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William Currie (British Politician)
William Currie, (26 February 1756 – 3 June 1829), was an English land owner, distiller, banker and Member of Parliament for Gatton and Winchelsea. On his father's death in 1781, he inherited his father's 75% interest in the distilling partnership his father had started with Nathaniel Byles. He also became a partner in the family banking firm, replacing his father, but seems to have taken no active part, leaving the responsibilities to his brother Isaac. In 1792, Currie was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. He is chiefly remembered for the restoration of the village of East Horsley and its manor house, East Horsley Towers. Family He was the eldest son of William Currie (1721–1781) and Magdalen Lefevre (a great aunt of Charles Shaw-Lefevre, 1st Viscount Eversley), and was baptised at the Church of St. Dunstan's in Stepney on 4 March 1756. Currie married Percy Gore on 23 June 1794, the daughter of a banking partner, by whom he had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winchelsea (UK Parliament Constituency)
Winchelsea was a parliamentary constituency in Sussex, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1366 until 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act. History Boundaries Winchelsea was a Cinque Port, rather than a parliamentary borough, but the difference was purely a nominal one, and it was considered an egregious example of a rotten borough. The constituency consisted of the town and parish of Winchelsea, once a market town and port but by the 19th century much reduced in importance, a mile-and-a-half inland with its harbour destroyed. In 1831, the population of the constituency was estimated at 772, and the town contained 148 houses. History of corruption The right to vote was exercised by the freemen of the town, of whom by 1831 there were just 11, even though in theory the custom was that every son of a freeman and every freeholder in the town was entitled to his freedom. With so few voters, bribery was the rule rather than the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Frederick Currie, 1st Baronet
Sir Frederick Currie, 1st Baronet (3 February 1799 – 11 September 1875) was a British diplomat, who had a distinguished career in the British East India Company and the Indian Civil Service. His posts included Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Member of the Supreme Council of India, Resident at Lahore and Chairman of the East India Company.''Burke's Peerage and Baronetage'', section Currie. He acted as an agent for the Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge, during the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-6 and was rewarded with a baronetcy in 1847 for his assistance in negotiating the Treaties of Lahore and Bhyrowal. Family background Currie was born on 3 February 1799 in Bloomsbury, Central London, the third of eight children of the brewer and banker Mark Currie of Upper Gatton, Surrey, and Elizabeth Currie née Close. The politician William Currie of East Horsley was his uncle and the diplomat Philip Currie, 1st Baron Currie, his first cousin, once removed. The Curries b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Commons Of The United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). MPs are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved. The House of Commons of England started to evolve in the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1707 it became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland, and from 1800 it also became the House of Commons for Ireland after the political union of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, the body became the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State. Under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotten And Pocket Boroughs
A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain unrepresentative influence within the unreformed House of Commons. The same terms were used for similar boroughs represented in the 18th-century Parliament of Ireland. The Reform Act 1832 abolished the majority of these rotten and pocket boroughs. Background A parliamentary borough was a town or former town that had been incorporated under a royal charter, giving it the right to send two elected burgesses as Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. It was not unusual for the physical boundary of the settlement to change as the town developed or contracted over time, for example due to changes in its trade and industry, so that the boundaries of the parliamentary borough and of the physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sopwith Aviation Company
The Sopwith Aviation Company was a British aircraft company that designed and manufactured aeroplanes mainly for the British Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force during the First World War, most famously the Sopwith Camel. Sopwith aircraft were also used in varying numbers by the French, Belgian and American air services during the war. In April 1919, the company was renamed as the Sopwith Aviation & Engineering Company Limited. In September 1920, the company entered voluntary liquidation after an attempt to build motorcycles failed. The patents and other assets were bought by a new company, H.G. Hawker Engineering. Early years The Sopwith Aviation Company (based at Brooklands) was created in June 1912 by Thomas Octave Murdoch (Tommy, later Sir Thomas) Sopwith, a wealthy sportsman interested in aviation, yachting and motor-racing, when he was 24 years old. Following their first military aircraft sale in November 1912, Sopwith moved to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Sopwith
Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS (18 January 1888 – 27 January 1989) was an English aviation pioneer, businessman and yachtsman. Early life Sopwith was born in Kensington, London, on 18 January 1888. He was the eighth child and only son of Thomas Sopwith (a civil engineer and managing director of the Spanish Lead Mines Company in Linares, Jaén, Spain) and his wife, Lydia Gertrude Messiter. He was a grandson of mining engineer Thomas Sopwith. He was educated at Cottesmore School in Hove and at Seafield Park engineering college in Hill Head. On 30 July 1898, when he was ten years old and on a family holiday at the Isle of Lismore near Oban in Scotland, a gun lying across young Thomas's knee went off, killing his father. This accident haunted Sopwith for the rest of his life. Sopwith was interested in motor cycles, and he took part in the 100-mile Tricar trial in 1904, where he was one of four medal winners. He also tried hot air ballooning, his firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the greatest of English poets. Among his best-known works are the lengthy Narrative poem, narratives ''Don Juan (poem), Don Juan'' and ''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage''; many of his shorter lyrics in ''Hebrew Melodies'' also became popular. Byron was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, later traveling extensively across Europe to places such as Italy, where he lived for seven years in Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa after he was forced to flee England due to lynching threats. During his stay in Italy, he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died leading a campaign during that war, for which Greeks rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ada Lovelace
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer. Ada Byron was the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron and Lady Byron. All of Byron's other children were born out of wedlock to other women. Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left England forever. Four months later, he commemorated the parting in a poem that begins, "Is thy face like thy mother's my fair child! ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?" He died in Greece when Ada was eight. Her mother remained bitter and promoted Ada's interest i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William King-Noel, 1st Earl Of Lovelace
William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace, FRS (21 February 1805 – 29 December 1893), styled the Honourable William King until 1833 and Lord King from 1833 to 1838, was an English nobleman and scientist. Early life and background Lovelace was the eldest son of Peter King, 7th Baron King, and his wife, Lady Hester Fortescue, granddaughter of George Grenville. The politician the Hon. Peter John Locke King was his younger brother. Educated at Eton and Trinity, he entered the diplomatic service and became secretary to Lord Nugent. He succeeded in the barony in 1833 when his father died. He performed architectural work in his houses. He was created Viscount Ockham and Earl of Lovelace in 1838 (through his wife Ada), and appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey in 1840, a post he held until his death.''Burke's'': 'Lovelace'. On 25 November 1841, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was appointed Colonel of the 2nd Royal Surrey Militia on 14 August 1852. He resigned thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inclosure Acts
The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 individual enclosure acts were passed, affecting 28,000 km2. History Before the enclosures in England, a portion of the land was categorized as "common" or "waste". "Common" land was under the control of the lord of the manor, but certain rights on the land such as pasture, pannage, or estovers were held variously by certain nearby properties, or (occasionally) ''in gross'' by all manorial tenants. "Waste" was land without value as a farm strip – often very narrow areas (typically less than a yard wide) in awkward locations (such as cliff edges, or inconveniently shaped manorial borders), but also bare rock, and so forth. "Waste" was not officially used by anyone, and so was often farmed by landless peasants. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.Bisgrove, p. 179 Background and training Born on 23 May 1795Barry p. 4 in Bridge Street, Westminster (opposite the future site of the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster), he was the fourth son of Walter Edward Barry (died 1805), a stationer, and Frances Barry ''née'' Maybank (died 1798). He was baptised at St Margaret's, Westminster, into the Church of England, of which he was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horsley Towers
Horsley Towers, East Horsley, Surrey, England is a country house dating from the 19th century. The house was designed by Charles Barry for the banker William Currie. The East Horsley estate was later sold to William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace who undertook two major expansions of the house to his own designs. Lovelace lived at the Towers with his wife, Ada, daughter of Lord Byron, a pioneering mathematician, friend of Charles Babbage and described as among the first computer programmers. In 1919, the Towers was purchased by Thomas Sopwith, the aviator and businessman, who named his plane, the Hawker Horsley, after his home. Now a wedding and conference venue, Horsley Towers is a Grade II* listed building. History William Currie was a banker and distiller, who had inherited a substantial fortune from his father, on the latter's death in 1781. In 1820, Currie engaged Charles Barry to replace the existing Georgian manor house on his East Horsley estate. It was an early commissi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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