her single 2-pounder mountings. She was recommissioned on 22 September 1948 and, before returning to the Far East, visited her home city of Belfast, arriving on 20 October. The following day, 21 October 1948, the ship's company marked Trafalgar Day with a march through the city. The next day Belfast took charge of a silver ship's bell, a gift of the people of Belfast. She sailed for Hong Kong on 23 October to join the Royal Navy's Far East Fleet, arriving in late December. By 1949, the political situation in China was precarious, with the Chinese Civil War moving towards its conclusion. As flagship of the 5th Cruiser Squadron, Belfast was the Far Eastern Station's headquarters ship during the April 1949 Amethyst Incident, in which a British sloop, , was trapped in the Yangtze River by the communist People's Liberation Army. Belfast remained in Hong Kong during 1949, sailing for Singapore on 18 January 1950. There she underwent a minor refit between January and March 1950, and in June she joined the Far East Fleet's summer cruise. On 25 June 1950, while Belfast was visiting Hakodate in Japan, North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel, starting the Korean War.

Korean War 19501952

With the outbreak of the Korean War, Belfast became part of the United Nations naval forces. Originally part of the US Navy's Task Force 77, Belfast was detached in order to operate independently on 5 July 1950. During July and early August 1950, Belfast undertook coastal patrols and was based at Sasebo in Japan's Nagasaki Prefecture. From 19 July Belfast supported troops fighting around Yongdok, accompanied by . That day Belfast fired an accurate 350-round bombardment from her 6-inch guns, and was praised by an American admiral as a "straight-shooting ship". On 6 August she sailed for the UK for a short (but needed) refit, after which she again set sail for the far east and arrived back at Sasebo on 31 January 1951.

During 1951 Belfast mounted a number of coastal patrols and bombarded a variety of targets. On 1 June she arrived at Singapore for refitting, arriving back on patrol on 31 August. In September 1951 Belfast provided anti-aircraft cover for a salvage operation to recover a crashed enemy MiG-15 jet fighter. She conducted further bombardments and patrols before receiving a month's leave from operations, returning to action on 23 December.

In 1952 Belfast continued her coastal patrol duties. On 29 July 1952 Belfast was hit by enemy fire while engaging an artillery battery on Wolsa-ri island. A 75 mm shell struck a forward compartment, killing a British sailor of Chinese origin in his hammock and wounding four other Chinese ratings. This was the only time Belfast was hit by enemy fire during her Korean service. On 27 September 1952 Belfast was relieved by two other Town-class cruisers,  and HMS Newcastle, and sailed back to the UK. She had steamed over  in the combat zone and fired more than 8,000 rounds from her 6-inch guns during the Korean War. She paid off in Chatham on 4 November 1952 and entered reserve at Devonport on 1 December.

Modernisation and final commissions 1955–1963

In reserve, Belfasts future was uncertain: post-war defence cuts made manpower-intensive cruisers excessively costly to operate and it was not until March 1955 that the decision was taken to modernise Belfast. Work began on 6 January 1956. Although described as only an extended refit, the cost of £5.5 million was substantial for this large middle-aged cruiser.  Changes included: individual MRS8 directors for the new twin Mk 5 40 mm and the twin 4-inch mount; the 4-inch guns training and elevation speed was increased to 20 degrees per second; and protecting key parts of the ship against nuclear, biological or chemical attack. This last consideration meant significantly enlarging and enclosing her bridge, creating a two-tiered, five-sided superstructure which radically altered her appearance. The most significant change was better accommodations for a smaller crew more fitting of post-war needs. Her tripod masts were replaced with lattice masts and timber decking replaced with steel everywhere except the quarterdeck. The overall effect was to create a cruiser significantly more habitable but different internally and to a degree in external appearance from wartime cruisers but still essentially a surface warfare, 'anti Sverdlov' cruiser, with anti-aircraft defence updated for point defence only out to . Belfast recommissioned at Devonport on 12 May 1959. Her close-range armament was standardised to six twin 40 mm Bofors guns, and her close-range fire direction similarly standardised to eight close-range blindfire directors fitted with Type 262 radar. Her 1959 radar fit included two Type 274 lock and follow radar directors for main armament direction against sea and land targets, Type 277Q and 293Q for height-finding and surface warning, Type 960M for air warning, and 974 for surface warning. In order to save weight, her torpedo armament was removed. Modern passive sonar Type 174 and 176 was installed and noise-reducing rubber insulation fitted to the propeller shaft.

Belfast arrived in Singapore on 16 December 1959 and spent most of 1960 at sea on exercise, calling at ports in Hong Kong, Borneo, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Australia, the Philippines and Japan. On 31 January 1961, Belfast recommissioned under the command of Captain Morgan Morgan-Giles. On her final foreign commission Belfast joined a number of exercises in the Far East and in December 1961 she provided the British guard of honour at Tanganyika's independence ceremony in Dar-es-Salaam.

In 1961 plans were drawn up for the conversion of Belfast to a hybrid helicopter cruiser for amphibious operations. The two aft 6-inch turrets would be removed to accommodate a helicopter deck and two hangars capable of housing four Westland Wessex helicopters, while the 4-inch guns would be replaced by davits for four LCA landing craft. Only one of the ship's two boiler rooms would be used, which together with the reductions in armament would allow the ship's crew to be reduced so freeing up space to carry troops. Two infantry companies, 30 officers and 230 other ranks, would be carried. The plan was rejected in December 1961 as the time required to carry out the conversions was too great.

The ship left Singapore on 26 March 1962 for the UK, sailing east via Hong Kong, Guam and Pearl Harbor, San Francisco, Seattle, British Columbia, Panama and Trinidad. She arrived at Portsmouth on 19 June 1962.

Recommissioned in July, she made a final visit to Belfast from 23 to 29 November before paying off into reserve on 25 February 1963. In July 1963 Belfast was recommissioned for the last time, with a crew of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and a number of Sea Cadets flying the flag of the Admiral Commanding Reserves, Rear Admiral Hugh Martell. Belfast sailed for Gibraltar in company with sixteen RNR minesweepers for a two-week exercise in the Mediterranean on 10 August. Martell's obituarist considered this commission a well-judged contrivance which "did much to restore the confidence and image of the new RNR" which had undergone an acrimonious amalgamation with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1958.

Reserve, decommissioning, and preservation efforts 1963–1971
Belfast returned to Devonport on 24 August 1963 and underwent a short refit to prepare her for paying off into reserve, which occurred in December 1963. In January 1966 parts of the ship and power systems were reactivated and from May 1966 to 1970 she served as an accommodation ship (taking over those duties from Sheffield), moored in Fareham Creek, for the Reserve Division at Portsmouth. While Belfast lay at Fareham Creek the Imperial War Museum, Britain's national museum of twentieth-century conflict, became interested in preserving a 6-inch turret. The turret would represent a number of classes of cruiser (then disappearing from service) and would complement the museum's pair of British 15-inch naval guns. On 14 April 1967 museum staff visited , a  also moored in Fareham Creek at the time. Following the visit the possibility was raised of preserving an entire ship. Gambia had already severely deteriorated, so attention turned to the possibility of saving Belfast. The Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum and the Ministry of Defence established a joint committee, which reported in June 1968 that the scheme was practical and economic. However, in early 1971 the Paymaster General decided against preservation. On 4 May 1971 Belfast was "reduced to disposal" to await scrapping.

HMS Belfast Trust 1971–1977

Following the government's refusal, a private trust was formed to campaign for the ship's preservation. The Belfast Trust was established; its chairman was Rear-Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles, captain of Belfast from January 1961 to July 1962. As Member of Parliament (MP) for Winchester, Morgan-Giles addressed the House of Commons on 8 March 1971. He described Belfast as being in "a really wonderful state of preservation" and that saving her for the nation represented a "case of grasping the last opportunity". Among the MPs who spoke in support of Morgan-Giles was Gordon Bagier, MP for Sunderland South, who served as a Royal Marine gunner aboard Belfast and was present at both the sinking of Scharnhorst and the Normandy landings. Speaking for the government, the Under-secretary for the Navy, Peter Kirk, said that Belfast was "one of the most historic ships which the Navy has had in the last 20 years", but that he could not prevent the stripping of the ship's removable equipment, as this was already too far advanced to be halted. He did, however, agree to postpone any decision on the scrapping of Belfast to allow the Trust to put together a formal proposal.

Following the Trust's efforts, the government agreed to hand over Belfast to the Trustees in July 1971, with Vice Admiral Sir Donald Gibson as her first director. At a press conference in August the Trust announced "Operation Seahorse", the plan to bring Belfast to London. She was towed from Portsmouth to London via Tilbury, where she was fitted out as a museum. She was towed to her berth above Tower Bridge on 15 October 1971 and settled in a huge hole that had been dredged in the river bed; then she was attached to two dolphins which guide her during the rise and fall of the tide.

She was opened to the public on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1971. The date was significant, as Belfast was the first naval vessel to be saved for the nation since , Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. Though no longer part of the Royal Navy, HMS Belfast was granted a special dispensation to allow her to continue to fly the White Ensign.

Now a museum, the ship's opening was well received: in 1972 the HMS Belfast Trust won the British Tourist Authority's "Come to Britain" trophy. Support for the ship's restoration was received from individuals, from the Royal Navy, and from commercial businesses; in 1973, for example, the Worshipful Company of Bakers provided dummy bread for display in the ship's NAAFI and bakery. By 1974, areas including the Admiral's bridge and forward boiler and engine rooms had been restored and fitted out. That year also saw the refurbishment of the ship's Operations Room by a team from , and the return of Belfasts six twin Bofors mounts, along with their fire directors. By December 1975 Belfast had received 1,500,000 visitors. In 1976 Belfast was reaffiliated with the successors to the British Army's Royal Ulster Rifles, the Royal Irish Rangers, and in the same year the Royal Naval Amateur Radio Society restored the ship's Bridge Wireless Office to working order.

Imperial War Museum 1978–present
By 1977, the financial position of the HMS Belfast Trust had become marginal, and the Imperial War Museum sought permission to merge the Trust into the museum. On 19 January 1978 the Secretary of State for Education and Science, Shirley Williams, accepted the proposal stating that HMS Belfast "is a unique demonstration of an important phase of our history and technology". The ship was transferred to the museum on 1 March 1978, and became the Imperial War Museum's third branch, Duxford aerodrome having been acquired in 1976. In October 1998, the HMS Belfast Association was formed to reunite former members of the ship's company. The Imperial War Museum's Sound Archive also seeks to record oral history interviews with former crewmen.

Preservation

Since being brought to London Belfast has twice been drydocked as part of the ship's long-term preservation. In 1982 she was docked at Tilbury, and in June 1999 Belfast was towed to Portsmouth. This was the first time she had been to sea in 28 years and thus required a Certificate of Seaworthiness from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. While in dock, her entire hull was cleaned, blasted, and repainted, her hull blanking plates inspected and an ultrasonic survey carried out. She was not expected to require further drydocking until 2020. While under tow to Portsmouth she was delayed by bad weather and arrived a day late: it had been intended that she would arrive on 6 June 1999, the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Normandy landings. During the maintenance work, Belfast hull and topsides were repainted in her specific camouflage scheme officially known as Admiralty Disruptive Camouflage Type 25, which she had worn from November 1942 to July 1944. This was objected to by some, due to the anachronistic conflict between her camouflage, which reflects the majority of her active Second World War service, and her present configuration, which was the result of the ship's extended refit from January 1956 to May 1959. With the establishment of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) Advisory Committee on National Historic Ships in 2006, Belfast was listed as part of the National Historic Fleet.

On 9 May 2010, a ceremony was held aboard Belfast to mark the 65th anniversary of end of the Second World War in Europe. Veterans of the Arctic convoys were in attendance to receive medals from the Russian Ambassador Yuri Fedotov. During the ceremony it was announced that, as part of the restoration of the ship, two new masts had been manufactured at the Severnaya Verf shipyard near Saint Petersburg. The production of the masts, to replace corroded originals, had been supported by a number of Russian businesses at a reported cost of £500,000. The restoration of the masts involved removing the fittings from both masts, allowing them to be individually restored. The old masts were then cut down in sections, the new masts erected, and the original fittings replaced. On 19 October 2010, the new masts were dedicated at a ceremony attended by HMS Belfast veterans, by Prince Philip and officials from the Russian embassy and government.

In 2017, it was announced that the third of the Royal Navy's Type 26 frigates would be named Belfast. At the same time, the IWM stated that the museum would be renamed as "HMS Belfast (1938)" as a means of avoiding confusion.

Interpretation

When Belfast was first opened to the public, visitors were limited to the upper decks and forward superstructure. As of 2011, nine decks are open to the public. Access to the ship is via a walkway which connects the quarterdeck with the pedestrianised footpath on the south bank of the River Thames. The Imperial War Museum's guidebook to HMS Belfast divides the ship into three broad sections. The first of these, "Life on board the ship", focuses on the experience of serving at sea. Restored compartments, some populated with dressed figures, illustrate the crew's living conditions and the ship's various facilities such as the sick bay, galley, laundry, chapel, mess decks and NAAFI. Since 2002, school and youth groups have been able to stay onboard Belfast overnight, sleeping in bunks on a restored 1950s mess deck.

The second section, "The inner workings", below the waterline and protected by the ship's armoured belt, contains core mechanical, electrical and communication systems. As well as the engine and boiler rooms, other compartments include the transmitting station (housing the ship's Admiralty Fire Control Table, a mechanical computer), the forward steering position and one of Belfasts six-inch shell rooms and magazines. The third section, "Action stations", includes the upper deck and forward superstructure with the ship's armament, fire control, and command facilities. Areas open to the public include the operations room, Admiral's bridge and gun direction platform. During 2011, two of these areas were reinterpreted. The operations room was restored to its appearance during Exercise Pony Express, a large British-Australian-American joint exercise held off North Borneo in 1961. The reinterpretation included an interactive audio-visual plotting table.

In July 2011, the interior of Y Turret, the aftmost 6-inch turret, was redisplayed using audio-visual and atmospheric effects, seeking to evoke the experience of a gunner at the Battle of North Cape. To emphasise the range of the ship's armament, the forward six-inch guns of A and B Turrets are trained on the London Gateway service area on the M1 motorway, approximately  away on the outskirts of London. A 4-inch gun mount and a shell hoist are kept in working order and used during blank-firing demonstrations by the Wavy Navy re-enactment group. In addition to the various areas of the ship open to visitors, some compartments have been fitted out as dedicated exhibition space. Permanent exhibitions include "HMS Belfast in War and Peace" and "Life at Sea". The cost of admission to HMS Belfast includes a multilingual audio guide.

HMS Belfast also serves as the headquarters of the City of London Sea Cadet Corps, and her prestigious location in central London as a result means she frequently has other vessels berthed alongside. In October 2007, Belfast hosted the naming ceremony of the lighthouse tender  with the Queen and Prince Philip in attendance.

2011 accident
On 29 November 2011, two workmen suffered minor injuries after a section of gangway, connected to the ship, collapsed during renovation works. The ship was closed to visitors following the accident. An investigation later established that the collapse of the gangway had been caused by a subcontractor cutting through the gangway's structure during refurbishment work. Belfast re-opened on 18 May 2012.

The closure delayed the construction of a new two-storey bank-side pavilion to replace Belfasts existing retail and admissions building. The structure, for which planning permission was received in October 2011, provides a ground floor café, shop and admissions area, and a rooftop bar. Initially expected to be complete by summer 2012, the pavilion opened in April 2013.

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References

Bibliography

External links

Town-class cruisers (1936)
Ships built in Belfast
1938 ships
World War II cruisers of the United Kingdom
Cold War cruisers of the United Kingdom
Korean War cruisers of the United Kingdom
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Sir Thomas Keens (1870 – 24 November 1953) was a British Liberal later National Liberal politician and accountant.

Family and education
Keens was born in Luton, Bedfordshire the son of Thomas and Emma Keens (née Hailstone). He was educated privately in Luton and went into business in the town. He entered the accountancy profession, performing well in the examinations for the Incorporated Society of Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Secretaries and he was elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries in 1897. In 1896 he had married Ella Batchelor of Great Missenden. They had two sons (one of whom died in 1950) and a daughter. In religion he was a Congregationalist.

Business career
After a short spell in a solicitor's office and then in the office of the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy, London Suburban and Southern District, Keens set up his own accountancy business jointly with Mr A H J Shay and went on to hold the position of senior partner in Keens, Shay, Keens and Company, Incorporated Accountants with a headquarters in the city of London. He also had branches in Bedford, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and Hitchin. He achieved some standing in his profession and was elected in 1926 to be President of the Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors, a position he held until 1929.

Politics
Keens was first active in local politics, being elected a councillor for the Luton North Ward of Bedfordshire County Council in 1901. He held that seat until 1910. In 1919 he was made an Alderman and he remained a member of the Council until 1952, serving as Chairman of the Finance Committee and from 1935-52 as Chairman of the County Council. He was a Deputy Lieutenant of Bedfordshire and for a time was Chairman of the Lee Catchment (later Conservancy) Board, responsible for the waters of the River Lea. He also served as a Justice of the Peace. He became a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List of 1934 for political and public services. Lady Keens was a strong supporter of her husband and in 1944 she became the first woman Mayor of Luton.

Parliamentary politics
Keens first stood for election to Parliament at Aylesbury at the 1922 general election. In 1923 he stood again, this time winning, despite the intervention of a Labour candidate but in the following year's election he was beaten again. He tried to get back at Aylesbury at the 1929 general election again without success. During the crisis of 1931 which resulted in the formation of the National Government under Ramsay MacDonald, Keens favoured the Liberal Party's support of the coalition and sought election as National Liberal for Pontypool in the 1931 United Kingdom general election, but was unable to beat the sitting Labour MP, Thomas Griffiths. He never stood for Parliament again but chose to support publicly the National Conservative candidate Michael Beaumont at Aylesbury during the 1935 general election. Apparently Keens was disillusioned with the way the National Government and its Liberal National supporters under Sir John Simon was turning away from the traditional Liberal policy of Free Trade but he nevertheless preferred to give the Liberal Nationals general support and as the Liberal Party declined he turned in favour of Liberal-Conservative union, being a supporter of Dr Charles Hill and was for a while the leader of the Luton National Liberals. He died at his home, Highfield in Luton aged 83 years.

See also
List of Liberal Party (UK) MPs

References

External links

1870 births
1953 deaths
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1923–1924
National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) politicians

Thomas Keens


Thomas Chalmers Peebles (June 5, 1921 – July 8, 2010) was an American physician who made multiple discoveries in the field of medicine, including being the first to isolate the measles virus. Peebles also did research that led to the development of fluoridated vitamins and did research that showed that tetanus vaccine could be given once every 10 years, rather than annually as had been the widespread practice.

Peebles was born on June 5, 1921, in Newton, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1942 with a major in French language. He enlisted in the United States Navy and served as a bomber pilot in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had been recruited by KLM as a pilot after completing his military service but chose to apply to Harvard Medical School, which rejected him because he had received a D in college biology. He attended Boston University for a year, taking the pre-med courses he had not taken as an undergraduate. He was finally accepted by Harvard Medical School, but spent an intervening year teaching at an elementary school in South Carolina. He worked at a laundry to help pay for those medical school costs not covered by the G.I. Bill.

After completing medical school he did an internship and residency in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he later became a Chief Resident of Pediatrics. He was also a Fellow at Children's Hospital Boston, where he worked with Dr. John Franklin Enders, known as "The Father of Modern Vaccines", who earned the Nobel Prize in 1954 for his research on cultivating the polio virus that led to the development of a vaccination for the disease. Switching to study measles, Peebles was sent to a Fay School where an outbreak of the disease was underway and was able to isolate the virus from some of the blood samples and throat swabs he took from students. Even after Enders had taken him off the study team, Peebles was able to cultivate the virus and show that the disease could be passed on to monkeys inoculated with the material he had collected. Enders was able to use the cultivated virus to develop a measles vaccine in 1963 based on the material isolated by Peebles. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, nearly twice as many children died from measles as from polio. The vaccine for measles has led to the near-complete elimination of the disease in the United States and other developed countries.

In a study he performed on the tetanus vaccine, he found that people were getting as much as 2,500 times the amount needed to provide protection, showing that the booster doses could be given once every ten years, rather than yearly, while substantially reducing the risk of allergic reactions caused by the higher dosages in common use. In his private practice, he noticed that patients from towns where the water was fluoridated had fewer cavities. He conducted research and determined a dosage that was included as part of a regular vitamin.

Peebles died at age 89 on July 8, 2010, in his home in Port Charlotte, Florida. He was survived by his wife, the former Annie Diffley, as well as by a daughter, two sons and five grandchildren.

References

1921 births
2010 deaths
United States Navy personnel of World War II
American pediatricians
Harvard Medical School alumni
Harvard University alumni
People from Newton, Massachusetts
People from Port Charlotte, Florida
Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
United States Navy officers
American virologists
Military personnel from Massachusetts

Thomas C. Peebles


Pomfret Town House is an historic town hall at 17 Town House Road in Pomfret, Connecticut.  Built in 1841, it is one of the state's oldest surviving purpose-built town halls.  It served that function for many years, and is now maintained by the local historical society as a museum and society meeting hall.  The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Description and history
The Pomfret Town House is located in the village of Pomfret Center, on the west side of Town House Road.  It is a modest single-story wood frame structure with a gable roof and clapboard siding.  Its main facade features two entrances, each with simple molded surrounds, and five windows with plain framing.  The interior is a large open space, clad in narrow wood flooring that covers original wide board floors.  A small ell extends to one side, and there is a 19th-century privy on the grounds.

The town of Pomfret was incorporated in 1713.  For many years its town meetings were held in local churches and other buildings.  In 1831, calls began to be made for a dedicated town hall for such meetings.  Disputes within the community about where to locate the building prompted the town to retain a council composed of members from neighboring towns to decide the issue.  The three-man council chose this spot, roughly midway between Pomfret Center and Abington, two of the town's larger villages.  This building was erected in 1841 and was used for many years as the site of Pomfret's town meetings.  It is now owned by the Pomfret Historical Society.

See also

National Register of Historic Places listings in Windham County, Connecticut

References

External links
Pomfret Historical Society

Pomfret, Connecticut
Town halls in Connecticut
Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut
Buildings and structures in Windham County, Connecticut
National Register of Historic Places in Windham County, Connecticut
1841 establishments in Connecticut

Pomfret Town House


Norwich Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Norwich, Norfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is the cathedral church for the Church of England Diocese of Norwich. Construction of the building was begun in 1096 at the behest of the first bishop of Norwich, Herbert de Losinga. When the crossing tower was the last piece of the Norman cathedral to be completed; measuring  and  wide, the cathedral was the largest building in East Anglia. The cathedral close, notable for being located within Norwich's defensive walls, occupied a tenth of the total area of the medieval city.

The present structure of Norwich Cathedral is primarily Norman, being made of flint and mortar and faced with a cream-coloured Caen limestone. The cathedral was damaged during the riots of 1272; repairs were completed in 1278. The cloisters, begun in 1297, are the second largest cloisters in England. The present spire—the second tallest in England at —is a stone structure built in 1480, that replaced one made of wood. In about 1830, the south transept was remodelled by the architect Anthony Salvin. A new hospitality and education facility by Hopkins Architects was opened by Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in 2010.

Norwich Cathedral once had the earliest astronomical clock in England. The cathedral's bosses are one of the world's greatest mediaeval sculptural treasures, having survived the iconoclasm of the Tudor and English Civil War periods.

History

Origins
In the year 672, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, divided the Kingdom of East Anglia into two dioceses: one covering Norfolk with its episcopal see at Elmham; the other covering Suffolk with its see at Dunwich. During much of the 9th century, because of the Danish incursions, there was no bishop at Elmham; in addition the see of Dunwich was extinguished and East Anglia became a single diocese once more. Following the Norman Conquest, sees were moved to more secure urban centres, that of Elmham being transferred to Thetford in 1072, and finally to Norwich in 1094. The new cathedral was dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. As with the Norman cathedrals at Bath, Winchester, Worcester, Canterbury, Rochester, Durham, and Ely, it incorporated a priory of Benedictine monks.

Norman period
The structure of the cathedral is primarily in the Norman style, having been constructed at the behest of the first bishop of Norwich, Herbert de Losinga, who had bought the bishopric for £1,900 before its transfer from Thetford. It still retains the greater part of its original stone structure. An Anglo-Saxon settlement and two churches were demolished to make room for the buildings and a canal cut to allow access for the boats bringing the stone and building materials which were taken up the River Wensum and unloaded.

Later Medieval period
The cathedral was damaged after riots in 1272, which resulted in the city paying heavy fines levied by Henry III, king of England The cathedral was re-consecrated in the presence of Edward I of England on Advent Sunday, in 1278.

The Norman spire was blown down in 1362. Its fall damaged the east end of the building. In 1463 the spire was struck by lightning, causing a fire to rage through the nave which was so intense it turned some of the cream-coloured Caen limestone a pink colour. In 1480 the bishop, James Goldwell, ordered the building of a new spire which is still in place today.

16th and 17th centuries
The composer and 'singing man' Osbert Parsley worked at Norwich Cathedral for 50 years, until his death in 1585.

The cathedral was partially in ruins when John Cosin was at Norwich School in the early 17th century and the former bishop was an absentee figure. In 1643 during the Civil War, an angry Puritan mob invaded the cathedral and destroyed all Roman Catholic symbols. The building, abandoned the following year, lay in ruins for two decades. Norwich bishop Joseph Hall provides a graphic description from his book Hard Measure:

The mob also fired their muskets. At least one musket ball remains lodged in the stonework. Only at the Restoration in 1660 would the cathedral be restored.

19th and 20th centuries

In the 1830s the south transept was remodelled by the English architect Anthony Salvin. In 1930–1932 a new Lady Chapel, designed by Charles Nicholson, was built at the east end, on the site of its 13th-century predecessor, which had been demolished during the late 16th century.

The cathedral is included as one of the "Norwich 12", a list of the city's most iconic buildings produced as part of an initiative launched in 2008 by the Norwich Heritage Economic and Regeneration Trust.

Modern works
In 2004 the new refectory (winner, National Wood Awards 2004), by Hopkins Architects and Buro Happold, opened on the site of the original refectory on the south side of the cloisters. Work on the new hostry, also by Hopkins Architects, started in April 2007 after the 'Cathedral Inspiration for the Future Campaign' had reached its target of £10 million. It was opened by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on 4 May 2010. The new hostry has become the main entrance to the cathedral. Space has been provided within the hostry for temporary art exhibitions.

Helter-skelter
In July 2019, a  high helter-skelter was constructed inside the cathedral, partly for the purpose of attracting more visitors and also giving people a better vantage point for viewing the roof bosses. Reaction to the installation of the slide was mixed, Gavin Ashenden, former chaplain to the Queen, described it as "poisoning the medicine" a church offered. In August 2019, Jonathan Meyrick, the Bishop of Lynn, gave a sermon and sang Words by the Bee Gees from halfway down.

Ministry

Dean and chapter
As of 3 February 2023:
Dean of Norwich – Andrew Braddock (since 28 January 2023 institution)
Canon Librarian & Vice-Dean – Peter Doll (canon since 14 March 2009 installation)
Canon Precentor – Aidan Platten (since 24 September 2017 installation)
Canon for Mission & Pastoral Care – Andy Bryant (since 29 March 2015 installation)

Architecture

Dates, styles and architects

Building of the cathedral started from the east end in 1096, with the nave being completed by around 1120. The entire cathedral was completed by 1145, when the crossing tower was built. The cathedral was constructed from flint and mortar and faced with cream-coloured Caen limestone.

The present spire, a stone structure that replaced one made of wood and covered with lead, was added in 1480.

Following the riots of 1272, repairs to the building were completed in 1278. Some of the windows were replaced with ones in the Gothic style during the 13th century.

The cloisters was begun in 1297 and finally finished in 1430 after the Black Death had plagued the city. The system of building remained the same over this period, though the details, in particular the tracery of the openings facing the cloister garth, did change.

Following the destruction caused by the collapse of the spire, the clerestory of the choir was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style.

In the 15th century, the cathedral's flat timber ceilings began to be replaced with stone vaults; the nave was vaulted under Walter Hart (bishop, 1446–1472), the choir and the Bauchun Chapel (on the east side of the south transept) under James Goldwell (bishop, 1472–1499) and the transepts after 1520. The system of vaulting is of a tierceron vault with Lierne ribs forming patterns of lozenges and stars along the ridge. The vaulting was carried out in a spectacular manner with hundreds of ornately carved, painted and gilded bosses studding the liernes.

Plan
Measuring  and  wide at completion, Norwich Cathedral was the largest building in East Anglia. The ground plan remains entirely as it was in Norman times, except for that of the easternmost chapel. The cathedral has an unusually long nave of 14 bays. The transepts are without aisles and the east end terminates in an apse with an ambulatory. From the ambulatory there is access to two chapels of unusual shape, the plan of each being based on two intersecting circles. This allows more correct orientation of the altars than in the more normal kind of radial chapel.

Exterior

The tower, the most ambitious of all the Norman towers to have survived in England, is decorated with geometrical circles, lozenges and interlaced arcading.

The spire is of brick faced with stone, supported on brick squinches built into the Norman tower. At  high, the spire is the second tallest in England; only that of Salisbury is taller at .

Norwich Cathedral has the second largest cloisters in England, only exceeded by those at Salisbury Cathedral. It has two-storeys, the only example of its kind in England and nearly 400 carved stone ceiling bosses.

Interior
The eastern end of the cathedral, near to the sanctuary, is in the form of an apse The tribune (the vaulted area within the apse) is unusually tall, and contains piers with large capitals.

Norwich no longer has its rood screen, which would have been used to support the great crucifix. It was located one bay west of the pulpitum (the screen that separated the nave from the choir). The aisles are vaulted in stone, but lack ribs.

The Anglican cathedrals at Norwich, Salisbury, and Ely are the only ones that have no ring of bells. The original clock at Norwich Cathedral was one of the earliest mechanical timekeepers made in Britain.

Art works and treasures

Stained glass
The medieval stained glass windows in the cathedral, which was largely destroyed during the English Reformation, sustained further damage during the English Civil War.

The glass in the west window was designed by George Hedgeland, and was installed in 1854.

Bosses

The bosses of Norwich Cathedral are one of the world's greatest mediaeval sculptural treasures, and certainly a near miraculous survival of the iconoclasm from the Tudor and English Civil War periods. They have been described by the church historian Charles John Philip Cave as "undoubtedly the most important series in the country". There are over 1,000 bosses; the earliest subjects are natural, mostly flowers and foliage. Then come figural representations such as foliate men, acrobats, mythical animals, hunting scenes and single bosses which show a story such as events from the lives of the saints. Then there are narratives which tell a story in a sequence of bosses. The nave vault shows the history of the world from the creation. Later bosses revert to foliage or formal subjects such as coats of arms. The bosses can be seen most clearly in the cloisters, where they are lower than those elsewhere. The east range has much foliage, and a sequence of the Passion of Jesus.  The north range has the Resurrection and scenes of Mary, mother of Jesus and the saints. The south and west walk have the Apocalypse, as well as the Annunciation and Herod's Feast. Catalogues of the cloister bosses have been published by M.R. James (1911), with drawings of the bosses of the north walk.

Misericords

During the Middle Ages, the monks assembled eight times daily for the canonical hours, and the greater part of their services was recited while standing. In time, some monasteries fitted stalls with ledges for the monk to lean against. The so-called 'misericords' were literally an act of mercy. Most of the misericords are carved with a central subject and two supporters positioned on either side.

There were likely to have once been 70 choir-stalls at Norwich, which were allotted to the bishop and his senior clerics, and 60 monks. There are 64 surviving choir-stalls, of which all but four have misericords dating from the early 15th century onwards; it is possible that the more senior clergymen were able to choose the theme for the carving on their own misericord. The elbow rests were also intricately carved. Many of the supporters in Norwich's choir-stalls are connected with their central subject, as in the case of the misericord for Bishop Richard Courtenay, which is a seated monk who supporters are a bishop tending sheep, and by a representation of the bishop as Chancellor of Oxford. The fire of 1463 at Norwich damaged many of the stalls, whose replacements were given new misericords.

The misericords in Norwich Cathedral can be categorised by their designs. A group known as Wakering's have ledges that are curved and ribbed, battlement patterns, and are carved with the coats of arms of the patrons who helped to pay for the rebuilding of the choir. The so-called Goldwell misericords have more rounded ledges and a pair of lobes. The two Nykke misericords have characteristically carved seat edges. The subjects chosen appear to be random in nature, with a wide selection of real and legendary animals, tasks, events, people (both actual and imaginary), representations of the seven deadly sins, and stories (mostly non-Biblical) being carved.

Despenser Retable

In St Luke's Chapel, behind the altar, is a late 14th century painting, known as the Despenser Retable, named after the Bishop of Norwich, Henry le Despenser (1369–1406). During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, Despenser's forces successfully contained the revolt in Norfolk, and the painting was probably commissioned in thanksgiving. Shields in the border of the painting are associated with others who led the defence against the peasants. The retable was rediscovered in 1847, having been reversed and used as a table top.

Other features
The copper baptismal font, standing on a moveable base in the nave, was fashioned from bowls previously used for making chocolate in the Norwich Rowntree's factory, and was given to the cathedral after the factory closed in 1994.

Since 2013, the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey (NMGS) has recorded a large amount of medieval graffiti, including organ music inscribed on two four-line staves, on the interior stone surfaces of the cathedral.

Music

Organ and organists

Norwich Cathedral's organ is one the largest in the UK. It was built by local builder Norman and Beard in 1899, but was later damaged in a fire in April 1938. A Cymbelstern with six bells and a rotating star was added to the organ in 1969. In 2017 the dean, the Very Rev Dr Jane Hedges, revealed that the cathedral was planning to spend £2 million on rebuilding the organ and supporting its existing choirs.

Most of the records of the organists at Norwich Cathedral have survived. The earliest organist recorded is Adam the Organist, who was employed in 1333. Notable organists of Norwich Cathedral have included the composers Thomas Morley, and Heathcote Dicken Statham.

Cathedral choirs

Norwich Cathedral's choirs are directed by the Master of the Music, Ashley Grote. There are places for around 20 boys aged from 7 to 13, attend Norwich School and its Lower School, with at least half of their school fees being paid by the Norwich Cathedral Endowment Fund.

Girls were introduced to the choir in 1995. There are places for 24 girls, aged from 11 to 18, who are drawn from across Norfolk. They sing evensong once a week (alternately on their own and with the men) and at least one Sunday Eucharist a term.

The choir has 12 men, six of whom are choral scholars; the others are professional singers. The men sing with the boy choristers at five services a week, and often more at special times of year such as Easter and Christmas.

Bells

The cathedral church's five bells are hung in the central tower; four are engraved with the medieval merchant mark of Brasyers of Norwich. The bells, which are tuned to a minor key, were used for the regular services, whilst an additional group of five so-called 'greater' bells were hung in a detached bell tower; these were used to celebrate important religious festivals. They were heavier than those hung in the cathedral church.

As with similar large churches, the tower was close to the entrance of the lay citizens' cemetery, and was surrounded by craft shops. It is possible that the bell tower was built to enable the citizens of Norwich to hear the bells being rung during a festival or a funeral. The tower was targeted during the Norwich riots of 1272, who captured it and fired arrows and missiles down upon their enemies. After being rebuilt using limestone during the 1310s, and a lead spire was added. The location of the building, which was demolished by 1569, was lost until 1956, when masonry was accidentally exposed after the area was dug up for a new water main.

The cathedral's mediaeval records state that one of the central tower bells was named 'Blessed Mary', and that.the largest bell in the tower was called 'Lakenham'. The locations of two other named bells, called 'Stratton' and 'Stockton', are unknown.

The Close

The precinct, or cathedral close, is enclosed within the limits of the former monastery. It is bordered by the Tombland area (the Anglo-Saxon market place) and the Wensum. It contains buildings from the 15th to the 19th centuries, including the remains of an infirmary. The close has an area of  and is notable for being located within the city's defensive walls. In medieval times it occupied a tenth of the total area of the city.

The grounds also house many of the buildings of Norwich School, as well as statues of the leading military and political figure, the Duke of Wellington and the British Naval officer Admiral Nelson, and the grave of the British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I.

There are two gates leading into the cathedral grounds, both on Tombland. The Ethelbert Gate takes its name from a Saxon church that stood nearby. The original gate was destroyed in the riot of 1272, and its replacement was built in the early 14th century. It has two storeys, the upper originally a chapel dedicated to Saint Ethelbert and decorated with flushwork. In 1420 Thomas Erpingham, benefactor to the city, had the gate which bears his name built, sited opposite the west door of the cathedral and leading into the close.

In the arts and popular culture

Documentaries
The cathedral and other churches in the diocese were featured in the 1974 BBC documentary A Passion for Churches, presented by the English poet and writer John Betjeman. In 2012, the cathedral and the adjacent Bishop's Palace were featured in the BBC Four documentary The Medieval Mind: How to Build a Cathedral.

The cathedral was featured in the 2016 BBC Four documentary The Search for the Lost Manuscript: Julian of Norwich.

Use as a location
Norwich Cathedral was used as a location for the 1971 BBC Christmas ghost story The Stalls of Barchester, based on the story by M. R. James. It was also used as a location for the 2013 film Jack the Giant Slayer, and in the 2017 feature film Tulip Fever.

See also
List of cathedrals in the United Kingdom
List of tallest structures built before the 20th century
Architecture of the medieval cathedrals of England
List of the bishops of Norwich
List of Romanesque buildings
List of Gothic Cathedrals in Europe
List of burials at Norwich Cathedral

References

Notes

Sources

Further reading

  The journal contains 25 articles relating directly to Norwich Cathedral.

External links

A history of the choristers of Norwich Cathedral by Anne Page (self published)
 Information about the misericords at Norwich from www.medart.pitt.edu
 Photographs of each of the misericords at Norwich from www.misericords.co.uk
 Information about the cathedral's bells from the Norwich Diocesan Association of Ringers
 Information about the stained glass windows at Norwich from Norfolk Stained Glass

Norwich Cathedral
Buildings and structures completed in 1145
12th-century church buildings in England
Churches in Norwich
Anglican cathedrals in England
Pre-Reformation Roman Catholic cathedrals
Diocese of Norwich
Tourist attractions in Norwich
Grade I listed cathedrals
Grade I listed churches in Norfolk
English churches with Norman architecture
English Gothic architecture in Norfolk
Church of England church buildings in Norwich
Monasteries in Norfolk

Norwich Cathedral


The Mydoom virus (also known as a worm and as Win32.Mydoom.A) was a very damaging computer virus that affected Microsoft Windows-based computers. The worm was spread through mass emailing, disguised as badly sent email. It spread very quickly.

Design and infection
The virus was made to be sent in an email with an attachment that carried the virus. When the attachment was opened, the virus would download itself to the computer. The virus can only affect Windows based computers. The virus came with a package that would spam the SCO Group website. SCO had caused arguments within the Linux community for getting copyrights on some open source software. However, only 25% of the infected computers would launch the attack. After the virus has been downloaded, it leaves the computer open to other malware by leaving a "backdoor" open.

Another type of the virus, Mydoom.B, was made to spam Microsoft. It was first found on January 28, 2004.

History
The virus was found to be a threat on January 26, 2004. The virus quickly spread and proved a threat to the SCO group. To try and get the public to catch the maker of the virus, the SCO group offered $250,000 U.S. dollars as a reward for catching the creator. Another type of the virus, Mydoom.B was found on January 28. Because it was made to attack the Microsoft web site, Microsoft offered a $250,000 U.S. dollar reward if the maker of the virus was caught. This was the third time Microsoft offered a reward for catching a virus creator.

On February 1, 2004, the virus downed the SCO group site with many denial-of-service attacks. On February 3 the virus attacked the Microsoft site and little damage was caused.

Effects
Mydoom caused many problems during its lifespan in 2004. It caused web speeds to slow by about 50%. At the peak of the infection, Mydoom made for one in twelve emails sent.

Related pages
 Computer virus

References

Malware

Mydoom


The historic Darlington Probation Station is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located on Maria Island off the east coast of Tasmania, Australia. The camp is in the northwest of the island on Darling Bay in Maria Island National Park, where the former Darlington settlement was located. Since 1825 there was a camp on the island for prisoners who had committed serious crimes. From 1842 to 1850 it was operated as one of two British penal camps, alongside the Cascades Female Factory, as an education camp.

History
In 1825, the second convict colony in Van Diemens Land (now renamed as Tasmania) was established by Governor George Arthur with 50 convicts and a few soldiers on Maria Island, which was closed again in 1832. Despite the short time, several buildings were built, of which the Commissariat Store and the constructions of the convict camp, known as the Penitentiary, have been preserved.

The convicts built a wood, shoe and clothes maker manufacture and tannery. The construction of a mechanised, water-powered clothing manufacture was remarkable. Because of several escape attempts and disciplinary problems, this penal colony was closed in 1832. The Port Arthur prison, which has now been established and could accommodate a large number of convicts, also played a role.

Ten years later, the penal colony was reopened as a prison camp on the initiative of Lieutenant Governor Franklin in 1842, after repairing the existing buildings. When a second station opened, more than 800 convicts came to the island and more buildings were erected. Overcrowding created numerous problems and the stations were closed in 1850.

Among the convicts was the Irish nationalist from the Young Ireland movement William Smith O'Brien, two Khoikhoi and five Maori who were detained there because of national conflicts over borders.

Modern use
The camp has been in operation since 1 Registered in the Australian National Heritage List on August 1, 2007 and in, August 2010; one of eleven Australian Convict Sites  recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The accommodation station is one of the best preserved prison camp buildings from the early days of the Australian convict colony. There were 78 such camps in Tasmania. There are 13 buildings on Maria Island, some of which have been preserved and some of which are ruins.

The buildings on the island reflect the system of labour discipline for convicts in the early British colonial times. In the convict camp there were strict rules and discipline with division into groups and according to training, the exercise of religious coercion and methods of rigid punishment. The Darlington Probation Station with this form of convict discipline with public work goes back to Franklin (1837 to 1843).

In the camp there was a canteen and a classroom, a chapel and buildings for the accommodation of the priest and the religious teachers. The convicts' barracks and ruins were divided into separate rooms for well-behaving and rebellious convicts, where well-behaving convicts were housed in bedrooms and the others in separate rooms. The single cells testify to the practiced method of punishment of isolation.

References

Other websites
 World Heritage on Maria Island

Australian Convict Sites
Australian National Heritage List
Buildings and structures in Tasmania
Protected areas of Tasmania

Darlington Probation Station


The Harvard-Navy lacrosse game of 1941 was an intercollegiate lacrosse game played in Annapolis, Maryland, between the Harvard University Crimson and the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen on April 4, 1941. Before the game, the Naval Academy's superintendent told Harvard that the Navy team would not play against a racially integrated team. Harvard's one black player, Lucien Alexis Jr. of New Orleans, left of his own accord after Harvard's athletic director told Harvard's coach to send him home. Harvard's players, supported by their coach, had voted to forfeit the game rather than play without him. The game went on as scheduled. Both Harvard's and the Naval Academy's administrations were criticized for their actions.

Game
On April 3, 1941, the Harvard lacrosse team's 18 players arrived at Annapolis, Maryland, to play the Naval Academy in a scheduled intercollegiate match. That day, the Naval Academy's superintendent, Rear Admiral Russell Willson discovered that Harvard's team included one black player, Lucien Alexis Jr. He informed Harvard's coach, Dick Snibbe, and athletic director, William J. Bingham, that Navy's squad would not play against a racially integrated team.

Angry at the Naval Academy's stance, Snibbe and Alexis' teammates elected to forfeit the game and return to Harvard. Bingham intervened and ordered the Harvard coach to send Alexis home and play the game. Learning of Bingham's directive, Alexis voluntarily decided to depart and told his teammates that it was his idea. The game was played as scheduled the next day and Navy won 12–0.

Reaction
Harvard's student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, learned of the incident and sharply criticized Bingham and Harvard's administration. The newspaper said of the incident:

In response Bingham said: "We were guests of the Naval Academy and had no choice in the matter. Had the game been played at Cambridge, I would have insisted that he be allowed to participate."

Newspapers in Boston and New York City picked up the story and criticized Harvard's and the Naval Academy's administrations for their actions. The Harvard Council for Democracy in Education complained to U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt about USNA's actions in the incident. The Harvard Corporation told Bingham and the Harvard Athletic Association to inform all future sports competitors that the school would not tolerate further racial discrimination against its student athletes.

One week after the incident, Alexis and the rest of Harvard's lacrosse team traveled to West Point, New York, to play a game against the United States Military Academy. In contrast to the reception the Navy had given Harvard's team, at West Point a cordon of cheering cadets, led by black cadets attending the academy, welcomed Alexis and his team.

Doris Kearns Goodwin counts this incident among several that pressured President Roosevelt, in June 1941, to sign Executive Order 8802 that prohibited racial discrimination in the defense industry.

Later events
In 1949 Wesley A. Brown was the first black student to graduate from the Naval Academy. On May 10, 2008, a dedication ceremony was held on the Naval Academy campus for its newest building, the Wesley Brown Field House, named for him. Brown participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. Also present were almost one thousand guests.

Lucien Victor Alexis (1887-1981), Harvard '17, was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the US Army and later became the principal of the only black high school in New Orleans. His son Lucien Victor Alexis Jr. graduated from Harvard in turn and went into the service in World War II. After his return, he got a degree from Harvard Business School. He later served as head of a New Orleans business college for black students, segregated by state law. He married and had children. He died in 1975. His daughter Lurita Alexis Doan became an entrepreneur, owning her own business from 1990 to 2005, and approved as the first woman and second African American to serve as Administrator of the General Services Administration (2006 to 2008), during the administration of President George W. Bush.

See also
Golden Thirteen
Port Chicago disaster
USS Kitty Hawk riot

References

Notes

Sources

Anti-black racism in Maryland
History of African-American civil rights
History of racial segregation in the United States
African-American history in Annapolis, Maryland
African-American sports history
Navy Midshipmen men's lacrosse
Harvard Crimson men's lacrosse
United States Navy in the 20th century
1941 in lacrosse
African-American history of the United States military
Harvard-Navy lacrosse
College men's lacrosse in the United States

1941 Harvard–Navy lacrosse game


Joao Pedro De Magalhaes is a Portuguese microbiologist. He studies aging through both computational and experimental approaches. His ultimate goal is to cure human aging.

In 1999, he obtained his degree in Microbiology from Escola Superior de Biotecnologia. Under Olivier Toussaint, he obtained his PhD from the University of Namur in 2004. Then he did a postdoc in the George Church lab at Harvard Medical School from 2004 to 2008.

In 2008, he was recruited by the University of Liverpool to lead a lab studying genomic approaches to aging. In 2022, he was recruited by the University of Birmingham to be Chair of Molecular Biogerontology, and he currently leads the Genomics of Aging and Rejuvenation Lab there.

He helps maintain several databases on aging - among them - GenAge, AnAge, DrugAge, CellAge, GenDR, the Digital Aging Atlas, and Who's Who in Gerontology. His research group helped sequence the transcriptome of the long-lived bowhead whale. He also helps advise the Lifeboat Foundation.

Among his many longevity-related scientific research projects, Magalhães has sequenced and analyzed the genome of the bowhead whale. And he has also contributed to analysis of the genome of the naked mole rat. Both of these mammals are exceptionally long-lived and exceptionally cancer-resistant.

References

External links
Homepage
Group website - designed by AB Designs web design agency
Twitter
senescence.info

Living people
Academics of the University of Liverpool
Cryonicists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Portuguese microbiologists
Biogerontologists

João Pedro de Magalhães


DNS zone transfer, also sometimes known by the inducing DNS query type AXFR, is a type of DNS transaction. It is one of the many mechanisms available for administrators to replicate DNS databases across a set of DNS servers.

A zone transfer uses the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for transport, and takes the form of a client–server transaction. The client requesting a zone transfer may be a secondary server requesting data from a primary server. The portion of the database that is replicated is a zone.

Operation
Zone transfer consists of a preamble, followed by the actual data transfer. The preamble comprises a lookup of the Start of Authority (SOA) resource record for the "zone apex", the node of the DNS namespace that is at the top of the "zone". The fields of this SOA resource record, in particular the "serial number", determine whether the actual data transfer need to occur at all. The client compares the serial number of the SOA resource record with the serial number in the last copy of that resource record that it has. If the serial number of the record being transferred is greater, the data in the zone are deemed to have "changed" (in some fashion) and the secondary proceeds to request the actual zone data transfer. If the serial numbers are identical, the data in the zone are deemed not to have "changed", and the client may continue to use the copy of the database that it already has, if it has one.

The actual data transfer process begins by the client sending a query (opcode 0) with the special query type AXFR (value 252) over the TCP connection to the server. Although DNS technically supports AXFR over User Datagram Protocol (UDP), it is considered not acceptable due to the risk of lost, or spoofed packets. The server responds with a series of response messages, comprising all of the resource records for every domain name in the "zone". The first response comprises the SOA resource record for the zone apex. The other data follows in no specified order. The end of the data is signaled by the server repeating the response containing the SOA resource record for the zone apex.

Some zone transfer clients perform the SOA lookup of the preamble using their system's normal DNS query resolution mechanism. These clients do not open a TCP connection to the server until they have determined that they need to perform the actual data transfer. However, since TCP can be used for normal DNS transactions, as well as for zone transfer, other zone transfer clients perform the SOA lookup preamble over the same TCP connection as they then (may) perform the actual data transfer. These clients open the TCP connection to the server before they even perform the preamble.

The preceding describes full zone transfer. Incremental zone transfer differs from full zone transfer in the following respects:
 The client uses the special QTYPE IXFR (value 251) instead of the AXFR QTYPE.
 The client sends the SOA resource record for the zone apex that it currently has, if any, in the IXFR message, letting the server know which version of the "zone" it believes to be current.
 Though the server may respond in the normal AXFR manner with the full data for the zone, it may also instead respond with an "incremental" data transfer. This latter comprises the list of changes to the zone data, in zone serial number order, between the version of the zone that the client reported to the server as having and the version of the zone that is current at the server. The changes comprise two lists, one of resource records that are deleted and one of resource records that are inserted.  (A modification to a resource record is represented as a deletion followed by an insertion.)

Zone transfer is entirely client-initiated. Though servers can send a NOTIFY message to clients (that they have been informed about) whenever a change to the zone data has been made, the scheduling of zone transfers is entirely under the control of the clients. Clients schedule zone transfers initially, when their databases are empty, and thereafter at regular intervals, in a pattern controlled by the values in the "refresh", "retry", and "expire" fields in the SOA resource record of the zone apex.

Limitations
Though it is standardized, full-zone transfer being described as one of the possible database replication mechanisms in RFC 1034 and RFC 5936 (incremental zone transfer described in RFC 1995), zone transfer is the most limited of those database replication mechanisms. Zone transfer operates in terms of "wire format" resource records, i.e. resource records as they are transferred using the DNS protocol. However, the schema of wire format resource records may not be identical to the database schema used by the back ends of the DNS servers themselves.

Operational problems

Serial number changes
The preamble portion of zone transfer relies on the serial number, and only the serial number, to determine whether a zone's data have changed, and thus whether the actual data transfer is required. For some DNS server packages, the serial numbers of SOA resource records are maintained by administrators by hand. Every edit to the database involves making two changes, one to the record being changed and the other to the zone serial number. The process requires accuracy: the administrator may forget to change the serial number or change it incorrectly (reduce it). RFC 1912 (section 2.2 SOA records) recommends using the value YYYYMMDDnn as the number (YYYY=year, MM=month, DD=day, nn=revision number). This won't overflow until the year 4294.

Some DNS server packages have overcome this problem by automatically constructing the serial number from the last modification timestamp of the database file on disk. This is the case for djbdns, for example. The operating system ensures that the last modification timestamp is updated whenever an administrator edits the database file, effectively automatically updating the serial number, and thus relieving administrators of the need to make two edits (in two different places) for every single change.

Furthermore, the paradigm of database replication for which the serial number check (and indeed zone transfer itself) is designed, which involves a single central DNS server holding the primary version of the database with all other DNS servers merely holding copies, simply does not match that of many modern DNS server packages. Modern DNS server packages with sophisticated database back ends such as SQL servers and Active Directory allow administrators to make updates to the database in multiple places (such systems employ multi-master replication), with the database back end's own replication mechanism handling the replication to all other servers. This paradigm simply does not match that of a single, central, monotonically increasing number to record changes, and thus is incompatible with zone transfer to a large extent. Modern DNS server packages with sophisticated database back ends often will create a "shim" serial number, simulating the existence of a single central place where updates are made, but this is at best imperfect.

Fortunately, for this and several reasons outlined later, DNS servers that use such sophisticated database back ends in general rarely use zone transfer as their database replication mechanism in the first place, and usually instead employ the vastly superior distributed database replication mechanisms that the back ends themselves provide.

Serial number comparisons
Serial number comparisons are intended to use Serial Number Arithmetic as defined in RFC 1982.  However, this was not clearly specified in RFC 1034, resulting in not all clients perform the serial number check, in the preamble, in the same way. Some clients check merely that the serial number supplied by the server is different from that known by the client, or non-zero. Other clients check that the serial number supplied by the server is within a given range of the serial number already known by the client. Yet other clients still perform the latter check and additionally check that the serial number supplied by the server is not zero.

Multiple resource records
Originally, in the actual data transfer each set of resource records for a single domain name and type was transferred in a separate response message from the server to the client. However, this is inefficient, and some DNS server software implemented optimizations, geared at allowing the response compression mechanism in the DNS protocol to reduce the total bandwidth requirements of data transfers, such as:
 performing "additional section processing" to include any "glue" resource record sets in the same response as an NS, SRV, or MX resource record set
 collecting all of the resource record sets relating to a single domain name together and sending them, if they fit, in a single response

Some clients were written to expect only the original response format, and would fail to perform data transfer if such optimizations were employed. Several DNS server packages thus have a configuration setting allowing administrators to specify the use of "single answer format" responses for those clients that require it.

Exposure of data
The data contained in a DNS zone may be sensitive from an operational security aspect. This is because information such as server hostnames may become public knowledge, which can be used to discover information about an organization and even provide a larger attack surface. In June 2017 the registrar responsible for Russian top-level-domains accidentally enabled DNS zone transfers via AXFR which led to 5.6 million records being accidentally exposed.

In 2008 a court in North Dakota, USA, ruled that performing a zone transfer as an unauthorized outsider to obtain information that was not publicly accessible constitutes a violation of North Dakota law.

See also
 List of DNS record types

References

External links

Security standards information
 CAPEC-291 DNS Zone Transfers
 CVE-1999-0532 A DNS server allows zone transfers.
 CWE-16 Configuration
 CWE-276 Incorrect Default permissions

Related Request for Comments
  DNS Zone Transfer Protocol (defines AXFR, updates RFC 1034 Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities, and RFC 1035 Domain Names - Implementation and Specification)
  Incremental Zone Transfer in DNS
  A Mechanism for Prompt Notification of Zone Changes (DNS NOTIFY)
 draft-ietf-dnsext-axfr-clarify DNS Zone Transfer Protocol (AXFR) Internet Draft

Domain Name System

DNS zone transfer