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Willy Clarkson
William Berry "Willy" Clarkson (31 March 1861 - 12/13 October 1934) was a British theatrical costume designer and wigmaker. Career Clarkson's father had been making wigs since 1833. Willie Clarkson was educated in Paris but left school at the age of twelve to assist in his father's business. He took over the business on the death of his father in 1878 and expanded into providing theatrical costumes and make-up. His company became very successful, supplying most of the London West End theatres for five decades. He also sold wigs to the public for non-theatrical wear. A 1900 article in the theatrical newspaper '' The Era'' stated that "Not to know Willy Clarkson and his doings is to be out of the theatrical world, for Willy Clarkson, with the bright and easy (though sometimes anxious) manner is ever hovering 'before and behind.' Scarcely any big production in London is undertaken without the aid of the owner of the Wellington-street wiggeries." Starting in 1889, Clarkson's compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brookwood Cemetery
Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. History Background Brookwood Cemetery was conceived by the London Necropolis Company (LNC) in 1849 to house London's deceased, at a time when the capital was finding it difficult to accommodate its increasing population, of living and dead. The cemetery is said to have been landscaped by architect William Tite, but this is disputed. In 1854, Brookwood was the largest cemetery in the world but it is no longer. Its initial owner being incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1852, Brookwood Cemetery (apart from its northern section, reserved for Nonconformists) was consecrated by Charles Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, on 7 November 1854. It was opened to the public on 13 November 1854 when the first burial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duchess Theatre
The Duchess Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, London, located in Catherine Street near Aldwych. The theatre opened on 25 November 1929 and is one of the smallest West End theatres with a proscenium arch. It has 494 seats on two levels. It is a Grade II Listed Building. The Duchess Theatre was purchased in 2005 by Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer forming part of the Nimax Theatres group. History The Duchess Theatre was designed by Ewen Barr and constructed by F. G. Minter Ltd for Arthur Gibbons. The theatre is built with the stalls below street level, both to overcome the scale of the site and to maintain the rights of neighbours to ancient lights. The theatre opened on 25 November 1929 with a play called ''Tunnel Trench'' by Hubert Griffith. The interior decoration scheme was introduced in 1934 under the supervision of Mary Wyndham Lewis, wife of J. B. Priestley. The original interiors were Art Deco in style, designed by Marc Henri and Gaston Laver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's historic and primary financial centre. Its name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which also had an entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance, and over time "Scotland Yard" has come to be used not only as the name of the headquarters building, but also as a metonym for both the Metropolitan Police Service itself and police officers, especially detectives, who serve in it. ''The New York Times'' wrote in 1964 that, just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard became the name for police activity in London. The force moved from Great Scotland Yard in 1890, to a newly completed buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald True
Ronald True (17 June 1891 – 8 January 1951) was an English murderer who was convicted of the 1922 bludgeoning and murder by asphyxiation of a 25-year-old prostitute and call girl named Gertrude Yates. He was initially sentenced to death for Yates's murder, and an initial appeal was dismissed by the Lord Chief Justice. True's conviction was later reprieved following a psychiatric examination ordered by the Home Secretary which determined that True was legally insane. True was then confined for life in Broadmoor Hospital in lieu of his death sentence. He died of a heart attack while still confined at Broadmoor in January 1951, aged 59. Early life True was born in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England on 17 June 1891, the son of an unmarried 16-year-old girl named Annabelle Angus, who doted on her son. As a child, True was markedly disobedient and selfish to his family and peers, and his public school attendance record poor. He was regularly disciplined for acts of truanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawley Harvey Crippen
Hawley Harvey Crippen (September 11, 1862 – November 23, 1910), usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopath, ear and eye specialist and medicine dispenser. He was hanged in Pentonville Prison in London for the murder of his wife Cora Henrietta Crippen. Crippen was one of the first criminals to be captured with the aid of wireless telegraphy. Early life and career Crippen was born in Coldwater, Michigan, to Andresse Skinner (1835-1909) and Myron Augustus Crippen (1835-1910), a merchant."Hawley Harvey Crippen"''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''/ref> Crippen studied first at the University of Michigan Homeopathic Medical School and graduated from the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College in 1884. Crippen's first wife, Charlotte, died of a stroke in 1892, and Crippen entrusted his parents, living in California, with the care of his son, Hawley Otto (1889-1974). Having qualified as a homeopath, Crippen started to practice in New York, where in 1894 he married ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cottaging
Cottaging is a gay slang term, originating from the United Kingdom, referring to anonymous sex between men in a public lavatory (a "cottage", "tea-room"Andre "tearoom; t-room ''noun'' a public toilet. From an era when a great deal of homosexual contact was in public toilets; probably an abbreviation of 'toilet room'.), or cruising for sexual partners with the intention of having sex elsewhere. The term has its roots in self-contained English toilet blocks resembling small cottages in their appearance; in the English cant language of Polari this became a ''double entendre'' by gay men referring to sexual encounters.''Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang'' by Paul Baker; Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004; , . See also [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885
The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 ( 48 & 49 Vict. c.69), or "An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes," was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the latest in a 25-year series of legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with the Offences against the Person Act 1861. It raised the age of consent from 13 years of age to 16 years of age and delineated the penalties for sexual offences against women and minors. It also strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and homosexuality. This act was also notable for the circumstances of its passage in Parliament. Background Under the Offences against the Person Act 1861, the age of consent was 12 (reflecting the common law), it was a felony to have unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 10, and it was a misdemeanour to have unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl between the ages of 10 and 12. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility (supervision of sets, lighting, direction, casting, as well as playing the leading roles) for season after season at the West End’s Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as representative of English classical theatre. In 1895 he became the first actor to be awarded a knighthood, indicating full acceptance into the higher circles of British society. Life and career Irving was born to a working-class family in Keinton Mandeville in the county of Somerset. W.H. Davies, the celebrated poet, was a cousin. Irving spent his childhood living with his aunt, Mrs Penberthy, at Halsetown in Cornwall. He competed in a recitation contest at a local Methodist chapel where he was beaten by William Curnow, later the editor of ''The Sydn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coping (architecture)
Coping (from ''cope'', Latin ''capa'') is the capping or covering of a wall. A splayed or wedge coping is one that slopes in a single direction; a saddle coping slopes to either side of a central high point. A coping may be made of stone (capstone), brick, clay or terracotta, concrete or cast stone, tile, slate, wood, thatch, or various metals, including aluminum, copper, stainless steel, steel, and zinc. In all cases it should be weathered (have a slanted or curved top surface) to throw off the water. In Romanesque work, copings appeared plain and flat, and projected over the wall with a throating to form a drip. In later work a steep slope was given to the weathering (mainly on the outer side), and began at the top with an astragal; in the Decorated Gothic style there were two or three sets off; and in the later Perpendicular Gothic these assumed a wavy section, and the coping mouldings continued round the sides, as well as at top and bottom, mitring at the angles, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including ''La Dame Aux Camelias'' by Alexandre Dumas ''fils''; '' Ruy Blas'' by Victor Hugo, '' Fédora'' and '' La Tosca'' by Victorien Sardou, and ''L'Aiglon'' by Edmond Rostand. She also played male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", while Hugo praised her "golden voice". She made several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures. She is also linked with the success of artist Alphonse Mucha, whose work she helped to publicize. Mucha would become one of the most sought-after artists of this period for his Art Nouveau style. Biography Early life Henriette-Rosine Bernard was born at 5 rue de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wardour Street
Wardour Street () is a street in Soho, City of Westminster, London. It is a one-way street that runs north from Leicester Square, through Chinatown, across Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street. Throughout the 20th century the street became a centre for the British film industry and the popular music scene. History There has been a thoroughfare on the site of Wardour Street on maps and plans since they were first printed, the earliest being Elizabethan. In 1585, to settle a legal dispute, a plan of what is now the West End was prepared. The dispute was about a field roughly where Broadwick Street is today. The plan was very accurate and clearly gives the name ''Colmanhedge Lane'' to this major route across the fields from what is described as "The Waye from Vxbridge to London" ( Oxford Street) to what is now Cockspur Street. The old plan shows that this lane follows the modern road almost exactly, including bends at Brewer Street and Old Compton Street. The road is also a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lillie Langtry
Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer. Born on the island of Jersey, upon marrying she moved to London in 1876. Her looks and personality attracted interest, commentary, and invitations from artists and society hostesses, and she was celebrated as a young woman of great beauty and charm. During the aesthetic movement in England she had been painted by aesthete artists, and in 1882 she became the poster-girl for Pears Soap, becoming the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product. In 1881, Langtry became an actress and made her West End debut in the comedy ''She Stoops to Conquer'', causing a sensation in London by becoming the first socialite to appear on stage. She would go on to star in many plays in both the United Kingdom and the United States, including '' The Lady of Lyons'', and S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
