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Aylmer Firebrace
Commander Sir Aylmer Newton George Firebrace, (17 June 1886 – 8 June 1972) was a British Royal Navy officer and fire chief. As a Royal Navy officer, he saw active service in World War I and participated in the Battle of Jutland. Following the war, he joined the London Fire Brigade and rose to become its Commander. With the creation of the National Fire Service, he became the first and only person to head firefighting across the whole of Great Britain. Early life Firebrace was born on 17 June 1886 in Southsea, Hampshire, England. He was the son of George Firebrace, lieutenant colonel in the Royal Artillery, and his wife Agnes Adela Firebrace (born Porter). His younger brother was the astrologer Brigadier Roy Firebrace. He was educated at HMS ''Britannia''. Military career Following his education on HMS ''Britannia'', he was in May 1902 appointed as a Naval Cadet on board the battleship HMS ''Bulwark'', flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet On 30 July 1905, he was confirmed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southsea
Southsea is a seaside resort and a geographic area of Portsmouth, Portsea Island in England. Southsea is located 1.8 miles (2.8 km) to the south of Portsmouth's inner city-centre. Southsea is not a separate town as all of Portsea Island's settlements (including Southsea) were incorporated into the boundaries of Portsmouth in 1904. Southsea began as a fashionable 19th-century Victorian seaside resort named ''Croxton Town'', after a Mr Croxton who owned the land. As the resort grew, it adopted the name of nearby Southsea Castle, a seafront fort constructed in 1544 to help defend the Solent and approaches to Portsmouth Harbour. In 1879, South Parade Pier was opened by Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar in Southsea. The pier began operating a passenger steamer service across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. This service gave rise to the idea of linking Southsea and its pier to Portsmouth's railway line, and for tourists to bypass the busy town of Portsmouth and its crowded harb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship,Stoll, J. ''Steaming in the Dark?'', Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 36 No. 2, June 1992. now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of into the United Kingdom's Royal Navy heralded a revolution in the field of battleship design. Subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS ''Dreadnought'', were referred to as "dreadnoughts", though the term eventually became obsolete as dreadnoughts became the only type of battleship in common use. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy.Sondhaus, L. ''Naval Warfare 1815–1914'', . A global arms race in battleship cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Brigades Union
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) is a trade union in the United Kingdom for wholetime firefighters (including officers up to chief fire officer / firemaster), retained firefighters and emergency control room staff. History The first recorded instance of trade union organisation of firefighters was when the Municipal Employees' Association recruited several London County Council firemen in early 1905, which by the end of the following year had grown to a branch of 500. After the entire branch had transferred to the rival National Union of Corporation Workers (NUCW), the branch grew to 1,100 of the 1,300 London firemen and to protect the then branch secretary from potential dismissal, sub-officer E. W. Southgate handed over branch secretaryship to Jim Bradley, a London park-keeper who had been nominated by the union's executive. Following the strike of police officers on 29 August 1918, Bradley organised a secret ballot of firemen on the issue of strike action over pay and conditi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Horner (British Politician)
Frederick John Horner (5 November 1911 – 11 February 1997) was a British firefighter, trade unionist and politician, best known for creating the modern Fire Brigades Union. Early life Horner was born and grew up in the working-class London suburb of Walthamstow, the son of an illiterate building labourer. Encouraged by his mother, he won a rare scholarship to the Sir George Monoux Grammar School but his father's work was irregular and because of the pressure on family finances, the headmaster advised Horner to skip a year of schooling to matriculate early.Temple, Richard, 'John Horner' in eds. K.Gildart and D. Howell, ''Dictionary of Labour Biography,'' X111 (2010). Springer He was found a job as a junior trainee buyer at Harrods, the luxury department store but already radicalised by the 1926 General Strike and by the socialists he was meeting at a local Quaker evening school, he found the job intolerable and after a year left Harrods for the Merchant Navy. Horner, John, 'Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chatham Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham (at its most extensive, in the early 20th century, two-thirds of the dockyard lay in Gillingham, one-third in Chatham). It came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, leading to a requirement for additional defences. Over 414 years Chatham Royal Dockyard provided more than 500 ships for the Royal Navy, and was at the forefront of shipbuilding, industrial and architectural technology. At its height, it employed over 10,000 skilled artisans and covered . Chatham dockyard closed in 1984, and of the Georgian dockyard is now managed as the Chatham Historic Dockyard visitor attraction by the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust. Overview Joseph Farington (1747-1821) was commissioned by the Navy Board to paint a pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gunnery Officer
The gunnery officer of a warship was the officer responsible for operation and maintenance of the ship's guns and for safe storage of the ship's ammunition inventory. Background The gunnery officer was usually the line officer next in rank to the executive officer. As shipboard guided missiles and torpedoes became more effective than naval artillery, guns were included within a weapons department replacing the older gunnery department. The weapons department is supervised by a weapons officer who may have a subordinate gunnery officer supervising the ship's guns. See also *Naval artillery Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for naval gunfire support, shore bombardment and anti-aircraft roles. The term generally refers to tube-launched projectile-firi ... References {{naval-stub Military ranks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King George V-class Battleship (1911)
The ''King George V''-class battleships were a group of four dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy (RN) in the early 1910s that were sometimes termed super-dreadnoughts. The sister ships spent most of their careers assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home and Grand Fleets, sometimes serving as flagships. In October 1914, ''Audacious'' struck a mine and sank. Aside from participating in the failed attempt to intercept the German ships that had bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in late 1914, the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive action of 19 August, the surviving ships' service during the First World War generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. The three surviving ships were briefly reduced to reserve in 1919 before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1920–1921 where they played minor roles in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and the Chanak Crisis of 1922. The first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Centurion (1911)
HMS ''Centurion'' was the second of four dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the early 1910s. She spent the bulk of her career assigned to the Home Fleet, Home and Grand Fleets. Aside from participating in the failed attempt to intercept the German ships that had Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in late 1914, and the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, her service during the First World War generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. By the end of 1919, ''Centurion'' had been transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet. Although she spent much of her time in Reserve fleet, reserve, she had a peripheral role in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. After her return home in 1924, the ship became the flagship of the Reserve Fleet. In 1926 ''Centurion'' was converted into a target ship and participated in trials evaluating the effectiveness of Air strikes, aerial bombing in additio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Indomitable (1907)
HMS ''Indomitable'' was one of three s built for the Royal Navy before World War I and had an active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German ships and in the Mediterranean when war broke out and bombarded Turkish fortifications protecting the Dardanelles even before the British declared war on Turkey. She helped to sink the German armoured cruiser during the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915 and towed the damaged British battlecruiser to safety after the battle. She damaged the German battlecruisers and during the Battle of Jutland in mid-1916 and watched her sister ship explode. Deemed obsolete after the war, she was sold for scrap in 1921. Design General characteristics The ''Invincible''-class ships were formally known as armoured cruisers until 1911 when they were redesignated as battlecruisers by an Admiralty order of 24 November 1911. Unofficially a number of designations were used until then, including "cruiser-battleship", "dreadnought cruiser" an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lieutenant (navy)
LieutenantThe pronunciation of ''lieutenant'' is generally split between , , generally in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Commonwealth countries, and , , generally associated with the United States. See lieutenant. (abbreviated Lt, LT (U.S.), LT(USN), Lieut and LEUT, depending on nation) is a commissioned officer rank in many English-speaking nations' navies and coast guards. It is typically the most senior of junior officer ranks. In most navies, the rank's insignia may consist of two medium gold braid stripes, the uppermost stripe featuring an executive curl in many Commonwealth of Nations; or three stripes of equal or unequal width. The now immediately senior rank of lieutenant commander was formerly a senior naval lieutenant rank. Many navies also use a subordinate rank of sub-lieutenant. The appointment of "first lieutenant" in many navies is held by a senior lieutenant. This naval lieutenant ranks higher than an army lieutenants; within NATO countries the naval rank ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
