Regency Personality: Arthur Thistlewood, British Conspirator

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

Arthur Thistlewood and the Cato Street Conspiracy play a minor role in my Work in Progress, A Touch of Love. Here is a bit about each…

ArthurThistlewood Arthur Thistlewood (1774–May 1, 1820) was a British conspirator in the Cato Street Conspiracy.

Early Life
He was born in Tupholme the extramarital son of a farmer and stockbreeder. He attended Horncastle Grammar School and was trained as a land surveyor. Unsatisfied with his job, he obtained a commission in the army at the age of 21. In January 1804 he married Jane Worsley, but she died two years later giving birth to their first child. In 1808 he married Susan Wilkinson. He then quit his commission in the army and, with the help of his father, bought a farm. The farm was not a success and in 1811 he moved to London.

Beginning of Revolutionary Involvement
Travel in France and the United States of America exposed Thistlewood to revolutionary ideas. Shortly after his return to England, he joined the Society of Spencean Philanthropists in London. By 1816, Thistlewood had become a leader in the organisation, and was labelled a “dangerous character” by police.

Spa Fields
On December 2, 1816, a mass meeting took place at Spa Fields. The Spenceans had planned to encourage rioting at this meeting and then seize control of the British government by taking the Tower of London and the Bank of England. Police learned of the plan and dispersed the meeting. Thistlewood attempted to flee to North America. He and three other leaders were arrested and charged with high treason. When James Watson was acquitted, the authorities released Thistlewood and the others as well.

Lord Sidmouth
When police arrested Thistlewood after the Spa Fields meeting, he had already bought tickets to travel to the United States. Thistlewood wrote to the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth in 1817 to demand reimbursement. When Sidmouth failed to respond, Thistlewood challenged him to a duel and was imprisoned in Horsham Jail for 12 months.

Cato Street Conspiracy
On February 22, 1820, Thistlewood was one of a small group of Spenceans who decided, at the prompting of George Edwards, to assassinate several members of the British government at a dinner the next day. The group gathered in a loft in the Marylebone area of London, where police officers apprehended the conspirators. Edwards, a police spy, had fabricated the story of the dinner. Thistlewood was convicted of treason for his part in the Cato Street Conspiracy and, together with co-conspirators John Thomas Brunt, William Davidson, John Ings and Richard Tidd, was publicly hanged and decapitated outside Newgate Prison on May 1, 1820.

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Georgian and Regency Revolutionary: Thomas Spence, British Radical and Advocate for Common Ownership of Land

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

ThomasSpence Thomas Spence (June 21 Old Style/ July 2 New Style, 1750 – September 8, 1814) was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land.

Life
Spence was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was the son of a Scottish net and shoe maker.

Spence was one of the leading English revolutionaries of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Spence was born in poverty and died the same way, after long periods of imprisonment in 1814.

The threatened enclosure of the Town Moor in Newcastle in 1771 appears to have been key to Spence’s interest in the land question and journey towards ultra-radicalism. His scheme was not for land nationalization but for the establishment of self-contained parochial communities, in which rent paid to the parish (wherein the absolute ownership of the land was vested) should be the only tax of any kind. His ideas and thinking on the subject were shaped by a variety of economic thinkers, including his friend Charles Hall.

At the centre of Spence’s work was his Plan, known as ‘Spence’s Plan.’ The Plan has a number of features, including:
The end of aristocracy and landlords;

All land should be publicly owned by ‘democratic parishes’, which should be largely self-governing;

Rents of land in parishes to be shared equally amongst parishioners;

Universal suffrage (including female suffrage) at both parish level and through a system of deputies elected by parishes to a national senate;

A ‘social guarantee’ extended to provide income for those unable to work;

The ‘rights of infants’ to be free from abuse and poverty.

Spence’s Plan was first published in his penny pamphlet Property in Land Every One’s Right in 1775. It was re-issued as The Real Rights of Man in later editions. It was also reissued by, amongst others, Henry Hyndman under the title of The Nationalization of the Land in 1795 and 1882.

Spence may have been the first Englishman to speak of ‘the rights of man.’ The following recollection, composed in the third person, was written by Spence while he was in prison in London in 1794 on a charge of High Treason. Spence was, he wrote,

the first, who as far as he knows, made use of the phrase “RIGHTS OF MAN,” which was on the following remarkable occasion: A man who had been a farmer, and also a miner, and who had been ill-used by his landlords, dug a cave for himself by the seaside, at Marsdon Rocks, between Shields and Sunderland, about the year 1780, and the singularity of such a habitation, exciting the curiosity of many to pay him a visit; our author was one of that number. Exulting in the idea of a human being, who had bravely emancipated himself from the iron fangs of aristocracy, to live free from impost, he wrote extempore with chaulk above the fire place of this free man, the following lines:

Ye landlords vile, whose man’s peace mar,
Come levy rents here if you can;
Your stewards and lawyers I defy,
And live with all the RIGHTS OF MAN

Spence left Newcastle for London in 1787. He kept a book-stall in High Holborn. In 1794 he spent seven months in Newgate Gaol on a charge of High Treason, and in 1801 he was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment for seditious libel. He died in London on 8 September 1814.

His admirers formed a “Society of Spencean Philanthropists,” of which some account is given in Harriet Martineau’s England During the Thirty Years’ Peace. The African Caribbean activists William Davidson and Robert Wedderburn were drawn to this political group.

Spence explored his political and social concepts in a series of books about the fictional Utopian state of Spensonia.

Spence’s Phonetic System
Spence was a self-taught radical with a deep regard for education as a means to liberation. He pioneered a phonetic script and pronunciation system designed to allow people to learn reading and pronunciation at the same time. He believed that if the correct pronunciation was visible in the spelling, everyone would pronounce English correctly, and the class distinctions carried by language would cease. This would bring a time of equality, peace and plenty: the millennium. He published the first English dictionary with pronunciations (1775) and made phonetic versions of many of his pamphlets.

You can see examples of Spence’s spelling system on the pages on English from the Spence Society.

The Rights of Children
Spence’s angry defense of the rights of children has lost little of its potency. When his The Rights of Infants was published in 1796 it was ahead of its time. Spence’s essay also expresses a clear commitment to the rights of women (although he appears unaware of Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women’).

Selected Publications
The Real Rights of Man (1793)
End of Oppression (1795)
Rights of Infants (1796)
Constitution of Spensonia (1801)
The Important Trial of Thomas Spence (1807)

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Posted on July 27, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

This post comes from Julie Bosman and The New York Times.

William Lynch was brimming with the enthusiasm of a start-up entrepreneur. It was January 2012, and Mr. Lynch, Barnes & Noble’s chief executive, was showing off the company’s shiny Palo Alto, Calif., offices, a 300-person outpost that was the center of its e-reader operations.

He and other executives proudly displayed their new devices, talked about plans to expand and promised that the bookstore chain could go head-to-head with the giants of Silicon Valley.

“We’re a technology company, believe it or not,” Mr. Lynch said.

But only 16 months later, Barnes & Noble’s digital plans are crumbling. Last month, a disastrous earnings report coincided with the company’s announcement that it would no longer manufacture color tablets. And on Monday, Barnes & Noble announced that Mr. Lynch, the young, tech-savvy architect of the company’s digital strategy, had abruptly resigned. A new chief executive was not named.

To read the complete article, please visit…
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/business/fork-in-the-road-for-a-bookseller.html?_r=0

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History of Lacemaking Before the Regency Period

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

In my Work in Progress (WIP), A Touch of Love, there is a simple scene in a mercantile where the women are discussing the purchase of lace, which sent me on a hunt for the history of lacemaking. Below is some of what I have found:

 
796px-Bobbin_lace_5054_Nyplätty_pitsi_C Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was not made until the late 15th and early 16th centuries. A true lace is created when a thread is looped, twisted or braided to other threads independently from a backing fabric.

Originally linen, silk, gold, or silver threads were used. Now lace is often made with cotton thread, although linen and silk threads are still available. Manufactured lace may be made of synthetic fiber. A few modern artists make lace with a fine copper or silver wire instead of thread.

Types
The Chancellor of Oxford University. The robes of some high officers of state and university officials are trimmed with gold plate lace or gold oakleaf lace.
There are many types of lace, classified by how they are made. These include:

Needle lace; such as Venetian Gros Point is made using a needle and thread. This is the most flexible of the lace-making arts. While some types can be made more quickly than the finest of bobbin laces, others are very time-consuming. Some purists regard needle lace as the height of lace-making. The finest antique needle laces were made from a very fine thread that is not manufactured today.

Cutwork, or whitework; lace constructed by removing threads from a woven background, and the remaining threads wrapped or filled with embroidery.

Bobbin lace; as the name suggests, made with bobbins and a pillow. The bobbins, turned from wood, bone or plastic, hold threads which are woven together and held in place with pins stuck in the pattern on the pillow. The pillow contains straw, preferably oat straw or other materials such as sawdust, insulation styrofoam or ethafoam. Also known as Bone-lace. Chantilly lace is a type of bobbin lace.

Tape lace; makes the tape in the lace as it is worked, or uses a machine- or hand-made textile strip formed into a design, then joined and embellished with needle or bobbin lace.

Knotted lace; including macramé and tatting. Tatted lace is made with a shuttle or a tatting needle.

Crocheted lace; including Irish crochet, pineapple crochet, and filet crochet.

Knitted lace; including Shetland lace, such as the “wedding ring shawl,” a lace shawl so fine that it can be pulled through a wedding ring.

Machine-made; any style of lace created or replicated using mechanical means.

Chemical lace; The stitching area is stitched with embroidery threads that form a continuous motif. Afterwards, the stitching areas are removed and only the embroidery remains. The stitching ground is made of water-soluble or non heat-resistant material.

Etymology
The word lace is from Middle English, from Old French las, noose, string, from Vulgar Latin laceum, from Latin laqueus, noose; probably akin to lacere, to entice, ensnare.

History
In the late 16th century there was a rapid development in the field of lace. There was an openwork fabric where combinations of open spaces and dense textures form designs. These forms of lace were dominant in both fashion as well as home décor during the late 1500s. For enhancing the beauty of collars and cuffs, needle lace was embroidered with loops and picots.

Objects resembling lace bobbins have been found in Roman remains, but there are no records of Roman lace-making. Lace was used by clergy of the early Catholic Church as part of vestments in religious ceremonies, but did not come into widespread use until the 16th century in northwestern part of the European continent. The popularity of lace increased rapidly and the cottage industry of lace making spread throughout Europe. Countries like Italy, France, Belgium, Germany (then Holy Roman Empire), Czech Republic (town of Vamberk), Slovenia (town of Idrija), Finland (town of Rauma) England (town of Honiton), Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Russia, Spain, Turkey and others all have established heritage expressed through lace.

In North America in the 19th century, lace making was spread to the Native American tribes through missionaries.

St. John Francis Regis helped many country girls stay away from the cities by establishing them in the lacemaking and embroidery trade, which is why he became the Patron Saint of lace-making. In 1837, Samuel Ferguson first used jacquard looms with Heathcoat’s bobbin net machine, resulting in endless possibilities for lace designs.

Traditionally, lace was used to make tablecloths and doilies and in both men’s and women’s clothing. The English diarist Samuel Pepys often wrote about the lace used for his, his wife’s, and his acquaintances’ clothing, and on May 7, 1669, noted that he intended to remove the gold lace from the sleeves of his coat “as it is fit [he] should,” possibly in order to avoid charges of ostentatious living.

Industrial Revolution
With the passage of time and an increasing demand in the market for lace, the way the world produced goods changed. This led to the production of machine lace. In 1768, John Heathcoat invented the bobbin net machine. This machine made the production of complex lace designs more quickly. This Industrial Revolution was the downfall for the handmade lace industry. The teaching of handmade lacemaking disappeared in schools as emphasis shifted from trades to academics, which paved the way for lacemaking to become a hobby instead of the business it once was.

Military Uniforms
The term ‘lace’ is used by the British to refer to the gold bands sewn onto the sleeves of naval officers’ uniforms to indicate rank, and to name the similar decoration elsewhere on other uniforms (such as Italian caps and Polish collars) because of the procedure used to make it. In America, the term is not used for this purpose because the bands are metal compactly sewn, while ‘lace’ seems to imply cloth sewn into patterns with holes in them.

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Regency Personalities: Sir Richard Onslow, 1st Baronet, Naval Commander

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

Sir Richard Onslow, 1st Baronet GCB (23 June 1741 – 27 December 1817) was an English naval officer who played a distinguished role at the Battle of Camperdown.

Naval Career
He was the younger son of Lt-Gen. Richard Onslow and his wife Pooley, daughter of Charles Walton. Onslow’s uncle was Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the British House of Commons, and he enjoyed considerable interest as he rapidly rose through the Navy.

He was made fourth lieutenant of the Sunderland on 17 December 1758 by V-Adm. George Pocock, fifth lieutenant of the Grafton on 3 March 1759, and fourth lieutenant of Pocock’s flagship, the Yarmouth on 17 March 1760, upon which he returned to England.

Onslow became commander of the Martin on 11 February 1761, cruising in the Skagerrak until his promotion to captain of the Humber on 14 April 1762.[1] He joined the Humber in June, but she was wrecked off Flamborough Head while returning from the Baltic in September. Onslow was court-martialed for her loss, but was acquitted, the pilot being blamed for the wreck. On 29 November 1762, he was appointed to command the Phoenix.

Onslow did not receive another command until 31 October 1776, when he was appointed to the St Albans. He took a convoy to New York City in April 1777 and joined Lord Howe in time for the repulse of d’Estaing on 22 July 1777 at Sandy Hook. Onslow sailed for the West Indies on 4 November 1778 with Commodore Hotham and took part in the capture of Saint Lucia and its defense against d’Estaing that December at the Cul-de-Sac. In August 1779, he brought a convoy from St Kitts to Spithead.

He was placed in command of the Bellona, in the Channel Fleet under Admiral Francis Geary, in February 1780, and captured the Dutch 54-gun ship Prinses Carolina on 30 December 1780. Onslow took part in the Relief of Gibraltar under Admiral Darby in April 1781, and again under Howe in October 1782. The Bellona captured La Solitaire in the West Indies before Onslow returned home and took half-pay in June 1783.

In early 1789, he was appointed to command the Magnificent at Portsmouth, but was out of employment again in September 1791. He was promoted rear-admiral of the white on 1 February 1793 and vice-admiral on 4 July 1794. In 1796, he was made port admiral at Portsmouth, and in November, he went aboard the Nassau to act as second-in-command of the North Sea Fleet under Admiral Duncan.

During the Spithead and Nore mutinies, Onslow suppressed a rising aboard the Nassau, and was sent by Duncan to quell the Adamant. When the Nassau refused to sail on 26 May 1797, Onslow moved his flag to the Adamant and until the end of the mutiny, Duncan (in the Venerable) and Onslow maintained the blockade off the Texel alone, making signals to an imaginary fleet over the horizon. Onslow moved his flag again to the Monarch on 25 July 1797, and it was aboard her that he took part in the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797.

His flag captain, Edward O’Bryen, supposedly warned him that the Dutch ships were too close together to get between, to which Onslow replied “The Monarch will make a passage.” Indeed, Monarch was the first to break the Dutch line and attack the Jupiter of 72 guns, flagship of Vice-Admiral Reyntjes, who subsequently surrendered to Onslow.

For his exertions at Camperdown, Onslow was created a baronet and presented with the Freedom of the City of London. He became Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth in 1796.

He went on sick leave on 10 December 1798 and retired as Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth a few weeks later. He was promoted Admiral of the Red on 9 November 1805 and received the GCB in 1815. He died in 1817 at Southampton.

Family
In 1765, Onslow, known for his conviviality, was a founder of the Navy Society dining club. On 18 January 1766, he was appointed to command the frigate Aquilon in the Mediterranean, which he did until 1769, and from 12 October 1770, commanded the Diana in the West Indies. Admiral Rodney gave him command of Achilles on 18 January 1773, in which he returned to England, where he acquired an estate and married Anne, daughter of Commodore Matthew Michell. They had three sons and four daughters:

Matthew Richard Onslow (d. 1808), married Sarah Seton in 1805 and had two daughters
Sir Henry Onslow, 2nd Baronet (1784–1853)
Capt. John James Onslow (d. 1856)
Frances Onslow (d. 1844), married V-Adm. Sir Hyde Parker
Anne Onslow (d. 1853), married Francis Lake, 2nd Viscount Lake (d. 1836) in 1833; married Henry Gritton in 1837
Elizabeth Onslow (d. 1861), married Robert Lewis (d. 1840)
Harriet Onslow (d. 1860), married J.N. Creighton

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Regency Era Celebrity: Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, England’s Longest-Serving Prime Minister

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

372px-Lord_Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1812–27) since the Union with Ireland in 1801. He was 42 years old when he became Prime Minister in 1812, which made him younger than all of his successors. As Prime Minister, Liverpool became known for repressive measures introduced to maintain order; but he also steered the country through the period of radicalism and unrest that followed the Napoleonic Wars.

Important events during his tenure as Prime Minister included the War of 1812, the Sixth and Seventh Coalitions against the French Empire, the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars at the Congress of Vienna, the Corn Laws, the Peterloo Massacre, the Trinitarian Act 1812 and the emerging issue of Catholic Emancipation.

Early Life
Jenkinson was baptised on 29 June 1770 at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, the son of George III’s close adviser Charles Jenkinson, later the first Earl of Liverpool, and his first wife, Amelia Watts. Jenkinson’s 19 year old mother, who was the part-Indian daughter of a senior East India Company official William Watts, died from the effects of childbirth one month after his birth.

Arms of the Earls of Liverpool
Jenkinson was educated at Charterhouse School and Christ Church, Oxford. In the summer of 1789, Jenkinson spent four months in Paris to perfect his French and enlarge his social experience. He returned to Oxford for three months to complete his terms of residence and in May 1790 was created master of arts.

He won election to the House of Commons in 1790 for Rye, a seat he would hold until 1803; at the time, however, he was under the age of assent to Parliament, so he refrained from taking his seat and spent the following winter and early spring in an extended tour of the Continent. This tour took in the Netherlands and Italy; afterwards, he was old enough to take his seat in Parliament. It is not clear exactly when he entered the Commons, but as his twenty-first birthday was not reached until almost the end of the 1791 session, it is possible he waited until the following year.

With the help of his father’s influence and his political talent, he rose relatively fast in the Tory government. In February 1792, he gave the reply to Samuel Whitbread’s critical motion on the government’s Russian policy. He delivered several other speeches during the session, including one against the abolition of the slave trade, which reflected his father’s strong opposition to William Wilberforce’s campaign. He served as a member of the Board of Control for India from 1793 to 1796.

In the defence movement that followed the outbreak of hostilities with France, Jenkinson, was one of the first of the ministers of the government to enlist in the militia. In 1794 he became a Colonel in the Cinque Ports Fencibles, and his military duties led to frequent absences from the Commons. In 1796 his regiment was sent to Scotland, and he was quartered for a time in Dumfries.

His parliamentary attendance also suffered from his reaction when his father angrily opposed his projected marriage with Lady Louisa Hervey, daughter of the Earl of Bristol. After Pitt and the King had intervened on his behalf, the wedding finally took place at Wimbledon on 25 March 1795. In May 1796, when his father was created Earl of Liverpool, he took the courtesy title of Lord Hawkesbury and remained in the Commons. He became Baron Hawkesbury in his own right and was elevated to the House of Lords in November 1803, as recognition of his work as Foreign Secretary. He also served as Master of the Mint (1799–1801).

Cabinet
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Home Secretary [edit]
In Henry Addington’s government, he entered the cabinet as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in which capacity he negotiated the Treaty of Amiens with France.[4] Most of his time as Foreign secretary was spent dealing with the nations of France and the United States. He continued to serve in the cabinet as Home Secretary in Pitt the Younger’s second government. While Pitt was seriously ill, Liverpool was in charge of the cabinet and drew up the King’s Speech for the official opening of Parliament. When William Pitt died in 1806, the King asked Liverpool to accept the post of Prime Minister, but he refused, as he believed he lacked a governing majority. He was then made leader of the Opposition during Lord Grenville’s ministry (the only time that Liverpool did not hold government office between 1793 and after his retirement). In 1807, he resumed office as Home Secretary in the Duke of Portland’s ministry.

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
Lord Liverpool (as Hawkesbury had now become by the death of his father in December 1808) accepted the position of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in Spencer Perceval’s government in 1809. Liverpool’s first step on taking up his new post was to elicit from the Duke of Wellington a strong enough statement of his ability to resist a French attack to persuade the cabinet to commit themselves to the maintenance of his small force in Portugal.

Prime Minister
When Perceval was assassinated in May 1812, Lord Liverpool succeeded him as Prime Minister. The cabinet proposed Liverpool as his successor with Lord Castlereagh as leader in the Commons. But after an adverse vote in the Lower House, they subsequently gave both their resignations. The Prince Regent, however, found it impossible to form a different coalition and confirmed Liverpool as prime minister on 8 June. Liverpool’s government contained some of the future great leaders of Britain, such as Lord Castlereagh, George Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel, and William Huskisson. Liverpool is considered a skilled politician, and held together the liberal and reactionary wings of the Tory party, which his successors, Canning, Goderich and Wellington, had great difficulty with.

Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna
Liverpool’s ministry was a long and eventful one. The War of 1812 with the United States and the final campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars were fought during Liverpool’s premiership. It was during his ministry that the Peninsular Campaigns were fought by the Duke of Wellington. Britain defeated France in the Napoleonic Wars, and Liverpool was awarded the Order of the Garter. At the peace negotiations that followed, Liverpool’s main concern was to obtain a European settlement that would ensure the independence of the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, and confine France inside her pre-war frontiers without damaging her national integrity. To achieve this, he was ready to return all British colonial conquests. Within this broad framework, he gave Castlereagh a discretion at the Congress of Vienna, the next most important event of his ministry. At the congress, he gave prompt approval for Castlereagh’s bold initiative in making the defensive alliance with Austria and France in January 1815. In the aftermath, many years of peace followed.

The Corn Laws and Trouble at Home
Agriculture remained a problem because good harvests between 1819 and 1822 had brought down prices and evoked a cry for greater protection. When the powerful agricultural lobby in Parliament demanded protection in the aftermath, Liverpool gave in to political necessity. Under governmental supervision the notorious Corn Laws of 1815 were passed prohibiting the import of foreign wheat until the domestic price reached a minimum accepted level. Liverpool, however, was in principle a free-trader, but had to accept the bill as a temporary measure to ease the transition to peacetime conditions. His chief economic problem during his time as Prime Minister was that of the nation’s finances. The interest on the national debt, massively swollen by the enormous expenditure of the final war years, together with the war pensions, absorbed the greater part of normal government revenue. The refusal of the House of Commons in 1816 to continue the wartime income tax left ministers with no immediate alternative but to go on with the ruinous system of borrowing to meet necessary annual expenditure. Liverpool eventually facilitated a return to the gold standard in 1819.

Inevitably taxes rose to compensate for borrowing and to pay off the debt, which led to widespread disturbance between 1812 and 1822. Around this time, the group known as Luddites began industrial action, by smashing industrial machines developed for use in the textile industries of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. Throughout the period 1811–16, there were a series of incidents of machine-breaking and many of those convicted faced execution.

The reports of the secret committees he obtained in 1817 pointed to the existence of an organised network of disaffected political societies, especially in the manufacturing areas. Liverpool told Peel that the disaffection in the country seemed even worse than in 1794. Because of a largely perceived threat to the government, temporary legislation was introduced. He suspended Habeas Corpus in both Great Britain (1817) and Ireland (1822). Following the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, his government imposed the repressive Six Acts legislation which limited, among other things, free speech and the right to gather for peaceful demonstration. In 1820, as a result of these measures, Liverpool and other cabinet ministers were almost assassinated in the Cato Street Conspiracy.

Although Lord Liverpool argued for the abolition of the slave trade at the Congress of Vienna, he was generally opposed to reform at home, often embracing repressive measures to ensure the status quo. He did however support the repeal of the Combination Laws banning workers from combining into trade unions in 1824, although the powers of these unions were restricted in 1825 following strikes.

Catholic Emancipation
During the 19th century, and, in particular, during Liverpool’s time in office, Catholic emancipation was a source of great conflict. In 1805, in his first important statement of his views on the subject, Liverpool had argued that the special relationship of the monarch with the Church of England, and the refusal of Roman Catholics to take the oath of supremacy, justified their exclusion from political power. Throughout his career, he remained opposed to the idea of Catholic emancipation, though did see marginal concessions as important to the stability of the nation.

The decision of 1812 to remove the issue from collective cabinet policy, followed in 1813 by the defeat of Grattan’s Roman Catholic Relief Bill, brought a period of calm. Liverpool supported marginal concessions such as the admittance of English Roman Catholics to the higher ranks of the armed forces, the magistracy, and the parliamentary franchise; but he remained opposed to their participation in parliament itself. In the 1820s, pressure from the liberal wing of the Commons and the rise of the Catholic Association in Ireland revived the controversy.

By the date of Sir Francis Burdett’s Catholic Relief Bill in 1825, emancipation looked a likely success. Indeed, the success of the bill in the Commons in April, followed by Robert Peel’s tender of resignation, finally persuaded Liverpool that he should retire. When Canning made a formal proposal that the cabinet should back the bill, Liverpool was convinced that his administration had come to its end. George Canning then succeeded him as Prime Minister. Catholic emancipation however was not fully implemented until the major changes of the Catholic Relief Act of 1829 under the leadership of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, and with the work of the Catholic Association established in 1823.

Final Years
Liverpool’s first wife, Louisa, died at 54. He soon married again to Lady Mary Chester, a long-time friend of Louisa. Their marriage only lasted three years however, until Liverpool’s death. Liverpool finally retired on 9 April 1827, when, at Fife House (his riverside residence in Whitehall since 1810), he suffered a severe cerebral haemorrhage, and asked the King to seek a successor. There was another minor stroke in July, after which he lingered on at Coombe until a third and fatal attack on 4 December 1828 when he died. He had no children and was succeeded in the Earldom of Liverpool by his younger half-brother Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool. He was buried in Hawkesbury parish church, Gloucestershire, beside his father and his first wife. His personal estate was registered at under £120,000.

Liverpool Street in London is named after Lord Liverpool.

Lord Liverpool’s Administration (1812–1827)
Lord Liverpool – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
Lord Eldon – Lord Chancellor
Lord Harrowby – Lord President of the Council
Lord Westmorland – Lord Privy Seal
Lord Sidmouth – Secretary of State for the Home Department
Lord Castlereagh (Lord Londonderry after 1821) – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Commons
Lord Bathurst – Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
Lord Melville – First Lord of the Admiralty
Nicholas Vansittart – Chancellor of the Exchequer
Lord Mulgrave – Master-General of the Ordnance
Lord Buckinghamshire – President of the Board of Control
Charles Bathurst – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Lord Camden – minister without portfolio

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The Brown Bess: The Standard of Weaponry in the Napoleonic Wars

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

As I said yesterday, my research for my Work in Progress (Book 6 of the Realm Series, A Touch of Love) has led me to explore weaponry during and after the Napoleonic Wars. Below, one find information on the British standard, the Brown Bess.

800px-Brown_Bess Brown Bess is a nickname of uncertain origin for the British Army’s muzzle-loading smoothbore Land Pattern Musket and its derivatives. This musket was used in the era of the expansion of the British Empire and acquired symbolic importance, at least, as significant as its physical importance. It was in use for over a hundred years with many incremental changes in its design. These versions include the Long Land Pattern, Short Land Pattern, India Pattern, New Land Pattern Musket, Sea Service Musket and others.

The Long Land Pattern musket and its derivatives, all .75 caliber flintlock muskets, were the standard long guns of the British Empire’s land forces from 1722 until 1838 when they were superseded by a percussion cap smoothbore musket. The British Ordnance System converted many flintlocks into the new percussion system known as the Pattern 1839 Musket.

A fire in 1841 at the Tower of London destroyed many muskets before they could be converted. Still, the Brown Bess saw service until the middle of the nineteenth century. Some were used by Maori warriors during the Musket Wars 1820s-1830s, having purchased them from European traders at the time, some were still in service during the Indian rebellion of 1857, and also by Zulu warriors, who had purchased them from European traders during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879, and some were sold to the Mexican Army who used them during the Texas Revolution of 1836 and the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848. One was even used in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.

Most male citizens of the American Colonies were required by law to own arms and ammunition for militia duty. The Long Land Pattern was a common firearm in use by both sides in the American Revolutionary War.

Origins of the Name
One hypothesis is that the “Brown Bess” was named after Elizabeth I of England, but this lacks support. It is not believed this name was used contemporaneously with the early Long Pattern Land musket, but that the name arose in late years of the 18th century when the Short Pattern and India Pattern were in wide use.

Early uses of the term include the newspaper, the Connecticut Courant in April 1771, which said “… but if you are afraid of the sea, take Brown Bess on your shoulder and march.” This passage indicates widespread use of the term by that time. The 1785 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, a contemporary work which defined vernacular and slang terms, contained this entry: “Brown Bess: A soldier’s firelock. To hug Brown Bess; to carry a fire-lock, or serve as a private soldier.” Military and government records of the time do not use this poetical name but refer to firelocks, flintlock, muskets or by the weapon’s model designations.

Soldiers of the Black Watch armed with a musket (Brown Bess) and a halberd, c. 1790.

Soldiers of the Black Watch armed with a musket (Brown Bess) and a halberd, c. 1790.

Popular explanations of the use of the word “Brown” include that it was a reference to either the colour of the walnut stocks, or to the characteristic brown colour that was produced by russeting, an early form of metal treatment. Others argue that mass-produced weapons of the time were coated in brown varnish on metal parts as a rust preventative and on wood as a sealer (or in the case of unscrupulous contractors, to disguise inferior or non-regulation types of wood). However, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that “browning” was only introduced in the early 19th century, well after the term had come into general use.

Similarly, the word “Bess” is commonly held to either derive from the word arquebus or blunderbuss (predecessors of the musket) or to be a reference to Elizabeth I, possibly given to commemorate her death. More plausible is that the term Brown Bess derived from the German words “brawn buss” or “braun buss,” meaning “strong gun” or “brown gun”; King George I who commissioned its use was from Germany. The OED has citations for “brown musket” dating back to the early 18th century, which refer to the same weapon. Another suggestion is that the name is simply the counterpart to the earlier Brown Bill.

In the days of lace-ruffles, perukes, and brocade
Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise –
An out-spoken, flinty-lipped, brazen-faced jade,
With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes –
At Blenheim and Ramillies, fops would confess
They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.
—Rudyard Kipling, “Brown Bess,” 1911

The Land Pattern Muskets
From the 17th to the early years of the 18th century, most nations did not specify standards for military firearms. Firearms were individually procured by officers or regiments as late as the 1740s, and were often custom-made to the tastes of the purchaser. As the firearm gained ascendancy on the battlefield, this lack of standardisation led to increasing difficulties in the supply of ammunition and repair materials. To address these difficulties, armies began to adopt standardised “patterns.” A military service selected a “pattern musket” to be stored in a “pattern room”, There it served as a reference for arms makers, who could make comparisons and take measurements to ensure that their products matched the standard.

Stress-bearing parts of the Brown Bess, such as the barrel, lockwork, and sling-swivels, were customarily made of iron, while other furniture pieces such as the butt plate, trigger guard and ramrod pipe were found in both iron and brass. It weighed around 10 pounds (4.5 kg) and it could be fitted with a 17 inches (430 mm) triangular cross-section bayonet. The weapon did not have sights, though it could be aimed using the bayonet lug as a crude sight.

The earliest models had iron fittings but these were replaced by brass in models built after 1736. Wooden ramrods were used with the first guns but were replaced by iron ones, although guns with wooden ramrods were still issued to troops on American service until 1765 and later to loyalist units in the American Revolution. Wooden ramrods were also used in the Dragoon version produced from 1744 to 1771 and for Navy and Marine use.
Accuracy of the Brown Bess was fair, as with most other muskets. The effective range is often quoted as 175 yards (160 m), but the Brown Bess was often fired en masse at 50 yards (46 m) to inflict the greatest damage upon the enemy. Military tactics of the period stressed mass volleys and massed bayonet charges, instead of individual marksmanship. The large soft projectile could inflict a great deal of damage when it hit and the great length of the weapon allowed longer reach in bayonet engagements.

As with all similar smooth bore muskets, it was possible to improve the accuracy of the weapon by using musket balls that fit more tightly into the barrel. The black powder used at the time would quickly foul the barrel, making it more and more difficult to reload a tighter-fitting round after each shot and increasing the risk of the round jamming in the barrel during loading. Since tactics at the time favored close range battles and speed over accuracy, smaller and more loosely fitting musket balls were much more commonly used. The Brown Bess had a barrel bore of .75 caliber, and the typical round used was around .69 caliber. Modern re-enactors and musket enthusiasts often use .715 or even .735 caliber balls for increased accuracy. Modern powders which reduce fouling and cleaning patches run down the barrel between shots are used to avoid problems caused by barrel fouling.
While the looser-fitting musket ball reduced the effective range of a single musketeer firing at a single man-sized target to around 50 yards (46 m) to 75 yards (69 m), the Brown Bess was rarely used in single combat. Since individual soldiers are not aimed at in mass volleys, the effective range of the Brown Bess when fired en masse was easily 100 yards (91 m) or more. The black powder used at the time created a lot of smoke which quickly obscured the battlefield, making battles at these longer ranges impractical due to limited visibility.

Field Tests
Field tests of smoothbore muskets in the late 18th and early 19th centuries reported widely reliable expectations of accuracy and speed of fire. The rate of fire ranged from one shot every fifteen to twenty seconds (3-4 shots per minute) with highly trained troops, to two shots per minute (one shot every 30 seconds) for inexperienced recruits.

The standard military loading procedure from prepared paper cartridges containing ball and gunpowder in an elongated envelope is:
1. Tear cartridge with teeth and prime the pan directly from the cartridge;
2. Stand the musket and pour the bulk of the powder down the barrel;
3. Reverse the cartridge and use the ramrod to seat the ball and paper envelope onto the powder charge.

Standard European targets included strips of cloth 50 yards long to represent an opposing line of infantry, with the target height being six feet for infantry and eight feet, three inches for cavalry. Estimations of hit probability at 175 yards could be as high as 75% in volley fire. This however was without allowances for the gaps between the soldiers in an opposing line, for overly tall targets or the confusing and distracting realities of the battlefield. Modern testers shooting from rigid rests, using optimum loads and fast priming powder, report groups of circa five inches at 50 yards (Cumpston 2008).

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The Baker Rifle: Britain’s First Long-Distance Weapon

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

I am in the midst of research for my next book in the Realm series. A Touch of Love will be released in late October 2013. Part of that research included discovering more about weaponry AFTER the Napoleonic Wars. So, below is what I have found on the “Baker Rifle.”

Baker Rifle with 24-inch bayonet

Baker Rifle with 24-inch bayonet

The Baker rifle (officially known as the Infantry Rifle) was a flintlock rifle used by the Rifle regiments of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. It was the first standard-issue, British-made rifle accepted by the British armed forces. The Baker Rifle was first produced in 1800 by Ezekiel Baker, a master gunsmith from Whitechapel. The British Army was still issuing the Infantry Rifle in the 1830s.

History and Design
The British army had learned the value of rifles from their experience in the American rebellion. However, existing rifle designs were considered too cumbersome, slow-firing, fragile or expensive to be put to use on any scale beyond irregular companies. Rifles had been issued on a limited basis and consisted of parts made to no precise pattern, often brought in from Prussia. The war against Revolutionary France resulted in the employment of new tactics, and the British Army responded, albeit with some delay. Prior to the formation of an Experimental Rifle Corps in 1800, a trial was held at Woolwich by the British Board of Ordnance on 22 February 1800 in order to select a standard rifle pattern; the rifle designed by Ezekiel Baker was chosen.

Colonel Coote Manningham, responsible for establishing the Rifle Corps, influenced the initial designs of the Baker. The first model resembled the British Infantry Musket, but was rejected as too heavy. Baker was provided with a German Jäger rifle as an example of what was needed. The second model he made had a .75 calibre bore, the same calibre as the Infantry Musket. It had a 32-inch barrel, with eight rectangular rifling grooves; this model was accepted as the Infantry Rifle, but more changes were made until it was finally placed into production.

The third and final model had the barrel shortened from 32 to 30 inches, and the calibre reduced to .653, which allowed the rifle to fire a .625 calibre carbine bullet, with a greased patch to grip the now-seven rectangular grooves in the barrel. The rifle had a simple folding backsight with the standard large lock mechanism (initially marked ‘Tower’ and ‘G.R.’ under a Crown; later ones after the battle of Waterloo had ‘Enfield’), with a swan-neck cock as fitted to the ‘Brown Bess.’ Like the German Jäger rifles, it had a scrolled brass trigger guard to help ensure a firm grip and a raised cheek-piece on the left-hand side of the butt. Like many rifles, it had a ‘butt-trap’ or patchbox where greased linen patches and tools could be stored. The lid of the patchbox was brass, and hinged at the rear so it could be flipped up. The stocks were made of walnut and held the barrel with three flat captive wedges. The rifle also had a metal locking bar to accommodate a 24-inch sword bayonet, similar to that of the Jäger rifle. The Baker was 45 inches from muzzle to butt, 12 inches shorter than the Infantry Musket, and weighed almost nine pounds. As gunpowder fouling built up in the grooves the weapon became much slower to load and less accurate, so a cleaning kit was stored in the patch box of the Baker; the Infantry Muskets were not issued with cleaning kits.

Several Variations of the Baker Rifle Design
After the Baker entered service, more modifications were made to the rifle and several different variations were produced. A lighter and shorter carbine version for the cavalry was introduced, and a number of volunteer associations procured their own models, including the Duke of Cumberland’s Corps of Sharpshooters, which ordered models with a 33-inch barrel, in August 1803.

A second pattern of Baker Rifle was fitted with a ‘Newland’ lock that had a flat-faced ring neck cock. In 1806, a third pattern was produced that included a ‘pistol grip’ style trigger guard and a smaller patchbox with a plain rounded front. The lock plate was smaller, flat, and had a steeped-down tail, a raised semi-waterproof pan, a flat ring neck cock, and a sliding safety bolt. With the introduction of a new pattern Short Land Pattern Flintlock Musket (‘Brown Bess’) in 1810, with its flat lock and ring-necked cock, the Baker’s lock followed suit for what became the fourth pattern. It also featured a ‘slit stock’—the stock had a slot cut in its underpart just over a quarter-inch wide. This was done after Ezekiel Baker had seen reports of the ramrod jamming in the stock after the build-up of residue in the ramrod channel, and when the wood warped after getting wet.

The rifle is referred to almost exclusively as the “Baker Rifle,” but it was produced by a variety of manufacturers and sub-contractors from 1800 to 1837. Most of the rifles produced between 1800 and 1815 were not made by Ezekiel Baker, but under the Tower of London system, and he sub-contracted the manufacture of parts of the rifle to over 20 British gunsmiths. It was reported that many rifles sent to the British Army inspectors were not complete, to the extent of even having no barrel, since the rifle was sent on to another contractor for finishing. Ezekiel Baker’s production during the period 1805–1815 was 712 rifles, not even enough to be in the “top ten.”

The Board of Ordnance, both of its own volition and at the behest of Infantry Staff Officers, ordered production modifications during the rifle’s service life. Variations included a carbine with a safety catch and swivel-mounted ramrod, the 1801 pattern West India Rifle (a simplified version lacking a patchbox), the 1809 pattern, which was .75 (musket) calibre, and the 1800/15, which was modified from existing stocks to use a socket bayonet. The most common field modification was the bent stock: riflemen in the field found that the stock was not bent sufficiently at the wrist to allow accurate firing, so stocks were bent by steaming. As this technique produces temporary results (lasting approximately five years), no examples found today exhibit this bend.

Use
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Baker was reported to be effective at long range due to its accuracy and dependability under battlefield conditions. In spite of its advantages, the rifle did not replace the standard British musket of the day, the Brown Bess, but was issued officially only to rifle regiments. In practice, however, many regiments, such as the 23rd Regiment of Foot (Royal Welch Fusiliers), and others, acquired rifles for use by some in their light companies during the time of the Peninsular War.

These units were employed as an addition to the common practice of fielding skirmishers in advance of the main column, who were used to weaken and disrupt the waiting enemy lines (the British also had a light company in each battalion that was trained and employed as skirmishers, but these were only issued with muskets). With the advantage of the greater range and accuracy provided by the Baker rifle, the highly trained British skirmishers were able to defeat their French counterparts routinely and in turn disrupt the main French force by sniping at officers and NCOs.

The rifle was used by what were considered elite units, such as the 5th battalion and rifle companies of the 6th and 7th Battalions of the 60th Regiment of Foot, deployed around the world, and the three battalions of the 95th Regiment of Foot that served under the Duke of Wellington between 1808 and 1814 in the Peninsular War, the War of 1812 (3rd Batt./95th (Rifles), at Battle of New Orleans), and again in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. The two light infantry Battalions of the King’s German Legion, as well as sharpshooter platoons within the Light Companies of the KGL Line Bns, also used the Baker. The rifle was supplied to or privately purchased by numerous volunteer and militia units; these examples often differ from the regular issue pattern. Some variants were used by cavalry, including the 10th Hussars. The Baker was also used in Canada in the War of 1812. It is recorded that the British Army still issued Baker rifles in 1841, three years after its production had ceased.
The rifle was used in several countries during the first half of the 19th century; indeed, Mexican forces at the Battle of the Alamo are known to have been carrying Baker rifles, as well as Brown Bess muskets. They were also supplied to the government of Nepal; some of these rifles were released from the stores of the Royal Nepalese Army in 2004, but many had deteriorated beyond recovery.

Performance
Rate of Fire
The Baker rifle could not usually be reloaded as fast as a musket, as the slightly undersized lead balls had to be wrapped in patches of greased leather or linen so that they would more closely fit the lands of the rifling. A rifleman was expected to be able to fire two aimed shots a minute, compared to the four shots a minute of the Brown Bess musket in the hands of a trained infantryman. However, the average time to reload a rifle is dependent on the level of training and experience of the user; twenty seconds (or three shots a minute) is possible for a highly proficient rifleman. Using a hand-measured powder charge for accurate long range shots could increase the load time to as much as a minute.

In the course of the Napoleonic Wars, riflemen used paper patches and even bare rifle balls when shooting in a hurry in battle, with faster loading at the cost of accuracy.
Accuracy was of more importance than rate of fire when skirmishing. The rifleman’s main battlefield role was to utilise cover and skirmish (frequently against enemy skirmishers), whereas his musket-armed counterparts in the line infantry fired in volley or mass-fire. This could further reduce the firing rate of the rifle compared to musket during battle.

Accuracy and Range
The rifle as originally manufactured was expected to be capable of firing at a range of up to 200 yards (183 meters) with a high hit rate. The musket was fairly accurate at medium distances, with a one in three chance of hitting a man-sized target at 100 yards (91 meters), but this accuracy diminished hugely at longer ranges. To increase the odds of a hit, massed ranks of 60–80 muskets were usually fired in a volley, which increased the chances of some musket balls hitting the intended targets. The Baker rifle was used by skirmishers facing their opponents in pairs, sniping at the enemy either from positions in front of the main lines, or from hidden positions in heights overlooking battlefields.
The accuracy of the rifle in capable hands is most famously demonstrated by the action of Rifleman Thomas Plunkett (or Plunket) of the 1st Battalion, 95th Rifles, who shot French General Colbert at an unknown but long range (as much as 600 yards (549 meters) according to some sources) during the retreat to La Coruña during the Peninsular War. He then shot one of the General’s aides, suggesting that the success of the first shot was not due to luck.

That rifleman Plunkett and others were able to regularly hit targets at ranges considered to be beyond the rifle’s effective range speaks for both their marksmanship and the capabilities of the rifle.

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The BreakUp of Barnes & Noble

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

This post comes from Bloomberg Businessweek:

Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS:US) moved closer to breaking up the largest U.S. bookstore chain after its chief executive officer resigned and it named a manager with a history of spinning off units to its most senior position.

William Lynch stepped down yesterday, effective immediately, and Barnes & Noble promoted Chief Financial Officer Michael Huseby, 57, to be president of the company and CEO of Nook Media. It isn’t looking for a new CEO and Huseby will report to Leonard Riggio, the chain’s chairman, founder and largest shareholder, the New York-based company said.

Barnes & Noble is considering splitting up its businesses after Riggio said in February that he planned to make an offer for its 680 stores and website. The company also created a digital-media division last year with the possible goal of spinning it off.

To read the complete article, please visit:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-07-08/barnes-and-noble-ceo-lynch-resigns-after-sales-declines-and-losses

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The Waterloo Bridge in London, Spanning Nearly 200 Years of History

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

View of the old Waterloo Bridge from Whitehall stairs, John Constable, 18 June 1817

View of the old Waterloo Bridge from Whitehall stairs, John Constable, 18 June 1817

Crowds attend the opening of Waterloo Bridge on 18th June 1817

Crowds attend the opening of Waterloo Bridge on 18th June 1817

Waterloo Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, England, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. The name of the bridge is in memory of the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Thanks to its location at a strategic bend in the river, the views of London (Westminster, the South Bank and London Eye to the west, the City of London and Canary Wharf to the east) from the bridge are widely held to be the finest from any spot at ground level.

History
First Bridge
The first bridge on the site was designed in 1809-10 by John Rennie for the Strand Bridge Company and opened in 1817 as a toll bridge. The granite bridge had nine arches, each of 120 feet (36.6 m) span, separated by double Grecian-Doric stone columns and was 2,456 feet (748.6 m) long, including approaches. Before its opening it was known as ‘Strand Bridge.’ During the 1840s the bridge gained a reputation as a popular place for suicide attempts. In 1841, the American daredevil Samuel Gilbert Scott was killed while performing an act in which he hung by a rope from a scaffold on the bridge. In 1844 Thomas Hood wrote the poem The Bridge of Sighs about the suicide of a prostitute there. Paintings of the bridge were created by the French Impressionist Claude Monet and the English Romantic, John Constable. The bridge was nationalised in 1878 and given to the Metropolitan Board of Works, who removed the toll from it.
Michael Faraday tried in 1832 to measure the potential difference between each side of the bridge caused by the ebbing salt water flowing through the Earth’s magnetic field.

View of the old Waterloo Bridge from Whitehall stairs, John Constable, 18 June 1817

View of the old Waterloo Bridge from Whitehall stairs, John Constable, 18 June 1817

From 1884, serious problems were found in Rennie’s bridge piers, after scour from the increased river flow after Old London Bridge was demolished damaged their foundations. By the 1920s the problems had increased, with settlement at pier five necessitating closure of the whole bridge while some heavy superstructure was removed and temporary reinforcements put in place.

Second Bridge
London County Council decided to demolish the bridge and replace it with a new structure designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The engineers were Ernest Buckton and John Cuerel of Rendel Palmer & Tritton. However Scott, by his own admission, was no engineer and his design, with reinforced concrete beams under the footways, leaving the road to be supported by transverse slabs, was difficult to implement. The pairs of spans on each side of the river were supported by beams continuous over their piers, and these were cantilevered out at their ends to support the centre span and the short approach slabs at the banks. The beams were shaped “to look as much like arches as…beams can.” They were clad in Portland stone from the South West of England; the stone cleans itself whenever it rains. To guard against the possibility of further subsidence from scour, each pier was given a number of jacks which can be used to level the structure.

The new crossing was partially opened on Tuesday 11 March 1942 and completed in 1945. The new bridge was the only Thames bridge to have been damaged by German bombers during World War II. The building contractor was Peter Lind & Company Limited. It is frequently asserted that the work force was largely female, and it is sometimes referred to as “the ladies’ bridge.”

Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was assassinated on Waterloo Bridge by agents of the Bulgarian secret police assisted by the KGB.

Reuse of the Original Stones
Granite stones from the original bridge were subsequently “presented to various parts of the British world to further historic links in the British Commonwealth of Nations.” Two of these stones are in Canberra, the capital city of Australia, sited between the parallel spans of the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, one of two major crossings of Lake Burley Griffin in the heart of the city. Stones from the bridge were used to build a monument in Wellington, New Zealand, to Paddy the Wanderer, a dog that roamed the wharves from 1928 to 1939 and was befriended by seamen, watersiders, Harbour Board workers and taxi drivers. The monument includes a bronze likeness of Paddy and drinking bowls for dogs.

Geography
The south end of the bridge is the area known as The South Bank and includes the Royal Festival Hall, Waterloo station, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal National Theatre, and the National Film Theatre (directly beneath the bridge).

In the 1950s the National Film Theatre (a legacy from the Festival of Britain) was built directly underneath Waterloo Bridge. In the 1980s the award winning Museum of the Moving Image was also built directly underneath the bridge and became perhaps the only museum in the world to have stalactites (from water leaking through the Bridge) growing within it.

The north end passes above the Victoria Embankment where the road joins the Strand and Aldwych alongside Somerset House. This end previously housed the southern portal of the Kingsway Tramway Subway until the late 1950s. The entire bridge was given Grade II* listed structure protection in 1981.

The nearest London Underground station is Waterloo. London Waterloo is also a National Rail station.

Cultural Associations
Robert E. Sherwood’s 1930 play, Waterloo Bridge, about a soldier who falls in love and marries a woman he meets on the bridge during an air raid in World War I, was made into films released in 1931, 1940 and 1956. The 1940 film starred Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor.

After the Lunch, a poem by Wendy Cope about two lovers parting on Waterloo Bridge, now forms the lyric of the song Waterloo Bridge by Jools Holland and Louise Marshall.

A scene in the BBC series Sherlock episode The Great Game takes place beneath the bridge’s northern side, where members of Sherlock’s homeless network congregate.

Waterloo Bridge features in the 2013 short film ‘On The Bridge’ starring Dean Lennox Kelly and Christopher Tester, based on a true story about a man who meets a soldier on Waterloo Bridge one night who wants to jump into the River Thames.

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