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In December 1916 and January 1917, the British county
of West Cumberland erupted in violence. Prices for basic foodstuffs, potatoes, milk, wheat, and thus bread, butter, all sold
in the local markets, had skyrocketed over the preceding months, the result of at least the threat of scarcity, if not the
actual fact. The British agricultural sector was simply not able to meet the demands being placed on it, because of both a
bad harvest year and a long-term decline which had made Britain a net importer of food, a precarious position at a time of
war with Germany. At the time, profiteering by both farmers and shopkeepers was widely blamed for the rise. Many also felt
that local traders were removing foodstuffs from the district on a grand scale for sale in other regions, where they could
get better prices for their goods. (Indeed, there was some evidence that this was the case.) Then, on 20 December 1916, the
government decreed that it was going to fix prices for various goods. By January 1917, the women of the county were determined
to enforce the set prices. The riots began in the pitch market in Maryport, when women arrived determined not to buy above
the decreed price. When one farmer said he did not care what the government said, there was bedlam. The women rushed the farmers'
carts, and the "street was filled with hooting, yelling women and young people, while potatoes, cabbages and turnips
were flying through the air" The example of Maryport soon spread to other parts of the county. These riots were led by
housewives, who had filled the front lines and did much of the fighting, although the miners of Cumberland were also active
in supporting their wives' efforts, both as added bodies strengthening the crowds, but also through the Miners' Association
and other working-class organizations
Oct.
15, 1910. "Wellman airship seen from Trent." Walter Wellman's hydrogen dirigible America just before being abandoned
by its crew near Bermuda, 1,370 miles into an attempt to cross the Atlantic from New Jersey. Its engines having failed, the
America drifted out of sight, never to be seen again.
If
my airship history serves me correctly, what you see hanging below the airship in the water is a device Wellman called an
"equilibrator" ... This was a set of metal cylinders tied together and hung beneath the crew cabin, designed to
keep the airship at a constant altitude (around 200 ft) and act as ballast. Unfortunately, neither the equilibrator nor the
ship itself worked very well, resulting in the crew having to abandon the airship as seen here. Fascinating photo!
Charles
"Charlie" Spencer Chaplin, the comic genius of silent films, has died aged 88.
The "King of film"',
knighted in 1975, died at 0400 today at his Swiss manor at Corsier-sur-Vevey.
His wife Oona, daughter of the late
playwright Eugene O'Neill, and seven of their eight children were present.
The couple's eldest daughter, actress
Geraldine, was abroad filming in Spain but his son Sidney, the eldest son by the second of his four marriages was at his bedside.
It is understood Sir Charles slipped into a coma last night.
A family spokesman said the actor would be buried in a
private family ceremony in two days.
As actor, writer, director, producer, composer and choreographer he left his
indelible legacy on 80 films including favourites The Gold Rush, City Lights, and Limelight.
From his screen debut in
1914, to his last completed film in 1967, Sir Charles is considered to have helped found the modern film.
He rose from
humble beginnings to become one of the highest paid films stars.
Born into poverty in London in 1889 his parents Charles
Chaplin, senior, and Hannah Hill were music hall entertainers who separated shortly after his birth.
Sir Chaplin
and his half-brother, Sydney, who later became his business manger, ended up in an institute for destitute children.
Performing
from the age of five he moved to America in 1910.
There he introduced the world to one of his most revered characters
- Little Tramp - in the 1914 film Kid's Auto Races.
The shuffling, cane-twirling figure in over-sized trousers and
a black moustache, was born.
By 1920, at the height of his fame worldwide regular cinema attendance, dances, dolls, comic
books and toys were created in his image.
A colourful personal life combined with Left wing leanings during the Cold
War led to him being virtually expelled from America in 1952.
He was awarded a special Oscar 20 years later but lived
out the rest of his life in Switzerland where he died.
Marcus
Garvey (1887 - 1940)
Garvey was a Jamaican-born black nationalist
who created a 'Back to Africa' movement in the United States. He became an inspirational figure for later civil rights
activists.
Marcus Garvey was born in St Ann's
Bay, Jamaica on 17 August 1887, the youngest of 11 children. He inherited a keen interest in books from his father, a mason
and made full use of the extensive family library. At the age of 14 he left school and became a printer's apprentice where
he led a strike for higher wages. From 1910 to 1912, Garvey travelled in South and Central America and also visited London.
He returned to Jamaica in 1914 and founded the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA). In 1916, Garvey moved to Harlem in New York where UNIA thrived. By now a formidable public
speaker, Garvey spoke across America. He urged African-Americans to be proud of their race and return to Africa, their ancestral
homeland and attracted thousands of supporters.
To
facilitate the return to Africa that he advocated, in 1919 Garvey founded the Black Star Line, to provide transportation to
Africa, and the Negro Factories Corporation to encourage black economic independence. Garvey also unsuccessfully tried to
persuade the government of Liberia in west Africa to grant land on which black people from America could settle.
In 1922 Garvey was arrested for mail fraud in connection with
the sale of stock in the Black Star Line, which had now failed. Although there were irregularities connected to the business,
the prosecution was probably politically motivated, as Garvey's activities had attracted considerable government attention.
Garvey was sent to prison and later deported to Jamaica. In 1935, he moved permanently to London where he died on 10 June
1940. In 1964, his body was returned to Jamaica where he was declared the country's first national hero.
Born
into a wealthy family, Florence got her first taste of nursing at a charitable hospital in Germany before becoming superintendent
of a sanatorium for sickly gentlewomen in London. With the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, she became convinced that
her nursing skills would be of use to wounded servicemen and persuaded the Secretary of War to send her and a small group
of nurses to the front. On her arrival at Scutari, the hospital doctors were at first hostile towards her but they were soon
stretching the new nursing staff to the limit.
Recently, Florence Nightingale's role in improving the lot of
the soldiers has been questioned, but she undoubtedly raised the profile of nursing. On her return to England, she established
the Nightingale School of Nursing, the first training school for nurses in Britain. She also instigated a Royal Commission
into medical care in the army. In 1907, she became the first woman to be honoured with the Order of Merit.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
Wilson was
the 28th president of the United States. More than any other president before him, he was responsible for increasing American
involvement in world affairs and his vision led to the creation of the League of Nations.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, on 28 December 1856. His father was a Presbyterian minister.
Wilson was raised in Georgia and South Carolina against the backdrop of the American Civil War. He studied at Princeton University,
briefly became a lawyer and then went to Johns Hopkins University where he received a doctorate in history and political science.
After
a successful academic career, Wilson became president of Princeton University, serving between 1902 and 1910. His reforming
efforts brought him attention and the New Jersey Democrats asked him to run for governor in 1910. His victory launched his
political career. In 1912 he ran as the Democratic candidate for president and won.
Wilson's domestic policies
included the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which provides the framework that still regulates American banks and money supply.
Wilson sought to maintain American neutrality after the outbreak of World War One and was re-elected president in 1916 on
the slogan 'He Kept Us Out of War.' However, the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare led Wilson to bring
the US into the conflict in April 1917.
In January 1918, in a major speech to Congress, Wilson laid out his Fourteen
Points, which he believed should form the basis of the peace settlements in Europe. He attended the Versailles peace negotiations
to advocate this programme, but the resulting treaties left him bitterly disappointed. Wilson returned to the US and waged
a futile struggle to win American ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and American support for the new League of Nations.
He was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts to create the League.
Immigrant
is an American word used to describe the huge influx of people to the States between 1800 and 1910. This included five million
Germans, four million Irish, and five million Central Europeans and Italians - enough foreign language speakers to destabilise,
if not overwhelm English.
But these new immigrants wanted to become part of American society so wholeheartedly
embraced English bringing with them words like schlep, kosher, capo, pizza, delicatessen, spiel and many others. At home,
they may have generally used their respective mother tongues but, in society, English was used. Even now, many Americans are
bilingual.
The United States has a long history of welcoming immigrants
from all over the world. We value the contributions of immigrants, who continue to enrich this country and preserve its legacy
as a land of freedom and opportunity. Though we are a nation of diverse cultures and backgrounds, we are bound by our shared
history, the common civic values set forth in our founding documents, and the English language.
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With
the outbreak of the First World War, differences were forgotten as the suffrage leaders urged support. Women were called
on to take up male jobs as their men folk were sent to the front. They proved their worth as bus conductors, ambulance drivers,
and office staff. Nearly a million women were employed to work in the munitions industry, making vital, and dangerous weapons.
The armed forces themselves made a big drive to recruit women and the war years saw the founding of the Women's Army
Auxiliary Corps, the Women's Royal Naval Service, and the Women's Royal Air Force. But most women were employed well
away from the fighting - as cooks, clerks, storewomen, messengers and signallers.
Support for the war was not universal.
On 18 April 1915, 1500 women from Northern Europe and the USA met in The Hague to discuss peace at the International Congress
of Women. Sylvia Pankhurst was one of those who continued to protest against the conflict.
In 1918 women had the vote,
but not all were enfranchised. The Representation of the People Act gave votes only to those women aged over 30 who held property.
The following year, Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat as an MP. Astor was soon championing women's
causes such as equal rights in the civil service, votes at twenty-one and keeping the women police. She was to become famous
for her brilliant repartee in the House and her ability to take on the most misogynist of male MPs.
Annie
Besant is fascinating if only for the amazing amount she managed to cram into her life. After leaving her strict clergyman
husband (who denied her access to her child), Annie Besant joined the Free Thought society. She then published an early book
on birth control, which was branded obscene, before taking on the cause of the Bryant and May Match Girls and organising their
strike in 1888. In 1889 she became one of the first women to sit on a school board.
After converting to Theosophy
she moved to India, where she championed Indian home rule while still making time to return to London to address a suffragette
rally. She was elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1917 and died in Madras in 1933, where many streets still
bear her name.
Sylvia
Pankhurst was an accomplished artist who used her skills to compliment the suffragette cause. A co-founder of the WSPU with
her mother and sisters, she designed banners, badges and posters for the Cause. Sylvia was a committed socialist who increasingly
identifying herself with working class women. She came into conflict with Christabel about the aims and methods of WSPU and
in 1912, her East London Federation of Suffragettes became a breakaway group.
Like her mother and sister, she was
imprisoned many times but her strong pacifist views meant that whereas Emmeline and Christabel threw themselves into the war
effort in 1914, Sylvia campaigned passionately against the war. In the 1920s, she was a committed communist and continued
to be active in international politics, especially in Ethiopia , until her death in 1960.
Within
days of Britain declaring war on Germany, the two main women's suffrage organizations, the NUWSS and the WSPU agreed to
end their protest and work for the war effort.
As
men were called to the front, women were brought into the workplace to replace them, with the number of women in employment
rising from just over 3 million in 1914 to nearly 5 million in 1918. Women in their thousands went to work in private offices
and government departments. They became bus conductors, ambulance drivers and bank tellers. They trained as carpenters, stokers
and tool setters. Nearly a million women were employed to work in the munitions industry, making vital, and dangerous weapons.
As part of the Women's Land Army, thousands were sent to work on the land.
The armed forces also had a big drive to recruit women and the war years saw the founding of the
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1916 and the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and the Women's Royal Air
Force (WRAF) in 1917. Most women were employed well away from the fighting for example as cooks, clerks, storewomen, messengers
and signalers.
Women also played an indispensable
role as nurses. In 1907, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) had been established to tend to soldiers at field hospitals
in times of war. The Voluntary Aid Detachment had been set up in 1908, the medical wing of the Territorial Army, involving
both women and men. Both these organisations were to become invaluable as the number of casualties grew. In 1914, the Scottish
doctor, Elsie Inglis, founded her Scottish Women's Hospitals movement, sending units of trained doctors and nurses to
the Front.
Not all women supported the war. On 18
April 1915, 1500 women from Northern Europe and the USA met in The Hague to discuss peace at the International Congress of
Women. Sylvia Pankhurst was one of those who continued to protest against the war.
It
was during family holidays in the Lake District that the young Beatrix Potter had become entranced by nature, carefully drawing
pictures of the wildlife around her. She was soon illustrating greetings cards and was encouraged to write by a family friend.
Her first book, Peter Rabbit , was published in 1902 by her publisher friend, Frederick Warn who would publish all twenty-four
of her books during the next thirty years.
In 1905, she bought her first farm in the Lake District and began to
indulge her other passion, hill farming. During the 1920s, she became an expert in breeding Herdwick sheep, becoming the first
woman president of the Herdwick Sheepbreeders Association. By the time of her she death she had acquired 14 farms and 4000
acres of land.
The
Morse code was invented in America in 1835 by American painter Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail.
It became the first form
of radio communication and a global language which could be transmitted by flashes of light as well as sound.
It was
used to send and receive military messages during several wars and was used by sailors up until 1997.
The first and most
famous use in the UK of the classic "dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot" SOS emergency signal was from the Titanic
on its doomed maiden voyage in 1912.
It also famously led to the arrest of British murderer Dr Crippen in 1910. He fled
the UK by boat to Canada but thanks to a Morse Code radio message sent across the Atlantic he was arrested on arrival.
Dr
Crippin
After
Crippen's first visit to England he wandered about the USA, practising in a number of larger cities. In Utah, during 1890
or 1891, his wife died, and he sent is 3 year old son to live with her late wife's Mother in California. During one of
his stays in New York he married again. His second wife was a girl of 17 years old whom Crippen knew as Cora Turner. Her real
name was Kunigunde Mackamotski, her Father being a Russian Pole and her Mother German. There were more wanderings: St. Louis,
New York and Philadelphia, with a short visit across the border to Toronto. The Munyon Company, a patent medicine company,
now employed Crippen. Mrs. Crippen, who was deluded by her modest singing talent, travelled to New York for opera training.
Crippen arrives in the UK
In 1900 Crippen was in England again, and except for one short interval, remained in
England. He became the manager at Munyon's offices in London's Shaftesbury Avenue, and later in the year his wife
joined him in rooms in South Crescent, off Tottenham Court Road, At one period, it is said, that he practising as a dentist
and a women's consultant. In 1902 Munyon's recalled him for six months in Philadelphia. Mrs. Crippen had been seeking
music-hall work, with slight success. During one of her music engagements, she met an American music-hall performer called
Bruce Miller (who later testified at the trial).
The Trial
On 18 October 1910, Crippen's trial opened
before Lord Chief Justice Lord Alverstone, in the No. 1 Court of London's Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey). The trial
lasted five days. The prosecution's evidence was the purchase of the poison by Crippen, and that no one had seen Mrs.
Crippen since the Martinetti's left the whist game early on the morning of 1 February 1910.
Crippen was defended
by A.A. Tobin, KC (later a judge). Tobin was assisted by Mr Huntly Jenkins and Mr. Roome.
Prosecution witnesses
on the 1st day included Mrs. Martinetti, other acquaintances of the Crippens, some of Mr. Crippen's business associates.
Bruce Miller and Mrs. Crippen's sister travelled from the USA to provide evidence.
At the start of the 2nd
day, Chief Inspector Dew gave evidence, including the reading of a long statement provided by Crippen. In the afternoon, Dr.
Pepper took the stand. He stated that the mark on the piece of skin (produced in the court) was caused by an abdominal operation.
Someone skilled in dissection, he stated, carried out the dismemberment of the body. The remains were those of an adult, young
or middle-aged, but there was no certain anatomical indication of body's sex. When the remains had been examined, they
had been buried for around 4 to 8 months. The burial had taken place soon after death had occurred. When asked by the prosecution
whether the burial could have occurred before 21 September 1905 (when Crippen took up residence), Dr. Pepper relied "Oh,
no, absolutely impossible." During cross-examination, Dr. Pepper was asked whether he had cut a piece of the skin sample
across the area of the scar and handed it to Dr. Spilsbury. He confirmed that this was the case.
The jury
took 27 minutes to find Crippen guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Ethel le Neve was tried 4 days later and found not
guilty as an accessory after the fact.
On 23 November 1910, Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.
Before his execution, Crippen requested that a photograph of Ethel le Neve be buried with him.
Ethel le Neve sailed
for New York, under the name of Miss Allen, on the morning of Crippen's execution. After reaching her final destination
of Toronto, she started calling herself Ethel Harvey. Sometime during the period 1914-18, she returned to London and married
a clerk called Stanley Smith. The couple settled down in Croydon and had several children, eventually becoming grandparents.
Ethel died in hospital in 1967, aged 84.
The once "most famous house in London" (as some newspapers called
39 Hilldrop Crescent at the time) was destroyed, together with the surrounding houses, by German air raids in World War Two.
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