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Down House
Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he had conceived in London before moving to Down. The Grade I listed building stands in Luxted Road, south of Downe, a village south-east of London's Charing Cross. The village was still known as Down when Darwin moved there in 1842. In his day, Downe was a parish in Kent, but it subsequently came under Bromley Rural District. Since 1965, it has lain within the London Borough of Bromley. The house, garden and grounds are in the guardianship of English Heritage. They have been restored and are open to the public. History of Down House In 1651, Thomas Manning sold a parcel of land including most of the current property to John Know the elder, from a Kentish yeoman family, for £345 (equivalent to £ today). It has been debated whether this price is likely to have included a house, b ...
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Downe
Downe, formerly Down, () is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley but beyond the London urban sprawl. Downe is south west of Orpington and south east of Charing Cross. Downe lies on a hill, and much of the centre of the village is unchanged; the former village school now acts as the village hall. The word Downe originates from the Anglosaxon word ''dūn'', latterly ''down'', hence the South and North Downs. In April 1965, it (and the remaining part of Orpington Urban District Council), which was abolished, were transferred from the historic county of Kent and placed within the newly created London Borough of Bromley. Partial History Lord Simon de Manning, a former Lord of the Manor for Kevington, London, and holder of the land which now includes Downe, was a Grandson of Rudolph de Manning, Count Palatine, (who married Elgida, aunt to King Harold I, of England); he was the royal Standard Bearer to King Richard the Lionheart, ...
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Bombay Army
The Bombay Army was the army of the Bombay Presidency, one of the three presidencies of Presidencies and provinces of British India, British India. It was established in 1662 and governed by the East India Company until the Government of India Act 1858 transferred all presidencies to the direct authority of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British Crown. On 1 April 1895 the army was incorporated into the newly created British Indian Army, Indian Army, and became known as the Bombay Command until 1908. History 18th century In the early stages of HEIC rule Bombay was rated as an unhealthy and unprofitable region. Accordingly, only a small garrison was maintained while emphasis was placed on creating a local navy (the "Bombay Marine") to control piracy. In 1742 the Bombay Army consisted of eight companies of European and Eurasian garrison troops, numbering 1,593 of all ranks. These had evolved from independent companies dating back as far as 1668 when the Company took over contr ...
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Pound Sterling
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and the word "pound" is also used to refer to the British currency generally, often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling. Sterling is the world's oldest currency that is still in use and that has been in continuous use since its inception. It is currently the fourth most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar, the euro, and the Japanese yen. Together with those three currencies and Renminbi, it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights. As of mid-2021, sterling is also the fourth most-held reserve currency in global reserves. The Bank of England is the central bank for sterling, issuing its own banknotes, and ...
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Drawing Room
A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. The name is derived from the 16th-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the 17th century, and made their first written appearance in 1642. In a large 16th to early 18th century English house, a withdrawing room was a room to which the owner of the house, his wife, or a distinguished guest who was occupying one of the main apartments in the house could "withdraw" for more privacy. It was often off the great chamber (or the great chamber's descendant, the state room) and usually led to a formal, or "state" bedroom. In modern houses, it may be used as a convenient name for a second or further reception room, but no particular function is associated with the name. History and development In 18th-century London, the royal morning receptions that the French called ''levées'' were called "drawing rooms", with the sense ori ...
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Stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture. Stucco can be applied on construction materials such as metal, expanded metal lath, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe for decorative and structural purposes. In English, "stucco" sometimes refers to a coating for the outside of a building and "plaster" to a coating for interiors; as described below, however, the materials themselves often have little to no differences. Other European languages, notably Italian, do not have the same distinction; ''stucco'' means ''plaster'' in Italian and serves for both. Composition The basic composition of stucco is cement, water, and sand. The difference in nomenclature between stucco, plaster, and mortar is based more on use than composition. Until ...
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Chobham, Surrey
Chobham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England. The village has a small high street area, specialising in traditional trades and motor trades. The River Bourne and its northern tributary, the Hale, Mill Bourne or Windle Brook run through the village. Chobham lost a large minority of its land to West End, in 1968, which has a larger population and was long associated with another parish. Chobham has a wide range of outlying businesses, particularly plant growing and selling businesses, science/technology and restaurants. Chobham has no railway line; it is approximately midway between London-terminating services at Woking and Sunningdale, just under away. History Neolithic flints have been found and there are several round barrows on the heaths; such as the Bee Garden in rolling Albury Bottom, a scheduled monument and the "Herestraet or Via Militaris" of the Chertsey Charters ran through Chobham parish. In 1772 Roman silver coins o ...
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Windsor, Berkshire
Windsor is a historic market town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British monarch. The town is situated west of Charing Cross, central London, southeast of Maidenhead, and east of the county town of Reading. It is immediately south of the River Thames, which forms its boundary with its smaller, ancient twin town of Eton. The village of Old Windsor, just over to the south, predates what is now called Windsor by around 300 years; in the past Windsor was formally referred to as New Windsor to distinguish the two. Etymology ''Windlesora'' is first mentioned in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.'' (The settlement had an earlier name but this is unknown.) The name originates from old English ''Windles-ore'' or ''winch by the riverside''.South S.R., ''The Book of Windsor'', Barracuda Books, 1977. By 1110, meetings of the Great Council, which had previousl ...
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Robert Darwin
Robert Waring Darwin (30 May 1766 – 13 November 1848) was an English medical doctor, who today is best known as the father of the naturalist Charles Darwin. He was a member of the influential Darwin–Wedgwood family. Biography Darwin was born in Lichfield, the son of physician Erasmus Darwin and his first wife, Mary Howard. He was named after his uncle, Robert Waring Darwin of Elston (1724–1816), a bachelor. His mother died in 1770 and Mary Parker, the governess hired to look after him, became his father's mistress and bore Erasmus two illegitimate daughters. In 1783, Darwin began his studies of medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he apparently took lodgings with the chemistry professor Joseph Black. His father then sent him to the Leiden University in the Netherlands for a few months, and he took his MD there on 26 February 1785. His Leyden dissertation was impressive and was published in the ''Philosophical Transactions'', but his father may have assisted him ...
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Anne Darwin
Anne Elizabeth "Annie" Darwin (2 March 1841 – 23 April 1851) was the second child and eldest daughter of Charles and Emma Darwin. Life In 1849, Anne caught scarlet fever along with her two sisters, and her health thereafter declined; some authorities believe that she suffered from tuberculosis. In vain pursuit of help from James Manby Gully's hydrotherapy, Charles Darwin took his daughter to the Worcestershire spa town, Great Malvern. She died in Montreal House on the Worcester Road, aged ten, and was buried in the Great Malvern Priory churchyard. Annie's death was a terrible blow for her parents. Charles wrote in a personal memoir "We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age.... Oh that she could now know how deeply, how tenderly we do still & and shall ever love her dear joyous face."Quoted in Browne 1995, 501. Darwin scholar E. Janet Browne writes: The loss of Charles Darwin's beloved daughter was softened only by the addition of Horace Darwin, ...
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William Erasmus Darwin
William Erasmus Darwin (27 December 18398 September 1914) was the first-born son of Charles Darwin, Charles and Emma Darwin, and the subject of Psychology, psychological studies by his father. He was educated at Rugby School and Christ's College, Cambridge, and later became a banker at Grant and Maddison's Union Banking Company in Southampton. In 1877 he married an American, Sara Price Ashburner family, Ashburner Sedgwick (1839 1902), daughter of Theodore Sedgwick (writer), Theodore Sedgwick. William was a great believer in university education being available to all, and championed the establishment of a University of Southampton, university college in Southampton in 1902. The Darwins had no children of their own, and after his wife died, William devoted himself much to his nieces Gwen Raverat, Frances Cornford, and Margaret Keynes. William died on 8 September 1914 at Sedbergh in Cumbria. Raverat remembered him fondly as an eccentric and entirely unselfconscious man in her childhoo ...
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Emma Darwin
Emma Darwin (; 2 May 1808 – 2 October 1896) was an English woman who was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin. They were married on 29 January 1839 and were the parents of ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Early life Emma Wedgwood was born at the family estate of Maer Hall in Maer, Staffordshire, the youngest of seven children of Josiah Wedgwood II and his wife Elizabeth "Bessie" (née Allen). Her grandfather Josiah Wedgwood had made his fortune in pottery, and like many others who were not part of the aristocracy, they were nonconformist, belonging to the Unitarian church. Charles Darwin was her first cousin; their shared grandparents were Josiah and Sarah Wedgwood, and as the Wedgwood and Darwin families were closely allied, they had been acquainted since childhood. She was close to her sister Fanny, the two being known by the family as the "Doveleys", and was charming and messy, accounting for her nickname, "Little Miss Slip-Slop". She helped ...
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Edward Cresy
Edward Cresy FSA (7 May 1792 – 12 November 1858) was an English architect and civil engineer. Life Cresy was born at Dartford, Kent, and was educated at Rawes's academy at Bromley in the same county. He became a pupil of James T. Parkinson, architect, of Ely Place, who, in addition to a moderate private practice, was entrusted at that time with the laying out of the Portman estate. After the termination of his articles, with the object of perfecting himself in the financial branches of his profession, he served two years with George Smith of Mercers' Hall, and in 1816, accompanied by his friend and colleague George Ledwell Taylor, he undertook a walking tour through England for the purpose of studying, measuring, and drawing the cathedrals and most interesting buildings. The next three years found Cresy and Taylor engaged in similar pursuits on the continent; chiefly on foot, they journeyed through France, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece, to Malta and Sicily, and back again ...
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